“Stop.” The team leader said, holding out his fist as he nodded his head, listening and confirming the orders coming through his headset.

“Right! form up folks.” He called out, signalling broadly in front of himself.

Slinking out of cover, Thomel and three others stood before him. Wearing ghillie suits covered in leafy debris, they wouldn’t have looked out of place on the opposing side’s roster.

“There’s been no reports of enemy reinforcements or deserters so far, nor a lack of reports to indicate a breach has happened. We’re being taken off response duty and tasked with encroaching on their rear. It goes without saying, but, just in case, if anything like an aggarten appears we immediately drop smokes and retreat.”

“So are we meant to be engaging, or just forming a net?” The hunter to Thomel’s left asked.

“We walk for a mile, and if we don’t encounter anything then we form a net and await further orders.”

“And if we do encounter something?” The same hunter asks again.

“We pelt it with bullets then fall back. we’re hunters, even though it doesn’t seem like it right now. Fighting isn’t for us.”

Looking around, the leader grimaced and asked. “Anything else?”

Everyone shook their heads in wordless reply.

“Right, then let's get moving. Stick together but not too close.”

Carefully trailing behind the team leader, Thomel made sure to keep a careful eye on the treeline behind them, shooting glances over his shoulder periodically.

He wasn’t alone either; one of his fellow hunters was busy checking their backs as well. Almost in unison, they gave each other a nod of appreciation.

The sickly trees looked like the flora equivalent of hunchbacks, with their drooping trunks and frail branches.

This apparently used to be healthy and green, just like practically every other forest.

Then the skirmishes began and soon so did the firebombing. It was like the sick trees were weeping for their dead friends.

They trekked onwards in silence, which was why it was so obvious and loud when the inquisitive hunter let out a gasp.

Springing around with his gun pointed out in front of him, Thomel saw the young man staring wordlessly at the incredibly human-looking body hidden in the opening of a rotten tree.

“Everyone circle five, now!” The leader uttered loudly, his blue eyes scanning the treetops with schizophrenic speed.

Thomel and the others quickly arrayed themselves around the scrawny man, each one of them focusing on locking down one direction.

The formation looked more like a square thanks to their low numbers, but it did the job all the same.

After an intense minute of scouring the bushes for anything that looked vaguely humanoid and, with no sign of any maliciousness at play, the leader told the questioning hunter to search the corpse.

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“Uhhh… no tags, just clothes and a gun.” he said after a brief search.

“Hmm, so one of ours then.” the team leader spoke thoughtfully, scratching at the stubble that made up his” beard”.

“How old is the body, lad?” He said after a momentary delay.

“I don’t know? Couple of weeks, months maybe?”

“You don’t know? You’re a hunter aren’t you?” The leader continued, puzzled and somewhat aggrieved, like his son had done some minor transgression.

“No, I’m a zookeeper.”

“What? No never mind… it doesn’t matter, let me look myself.” He groaned out, storming over to the body with hurried little steps.

“Hmm I see why you got confused, I don’t recall anyone dying around here in the last few weeks, so I want to say it’s at least a month old, but there’s no real damage to the soft tissues. This is a rather hot environment as well… Right it’s as I feared, magic. Lads this fellow here may have died before any of us got here, but there’s also a chance he fled or got brought here recently. We’re going to spread out a bit more just in case.”

“How much more?” Thomel asked. There was a fine line between safety in numbers and getting picked off, one which he’d first-hand experience learning about.

“Keep a couple of yards between each other. Enough that you could survive one of those toxic sprays if it hit your nearest friend.” He replied with careful consideration. Pointing at Thomel and then himself to display how far the distance should be.

“Do we look for traces?” The Inquisitive hunter questioned, before looking taken aback by everyone's various expressions, most notably the leader's scowl.

“No, because there won’t be any. If what did this used magic and if it didn’t use magic then, while it makes no sense, it must have done this at least a few weeks ago.” He said with no consideration for their understanding, just speaking as quickly as possible so everyone could move on faster.

His number one reporter looked like he wanted to ask further questions, but he closed his opening mouth when he saw another hunter shake his head.

“Look lad, I’m not mad, no one is. But now’s not the time, not anymore. You’re new so I’ll cut you some slack, but just stay quiet and remain behind us, don’t say a word unless there’s something very nasty that no one spotted coming for us, got it?”

The hunter nodded his head in confirmation.

“Good.” The team lead said, before resuming his place at the front of the group and returning to stalking through the forest with Thomel and the others in tow.

There were no more hidden corpses uncovered on their journey, but just as they were nearing the end of their advance, they encountered something far worse.

Frantically Their leader waved his hand down, Thomel and the others got the message instantly and gracefully crouched down, as smoothly and cleanly as possible.

Moving slowly and with as much speed as a snail, he turned around and mouthed out. “Move. Up, We. Fire. As One.”

Once he’d repeated that a few times and everyone was slowly starting to waddle forwards, he mouthed out again. “Thomel. Me. Shoot. Closest. Rest. Shoot. Farthest.”

Over the course of a few agonising minutes, they slowly moved up to where he was, getting into position and gazing at what it was that had attracted his attention.

A duo of elves were busy discussing something and adamantly shouting at each other in that silent language of theirs.

With a loud bang, a shot was discharged. Thomel didn’t know from who’s gun, but he immediately opened fire as well. He caught the closest one in the shoulder as she was swung to the side from the force of another bullet.

She opened her mouth to scream, and her jaw shattered, blown apart by someone's perfect shot.

He fired a few more shots at the elf and then switched to full auto, emptying his entire magazine in their general direction.

The others followed suit and the volume of bullets sundered one of the trees when their alpha strike ran dry. Everyone hastily ejected their magazines and replaced them.

“Up Thomel! we advance, the rest of you cover us!” The leader yelled out, scrambling upright and jogging forward while keeping his rifle leveled at where the elves were.

Thomel followed closely behind him, heart pounding and feeling sick. Elves were never easy targets and, very quickly, he was proven right.