The Horseman of Calamity

Chapter 12 - Internal Destruction

The group traveled together for the next two weeks undisturbed for the most part. Occasionally, they would have to scare off some animals trying to get to their food. Nacara was easily able to hunt for animals due to her shapeshifting and flame abilities. Along with Hung's slight knowledge of plants and Nacara's own knowledge, they were also able to gather a fair amount of wild fruits and vegetables to eat.

During the travels, Mahmoud kept himself busy by asking Hung to train and spar with him. At first, Hung was reluctant, he had only learned to fight rather recently and believed he wouldn't be able to teach his friend properly, but Mahmoud's pleading was incessant. Mahmoud felt that he had an obligation to at least learn how to fight properly, he initially joined in Hung's adventure to help guide him out of the desert but since then he had felt like a dead weight to him. Mahmoud knew little about the outside world aside from the wildlife, that was his only unique skill. Because that was all he felt he could do, he was afraid that Hung would leave him. Yet, of his fear of dragging his friends down, he was even more afraid of leaving them. He had nowhere else to go, and he had just discovered what his own ambitions were, to meet every single crazy creature and beast in the world. The whole time, Mahmoud had also dragged the rusty pickaxe from the mine with him, much to Hung's disagreement.
    Meanwhile, the two boys had learned more about their strange new wizard friend, she can use two magic types and shapeshift which is supposedly extremely rare. She said the trait was called something but Hung couldn't remember the name. The eyes of something, so he just assumed her heterochromia was responsible for her powers in some way.

Since she joined them she had essentially become the group's leader. Due to her extensive traveling, she was much more knowledgable about the world than either of the boys, She never revealed much about her past and every time they ran into an even slightly precarious situation, she would be the first to jump in to face it. In that way, she was very wayward and hard to reason with once she had set her mind. She wasn't stupid or suicidal though, she knew when the group was outgunned in certain situations, luckily, they hadn't run into any particularly perilous situations. For the most part, it was just wandering nomads who were usually passive and friendly.

They were now nearing the Dagger Mountains, however, to reach the foothills, they needed to pass through an area of pure plains. Twas the night before they moved onto the plains as they sat around their campfire to discuss their plan. As Nacara explained, this area was also home to a large coalition of orc tribes, the Mugker tribes. Though they generally got along with the local humans, they certainly not friendly and have been prone to attacking large groups of traverlers.

"You think we'll be fine? There's just the three of us." Hung asked her.

"Likely, it's still best if we can just avoid them. There's a chance they'll try to attack us anyway and taking on a whole tribe of orcs is a bad idea." She explained.

Hung suggested, "Alright, how about we just travel straight on and any orcs we run into we can run away?"

"We won't be able to outrun them, well, I can but you guys can't." She argued.

"Oh! I know!" Mahmoud interrupted.

"There is a herd animal native to this area called kerful that often travel around to graze, they range from here all the way to the foothills. So why don't we use them as cover?"

"I like the sound of that, the only other choice would be to spend another month going west or east to bypass these orcs," Hung said.

"Nacara, why don't you transform into whatever that animal is and get them to move north for us?" He suggested.

"Can't, I need to have eaten an animal to be able to transform into it, and then you'll have to give me a few days to get used to its body, movement, and vocalizations."