FicWad

"What if this is all a renegade trick?" One of the elders from the Woverin council growled.
Micah frowned at him, "you all know that my mother has said that the renegades want peace. They would not attack us without provocation." He looked at the other elders, then at Delta. "This is something different, and we have to find out what it is. I say we send out trackers to investigate. They can go to Delta's village and see what they find."
"We will discuss this, then give you our decision." The chief elder said, then the council filed out of the room.
Micah sat down beside Delta, "it'll be ok," he said reassuringly, and she smiled shakily.
"Is your mother a renegade?" She asked, remembering his comment earlier.
Micah nodded his head, "she's living in a renegade village, with my soon to be stepfather, although I imagine by now they've gotten married."
"Then you're half human." Delta said with a surprised tone.
Before Micah could reply the elders filed back in and the chief elder stood up, "we have decided to allow the woman to lead two trackers back to her village. They will investigate and report their findings back here. We will decide what course of action to take from there."
With those words, the council was dismissed and two trackers approached Delta.
"We are supposed to with you to the village," one of them said, then bowed when he saw Micah.
"I'm going with you," Micah said, "I think I should see what transpired there."
The trackers bowed again and quickly left.
"You don't have to go," Delta said.
"Yes I do," Micah replied, "I'll take you back to the palace, then gather the supplies we'll need."

"My village is just over that rise," Delta said. She started up it, but Micah but a restraining hand on her arm.
"Let us go first just in case," he said and she nodded.
They silently slipped up the hill gasping at their first sight of the village. It had been totally burned out and there were dead bodies laying where they had fallen. Micah heard Delta cry out behind him and before he could stop her she ran down the hill. Micah and the trackers followed her quickly. Delta fell to her knees beside an older woman whose throat had been cut, she began to sob as she gathered the old woman in her arms.
Micah turned to the two trackers, "check and see if anyone is alive."
They nodded their heads and split up as Micah knelt beside Delta.
"My grandmother was an old woman, not strong enough to hurt anyone," Delta said with anger. "But they killed her anyway."
Micah gently put his hand on Delta's shoulder, "I'm so sorry Delta," he said softly. "I promise we'll find who did this and punish them."
He stood up and offered Delta his hand, "we need to see if there are any survivors." He said quietly, "your grandmother will be buried with honor."
After gently laying her grandmother on the ground, Delta took his hand allowing him to raise her. They quickly walked through the burned out village, meeting Lucien one of the trackers along the way.
"No one yet," he said as they continued through the village together.
Suddenly Delta stopped, Micah turned to her and began to speak, but she held up her hand to silence him.
"Do you hear that?" She asked, and Micah cocked his ear. A faint crying was coming from the debris of a burned out home. Micah and Lucien quickly began to remove the rubble and soon uncovered a door in the blackened floor. Opening it up they looked down into a root cellar, where a young woman sat holding a crying baby. She screamed when she saw Lucien, begging him to spare her child.
Delta quickly pushed past them, "Halie," she said and the woman began to cry tears of joy.
Delta turned to Micah, "we need to get a rope to raise her," she said and Lucien quickly unclipped the rope he kept on his belt. Lucien quickly tied the rope to a post, then slid down the rope, gently lifting Halie and her baby up in his arms. Micah pulled until they were out of the cellar. Delta ran over to Halie hugging her and the baby hard.
"How did you survive?" She asked in joy.
"When the village was attacked," Halie said shivering as she remembered, " Vish told me to take Miles and hide in the cellar, he threw a rug over the door so it was hidden." She looked around, "where is Vish?"
Delta looked down, before answering. "I'm sorry Halie but Vish is dead. It seems we're the only two survivors. I only survived because I was in the woods gathering mushrooms. I heard the sounds of the attack and ran. I ended up at the city, where I found help."
She turned to Micah, "this wasn't the work of trackers, this is something more sinister."
A sound of a footstep made, Lucien and Micah turn, swords raised. But it was only Tarin, the second tracker.
"I didn't find any survivors," he said, "but I did find this."
He held out an amulet, Micah took it and swore.
"What is it?" Delta asked concerned.
"It's the symbol of Vasilis," he said disgusted. "He was a Woverin overlord, but was banned for his cruelty. This is just the sort of act he would commit."
Micah placed the amulet in his bag, "Go find some shovels and we'll bury as many as we can. we need to get back the city quickly. If Vasilis is behind this then there's no telling where he'll strike next." Lucien and Tarin moved quickly to follow his orders, and they began to bury the dead villagers as fast as they could before sundown.