Commander Braghaman Larethian

Kidnapping

The two men stood in the shadow of the trees, not too far back from the road. They gazed between the houses at the main road of Darkshire, not daring to speak much for fear of being noticed. Dressed in dark leathers, they watched. Then, the door of one of the buildings opened and a young boy stepped outside.

“There he is,” said one of the two men, tapping the other on the arm with the back of his hand. The second man nodded. The two of them tensed as they watched the boy adjust his tunic and look back towards the center of town. Then they both jumped slightly when a voice spoke to them.

“Wacha doin’?”

The two men turned and looked around the shadows, finally settling their sights on an imp standing behind them.

“What the fel?” one of the men hissed.

“Its an imp,” the other man whispered.

“I can see its an imp! What’s he doing here?”

The imp tilted his head to the side and grinned. “Wacha doin’?” He looked at the two men and then looked back to the road. “Ohhhhhh,” he said, his grin widening.

The two men turned back towards town to see the boy had started walking on the road towards them.

“I’ve got a question,” the imp said.

“Just ignore him,” the first man told his companion, turning back to the road. 

“How long do they have to be asleep?”

“What?” the second man asked.

“Well, do they have to be asleep for a while? Or can they just be falling asleep?”

“What?”

“Well how long to the have to be napping before you can take them?”

“They don’t have to be asleep?”

“Well they don’t call it kid awakening. That would be stupid,” the imp replied. “And also, how old is too old? Do they still have to be babies? Can they be teenagers?”

“Stop talking,” the first man demanding with another hiss.

“‘Well, its not called adult-napping after all. Or adult-wakening.”

“Just ignore him and keep your mind on the job,” the first man said, turning his back to the imp.

“Ohhhh….” the imp said with a chuckle. “You can’t kidnap him. He’s protected.”

“Protected? By you?”

“Oh no,” the imp said with a cackle. “Not me. Oh no. Him,” he said, cackling even louder as he pointed back to the trees. The two men looked at each other and then turned towards where the imp was pointing. From the shadows, a felhound stepped forward and snarled. Its lips curled back and bared sharp fangs.

—

A scream echoed between the houses. Three of the Night Watch guards turned towards the sound just in time to see two men come running out of the trees. Their clothes were torn and shredded as they stumbled to the street. The guards ran to the men as they fell to their knees on the road.

“What happened?” one of the guards asked.

“We were attacked,” one of the men answered in between gasping for air.

“By what?”

“A monster,” the second man responded.

“Sir,” one of the other guards interrupted. “Look. Claw and bite marks,” he added, pointing to the men’s wounds.

“Right,” the first guard replied with a nod.  “Could be feral. Put them into quarantine until they can be checked out.”

The other members of the Night Watch picked the men up from the ground and drug them back towards town. The last member of the militia was preparing to follow the others, he heard something coming from the area that the two men had appeared from.

“Suckers.”