Rise Of Myth: Heir To Valor 28 Returning To The Woods

"Look, we'll talk later, what you need to know is the soldiers are all dead, yes, I killed them. Right now though, your people are terrified, thinking they are about to leave at any moment, and there are six more survivors at the soldier's camp that need help and medical attention." Val impatiently reminded the Chief.

Jim spoke up first. "Sorry, Chief's been up all night. I'll go let the residents know the evacuation is off. I'll wake the doctor too." He quickly left to notify some officers to spread the word, before heading off towards a tent near the pharmacy.

The office was silent, Richard was staring intently at the doc.u.ments on his desk, not saying a word.

After a lengthy silence, the haggard Chief looked at Val seriously. "You did this for our benefit, right? I want to trust you, but you may have implicated us in a war with the rest of the country…"

"I did not do it for your benefit, I did it to right a wrong. Initially I wasn't going to raise a hand to stop them, until I learned they were violating some of the survivors."

"…What??"

"Seeing is believing, let's go get some coffee, grab your people." Val motioned to the door, and Richard finally got up from his chair on shaky footing.

Jim found them near the kitchens, Dana, Doctor Chen, and four other officers were with him, all four of them being women from the force.

"Where are the injured?" The Doctor asked seriously. He looked tired, but his dedication to his oath in his eyes seemed to drive away the weariness on his face.

"Not here, follow me." Val motioned to the rest and they departed out the front door of the warehouse. The bar was close by, a few minutes walking and they were on the premises. Everyone looked mortified upon seeing the blood and bodies of soldiers all over the bar, they looked at Val with horror, those who had not already known, realizing what he had done. Val ignored them and led them to the back parking lot, motioning to Dana and the Doctor as he lifted one of the truck flaps for them to see.

Dana let out a small gasp while the Doctor looked truly disgusted, it was only for a moment though, as training and professional experience took over, the two immediately set to work.

"Richard, please have some men clear the driveway, and grab a bolt cutter." Doctor Chen instructed. Richard looked into the truck and all his indecision about the events of the night was replaced with a stern, furious expression. He barked orders to two of the officers who nearly panicked at the sudden change in the Chief's att.i.tude, almost sprinting back to get their jobs done.

A few of the women were awake, fear and panic in their eyes. Dana was calmly rea.s.suring them that they were safe, removing their gags, explaining who they were and that they would be bringing the truck back to their home to get them some food and medical attention. Richard himself got into the driver's seat, the keys were left in the truck and in a moment the engine rumbled to life.

Val stood on the side impa.s.sively, lighting up a cigarette.

"This is sick… What the h.e.l.l happened with the Army…?" Jim seemed to be the same as the Chief, stern and furious.

"Not too unusual maybe, no one's enforcing any laws, no one is watching, integrity goes down the drain." Val offhandedly remarked.

"Sigh, yeah maybe. This probably won't be a popular opinion, but I'm grateful for what you did, even if not for us. That could've been some of our own if this had gone through."

"Just did what I thought was right." Val shrugged, offering a cigarette to Jim.

"Sure, and thanks, anything better than the smell of blood everywhere. Well, we probably gotta pack up and leave at this point anyway, Army will send more guys when they realize these ones aren't coming back, at least the trucks will be handy." Jim was inspecting the condition of the trucks, all of them looked in good shape, older models, but reliable.

"Actually, I don't think you need to worry about that."

"What do you mean?" Jim looked at him curiously.

"Tell you later, I took the Sergeant downtown and got some information out of him that I should share with you folks. But let's take care of those survivors and these bodies first." Val set about dragging the corpses into the street to burn, Jim and a few other officers who just arrived to help a.s.sisted, and before too long the bar was cleared and the bodies were cremated, leaving only their blood as proof they were there.

An hour later, Richard, Jim, and Val were in the office, both ravens were perched on a chair.

"Can you explain what happened? I need to prepare for the potential fallout of this mess." Richard asked, sighing as he leaned back in his chair.

"I mentioned this to Jim, but I don't think you need to worry too much about any blowback from this." Val had a rather casual att.i.tude about the whole thing, but neither Richard nor Jim gave it much thought.

"I interrogated Sergeant Vickers about what was going on in the East. Apparently they have their hands full fending off an incursion from a foreign army." Val added, the information surprised both of them, but Huginn seemed to understand immediately what was happening.

"We're being invaded? Which country?" Jim asked in alarm.
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"Not a country from our world, this may be a bit hard to believe, but…" Val tried to the best of his knowledge to explain the situation with an entire other world of civilizations, races known only in stories, and even older human civilizations which were now a very real part of their world.

"Hmm… A week ago I would have sent you to the Doctor for a psych eval but, seeing magic and your inhuman strength, I'm inclined to believe you." Richard seemed skeptical, but was evidently trying to process the information.

"Well, it might help you believe, to know that these two birds here are my companions, rather than pets, and they are older than any of us several hundred times over, if not more. Their help is how I've been gathering so much information about the area and events around here. The sour looking one is Huginn, and the glutton who keeps stealing coffee and snacks is Muninn." Val motioned to the ravens, the two policemen just stared at them in disbelief.

"h.e.l.lo." Muninn simply greeted, much to the shock of the two.

"They can talk…?" Jim fumbled for a chair, taking a seat next to Richard.

"This explains how you were privy to so many conversations…" The Chief himself was still staring at the ravens, seemingly unable to look away.

"Ahem. Anyway, if anyone does come asking, they'll probably believe you if you told them there hasn't been any soldiers, naturally if that does happen, you'll need to hide or dispose of the trucks. But I doubt there will be any more visitors, the army thinks these foreign knights are spreading across the northern half of the country, wouldn't be surprising if they stop sending forces West. There are two more concentrations of the country in Texas and Ma.s.sachusetts, they'll probably consolidate around Texas." Val explained.

"But that means if anything does come down here, we're on our own." Jim quickly realized and struck at the main problem.

"It does, if you can't hold the area, my advice would be to head to Carson City, regardless of how low some of the people have fallen."

"You sound as if you're leaving soon." Richard did not look like he intended to convince him otherwise, but there was a somber look in his eyes.

"I'm leaving today, I've stirred up enough trouble here, and I have other places I intend to go, you seem to have a handle on things here. If something does happen, you can try to reach me through one of these two, they tend to get around and you might spot them on occasion. Not a lot of ravens out in these parts, especially none as large as them." Val wanted to get back to Karl's camp, knowing about the situation in the East, he had no intentions of heading there yet, but he might be able to check out what was going on himself if he headed north towards Oregon. Besides, now that Huginn had let the cat out of the bag about runewords, Val was very curious to pry something out of Karl about some useful ones he might learn.

Richard nodded, they did indeed have a better handle on the situation now, they were well enough equipped to handle ghouls and one more person would not make or break their efforts.

"One more piece of advice, don't stray too far south, before I came here I ran into goblins, apparently they're looting the areas down there but otherwise not spreading further." Val added.

"Goblins?" Jim raised an eyebrow.

"Short, primitive, but vicious b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. The one I ran into rushed me almost immediately, they're not too dangerous, but apparently they can move in large numbers and they're not as brainless as ghouls."

"I see, but if they're alive, guns should work just fine on them."

"Yeah, shouldn't be a problem, just don't get careless if you run into them."

"Got it, thanks for the information. By the way, where exactly are you going? In case we need to find you, if you don't mind." Richard asked curiously.

Val looked at Huginn, an obvious question in his eyes, the raven simply nodded his approval.

Walking over to a regional map pinned on the wall, Val took a pen and marked an area in the woodlands.

"It's about here, I may not be there, but if you need help, you might find it there. If you need to evacuate and you can't go east, this may be your best bet."

Having shared the information he received, Val headed to the pharmacy. Doctor Chen was at his desk, in the back was a row of makes.h.i.+ft beds where the women seemed to be resting peacefully.

"How're they doing?" Val asked, nodding in the direction of the beds.

"They'll be alright, physically, some severe bruising, but nothing life threatening. The mental and emotional trauma is the largest concern. Dana and a few folks around have been very helpful, unfortunately this particular crime is not rare enough, but we have some people here who have helped such victims before. Once they're recovered, Dana will sort them out, give them some work that'll keep them together and busy." The Doctor explained clearly enough, though there was an obvious anger in his tone regarding the subject of their condition.

"That's good to hear, thanks for your help."

"No, thank you. Sigh, accidental injuries, and minor diseases are the easy things to treat, no one to fault, violence from your own kind is always harder to heal. I can't say I approve of your methods, but I'm thankful you saved them from their captors."

"Ha, I'd have doubts about a doctor who did."

At that moment Jim entered the pharmacy with a few beers in his hands.

"Val, Doctor, I think both of you are owed a drink." Jim nodded to the two of them, he looked mirthful for the first time all day.

Val raised his eyebrows. "You know I'm not walking back, right?"

Jim chuckled. "It's just one beer, besides, even if it was more, I'm pretty sure you can handle yourself fine, nothing else on the roads to hit but abandoned cars anyway."

"Fair enough." Val accepted the beer with a small grin.

. . .

"All packed?" Richard asked, as he watched Val finish attaching the filled saddlebags to his bike. It was mostly food and snacks, the idea of food based on deer was finally appetizing again but Val wanted to be sure he had something else to maintain some level of variety. A few days before setting out again was all he intended for, leaving just enough time to get some practice in with the runes.

"Yeah, pretty much." Checking his watch, Val noted it was a quarter till two in the afternoon. Most of the residents were still busy with various tasks in and out of the warehouse, so no one paid too much attention to him.

"If you need anything, feel free to swing by, still haven't properly compensated you for your help."

"Don't worry, let's just hope the next time we meet is not because of trouble." Val grinned.

"Ha, let's hope so." The Chief chuckled, motioning to one of the officers to pull up the warehouse gate.

Huginn had gone on ahead to notify Karl of his imminent return, while Muninn took a seat on the handlebars behind the small winds.h.i.+eld. With everything more or less under control at the base, Val set out on his return trip.