Onyx

Chapter 31: Secrets

Ludo awoke with a pep in his step. Rigel was back. He was a wonderful learner. The serpents had hope again. Everything was great.

Until he saw the slip of a white dress behind his hut.

He stared in the direction. What was that?

He shook off the thought. Someone probably dropped a linen from one of the lines.

Weird.

He walked towards the center of the village looking for Germaine. He was the only expert combat trainor present. He needed to meet with him to divide and conquer. They need to figure out how to train Rigel and the entire village in a couple of weeks.

Lots of work to be done, very little time.

Ludo was excited nonetheless.

He merrily made his way to Germaine's hut. Knocking on the doorframe twice, he heard a deep voice say, "Come in."

Ludo peeked his head in and found Germaine sitting on his cot reading a book. He was a tall muscular dragon, with white long hair braided down his back, and a thick beard caressing the deep lines on his face.

"Yes Ludo?"

He cleared his throat. "I know you've heard about Rigel's arrival....I was hoping we can sit and devise a 'divide and conquer' plan."

"Plan?"

"To train the rest of the village with Rigel. For the war we plan in a couple of weeks..."

Germaine put down his book and stretched his massive legs, getting up. "Ah yes...Of course. We can try, but I doubt we'll be a formidable opponent."

"Don't worry, I've already scoped out their base, they're completely defenseless. Very weak and prone to attacks especially from their own kind."

Germaine nodded. "I understand."

Ludo opened his mouth to say something, but had the strangest feeling someone was watching him. He turned around and found no one there.

"You okay Ludo?"

"Um, yea," Ludo said distracted. "So...you can train Rigel today on hand to hand combat. I'll talk to the foreman about supplies and whatnot for the village. We'll come up with a good training plan for them as well that we can execute."

Germaine nodded. "Sounds like a plan. I'll go get Rigel."

Ludo nodded distractedly and Germaine left the hut. He couldn't shake this feeling of being watched.

He left the hut and headed towards the foreman's office. He knocked on the large circular door twice and waited for it to open.

As he waited he heard the sound of scuffling inside and a frantic voice whisper something he couldn't quite decipher.

Weird.

The foreman opened the door, hair looking a bit scuffled. "Ludo! What brings you here today?"

Ludo tried peeking over his shoulder. "I've come to discuss preparations with you for the war, and to come up with a training regime for the village. Germaine and I were going to execute it."

The foreman positioned his body so Ludo couldn't look in. "Of course wonderful idea! I'm afraid I'm a bit busy right now. Let's discuss this later shall we?"

He tried closing the door but Ludo stopped it with his hand. "With all due respect sir, we don't have later. We're on very limited time. I was hoping to go over the plan with Germaine today."

The foreman gave a forced smile. "Oh... I understand." He looked behind him, then turned to Ludo. "Please, come in."

He opened the door and Ludo saw papers strewn all over the floor, and upturned furniture.