Aiden and the Scroll of No Man's Land

Chapter 33

Even though the battle was done and he was on the ground bleeding from the calf and was clearly in pain, he did not remove his mask and this bothered me a little.

Then my father spoke, "I will help Gawk get to the medical hut and once I do that, I will meet all of you near the dais for Ivor's speech."

I then crossed right in front of Gawk he did not utter another word.

He and my father walked a little behind us and even though Gawk was limping he only seemed to take a little help from my father, which was astounding.

We soon lost sight of them and walked towards the dais which was now within eyesight. As we neared the dais I asked my mom. "Why didn't dad stop the fight when I tried to kill Gawk?" to which my mom answered. "He did. He was shouting at the top of his lungs, in fact, all of us were. But your gaze, your anger it all had consumed you so much that it seemed so surreal and....that anger, it did not let you think about anything except for....killing"

I could only picture the scene and the look on my parent's faces as I said. "I am really sorry you had to witness that." to which she said, "It turned out okay now, but you better keep that anger in check Aiden, that is what almost got you killed today." I agreed and made a mental note.

We had now reached the dais and so started looking for the leader. "And what about saving me when Gawk swung that hammer?" I asked as we waited for the leader to show up. "Father resisted us from saving you. He said you had the face the consequences of trying to end a man's life." she said and it was shocking to me, but I knew it was only fair.

My mom now chimed in clearly uncomfortable with the conversation."He knew your reflexes were enough to escape from him, but he just wanted you to understand the consequences of what you had done. He always knew when was the right time to stop the fight, and he did that this time too." I understood my mom and conveyed the same. We now got a glimpse of the leader walking proudly with his hands tied at the back as a new pair of guards walked by his side.

By now there was a large crowd and it was growing rapidly.

It seemed unusual to attend this event still in armor and a growing pain at the point where Gawk had hit me with his Kanabō, but my sister assured me that this was much more heroic than anyone else who had attended the event in plain clothes.

This assured me as the leader approached and we discussed what had just happened and what next was going to happen on the stage.

Surprisingly the leader maintained his monotone expression through the whole fight description, even with the sun reflecting off his long, pale face.

We were of course careful to leave out the part where I tried to kill one of his guards, which would, of course, anger him even more.

We actually had to explain the fight because of the absence of my father and when we thought he was going to call us out for lying and get suspicious, he once again surprised us saying that what had happened was nothing more to him than a simple battle.

He now, however, seemed interested in the speech he was going to give, and so made me prepare for what I was going to do on stage.

Essentially I had to do one thing and that was to stand in front of the crowd and look like I was ready to fight.

The leader even told me that I could speak a few words to the crowd, but I knew that this was the same thing he might have told Muite before his speech on the dais.

I wanted to say how unfair the leader was to which my mother and sister advised me not to speak anything negative of the leader as it would not be conveyed fully to the crowd because guards would probably escort me away like they had done with Muite.