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The door shut quietly behind him, and Horace stood there staring for a while. Since the last time Horace had seen Will, the Ranger guarding Horace's back as he directed the other knights to the boat, he hadn't exactly believed that he'd be seeing him ever again. Yet here he was, alive and standing in front of him. There were differences, of course, nearly five years had passed, but not so much that he was a different person entirely.
As he stood there absorbing that Will wasn't dead, the Ranger walked back to the desk, and placed a smooth round stone on some papers. When he turned back, that's when his clothes registered with the knight. Will wasn't wearing the standard Ranger clothes – what he was wearing, however, was a strange medley of them. His shirt was a plain white linen shirt, the ties at his collar cut off at the V. He wore normal black trousers, but they were tucked into knee-high leather riding boots, which were died black to match the pants. The jacket that was thrown over the shirt, however, is what made Horace pause for another minute.
It was standard brown leather, undyed. It was obviously old, creased to fit Will's body perfectly, conforming to him. Sewn into it, over the right shoulder, was the cloth of what seemed to be a Ranger cloak. The placement reminisced of a spaulder, the armor that would be placed over the shoulder, and went all the way down the arm. When Will had turned around to place the rock on the desk, he noticed that the Ranger cloak material also spread across the back. It seemed that only the left arm and shoulder, and the front sides, were of the unaltered leather.
"Ah-uhm, W-Will?" Horace glanced back towards the door, suddenly unsure. Looking back to him, Horace then registered another difference: Will's hair was longer, tied behind his head with strands falling out to make it seem like his hair was shorter. "Yo-you're alive," Horace finished bluntly.
Will raised an eyebrow, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, which hung low enough to conceal any weapons that may have been buckled there. It could have probably hidden a short sword, if need be, as it hung nearly to his knees. Suddenly, Horace didn't feel safe, which was an odd feeling, one he never thought he'd feel with Will. Sighing, the Ranger turned back to the window, and said as a matter of factly: "Unfortunately."
Horace flinched, surprised to hear the casualness in his voice when he spoke. Will turned back to him, a tired but curious light in his eyes. Dimmer than what it had been, but there all the same.
"What do you know of what happened here?" He murmured as he eyed Horace up and down, studying him.
Frowning, Horace responded: "That whoever took over started calling themselves an empire. That they're still after small bands of rebels, which seem to be based here, but for some odd reason they can't actually find you. That's it really, they don't let much get out. Apparently, they didn't want the fact that they couldn't find you to get out, but people have escaped, spreading rumors and other small things about them."
Motioning for him to come closer, Will nodded. Horace hesitated, but moved to Will's side at the window. Without turning to see, Will motioned outside, to where a small group of men wearing the colors of the empire walked by. "Exicusea. Literally means "empire" in their native language."
"You are not serious," Horace laughed.
A wry smile on his lips, Will glanced towards him, "Completely." He continued to look out the window, studying those who passed. "They're from the east. Way east, possibly further than Nihon-Ja," he whispered, although why he whispered, Horace didn't know. "But north. So they're like Skandians, but eastern. Their language is easy to decipher, not much different from standard Gallican, if you can believe that."
When he paused, Horace voiced a question: "Why did they come here?"
Will shrugged, "They wanted different land. They wanted a challenge. They wanted to spread their exicusea. Actually, I don't know. That was one thing I couldn't find out."
"What did you find out?"
Turning away from the window, Will snatched up the smooth stone off the desktop, and tossed it up into the air once more. "Not much. Any officials of Araluen were given the chance to surrender and swear fealty. If they didn't, they were executed. Any who resisted in any way would be hunted down and gutted like a fish. From what I could tell, they just wanted to take over, not kill anyone and everyone who lived here."
"So, what," Horace started, confused, "they wanted to kick Duncan off the throne?"
"Not specifically. From what I've witnessed of them, they probably would have let him rule if you hadn't fled. They would have just used him as a puppet, however, and he wouldn't have any actual control."
Horace watched Will toss the stone up and down a few more times before asking another question. "We've heard rumors . . ." Horace hesitated, unsure how he should word the next question. "Rumors that say . . . well, they took over by force, so it wouldn't make sense for them to be peaceful about this at all."
Before he was even finished, Will was shaking his head. "Technically, yes. If they were aiming for a peaceful takeover, they wouldn't have staged the siege of Araluen. However, there's two different people who worked to take over this country," as he said that, he held up two fingers, and caught the stone with the other hand. He didn't throw it again. "The ghosts that took over Araluen are merciless. They don't care about people, or how many they kill. Their target was to secure Araluen, so that's what they did. That's when the second force came in, the one's willing to barter."
Frowning, Horace looked back out the window, just in time to see another patrol walk by. They didn't even glance in the window. "Two?"
"Two," Will said, nodding. "The ghosts have held Araluen, and still do," he grumbled, "the rest of the forces are officially Exicusea. There's no friction between the two, and they are obviously working together. But the ghosts stay in Araluen, and rarely leave." Will fell silent after that, following Horace's gaze out the window. "If you get captured, and they bring you to the old Castle Araluen," he paused, looking over to Horace, a hint of some hidden horror in his eyes, "don't expect to come back out the same. And if one of them does happen to exit the Araluen ruins, then we're in trouble.
Eyes wide from that ominous warning, Horace raised both his eyebrows, and glanced towards Will. He didn't look that different.
Instead, he asked a different question: "Ruins? Araluen is in ruins?"
Grimly, Will nodded. "Not much better than Gorlan. The dungeons and first level are still mostly intact, but beyond that," he shrugged, "who knows? Of the few times I've seen it, I've seen parts of the ceiling collapsed, the few towers that are still standing can't be trusted to stand much longer, and very few of the windows are still intact. The ghosts weren't looking to preserve anything," he said, distain obvious in his voice. "They were just looking to destroy and kill. That's the difference between the ghosts and exicusea."
Horace opened his mouth, suddenly needing to get away from that topic, intending to ask about how the general patrolmen and exicusea men were, but was interrupted from a knock at the door.
Elijah opened it seconds later, not bothering to wait for Will's call to open it. There was sweat at his brow, and his eyes were wide—something had alarmed him.
"Lija?" Will inquired, just has his hand moved the corner of his coat to the side, revealing a sheath with his old saxe knife in it. He rested his hand on the pommel, and Horace mimicked him, a hand landing on his sword.
Not bothering to explain, Elijah bluntly said: "Guards are searching houses, looking specifically for any Resistance members that they would recognize. They're on this street."
Will didn't miss a beat. "How far?"
Grimacing, Eli quickly responded, "They're at Tom's right now. They criss-cross the street, so we have about—"
"Five houses before they knock at this one?" Will finished. Nodding, the taller man glanced back to the door, as if expecting the knock at that minute. Will glanced out the window in the bedroom, thinking.
"Well?" Horace said after a few seconds of silence. "What do we do?" He looked to Will, the question repeated in his eyes.
"They wouldn't recognize you, Horace," Will murmured, looked down to the ground. "You can leave and they wouldn't question you. Go know, while you can."
"What about you two?" He said instead, looking to Elijah and back to his old friend. "Would they recognize you?"
That's when Eli spoke up, a sad smile on his face. "Unfortunately, Will is the only person they have an accurate description of. They have a vague description of me, but it's basically just saying 'tall guy with dark skin and hair'."
"But it would still be enough to be arrested, if found with him," Horace continued, pointing at Will beside him. Elijah nodded affirmation, and looked to Will.
Will shrugged, when he noticed that both of them had turned to look at him. "Back door?" He suggested.
That's when the knock came. The two Resistance members eyed each other, and glanced to the door.
Elijah nodded. "Back door," he agreed.
