text: [Themes: sci-fi]
  
  You meet up with ninteen other men. They're mostly older but not quite to the point where they've become long of tooth and grey of beard.
  
  Mr. Hefran is there and gives the group a general direction of where to go. The attacks have been happening to the East near where the stream carrying gold flecks is. You don't have a specific place to look where they might be camped. You do know that they most likely came from further east though.
  
  After that little bit of direction Mr. Hefran introduces a man named Michael Farmer.
  
  "I'll be the Captain of this group. We'll go quietly and if possible quickly. No camp fires at night so I hope you've brought plenty of furs to stay warm with. We get paid by the scalp so don't let any of them get away."
  
  A mule with provisions is provided and your merry and near silent band goes on it's way. It's three days before you find out the name of the man that walks beside you. That's all you find out about him. You only just exchange names before going to bed. On the fourth day you see smoke from a lone camp fire. When you arrive at the camp it's already gone out. The man that made it has had his chest cracked open and his heart cut out. Following the footprints which are to wide and short to be a man's footprints you come across another body.
  
  The body is the sort of thing that looks like it was made by somebody that heard about what a man looks like, but has never seen one. It's a short, squat grey skinned creature that has a thicker torso than a man. It's general features are still the same though. Mostly flat teeth with canines and incisors, five fingers on each hand, two eyes, and one nose. The indig also has more hair across it's body than most men would. You've met one man that could compete. That man said his ancestors came from Greece. You don't know what that has to do with anything, or what it means, or if he was just hairy and blamed it on his family.
  
  The dead body does give you a direction the indig camp might be in. Your group spreads out into a skirmish line and continue in the direction the body was going for the rest of the day. You all gather together and huddle for warmth when night comes. The next day you form the skirmish line again. After about an hour of walking you see the smoke from several campfires. Your band starts walking closer together as you close with the source of the smoke.
  
  Entering a clearing you see a small village with hide huts set up in the middle. The indigs before you look just like people to you. They might be primitive mishapen people, but they still look like people none the less.
  
  Your band forms up into a single line and the indigs have had more than enough time to notice you. Warriors quickly gather together between you and the village and the whole clearing goes silent. The villagers staring at you and you at them. Even the birds have ceased their song.
  
  Your captain says "Ready... Aim..." and you pull back the hammer of your rifle and line it up with the warrior across from you. Your hands are shaking, this isn't like the trouble you had with the miners. Some of the people in this conflict won't walk away from this. You remind yourself that the people that aren't going to walk away from this are cannibals and you hands steady for a moment.
  
  The world explodes and the rifle in your hands kicks. The Indigs across from you start screaming in fear and pain. The captain bellow two more words clearly.
  
  You pull the hatchet off your belt and run to keep up with all the others. Your heart is pounding in your ears and you feel an adrenaline and endorphine high that kicks up higher as you join in the battle cry the other fighters have taken up.
  
  Hurdling over the line of dead warriors you enter the village to find a wounded warrior blubbering to himself. He managed to get away after getting shot in the stomach but he didn't make it far. You finish him off with a hatchet stroke. It turns your stomach as you do it, but that same high picks up a bit more when you see his spirit leave his eyes.
  
  Moving on you see where some of the fighting has knocked over one of the tents. Someone is struggling under it so you move over to help them get loose. On the off chance it's one of the fighters you don't want to kill a freind. If it's one of them you won't have the hide protecting them.
  
  When you pull the cover off of them you see three indig children looking up at you with terror in their eyes. It take the high you were feeling right out of you. Looking up and around you see that most of what's left of the camp is women and children. They're getting cut down just the same.
  
  > spare the children.
  You don't have it in your heart to do it. You can kill a man in a fair fight, but cutting down unarmed women and children is beyond reason. You kneel down in front of them and make calming noises to them.
  
  "Shhh. It's going to be okay. Shhh. It's alright."
  
  Little bit by little bit you inch closer to them. They never do anything more than whimper. They let you pull them to your chest and as a bundle you pick them all up and carry them out of the village. You hold them there until the gruesome work is done. The Captain comes to you after a bit and looks at the children you're holding.
  
  "Unless you're willing to raise them yourself. You're just killing them slowly and painfully."
  
  "I'll take care of them sir. There's no good reason to be killing children. They didn't do anything wrong. I'll take care of them."
  
  "Slow down. Easy. It's alright. I'll let the others know. You did a good job in the actual fighting. We're almost done here."
  
  The Captain goes back to the rest of the party. You just wait with the children as the gruesome trophies are taken that will be required as proof to recieve payment. When the party is ready to leave you go with them. There is much more conversation as you walk home. No one is worried about sneaking up on a war party for this leg of the trip. Most of the party thinks you're some kind of fool or a saint. A few tell you you're a good man for taking care of children and one of them tells you they would be better as scalps to sell. You ignore that one and just make sure they're fed and as warm as can be expected.
  
  You take your share of the pay and buy a mule, along with a good bit of corn and various vegetable seeds. Taking that mule with the children you go to a plot of land near the mine. You choose a wooded hill and spend the spring building a cabin on it.
  
  > Continue
  You plant corn in the space that cutting lumber has cleared around your home. You even make a decent sized vegetable garden behind your house. To your surprise there are only a few hours of night during the summer, and while that's extremely irritating for your sleep cycle, it's great for your vegetable garden,.The vegetables in your garden grow to absurd sizes. It's more than what you can eat and keep in your root cellar, even with the children eating so much, so you end up selling to the miners up the mountain and actually make a decent amount of coin. The corn you grow is also more than enough for the needs of yourself, the children and your mule.
  
  You keep in contact with the Singhs because you do own a business with them. You socialize with them regularly and over the years Marrissa helps you learn to read, along with your Foster Children.
  
  Come winter the coats of the animals in the wilds thickens again and you go back into the fur trade. When the spring thaw comes you start all of this over again. Every year there are different miners on the mountain, so you never get to know any of them well. You get called back to the settlement, which come to find out was named Godbole's respite at first landing. You work as a common laborer building some sort of castle, lighthouse combination.
  
  The next spring there are more bodies found that have had their hearts cut out and a call for Indig fighters is made once more. To your surprise you answer the call. You don't like it but you've learned to love the three children you've been raising that you can't imagine them growing up as cannibals. You convince the Captain to spare the children of the village you attack and come home with a few more mouths to feed.
  
  When your three years pass you decide to stay right where you are. You have a bit of coin built up at this time, you've dug a well, and you've cleared more land around your home. Each year you clear a little more so you can plant more to feed your growing foster family which has grown to fourteen children.
  
  After five years of living here, war comes. You volunteer to fight in this one just like you volunteered to fight the Indigs. The Georgian government decided that your little settlement in the wilds wasn't paying proper taxes or some such. The war never reached your hill. The Georgian navy spent a while bombarding Godbole castle, but gave up on that plan when the castle shot back with larger cannons. So they sent the army in who managed to take the settlement but were destroyed by the Frontsmen in the wilds. Your band of Indig fighters led that effort in the wilds as well. The Georgian army carried muskets that ranged to fifty meters instead of proper Frontsman rlfles that were accurate up to three hundred meters. Your oldest son, Henry fought beside you in your band and earned the grudging respect of even the most specist fighter. That's not to say uncouth comments weren't muttered in his direction, just that the specist would fight anyone else that said what he said to Henry. The Georgians eventually retreated and your part in the war was done.
  
  The Singhs were fine during all of that. David actually managed to become an officer in the Army of the North and led one of the platoons that broke the siege in the last battle.
  
  After the war you went back to what you did before. Hunting, Farming and occasionally war when one of the Cannibal tribes came down. You actually made decent money off the mine, but you spent a good portion of it on food or tools for your foster children.
  
  You didn't go fighting the cannibal tribes after the war with the Georgian Kingdom. You'd had enough of war. You had already set the tradition of taking children alive and raising them as your own. You end up marrying Marrissa Singh and David bawls at the wedding where he giver her away. You end up passing your farmstead to your oldest son, and moving into the city where it's easier to manage the mines from. Henry is quietly thankful for what you've given him and leads a life very much like the one you built for yourself before.
  
  The years pass by and you feel the joys and sorrows of life with them. You have three human children with Marrissa and weep for joy when Henry has his first. You spread out from just mining to Lumber and hemp as well and get a small metallurgy business going before you pass the running of your family business on to your children.
  
  Many, many years later you pass away in bed surrounded by your children. You are remembered as a patriot, and a cornerstone of the society that starts in Godbole's respite. Centuries later you are remembered as a Saint in a pseudo cult that worships freedom and considers weapons part of their religion.