Survival, A [ Kidge ] Tale, Book Two

19. Finding Help

"Are you okay?" Theo asked Katie on the walk back and tried to pat her down for injuries like he would do to any other man but remembered that she was a woman and stopped himself. 

"Yeah I'm okay. A little tired but fine overall." She responded with a sigh, not noticing what Theo was about to do. "Did any of you recognize them?"

"No I never saw them before." Carlos said as he kicked a twig on the ground, "I think I would recognize such intimidating faces."

"They don't seem like they're from our kingdom so Theo and I don't recognize them either." Mark said, rolling his shoulders and Theo nodded from beside him, still with flushed cheeks from what he tried to do earlier.

"One of them seemed galra though." Katie pointed out and they nodded with her statement.

"It was the bigger woman, wasn't it?" Carlos said and shivered, "her look was terrifying."

"I'm pretty sure they were sent by that Lotor Prince guy." She said as they reached the camp and saw Kenneth with Drew waiting by the campfire. 

"Are you guys okay? What was that?" Drew said with wide eyes as he scanned all of them with his eyes.

"No injuries, right?" Kenneth added as he came to stand beside Drew and Carlos nodded.

"They fled once they saw our backup." Carlos said with a grin as they all gathered around the campfire to get warm. It was really cold these days so the campfire did its job in keeping them somewhat warm.

Katie then explained to them what she had heard from the women and that she thought Lotor was behind this. 

"It most likely is that Altean Galra Prince." Kenneth agreed with her and the rest of them nodded.

"That means that we got a lot more work to deal with." Mark said with a sigh. 

They were already struggling a little with the galra armies Lotor sent their way and with only 6 of them, they wouldn't be able to stand a chance with specialized trained soldiers for too long. Maybe they could last a few days against them but probably not enough for Keith to come back to them in time. 

If they were to deal with the armies and the women, they would need more trained people on their side. Katie just didn't know who they could call for help around here. Emeraldis and Dorian were a few days of horse ride to get to. Emberlands was the closest but they didn't trust the people because of what happened the last time they went in it. It was unfortunate that Emberlands was the closest out of all the other kingdoms. 

"We could have hope." Drew finally spoke up after the silence and all their attention went to him.

"You said the women were there to convince the Empress to join their side, right?" He asked, looking at Katie and she nodded. "That means the Empress is not on their side yet, we could try to-"

"What, convince her to join our side instead?" Kenneth interrupted and Drew nodded sheepishly. 

"After what she did to us?" Kenneth said, frowning and shook his head at the idea.

"No but we can't keep fighting with just us 6. We need help and you all know it." Drew argued back, his eyes fierce. He had never argued back with anyone and always went along with the other ideas but this time Katie noticed that he seemed determined to go with his idea.

"How can we trust them after what they did?" Carlos asked, his eyebrows furrowed and Drew sighed.

"We can try presenting them with something better than what that Prince offered." He said and she frowned. They didn't have much right now so what could they present?