I hope everyone had a good holiday season! And without further ado, here's the latest chapter.

Chapter 3

Milo slipped from her trembling hands, landing hard amongst the mounds of snow. Taking a deep, shaking breath and letting the mist steam in front of her, she began to recall the recent events that had led her to where she was now, her thoughts swirling like the snowflakes around her.

Only hours ago, she had helped shoulder the shaky form of Artos back into camp. The crumpled map from earlier was long forgotten to her. Apparently, Inigo had somehow managed to unlock Celia's aura, which only further taunted Pyrrha into anger—an anger that she had accepted was misplaced, but it was still anger nonetheless. Yet, to Pyrrha's surprise, Artos didn't seem to care in the slightest. He didn't even seem to recognize that Celia or Inigo even existed, regardless of the former trying to pull his arm towards her.

He only wanted the map, the godsforsaken map she had taken from that caved-in nightmare.

He took the map and, without so much as a word of explanation to anyone, stumbled to the entrance of the cave, unwillingly dragging the concerned form of Celia with him. The valley before them was easily visible, yet the flames of the fire behind him would undoubtedly keep him warm.

And that's where he sat, for hours on end, just staring out at the valley before him, and then back down at the map resting upon the floor before him. Motionless, except for the slight movements in his neck to switch between where he was looking.

Celia, for all her worth, crumpled up to his side like a lost puppy. The way her long golden hair cascaded down her small frame only added to making her look like a pouting golden retriever, which fit with the occasional snarls she would send Pyrrha's way, as if this was her fault.

And that's where she now found herself, seated with her back to the cave wall, adjacent to Inigo, who had begun the process of cooking chunks of elk on top of heated slabs of stone. He hadn't so much as looked her in the eyes once since she had returned. It wasn't like she wanted to talk to him or anything, but the silence was killing her.

She didn't want to apologize, at least not yet, but she could start somewhere.

Walking up to him, she noticed he stilled slightly. "Hey, do you need any help with that?" At that, his silver eyes finally met her own. A palpable silence filled the cave for a moment as he searched for something in her eyes. Seemingly satisfied, he whispered back, "No, it's rather simple, and it gives me something to do, but I'll give you the first piece. It'll be done in a few minutes, it looks like."

Why would he do that? "Why?" Pointing off to the duo sitting by the entrance, he continued to whisper, "I saw the way he entered here, like a ghost. And I don't want to deal with that cluster fuck." A toothy smile filled his face as he said that, an action she found herself replicating.

Yet that moment of simpleness wasn't due to last.

"Ahhhhh, Yes!" The sudden shout startled both of them. Looking in the direction of the sound, Artos was wildly flapping his hand in the air.

He's finally lost it.

He switched his erratic hand movement into one of beckoning, and if the message wasn't already clear, he yelled back at them, "Come, come look at this."

It all made perfect sense, and he could see it now.

At least, he thought so.

He hoped.

After studying the map for who knows how long, he might've managed to figure out where they were. Probably. Not bothering to check if they had come over to him, as he had beckoned them to, he started his explanation.\

Jabbing his finger into the northern mountain range depicted on the map, "See this here? That looks to be the valley in front of us, and if it is, then this mountain has to be where we are, judging by the distance from our location and the valley on the map, and that I could get down to the valley from here in maybe 30 minutes, we can begin to imagine how far it would take us to get he-"

"Home!"

"Argus!"

Wait, what—No, he didn't mean that, well, he supposed...

"No, here, look." He instead pointed to a circled destination just north of them. "Here, this is where we will go," he said with glee.

Around him, he was met with stares of disbelief.

"Why can't we go to Argus if we know where it is?" The sad tone of Celia tugged ruthlessly at his meticulously laid-out plan.

"Yes, do please explain why I can't go home, Artos." Pyrrha really wasn't helping him with that question.

"It would take weeks, maybe a month, to get to Argus from here in this weather. I don't know if we would survive that, at least with our current supplies. But here? This here might be something, a camp, an outpost, I don't know. But it's close to us, maybe an hour away. I say we go check it out first before we do anything rash."

Before he could continue, Inigo crouched low in front of him to get a better look at the map. "So let me get this straight, you want us to blindly go to this spot here, which was clearly put there by another group, just because it's close and why the hell not?"

Well... essentially, yes.

"No... uhm well uhh," struggling to come up with a valid reason to get them to risk their lives again, to follow him blindly, Artos felt a sharp burst of pain come from the back of his mind. Images flashed before his eyes: he saw an infinitely expansive frost, consumed in the bellows of sharp winds, and in the center of it all were a group of four. Unmoving, buried, frozen.

"Have I led any of you astray so far?" Seeing the shaking of heads around him, he continued, "We need supplies. If we are to make it to Argus, hell, we need more to survive the winter here, and I can't explain it, but I know we have to go here, I just do."

Besides, how bad could it be?

It was horrible.

They had left not long after he had shown them the map, trying to time it so they could be back before nightfall. The one thing he hadn't planned for was the thick, untouched plumes of snow and how difficult it was to trek through it, uphill.

Watching as each step he took, his leg descended into a still sheet of white, rising up to just below his knees. The only possible upside was the lack of wind and clear sky, he thought.

"Look!" The shrill cry from Celia caused a toothy smile to stretch across his face, because up ahead, rising up into the clear sky, was a steady stream of smoke. Its plumes were light and thin, signifying a controlled fire opposed to the amalgamation of flames that had consumed the tournament.

"Let's get a closer look."

Up ahead of them, Celia tripped over something hard and face-planted into the snow, disappearing from view momentarily, then popping her head out of her self-made coffin.

"Good job, sis, you managed to make a landmark for us so we know how to come back."

"Shut up, butt-head."

Pushing through the burning pain from their screaming muscles, the aching of their joints, they reached the topmost point of the mountain, allowing them a better vantage point of where the smoke was coming from. Down below the ridge, nestled in its own frozen valley, sat what appeared to be a bastardized camp.

A frozen stream marked a natural border to the front of the camp, behind which lay a circular palisade. It appeared to be made from ruggedly cut oak. Streaks of rot, frost, and cuts wrapped among themselves almost in a dance of sorts around the archaic structure. Mounted heads sat upon spikes that protruded randomly out in all directions. From what Artos could see from his elevated position, the camp itself was set up in rings, with smaller structures appearing within the outermost ring, and the largest within the center. The tents themselves looked to be no more than basic white-tiered huts with square holes attached to the bulbous roofs, where gentle puffs of smoke could be seen rising up out of some of them. They were no doubt insulated enough but undoubtedly barbaric.

"It seems you brought us to a bandit camp, Artos. Do you mean for us to join them as well?" Inigo's dry taunt wormed its way inside his head, threatening to bring forth a headache.

There had to be some way in which they could profit from this. We might be able to sneak in, steal some supplies, and get out.

"It doesn't seem to be busy, though. Maybe we could get a closer look," Pyrrha said.

Wordlessly agreeing with Pyrrha, he swung Requiem from his shoulder. As the smooth, reflective carbon-plated weapon of his father found solace in his grip, a faint feeling of remorse swirled deep within his gut. Like a sickness, it threatened to spread throughout him. Clamping down on that feeling, he lined up the attached scope of the automatic rifle up to his eye, hoping to get a clearer view of the camp below.

The camp seemed normal, quiet even. Racks of meat could be seen left hanging out in the frigid air, racks of weaponry haphazardly littered the grounds. Small groups of people sat around spread-out fire pits. It wasn't until he reached the center of the camp that he saw something that caused the frozen claws of fear to wrap their way around him.

Children, younger than them, chained to frozen shackles left dangling in the frigid, frost-bellowing wind, deep scars littered their bodies, fresh in nature, and as Artos stared, small spasms could be seen climbing through their bodies. To the right of his visage, he spotted a gigantic man, littered in dark furs. A long barbed whip rested lazily in his right palm, as he got ready to strike at a weeping boy. Watching as the barbed tip of the whip began to coil around itself midair, akin to that of a snake readying itself to strike, he quickly found solace by skirting his eyes elsewhere.

To the far right, sat an overly large hut, but that's not what drew Artos's eye. It was empty, there was no sign of life in the vicinity there.

With the asymmetry of the layout of the camp, it was positioned on the edge of the center ring, away from the few individuals Artos could see. Scanning downwards back towards the palisade, Artos found much the same, a weird emptiness. Although it was clear that the area wasn't abandoned, nor was it devoid of life.

"Do you all see the large tent in front of us?" Waiting for them all to see what he was talking about, he then continued. "It seems relatively empty. I want us to try to get in, take some much-needed equipment, and get out of there."

"Empty?" Celia asked.

"They might be on a patrol or something; I've got no idea."

The brows on Inigo's face tightened as he considered what he had heard. "Wait, wait. How are we going to get in? We can't just walk up to the front gate, and we can't scale the wall. We should just go ba-"

"Look!" Pyrrha cut off Inigo's lines of logic, pointing out towards where the ground rose haphazardly along the palisade causing slight gaps to appear around it. "It looks to be a slight gap there, we can squeeze through there."

Sharing a look with her, Artos noticed a fire was alight inside her emerald eyes, a deep hunger.

"Artos, what if we get caught?" Celia questioned quietly.

Looking out far in front of them, to the other side of the valley this camp was positioned in, Artos found his answer, in the howling winds coming their way. "There's a blizzard coming our way, if we get caught we slip out through that."

Pushing their way delicately down the steep slope of the hill, following in the same direction as the turbulent plumes of snow cascading down beneath them, they neared the palisade. It became clear that subtle rings of bronze were warped around the bottom of each spike of oaken wood.

Crouching their way toward the gap in the palisade, the sheer size of it awed Artos. Not because it was a building of beauty or innovation, but rather because each segment of the wall was made of singular tree trunks, and some of them stood as tall as 30 meters. Marveling at that fact, Artos quickly concluded that whatever this was, it wasn't built recently.

Beside him, Pyrrha's arms wrapped around his shoulders as she whispered into his ear, causing an unknown feeling of heat to spread through his body. "If we have to, I can try and push through the metal and increase the size of the gap slightly."

"Only do that if absolutely necessary. Let's not risk creating any noise," he whispered back, meeting her eyes. He saw a small smile had formed out of agreement. When she detached from him afterward, that strange warmth lingered under his skin from where she had touched him, much to his confusion. Adding to that confusion was also the fact that Celia was now glaring at Pyrrha.

The gap they had found within the wall wasn't man-sized, although it would still suffice. It was caused by a growth in the ground, causing one of the spikes of wood to splinter and lean slightly to the right, forming a small triangular entrance into the camp.

Crawling upon the snow-covered floor, they pushed and clawed their way through the small gap.

Upon coming up on the other side, the immediate aroma of bread and spices wafted through, disorienting his senses for a brief moment.

Turning to face the group, Artos raised a single finger to his lips, signaling them not to make any noise, and tentatively led them through the camp. Just as they had noted earlier, the part of the camp they were trudging through was relatively empty. As they passed by the open huts with their insides laid bare of valuable equipment, laden with small controlled flames no doubt used for cooking, it was clear the inhabitants were just somewhere else at the moment, opposed to not existing at all.

That thought was further reinforced when they turned past a particularly tattered hut. Up ahead, blocking their path, lay three fur-covered men, strewn across the frosted grass around a pit of flame. The stench of alcohol was strong, and cups littered the unconscious group in front of them.

Artos quickly ushered Pyrrha to go around the other side of the hut to check for them, only for them to freeze in place upon hearing shouting coming from that direction.

"Borgaf! Where's the fresh meat!" The deeply slurred growl was coming from the other side of them.

Squeezing Celia's shoulder, he quickly met her eyes and whispered, "We're going to be fine. Just follow me and watch your feet."

Taking careful steps to limit the noise of the audible crunch of frozen grass beneath their feet, they tiptoed their way past the spilled cups, the open flames, and finally past the heavy-breathing drunks. Refusing to turn his head back, they continued to make distance before the large hut he had seen earlier came into view.

Throwing caution to the wind, be it because of the pounding of blood or the adrenaline coursing through his veins, Artos started to jog, ushering with a wave for the others to follow him.

Getting to the outside of the lavishly sized hut, he pressed his back up against the wool walls, held his breath, and tried to hear for any noise from the inside.

One second passed, and nothing.

Five seconds passed, and still nothing.

Ten seconds passed in silence.

Satisfied, he ushered Pyrrha, who had positioned herself to the right of the flap that was the entrance, to push in.

Entering through the door, the sheer opulence of the 'hut' blew him away. It was a single open space with a dome roof, yet both gold and golden trinkets littered the walls, floor, and cupboards in abundance. Various types of weaponry lay bare. "How does a camp of bandits get this?" But that question would have to remain a mystery, as what quickly became apparent to Artos was the lack of Inigo.

"Where's Inigo? Celia, wasn't he with you?"

"Uhhmm, well... he uhm. He took a detour."

"What? And you just let him? Where?"

"Well, it's not like I could've stopped him without making noise."

Quiet footsteps from outside drew his attention. Shouldering Requiem, he lined the scope up with the entrance. "Pyrrha, the door." She shouldered herself adjacent to the entrance, her spear ready.

As the flap was pushed aside, she lunged with her spear, its edge pushed against the neck of Inigo. "Uhhh" was the only response he gave.

Dropping the spear to be flush against her side, she mumbled an apology.

"I found a bag and thought I might as well put some stuff in it, just to make sure we got something from this... whatever this is." Indeed, slung over his right shoulder was a cloth knapsack.

I can worry about all this later. Let's focus and get out of here first. "Alright, grab whatever you think is useful, and let's get the hell out of here."

Hanging on the far wall, next to an empty fur cot, were two large black camping backpacks. Artos quickly took one and tossed it to Pyrrha, and took the other for himself. Next to the cot was a gleaming jeweled black scabbard. Picking it up, he unsheathed it slightly to see. The weapon itself was made of the same shimmering black material, and golden mechanical switches lined the sheath of the blade.

He wasn't sure how long they were in there, but he was aware they had probably overstayed their welcome. All in all, they had managed to take a couple of water flasks, furs that they had both wrapped around themselves and stuffed into the bags they had found, a compass and a watch, pots, containers, rope, flint, and whatever else the others had managed to grab.

"We should take this as well." Turning to see what Pyrrha was talking about, he saw an now opened chest, full of golden trinkets and gems. "It will just weigh us down," he responded.

"One day we will get to Argus. There we will have to use money to survive, and I don't plan on going to an orphanage."

At that, Artos laughed; he couldn't help himself. Funny how when it came to your survival, wealth was meaningless, yet in order to get back into civilization, that's the only thing that mattered. "Take as much as you can without overburdening yourself." At that, he also went ahead and grabbed a handful of jewels and stuffed them into his filled bag.

"Artos, let's go, we have enough." It was at that moment that everything changed, as if by Inigo uttering those words, somehow willed it to happen.

A booming voice echoed from outside the hut. "Oi, Russel, I hear you're itchin' to get your dick wet."

"OH, piss off, you fucker, I'll be there in five minutes to pick a Runt."

Hearing the loud thumping footfalls coming toward them, it wasn't hard for him to put two and two together. "Hide," he both whispered and shouted at them, as he grabbed Pyrrha, who was closest to him, and pushed her in the direction of a low table to hide under before joining her himself. He spotted Celia moving to lay behind a thick standing weapons rack. As for Inigo, he thought he saw him slide under the now stripped cot.

A mountain of a man barged his way into the hut, his bulging arms and torso covered in thick animal skin, evident by a dangling fox head on his right shoulder. His visible pale skin covered in stains of dirt, scars, and sweat. From his position, Artos wasn't able to make out his face.

His thick metallic boots pounded against the rugged floorboard as he marched his way toward the table they were under, each step sending vibrations down Artos's spine. Face first with the man's armored kneecaps, the stench of rot began to waft through Artos, causing bile to rise in the back of his throat.

Above, something heavy slammed into the table, followed by a loud groan.

After what felt like minutes of silence, another yell roared through the confines of the hut. "Oi, who's been touching what's mine!"

The sudden clanging of dropped metal sounded off from where Celia was hiding, no doubt that the yell had startled her enough to kick something.

"Oh, who's here? Has a runt come all the way here just for me?"

No, no, no, no, no, no, was the only thing Artos could think of as the brute pounded his way toward where Celia was hiding. The fresh bloom of panic erupted inside him, a million thoughts going through his mind at once, none of them helpful. The slight smack to his arm, like a jolt of electricity, shocked him back to lucidity to see Pyrrha pointing to the metallic armor around the brute's knees, while a black wave of vapor appeared around her other hand.

He knew what he had to do.

The brute of a man pushed aside the weapons stand to reveal the small huddled form of Celia, his smile full of lust. He reaches for the little clothing she has on. "Ohh, a pretty one this one is, I'll enjo-" Suddenly a sharp force pulls him to his knees, and Artos lunges, one hand wrapping around his mouth, the other driving a serrated knife through the soft white flesh of his neck. The gurgling of blood muffled slightly by his hand, while blood sprayed messily around him.

Pulling the blade back, chunks of flesh came with it. As the body fell against the floor, and Artos stared into the lifeless wide eyes, angry slithering words wormed their way into his mind. Finally, you've come to join me...

A laugh echoes throughout his mind, one that wasn't his own, as a thick scent of ash began to consume his senses, causing all sound around him to cease, leaving him alone with the raspy wet cackling inside his own mind.

In front of him, he sees the wide fearful eyes of Celia. Like a sucker punch, it snaps him out of his mind.

Reaching down, he grabs the shaky Celia. "You okay?" an admittedly stupid question.

"No..."

The knowledge of this being his fault slammed into his frying psyche. Abruptly, a piercing screech sliced through the air, followed by a chorus of alarmed shouts outside the hut. Not panic, but alarm, cries of "They're back!" and "What's the haul this time?" bombarded their ears.

"Let's move! Inigo, check the door," Pyrrha's voice echoed through him, a steady anchor amidst the chaos. Celia scrambled to her feet, her voice trembling as she reached out to Artos. "Artos, you killed him!."

"Not now." He replied tersely.

"Outside's clear." came the call from behind.

"Back the way we came, let's go!" Artos commanded as they exited the hut. His eyes were instantly seared by the brilliance of the snowy landscape surrounding them. After a moment's adjustment, two critical observations leaped at him.

Firstly, the blizzard from before had made its way down the other side of the valley and was fast approaching them with an unnatural ferocity. Staring into it was akin to gazing into a white sun, an infinite swirling white vortex.

The second thing, and possibly the more alarming of the two, was the increased frenzy that had picked up around the camp. Shouts echoed in every direction, and bands of bandits sprinted haphazardly, especially one sizable group heading straight for them.

"This way," Artos hissed urgently, swiftly guiding them along a different, less occupied path, zigzagging through the narrow gaps between huts, piss, and fire in a desperate bid for an exit. In front of them, Inigo upon entering a rather large clearing against one side of the palisade, suddenly halted dead in his tracks, frozen in place. Catching up to him, Artos's eyes widened in horror.

Before them, chained to frozen rusty shackles, were broken children. Blood, both dried and fresh, flowed freely along their small starved bodies. Small weak breaths left them. One small boy, with particularly vivid blue eyes, stared at Artos with desperation. "Help... us. Please..."

"Who the fuck are you's?" To their right, a pair of bandits closed in on them.

"Fuck."

I'm sure nothing bad will happen, right?

Took longer than expected to write the chapter, due to myself going on holiday, and forgetting to bring my laptop.