A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

With brief farewells, they dispersed, and Beam led Judas and his men down the muddy village road. With the townspeople still trying to process exactly what had happened in the meeting, there were many small clusters of groups along the road, as neighbours chatted to each other, some outraged, others merely quiet with concern.

More than a few heads in these groups turned to see an unusual addition to Judas' usual companions.

Not only an addition, but by the looks of it, there was even a change in leadership. Beam grew increasingly aware of the glances he was receiving, and quickly realized that they'd have to split up earlier than he'd intended. As the first cluster of houses ended, he came to a halt and turned to Judas.

"I'm going to leave you here. Do what you can to draw the attention of the guards so I can slip into the treeline," Beam said.

"Piece of piss," Judas said with a grin. "If you want distracting, then there ain't a man in the world better built for it than me, y'know. Hard to miss this lump of meat wandering around, eh?"

"True enough, I'm counting on you then," Beam said, hiding himself by one of the houses.

"Leave it to us. You'll be through in no time, come on then boys," Judas said, waving to his men. They started forward along the road with him, towards the forest, just like how the hunters used to travel.

There were soldiers there now, guarding the entire perimeter. Five of them stood spread out, along the usual entrance to the forest, a large distance between all of them so that they could cover more ground. Two stood on the road and they glared at Judas and his gang as they approached.

"HALT!" Beam heard the soldier call out, as he lowered his spear to warn them off. "THE FOREST IS CLOSED!"

"Ye, we heard," Judas said, sticking a finger in his ear to scratch it. "Heard there's work to be done setting up defences. Is there any coin in it?"

"No. It's your own lives the defences will be saving, dog, why would we pay you for that?" The soldier spat back.

"Eh?" Judas said, a vein in his face bulging, he put a hand on the soldier's shoulder. "The fuck did you just say?"

His men came up beside him, their hands on their daggers.

"UNHAND ME, YOU FILTH!" The soldier barked, drawing the attention of the other soldiers. With Judas so close to him, he couldn't use his spear to back the man off, and with an iron hand, the giant of a man seemed to be holding him in place, a look of anger on his face.

With Judas and his men acting so aggressively, the other soldiers shared a glance with each other, their own faces distorting in anger, as they marched over, spears in hands.
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Beam watched it all in surprise. "Isn't he going to get himself killed with this?" He murmured. But he darted forward all the same, moving himself toward the last of the houses.

Judas had all five soldiers gathered around him by now, him and his men aggressively glaring at them in a false deadlock. Judas still had his hand on the first soldier's shoulder and appeared to be refusing to let go. He glanced back and made eye contact with Beam, giving him a shallow nod.

"What the fuck is all this then?" Judas said, pulling the soldier toward him, so that the other men were forced to draw closer, pointing their backs toward Beam.

Knowing that he wouldn't get a better chance than this, despite the forest being a good distance away, he sprinted forward. It took him several seconds to reach the treeline, and once he did, he ducked behind the nearest trunk, holding his breath, listening for any signs that he had been heard.

Judas must have seen him go, for he released the soldier and made a show of mock surprise. "Haha! You got it wrong, fellas, we're not here for coin. Just, see, we quite like this village, and we were thinking we wanted a chance to stick it to them Yarmdon bastards, ya know? Where do we need to be headed to help with the defences?"

The soldiers glanced at each other in confusion, Judas' sudden change of attitude making them wonder if they'd merely misread the situation.

"Be steady with your hands, peasant – it is not for you to touch members of the serving class. Try it again and you'll be missing everything past your wrist," the soldier warned, clearly with a hint of relief, happy to be back in control. He must have felt the absurd strength in Judas' grip.

"Ah, sorry. Not used to all this class stuff, y'know. Always been around peasants, ya see. So, where do we need to head off to? There's work to be done, no?" Judas said.

The soldiers glanced at each other warily, before one of them shrugged. "Can't say the Captain will be too displeased if we drag in an ox like this one to help. I'll take them to the camp, you boys continue your guard duty," one of the men said.

There were a few murmurs of agreement, before the soldiers started to go back to their original positions, whilst one of them escorted Judas and his men towards the soldiers' encampment.

With silent praise for Judas' efforts, Beam left the edge of the forest and plunged deeper into the trees, his sword tapping against his hip as he ran.

"Now… What's my mission today?" He murmured to himself, gathering his thoughts, as he vaguely ran near the forest path, still not quite sure whether or not he'd find soldiers there. Given that the forest was sealed off, he knew that Lombard's intentions were to focus their defences in one spot. But he still wasn't entirely sure whether he'd cut off the monster hunting entirely.

He saw nothing as he ran through the lower woods, much to his surprise. He'd expected some monsters to be flooding down there, as a result of the soldiers' withdrawal. But then he remembered the slaughter he'd put up the night before and grimaced, wondering if that was the cause of all this.

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