She nodded, "We call them Gargons. They are a twisted creation of complete evil. They are half giant and half bull."
"What are they doing to the children?"
Her lips quivered and a tear fell as she brokenly said, "Some have been sacrificed to the fallen Malachim we once called gods and eaten, but……… but we hope that many are yet still alive. At least that is what we have been told."
"Alive for as long as your kingdom makes war on the Kingdom of Philanthia," I said knowingly, on a hunch, and she nodded.
"What has been done to get the children back?"
She shrugged, despondently throwing her arms wide in a gesture of hopelessness, "Everything! The more that we have resisted the higher the cost has been. We've had no choice but to do the bidding of these monsters. My people…….without children…….are finished and yet we dare not risk their lives by stopping this war! But this coming war will kill all of us and thus the future is hopeless. What would you do if faced with such a loss?" she asked passionately, as she looked at me imploringly before gazing at the 15 recruits recovered enough to sit on a horse and make the journey back to Philanthia.
To a man they stared at her in wide-eyed wonder at what she was revealing. For them it had been easy to hate her nation for its unprovoked attacks, but now another side of the story had been unveiled and they were left without an answer as to what to think. Susori's head sank down and her body heaved on a sob as waves of clamped down emotions swept through her.
I nudged my stallion closer to her horse and pulled her to me with one arm and she sank against my shoulder, still crying. Softly she said, "We are a people without hope. We have lost all our honor to do the bidding of demons."
"These demons, Gargons, I believe you called them?"
She nodded and I asked, "Why don't you just kill them?"
"We've tried!" she said in frustration as she pulled away from me.
I captured her hand before she could move her horse away, "I need to know. How have you tried to defeat these Gargons?"
She looked at me, but I could see that I wasn't what she saw at the moment, "Once we had one cornered in an alleyway and we had the forces to overwhelm even its formidable strength, but it just disappeared. They come and they go as they wish. One moment you see them and then they're gone and another child is missing. They've seized well over half the children of the nobility and many commoner children as well. My brother's sons and daughters are all gone. One daughter was left at the gateway of the Palace. She'd been gored through by one of them and then trampled to the point of not being recognizable!"