The village was a modest collection of farms built along the north bank of the Tinor river. A small church and a hall were the only communal buildings that were built on a small rise in between a pair of fields.

Sarah could tell something was off as soon as she spotted it. The weather this far south was mild enough for a winter growing season, but the fields stood empty. Worse still, there wasn’t a soul to be seen anywhere in the village. Sarah feared she was too late. However, that the buildings and fields hadn’t been set on fire provided some encouragement. Perhaps the villagers had caught wind of the approaching orcs and fled. Her own supplies were low, and she had little choice but to forage in the village, and perhaps in doing so, discover what happened to its inhabitants.

Still, she was cautious in her approach. Her horse was lathered from the journey, and she would have no choice but to spend a few hours in the village or at least nearby to rest it. She had been planning to stop here for a few days and buy some supplies.

Sarah approached the town warily, ready to have Honeycut flee at the slightest sign of anything being amiss. Her mare sensed her rider’s tension and shifted uneasily. Sarah ran a hand down the mare’s flank.

“There there, she soothed, “It’s alright.”

“Halt!”

Sarah looked up to see a pair of pale haired heads that had popped out of the field of wheat on either side of her. They had bows in their hands and their arrows were pointed right at Sarah. Their pointed ears and their ageless faces identified them as elves.

“Who are you?” they demanded.

“Just a traveller,” Sarah’s mind was racing. Why were elves here? Did they have something to do with the villager’s disappearance?

“I’m fleeing a band of orcs,” she continued. “They aren’t far behind me and appear to be heading this way.”

“You’ve led them to us!” one of the elves said accusingly.

“Have you any weapons?” the other demanded.

Sarah lifted her cloak to show that she was indeed unarmed, and the elves spoke hurriedly to one another in their language, which she did not understand.

“Come with us,” one ordered after they came to an agreement.

One led the way to the small rise on which the hall and church stood while the other brought up the rear. Both kept their weapons drawn, making it clear to Sarah that they were anything but friendly. When they arrived at the top of the small rise, Sarah spotted cut rope on the ground. The elves spotted it too and spoke heatedly to one another while Sarah prepared herself for a fight.

An arrow flew from the top of the church that would have struck one of the elves in the chest had he not dodged with superhuman agility.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Fire Blast!”

The bolt of blue fire caught the elf off guard and quickly consumed him. The other elf fired off a quick arrow as he scurried away. Sarah let off a sharp cry as the arrow struck her in the shoulder. The force of the impact knocked her off Honeycut, who bolted in alarm.

Sarah lifted her unwounded arm but decided not to fire off the spell as the elf darted around the corner of the church. A sharp cry from that direction moments later, and Sarah scrambled after the elf. She rounded the corner and saw a lanky man smashing a large rock repeatedly into the elf’s head which was already a bloody pulp.

“I think he’s dead,” Sarah observed.

The man whirled around, and Sarah was shocked to see that it was Stanley. He had aged considerably since she last saw him and now sported an unruly beard, but the cold, hard eyes were unmistakably his.

The lanky, gaunt faced man gave the elf’s mutilated face a long hard look before reluctantly climbing off him. “You’re probably the last person I counted on seeing here, but I owe you my thanks. Your arrival gave me the distraction I needed to free myself.”

Sarah had a hundred questions she’d like to ask the lanky man, and settled on, “What happened here?”

“They’re slavers, from Effulian. They came to take advantage of the chaos the orcs’ appearance created,” Stanley replied as he examined the fallen elf’s bow.

“Slavers?” Sarah echoed, looking confused, “I thought the elves outlawed that as part of the terms of Treto’s peace.”

A sly smile crossed Stanley’s face. “Just because something’s outlawed doesn’t mean it doesn’t still happen, does it?”

“And the rest of the villagers, what happened to them?”

Stanley pulled the bow over his shoulder and relieved the elf of his quiver before shrugging. “Most left when they burned New Milford. I was one of the few fools who stayed.”

“And the other fools?” Sarah asked.

A pained look crossed Stanley’s face and he didn’t reply. Sarah knew better than to press him. “Well, there are orcs on the way, we should leave quickly.”

Stanley looked around and scowled. “So they’re finally here. I was afraid this day would come.”

His shoulders slumped and he let off a long, drawn out sigh. “They’ll burn this place to the ground.”

Stanley then looked up at Sarah and blinked. “Are you alone? Where’s your boyfriend?”

Sarah felt tears well up in her eye and blinked them back. “You were right about me,” her voice was small. “I’m a danger to those I’m around. I nearly killed him and…”

Sarah was forced to pause as her emotions overwhelmed her.

“What are you doing in this neck of the woods, anyway?” Stanley asked at length.

“I’m looking for Findendor,” Sarah replied as she brushed away her tears.

Stanley’s eyebrows shot up. “The city that was destroyed for defying the gods?”

Sarah nodded.

Stanley stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose I can deduce why you want to go there, but is it a real place? I always thought it was a legend.”

“I’ve reason to believe it’s real and that it’s somewhere near Effulian’s border with Darnos and the Southward Expansion,” Sarah said. She looked at Stanley hopefully and ventured, “Do you want to come with me?”

Stanley looked at Sarah and she feared he would turn her down as she remembered the circumstances under which they had parted ways.

“Yes, I suppose I do owe you a favour,” Stanley observed.

Sarah blinked in astonishment and quickly produced her map. “I think it’s somewhere here,” she said, pointing.

Stanley quickly traced a line from where she was pointing to another part of the map. “It’ll take us around a week to get there on foot,” he began.

Sarah looked at where he was pointing. “Wait, aren’t we in New Didcup, here?” she asked, pointing to a different part of the map.

Stanley laughed. “It’s a good thing you bumped into me. No! We’re in Riverbend, in the kingdom of Darnos, and thirty miles east of New Didcup.”