Chapter 43 - Instinct
'I am getting crazy?' Bjorn thought doubtfully. So he went back to his companions who were doing such a good guard duty that they didn't see him leave much less return.
The next day, a hundred more disappearances were reported, leaving the population of Lurea apprehensive.
In the castle hall, the Regent and Thorin were butting heads with each other.
"Just a hundred more men, a hundred more and maybe we won't even need the reinforcements. Think how good this will be for Lurea image, for your image. The pope will surely notice your abilities!" Declared Thorin trying to get all he could from the regent.
"I've already given you the limit, more than that is impossible, you don't even wall us in!! What am I going to do if I don't have enough men when a horde crosses the border and attacks? Three hundred and the limit. This discussion is over!" Raged the regent with anger before leaving.
The two hundred that the Regent gave at first, plus the nine groups, weren't enough for an invasion task, after all, one Siak is worth five trained common men, maybe even more in the tight tunnels.
However, due to the continuous and exponential disappearance of the population, they could not just sit back and wait.
Thorin argued a lot with the Regent, saying that although he could not get more men out of the wall, there were still five hundred men standing idle in the castle. The Regent did not like his placement, nor did he want to give up men from his personal guard in such an uncertain situation and went on to say that while more than four hundred reported missing seems a lot, still less than 1% of the population of Lurea and that he preferred to wait for reinforcements. that would arrive in a week
But constant pressure from both Thorin and the populace forced the Regent to yield another three hundred of his men for a preliminary invasion to lessen the enemy's numbers.
"This is very strange, how can so many disappear without us noticing?" Asked Miguel as he sharpened his sword.
"It really doesn't make sense, Siaks shouldn't be that smart," Jack pointed out.
"Do you think the regent is right? What about a lord here?" Maria commented with a hint of fear in her voice.
"Unlikely," said Claudio. "Anyway, tomorrow we'll know," he declared as he gazed at the tunnels with deep thoughts.
While his colleagues talked and prepared their spirits for the fight to come. Bjorn kept staring in one direction. There was an old man in the line of his eyes in the distance pacing back and forth.
'There's something wrong with this gentleman.' Thought Bjorn. Nobody noticed you anymore except him, they had gotten used to his madness, every city has its madman, this one just speaks prettier, everyone thought. But not Bjorn, he knew it wasn't that simple, every fiber of him said it.
He stared at the old man for hours. And when night fell, he decided to follow him again, and this time he brought with him a lamp.
The old man took the same route as usual towards the big barrel, stammered, put out the lamp and slept.
Bjorn waited a while to make sure the old man had slept. Then he lit the lamp which he had brought with him from a distant point to the barrel, so as not to alert the sleeping dogs.
Because it's far away, the light doesn't illuminate much, but if only for the flickering glow. Bjorn noticed. The old man wasn't there, nowhere to be seen, as if he'd just disappeared.
'That doesn't make sense, I saw him go to sleep.' Thought Bjorn. That after recent events, he was starting to doubt his mental faculties.
Deciding that speculating wouldn't help. He used the essence to remove body odor, a little trick white people were easy to do, then walked around the barrel and went to the ladder beside him to avoid the dogs.
He climbed the stairs beside the barrel carefully to the top floor of the streets above. He stopped on the floor and looked down, the barrel was eight feet and a little more than half away.
Not wanting to make a noise, Bjorn calmly lay down on the floor, caught the edges of the drop with his hand, and slid gently until his feet touched the roof of the barrel.
"That." Bjorn thought in a cold sweat.
A part had been done. But there were still a lot of dogs around sleeping and some even awake. They didn't notice it as it removed its odors and turned around. But they certainly would if he just got out of the barrel.
Then he looked around thinking of something. And as expected, there were gravel on top of the barrel. He then picked up a pebble and threw it far and across the street, waking some dogs and making the others go after it, threw two more pebbles until all the dogs came to see what it was. Then he smoothly climbed down from the barrel and began to search.
As he walked further into the center, he felt a gap under the straw. Soon Bjorn removed the straw carefully so as not to make a noise, and what he saw underneath surprised him.
"Sewers?" he swallowed as he felt the fetid smell rise as he removed the lid.
Now Bjorn was between going down and investigating, or coming back and reporting what he saw. But curiosity got the better of him and he decided to look some more.
'I can only run if something goes wrong.' Bjorn thought confidently.