Nathan chuckled at his reaction when he showed the dragon the needle. "Have faith little brother," he assured him. Before slipping into the ranks before would noticed by the others. He prayed that they would stop soon, he was losing a lot of blood, and he had not had time to clean his wound. Finally just when he thought he couldn't go any further, the big man whom the soldiers referred to as Captain Thresher called for them to break camp.<br/><br/>Nathan closed his eyes and propped himself against the birch tree. Though he was tired, he remained standing, knowing if he fell asleep he might not wake up. The darkness settled in the fires were lit and the guards were posted.  Nathan volunteered to take the second watch, and when midnight rolled around, he took his post and sprang into action!<br/><br/>""I picked the locksâ€¦..Wake up," he whispered to the sleeping dragon. Borial however remained unresponsive and continued on in his heavy drug induced slumber. "Dammit!" he cursed, "This is going to be messy," he declared grimly as he slipped a dagger from his beltâ€¦â€¦.<br/><br/>------<br/><br/>What could have been a glorious warm morning with clear blue skies and cool breeze was tainted the by rank odor of death, and the sound swarming flies. The Soldiers lay the about the campfire, but did not rise at first light and remained asleep, they slept until too noon timeâ€¦  they never stirred fromâ€¦. nor could they be roused from their eternal sleep.<br/><br/>Nathan sat across the sleeping dragon, his was face was paper white, his hands and his sleeves stained red with blood steeped in blood up to his elbows. In the night hour Nathan had slit their throats â€¦. they were all dead, and none of them lived to see the sunrise.<br/><br/>"I think I forget to tell youâ€¦. don't eat food from strangers," Nathan chuckled weakly, his tired eyes watching as the dragon awoke. "Nâ€¦n.. now we should go,," he said weakly. "I we can't stay here, much longerâ€¦.  there is a lot of bloodâ€¦ its vampire country past those next set of hills," he gasped and smiled grimly. "Anybody stupid enough to follow us throughâ€¦.  Queen Vinna's landâ€¦" he chuckled and spat out the blood from his mouth, "They won't go through the swampsâ€¦ Not even Vamps go in the swampsâ€¦. the their senses are much better than oursâ€¦. and the sure smell with keep them out," he chuckled again as he leaned on Borial's shoulder for support.