nala

Torra

My troop and I continued from south Napoli farmlands to Lanca. Rimona carried her bag over her shoulders, constantly reaching for her canteen. I snagged it earlier, finishing it in a single sip. "How close are we?" Rimona complained. She stopped to lean against one of the many trees and tore her bag off her shoulders. "Where's my water?" Rimona tore through her bag frantically.

"Here. Have some of mine." I pulled my bag over my shoulder and pulled an almost-empty canteen. Rimona accepted the water with open arms, completely forgetting the bad blood.

"But seriously Torra. How far are we?" Jordan asked. He pulled his hair off his neck and fanned himself.

"Yeah! It's been longer going home." Aden sided with Jordan. Aden pulled his own canteen and took a swig.

"Only a day and a half if you don't stop complaining!" I scolded. The group packed their water and pulled their bags over their shoulders. I slung my bag across my body and continued north.

We passed through flat forests until knolls and meadows materialized before us. Rather than just going through the knolls, the group voted three-to-one to go around in the flat forest. The trees began displaying the Napoli mark, eight circles inside of each other, crossed through with an 'x'.

"We're inside enemy territory. Make a noise and we're dead." I explained. The group snapped out of their annoyed daze and straightened up, creeping around. The Napoli wall bounding the people began easier to view as we passed. Guards in watch towers and walking dogs kept wide eyes, definitely looking for us. I waved the group by me, trying to find even the slightest distraction.

I pulled Rimona's canteen. "You have three seconds to finish this." Rimona pulled the canteen from me and took it down faster than I said. I took the canteen back from her, throwing it past the trees to land far from where I was. The Napoli guards aimed their weapons and ran to investigate the vindictive canteen. "Go!" I whispered. The group, doubled over and running, probably never moved faster.

"Hey!" A Napoli guard yelled. She chased after us, swerving through trees but never escaping her. We might have run for miles before we finally came to an intriguing sight: ten Napoli guards dead. Their blood splattered everywhere, their limbs at awkward angles.

The woman chasing us immediately forgot about us as she sprinted to her fallen colleagues. "No!" She sobbed. Under different circumstances, I would've made an attempt to comfort the woman, but her dead colleagues, or mutual hate for each other, and my life, I decided to just move on.

"Damn that was close!" Rimona mused. The rest of the group laughed, while I made an attempt to find the dead people amusing. "What's with you?" Rimona elbowed me. I provided a confused look but Rimona knew me better. "You didn't laugh."

"Who the hell could manage to take out that many Napoli guards at once? It wasn't like the perpetrator had a major weapon. There were just broken noses and jammed windpipes. Someone seriously knew what they were doing. And the bodies were still warm. The killer is near."

"Way to take the fun out of escaping a village filled with fucking serial killers." Rimona shrugged.

"Watch your mouth. Your mother doesn't want you talking like that." I said to Rimona but it was clear she didn't care.

The group continued to Lanca when continuous persistent footsteps sounded in front of us. Aden held his hand up and stopped us, crouching behind a bush with red berries. "Up ahead. Look." Aden pointed at two silhouettes of people walking away from us. "Maybe they took the Napoli guards out." Aden whispered. He pushed his blonde hair out of his face and peered closer.