The dawn had not yet broken. The camp was bathed in a bluish twilight where every silhouette seemed dissolved in the mist. The wounded moaned intermittently, the sentries fought off fatigue, and the air smelled of dried blood and smothered smoke.

Zirel tightened the strap of his scabbard and adjusted his travel cloak. His movements were quick, precise, without the slightest hesitation. He didn't need to think: everything had already been considered, weighed, organized during the meeting with Tonar.

Two small squads. One for him, one for Tonar. Objective: head north, to where two teams had disappeared, and verify if Pilaf's shadow already extended there. If yes… then the goal would not be to push back, but to destabilize. Sow confusion, disrupt the advance, buy time.

Their forces were not built for a frontal war. Not yet.

He glanced back. The camp looked like a living ruin, a field of survival more than a bastion. Amidst the patched-up tents, one canvas still stood out to his eyes: the one where Maggie lay, and from which Elisa had emerged, looking like a freshly forged blade.

He hadn't forgotten her "yes." That kind of word isn't said lightly. But he also knew she wasn't ready to walk with him in the shadow of this mission. Not yet. She had to stay. The wounded, the survivors… they needed a figure, a pillar. And Tonar, with his steely gaze, had understood the same thing: Elisa was now a central piece, whether she wanted to be or not.

Zirel was not sentimental. But he recognized the value of a burden when someone chose to bear it.

"You stay," he had told her bluntly. Not as an instruction, but as a statement of fact.

Now, he advanced. Four men behind him, nervous silhouettes, hands clenched on their weapons. Not veterans, but not novices either. Solid enough to run, fight, disappear. Tonar's heavier team had already taken another direction, to the west, to cover the flank.

The night stretched on, complicit in their march. Branches bowed in a wet rustle, stones rolled under their muffled steps. Zirel led the way, his gaze fixed on the north.

Each step took him further from the camp, from the smell of blood, from the dying fire. Each step brought him closer to what truly mattered: the truth. Was it really Pilaf? Was it he who had already unleashed his hounds in these forests? Or… something else?

Zirel gripped the hilt of his sword, a nervous tic he only allowed himself while marching. In his mind, it wasn't fear. It was anticipation.

A cold, clear certainty: if Pilaf was already here, then the war wasn't for tomorrow. It had already begun.

North.

Always north.

The forest opened before them like a damp maw. The air had changed, denser, almost sticky, laden with humus and sap. Branches tangled above them, weaving an irregular ceiling that smothered the starlight. Each step swallowed the known world and pushed them into territory that did not belong to them.

Zirel walked at the head, his cloak half-lifted by the night wind. His boots crushed the dead leaves with a metronomic regularity. Not too fast. Not too slow. The ideal pace to maintain cohesion without tiring. Behind him, his four men followed, barely distinct silhouettes, shadows carrying weapons.

A hoarse breath. A branch cracked. Zirel raised his hand.

Instantly, the group stopped. Not a word, not an unnecessary gesture. One soldier tightened his grip on a spear, another wiped his sweaty palm on his tunic.

It was nothing. An owl taking flight. But the rule was simple: stop, observe, move on. No room for recklessness.

Zirel resumed. The others followed.

The hours stretched on like this, divided into identical segments: march, halt, resume. Sometimes, the silence weighed like an anvil. Sometimes, the rustle of leaves seemed to mask a foreign breath. The slightest crackle became suspect, the slightest shadow a trap.

Zirel, however, advanced without looking back. He didn't need to see their faces to know what they felt. The tension, the fatigue, the contained fear. He had lived it a thousand times. He also knew they were watching his back, that they modeled their courage on the regularity of his steps. If he didn't waver, they would hold.

The moon finally rose, pale and thin, revealing silver glints on the tree trunks. Zirel slowed his pace, listening. The wind had picked up, carrying with it a strange smell: not smoke, not a charnel house… but something metallic, like wet iron.

He stopped, frowned. His men waited, holding their breath.

It was perhaps nothing. Perhaps it was just the forest. But Zirel repeated to himself the order he had given the others before departure:

"We don't seek fights. We seek the truth."

He resumed his march.

The further they advanced, the tighter the forest became, the twisted trunks like guardians. The path became a narrow corridor, a natural gorge that forced the group to walk two by two. The sounds of the night had grown scarce. No more owls. No more insects. Just the rubbing of boots and the beating of hearts.

Zirel showed nothing. But in his veins, the rhythm accelerated.

Each step took them further from the safety of the camp. Each step reduced the distance separating them from Pilaf.

He knew that sooner or later, this silence would shatter.

The forest tightened, becoming a maze of gnarled trunks and aggressive brambles. The path was now merely a suggestion, a narrow dirt trail that the vegetation threatened to erase. The metallic smell persisted, now mingling with a stench of rotting meat and cold smoke.

Zirel raised his fist, the signal for an absolute halt. This time, it wasn't an owl. A hoarse grunt, followed by a sharp cackle, tore through the silence, coming from a dense thicket on their left flank.

His men froze, weapons already in hand, their backs against the trees. Their eyes sought his, looking for an order, reassurance. Zirel didn't move. His gaze, sharp as a blade, scanned the darkness between the trees.

They emerged from the deadwood like rats from a sewer. Small, stocky, with greenish skin covered in warts. Their flattened snouts sniffed the air, and their yellow, bloodshot eyes gleamed with a primitive malice. Goblins. A scout patrol, no doubt. Three, then four. Armed with crude, studded clubs and rusty knives.

One of them, larger than the others with a balding head and a facial scar, pointed a crooked finger toward the group. A yelp of recognition, eager and excited.

Zirel didn't need to shout an order. A simple movement of his chin. His men understood. This was a skirmish, not an ambush. A nuisance, not a real threat. But a nuisance that needed to be dealt with quickly and silently.

The goblins charged with characteristic stupidity, yelling and drooling, without the slightest tactic. Their clubs swung wildly.

Zirel didn't even draw his sword. As the first goblin reached him, drooling at the mouth, he pivoted with a deadly grace. His left hand grabbed the wrist brandishing the club, twisting it with a dry crack. The goblin's cry was stifled by an elbow strike from Zirel that crushed its throat. The creature collapsed, choking.

To his right, one of his men, an agile spearman, had already planted his javelin in the thigh of the second goblin. The monster screamed and fell to its knees before another soldier finished the job with a precise sword thrust to the base of its skull.

The third tried to flee, but a throwing knife, hurled by Zirel's fourth man, sank into its back. It fell face down, whimpering.

The fourth, the smallest, stood frozen, its yellow eyes wide with terror, realizing too late the futility of its attack. Before it could turn tail, Zirel was upon it. In one swift motion, he grabbed its head and twisted it with a sharp jerk. The crack was clean, final. The body went limp and slumped down.

Silence returned, heavier than before. None of his men had uttered a word. They breathed slightly faster, their eyes scanning the shadows for other threats. The exchange had lasted less than a minute.

Zirel crouched near the body of the lead goblin. He quickly searched the filthy rags, finding a handful of stolen coins, a boar's tusk, and a piece of dubious-looking jerky. Nothing useful. Nothing indicating an organized military presence.

"Scouts," murmured one of his men, wiping his blade on the grass. "Scavengers. They were prowling to loot the dead."

Zirel stood up, nodding. His face was stone. "Yes. But their presence here confirms one thing."

He cast a final glance at the greenish corpses already beginning to attract flies.

"Wolves don't linger far from a carcass. Pilaf has been through here. These parasites follow his army like vermin follow a wounded man."

He signaled to resume the march, without further comment. The incident was closed. But the message was clear: the forest was not empty. It was infested. And each step north brought them closer to the heart of the infection.

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