Welfare and Warfare

Chapter 25

Day: 3189

Days Left: 2291

Lives Saved: 17

After the initial excitement of the new civilian, Henry, and the blood moon over, the city returned to its peaceful and uneventful state, or at least to most people it was peaceful. As a city guard, Kai could see what was going on on the other side of the walls, at the tents that practically created their own city on the other side. One small thing could upset everything, to cause all of them to stand at arms and take the city, for everything that they had built to crumble down effortlessly. That was why Kai knew whoever that interloper was he saw had to be caught. There had been a few days of searching, but there was no sign of the hound. How had it gotten past the defences and the guards unnoticed? And what was with the lights going out? Then there was that no one apart from Kai had seen it happen. Maybe the black dog was all just an illusion, something in his head. Still, Kai kept up the search, likely to give up and close the case after a few weeks unless the interloper was spotted again. During the next blood moon, he would keep a lookout at the refugee camp and make note of any canine monsters matching the description, as everyone had no choice but to transform during blood moons. Still, in the meantime, it was something new to deviate from the droll repetition of walking along the battlements and the tedious paperwork as a titled officer.

In his downtime, Kai would have spent the time with his friends if any of them were available, mostly with Dex but with Dex free from the Abyss and everyone else getting busier or slowly drifting away into acquaintances, Kai opted to spend the time alone. He headed over to the training grounds near one of the barracks and practised his archery, his aim not so straight or precise with his distracted mind. After he had a short break and some water, he returned to find that he was no longer alone in the training grounds; Sumit was there.

The training grounds was open to everyone with classes held for self defence and training masks, but it was mostly used by the guards in weekly drills. The only other reason for someone who was not a guard to be here would be to let off steam, and that was what Sumit was precisely doing. He squared up to one of the wooden training dummies, let out a long breath intake and then sucker-punched the dummy in the stomach. It was quite an impressive punch, actually, though it would have likely hurt his hand, and of course Sumit was going to prove how much more foolish he was if he continued.

And he did continue. Sumit's other fist followed through and he began wailing on the dummy, screaming and crying out grunts of pain and frustration.

Kai rushed over, stopping him as the man's knuckles were red and bleeding.

Startled, Sumit almost toppled over, exhausted physically and emotionally, then purposefully allowed himself to collapse onto the ground, his back leaning against the dummy. He was quiet, apart from his staggered breaths, and could not meet Kai's eye.

Even without that physical display of anger, Kai could easily see that lugubrious expression on the man's friend. Even after all these years, Kai supposed he was still playing therapist for his friends. Kai sat down next to Sumit but did not speak, allowing Sumit to do so first if he wanted to talk, even if it was just to tell him to go away.

"Sorry," Sumit eventually mumbled. His hands wrapped around themselves, gently caressing the cuts and bruises on his knuckles. It would heal fairly quickly as they were in The Eternal Abyss but that didn't mean that it wouldn't have stung. "I just have..." Sumit's hands balled up into fists then he opened them again, revealing flat palms of damaged skin. "I have all these emotions, frustration, stress and I don't know what to do with it."

"Because the fighting ring is gone?" asked Kai.

Sumit shifted in discomfort. "I know it was bad but it was good for releasing any pent up stress and now I don't know how to get rid of it all without hitting something." Sumit motioned to the training dummy that he was resting against.