As everyone sat down, Berk started to talk pleasantries to Lucas and Demmie while Zoala joined with Barta and Wout. Her wolves and bears lying down around them as they formed a small defensive line for anyone wanting to get close.

  Demmie eventually stopped the small talk and would grab some papers he had on him. “So, I asked around for what the classic attack was and I have to say that I don’t think it’s a great idea. Due to the skeletons also having cavalry just sending out the archers won’t do much good.”

  “We have humans on our side so why not call back the cavalry let them ride out with the centaurs. If a horse get killed then the humans might survive the fall. If a centaurs gets shot in the same place then they go down and they’re out for the count, even if they survive, they won’t be able to flee let alone be rescued. So let the human cavalry merge with the centaurs, humans at the front and centaurs in the back.”

  Berk listened to everything that Demmie had to say, finding it a rather good idea. “I’ll talk to Lilly about that, anything else?”

  “Yes actually. Whenever the zombies arrive… If the zombies arrive then perhaps we should send a group of archers to them, let the zombies count as meat shields while they rain down hell upon them. From what you said they can’t do much more anyway.”

  “That idea isn’t too bad but we don’t have constant contact with the Zombie Gurge. We’re not fully sure when they’ll arrive here to help.” Berk grabbed a couple of mugs and a big bottle of something and started to poor the new people something to drink.

  “Okay then, how about this. For tomorrow perhaps we should try something called a testudo formation.”

  To that, Berk didn’t have much to say. He would lean back a bit as he tried to imagine what it would be. “I don’t know what that is.”

  Demmie grumbled and nodded more to himself as that was fair enough. He would then take a deep breath as he thought about how to explain it. “I’ve seen the shields you use. For this formation you need to have the big shields that the humans use. If you want then I could show you tomorrow. The point of this formation would be to be mostly protected against projectiles in the open field we’ll be in.”

  As they talked, Wout heard that Berk liked Demmies ideas quite a lot. He couldn’t push down the jealousy he felt, his eyes focused on both Lucas and Demmie. Before Demmie could continue to impress Berk, he would get up. “Berk, I would like to request for the humans to not be involved in strategy discussions.”

  While Zoala wasn’t so surprised with his outburst, Berk was very surprised. He tilted his head as he tried to understand the sudden cause of anger. “Why? What did they do in order to be removed?”

  “They have no right to be here? This is our Gruge that we’re talking about. These people here have no combat experience let alone a usefulness in battle. We don’t need them and they’re a security risk. They’ll do nothing but hide in the back lines and waste resources.”

  Berk shook his head, putting a hand on Wout’s hand to try and cool him down. “Easy there, Demmie is helping try to win this war. He supposedly has a lot of war experience.”

  Demmie nodded quickly, turning to Wout. “Not only that, I’ll be joining the infantry if I may. I believe that I could be much more useful out there then sitting back to watch people die.”

  That made Wout laugh, shaking his head before putting his hand onto his sword. “Yeah right, you fighting? You can’t do anything. I saw you when Lilly overthrew her mother. You were backing off, not even trying to stop her.”

  Berk wasn’t having any of this, holding up his hand to shut Wout up. “That’s enough.”

  While Berk tried to keep the peace, Demmie would get an idea, smiling as he got up as well. “How about we do a little duel? First one to surrender loses, then you can see if I’m worth it or not. If I win I get to keep my seat. If I lose I’ll go away.”

  To Wout this seemed like a good idea but not to Berk. “No, I’m not going to let you injure or kill each other!”

  Zoala started to have an idea for what Demmie was planning; “Aw come on, I’m sure they’ll be fine. Why not let it happen, boost the morale of our people with a little friendly competition?”

  Barta who didn’t know what Demmie had planned just liked to see people fight so he would grin at the idea. “Why not, it’ll be fun.”

  The not so quite talking about a friendly fight was quickly heard and encouraged with people coming closer. After hearing that it was Demmie against their general, bets were quickly placed with mostly everyone being against Demmie, not really putting him in high regard.

  Demmie got out of the circle of wolves with Wout following him. As Wout had his own sword, Demmie would look around for anyone wanting to give him his sword, ending up accepting the sword of a human infantry. The human swords were long and straight while the swords of the satyrs were a bit shorter and had a slight curve in the swords, making it curve forwards.

  Berk gave up, throwing his hands into the air as he seemed to be defeated. “Okay fine! Go ahead and don’t kill each other okay?

  As Demmie and Wout took their spots in front of each other, Demmie would start to taunt him, wanting to get him riled up. “What’s wrong? Scared that a human might beat you?”

  Wout was hurt pretty quickly, his ego starting to talk to him again. “Get ready and shut up, you’re going to regret this.”

  Barta had been given a horn by one of his people, going to stand closer to them as he would be making sure that nobody broke any rules. “Stop when either a cut is made or when someone surrenders and try to not kill each other. The fight starts when I blow on this horn.”

  He waited for both fighters to nod before taking a deep breath and blowing on the horn. It was a deep wailing that came out of it, causing a shiver in Demmie’s bones as he came closer to Wout.

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  Due to Wout being the general with the power to being extremely good at firing a bow and arrow, he didn’t fight a lot with a sword. Wanting to test the waters with his opponent, he would swing sideways, aiming to distract them as he quickly pulled back before the parry could come through and immediately thrusted his sword forwards, aiming at Demmie’s stomach. He wasn’t here to play nice and couldn’t care less if he managed to mortally wound him or not.

  He therefor was happy to see that Demmie hadn’t expected to already have to counter a fake attack. While his sword was still out to capture the sideways swing, he saw the sword come for his stomach instead. Unable to redirect his block, he had to jump back.

  Due to Demmie not having to block the thrust, he could already move for his own attack, letting the blade of his own sword slide over Wout’s sword and pushing him out of the way, making a thrust of his own.

  As the thrust was made, Wout felt that he lost power in the push, able to easily move the thrust to the side as he came closer, turning the sword to face forwards again and using the curve in the sword to go past the handguards and hitting Demmie’s fingers.

  A sudden pain ran through his hand as he felt the blade cut through his fingers, not able to hold the sword anymore and dropping it. While still looking at his fingers, he saw the blade come forwards once more and stabbing him in the chest. At first the pain only got worse, causing him to scream. That didn’t last long though, his voice cutting off as the blade pushed deeper, causing him to drop.

  Both berk and Barta seemed shocked, watching at how Wout just killed someone even though he knew that he won by him dropping the weapon. Unsure on how to handle this, both Zoala and Lucas just sat there smiling.

  Wout turned with a grin to Lucas, holding his sword ready as he got the taste of blood. “You want to try as well?”

  Lucas got up, stretching as he gave him a quick nod. “Sounds like a great idea.”

  The fact that he just stood there and accepted his challenge was surprising to him due to his friend having died just a second ago. That’s when he felt the cold feeling of steel underneath his chin.

  He froze, not daring to move as he slowly turned his head to see who dared to put his sword against his chin. When he saw that it was Demmie fully unharmed, he would be shocked. “What?”

  Demmie turned to Berk with a smile, slowly pulling his sword back as he took a couple of steps away from Wout in case that he would attack once more. “As you can see, I have the ability to come back from the dead, although with a price.”

  “But that’s not fair! I won the fight!” Wout was angry, pointing his sword to Demmie. “I drew first blood!”

  Barta being the decider would gesture for them both to calm down. “In terms of this fight, I declare Wout the winner. In terms of a fight to light and death, I declare Demmie the winner. Final decision, it’s a tie!”

  While Barta found this rather funny, everyone watching groaned and started to talk among each other. A tie wasn’t satisfying and didn’t come over so well. That’s when Lucas came in, holding two burning torches as he offered one to Wout.

  “Here, you challenged me so I choose the weapons.” While handing him the torch, he would have a grin on his face as he too was going to trick him.

  Wout didn’t look happy at all, putting away his sword as he would grab the torch and looked at it, slowly weighing it in his hand.

  As both fighters got in the position for the fight to start, Jackson and Demi joined the crowd, looking at the event that was unfolding.

  Barta got ready once more, lifting the horn as he looked at both combatants. “The first one to surrender wins. This means slightly burning the other person isn’t ground to winning. Ready?”

  “Wait no!” Lucas would looks for his bag, seeing that it was where he left it. “Demmie, could you get a pair of clothes out of my bag and put them in those bushes right there.”

  This request was rather weird but Lucas seemed satisfied with it, nodding at Barta. “I’m ready.”

  Wout didn’t say anything, focused on Lucas as he wasn’t going to lose this fight. His stance showing that even with these unusual weapons, he would still be a formidable opponent.

  As Barta sounded the horn and the battle started, it was obvious that Lucas wasn’t made for combat like this. The quick attacks from Wout weren’t meant to test him out but were meant to hit the torch out of Lucas’ hand. As Lucas was pushed further and further back, barely able to parry the hits, the torch would finally be hit hard enough for it to be knocked out of his hand.

  A big grin appeared on Wout his face, pointing the burning torch to him but unlike with Demmie he didn’t just try to kill him. “Do you surrender?”

  While Wout thought that he had won, Lucas just shook his head, spreading his arms. “Come on, do it.”

  Unsure of where this would go, Wout pushed the burning torch against his shirt, setting it on fire and therefor setting Lucas on fire as well. He didn’t yell or scream, feeling the warmth of the flames as they engulfed his body, eating at the clothes. He then looked at Wout and walked to wards him, grabbing the collar of his shirt as the flames slowly got closer and closer to Wout.

  He started to panick, trying to pull himself loose. “Let go! You’re going to burn me as well!”

  “Do you surrender then?”

  With the flames getting very close to his face, he would whimper a bit. “Yes I surrender! Let go!”

  Lucas let go of his collar, looking back at Berk as he spread his arms to show his burning body. “I’m unable to be hurt by fire. Now if you will excuse me.”

  He turned to the bush where Demmie had put some spare clothes and ran to it, pulling off the burning rags that were previously his clothes before jumping naked into the bush.

  While the resistance against fire was impressive, this display was rather funny to everyone around, loud laughter sounding through the trees.

  “What’s so funny?” From the side with the least spectators emerged two people out of the bushes, one of which was Ninke while the other one was Keanu together with a bunch of wolves of their own.

  The appearance of this new person made people look at her surprised, never having seen a half human half wolf creature.

  Berk looked at Demmie as he didn’t know who else to ask. “She with you?”

  He shook his head, tilting his head as he looked at her, finding her fascinating. “No, although I wish she was.”

  With them being here uninvited, everyone seemed a bit hesitant on welcoming her, some even grabbing weapons. Berk on the other hand would just smile at her. “What can I do for you?”

  Ninke gave him a smile back, looking around for Lucas as she had heard him not so long ago in this area. “I came for Lucas, he invited me here.”

  Lucas came out of the bushes, seeing Ninke and Keanu in front of him. “Hey! You made it!”

  With the mystery solved, everyone seemed to relax a bit, everyone except Zoala. She looked at the wolves that were with Ninke, starting to talk to them.

  This caught the attention of Ninke, looking at the wolves that had been following Zoala. She couldn’t directly talk to the wolves like Zoala could but she would order her own wolf forwards.

  The people watched how Zoalas wolves got up and walking towards Ninke, one by one joining her group leaving Zoala with the bears.

  “What? How?” Zoala seemed shocked that her wolves got taken away so easily, shaking her head.

  “I’m half wolf. I guess that you just didn’t feel like the leader they needed.” Ninke seemed smug at this, going to Lucas and hugging him before turning back to Zoala. “I take it you’re the leader here?”

  Berk got up and held out his hand for Ninke to shake it. “No that would be me. What can I do for you I these dire times?”

  “Dire? You and your people seemed to be having a party.” She raised her eyebrows as she knew what was going up but she wanted to mess with Berk.

  “Good moral does more for the troops than a depressed bunch of soldier going to die. They need to feel alive in order to survive.”

  “I guess that you’re right. I’m here to join the fight. I know that just two people can’t do a lot but that’s why I brought almost my entire family.” She said gesturing to the wolves. “And let me tell you this, they do love to break bones.”

  Still with a big smile did Berk turn to look at his generals, seemingly being a bit angry as well. “Could you please make sure that this can’t happen again? Double the guards on patrol.”