Maria awoke to the sounds of groaning and yelling echoing through the camp, from inside the tent. She had fallen asleep reading the book Odhan had given her, sprawled, undignified, among her piles of sorted artifacts.
At first, she thought she was just hearing the groans and yells of returning captured slaves. But the voices were too deep, and pained, for that to be the case. Maria rushed to the entrance of the tent, not caring that she was wearing nothing but her loincloth, out into the warm night.
In the flickering shadows of the bonfires lit around camp, she saw the returning raiders – many limping along, some being carried, though the majority of them seemed to be fine. Maria could not tell whether those being carried were wounded or dead. She felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach.
“Odhan?” she yelled, running out into the camp towards the lines of returning men. She could hear someone else yelling his name as well, though she did not know who it was. “ODHAN?!”