'Again?'
Will looked at Alice with a raised eyebrow. Halt shook his head, Horace snickering.
'Yes, again' Alice replied dully. 'Now focus. From the description the farmer gave me, I think they might be what's left of Masi's mercenaries.'
'Why?' Horace asked.
'The description matched their uniform' Alice replied. 'He had a different seal to mine, of course. The colour was black for people of the Gallic royalty bloodline. So, he decided to have a black dagger. Typical of him, really.'
Halt nodded. 'He did fashion a dagger to slit your throat, didn't he?'
Alice nodded sadly. 'That he did,' She said. 'that he did.'
Halt still remembered all to well the sound of Alice's desperate cries for help, echoing down the halls of the castle near the throne room, and bursting into the room with the other guards to find Alice, Masi holding a knife to the thirteen year old's neck.
He remembered the fearful look in Alice's eyes, the cunning and determination in the other man's.
The day Alice, princess of Gallica, could've met her demise.
But here she was, talking to Will and Horace.
'Well,' She said, rising, 'we should probably hit the road, preferably before sundown.'
As Horace and Alice went to ready their horses for the coming travelling, Will raised an eyebrow at his mentor.
'Halt?'
Halt glanced over his shoulder at Alice, scenes of the constant torture he'd seen Masi inflict upon her flash before his eyes.
And the whole time, her screams echoed in his head.
'Halt?' Alice asked, laying a hand on her stepbrother's shoulder. 'Are you alright?'
Frowning, Alice looked at Will. 'You might want to talk to him.'
Will nodded, before walking over to Halt. 'Come on' He said, helping Halt rise from the ground. 'We need to talk.'
As the two dissapeared into the trees, whilst Horace wasn't looking, she took out a letter from her saddlebags.
The top of the letter in the center carried the assassin symbol. It was the mission credentials for an upcoming assassination mission.
Just because she was general didn't mean missions stopped.
She was in charge of assassinating a drug dealer up north that was in touch with some black marketers in Toscana.
Quickly, she put the letter back into the saddlebags as Horace spoke.
'What you got there?' Horace asked, walking up next to her.
'Nothing' She replied hurriedly.
Horace glanced accusingly at her.
At that moment, Halt and Will came back.
'Problem solved.'
'Why are you two wet?'
The two exchanged glances. 'We threw each other in a river' Will replied.
Horace and Alice laughed.
They eventually hit the road.
Alice yawned.
'How the hell are you already tired?'
Alice glanced meaningfully at Halt. 'Want me to write a list?' she asked rhetorically.
Will couldn't help but smile at the exchange.
It was when they started speaking Gallic that made Horace and Will concerned. They had no idea what they were saying, let alone if it was a good or bad conversation.
The two both had the uncanny ability to stay calm in an argument. So with no change of tone or expression, they had no idea whether they were arguing or debating or even getting along because for the life of them if Halt and Alice started really getting along then Araluen was in deep trouble.
And everybody else.
Alice snapped something at Halt, and ended the conversation.
'What did you say?' Will asked, keen to know.
'You wouldn't understand' Alice replied simply. It must've been a history thing.
Shrugging, Will and Horace began a conversation between themselves. The four had a long trip ahead of the,.