Reborn: Demon's Heritage by D. W. Jackson Page B

would be better to stay away from her if possible.
    After a bit, the knights finished the training and one of them approached where Jorin and Ash waited. “Jorin you old dog, you should stop barricading yourself in your office and come work a few rounds with us,” the knight said loudly.
    “Matt, I would love too but I can’t push all the work onto someone else,” Jorin said shaking his head. “I will leave the fighting to the young and I will do the paperwork.”
    “If you says so, but if you don’t start moving that body of yours it will rust with old age,” Matt said laughing. “Now if it wasn’t for a good workout, what has brought you to this end of the fort?”
    “Matt, this is Lord Hawkwing, though he prefers to be called Ash. Ash, this is Knight Captain Matthew Garabrith though you can just call him Matt,” Jorin said in introductions. “Ash plans to help with the building of the walls and in fact it seems he will easily triple its building speed if not more. From what I have heard, he is also an experienced swordsman, so I thought I would introduce you to him as well.” 
    “Ash, glad to hear you can use a sword,” Matt said with a wry grin. “I won’t say that a mind isn’t useful but from what I learned, having more than two people with minds during a war just turns into trouble. They tend to end up fighting about what to do, with each thinking they are right and in the end no decisions get made and it is the people on the lines that suffer.”
    “Well, I will leave the decisions to Jorin as that is his job. I see no reason to displace him as I am sure that nothing good would come of it.”
    “Well if there is nothing else, me and my men need to start digging pits outside the walls. Ash don’t be a stranger and feel free to join us for training anytime.”
    “Why are they digging pits?” Ash asked as the knight walked away.
    “They dig pits about five foot deep and about three foot wide and stager them so that it would slow down any advancing enemy. It also makes it hard for towers to be used to scale the wall. Most the time the mage does the work, but Matt said it was a good way to keep the knights busy. He thinks that if he gives them more than a few hours to themselves, they would find some way to destroy themselves.”
    “We are in the middle of nowhere with nothing around for miles, how could they get in trouble?” Ash asked as he shook his head with a smile.
    “I asked him the same thing after his third day here,” Jorin said laughing. “He went on for hours about how they could get in trouble. It seems that knights who are left alone tend to do amazing and yet foolish things. He said that one time he caught a group of them having blind sword fights after drinking homemade wine. From how he tells it, any man left alone too long returns to boyhood and looks for trouble.”
    “He might be right,” Ash agreed as he thought about some of his own foolish stunts.
    The whole time Ash and Jorin talked, Allice remained silent. Ash looked back at her from time to time giving her a smile, but she just nodded her head. After finishing the tour, Jorin led Ash to an open area where he could set up his tent. Jorin mentioned that Ash would be more than welcome to build his own lodgings if he wanted.
    It didn’t take long for Ash to set up his tent and get everything ready. When he was finished, it was starting to near nightfall but there was still a few hours of daylight left.
    Allice walked over and sat down next to Ash who was currently sitting on the edge of his bed, looking through one of the books he had brought from the capital. Without a word, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. Her hands quickly started to roam and Ash was forced to push her away.
    “Master?” Allice asked slightly pouting.
    “Allice, we are completely surrounded by thousands of other people with only the thin tent walls to hide us,” Ash said trying to explain. “I am sure that you