Passive Pillager [better] Today

Kaelen had his orders. “Passive or not, a pillager is a pillager. Report their location. The captain will send a squad.”

But each night, he watched them through his spyglass. They didn't raid. They didn't burn. They foraged for wild onions, built no fires (too afraid of the smoke giving them away), and slept in turns while one kept a silent watch. The older woman, whom the others called “Marrow,” spent her evenings tending to the crossbowman’s festering arrow wound—an old injury, not from battle, but from a boar’s tusk. passive pillager

Marrow’s weathered face cracked into a small, tired smile. “I can heal her. I was a bonesetter’s apprentice before the warlord’s men took me.” Kaelen had his orders