Harwin and Landel were petrified to see the elfin hero laying insensible in front of them. Landel being the more experienced one in these type of situation quickly got a hold of himself.

  "Cast a healing spell on him right now!" Landel demanded, sternly.

  Harwin stood there for a while, but after a push from his friend, he finally adhered to his command. The former chanted a spell, but it only stopped the bleeding. No matter what the class of the spell was, it could not have stopped the poison from spreading.

  Meanwhile, Landel detained the girl. He knew she was harmless now, but her reckless actions could have caused a problem later. The girl just kept on sobbing and shivering, but she did not resist.

  "Where is Captain Viyetral? He was with you when you left." Landel asked.

  "He might have arrived by now. He sent me out earlier."

  "Go and fetch him as soon as possible. While on your way, search for the guards we had brought along earlier. They have been missing for sometime now." Landel gave out the instructions.

  Harwin immediately complied. He soon found Captain Viyetral discussing few matters with Thrandul. Harwin understood that the latter could not be completely trusted, so he whispered the news to the captain who dimissed Thrandul without raising any suspicions.

  The pair began making their way towards the room of Farelen. On the way back, they discovered the bodies of a few of their guards in a nearby room. The enemies had lured the poor souls in a trap and murdered them in cold-blood. Viyetral, however, did not care much and simply proceeded forward.

  Upon entering, he inspected his unconscious comrade. His face showed a bit of tension, yet he did not panic.

  "Landel, what exactly happened here?" Viyetral asked calmly.

  Landel informed the captain all that had occured during his absence in a short summary. Most of the guards had been posted in front of the rooms of the council-men but few also had been posted infront of the room where the recently freed up slaves resided. This gave the perfect opportunity for the enemy to strike.

  "Check if anyone of these scoundrels is still alive. Heal if he is injured but then knock him out immediately. Do not let anyone else near until I have return."

  Viyetral disappeared once again. Although, it did not take long for him to return with four guards and a strange man. Landel had observed the instructions of the captain, however, none of the assailants were alive anymore.

  "Pick up Farelen, and wait for me in the carriage. Do not let anyone see you. It will be best to take the back entrance, I will be there shortly."

  The guards nodded and picked up their giant of a senior, however, the four did not struggle much as they were trained younglings, capable of carrying great loads of weight. The strange man stayed behind, awaiting his orders.

  "You two stay here. Once I am gone, inform Thrandul that a few assailants tried to assassinate you two but failed. As for Farelen, he went behind the ones who managed to escaped. Do not reveal to anyone what happened to the captain. I will arrive back before dawn-break, and until then, Gor is incharge." Viyetral ordered.

  The pair nodded in sync. The strange man was ordered by Viyetral to follow him. The captain also took the girl and the dagger with him whilst exiting.

  Soon, Thrandul was fed the false and incomplete information. The former ordered his men to clear out the bodies of the dead assailants from the hall. Thrandul was sure that the dead assassins were criminals of the worst kind, they even had bounties on their heads.

  "Where is Viyetral? Thrandul inquired from the pair.

  "He will return shortly." Harwin replied without meeting the eyes of the questioner.

  Thrandul did not pursue the matter much further, as he understood his position in all of the matter. After he had left, Harwin questioned Landel:

  "Why were you and Captain Farelen not in the same room?"

  "I do not even want to think about it for now..." Landel's face showed guilt and regret.

  It was during the start of their journey to the First town that the captain's and the prodigy's relationship became distant due to a sudden question from the latter. The rift only grew stronger, and now it had caused them quite a great loss. Landel blamed himself and his impatience for it.

  The night was a long and silent one. Neither Harwin nor Landel caught a wink of sleep. It was just before the first rays that Viyetral returned, but accompanying him, was a rather familiar figure. The former pair were left wide-eyed by the sudden appearance of this person who they had believed to be dead.

  "So you two, what do you think?" Viyetral said while pointed towards the person standing beside him.

  "But Captain Farelen, you were....are you alright?" Harwin asked with a concerned look.

  "Sorry to disappoint you lad, but I am Swven." The person replied.

  The two were even more startled by this revelation. Well, the Farelen and Swven shared similar stature, so it was clear that he was acting as his double. Swven naturally had an abundance of hair, but it was all shaven off now. On top of it all, he wore a cloak as well.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  "No one else can know of this matter, you understand me? Farelen is a key figure in maintaining order in this place, so his sudden disappearance could cause us a lot of problems. You two are to refer Swven as you would Farelen." Viyetral ordered.

  "What about the real captain?" Landel asked — eyes filled with guilt.

  "He is not conscious yet, and the chances are grim as well. That damn council has played their move and we must not let them know that they have succeeded." Viyetral gritted his teeth in anger.

  Swven also wore a gloomy expression. However, his eyes were filled with rage — thirst for vengeance.

  "We can not afford to mourn. I will be handling some important matters that are mainly outside of the town-hall which means that you lot will be responsible for the internal matters. Swven, rather Farelen, is incharge, but he must seek counsel from Gor in any matter. There is neither shame nor any need for animosity in getting advise from this human, as even the chief-commander values the statements of this one." Viyetral instructed his comrade, and then looked towards the two youngs lads:

  "All of you must stay in one place from now on, but even then, you must change your rooms every night. I hate to say this but Farelen is in this condition because of my negligence and his own over-confidence. Pay heed to my words as if your life depend on it, I can not be present at all places."

  Viyetral left after that. Swven did not, for the least bit, consider Harwin a lesser being than himself. He himself was half-elf and half-beast, so he did not care much about the race of the individual, and only for their intent.

  There was an awkward silence for sometime after Viyetral had left which was broken by the elfin-beast:

  "So lads, I see that you two handled quite the crowd by yourself. Aside from that, I am quite grateful for you in particular," Swven pointed towards Harwin, "You risked your life for me and my comrades. Let us work together so this difficult moment shall pass as well."

  Swven shook the hands of the two. He then instructed:

  "First of all, we need to make this place our own. Thrandul is our tool, but we can still not be sure of his absolute loyalty or competence, for that matter. Let us gather the younglings in the training fields. We shall conduct a sparring session today. There is something else to gain from it all as well. What say you two?"

  The two nodded. The trio made their way to Thrandul who felt a bit strange upon observing Swven but did not speak out. The latter simply abided by the new instructions.

  By noon, almost all of the younglings were gathered in the training grounds. Most of them had only seen Farelen once or twice, so it was only natural for them to not doubt anything.

  "Young ones! Today, we shall hold a special training session! You lot will be sparring against myself. Do you have what it takes, lads?" Swven asked the crowd.

  Most were disinterested at first, they knew better than to try their hand against a captain.

  "Hmm... I suppose we still haven't broken the ice. Very well, I shall first spar with this gentleman here," Out of everyone, the elfin-beast chose Harwin who was dumbfounded by it all.

  "Eh, commander? Me...but I—" Harwin did not even know how to respond.

  "Get ready now, lad! I do not want to waste anymore time. You may use any means necessary to win."

  Harwin was still too stunned to speak when Swven pulled out the mighty axe, scabbard to his back. It was the same one wielded by the giant. Harwin knew that he would not be able back out now, so he unsheathed his blade as well.

  The fight began with Swven taking the charge, he was quick on his foot for his size. He slashed with his axe right at the opponent, as if striking to kill. Harwin was able to deflect the strike, narrowly. The strikes did not stop, however, but they were not as fast as Landel's which meant that Harwin could dodge and deflect them much better. Still, the weight behind each attack was tremendous, even though, it still felt as if the elfin-beast was holding back.

  Swven took a step back and raised his axe above his head. It was a missed opportunity by Harwin who did not strike at that moment. The captain brought down his weapon with such brutish force that the axe went through the ground whilst Harwin narrowly rolled away.

  'Is this man insane! He does know that I am his ally right?' Harwin thought.

  Swven was doing all of this for a reason. Farelen was a boisterous fellow whose style of combat heavily on brutish force. The former was trying his best to act like his comrade.

  Harwin understood he could not continue in the current conditions, so he chanted wind spells to create a bit of a distance. Swven followed behind swiftly which was a classic trap set up by the sword-mage. Harwin immediately casted several stone projectiles, but this time, his opponent wasn't some back-alley thug.

  Swven charged without caring about the projectiles hitting him, and striked at his opponent. Their weapons clasped once again with sparks flying off from around them, but then Harwin fell to his knees. His blade was almost indestructible, but the one wielding it did not have enough strength to bear the entire weight of the strike.

  Harwin was defeated, yet he enticed the rest of the bunch.

  "This worked out great." Swven muttered to Harwin whilst giving him a hand.

  The rest of the day was spent sparring against a great number of younglings without any rest by the commander. Some even challenged Harwin who was forced to accept. Almost all of the younglings lost the fights, but they did not even once hold it against their opponents, infact, they were grateful for the challenge. Swven even provided individual advice to all of them which created quite the bond between the parties.

  Well, that was not the only interesting part. After the sparring session had ended, Harwin and his party were able to identify, rather narrow down the leaks — spies of the council-men. Few younglings completely avoided taking part in the matches, but they observed them carefully and few even left their positions to go somewhere. Landel was able to trace them back to one of the rooms where the council-men were residing.

  Now, Harwin and his party did not want to intervene or eavesdrop on the rooms, as Viyetral had advised otherwise, so they took a different approach. At dusk, two of the spies, who were found out to be brothers as well, were lured in by a lie. Harwin's party held an interrogation in a dimly lit room of the basement. Swven stared at them with his eyes filled with malice, it was enough to make the brothers fall to their knees.

  "I see that you two have the guts to defy the words of your acting commander." Swven stated.

  "We do not know any—" One of the youngling tried to reply but was inturrupted with a punch straight to the face. His jaw was broken in the process.

  "The commander did not ask you a question, now did he?" Landel said whilst kicking him repeatedly in the gut.

  The other one was not touched, instead, he was forced to see the beating.

  "This is not the way, lad. You are too soft on him, and he has tough skin. I say, you should start by cut off his limbs one by one, so he may learn the lesson." Swven said whilst grinning menacingly.

  The prodigy proceeded with the command. He first amputated the hand of the man who tried to scream but was immediately punched again. Harwin stood nearby, but his eyes were shut most of the time due to the grotesque scene.

  "Now then, I will ask you questions, and I expect answers without even the slightest of fabrications. Think carefully as your brother's and your own life are at a great risk here." Swven looked towards the other youngling who was shaking in his boots.