I saw her today. She changed. She is more quiet, more mature. I wonder if maybe ... 

No, I doubt it.

LoG, 61

As the air whooshed around Squinty's ears, the fury rushed into her head. She was being dragged from the conflict against her will and she hated that.

Radan! How did he even find me? How can he lift me so easily, as if I were a feather? were the questions that ran through her mind. Squinty realized she didn't care for an answer.

She was up here.

And this wasn't where she wanted to be.

That was to be remedied.

"Let me ... Go! Do you hear me? Let me go! I want to go back down there!" she squirmed and wriggled, trapped in his tiny relentless claw-like fingers.

"I am afraid I cannot do that, Squinty. You are not strong enough yet." his kind even-tempered voice replied.

"Screw you, old man! Screw you and your niceties! Grizzly is there, do you hear me? Grizzly is there! He is everything ... everything to me!"

Merely an amused chuckle was heard from above, as she roared in impotence. "It would have perhaps been the best if I had managed to teach you the virtues of patience and respect, Squinty," Radan sounded amused at her annoyance, "instead of showing you the fine art of fighting on dog back."

She merely snorted derisively as a reaction to that. "I don't care what you think."

"I just saved your life. Perhaps a 'thank you' would be in order. Unless, of course, you believe I am asking for too much." His voice sounded more serious and focused now.

Squinty observed the skirmish below, cursing him inwardly. She decided on silence. After all, Radan was her trustworthy ally ever since she left The Orphanage and came to The Vigils. Squinty purposefully placed the long black strands of her hair over her face. At least for her, it meant that conversation was over.

They flew above the battlefield for several minutes in silence, and then Radan spoke up again. "It won't be long now," he said, reassuringly.

Squinty didn't reply. Whatever happened next, the scrawny acorn man would never be able to redeem himself in her eyes.

He took me away from Grizzly and let him die out there alone. I will never forgive him.

Radan flew further and further Downleft, and Squinty could almost see the edge of the magnificent River Tebesum.

She noticed the acorn man was now lessening his speed and lowering his altitude. They were circling around a small clearing and Squinty suddenly became aware of a tuft of pale blond hair sticking out from the orange-yellowish leafy surroundings.

"Is that ... Orla?" she mumbled against her will, but glad she was seeing her friend unharmed and unscathed.

"Indeed." She could more sense Radan's grin than see it, due to the mirth in his voice.

Next to Orla, there was a familiar black and white cow-like shape and Squinty smiled, even if it reminded her of her own loss.

Jewel, she thought.

But as they were coming nearer and nearer to the ground, while Radan was preparing for landing, Squinty realized something was terribly wrong. Jewel wasn't standing. He was lying on his side, and Orla was kneeling next to him, sobbing. That sight created such an angst in Squinty that she didn't even wait for the relatively safe landing. As soon as she felt Radan's fingers relax, she pushed them away and jumped on the ground, rolling as her body touched the yellow grass. She was longing to be reunited with her friend.

As Squinty was running toward Orla, determined to find out what was wrong, she saw a tall, bald man with waist-long shaggy beard emerging from behind a tree. He was completely naked, save for the black cloth that surrounded his waist, and there was an axe at his waist. The man moved funnily as if he were limping. Yet he was slowly and assuredly approaching her friend.

He is going to attack Orla!

Squinty pulled out her bone dagger in the blink of an eye. Her now transparent figure snuck up on him from behind. She jumped on his shoulders, squeezing his neck, looking to deliver a final blow.

Yet the man was impossibly fast, even for someone who didn't, couldn't see her coming at all. He threw himself on the back in no time at all and began rolling on the pile of leaves, almost crushing her with his weight. Squinty wormed her way out from under him. She was now circling around the man, pondering whether she should just throw the dagger at his face from a distance.

After all, he wouldn't be able to see her.

He was now standing on his guard, confused, but battle ready. His dark eyes were scanning his surroundings with alertness.

Orla lifted her gaze from her dog's body. "What ... what happened?" Squinty heard her ask, looking at the man, visibly on edge. "Should we be worried? Did they send a search party after us?"

"Beats me if I know." He scratched his bald scalp in confusion. "I left you just for the moment, lil' missy, and went behind that tree over there to take a leak."

Orla grimaced at the quantity of information given, but she said nothing, listening to his story further.

"Then, some kind of an invisible forest demon jumped on my neck and started twisting it left and right. I threw myself on the ground and that seemed to stop it. But who knows, maybe it's watching us from the trees now. I knew we shouldn't have entered The Forest of Lug in the first place. Or listened to that little acorn man bugger. We could have just travelled through the underground tunnels. A lot safer, by my reckoning."

"Radan is very wise. If he told us to come here and wait for him, he must have had a reason. I studied under him for almost half a Big One now and he is the most benevolent and trustworthy teacher I have ever had." Orla stood in The Dog Trainer's defence.

They are ... travelling together? Squinty was now perplexed, but she needed answers. And in order to get them, she knew she had to show herself. The cowl of invisibility was shaken off as soon as Squinty touched a tear-like shape under her eye.

Both Orla and the man yelped and exclaimed at the same time. One of them out of fear, and another one out of joy.

"Squinty! You're alive! You're okay!" Orla hobbled over to Squinty, pulling her in a firm hug. Squinty didn't resist, grumpily letting Orla have her way for the moment, although she knew she wouldn't endure the cuddling for much longer.

"You know this girl?" the man inquired, surprised, eying Squinty suspiciously.

"Do I know her? She is only, like, my best friend!" Orla was ecstatic.

Now that's what I call exaggerating, Squinty thought, yet she was secretly glad about Orla's words.

Orla went on, rapturous. "We trained together in The Barrack 1, but our squads got separated into long distance and short distance fighters, according to the weapon of preference. Mine was a bow, and hers were ..."

"Daggers." the man completed the sentence with a smirk, caressing his beard.

"Yes, daggers! How did you know?"

"Oh, don't mind me. Just a hunch I had." His eyes pierced Squinty's knowingly. 

She stubbornly stared back at him, not flinching one bit.

Orla commented nothing on their verbal exchange. "Squinty ... How did you get here? The last time I saw you, you were with the infantry. It was right before I ..." She closed her eyes as if remembering something painful. "Right before I was sent into The Obsidian Mine Tunnels with the group of archers."

"Radan," Squinty replied dryly. She turned around and looked up in the sky, surprised that Radan hadn't caught up with her by then. After all, she managed to wriggle out of his grasp when they were just two or three meters above ground.

Yet there was no one on The Vault.

"Radan? What do you mean, Radan?" Orla was already accustomed to Squinty's laconic expressions and she knew how to interpret them without any difficulty whatsoever. "He brought you here, to us?" the blonde girl exclaimed.

Squinty nodded in reply and then shot a short question back at her friend. "Who is he?"

"Oh. Sorry, I was so happy to see you again that I completely forgot to introduce you! This is ... Liton. He is The Leader of The Wellers from the village called Bronze Cliff. That village is ... um ... close to ... Begi," Orla replied cautiously and then motioned towards the silent, towering man. "And, Liton, this is Squinty."

"Squinty. Yeah, I can see where the name is coming from. I can't see that kid's eyes properly behind that overlong and unkempt hair." He smirked.

"I can say the same for your mouth moving behind that filthy beard," Squinty retorted, still under the protective wall of her black curtain.

"So she speaks." He chuckled. "I like your spirit, girl."

"Why?" Squinty motioned towards Liton but the question was aimed at Orla.

"I can answer that for you, girl." Liton sat on the forest floor in order to be of the same height as Squinty.

"Your friend here saved my life and the lives of the dozens of Bronze Cliff Wellers in the Obsidian Mine Tunnels. I have a life debt to pay, as a way of saying thank you. I am not going to leave her side unless she specifically orders me to."

"How?" She looked into his eyes for the first time, liking the respect the huge man was showing towards her friend.

"The Leader of The Tartan Tower didn't expect The Obsidian Mine Tunnels attack. The Tunnels led directly to the castle. You see, the little lordling was enjoying the battle from afar. Proud he was the last bastion of Fedum, The Leader of Begi. He felt important. And we, his soldiers, were treated like shit. Like catapult fodder." Anger was now rising in his voice. "So when the little arsehole realised he was done for and Lagad soldiers were pouring into the tunnels ... He sent us, The Wellers, to delay them. As he was making a run for it towards Begi on one of his fastest camels, he issued out an order to collapse the entire tunnel system. To gain time, you see." Liton growled as he recalled the occurrence.

"What happened?" Squinty inquired in sotto voce.

"I only remember us charging at the soldiers from Lagad. Our first lines were showered with their arrows. Some of us jumped and attacked their War Dogs." Liton cast an apologetic glance towards Orla. "And then it happened. The whole ceiling began to rumble as the ground shook and the earth started falling upon us. I saw my people die in an instant, crushed by the weight of descending rocks and chunks of earth." He swallowed unpleasantly and his voice trembled. "I dove into the heap of rocks. Wanted to save as many people as I could. Everything was disintegrating around us, soldiers from both sides panicking, dogs howling in grief. There was no friend or foe anymore. Everyone was just trying to make it out of there alive." He fell silent and Squinty concluded he was unable to continue the story, due to the emotions that overwhelmed him.

To Squinty's surprise, Orla was the one who picked up from where he stopped. "Jewel got hurt. One of The Wellers smacked his head with an axe. He was just lying there and ... I couldn't get him to move, to leave the Tunnels. Then I saw Liton. He was trying to ... Dig his way through the rocks that fell on top of him. The flesh on his fingers ..." she kept talking like in a trance. "It was peeled off, and it was hanging in chunks."

"Ground? I can dig through." Liton smiled. "Rocks are a bit more of a challenge for me, if you know what I mean."

"I just couldn't let him die. There was too much death around us anyway. People's heads smashed with boulders before they could even let out a cry of protest. Painful howls of those who were dying slowly within the earth mounds ... Suffocating. After I pulled him out we saved many of his comrades."

That is so Orla. Squinty thought, nodding. She was glad her friend remained true to her own nature, after all. Squinty wasn't sure Orla was going to be able to manage that, after the execution Borna forced her to perform.

Orla went on and what she said next was as if she had read Squinty's mind. "And I thought ... I ... More like ... I remembered. I remembered that man, his mouth corners yellow from strot, pleading for mercy. Mercy I couldn't give him back then because someone else ... Someone else ruled over me. Yet in that Tunnel, I was the master of my own decisions. And I decided to save a life instead of taking it. I dug Liton out and then he ... He took Jewel in his arms and put me on his back. I remember us running fast, impossibly fast, moving speedier than on any horse that I had ever ridden at my father's manor."

"That's what fear of death does to you." Liton spread his mouth into a sorry smile. "Your goal is not to live but to 'not die'. It is a human instinct at its finest," he added melancholically.

"How did you get here?" Squinty was curious.

"Radan found us in front of the Tunnel and led us here. It took us quite some time on foot. He claimed it was safe. Liton wasn't feeling that well so we had to stop every now and then. Radan gave us some herbs to cure his injuries. But not once did he put Jewel down on the ground. He just walked and walked, without making a sound, holding Jewel in his arms as if he weighed next to nothing. We barely had the chance to rest. Then Radan told us to take a break precisely at this spot and to wait for his return. He didn't tell us where he went. Just that he had a reason to believe The Princess of Lagad was alive and that we would go down to the river with him when he returned."

"The princess is alive?" Squinty exclaimed recalling the green glowing girl from the Loggia in The Lagad City Arena. "That would annul the reason for this stupid war if people knew!" she bit her lips, recalling Borna's conversation with The Voice, as she called it.

I don't even know if that was really The Mind or just someone who was pretending to be The Mind in order to influence Borna.

Orla nodded with a serious expression on her face. "Radan said we are going to find her. Liton, him and me. While the others are fighting The Second Water War."

"How does he even know ..." Squinty, began, tired. "And why do we have to ... Never mind. That old man seems to know everything that is going on."

"Old man?" Liton guffawed. "That's a good one. To me, he looks more like a tree fucked a woman and then a halfling came out of her!" he now rolled on the ground, cackling.

"He is a good person and he taught us a lot. He saved our lives. Besides, I am also sure Radan wouldn't appreciate being called like that behind his back." Orla appeared to be a bit cross with both of them.

"I called him 'old man' in his face," Squinty replied grumpily. "And told him to screw himself." she added, encouraged by Liton's hearty laughter.

Orla placed both of her palms on her mouth and gasped. "Squinty!"

"Don't worry, nothing happened. He was just amused by what I said." Squinty sighed, although she started feeling guilty for having done that. He reunited me with Orla.

"So you saw him?" Orla inquired, urgently. "We have been waiting for him here."

"I did. Radan pulled me out of the battle, flew me here, dumped me on the ground and left." Squinty muttered, indignant. "He even had the nerve to tell me I wasn't strong enough," she added, irked.

"Imagine that," Liton mocked her good-naturedly.

"Squinty, maybe ... Maybe he was right. Who knows, perhaps whoever you were facing at that moment was stronger than you. Radan might have saved your life just as he saved ours. It was probably for the best." 

"Hey!" Squinty stepped out, facing Orla defiantly. "Don't be a patronizing know-it-all. You don't know me." She accentuated each "you" by pressing her finger into Orla's chest.

"You don't know what is best for me."