Lowil nodded once, still very upset by the Ranger’s previous words. “I suppose that I’ll need some more water at this point though. It’s probably all boiled away by now.”
“Ranger Tracker Marce,” the older man offered as an introduction. “That there is Ranger Scout Petriv. I prefer my tea strong.”
“Noted,” Lowil smiled through pursed lips. “If we’re all staying the night, I can use some help inside and we’ll need to find some extra food for everyone.”
Braun rubbed at his stomach and swallowed hard, “Count me out, I need to… uh…”
Petriv waved his hand dismissively, “Just go, and don’t come back until you’ve washed yourself at least twice.” He very aggressively rubbed some more dirt on his hand again, as if hoping that he could rub off the tainted layer of skin. He spat in the dirt to cleanse his mouth and walked over to his superior and their horses.
Marce nodded once in satisfaction, jerked the rope with the prisoner attached, and sauntered over to his horse alongside his partner. “So boy, just who are you accused of murdering? Some neighbor’s goats?”
“No,” Kre replied curtly. Like Lowil, he was none too thrilled about these Rangers, despite his growing up idolizing their mission and way of life. He decided to be more careful with his words, just in case they might try to use them against him and try to haul him away themselves. “The charge is that I murdered some random traveler, but I claim it was self-defense as he was going to kill me and another.”
“Probably an elf drifter, like this one here.” He pulled hard on the rope and the young girl dropped to her hands and knees. The older Ranger placed his boot on her back and laughed. “Ever see an elf, an Ylveryan, in the flesh, boy?”
Kre shook his head. By the time he understood what it meant to either be a citizen of Tehyn or an Ylveryan native, the Tehynshin military had already pushed the natives back over the newest demarcation line. It had been like that for decades, with the Tehynshins expanding their own borders at the expense of the native peoples, the Ylveryans.
Once, they had been close allies, with the Ylveryans taking in the refugees from the other land. They helped the new migrants establish a new home, gave them fertile lands, taught them how to hunt and provide for themselves, and trained them in the arts of fighting, in case their pursuers ever came after them.
No one thought that the newly named Tehynshins would use those same skills against the very people that helped raise them up to stand on their own two feet. They used diplomacy at first, petitioning the Ylveryans for more land to accommodate their vastly growing population. The native people were reluctant, but eventually determined that the land was for all people to share, so they relented.
After a while, the migrants stopped asking and simply took. The clashes between angry natives protecting their homes and migrants finding seeking some form of manifest destiny were savage and bloody. The Ylveryan people eventually signed a treaty, essentially declaring that the Tehynshins could, at the simple stroke of a pen on a map, carve out new borders for themselves. What remained of the Ylveryans retreated deep into mountain caves and thick forests, places that should remain untouched by the Tehynshins for many years while they explored more fertile and strategic lands.
“Guess you wouldn’t, thanks to protectors like us,” the Ranger continued. “Every now and again, some of these scum wander out of their hideaways, looking to make a quick coin or possibly to exact some sort of insurgent justice on our towns. They’re easy to spot once you know what to look for.”