Kingdom of fire and shadows: Useless magic and Salamanders.

Xavier spent the whole day running. Fleeing from both the fire and his family, his past, and the guards. His anger and pain were an inexhaustible source of energy. Fortunately for him, all of Humol was too busy trying to control the fire to focus on his pursuit. At nightfall, the forest would become dangerous, not as dangerous as the jungle of Morr, but with his bad luck, he might run into some large animal or a monster.

He should keep moving, even in the dark. However, everything has a limit, and at the end, he was so tired that he could no longer keep going on. The floor was very dangerous to sleep on; his best option was to sleep on a tree. Being careful not to encounter any snakes, he climbed a tree with two branches close enough to one another that he could add some extra branches and create some kind of chair. The next step was to tie his waist to one of the branches with his noble pants and wear the jacket to limit the cold of the night. It was difficult to sleep in these conditions, but he could get some rest. The scarce clothes he wore did little to reduce the cold of the early morning, and he spent most of those hours shivering; his fire magic could warm him up, but he could not use his magic while half asleep.

As soon as the sun appeared on the horizon, he came down from the tree and resumed his march, always toward the east, towards Veldat. It was the fastest way out of the woods and away from the dynasty. Hours later, the water in the higüera began to run low. Xavier had made it into an area of the forest that he no longer recognized; Humol was a border town, soon he would enter the land of the Kingdom of Veldat and, if they found out where he came from, he would be a dead man. You should be careful. A few hours later, he found a stream where he could fill the higüera. The closer he got to Veldat, the more water he could find. He continued his journey until noon, when he came to a road that marked the border between the two kingdoms. It was only a two meters path between the trees, but before he came near enough to cross, a small stone interrupted his march. Looking to his right, he found a few people he didn't realize were there. One of them invited him to approach with signs of his right hand while indicating to keep silent with the index finger of his left hand. Everyone was hiding. Xavier did not trust the strangers, but if they were hiding, it was for a danger worse than themselves.

'Hi, boy. Keep silent and don't make loud sounds, or we'll all die,' warned a white man in a low voice. Xavier had come close enough to hear him but kept enough distance to run away. The man was probably in his fortys; he had hardened facial features, a scar on his right cheekbone, a missing tooth, and a beard with quite a few white hairs, just like his black, unkept hair.

'What are we hiding from?' asked Xavier in a whisper, still weary of the people in front of him.

'Wind magicians and a cavalry patrol. If they find us, they won't ask questions; they'll kill us in the act. Pay attention to the road; they should pass soon,' replied the man.

A few minutes later, a Tumulos carriage passed in front of them. If the stranger had not warned him, Xavier would not have been able to see the blurred image that appeared and disappeared on the road in a matter of seconds. It took them a little time to patrol several kilometers. At the same time, in the sky, a few wind magicians flew over the border territory.

'You must know the right moment to pass the frontier, or they will catch you,' explained the man. 'What's your name, boy?'

Xavier looked at the man with some doubt. He didn't trust him or the other people around him; he looked at the strangers with great focus, without missing any of their movement.

'Relax boy. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have already done it. My name is Vralia. I'm the leader of this little gang.' The truth was that Vralia had thought of attacking Xavier as soon as he saw him, but if something went wrong and the boy screamed or ran out of the woods and the patrols or the magicians saw or heard them, they would be done for, too risky.

'My name is Aleum,' Xavier lied; he used the first name that came to his mind.

Vralia looked at Xavier from head to toe; he had his left hand on his back. This boy had a spark and was cautious, Vralia liked that.

'You are lucky, Aleum. If you hadn't stumbled upon us, you would probably be already dead.'

Xavier noticed there was some confidence in Vralia way of speaking, which reminded him a little of the manners of some of the nobles he knew.

'For how long will we be here?' asked Xavier.

'Until twilight. The afternoon turn is usually quite lazy; we only have a few minutes to cross the border before they finish changing the guard. You better relax, rest, and save energy, you will need it to run." Vralia advised as he lay down with his back on the trunk of a tree and closed his eyes.

For Xavier, Vralia was just getting comfortable. However, what seemed to be a totally random position of his hand was a signal. His thumb pointed at Xavier, while his ring finger was a signal to one of his colleagues to take action. A tall, strong woman of about 25 years old, with green eyes and a voluptuous body, approached Xavier. Although she had a slightly chubby face, she had a good body and figure.

'Hi there,handsome. Aleum, right?' greeted the woman, approaching him. Xavier merely assented with his head.

'Relax,' said the woman. 'We are all fugitives here; everyone is running away from something; otherwise, we would have no reason to be hiding here. I'm Racia. You already know the boss, and that's Gando,' she said, pointing to a black man with a shaved head and a huge body; he had no facial hair; his arms were like Xavier's legs, yet his attitude was of indifference. He was lazily lying on the floor beside a big and heavy hammer. 'That is Emil.' She pointed to another man, thin, white, over thirty years old, with a beard of a couple of days, black hair, and brown eyes. He was sitting on a branch of a tree behind Xavier, with his feet hanging and a pair of short swords around his waist. His face was serious; his gaze was penetrating and inquisitive. Xavier had not noticed his presence until Racia introduced him. That was scary; it meant they could have killed him whenever they wanted. 'And finally, Pip.' Pip was a young man too, probably a little older than Xavier; he was white, black-haired, had brown eyes, and was thinner and shorter than Xavier.

Vralia had some talent for identifying interesting people. The four members of the band who accompanied him were skilled in one way or another. Racia was a poison expert, knew about medicines, was good at appreciating the value of treasures, spoke two languages from distant kingdoms, and with her body, was excellent at drawing men into the traps that the team prepared for their targets or victims. Gando was the muscle of the team; besides, he was a patient man, of temperate character, and very good at working under pressure. Emil was agile, discreet, silent, moved with the finess of a cat, an excellent duelist, a silent killer, and skilled with knives, in addition to being an expert interrogator. Pip was skilled with his hands, a thief and pickpocket, and had a good nose to detect problems and search for escape routes.

Seeing how Xavier remained alert, holding the weapon in his back, and how Racia's charms did not have much effect on him, increased Vralia's interest. He could not know that all this was due to the experiences of betrayal over the last few days, and he confused fear and paranoia with intelligence and experience. It was hard to find someone so young with such a perception.

'Why are you running?' asked Pip with a whispering voice.

Normally, given his youth, Pip was very noisy when speaking and was easily excited, but Vralia had threatened him that if he heard his voice above a certain level on the border with Veldat, he would tear his head off.

For his part, Xavier had already thought about how he would answer that question. His brief adventure with Trina gave him the idea.

'I am being pursued by some guards for having a fling with the daughter of a nobleman,' Xavier lied. 'And for touching his wife's ass.'

Everyone was slightly surprised, while Vralia kept his mouth shut with his hands so as not to laugh. While it was a ridiculous story, it could be true. The nobles had much power and freedom, and seeing a poor devil like Xavier in his peasant garments, it was obvious that he would not be a suitable candidate for a noble lady.

'I hope it was worth it. Now you have to flee, but I don't see this as a reason for fleeing to another country,' said Pip.

'Well, the nobleman thought it was appropriate to add other things to my crimes,' added Xavier, showing the noble suit. 'It was supposed to be a gift, but it ended up being a trap to mark me as a thief. An old low-class noble suit, dirty and stained,' said Xavier with a sigh. 'Maybe I can sell it for a couple of copper coins; at least I could pay for food for a few days.'

The story was becoming more and more real, but it was better to keep it like that and not add more things so as not to create great inconsistencies.

'Better keep it, boy; its value must be on the floor; it looks as if it had been thrown into a bowl of ink. At least it will protect you from the cold better than the clothes you wear right now,' Vralia recommended.

'And you, why are you running?' said Xavier.

'We're professional criminals,' replied Gando, without much care.

'We traffick stolen goods, extortion, robbery, sometimes we make do as mercenaries, whatever it takes to survive and earn a few coins for good food and beer.' Emil had come down from the tree like a cat, in absolute silence. Only his words warned of his change of position.

Xavier remained alert all the time, not releasing the dagger behind his back. Emil's silent movements scared him and made him sweat. These criminals could kill him at any time if they wanted to, and it didn't seem like he had any chance of escaping.

'I know what you're thinking, boy,' Vralia said. 'That we could make some money by handing you over to the guards, but that's not how it works. You see, we're all criminals, and unless you have a contact among the guards, when you snitch on someone, the guards take you both and get double the reward. That doesn't mean we're saints, and you should not be wary; there's no honor among thieves, but you can stop holding your weapon. We are five against one anyway; you can't win, and you know that.

Xavier pulled his hand out of his back, releasing the dagger.

'I don't have to win; just pray that someone will value his life enough not to risk being the first to attack.' This was something that only someone like Clinton would say, or at least that's what Xavier thought. He had been trying to be as deceiving as him.

Vralia smiled at his answer and closed his eyes again. The group remained silent the rest of the time.

'It is time,' Emil warned. 'Prepare to run to my signal. We only have a window of minutes during the guards shift change.' He kept his right fist closed, holding a small metal ball in it.

'Now!'

A Tumulos charriage had just passed. The group abandoned the trees running at full speed; they crossed the road in seconds, and, when they reached the other end, Xavier noticed that they did not reduce their speed; they ran as if there was fire behind them. He didn't know why, but he decided to follow the example. The group only stopped running when Vralia stopped his race, tired and breathing heavily, and threw himself to the ground between the bushes. The rest followed his example.

They stayed on the ground until they recovered their breath. Only when Emil confirmed that there was no danger did Vralia give the order, and the group began to move. They rose from the ground and began walking.

'What is Emil carrying in his hand?' asked Xavier.

'It's a Malman worm. They vibrate when there are tumulos nearby,' replied Pip.

After walking for a few hours, they arrived at their first destination. Hidden among the bushes were several bows, arrows, and some bags. As soon as they took out the bread, Xavier's stomach began to rumble. He hadn't eaten anything in almost two days. Now, in the presence of food, he remembered how hungry he was. Vralia threw him a piece of bread.

'I like you, boy. You are lucky; you can move with us for a while, but this is not a charity; we don't need useless people. You'll have to win your bread. Welcome to the Veldat Kingdom. If they find out you're from Poem, you can say goodbye.

Xavier devoured the bread in seconds; it was better to put it in his stomach before Vralia changed his mind.

′ What do we do now?′

'Now we will hunt. It makes no sense for a group of hunters to return home without finding anything,' Vralia said.

'It'll be night soon; we'll go out and see if we catch something for dinner. Aleum, you'll take care of gathering wood, lighting the fire, and cleaning up the hunt if we get something.' Vralia assigned him those tasks.

The group went into the trees, leaving Xavier alone. He thought of leaving the group and fleeing on his own now that he had the opportunity; however, he knew no one in this kingdom, and he didn't know exactly where to go. Although walking east was supposed to get him to Veldat anyway, going with someone who knew the area was safer; besides, he did not know if Vralia was testing him or something similar. He didn't forget the way the bandits had surrounded him without realizing it. Neither he forgot the way Emil and Pip walked through the woods without making any noise. Abandoning the idea of escaping, he began to search for wood around. Vralia looked at him from the bushes with a smile.

'Good choice, boy,' Vralia thought when he saw Xavier working on the assigned tasks. If the young man didn't join the gang, he'd have to kill him. Vralia turned and went away, looking for something to hunt for.

It wasn't difficult for Xavier to gather enough wood to spend the night. The only problem was lighting the fire; the wood was wet or humid in the best case.

'Damn it,' said Xavier, looking in all directions. After a few minutes of thinking about it, he decided to take a risk. Using his fire magic to heat and dry a few pieces of wood was easy. Although he was hungry and tired, his magic energy had recovered days ago, and heating things with direct physical contact was easier than lighting flames from afar. Gathering the elementary energy needed to heat wet wood to the point of turning it on took more effort than he expected. The environment didn't help, but it was easier than creating sparks at a distance. A few minutes later, the fire was burning. Xavier placed the rest of the wood around the fireplace so that it dried. Without his fire magic, lighting the fire in this forest would have been impossible.

A few hours later, the gang of bandits returned to the improvised camp.

'Wow, boy,' appreciated Racia. This is not bad; even for the boss, it's hard to light a fire in this forest.

'It is not easy to find dry wood here; I got lucky' said Xavier, trying to be humble and avoid suspicion.

'There is an abundance of water elements in this area of the forest,' Vralia explained. 'It's convenient because you can get water easily; the problem is that everything is wet all the time. It's a curiosity. On the other side of this jungle, towards Poem, it's dry. Here in Veldat, it's wet. As irrational as the Infinite Desert or that damn Morr jungle.

Only Gando and Racia managed to hunt something; a pair of rabbits and a few turtledoves. They handed over the game to Xavier. It was up to him to clean them up and prepare them for dinner.

'Wow!' said Emil, astonished. 'That dagger is of good quality. A gift too?'

The other members of the band looked at Xavier as if they were waiting for an answer.

'Damn, I pulled out the dgger without thinking...'

'No, this one, I did steal. Once you're accused of a crime, the least you can do is be guilty,' Xavier lied, shrinking his shoulders.

In fact, his answer calmed everyone down. They couldn't count on someone who would have doubts about doing business when the time came.

Xavier devoted himself to the task of preparing the hunt. His father and mother had taught him and his brothers, since childhood, how to handle prey. It was a basic part of everyday life for all the boys and grown girls in the poor villages; you can't risk damaging the food when hunger is one of your worst enemies.

For birds, remove the feathers, cut off the legs, and partially cut the beak. Pull from the esophagus and trachea, leaving the brain and neck intact. Open the cloaca and extract the guts. In another situation, he could clean all the intestines and, after boiling them, fry them, but it was not the right environment. In the middle of the forest, burying the guts away from the camp was the best option. They would have to settle for the heart and the liver.

Rabbits were another process. After hanging the pieces, open the neck skin circularly and longitudinally to the abdomen without damaging the muscles, cut the front legs, and then pull off the skin as if it were a coat. Cut the back legs and tail, then cover the skin with salt to preserve it, and then process it to make clothes or other accessories. When the abdomen opens longitudinally and the intestines are removed, the liver must be handled carefully so as not to break the gallbladder, which would ruin the meat. The liver, kidneys, and lungs are laid on a hot rock, while the rest of the carcass is sown in wooden sticks with salt, and the guts are buried away from the camp.

While Xavier was doing his homework, the others were relaxing and checking their weapons and equipment. At dinner time, Xavier was given the least amount of meat and a piece of bread. He was the new boy, so that discrimination was normal. After dinner, Xavier and Pip were in charge of guard duty. Pip had the right to choose, so he chose the first turn. Xavier went to sleep with a little peace for the first time in several days. There was no point in being very vigilant; they could have killed him without waiting for him to fall asleep. When Pip woke him up, he wanted to keep sleeping. His sleepiness disappeared immediately after Pip's words.

'The chief takes security very seriously. If you fall asleep during the guard, he will kill you. It's not a joke.'

Xavier got up to guard for the rest of the night. Except for Pip, who slept without a care in the world, the members of the band were all survivors, and, although they seemed to be totally unprotected, if something moved or came too close, they would wake up immediately. They had a very light sleep.

The noise of grumbling awoke them about an hour before sunrise. A pair of wolves were figthing over the guts buried by Xavier a few hours earlier. All members of the team, except Pip, woke up. Emil woke him up with a kick.

'What?' Pip woke up complaining. Emil's figure made him shut up. Vralia was scary, but Emil generated terror.

The others already had their bows; Pip took his bow and approached them.

'Aleum, you are the guide; you have buried the guts,' Vralia ordered.

He walked in the direction where he had buried the viscera. As he approached, the wolves heard him. A lonely, large prey was a temptation. They forgot about the guts and began to attempt an ambush. When Xavier met the first wolf, he began to sweat. He stopped walking, expecting that a few arrows would fly from his back and kill the wolf, but nothing happened; his face became pale. An idea passed through his mind.

'There's no one behind me; I'm the bait'

And he was right; the gang had split up, and they were in the trees. They had used a special hunter powder to camouflage their smell. The quick steps of a wolf in his back made Xavier turn around; a second wolf went for the kill. When Xavier turned around, the other wolf attacked. In a matter of seconds, the arrows flew around, killing the animals.

'Good work, boy,' congratulated Vralia as they carried the beasts back to the camp.

'Good job? Fuck you, you have used me as bait,' Xavier spat out angrily.

'Of course, this is not a charity. Everyone is carrying his weight here,' Vralia reprimanded, getting close to Xavier's face. 'We're criminals; we're not going to protect you and feed you. Learn to take care of yourself and be useful, or we'll leave you behind. Understood?'

'Got it,' replied Xavier, shaking his teeth.

"Excellent. Now get to work; you have to take care of these too. Be careful with the skin; it'll be sold for a couple of copper coins.′

He spent the rest of the morning butchering the wolves. By sunrise, the skins and the meat were salty, and some of the internal organs were roasting together with other pieces of meat. Breakfast was abundant. Wolf meat was not the most tasty, but hunger was a great spice.

The gang began marching just after breakfast, and by the evening they had arrived at a village in the kingdom of Veldat called Salim, which belonged to Nelsen town. The conditions were similar to those in the villages of Humol, where Xavier used to live.

'Vralia, you are finally back. I hope you bring something useful,' yelled a man of about sixty years old, with a scar on his face and only one leg. His hair was white, as was his beard. His once white skin, roasted by the sun, had turned red.

'Always yelling and complaining, dirty old man,' answered Vralia.

'You prick,' replied the man. 'How dare you talk to your father like that?'

'What an excuse of a father you are, Leslie. What? Have you run out of coins for rum?' Emil asked.

'You... and who the fuck is this?' asked Leslie, pointing to Xavier.

'Aleum, this useless old man is my father, Leslie. Old man, this is Aleum, the new boy' Vralia introduced then without giving more importance to the matter.

'Another one?. You collect every useless kid you find; how many have been this year? Two? Three? If he doesn't die in a month, he'll run away, like all the other cowards. One of these days you will recruit a knight in disguise, and they will hang you,' Leslie complained.

'Yeah, yeah, yeah, stop talking nonsense and let's treat the skins,' said Vralia, taking out the skins they saved.

It was actually an excuse to get away from others. Vralia and Leslie went into the house.

'Let me see what you got!' said Leslie, his face becoming serious.

Vralia took out a glass bottle with a blue-colored liquid from the inside of his jacket and put it on the table.

'Basilisk blood from the Morr jungle. It's pure; in this bottle, there are hundreds of doses. They should pay us a lot for this,' Vralia said.

'A few gold coins, at least,' Leslie reckoned, looking at the bottle. 'I'll prepare the skins.'

The green basilisk, a huge snake from the Morr jungle, supposedly descended from the mythological hidras, which in turn descended from dragons. Their blood was a powerful drug, highly valued, difficult to obtain, and illegal. Only elite magicians could enter the Morr Jungle and survive. However, many died in the attempt. No matter how powerful a magician was, sometimes they simply had bad luck. The only ones who had little to worry about in that place were the titled mages.

Leslie had put Vralia in contact with a knight from the dynasty. Basilisk's blood was the reward for stealing the property of another noble. They had taken good spoils, especially papers and golden seals, but it was difficult to sell those items. With Basilisk's blood, however, it was easy to trade on the black market.

While Vralia and Leslie took care of their affairs, the others waited outside. Xavier had already learned the lesson in Humol, so he was watching the exit from the village. If the group had risked returning to Poem despite being wanted criminals, it must have been for something big. Initially, nothing happened, but a few minutes after the band arrived, Xavier saw a 14-year-old boy run out of the village.

Leslie's house was the typical wooden construction found among all the poor villages. The small house was a bit crowded right now, but still, it was better than sleeping in the woods. Wolf meat would be the food for a few days. Leslie prepared a pretty good stew. It wasn't as good as his mother's, but it would be enough; at least he wouldn't be hungry. The next day, Leslie went to the village to sell the skins and other things. However, at noon, he still wasn't back.

'Damn it, that old son of a bitch has betrayed us,' cursed Emil.

'Perhaps, but I don't believe it; we did similar business in the past and he never double crossed us; now that he is older and tired, he wouldn't be able to run for long, and he knows that we would hunt him,' Vralia reasoned. Leslie was his father, but there was a possibility he betrayed him. There is no honor among thieves.

'There's something you should know.' Xavier told them what he had seen and described the boy who had left the village.

'So what?' asked Emil. 'This is a village; a lot of people come and go.'

'Maybe, but Aleum may be right,' said Vralia.

It wasn't difficult for the group to capture the boy. An hour later, Gando was carrying him, unconscious, into the woods. They had moved far enough from the village so that no scream would be heard. They tied him to a tree.

'Racia, wake him up,' Vralia said.

The woman pulled out a small glass bottle filled with a yellow substance with a strong smell. As it approached the boy's nose, he woke up. When he saw where he was, he tried to shout, but the gag prevented it.

'Mon, you know that I don't joke around, so it will be better if you tell us what we want to know. We don't want to hurt you. We're going to take the gag off; we're far from the village; if you try to scream, we'll hurt you; we will hurt you a lot. Do you understand?" explained Vralia.

The boy nodded with his head.

'I don't know anything,' said Mon immediately when he was free to speak. Mon knew Vralia. He knew he was a dangerous man, but the worst reputation went to Emil. He had heard the stories.

'I see,' said Vralia with a sigh and a face of disappointment. He was a criminal, but he found no pleasure in the suffering of others; it was just business. 'Emil.'

Emil approached Mon with a smile, pulled out a small bag inside which there was a roll of cloth, and, as he opened it up, various pincers and metal tools became visible: needles, nails, pieces of metal with the tip full of spikes.

'No, no, Vralia, I know nothing; I swear,' he begged with tears in his eyes.

'Gando found ten copper coins in your clothes; you have no way to get that amount of money; we know that you have done something,' Emil warned him, lowering his pants. While he was holding his reproductive organ, he took one of the metal sticks with a spiked tip. Seeing the object approaching his crotch, Mon panicked.

"It was Henry; Henry paid me to warn him when you came back, and he gave me the copper coins. I didn't do anything else, I swear.′

'Fuck,' said Vralia, sitting on the floor while the others cursed.

'Who is Henry?' asked Xavier.

'He is a member of Nelsen's guard. He's been behind us for months. If he caught Leslie, they will execute him,' Emil replied.

'You sold Leslie out. They are going to execute him; we have lost the value of several gold coins and all for some miserable copper coins,' Vralia recriminated, grabbing Mon by the neck and pulling out a dagger.

'No, this one is mine; I need practice,' Emil smiled and stopped Vralia. Emil had a twisted personality; he was a sadist and an expert torturer.

'Well,' Vralia accepted. 'This piece of shit deserves it.'

As Vralia turned around to give his orders, Mon tried to shout. Emil squeezed his neck, put the gag on again, and changed his tool. Instead of the thin metal bar with a spike, he took a needle. A sick and diabolical smile was drawn on his face as he stared firmly into Mon's eyes. Fear and panic were palpable, and that excited Emil.

'You must always start with the nails.'

While the gag contained the screams, Vralia gave his orders.

'Racia and Pip, go to Nelsen and try to find out what happened to Leslie. Gando and I will go back to the house. We have to pick up our stuff; it's almost certain they'll come for us. We'll run away as soon as possible. Aleum, you will come with us. Vralia sent Racia and Pip to Nelsen because they were the less-known members of the band. While Racia used her charms to get what she wanted, Pip was skilled in collecting information; he knew how to get lost in the crowd and go unnoticed. In the city, he was as skilled as Emil in the jungle. Xavier was new to the band; he couldn't trust his skills at the moment.

'Can I stay for a while?' said Xavier. 'I want to see Emil work.'

Everyone showed a face of surprise. Gando and Racia even had a face of disgust. They had seen Emil "work" and it was an unpleasant experience at best. Meanwhile, Emil showed a mixture of surprise and satisfaction on his face. It was the first time he had a volunteer audience for his show; it was a pleasant experience, and that increased his determination.

'Do whatever you want,' said Vralia, going back to the village with the others.

Xavier approached Emil, who had already ripped almost all of Mon's nails from his feet and now devoted himself to those of his hands. The boy was screaming while the gag reduced the sound to a low grunt. After using a pincer to break the bones of his fingers, Emil let Mon rest for a few minutes before resuming his work. Mon's eyes full of tears looked at Xavier, begging for help, but Xavier ignored him and continued to look at Emil. The man knew how to produce pain. Xavier clamped his legs together on more than one occasion when Emil was clawing needles into Mon's testicles.

The way he started cutting the meat and reaching the bones without damaging the arteries or veins was appalling. After several minutes, Xavier couldn't tolerate it any longer and vomited. The torture became more and more unpleasant as Mon lost and recovered consciousness. The greatest moment of horror was when Emil smiled as he showed a dying but still conscious Mon his own intestines. Eventually, life escaped from his body, and Mon found death. Emil recovered his ropes, cleaned and saved his utensils with a big smile, and in the company of Xavier, came out of the forest. When they returned to the house, Vralia and Gando had already gathered all that was valuable. A few minutes later, Pip was back.

'They are torturing Leslie. He won't last for long; he has been sentenced to death for illicit drug trafficking. Racia stayed behind; she found Henry in a bar. She will take care of him.'

'Everyone be ready. When Racia returns, we will flee to the Orphem kingdom.'

A few hours later, Racia was back.

'It is done; I have given him my best poison; it will have a slow, painful, and miserable death.'

Racia had managed to put a few drops of ricinus in Henry's drink while he celebrated his promotion to city's inner guard in a bar. Ricinus was easy to find and produce, but its poor taste made it difficult to use. Racia had her own mixture of the poison that eliminated the bad taste.

The band gathered their things and fled through the woods. Ants, crows, rodents, and all sorts of critters devoured Mon's body. Hours later, Henry was vomiting bile as his organs shut down. His death was slow, painful, and miserable, as Racia promised. Leslie had died bleeding after hours of torture in a cell. He didn't stand too long and told the guards everything he knew, but they continued to torture him for pure pleasure. When the guards arrived in the village, the gang was already several hours ahead.

'There's something I don't understand; there's no honor among criminals. Why avenge Leslie?' asked Xavier.

Emil answered. 'Because even criminals have pride. We can't allow our victims to get courageous. We are like wild dogs; we can bite each other, but no one has the right to come and bite a member of the pack.'

This was only half true: if the situation was not favorable, the priority was to survive. None of them would risk their lives for another criminal.