Summoned! To Grimworld

Chapter 8: When One Has Menus, One Should Use Them

When the menu alert flashed before her eyes, Sina halted the swing of her hammer and lay down among the brown leaves of the bushes feeling extremely frightened.

War with the Ark Andulan tribe

An Ark Andulan raiding party have entered your territory. Your current standing with the Ark Andulan is -100 (hostile). You are at war with the Ark Andulan.

Reward: retain your life and freedom.

If she hadn't seen this alarming message, Sina would have thought the day a pleasant one. Clear blue sky; charming birdsong; progress in the building of their camp, or base as the menu put it. Now a sense of menace caused her stomach to clench with fear. In her life on Earth Sina had been warned about kidnappers and robbers but had never encountered any genuine threat to her freedom. Here, the menu told her that she was in serious danger. Retain your life and freedom. Was her death at hand? Was some terrible tribesman about to leap upon her with a lethal dagger or spear?

For public events back on Earth, there had always been someone from security to turn to for advice. Regretfully, Sina had to admit that she had always been cold towards her bodyguards, scorning them because the prospect of being assaulted had always seemed so remote. The most that any of her security staff had ever needed to do was to gesture away members of the public who were too keen to get a selfie with a princess. Now though, Sina desperately wished for a companion who was an expert in combat, who could be counted on to do their best to protect her, and whose instructions she could follow in order to survive.

Where were the raiding party coming from? Should she run? But which way? It would be all too easy to run straight into an Ark Andulan slaver instead of to safety. Crawl deeper into the bushes then? But that would make some noise and it might already be too late. Best be perfectly still, as though she was a child again playing a game of hide and seek.

Listening intently, ready to take off should anyone rustle among the branches, Sina heard a distant whistling sound followed by a crack – like a tree branch breaking – and then a soft thump. Soon afterwards footsteps ran past her about ten metres away, moving along the stream from the forest toward the sea. That was towards the direction of the cracking sound. When the running stopped, there came voices, indistinct, about a hundred metres away.

Slowly, ever so slowly and carefully, hardly breathing, Sina crawled beneath the lowest branches of the bushes until she could glimpse through a dense network of leaves to where a group of people were standing together, looking at something on the ground. There were three of them, no four: two women; two men. And they had Marcus! Her companion was lifted up from the ground and a noose was around his neck. Poor Marcus.

The slavers moved away southwards, a small man with a gun walking backwards and looking around as he did so. For a moment it seemed that this man's gaze had met hers but with a wave of relief he carried on southwards without hesitation. A shameful thought occurred to her: thank God these people – the Ark-Andulan presumably – had captured Marcus not her. Of course, she could justify that feeling: a woman prisoner was more likely to be raped than a man; Marcus was smart, he would find a way to escape; it was best if Sina was the one of them who remained free as she was more able to complete the quests here for their base. But it was no good. As much as she could be, Sina was always honest with herself. And being honest, that was a terribly selfish thought. A decent person would sacrifice themselves to save their friends. Marcus. Was he a decent man? He was a little touchy and like all men, somewhat given to taking charge. But he did seem to be good at heart. And where he had fallen was in the opposite direction to the base. Had he deliberately tried to move the slavers away from Sina?