Djurle walked through the tents over to Mikail’s, as had become his habit. While he approached, the familliar voice of the Klovenite refugee carried on the wind.
"Olden!? Olden!?"
Concerned, Djurle picked up his pace over to where he was shouting.
"Olden!? Where are y- Djurle!"
"What's going on?"
"Olden snuck out last night, I don't know where he is!"
"&^%#. Alright, I'll help you look for him."
"Can you use your powers to find him?"
"There's too many people in the camp, his tracks would be completely gone by now." Djurle grabbed Mikail’s shoulders. "Look at me. We're going to find him. Okay? We'll find him."
Mikail nodded, his breathing heavy with panick.
Djurle and Mikail swept the camp, encountering and enlisting Morganna along the way. After almost an hour of searching, they went back to their tent to see a messy haired, bur ridden, dust covered Olden.
"OLDEN INGRESSI WHERE IN THE PIT HAVE YOU BEEN!!!???" Shouted Morganna.
Djurle jumped at her voice, surprised that such a small woman could be so loud. Olden cowered at as well.
"I'm sorry ma! I fell asleep by the river."
"We checked the river and you weren't there!"
"WE THOUGHT YOU WERE KIDNAPPED!!!"
I mean, technically...
"I wasn't in my normal spot!"
Djurle stepped between the fuming parents and grabbed their shoulders. He kept his voice as soothing as he could manage as he said, "Hey, let's just be thankful that we found him, alright? The kid looks like he's had a rough night, and those burs are punishment enough without both his parents tearing him in half."
Mikail and Morganna looked at eachother. Olden mouthed a thank you while they were distracted. Djurle winked back.
Morganna sighed, "You're right, ancestor... I need to get back to work." She looked at Olden, "You, young man, are not allowed to leave this tent without your father until I get home."
"But-"
"Olden! Listen to your mother."
"Yes, Dad."
"I mean it Olden, not for any reason. Not even to pee."
"Yes, Ma."
Morganna thanked Djurle as she left and Mikail sat down on one of the chair-stumps, his nervous energy slowly fading. Olden began to pick the burs off of his clothes as he moped.
The amount of times I was that harsh to Truzik... Maker's breath I wish I'd been a calmer parent.
You should ask Olden where he went.
What? Why would I... Bah, what's the harm, I can handle a couple stories.
"Hey, Olden?"
"Yeah?"
"Be respectful Olden."
"It's fine Mikail, he's not hurting my feelings."
"Yes, ancestor."
Djurle shook his head and rolled his eyes.
"You like to adventure right? Tell me about some of your recent escapades."
"Oh? Well, uh... Where should I start?"
"Why not start with how you got in the city? Your dad told me a bit about it but I want to hear your side."
The boy looked at his father before he spoke, “Sure. So, at Sunrise last week, I left here and went to the river to go and hang out with some of the guys. We don’t have much to do in camp so we like to go swimming. We swam for about a half an hour before Mosely bet me two copper that I couldn’t get inside the walls of Thruf. I didn’t want to do it, but he called me a chicken, and I hate being called a chicken! So what I did was I talked to one of the adults who were fishing and he let me borrow his cloak-”
“Which you still need to give back to him.”
“I will Dad, I promise!”
“You’d better.”
Djurle chuckled to himself before asking, “What happened next?”
“Well, I borrowed his cloak and covered up my arms. The hood was extra big so my head was also covered, I could only see the ground directly in front of me. I tried to walk past the checkpoint but they had me take my hood off. When they saw my face, they sent me away. Then I saw a little runoff that was barely in view. Even though I’m pretty big, I knew I could hide in it. I left my cloak hood down and ruffled up my hair to look like dead grass and crawled on my belly sideways like a crab until I knew they couldn’t see me anymore, then I got up and put the hood on. I walked down the road into the gate a few minutes later. Everything I saw was so pretty. The people all had dark skin and curly hair, and the buildings were so much cleaner than the ones we had back home. I just had to see more of them. So I looked around until I saw this big fountain. I went and looked at my reflection in the water when a cold wind took my hood off of me. Some di-*ahem*, sorry. Some big mean baldy with too much arm hair saw me and shouted at me before I could put my hood back on. I tried to run into an ally to get away, but it was a dead end. The man caught me by the cloak and started to beat the craaa-ud out of me. Then some guard saved me. He gave me this hanky and asked me my name. I told him my name was Olden, and he told me his name was Tecovis.”
"You met Tecovis? I should have asked you to tell me this story sooner, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.
"Do you know him?"
"I do, he's the son of a friend of mine, I'd been looking for him for a while. Thankfully we found eachother."
Mikail nodded, having heard the story already.
“Okay, so he gave you the hanky, what next?”
“Well after that another guard with black skin showed up. They talked for a minute about how some people have gone missing around here. Tecovis told me that they knew each other and I went with him back out of the city. He took me all the way back here, and Mosely gave me the two copper pieces on the way back.” Olden pulled them out of his pocket as proof of his winnings.
Mikail chimed in, “It was Zebulon who brought him back..”
"You just know all my friends, don't you?"
Olden laughed.
"What about last night? You had to do something interesting to be covered in all those burs."
"Yes Olden, why were you by the river?"
Olden shifted uncomfortably at his father's tone, but hesitantly said, "I couldn't sleep. Back home when I was awake at night, Ma would take me on the roof to look at the moon and the stars." The corner of Olden's mouth raised as he spoke of his memories, "She told me stories about them until I got sleepy again. Since Dad was asleep and Ma was still at the sick tent, I went to my normal spot under the tree to look at the moon when I saw ice in the river."
Mikail’s face scrunched. "Ice? This far south at this time of year? Are you sure?"
Djurle leaned forward, his thoughts an absolute flurry of what-ifs.
"I wasn't at first, so I grabbed some. I'd show you, but it melted already. Anyway, I saw the ice and thought it was weird, so I ran up the river to see where it came from. I ran about ten minutes when I saw two people on the other side walking away from the camp. I got curious, so I followed them."
"Olden what have I told you about following str-"
"Hush Mikail, let him talk."
Mikail looked at Djurle, bewildered. Olden's was also surprised, but he continued to speak.
"Uh... I followed them for a while up the river, and hid in the grass to keep from getting seen. We went past a clearing with some weird rock walls I don't remember being there when we were coming to the campgrounds. They kept going for another three miles or somthing until they got to a wrecked tree and then they turned away from the river completely. I watched until I couldn't see them anymore and decided that I'd see if they came back."
"Did they?"
"I don't know if those two did, I fell asleep while I was waiting. But there were others who came from that same way when I woke up."
"How many?"
"About four, I think."
"Did they head to the camp?"
"No, they went upstream. They looked like they were in a hurry."
Djurle immediately stood straight up and said, "I need to go check it out. Thanks for the stories Olden, you're a blessing from The Maker and don't let anyone tell you different!"
He ignored both Mikail and Olden's confusion and ran straight for his horse, not letting anything or anyone get in his way. Once mounted, he bolted for the river, riding beyond the week old battlegrounds until he saw the tree Olden referred to.
Djurle stepped off his horse and took of his boots before swimming across the river. There was nobody in his feeling range so he didn't bother to hide as he got close to the tree. It wasn't just ruined. It had been struck by lightning, and not from above. Djurle had, quite accidentally, learned to tell the difference in the last six winters. He turned his attention towards the ground. Closing his eyes to block out distractions, he stomped and the world came into view. Small deviations in the ground, nearly invisible to the eye, suggested that others had been there, both recently and frequently, likely who Olden had seen. Even hidden in the grass were trails leading west away from the river.
Just like Olden said.
Djurle followed the trodden path away from the river at a jog. After a little over a half a mile something changed at the edge of his periphery, causing him to slow. There was something hollow ahead of him. It felt natural, but he could feel something in it. A table? He continued closer and could percieve a full fledged cave open up before him.
And he could feel people moving inside.
They were moving at pace, grabbing whatever they could carry and packing it into something, likely bags. One of them walked on pegs that sunk into the ground with every step.
Fusil...
He took the time to count how many he felt when something else caught his attention. One of the rooms was full of oddly shaped roots, ceiling to walls to floor. He couldn't feel why, they weren't connected to eachother, and yet groups of them moved in unison at strange, uneven tempos. Knowing there was at least one grixovite in the area, and with his previous poacher encounters, he could only assume one thing.
Ice cages.
He made note of the unguarded cave entrance and ran back to Crispus as fast as his legs could carry him.
