A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Mhm, I feel much better, thanks," Beam said.

Mrs Felder stood behind him, with an understanding smile. "I\'m going to lock up the house then, and I\'ll be heading over to the soldiers\' camp, okay? Nila, you\'re going to be looking after David, aren\'t you?"

"He\'s run off with the other children at the moment, he said he\'d meet back up with me in ten minutes. I\'ll keep checking in on him," Nila promised.

"Right," Mrs Felder nodded firmly, with a clear hint of anxiety, as though she as worried about leaving David alone – even if he was with a group of other children – but they must have discussed such a thing before, for she said nothing, and merely bid her farewells to both Beam, and Nila, and then Judas, who she was obviously intimidated by, for she gave him a shaky smile.

But even that shaky smile was enough to make Judas. His face was dyed a clear crimson as he watched her walk away.

"Gugh… Gross. Don\'t blush when my mother is speaking to you, idiot," Nila said in mock disgust.

"What did you say!? And after all, the looking out for you I\'ve done, you\'re still a little shit? Why do I get saddled with dealing with kids?? Both of you are right pains in the arse," Judas complained.

"Yeah yeah, save the complaining. Don\'t you have a report for me?" Beam said, cutting in.

"And you\'re the worst of it. You don\'t know how to show a shred of respect, do ya? To think I was actually worried when I heard they\'d found you collapsed by the road. But look at you, right back at it," Judas complained.

Beam just shrugged, to which Judas gave a long sigh, before launching into his report. "Just monsters… That\'s what we got from the camp. The soldiers are in a worse state than you\'d think. Maybe 20 of them have got minor injuries, and 10 of them are totally out of commission," Judas said.

"That bad, huh?" Beam said thoughtfully.

"Aye. That\'s why they pulled back the line. Lombard is still hunting by himself and a few men, just to keep the numbers down. But see the thing is, word is going around that he didn\'t manage to find a single monster this morning. I wonder if that\'s down to you, eh?" Judas asked.

"Well, I suppose I can fill you in… But is that all you\'ve got to report?" Beam asked.

"Well, naw. The defences are proceeding as planned. Some of the boys managed to get some more personal info on the soldiers, a couple of y\'know \'who\'s beefing who?\' kinda info. I told them I\'d check with you whether you want it. Besides that, we managed to get a brief look at their supplies, and it seems like they\'ll be alright for a couple of weeks. Oh, and yeah… Bad news for the boss in the night.

Another two soldiers got sliced. Their throats cut. They\'re blaming it on the whores again," Judas told him.

"Again, huh?" Beam said with a grimace. "I\'m guessing Greeves is in a tough spot now then… As for the information, yeah, I\'ll buy it. Tell them I\'ll meet up with them later."

"You don\'t know the half of it. I\'ve known the man for nearly ten years, and I\'ve never seen him sweat so much – and it\'s near winter at that. He\'s ordered me to stick by you for a bit, under the condition that we aim to figure out what\'s going on in the camp as well, \'cos he swears it isn\'t the whores," Judas told him.

Beam nodded at that. "Yeah, that\'s fine. It\'s equally our problem, even though it hasn\'t come back to directly bite us yet. What about you Nila?"

"I thought about what you said about building something, and I figured y\'know, it would be better to get some of the villagers more involved, right? So I did a bit of give and take. I told them what was going on, and then asked for news in response. Some of them even wanted to help. And then I asked the children too, to see if they\'d seen anything," Nila said.

"Mhm. That will definitely pay off in the future. Did you manage to get much information?" Beam asked.

"A lot of it was complaining about the soldiers… They\'ve been worse than we thought. They\'ve got violent a couple of times, and stolen things more times than we can count. But there\'s also news on the Elder. He\'s taken three children in, as part of debt repayments.

And those children haven\'t been seen ever since they went into that gloomy house of his, even when their parents go to visit them," Nila said, her face falling into a frown.

"Mm…" Beam murmured thoughtfully. He\'d seen the shadows in the forest. He\'d seen the monsters they birthed. Did the children the Elder was taking have a role in that? Did the Elder even have a role in that? Or were they two completely separate occurrences?

"The children say they\'ve been hearing things in the night too, like laughter, and banging," Nila said. "I\'m not sure how much of that is true, or whether they\'re just frightened after hearing Stephanie go missing… But you know, I managed to ask some of the parents, and most of them say they\'ve heard the same thing. Only, when I ask people without children, they don\'t mention anything.

That\'s pretty weird, right?"

"It is," Beam nodded in acknowledgement. "You\'ve both done well." He saw Nila\'s shoulders sag with relief, as though the acknowledgement of her report had eased her anxiety. Judas just gave a shy shrug and grinned.

"Of course I did. I\'ve been doing stuff like this for a lot longer than you\'ve been around. It\'s my first time messing with soldiers, but y\'know, same kettle of fish, isn\'t it?" Judas said.