The wintry night was painted a blazing red. As the fire that devoured the eastern edge of the Silver Forest raged on, its glow was cast far across the surrounding fields. The snow reflected the light even more, amplifying the ferocious look of the fire.

Elisia sat up in her tent, crawling groggily towards the exit. "What? Morning already?"

Others were already standing outside and watching as the fire rose into the sky, embers mingling with the stars within a cloud of black smoke. The small camp they set up in the last field before the Silver Forest gave them an obstructed view of the inferno.

"What is going on here?" The knight thought as she joined the rest of her group, the sight leaving her tired mind in a mess.

Elisia quickly turned around, eyes frantically darting from face to face, looking for the three otherworlders. Clyde, Jeremy and Marcel were still there, sitting in the wagon. She breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. They're still here."

"That fire is coming from the drop-off point," Layla said quietly while approaching Elisia.

"I see that." The knight replied. "What do you think caused it?"

"I don't know." The mage replied, glancing over at the three men in the wagon.

Elisia nodded, silently agreeing with Layla's suspicion.

"Seems we arrived too late." She exhaled, allowing the tension that had built up over the last several days to fall from her shoulders. She owed them plenty after what had happened in the village. Filtz's life and the lives of two of her men.

The knight never felt as torn between two decisions as she was now. She believed her loyalty to the Queen to be absolute, and up until recently, it truly was. Some would label Elisia as a zealot, and they'd be right. She believed Kyara's decision to have the elves handle the prisoners was brilliant.

After finding out a lot more about the three men, Elisia's mind was in a state of disarray. She never admitted openly, but she began doubting the Queen's method of solving the issue. If it were up to her, she'd pardon the three prisoners. But it wasn't as easy as that; the knight knew that much. The Vatur elves demanded the captured prisoners, and after Perriman's treachery, handing them over seemed like the only way to ease the tension between the two kingdoms. Elisia was losing sleep for nights, torn between obeying her orders and the guilt of sending men whom she was indebted to, to be tortured and executed.

Seeing the fire devour the forest, Elisia felt relief wash over her. By a stroke of luck, the decision seemed to have been made for her, and for once, Elisia was glad that it was. The otherworlders beat her to the punch; nothing she could do about it now. She didn't betray the men who saved her brother, and she didn't betray the queen.

"What do we do now?" Layla asked.

The knight rubbed her tired eyes, furrowing her brow in deep thought. "We can't just tell them to run along. Should any elves have survived whatever caused this fire, they will most likely report that we never arrived."

"We move. We are still a few hours away from the clearing. If we hurry, perhaps we can help any survivors before they suffocate from the smoke or die from the heat." Elisia proclaimed, walking over to her tent and starting to put her armour on. "Pack up camp immediately and prepare to move."

As the soldiers moved quickly, disassembling the small camp, Elisia walked over to Layla and the cat. "Mitsura, can you scout ahead? I want to know exactly what is going on here."

Mitsy nodded and hopped off Layla's shoulder, disappearing almost instantly in the nearby bushes. Elisia looked over at the wagon once more, locking eyes with the Colonel. His expression wasn't one of surprise or triumph, just a look of knowing what was going on within the Silver Forest.

***

Lady Mitsura was never much of a thinker. She did as she was told, no questions asked, relying solely on her instincts to guide her and keep her alive. It wasn't until she met Layla that she began to entertain the idea that not every impulse should be acted upon.

She viewed the mage as a friend as much as a handler. Despite how far up the orders came from, unless Layla agreed, the Wuthrag feline would view them as little more than suggestions.

Layla provided food, shelter, and even though Mitsy did not need it, Layla provided protection too.

Out of everyone in Elisia's group, Mitsy was the only one who truly did not fear the otherworlders. She was trained to kill since the day she could walk, after all, a perfect assassin like all the others from her tribe. Even if she couldn't kill them, she was fast enough and skilled enough to escape unharmed. For all their immunity to magic, they were still human, and she was yet to encounter a human who made her fear for her life.

What lay beyond the dimming wall of fire, however, wasn't human. It couldn't have been; she was certain of it. That entire part forest reeked of death and radiated a feeling of insatiable hunger lurking between the trees.

"A ragabarn perhaps? Or a gungam?" Mitsy wondered as she approached the edge of the clearing, barely visible in front of a shrub. "No. The elves wouldn't light the forest on fire over something as trivial as that."

Winter helped speed up the dying of the flame, allowing the cat to get closer to the clearing. It was just around the bend in the road, almost visible through the burned trees, if it weren't for the grey smoke.

With each step, Mitsy felt her fur stand on end. Instincts, honed to perfection, were warning her that she was being watched. Her body refused to take another step forward, as if physically held in place by an unseen force. Alarms went off in her head, the threat of death looming just around the bend in the road.

She backtracked, hiding behind a tree trunk for cover and peeking out from it, focusing her eyes in an effort to see through the smoke. It was quiet, the kind of quiet that showed utter absence of life. The kind of quiet when there is a predator around.

"Move!" Before the thought even registered, her body moved on its own, and she pulled back behind cover just as something whistled through the air and blew off a chunk from the tree trunk.

Whatever predator stalked the edge of the Silver Forest was fully aware of her presence. If it attacked because it didn't want her to get closer to the clearing or because it simply wanted her dead, she wasn't sure. But she also didn't plan on sticking around to find out. If there were elves on that clearing, they were all most likely dead by now.

Mitsy slowly backtracked her steps, walking in reverse, never taking her eyes off the woods. Her body was low to the ground, muscles tensed, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. She retreated into the bushes and ran back towards camp.

***

Dawn began to break by the time Mitsura returned to the camp, which was by then no more. The group had already packed everything, waiting for her so they could continue. Elisia and her soldiers were in full armour.

"What did you find?" Elisia asked the cat.

"The fire should've subsided by now. The smoke makes it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead, however." The Wuthrag replied.

"I know that even from here, Mitsy. What about the elves?"

"Nothing. There are no signs of life anywhere in that area. Not even vulture birds." The cat walked over to Layla and hopped onto her shoulder. "The entire clearing reeks of death. Whatever took the elves out is still there."

"We will be careful," Layla assured the feline, surprised to see Mitsy's fur still standing upright.

After what happened in the village, the three would-be prisoners were viewed in a different light by Elisia's men. The two men who survived the ragabarn attack, thanks to the otherworlders, shared the story with the rest. Clyde, Jeremy and Marcel now wore proper clothing to keep warm, gifts from Tynaris. They were still shackled, but it seemed to be more for show rather than anything else, as their cuffs were hanging loosely around their wrists. The guards didn't even bother to shackle their ankles or chain them to the inside of the wagon anymore, fully trusting that the men wouldn't even try to escape. They were being fed properly, and Elisia no longer forced them to walk next to the wagon from sunrise to sundown.

One translator crystal was shared amongst the guards, so they could converse with the prisoners during the rest of the trip. Elisia wasn't a fan of this, but did nothing to stop it. Layla, on the other hand, fully supported it, taking every opportunity to write down as much information about the otherworlders and their stories as she could.

With each passing day, the guards were trying to engage more with the prisoners, going as far as to share their meals with the three men. The knowledge of what awaits the otherworlders at the end of the journey wasn't lost on the guards, and like Elisia and Layla, they too felt guilty over how little they could do to save Clyde, Marcel and Jeremy from getting handed over to the elves.

The otherworlders kept up their cheerful façade, but even their optimism had a limit. Now they were silent, but not for the reason the guards thought. They seemed lost in deep thought, contemplative expressions on their faces.

***

The fire had died out fully, replaced by a slow-moving sea of grey smoke that clung to the ground, making it impossible to see through the burned trees. There was no wind to help disperse the smoke faster.

Elisia understood what Mitsy had meant by "The entire clearing reeks of death." Aside from the crows that began to circle above the clearing, the forest was deathly silent. Mitsura's fur stood up more and more the closer they got to the forest entrance. She hissed, hopping off Layla's shoulder and hiding behind the mage.

The knight took a deep breath, preparing to ride into the forest. The ominous aura of the lurking predator only increased past that point. Elisia felt a cold sweat wash over her; one hand clutching the reins, the other her sword hilt.

They moved at a snail's pace, partly due to the low visibility, partly due to the overwhelming sense of danger that came from every direction, from watching eyes hidden in the grey smoke.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Crows cawed above, causing Layla to almost jump out of her saddle. Vulture birds, waiting for the thick smoke to clear so they could descend and feast. They waited for more than just the smoke to clear. They waited for the spell they were bound with to release them, so they no longer had to serve as watchful eyes of the High Elf in Vatur.

Since the attack, Aurelia used her farsight to try and see what was going on in the forest, but the fire and now the smoke prevented her from seeing clearly. Spying on Elisia and her group was the second-best thing.

"We're almost at the clearing. I think." Elisia shouted to the rest of the group, covering her mouth with her hand and squinting as the smoke and smell of burnt wood pinched at her eyes.

"I think I see someone on the ground," Layla said, hopping off her horse and approaching a figure lying on the ground.

The mage quickly recoiled once she realised what she was looking at. A charred corpse wearing the unmistakable armour of the High Guard.

"We have more bodies over here." One of the soldiers shouted, pointing ahead.

"They seem to have been running from something," Mitsy spoke up, sniffing the bodies. "They are too far out from the clearing where we are supposed to meet."

"They ran into the fire?" Elisia asked.

"I think they just ran." The cat replied, noticing a hole in the charred helmet. "And it wasn't fire that killed them. They were shot, at least this one has been."

While the group was observing the corpses, more and more bodies appeared as the smoke slowly began to clear. Layla recoiled instinctively, not used to such gruesome scenes. "Gods… what happened here?"

The prisoners were quietly talking amongst themselves, paying no mind to the charred elves sprawled across the forest floor.

"Clyde, we should tell them to stop." Jeremy nudged his comrade.

The Warhound nodded in agreement. "Yeah, we probably should."

Marcel said nothing, sitting against the bars of the wagon, listening and waiting for the first shot to whistle through the air.

"Elisiaaa~," Clyde called out; his voice drawn out as if he were trying to court the knight.

"There it is." Elisia smiled and rode over to the wagon, replacing her smile with a neutral expression before anyone noticed. "What do you want?"

"Tell your men to turn around and return to where we made camp last night," he said. "And get these chains off of us."

"The wagon isn't locked. You can step out on your own." She replied while motioning for the guard with the keys to come over.

Her soldiers were confused by what was going on, but did not question her order. She seemed sure of what she was doing. As each of the prisoners exited the wagon, the guard unlocked and removed their cuffs, tossing them back into the wagon.

"You three should head out too," Jeremy told the knight.

"No. I will see this through. I must admit, I am curious to learn who did all of this." Elisia shook her head. "Layla, Mitsura, you go with the man back to the field."

The mage hopped back into the saddle and rode over to Elisia. "Not going to happen. I share your curiosity, Lady Elisia."

Jeremy looked up at Clyde as if silently asking for help convincing the women to leave. The Warhound just shrugged, offering no assistance to his comrade. "Alrighty, ladies. But you should leave your horses with the guys. You will look less imposing on foot." Clyde said.

"Also, stick close to us. Howler won't shoot if there is a risk of hitting one of us." He added, lying through his teeth. Clyde knew that Anita wouldn't miss a shot even if Elisia was sewn to his back.

Elisia and Layla did as the otherworlders instructed without hesitation, getting off their horses and handing the reins to the guards.

***

With the soldiers and horses already halfway up the road back to the fields, the small group of six headed deeper into the forest. Mitsy sat on Layla's shoulder, flinching at every single crunch beneath the group's feet.

"Mitsy, will you relax?" The mage whispered to the cat while clutching her staff. Layla knew that it was no more than a stick when it came to the otherworlders, but holding on to it tightly gave her some illusion of protection.

Elisia was no better, hand still on sword, eyes constantly scanning the trees. She walked much closer to the otherworlders than she would've liked, but if it meant not catching a bullet to the head, she'd get over it.

Crows circled above, waiting to be free from Aurelia's spell so they could descend and feast on the fallen High Guard.

"Who's that?" Layla asked, pointing her staff at the figure standing on the other side of the clearing the group had just entered.

"Must be their ally," Elisia whispered, before assuming the lead position of the group and addressing the strange person. "Greetings! I am Lady Elisia-"

"That's not a person." Mitsura cut the knight off mid-sentence.

Elisia turned around, giving the cat a puzzled look, only to be further confused by the fact that Mitsy wasn't even looking ahead, but up at the tree tops, eyes moving as if trying to find something. "I can feel it watching us. That must be an illusion of sorts, because this feeling… it doesn't emanate from it."

"Yo! Anita!" Clyde shouted, causing the cat to jump from Layla's shoulder and hide under the mage's robes. "Quit the hide and seek!"

The forest remained dead silent. The group looked around, waiting for something to happen, for someone to step out from the veil of smoke, but there was nothing. Jeremy looked up at Clyde and grinned. "You gotta say it."

"For fuck's sake." Clyde groaned and inhaled. "What is love?! Baby, don't hurt me! Don't hurt me!"

Jeremy and Clyde bit their lips to hold back from cackling as the large Warhound shouted the lyric off-key.

"Good to see you, Colonel." Said Anita.

The woman's voice was soft, and worst of all, very close. Elisia could hear it coming from right behind her. She spun around, pulling her sword, but Clyde grabbed her arm before the blade could leave its sheath.

"Relax." The warhound calmed her down, just as a woman dressed in white combat armour, with a ghastly face mask, appeared out of thin air, barely a few steps away from the group. Her rifle was still raised and pointed directly at Elisia.

Anita raised her hand, giving a few hand signals, before two more soldiers appeared not too far from the group. Layla stared at them in absolute bewilderment, her eyes so wide they looked close to popping out of her head. She stayed her hand, pushing down the urge to grab her notebook out of fear that sudden movements might get her shot.

"Alright. Now that we're all together again like one happy family, let's get the fuck out of here." Clyde said, rubbing his large hands together.

"I have to inform you; we've captured a live one," Anita said, lowering her rifle.

"Who?"

"I assume the leader of the elves. She was barking orders and stayed behind while the rest fled."

"What did she look like?" Elisia joined the conversation when she heard Anita mention a female elf.

"Tall. Black hair, green eyes. Wearing the same armour as the other elves. She's very… teleporty." Howler replied, not too fond of remembering how much ammo she wasted trying to take Eirlys down.

"That's General Eirlys," Layla mumbled, turning towards Anita. "She captured Eirlys? Alive? That's- What the hell is this woman?"

Clyde looked up at the crows that circled the clearing, the entire flock staring down at them. The smoke had almost fully cleared by now, yet the birds still refused to descend. "You'll tell me all about it on our way back to the outpost, Captain. Let's get out of here."

The otherworlders began walking to the treeline, leaving Layla and Elisia behind. Marcel turned over his shoulder with a smile. "It was nice, ladies. Send our regards to the Queen."

"Wait!" Layla called after them. "I'm coming with you."

"What? No." Clyde frowned and shook his head.

"Yes," Elisia said. "If you've captured General Eirlys, it would be beneficial if we were there to help translate. You don't have any translator stones on you, remember?"

The knight was right. The only translator stone that the otherworlders had was the one in Perriman's possession. And he couldn't part with it if he were to understand them. On top of that, Eirlys would rather choke on her tongue than ever let Perriman interrogate her.

"She does make a point." Jeremy shrugged.

"Fine. But we need only one of you for that. All three are kind of unnecessary. Plus, someone needs to tell your guys to head back home." The large warhound sighed in surrender. "Who's it gonna be?"

"I'll go!" Layla immediately jumped at the opportunity to go with the invaders.

Elisia gently grabbed her by the shoulder. "Layla, you know your magic doesn't work on them. Being in their outpost could be very dangerous."

"Lady Elisia, please. This might be my one chance to learn more about humans from another world." The mage pleaded with the knight, clasping her hands together in a begging gesture. "Besides, I have Mitsy to protect me."

"Right. The cat." Clyde groaned, and Anita shot him a confused look.

The Colonel was quickly becoming restless due to the number of strange birds above, and now Anita also began picking up on it. The crows were silent, cawing almost at perfect intervals. Both Warhounds have experienced enough elven shenanigans to know that something was off about the flock.

"You two make up your fucking minds now, or else I'm leaving you both here." Clyde barked an order at Elisia and Layla, rushing them both.

"You're tired, Elisia. You've barely slept since we left the village." Layla looked Elisia in the eyes, already stepping closer to the otherworlders. "Go."

"Fine." The knight conceded, before grabbing the mage by the arm, a worried look on her face. "You take care of yourself, you hear? At the first sign of trouble, leave."

Elisia looked down, addressing the cat next. "Keep an eye on her, Mitsy. Should anything happen to Layla, I'll hold you responsible."

Mitsy just nodded, peeking out from under Layla's cloak.

After saying a quick goodbye, the women went their separate ways. Elisia headed back up the road to the field, and the otherworlders disappeared in the forest.

Clyde waited until they were hidden by the trees from the watchful eyes of the flock of crows before pulling one of the soldiers aside and pointing over his shoulder towards where Elisia had gone. "You. Shadow them. Make sure the knight and her group leave this area safely. Anything that tries to prevent them from doing so, kill on sight."

"Yes, Sir." The soldier replied.

Layla listened to the conversation going on behind her. She walked in the centre of the group, one otherworldly soldier on each side. Without a hint or warning, the man to her right, one who had just received orders from Clyde, simply vanished. The mage looked around as she walked, but she could neither see nor hear him. The way they appeared out of thin air and vanished in an instant both terrified and fascinated her.

As they made their way to the southern edge of the Silver Forest, the same spot from which Anita's team entered the forest the night before, Howler pulled out what Layla could only assume was a handgun and fired a bright flare into the air, bathing the forest in red a second time.

"The Chameleon isn't far from here," Howler told the others.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.