Survivor

chapter 4

Phoenix woke up to what he guessed was a wolf howling. He jolted awake and rolled to the side to grab his knife. He realized that it was nothing and he rolled over to go back to sleep. He found that he was unable to, so he decided to go and check on the night sentries.

He pulled on a cloak over the other skins that he wore and he exited his tent. He found the guards easily and he spoke to each one. "Little late isn't it?" asked one of the guards as Phoenix came over.

"I thought I should ask you if you've seen anything unusual."
"Well Ray and an archer just moved to check what's been seemingly inspecting our camp. Ray caught sight of him again about ten minutes ago and he went with her to see if he could track the person."

Phoenix decided that the archer must be Jean, she was the best that they had, and he began running towards the hill that the guard had pointed at. He drew his dagger and he began moving up the hill on four limbs. He was moving quickly and he could see the tracks that Jean and Ray had made as they moved up the hill. Then he came upon a third set of tracks that had to have come from the person that they were tracking. The person had a longer gait, smaller foot, and the tracks were only a little bit older. He moved upward following the tracks that were seemingly made by Ray and he saw them moving down the hill. He quickly ran down to join them.

He alerted them to his presence by rapping Ray on the shoulder. If he hadn't clamped his hand over his mouth he would have screamed loud enough to wake up a deaf man.

Ray turned around quickly and hissed "Why are you here?"

"I couldn't sleep and I used my many connection to place you guys here so I decided to join you."

Jean just shrugged and said "let's keep going. From the pace of these tracks it doesn't look like this person is stopping any time soon."

"By many connection do you mean you just talked to the guard?" hissed Ray as they followed the tracks.

"Sure" said Phoenix.

Jean just grinned as they followed. She held up her hand and they stopped. She said "The tracks here overlap with other tracks. Somebody with much bigger feet. The thing is though that these tracks both seem older and as if the exact same amount of weight was put on each step."
"So what would this mean?" asked Ray "We're looking for two twins who have the exacts same everything except foot size?"

"No" said Phoenix "A person could easily just strap a board of wood to their feet and that gives the impression that you are looking for somebody different, and because no many people can measure the amount of weight a person puts in each step then this would be an almost foolproof way of doing this."

Ray nodded. "So you're saying that his person has been spying on different parts of camp?"

"Most likely. Because these tracks also seem to lead in the general direction that that is."
They continued on until they found where the tracks led to. And it was a surprise to say the least. It was a huge encampment of people. It had thick earthen wall with wooden spikes lining the bottom of a dry moat. Guards patrolled the top and Phoenix noticed that they all had leather armor on.

"So who do you think that these people are?" asked Phoenix.

"Whoever they are they seem to be gearing up for war, most likely with us, so we should just head back and leave them alone." said Jean.

Ray and Phoenix nodded and they began to make the long trek back to their encampment.

When they got back, Ray whispered to them "Should we keep this under wraps?"

"For now" said Phoenix "Although we do need to start making defenses."

"Such as" asked Jean.

"Gather everybody towards where we eat. You'll find out then." said Phoenix.

After everybody was gathered there, Phoenix turned to them and he said "We will need to begin to create defenses." this created an outbreak of muttering "We just need to begin digging out the ground surrounding this area. This will be all we will do for now. Everybody who is done hunting and gathering will help dig out the area. But starting today, me, Ray, Jean, Sam,..." he began mentioning other name that would help in the construction of the moat.