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It seems that the job is done, but it's too early to relax. The first desire was to wake up all the slaves, but after a little thought, I decided that it was better to leave this matter until the morning. Firstly, it is difficult to predict the reaction of people to a man in black who appeared out of nowhere and soaked fifty people. And if this appearance is also at night, but by the light of fires, uuuu. So we clear the leader's tent from the corpse and climb there on the bainki. The morning is wiser than the evening, although it is not clear why, the evening is older, which means that he has more experience. As soon as he fell into bed, he immediately jumped from a sharp cry right above his ear. This is the same girl who was with the leader, I was in the middle of a fight and forgot about the poor fellow, and she sits there, shaking, apparently, she hid here all day, and I accidentally lay down on her. And once such an incident happened, you need to calm down. To begin with, I took off the mask, of course I'm not Mr. Universe, but my face is better than darkness with burning eyes. And, sitting down before her, he asked:

- What is your name?

- Annie. 

            The girl is frightened, but she makes contact, it’s already not bad, which means she trusts, therefore, she needs to win over, and find out the story of what happened here. Like it or not, it’s easier to have a dialogue with one person than with a crowd.

- Annie, tell me, please, what happened? Who are all these people?

- Almost everyone who is now in cages is from our traveling circus, I performed there as an acrobat, we went after the performance in one settlement, it is small, but they had a holiday. And Garrett, this is our leader, could not refuse them a speech. The column of merchants with which we were traveling left without us, and we remained. The holiday went well, people liked it very much, they are not very rich there, but they replaced the hay on the wagons and what is used as animal feed. Cleaned out all the animals and gave us supplies. And we set off on our way. We wanted to be in time for the barony of Muhne, where the baron had an heir, and in this honor he threw a feast, we could make good money there. Therefore, we did not wait for the next column of merchants, but set off on our own. But on the way through the wolf forest, robbers attacked us, we couldn’t even fight back, we drove out the animals, and we were imprisoned in animal cages. We were brought to this camp, where a few more people were placed with us, these were guards from some merchant caravan. The merchant was greedy and took few guards. For which he paid. We’ve been standing here for a month, yesterday their leader saw me, but, thank the gods, you intervened, otherwise I don’t know what he would have done with me ...

            The poor fellow could not speak further, but went into a quiet but sorrowful cry, all that remained for me to do was to hug and just sit with her. An hour later, she fell asleep, carefully laid on the bed, and he settled down on the floor, throwing some rags there.

            I woke up from a quiet rustle, without even realizing what had happened, went into invisibility and, having made a short roll, looked around and saw only Annie's surprised face, which had woken up before me.

            Annie turned her head a little and whispered conspiratorially:

- Mirage, get out, I know you're here. Of all the enemies, I am the most terrible, and then when bitten by mosquitoes.

            You can't refuse this girl's endurance, I have always been admired by strong-willed women, and Annie is one of them. Just yesterday, they wanted to rape her, then a series of murders around her, and she was already joking, and this despite the fact that she spent a month in captivity. I had to throw off invisibility and pretend that everything is under control, as it should be. But no matter how ridiculous the situation was, it didn’t bother me, my reaction is a guarantee of survival in a hostile world, and since I’m not at home, the whole world around me is hostile. 

- Annie, I'm sorry if I scared you, let's go and free your friends.

            Leaving the tent, we proceeded to the cages, and since I did not find the key nearby, I cut the locks with a sword, since it has unlimited durability. As soon as the doors were flung open, Annie threw herself into the arms of a tall man in his fifties, and although he seemed younger, he was betrayed by wrinkles around his eyes and gray hair in his hair. The man quietly hugged her and, saying - everything is fine, daughter, stroked her back, while his eyes carefully examined me, trying to assess how dangerous I could be and whether I could rely on. I just stood and looked at him, albeit without removing my hood, and, accordingly, the illusion from my face. At the same time, I was more and more amazed at Annie's endurance, not only did she not say a word that her father was there, but even now, despite everything experienced, not a tear. The whole picture lasted a little over ten seconds,

- Garret.

- Mirage, - I did not remain in debt and shook his hand, the handshake came out strong, apparently, this characteristic was shaken up in him, be healthy.

            A few seconds of penetrating gaze, and the handshake broke off, and Garret, without the previous tension, began to speak:

- Thank you for your help, Mirage, I thought that our fate until the end of our days to be slaves on some plantation. Excuse me for the hostile meeting, but understand correctly, waking up in a cage when there are a lot of corpses around is scary ... very scary. But this is also reassuring, if a person capable of such evil wished us, we would not wake up. We have nothing to repay for your beneficence, all our property is a circus that was destroyed, only the cells remained, and then by right of prey belong to you.

            During his speech, five gnomes came out of the crowd, their appearance was far from familiar to everyone, no shiny armor, no axes, only battered bodies in torn white shirts. But, despite their appearance, they behaved with dignity, without dropping the dwarf honor. Seeing my gaze directed behind him, Garret interrupted his speech and, turning around, called the dwarves.

- Meet Mirage, this is Gorum and his star.

            Of the five, a dwarf emerged, even looking older than the rest. Dwarves live for thousands of years and even then do not turn gray, but this one was as white as a harrier, which betrayed many years of life in him. He stood next to Garrett, extended his hand to me and after shaking hands said:

- I am Gorum, son of Gorn, elder of the Dorulas clan, I thank Mirage for saving five from the Dorulas house and, according to the laws of the clan, I proclaim the duty of life five times five in the clan. Any dwarf of the Dorulas clan is obliged, even at the cost of his life, to come to the aid of the Mirage. That is my word from Gorum, son of Gorn, elder of the Dorulas family.

            From this I, frankly, went nuts, all gnomes value their lives much more than anyone else, besides, this oath obliges the whole clan to help me, up to taking off their last shirt. And even though five of their souls have been saved, such oaths are not given, even if there is an elder among the five, only if the clan has nothing to offer in return. Although, if you add up the fact that the elder went to guard the merchant caravan on his own, then that is exactly what happened. However, it is impossible to hesitate with the answer - they will consider it an insult. So I took off my hood, bowed my head, and choosing my words carefully, answered:

“Master Gorum, I am honored to hear these words, and I very much hope that the House of Dorulas will never have to fulfill this duty.

            It was clear that the gnome was satisfied with my answer, it was betrayed by a slightly noticeable smile.

- What are you going to do, dwarf?

- You see, Mirage, the Dorulas clan was quite rich, but because of the act of one of our ancestors, we are outcasts, we were expelled from our villages as disgracing the clan, in wanderings we lost the savings of the clan. Therefore, we do not have to wait for the support of other clans, we do not have possessions in human lands, all that our family has is a forge in a small town not far from here. Therefore, our plans are simple as never before - we will settle into some kind of caravan, protect and hope to survive.

            The story is sad, but, unfortunately, we can’t help everyone, but I got a couple of ideas for the future, you see, and I’ll attach these guys.

            However, circus performers cannot be abandoned, besides, they can be useful to me in the future.

- Gorum, which city are you going to?

- In Forsyth, there is our smithy.

- And if I offer you a job with good pay? Since there is so much prey here, it must be taken to my house.

- This is an interesting proposal, but we are without weapons, and it is unlikely that we will be of any use. 

- Gorum, everything captured from you is yours. Take all your uniforms and weapons. The thieves plundered enough to leave for a caravan with my booty. So don't be shy and take yours. 

Thanks, Mirage. Our ammunition will be at the expense of protection. You're wearing good equipment, which means you know what the price of dwarf weapons is. Five sets, that's a fortune, and you just gave it away. 

- Gorum, I'll write a letter to the manager. You and Garrett will be the seniors in the caravan. I will deliver the letter with you, it will suit you. I have to move on, time goes by, it's important.

            They saw me off with a whole crowd, Annie hugged me goodbye and warmly thanked me for saving me. It was strange to feel so much attention from strangers, many clapped on the shoulders and thanked. I had to hurry, and to be completely honest, mostly because of embarrassment. 

            My next destination was to be the city of Philost.