Armen and Mariette stay in the room for the remaining hours of the day, occasionally eating bits and pieces of food from the market. Though, they were beginning to run low on such produce, with only a single tomato and leek, alongside a chuck of beef and enough bread for a few more rips. They elect to trouble the badger below for some of the stew that hung in a pot over the flame behind the bar. Not exactly endeared to the prospect of eating the perpetual slop, they acknowledged that it were better than starving.

  As night overtakes the town, and Armen lights the candle on the table, Mariette stares through the small window in the wall that overlooks the road that they entered on a few days ago. She yawns and stretches languidly. Despite her lacking day, apparent fatigue were lingering upon her shoulders. Her eyelids grew heavy with every passing moment. She goes to lay down, Armen sat in the chair and toyed with a dagger for a while before sliding it into the calf of his boot. He too, retires for the evening, laying down in his corner.

  Mariette watches him a moment with guilty eyes. Though she desired to offer the bed to him, she also knew that his pride would assure that he remains upon the floor. She sits on the bedside and watches him while he faces the wall and begins to succumb to sleep.

  After a while, she too, decides to lay down and slumber. Though as she lay down, her stomach grumbles. Not in hunger, no, in sickened discomfort. "Oh goodness, this is embarrassing. I fear that rancid gruel is not agreeing with me." she thinks to herself. She looks over at Armen, who stirred none; a light snoring echoing from the corner. "Okay. He sleeps, surely I can pass by him without forcing myself to admit my cause for leave. The latrine is only just outside, I won't be long. He won't even know I've left."

  Tentatively, she swings her feet over the bedside and stands, clutching her gut while she half-limps through the room. Each step a new tumultuous grumble that vibrated through her hand. She descends the stairs and makes for the door, now forcing herself to walk with as much as speed as possible before she is no longer able to hold herself. In her frenzied walking, she doesn't notice the familiar faces that were in the tavern. Those same brigands and their friends, all sitting at that same table as before, watching her as she hurriedly rushes outside and around the building...

  Armen wakes to the sound of yelling outside the window. He turns over to ensure that Mariette were still asleep in her bed. His heart sinks as he sees the empty depression where she would lay. A stone drops in his gut as again he hears the sound of yelling below his window, howe're, the voice that hollered were the familiar tenor of Mariette. He quickly stands up, grabbing his sword and tying the belt around his waist. He rushes to the window and peers outside over the sill. On the ground below, Mariette was being accosted by the same heathens from before, only now the three of them were together and on horseback, circling her menacingly. "HEY!" Armen shouts from his perch, "Away from her, immediately!"

  The group all shoot sneering smirks up at the window, their defiant malign grins only served to enrage Armen. The Doberman that had suffered Armen's boot from before, swoops his arm down and hooks underneath her shoulder, yanking Mariette from the ground and pulling her over the horn of his saddle. She cries in surprise and tries striking the manolon as he grappled her onto his horse. She lands a lucky strike against his swollen eye and he yelps in pain. He pulls a devastating arm back and punches her in the side of Mariette's jaw, knocking her unconscious. As she lay limp across the back of the steed, Crallen, the doberman, looks up at the window and grins before they all tauntingly cantor away down the street, out of sight. Tugging along with them the very rouncey that Armen and Mariette rode into town.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Armen speeds across the room and downstairs into the tavern. The badger was at the corner of the bar, coming around to aid Mariette but too late, a look of shock and fear plastered across his face after having witnessed the kidnapping. His fear, now directed to Armen as he storms to the counter. Armen slams a fist atop the bar, "Where doth those cretins run to?" his voice quivering in such rage that it reverberated through his helmet.

  The badger looks around, his breath hiking up as he begins to panic. He knew the stories of the inquisition and what things they did, and he certainly was not willing to see them in action firsthand. Rather to suffer by the ire of a gang than the Holy Covenant of Kingdoms' very own vanguard. Glancing around the room, he sees the old bloodhound at the table in the corner, where the group usually sat. The barkeep points a shaky finger at him, where he lay passed out on the table top. "He...he would know better than I... He barters with them..."

  Armen flicks his eyes over to look where the barkeep points, recognizing the bloodhound as the same one he had seen earlier with the crew, he marches over. The hound was unaware of the imminent danger he was in while he snored on the table, a puddle of saliva pooling around his drooping chops. Armen, after pulling the dagger from his boot mid-stride, grabs the long and floppy ears of the bloodhound. With a single decisive kick, Armen sweeps a leg of the chair, allowing it to fall over with the manolon crashing to the ground with it.

  He groans and sits up, "Hey now... Who the hell is pulling pranks?" As he looks up to see Armen towering over himself, his eyes widen in surprise and fear, sobering him immediately. Armen tugs up with his ears, silently informing the elder of his precarious situation, "Your friends... That doberman and his gaggle of bastards. Where are they??" His voice is laced with a barely contained rage, begging to be released.

  "I-I don't know... maybe at-"

  The elderly manolon's words are halted as Armen yanks his floppy ears and uses them as pulls to crack his head against the wall. Then he hoists him up by those very ears that nearly tear off and slams him down against the top of the table. The empty tankards clattering off of it and onto the floor. Armen hisses in the elder's ear, "Utter no lies unto me, for my patience is spent... Where?"

  "Truly... I... I know nothing of them..." the elder manolon begins to shiver in fright as Armen handles him like a bushel of wheat. His voice quivers and he stumbles over his own words.

  Armen uses the elder's ears once again to pull his head up, then send him crashing against the table once more. The finality of his action is punctuated by using the dagger he held to pin his ears to the splintery wooden top. The elder howls in agony as his ears are punched clean through and tacked to the table like a poster.

  Armen begins to pull the manolon's head back, his ears slowly slicing along the blade of the dagger. "I will not ask again, fool. I know you associate with them."

  "Okay! Okay! Wait! No more, please! I know not their specifics... but I do know that if they ever intend to keep out of sight or lay low for a while, they found an abandoned cellar where they gather often... I can take you! No more!"

  Armen, through gritted teeth growls into the elderly bloodhound's ear as he lay pinned against the table, "If you take me to anywhere but where they have taken my companion, I shall personally stake you upon a pyre."

  "Took someone!? What do you mean? Abduction?" The old hound spoke as if it were shocking that he learned of such news.

  "Silence! Lead me where they hide..." Armen demands, plucking the dagger from the table with a chime, releasing the manolon.