Chapter 171: Holy Magic
Milo and his younger brother Lako crouched behind a sodden and decaying log, watching the column of human soldiers sort themselves out before resuming their march deeper into the forest.
The bodies of the slain humans were quickly wrapped in their own cloaks before they were taken up by the unarmored humans following in a second group behind the first. Looking at the faces of the ones gathering the bodies of the slain, they seemed indifferent, as though they were harvesting vegetables or hauling garbage rather than retrieving the remains of slain kin.
"They still haven’t turned back," Lako said, his flat tail thumping the ground lightly in agitation. "Do they care nothing for the lives of their soldiers?"
"They only care about the knights and the priests," Milo said, pointing at the men with elaborately painted shields or wearing the robes of the Church. "The rest of their soldiers might as well be arrows to be fired from a bow. Good if they survive to be used again, but clearly they shed no tears for their deaths."
"It’s hard to deal with the knights," Lako said as he prepared to move again. "I can’t punch through their armor at more than fifty paces but they cover that much ground too quickly."
"Keto is luring them toward the third line of traps," Milo said with a heavy sigh. "If we can’t make them pay a high enough price there, the village is likely lost."
"Mother..." Tears formed in Lako’s eyes before he forcefully blinked them away. What kind of sons were they if they let humans tear apart the village their family had built over four generations? Old Nan wouldn’t abandon their homes, no matter what which meant that Milo and Lako had to stop these humans, no matter what.
"Come," Milo said, tugging on his brother’s cloak. "We’ll stop them at the next line. Since the knights are hard, we should target the priests."
"You’re right," the younger man from the Heartwood clan said. "Maybe if their slave drivers fall, the soldiers will have the freedom to retreat."