Chapter 87: The Price of Freedom

“Who are you?” The voice was sharp and shallow, it came between the ragged breathing of the village leader.

But the words that followed were nothing he could have expected.

“It doesn’t matter who we are… What matters is we know who you are, and that we are here to help….”

We’re here to help…. The mere insinuation sent chills down the village elders spine. The masked man was clearly no layman. He had never seen someone so well equipped outside of soldiers that existed before the world ended in ice and blood.

But the pattern of the intruder’s uniform and equipment was something he had no recollection of.

No… this wasn’t a soldier… This was something else entirely. And it had come to his doorstep preaching of lending a helping hand.

He would be a fool to trust anything this unannounced guest could say. And yet… desperation had long since replaced caution.

The man quickly looked down at the little girl named marry, his daughter, and reached down to grab her shoulders.

“Mary, it is getting late, why don’t you go tuck yourself in? I’ll be there in a little bit to say good night.”

But Mary didn’t leave, not immediately. She instead looked up at her father, and over at the man who had intruded upon their home. There was inherent fear and distrust in her eyes.

“You promise?” Her voice cracked as she just barely managed to utter the question aloud. Her father could only pet her hair and nod with a forced smile. But it was Zach’s words that eventually convinced her to go.

“Do as your father says, he will be in to join you soon enough… Unless of course here were to give me a reason otherwise….”

Zach’s gaze shifted beneath the blackened visor, though his figure didn’t shift in the slightest ,and the direction of his eyes could not be seen, the village elder could feel the gaze upon him.

These words were as much a promise to his daughter as they were a threat to him and Josh.

Mary hugged her father before running off to her room. And once she was gone, Zach proposed something unusual.

“Grab your coat, let’s go for a walk….”

Josh didn’t quite understand the intention behind this, but the elder most certainly did. But he was not in a position to refuse, he sighed and nodded his head. Grabbing his coat, gloves, scarf, and cap, before wandering out into the frozen night.

He and Josh were led away by Zach towards the nearby hillsides. The snow tipped ever greens acted as natural concealment for the hidden peltasts and their equipment.

As they approached, Zach waved up at the sky, where a drone was watching them, hidden among the storm.

Josh looked over his shoulder at Zach’s strange actions and was quick to interrogate him.

“What are you doing?”

Zach however was cryptic with his response, but chilling all the same.

“Letting them know not to fire on us as we approach.”

Them? Neither Josh nor the elder could see anyone, that is until the trees began to shift. And men emerged each dressed in combat gear and camouflage, having been hidden beneath a 3D camouflage net,

The netting broke up the silhouettes of the surrounding area and was covered in both snow and pines. Allowing it to blend in perfectly with the natural environment.

When the men emerged from several of these hiding spots, Josh and the elder struggled to stay standing.

All of these men were equipped like soldiers, or perhaps even special forces. High cut helmets, painted white with winter camouflage, and ghillie cloaks. Electronic ear protection, ballistic step in visors, a mixture of FPV goggles and NVGs, plate carriers, battle belts, and camouflage lightweight snowshoes.

They looked like an Arctic warfare special operations team. And the weapons they carried were proof in and of themselves of these men’s capabilities.

The rifles and machine guns were clearly Ruthenian in origin, but modernized with optics, lights, lasers, and all the other attachments one wanted on a contemporary combat weapon.

Painted white with a rattle can camouflage paint job over it. These weapons blended in with the environment near perfectly.

How long had these men been sitting in the woods waiting for them? Neither Josh nor the elder could say. But it was likely at least since the dawn. As the one who had approached them mentioned the bandits who had come earlier in the day.

And when it dawned on them that they had been watched by men with machine guns and assault rifles since dawn, and nobody had even realized they were there silently waiting for nightfall. It chilled the two men from the village to the bone.

Once the peltasts had properly revealed themselves, Zach spoke up.

“We’ve been watching you for some time now… And as I said earlier, we are here to help you deal with your little bandit problem. However, the real question is: are you willing to pay the price of freedom? Or have you all grown comfortable in your bondage?”

Josh and the elder looked at one another, silently conveying their thoughts as if they were somehow telepathic. A slight nod of their heads concluded it. The elder stepped forward and asked one simply question before truly deciding on a course of action.

“How many men do you have that are equipped like this?”

Zach didn’t make a sound, not at first, he simply pulled his visor up just enough to reveal his cold and chilling eyes. His words were short and precise. Neither filled with bravado nor humility.

“Enough that we don’t suffer a bandit problem….”

That was it… The statement alone spoke volumes of where these men were from… They had heard the rumors after all, spoken from the mouths of the bandits themselves when they thought they weren’t being listened in on.

The elder couldn’t help but say the name out loud. It was purely an instinctive reaction.

“Paradise Falls….”

Zach however shook his head and corrected the man with a single word.

“Elysium…..”

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