“Who are you?” Arsted said coldly. His expression looked fierce, and for a moment, I thought he was going to take out his sword.

  The stranger raised his hands. “I’m not here to cause trouble,” he said, which oddly enough appeared to calm Arsted down. “The name’s Darrow.”

  “I’m Thorian. This is Arsted and Renna,” I said. Darrow looked a little surprised to see me talking for the others. Well, they did put me in charge, so I needed to act the part.

  “Hmm. To save the people of Alcion will require skilled fighters. Arsted looks strong but you children should remain here,” Darrow said.

  Renna stood and glared at Darrow. “We’re going. If you can help us, great, but if you want us to stay behind then you can leave us alone!”

  “It’s all right, Renna,” I said and tried to laugh to ease the mood. Even I could feel how fake the laugh sounded. “She is right. We are going to help rescue the prisoners from Alcion. What are you proposing?”

  “Well, I hired a band of mercenaries to rescue the people of Alcion. I was hoping to get some more people and was looking for someone who may have friends or families taken. Mercenaries are expensive, you know?”

  Was he trying to scam us? There was no way in hell I would give this guy a single gold piece until we were on the road. “I’m more than willing to help pay for these mercenaries once we head out.”

  “Smart kid,” Darrow said with a chuckle. “That’s fine. You can wait until we rescue the prisoners if you want, assuming you have a few gold pieces to spare.”

  “We do,” I normally wouldn’t have admitted that, but we had Arsted. If Darrow tried something, I had no doubt in my mind that Arsted would resolve the situation. Probably not the best thing to rely on, yet this was our first lead into someone looking into rescuing the people of Alcion. The risk was worth it.

  “You sure you don’t want to stay behind and send Arsted with us? This mission is going to be dangerous.”

  “Look, I’m an intermediate mage. Renna is an intermediate swordswoman. You don’t have to worry about us,” I said.

  Darrow didn’t look convinced.

  “They speak the truth,” Arsted said.

  “Hey, I won’t give the warning again. I don’t like the idea of kids fighting in battle,” Darrow scratched his head as he spoke, then sighed. “But I won’t decline intermediate fighters. If you are committed to this, Tomorrow night, at nightfall, there’s a meeting at the Lions Nest. If you don’t show, I’m going to assume you backed out.”

  “We’ll be there,” I said.

  “All right, well I’ve got to go. See you three tomorrow,” Darrow gave us a lopsided grin, then he was gone.

  “Can we trust him?” Renna asked.

  “I saw no deceit. It won’t hurt to show up to this meeting,” Arsted said.

  Considering how Arsted reacted upon first seeing Darrow, that was a good sign. Perhaps things would work out well for us. If Darrow and his mercenaries were legit, then we could leave to rescue our families within the week. I hoped.

  We’d barely arrived in Starcrest, and things were already in motion. It was best not to get too excited. If the mercenaries looked weak, then we might need to back out. Esmond’s letter said the place was heavily guarded and we needed people who knew how to fight.

  “Let’s head back to the inn and get some rest. We’ll find out the details tomorrow,” I said.

  The next night arrived, and we entered the Lion’s Nest. The first thing I noticed was Darrow, standing in the corner with his back to us. With him were what I assumed were the mercenaries. I quickly counted thirty-two, including Darrow. They looked well geared.

  However, I had already learned that being geared didn’t make them good fighters. The soldiers who ambushed us to get to Peruvian proved that. Of the thirty-two mercenaries, it looked like there were three mages.

  I led the way toward Darrow. “We made it,” I said, causing Darrow to turn around.

  “So, you did, welcome to our meeting.”

  I could hear some of the mercenaries talking about us the moment they realized we were with Darrow.

  “Kids?”

  “What are children doing here?”

  I noticed Darrow paying attention to the comments but said nothing. Thankfully, everyone went silent when Darrow stood up on the table. He looked serious and yet I could see the determination he had. There was something about the way he looked at everyone that made me believe he was a leader.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “All right, that’s all of us. As you can see, we have three new recruits and yes, I heard some of you comment about two of them being children. Don’t let their appearances fool you. One of them is an intermediate mage and the other is an intermediate sword user.”

  “Really? You’re telling me two kids are intermediate level?” Someone said.

  Darrow looked at the person who said that and flashed a wide smile. “Yes. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t let them join us.”

  He was trusting Arsted’s word, despite never seeing our skills, a gamble, at least from his perspective. Still, that did stop the comments about there being kids. I didn’t blame the others for doubting us. It only made me look forward to growing up a bit, which was laughable as I remembered wishing I was a kid again at times in my old life.

  “Let’s get to the topic at hand now, shall we?” Darrow said and paused for a moment. The mercenaries nodded and he continued. “I have the location where some of the Alcion people are being held. It’s toward the Northeast. Our scouts have reported the villagers are being put to work. There didn’t appear to be many prisoners, which is both good and bad. The good news is that there are only a handful of guards. The bad news is that we don’t know where the rest of the prisoners are.”

  Hm, that didn’t sound like the mining camp Esmond told us about. I raised my hand, which of course Darrow couldn’t see since I was too small. Arsted saw what I was doing and raised his hand, which Darrow did see.

  “Arsted?” Darrow said.

  “He raised his hand for me,” I shot Arsted a look of gratitude and continued. “I received a letter from a source of mine. There is another, larger group of prisoners in a mining camp further North, close to the border of North Ornea.”

  “Do you trust this source?”

  “Yes,” Arsted said before I could.

  “Then our job is easier, in that we know where more people from Alcion are. We will go for the small encampment first, since that is closer. After that, we’ll make our way to the mining camp. For us to get to the slaves without being seen will require us to split up into groups and meet up at the rendezvous point. I’ll give each of you the exact location on a map and hopefully we can all make it without incident. Any questions?”

  I looked at the others and was surprised nobody had any questions. The fact there were wo prisoner camps had me worried. I doubted my parents would be at this small encampment, that would be too easy. What if my family wasn’t in the next one either? There was no word on any other groups but there could be a lot more.

  Don’t be negative, we have two spots to hit. Surely some of my family will be at one. Maybe Renna’s as well.

  “Good, we depart in three days.”

  The group began to disband as everyone started going their own way. Darrow looked over at us and raised his hand. It didn’t take a genius to know he wanted to talk to us, so we waited. Some of the others went up to him and talked.

  I tried not to listen. Of course, it was hard not to be curious, and I heard one of the mercenaries say they weren’t comfortable bringing little kids. Darrow reassured the man. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear what was said. All I saw was the mercenary laughed, clapped Darrow on the shoulder and left.

  The next few people who spoke to Darrow were too quiet for me to overhear. After a while, I started getting bored, which was when the last of the mercenaries left and Darrow came our way.

  “Sorry about that, had to answer some questions. Not sure why they didn’t ask when I looked for questions during my speech,” Darrow said.

  “Embarrassment probably,” I said.

  “Probably,” Darrow agreed. “I’m glad you were able to make it. I wasn’t expecting you to have found another group of prisoners.”

  “About that, our source tells us its heavily guarded. Do you think thirty-two mercenaries will be enough?”

  “I won’t know until I see the camp myself,” Darrow said.

  “It’ll be fine, Thorian. You worry too much,” Renna said.

  And you don’t worry enough. I wanted to say but held myself back. She didn’t have the life experience I did. In a way, I was jealous. It felt like every decision I made was influenced by my old life. While useful, it was also a burden at times.

  “Do you think there are more than two groups of prisoners out there?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe that mining camp is where the rest of the prisoners are, maybe not. We’ll find out in due time.”

  Not very helpful. It couldn’t be helped. I should be grateful we found two prison camps. If there were others, I was thinking it might be in North Ornea. Time would tell. For now, I was going to focus on the two prison camps and hope we could succeed.

  “Meet outside the city in three days at dawn. I’ll see you all there,” Darrow said.

  “We just got here and now we’re off without seeing much of the city,” I said as Darrow left the inn.

  “You should be happy! We have two leads, maybe we’ll be heading back to Alcion sooner than we thought,” Renna said.

  Not wrong. I was getting tired from all the traveling. I couldn’t recall the last time we weren’t walking long distances as we headed to Starcrest. “Well, let’s get back to our inn. We can gather supplies over the next couple of days and then we’re off to rescue some prisoners.”

  That was what we did for three days. We bought supplies, and made sure our gear was ready. Arsted woke us up at the crack of dawn. Before, I had hoped to get more rest before leaving to rescue the prisoners. Now, I was glad we were leaving.

  Spending three nights with Renna by my side made me uncomfortable. I couldn’t help thinking of my previous life, when I shared my bed with my wife before she passed. It made me miss that and I was only ten! It was going to be a long time until I got married. A normal ten year old wouldn’t be thinking of this.

  Once we got out of bed, I led the way to the city entrance. There were a couple groups of people already out when we arrived. Some I recognized from the meeting three days ago and of course, Darrow himself was standing there, waving at us when we arrived.

  “Good timing,” Darrow said as he walked over to us. “Almost everyone has departed to meet us at the rendezvous. Draven and Olivier will be coming with you. Draven is a mage and Olivier is a swordsman. Do you have any questions before I head out?”

  “No, we’re ready to go,” I said.

  “I’ll see you at the first encampment, good luck,” Darrow said.

  Olivier and Draven walked over to us as Darrow and his group left. Olivier was of average height, with blonde hair, blue eyes and a two-handed sword hanging on his back. This was my first time seeing someone with a two-handed sword. Every other sword fighter I had seen wielded a one-handed blade and never used anything in their other hand.

  Draven was a bit older. He looked like he was in his forties, and he carried a staff and wore brown robes. He had brown hair, brown eyes and a beard. If this was a movie, I would have thought he was a wizard which I guess isn’t much different than a mage. I wondered how strong he was.

  I guess I would find out. The five of us introduced ourselves and then we were off. Our destination: the first encampment.