Guardian's Farm 21

Eli looked better, but I still gave him another checkup before I started asking questions. There was no immediate danger, the high-grade medicine the spies had with them doing wonders. He still needed several days of rest, as even the best medicine was not instant when it came to the human body; but he was out of immediate danger.

“Tell me what happened?” I asked Eli, afraid that it was my fault. “How did you end up here?”

“M-master, you have to believe me. I’m not a cultist!” he gasped as he reached for me desperately.

I grabbed his hand, squeezing gently as I caressed his head. “That was never in doubt, don’t worry about it,” I said. “Just tell me what happened. The details are important.”

They certainly were. The reason why he had been captured was important, and not just because it was important to confirm the guilt burning in my heart. The details were important to the eventual escape plan.

“It all started yesterday,” he started, speaking with great difficulty. “I decided to go further away, hoping to find more valuable plants I could sell.”

I said nothing as he took a deep breath before continuing, doing my best not to mention how risky such a move was. It was not important right now. Instead, I squeezed his hand once more, encouraging him to continue.

“While exploring the forest, I found a diseased patch. It reminded me…”

“Reminded you what?” I asked, seeing his hesitation.

“It reminded me of the tales about the Blight,” he said, hesitant like he expected me to get angry as well. I just nodded. He continued. “And like hunters always did, brought some samples back to the village elders. Just in case it’s something that spreads to the crops.”

“Did the village elders accuse you of being a cultist for bringing a sample,” I asked, already tensing up. While I didn’t expect it to be the Blight, there were not many natural diseases that would make people throw the word ‘cultist’ around. Suddenly, I found myself wishing that his plight was due to his technique.

“No, they went to the town, to report the Castellan about the disease … but guards returned without them and arrested me, declaring me a cultist.”

I bit my lip, feeling angry at the reaction of the local nobles. Yes, I didn’t expect another dangerous magical disease like the Blight. Unlike what most people believed, Blight and the other similar magical maladies weren’t exactly diseases. They acted similarly, but only because they had a focus, which was the Dragon of Darkness.

However, knowing that didn’t excuse the reaction of the local nobles, doing their best to suppress the news … for whatever reason.

I didn’t want to immediately reach the worst conclusion. There could be many reasons for a local noble to temporarily suppress the news, some relatively benign like improving his grain reserves before the prices inevitably increased … some significantly less benign.

Looking at the two mysterious spies laying on the cell floor, and the threats of execution, I was willing to believe that it would be the second.

“And, how did the two get involved?” I asked.

“When I was brought to the dungeon,” he said. “At first, it was the guards, beating me while asking me to admit I was a cultist before my …”

“Execution?” I completed, afraid of his words.

“Yes, I was supposed to be executed early in the morning,” he admitted, looking lost. I didn’t blame him. The idea of death was never easy, but there was a great difference between a sudden fight and a slow wait in a cell.

“Then, what happened?”

“At some time, these two arrived, unchaining me before questioning me about the exact spot I had discovered the disease, and the exact details of the spread. I explained all, hoping that they would believe me, that I was not a cultist. But, once I finished, they declared I would still be executed… Then…”

I could connect the dots from there. “You tried to fight back.”

“Yes,” he said with a chuckle. “I had nothing to lose. They took me down in seconds, but instead, they sent all the guards away and emptied the dungeon. Only then, they start questioning me about where I had learned the technique.” He took a deep breath. “What you taught me, it’s not Ember Jab, is it?”

“No,” I said. “It’s an advanced technique, one that is almost identical at its early stages, very hard to distinguish.”

He swallowed hard, voice trembling. “T-thank you for it, master,” he whispered. “If it wasn’t for their curiosity, I would have been dead already.”

Hearing that my secretive teachings weren’t the source of his pain didn’t resolve my guilt, not fully. Only seeing him like that I realized I had been arrogant. I had been confident that it was safe to play the mysterious teacher without explaining everything to him properly.

Things could have ended worse. Much worse.

“That’s all?” I asked.

“All the important points. I can still —” he started, but I interrupted him.

“That’s enough. Now, calm down and rest. Try to nap a bit. It’ll help you to recover faster. Hopefully, we will have until the evening before we try to escape, but I want you to be ready to act faster,” I said.

“I don’t think I can sleep,” he said. “When I close my eyes …”

“Don’t worry. I’m right here. I’ll protect you,” I said.

“T-that helps,” he said as he closed his eyes, but I could see that he was far from being able to fall asleep. I patted his head to remind him I was next to him, but my mind was occupied with what I had learned.

The situation was bad. Just the idea of a local noble executing people for discovering a diseased patch of forest was bad enough. Even the most mundane explanation for such a thing was not something easily swallowed.

Then, there was the visit from the Royal Rangers, one that I had dismissed as merely a way of showing force once I realized they were not there for me. But, what if the situation was different? What if they had been sent here to search for the same thing Eli had stumbled upon.

If so, things were much worse, especially since they had detected nothing — or worse, hid their discoveries. I hoped that it was the first, as I didn’t want to believe that every single ranger belonging there was corrupt enough to hide a disease possibly linked to the Dark.

I hoped the more benign explanation was true, that they missed it because of a mixture of their obvious lax attitude and the disease not spreading too far just yet.

Not that it mattered at this moment, I decided as I turned my attention to the two. Regardless of the complicity or collaboration of the rangers in the situation, the presence of two experienced spies, actively involving themselves in the situation was enough to confirm whatever that was going on was extraordinary.

A personal visit to the diseased area was necessary to understand the situation. I needed to see if the disease was serious enough to be compared to the Blight. If so, I might have to break my self-imposed isolation to send some pointed letters.

Maybe one to Thorin as well, reminding him to take his job seriously or else…

While I was lost in thoughts, I noticed Eli’s breathing calming down, signaling that he was asleep. Exhaustion and painkillers seemed to have worked for now, but I stayed close, knowing how quickly a restful sleep could be invaded by nightmares.

“Now, all that remains is what I’ll do with you two,” I said as I looked at the two unconscious spies, wondering if it would be worth it to question them.

It would not. I didn’t know enough about the situation to begin interrogating them reliably, and it was not something I was good at in the first place. Against two trained professionals, under a time limit, in a dangerous location … it was not a challenge I was confident in.

As for torturing them like they did Eli, I had no intention of doing so. A part of it was moral objection, but also I never believed that torture was a good way to get reliable information. After a point, they would just want the pain to stop and tell whatever it took, true or not.

That left one last question. What to do with them before I escaped. In my younger days, I would have wrestled with the idea of killing an unconscious man.

Unfortunately for the spies, I was no longer young.