Still on his knees mourning the passing of his son, he thought about how he must have felt in his last moments. Seeing his father in a rage fuelled state, getting his fingers ripped off and his arm broken as he was pleading for his life. He couldn't believe what he had just done. He didn't hear the footsteps behind him, small and smooth hands landed on his shoulders as if the person was trying to comfort him. When he looked behind his shoulder he recognised that one eastern woman that he saved earlier. He felt relieved that at least she survived his rampage. She kneeled in front of him and took his head into her hands, he was hypnotised by her eyes.

  " Was this one someone important to you? " She said looking at Salim's corpse.

  " My one and only son ..."

  " I once had a daughter too, she died a few years ago when the war started. Do you want to know how she died? ".

  Ramos stayed silent so she kept going.

  " One day, men from the kingdom of Fardug raided our village and accused every woman of being witches if they ever refused to have sex with them. And even if they refused, they were raped and then burned alive. They did this to her in front of my eyes, I had to stay here silently while these men that I didn't know decided to be cruel in the name of a war that neither me nor my daughter were taking a part in. Do you think this was fair? Did we ever do something to those men? "

  She stood up and started walking towards the corpse of Salim, she kneeled down to close his eyes and then spat on him. Ramos's eyes widened as his rage picked up, he got up and tried grabbing the woman but he got stopped in his movement. She looked at him and pointed her finger down and he fell to his knees, he couldn't control his own body. She walked closer to him and raised his head, she was smiling.

  " I swore on that day that I would make those people suffer as much as I did. Did you know that every woman has a potential to become a witch but they have to have an awakening of some sort? Some women live their whole lives with the potential but never awaken. When these men were done with my daughter and threw her head at my feet, I had my awakening. I felt the most powerful I ever did and killed all of them. I then joined the army because you people decide to involve innocents into a war they don't belong to. What you see now before you is the result of you, your son and every man here deciding to involve yourselves in this war while you could have lived a peaceful life. And for what? "

  Ramos then felt his body rising above the ground, he was levitating. The witch eyes were full of rage, nothing like the compassionate face she had a few minutes ago.

  " The queen had a perfect plan, to infiltrate a few of our kind among villages in case of a raid, act defenseless and then counter attack. Soldiers are so predictable, you charge head first into battle without questioning why or who you are fighting for nor do you ask the reasons. I'm still impressed, I thought I would have needed to use another berserker spell but you only was sufficient, impressive that you didn't even notice me making it on your chest back then. "

  He then remembered, as she was trying to charm him earlier, she was making symbols on his chest but he didnt notice at the time that she was using blood to trace a rune on his armor, right after it she vanished to let him rampage.

  " Just kill me already, I'm tired of hearing you talking."

  " I won't kill you soldier, I need you to live, you will live with your mistake of having killed the men that trusted you with their lives and you will report to your generals this information. I have no more use for you, now go. "

  With a swift movement of her hand she sent him flying a fews meters away, laying face down, rage started boiling inside him. He wanted to kill this witch more than anything. He was barely able to move but he had to avenge his fallen men and his son. He got back on his feet and started charging at the witch. Not fazed by it, she simply held her hand out and made a gesture to make him fly away. But he didnt move, he was still charging at her, she started running away in fear and disbelief that her spell wasn't working. He caught her by her hair and threw her on the ground, he started pressing her throat with all the strength he had left. The last sight she ever saw was this beast of a man strangling her while crying and in her final moment she noticed the rune on his chest had faded because of the water he landed in thus breaking the berserker spell and all control she had over him. Such an easy and simple mistake was an indicator of her overconfidence. Ramos was done, done with murdering people, done with the war.

  Richard took a sip of water.

  " After this he told me he never wanted to ever wield a sword without a purpose, he had learned a lesson and he asked me on this day. "Young man, why do you want so bad to carry a sword? " and I naively answered that i wished to achieve peace and kill my enemies that were threatening us. He shook me while looking straight in my eyes " What enemies young man? You are ten years old, you don't have any enemies. No man is born in this world with an enemy, we create our own enemies. I will teach you how to use a sword but not for the purpose of attacking an enemy you created, but to protect those in danger."."

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Richard marked a slight pause.

  " Ramos then proceeded to teach me about the way of the sword for the next six years, I was literally living in the workshop, he was more of a father than my own. He taught me how to write, how to count and how to read. My own family didn't think I would go very far in life and I always felt different. I always aspired to more than what I had and my family didn't understand that need that I had to elevate myself. And in a way I think I understood that even back then, I couldn't replace his son but I could ease the pain a little bit.

  For my seventeen's birthday, Ramos said he wanted to give me something special after training. On this day he looked me straight in the eyes and said " Young man, I have nothing more to teach you, now you are at that age where you can decide which path is suited for you in life, do you still want to join the military and engage in the war? ". I was still convinced I needed to do so, that I had a great purpose in the world. I didn't say yes for the same reasons or convictions I had previously but I think he noticed. He wasn't disappointed with my answer and then he got up and grabbed a small package. It was wrapped in leather. "Happy birthday boy." he said. I uncovered my present."

  Richard pulled out his curved dagger and handed it over to Isabella. Other than being a shape she never saw before. The material the blade was made off was something foreign to her. Richard kept on going with his story.

  " This was the gift, I carried it with me ever since. Ramos told me he made it using materials demi humans work with in the north. Apparently they have this special powder that makes any weapon as strong as diamond but as light as a feather. He added to it some rock he said he found after it supposedly 'fell from the sky'. It took many lives and a few days after receiving it, was the first time it ever took a life with it.

  I was carrying it proudly, I was friends with a few kids and they wanted to explore a part of the forest we never went to before. Sinak, Malik, Emetr and Ezek. Sinak was the kind of guy you had to carry around for him to actually want to do something else than sit on his ass all day. On the other hand Emetr and Ezek, the twins, were always running around everywhere. They weren't scared of causing mischief as long as they had fun doing so. Malik was my best friend, as much as Ramos was my adoptive father, Malik was a brother to me. I remember this one time where we were around the age of twelve, we always had a rivalry going on but it exploded when he insulted Ramos. Called him a coward for leaving the war just because he lost his son. We fought, it wasn't a pretty sight. I still don't know why but afterwards he acknowledged me as a friend and we never had a fight again. Everything was going fine. Ramos warned us to not go but we were dumb kids, we didnt know how much it would impact us. The further we were getting into the woods the more of a swamp it looked.

  As we were pushing vines away, a strange fog appeared and we all felt some sort of uneasiness. The fog was so thick it was difficult to see past five meters in front of us. Malik and I were in the front, the twins were right behind us and Sinak was closing our little expedition. He was clearly getting nervous.

  He said " Guys we should turn back and go back home, this place is probably cursed! "

  The twins turned around and made fun of him.

  " Shut up fatty! You are free to walk back on your own if you are too tired to keep walking, we don't even need you here! "

  " Yeah you can run back to your farm you chicken, this is an adventure! "

  And of course he kept walking because he didn't want to be called a coward once we were back at the village. Malik stopped me in my tracks and froze in place.

  " Rich', do you smell that? "

  The sudden stench was nauseating.

  " Yeah, it smells like ... death.."

  Something felt wrong. I turned around to tell the rest that we were getting away from here but I noticed something else.

  " Where is Sinak? "

  The twins turned around and noticed he was missing too. The twins tried to lighten up the mood.

  " Come on Sinak it's not funny, you ain't gonna scare us even if you try your best so come out now! " said Ezek, he was obviously starting to be nervous.

  His sister also tried to give herself some courage.

  " Yeah fatty if you try to scare us we are gonna kick your ass so come out now! "

  Neither me or Malik were trying to joke around, we both felt that we had to get out of here but with Sinak missing it was now even more urgent. We walked around and ended up finding an enormous tree, it was so tall that we couldn't see the top of it. But we were all shocked by what we were seeing. Sinak was right there, halfways absorbed by the tree, roots holding him against it. Me and Malik ran in to free him from it, the organic shackles were so hard to break. Luckily I had my dagger and Malik had a small knife. Once he was freed, we checked on him, Sinak wasn't breathing.

  Suddenly, the fog around us started clearing up, what we saw around us shocked us to our core. Many more of those trees were around us and on them were skeletons in the same crucified position that Sinak was just in. This place was literal hell on earth. I took Sinak's corpse on my back and started carrying him away. The twins were now shaking in fear and nervously looking around. Our group then froze in place as we heard many owls around us. From behind the tree emerged a pack of wolves but they didn't look like your typical wolf. Their fur was as dark as shadows and their eyes were as red as blood. This whole situation seemed already dire but then it got worse. Behind us the giant tree started cracking. As we all turned towards it we saw the front of the tree trunk open like a door. From within the tree came out something you only hear about in legends or to scare children.

  " If you venture into the forest,

  beware when the fog falls upon thee,

  because you might have disturbed the rest,

  of the forest spirit, the vengeful Liéchi. "