Loriel realized from the way he was talking that Greeves had no intention of going with them. She looked over to the girls. They were already standing up from the furs that they'd been seated on for hours. She wasn't sure if they were just that afraid of the noises of battle, and that anxious to leave, or whether it was the corpse in front of them that was driving them to move so hastily.
"What about you?" She asked, as they gathered at the door to the tent. Greeves gave her a tense smile back.
"I'll see you halfway there," he said. Then he reached down towards the soldier's sword belt and drew the blade. He wasn't able to make it look light in his hand. In fact, he let out an audible groan at the weight of it. "How are they swinging this like it's nothing?" He muttered to himself.
There was another thudding boom from across the battlefield. All of them looked up at once, like startled forest animals. They couldn't even think to imagine what the noise might be. They had no conception of men like Gorm – warriors of that calibre. Most of them had lived quietly, amongst villages, even despite the darkness that riddled all their pasts.
They could not fathom that a giant of a man had managed to cut through several thick wooden stakes with but a single swing of his mighty axe. If they'd paused to consider it, it might have frozen them to the spot in shock. They certainly wouldn't have trusted in Greeves' vault quite as much.
They dared to make their way outside. Greeves led them, with the sword in his hand, pretending that he even had the slightest idea of how to use it. All the while, he was muttering under his breath. "Damn it... Where's that Judas? All that gold, and when it counts, he's off fighting someone else's battle."
They could see nothing amongst the camp as they stuck their heads outside. Only the flickerings of dying torches that had been left. The camp was all but deserted, a painfully quiet dome absent of life.
And then to the sides of it, when one strained their ears ever so slightly, they could hear the screams, the clang of metal on metal, and the whooshing and thudding of arrows.
As Greeves rushed to leave the encampment, he heard the whooshing of more arrow fire from the south, and he cast his gaze towards the sky.
THUD!
An arrow landed uncomfortably close to his foot.
'Where are you, boy..?' He found himself muttering. By now, as he ran, he was getting a better view of the battlefield. He was beginning to be able to make out faces, and the backs of soldiers. But the one person that he was looking for, the one person he'd dare to put any sort of hope in, his back was entirely absent.
Greeves knew nothing of battle, but he could hardly believe that the situation was so dire if that boy was still out there fighting.
Greeves searched, but his gaze never found him.
Beam was wedged behind a gaggle of tents, as he was forced further and further back into his encampment, as he attempted to deal with the Yarmdon that were breaking through, that the squadrons were unable to hold back.
There was getting to be a fair distance between him and the line of stakes now. At least ten steps. If Beam looked over his shoulder, the first canvas of a tent would not be that far away – and the number of Yarmdon only kept increasing.