Bride of the Dark Lord

#24 As Much as Them

"Hah!" I screamed as I woke up. I was expecting to be alone in the tent, but found myself, opening my eyes to behold a good-looking stranger, sitting less than ten feet away from my bed.

Who is he? What does he want? Did Randall send him? Early this morning, Regalis and his close friends, left for the South. According to Regalis, they were going to investigate a certain matter and would be gone for a number of days.

"Who're you?" I asked, no longer interested in rubbing my sleepy eyes.

"Griffin, my lady" he stood up and bowed. Opened the cloak, he was wearing.

I let out a relief sigh. He was an Imperial servant, from the outfit he wore beneath the cloak. He most likely served Regalis. Despite this, he shouldn't have been in the tent. 'Cause, I often slept with barely enough cloth to cover my skin. I was only sleeping now with a blanket and thick clothes, covering every part of me, because of the intense cold, up here in this side of the North.

And so, I started to question him, to know why he would just sit here, while I slept, "why're you in..."

"Oh, fear not, my lady. Griffin is a lover of men. You need not think he's here for anything obscene" he spoke, referring to himself in the third person. "He only wanted to sit here and make sure that he doesn't miss you, when you wake up and decide to leave the tent".

My heart calmed down. "Miss me? What for?" I asked.

"His Highness assigned me to assist you today. Show you everywhere around the camp" he explained, grinning "I'm so excited about this" he said.

An hour later, with Griffin waiting outside the tent, I stepped out, having prepared myself for the day.

"Lots of men are here" Griffin said, "but soon, you'll get used to it".

And we started strolling. And as we walked, I noticed the camp was really really big. Much bigger than I had assumed when I first arrived. It had several corners and paths to several places. The training grounds. The recruit centre. It even had a river and a waterfall. It was just so enormous and well-organised.

As we strode along, we reached the dining centre for low-ranking soldiers. It was a large open space, filled with several tables and benches.

And at the moment, the low ranked soldiers were having their meal.

Joy, in the air, as laughter and noise came from multiple tables at once.

And as we were about passing by, the atmosphere in the dining centre changed, and screams filled the air.

Some soldiers started fleeing from the dining centre, while some, sped to the centre of the dining space, where I believed whatever just caused the catastrophe came from.

Griffin gripped one of the fleeing soldiers. "What happened? Why're you running?"

The soldier who was sweating profusely, panted out, "sorcery. Someone is using sorcery".

Impossible. I thought. If someone was using sorcery right now, in this place, I won't feel any iota of my Gift flowing through me. "Are you sur...?"

He didn't wait for me to finish and sped off.

Griffin tried to grip another fleeing soldier but, it proved futile. This was how much people dreaded sorcery, that even soldiers, who were ever ready to run into battle, fled so fast from it.

I thought to myself, as this wasn't sorcery at work, whoever was in the so-called grip of sorcery attack, has to be in danger of losing his life.

"We must find out, what's going on?" I told Griffin. As we marched passed the tables and benches, and reached where a crowd, the soldiers that did not flee, were gathered.