That night, the wind echoed through the desert outside like a monster searching, relentlessly, for its next victim. After the sun had set, the temperature in the desert dropped so low that if there had been any moisture in the air it would have frozen and came down as hail. We were glad it didn’t.

It was a new moon so we had even more cover than we normally would have. I had reached my way to the top of a large sand dune and was surveying the area, when one of the others came up to me. The boy waited silently behind me until I spoke.

“Is everyone ready?” I asked, without taking my eyes off the jumble of tents and campfires ahead of me.

“Yes, but….” the boy paused and hesitated before continuing which made me question what he was thinking.

“What is it Hisui?”

“Well….It’s just that….” he took a deep breath before continuing, “Mizuki, are you sure that letting them come along was a good idea? I don’t think that we can trust them enough for something like this.” Hisui finally said.

“I know, but we need manpower, and as long as they follow orders nothing should go wrong. And if they disobey all I need to do is rough them up a bit and then they’ll listen to me,” I said in order to reassure Hisui. Izuna had recruited some unusual people for our group and no one really seemed to trust them. I certainly didn’t, but we did need the manpower and I didn’t want any of my guys to get hurt, so I would just have to deal with them for the time being. “Everyone else is ready though, right?” I asked.

“Mhm,” Hisui nodded.

“Alright then, time to get started…” I said in a low voice before standing up on top of the dune and speaking louder so that the entire group of bandits under my command could here me.

“Alright you maggots!” the group of bandits turned and looked up at me, “WHO’S READY TO RAID AN ARMY CAMP!” They all jumped up, grabbing their weapons, and whooped and hollered with excitement. “Alright then!” I raised my sword into the air and shouted over the commotion of excited bandits, “FOLLOW ME!” and ran down the opposite side of the dune towards the military camp as fast as my legs could carry me.