The sun hadn't even fully cleared the horizon when the tension hit a breaking point. The headcount was wrong, and around these parts, the wrong headcounts usually meant some poor sod was currently being digested.
"He wouldn't just leave."
Gorm growled while pacing the small clearing, his hands opening and closing.
"Silas was with me for six years. He's got a wife back in River's End. He doesn't desert, not without his gear, and certainly not in the middle of a damn field of Giant Crabs."
"Hm, maybe he found a very interesting rock and followed it?"
Ignotus suggested while leaning against a tree and picking his teeth with a splinter.
"Honestly, that'd get me too."
"This isn't a joke, boy!"
Gorm snapped.
"One of my men is gone!"
Ignotus stopped picking his teeth and turned to Gorm.
He didn't look amused anymore, staring deep into Gorm's pupils, searching for that flicker of deceit or the shifty look of a man covering for a friend. Instead, he saw ugly sincerity.
