Drone

8 Relgar.

Niklas opened his eyes, finally waking from his fitful and feverish turmoil. He groaned and rolled over. The unfamiliar stiff shirt he wore was slick with cold sweat. His head pounded, his knee was inflamed, his back ached, and this faceless brand itched uncomfortably.

He was in Relgar, and he was faceless—two things he never thought would apply to him at the same time. He had to be careful. The clan's existence in Pit Forest was a secret the clan worked hard to protect. He had told the strange unit of Sharderins that Pit was full of demons, a lie the clan worked hard to promote. If he revealed the clan's existence and rumors spread, a reaper like Edgar could find him and silence him and anyone who knew the truth. If he kept his mouth shut, clan intelligence would unlikely even care about a faceless in Relgar.

Niklas grunted as he scanned the dark room, looking for any sign of the mother who was clearly in charge of the strange detachment that saved him.

He didn't see her. There was a light under the door. Niklas heard muted voices from the other side, though he couldn't distinguish the words. Among the voices, he couldn't hear the mother's voice. Mother Lill. Her's was an unmistakably loud and commanding voice.

He waited for a minute, getting dangerously close to falling asleep again. He shook the weariness from his head, causing a wave of dull pain to rebound between his temples.

He didn't have time to sleep. He was in Relgar. The home of the pink skins. The mother killers.

He sat up, and a few stripes on his back stung as they strained their scabs. He saw his reaper's blade on the ground beside him, and he grabbed it.

How long had he been asleep? Niklas looked out the window. It was dark outside. The room he was in was small. It housed a few wooden boxes and sacks of what he would have guessed were provisions. There was hardly room to move as he silently tried to get off the painfully squeaky cot.

Niklas froze and listened. The muttering in the main room continued, and he relaxed a little.

He stood in the closet of a room and looked out the small glass window.

He saw hundreds of large shapes in the darkness.

Cows. Niklas realized after a moment. He took a moment to gawk. They didn't have cows in Pit Forest. Niklas had grown up on a diet of goat and turkey meat. Of course, he had heard of cows. Even Edgar remembered them. The cows were herded together in a large corral built into the back of the compound that housed him.

Niklas tore himself from the window. He could try and sneak out.

He shook his head. The beasts out back easily outweighed him by a thousand and a half pounds, and he had no idea how aggressive the beasts were.

He turned to the door. The floorboards squeaked, and he winced. He saw a hole in the door where a rotted knot in the wood let in light, and he peeked through.

The old man was speaking to the tall and gangly one. The old man, Frode was his name, was rocking in a chair with a smoking pipe sticking out from his lips. The other one, Ivar, if Niklas Recalled correctly, sat on a chair that was missing several rods from the back. They both had their hair cut short, and Ivar was clearly attempting to grow a beard.

Niklas could also see the two boys playing a game with chalk on the floor under the table.

The Mother, Lill, was no longer present.

Niklas pushed the door open, and the room fell silent. All eyes turned to him.

"Um. Hello," Niklas said. He spoke in Relric. He hadn't needed to use the dialect since he learned it in linguistics training. All Sharderin boys learned Relric. The Elders understood that being able to speak to the conquered was necessary for invasion.