Eighteen - Tristram

A streak of purple interrupted the vibrant green of the forest before it disappeared amongst the leaves on my right. I readied my knife. The tell-tale rustle of leaves could be heard on my left and I spun around, jabbing the knife in the air at where the Juke should be. I caught is belly in mid-leap, like I had to so many of his species. I was getting tired of the simple fight, the predictable tactics: be seen on one side, pounce on the opposite. I hadn't had a proper enemy to fight in months. I had been training Alden, and though he improved quickly, he was no warrior. A warrior takes years of training, I'd only been training Alden for a month now.

I knelt down to skin and clean the Juke, first removing some sort of bone it got stuck in its ear. Had it really been a month now? A month since I found my nearly dead redemption? He had grown a lot since then, Tarka too. She was still distant to us, never spoke about herself, but she would walk with us now and camp with us, rather than silently follow in the trees. We had grown on her. An odd group we made. I smiled at the thought of the fish monger in the last village we visited: mouth gaped at as as the fish he was about to butcher started to flop away. While our people weren't strangers, we certainly never interacted, and the Viridi least of all.

I flipped the Juke over and remover another piece of bone stuck in the other ear... Something nagged at the back of my brain but I couldn't quite place it: the fish monger still at the front of my mind. After watching that, Alden had decided we should have fish for dinner. What he meant was he wanted to show off his fishing skills to Tarka. He fell in the nearby river three different times before Tarka took the spear and caught some for us. Those two...

A rustle to my left. I twirled around expecting another Juke, but there was nothing. Looking around, I picked up the carcass and slowly headed for camp, but something was following me. I had spent enough time with Tarka to recognize when something is moving in the trees. That said, nothing attacked or showed itself. I reached the camp only to see another surprise: nine Viridi soldiers in light flexible leather armor, each holding a spear with a short sword attached to their belt. The tenth jumped out of the trees behind be, he had been following me. I glanced around for Alden and Tarka. They stood next to the campfire, opposite the party. I stood just halfway between them, knife still in hand, but trying to show no other signs of aggression.
The one that followed me marched up to the leader, distinguished by two green streaks across the shoulders of his armor, and whispered something. The leader spoke, then, with a deep gravelly voice, that of a general. "You are hereby charged with poaching the kings personnel pets, signified by engraved bones attached to the ears. The mark on your hand distinguishes you and an outcast, thus the punishment is death."

I did the only sensible thing I could. I ran.