By the time they reached the base of the stairs leading to the central outpost, the late afternoon sun had broken through the cloud cover and Tsuta paused to wipe the light sweat off his bald head. Usha, however, was not in the same physical shape as the elf. After the brisk pace he had pushed to get here and running from the abbey and up the stairs to the northern outpost, she was spent. After plopping herself down on the bottom stair, she lowered her head between her knees and drew in several long breaths.

“Tell you what Raven,” he said. “We don’t both need to go up there. You stay here and catch your breath; I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She gazed up at him and nodded gratefully as he moved past her and headed up the cut-stone stairway towards the outpost.

Several other questions swirled around in his head as he rose towards his destination, questions he thought the better of speaking out loud given the fragile state of his traveling companion. How had these creatures reached the abbey without warning? Were their sponsor nations to the east already under attack and this was some kind of vanguard force pushing west and north? Why had no one warned the abbey? Or had they come from Siremiria through one of the passes? If so, why had no beacon flares been set off? Someone must have seen them coming.

Although the outposts were identical in their construction, Tsuta noticed a stark contrast between the one he had just left and this one immediately upon rounding the corner onto the plateau. Wood smoke hung heavily in the air as the elf was confronted with the charred remains of the outpost shelter. To his left, he saw that the beacon too had been reduced to a pile of smoldering bricks and rubble. Adopting a much more cautious approach, he called out to the monks supposedly on duty. No reply. Stepping carefully around the front of the shelter’s remains to the overlook, staff at the ready, he peeked into what had been the building’s interior, fully expecting to find corpses, again nothing beyond the barely discernable shapes of expected object – a blackened oil lamp, the remains of a meditation mat. Looping around the blackened hull he inspected the beacon area. No bodies, just the broken pile of bricks, mortar, and smoldering coals he saw initially. The wood pile had also been toppled, with logs splayed across the ground. He did note one peculiarity. The rear of the clearing behind the beacon was teeming with ladybugs. Hundreds of them, writhing and climbing over each other in reckless abandon, blanketed across the ground and the lower limbs of the trees that framed the outpost. The consistency with the scene Usha described at the abbey led Tsuta to conclude that the hook-headed creatures had been here as well, but where were the outpost occupants?

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Returning to the overlook, he quickly fell into the watch routine – scan the pass, the mountainside, the peaks – looking for any clue to help him understand how the outpost had been breached. That’s when he saw them. Directly below the overlook, two bodies in the white robes of the Luminarium lay twisted into unnatural positions from the two-hundred-foot fall, blood splattered across the rocky precipice that became their final resting place. It was what he didn’t see that the elf found most curious. Quickly returning to the footprint of the shelter he took a more thorough examination of the structure’s contents and found what he was looking for, stepping out into the fading afternoon sunlight he examined the charred remains of two staves he knew to be the standard oaken issue of the Luminarium. Turning back to the overlook, Tsuta closely examined its stone construction – both the patio stones and the barrier wall that protected the monks from the fall – looking for any evidence of a fight. The stone was very forgiving, so unsurprisingly, he found nothing. Not a fresh gouge or even a scratch to suggest a struggle. Whatever had happened here had taken the monks entirely by surprise and something had either thrown them from the overlook or, and he didn’t want to consider this, they had chosen to jump. Either way, he and Usha needed to get to the southern outpost immediately, before darkness fell. Bundling the two blackened staves of his fallen companions in his left hand with his own, Tsuta flew down the stairs back towards the resting dwarf below.

Usha felt the vibrations of his return as she caught her breath, her dwarven senses finely attuned to stone and all its characteristics. Only one person and moving quickly - that can’t be good. She rose and turned to face the stairs just as Tsuta came around the descending curve into view.

“We gotta go Raven!” he shouted as he closed the distance between them.

“Why? Where are the others?” She asked somewhat confused.

“Dead. We’ve got to get to the southern beacon before we lose daylight. We’ll need to run.” By this point, he had come to a halt beside her.

Usha began to protest “But I don’t think I can…”

Before she could finish the sentence, Tsuta began to mutter some words she didn’t understand, and his left hand began to glow and crackle. He had anticipated her exhaustion. Placing his hand on her shoulder the dwarf drew in a sharp breath as the healing magic coursed through her. To Usha, it felt like she had just awoken from a full night’s sleep. Instantly, the ache in her legs was gone, along with the burning in her lungs. Incredible! She had never been the recipient of magic before.

“Better?” He asked, holding her gaze.

“Wow. Yeah, I’m good!” she nodded.

With that, the two of them took off towards the southern outpost at a dead run disappearing into the lengthening shadows.