Vincent watched as the orc sailed past him in a jet of jade screaming something in her native tongue as she went. The thralls chased after her with great zeal as the scholar turned back to see Ciato ready his blade. Vince gritted his teeth and drew his own blade in his left arm and clenched his right hand to release a foldable steel shield from his gauntlet. The strange words seemed to reverberate in his bones, forcing adrenaline into his veins as he dashed after her and ran in the wake of the bard’s destruction.

Three more thralls dashed out from the shadowy alleys of the camp, faster than the others by far. The scholar gritted his teeth and blocked the first attack with his shield as he spun around to cut another down as it sprinted at him. Vincent took about three steps back to set him apart from his first attacker when the third barreled into him. Instinctively the scholar thrust his sword before him and watched as his assailant ran blindly onto his blade, fountains of crimson blood gushing as it blindly groped for Vincent. The scholar spat and kicked the fiend off of his blade and parted his first foes head from his body.

The tall pale man who slightly reminded Vincent of Emma Orlouge in some way had already run ahead and was expertly dealing with thralls as they assaulted him. The man was a whirling dance of death as he ripped through each of them with his stone blade. Vincent began to run past him as he dealt with one expertly. The pale man simply glanced at Vincent and matched his running speed as they ran down the tent city once more. They had come to some wordless agreement, Vincent had any of the thralls from the left, and Ciato would take any from the right. They fought wordlessly for almost an hour before the found Erirag in one of the mess halls at that end of the “road.”

The area seemed to be strangely empty of shambling thralls as they stopped to catch their breath. “Perhaps we should try to hole up here…” Vincent suggested to his otherwise silent partners. “There are plenty of tables we could use to form a barricade, hopefully meet some none thralls and figure this all out…” the others seemed to ignore the scholar as he spoke before Ciato spoke.

“Perhaps you are right, but there is no telling how many more of those mongrels running about. We could easily get swarmed if we stay still, but we could also easily get swarmed if we continued to run around like children with their heads cut off.” He paused for a moment and turned to the scholar scowling slightly before pausing. “What in the blazes…”

Vincent turned to follow his gaze to find him staring at a very large crimson full moon filling the deep green night sky. “That’s…weird…” Vincent managed between gritted teeth as he rubbed his temples slightly. His head was throbbing and he was starting to regret all of the alcohol he had consumed.