The healer came when El was sound asleep, sitting a few steps away from Alice.

He lifted his eyelids just enough to see an older woman with dark skin and clear-blue eyes tower over two wounded girls, looking them over before he stopped fighting their weights and his eyes closed again.

Half asleep, half awake, he heard the healer squash some herbs and put it over the wounds, then wrapped it up again. The young woman with the hurt hand started to wake up and utter akes of pain, so the healer asked for hot water to make her tea that would put her to sleep again, and asked to move her to another room so that her cries of pain would not wake Alice up. And that’s all El could take before he let his mind shut down.

He woke up a few hours later, in complete darkness as all the candles had gone out. Alice was sleeping soundly and he noticed a lukewarm cup of tea next to her bed, almost full. He smelled it, noticing its strong floral sense, and decided to drink it all, then poured himself another one from the nearby metallic teakettle and drank that as well. Such was his thirst that he could drink another one, but the sweet easiness of sleep wrapped itself around him and he just went back to his seat and slept there till the morning sun did not get into his eyes.

Alice was up by then, her eyes full of tears. Silently, she wept.

“Is it hurting that bad?” he asked her.

“No. It’s not hurting at all. I feel actually fine if I don't move. And, I just checked, my Health is almost at over 70 percent.”

“Good, so then, why…”

“Oh, never mind my tears. It’s just so disappointing. I just wish that, just for one whole day, I could be healthy, I spent most of my last two years in and out of hospitals, without a single day when I could say I felt good. And, coming here, I thought it would be different. And now this. It seems my troubles with my health will never end.” she said as tears rolled down her cheek.

He was going to scorn her, tell her to toughen up, not to behave like a baby. but then, he took a deep breath, kneeled next to her, and held her hand, remembering how she tried to hug him just a few hours before. Just as if I was her big brother. He did not even know he needed that hug, but now, remembering it, he felt different, with everything that had happened to him during the last few years. The tears that were left somewhere inside of him were ready to come out, but he pushed them back in.

Maybe I can just give her a break, he thought. Besides, I don’t want to be a prick, no matter what that is.

So he gently held her hand and padded it with his other one. “You will get stronger. You will see. Trust me. And I will do all I can for that to happen. And then, you will become fierce. And healthy and so powerful, you’ll be able to heal yourself and anyone else you want to. Anywhere!! You’ll become the greatest healer of them all! Don’t forget it!” The more he talked, the more her tears started to roll down, and soon, he had to push away and turn around as he couldn't control his own. “Don’t forget. That’s why we are here,” he added as he needed to get out of there.

“Hey, El,” she called to him as he was already on the stairs. “Thank you.”

“I should have protected you better.”

“No. I should have helped you. Help you fight them.”

“No, you did the best you could. No regrets. We have no time for that,” he said, suddenly sure that’s how it’s supposed to be even though he felt a world of regret on top of his shoulders.

“No regrets,” Alice said, staring him in the eyes as El nodded his head a few times.

Trim met him on the stairs, “I asked them to call me as soon as you woke up. The healer said to give you a rest, that you needed one, but I think, you need to see this,” he said, a disturbing alert in his voice.

“What is it?”

“Something strange has happened to the beasts we slaughtered,” he said, leading him outside.

El hurried his step, unsure of what he was to find outside.

The beasts were lined up next to each other outside, but there was not much left of them, not of their bodies anyway.

They were melting. Even the snow cold could not keep them frozen solid and they had soiled the whiteness of the sand around, turning it all crimson and black with their decomposing leather.

“What does that mean? What kind of magic is it?” El asked.

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El’s face frowned, not happy he did not dissect one of them last night as there was nothing to dissect right now. He moved one of the bodies with his boot and saw only fangs and bone structures as everything was just a nasty mash of swiftly decomposing leathery skin and a bloody mass that was in an indistinguishable form.

“There is a reason for this,” El said, lost in his thought, trying to think what could cause the body to disintegrate so swiftly.

“Even when you kill a goblin, it would not die like this. It would take at least a week for the body to start falling apart.”

“Yeah, this is something new. There must be a reason behind it. We just need to find it out.”

Then he squinted his eyes and looked at the meager sun that was up in the cloud-free sky. “Could it be the sun and daylight?”

“The one we brought inside… I went to see, it’s falling apart just as well,” Trim answered.

“Smart thinking,” El complimented him.

“What did you think you were going to find inside of them?” he asked El. “Last night you said you wanted my sharp blade to cut into them.”

“Yes. I’ve never seen creatures like this. I wanted to look inside and find what was inside of them. But now, it’s rather useless. I guess I’ll have to get myself a new corpse for that, and something tells me I’ll have a chance to do just that sooner than later.”

“You think they’ll be back?” Trim asked him, squinting his eyes.

“You think they won’t?” he returned the question with a slight surprise in his voice.

Trim sighed and shook his head, his gaze lost to the North and the snow-covered mountains there.

“What is the final balance of last night?” El interrupted him.

“Four villagers have been slaughtered. And, Tin and Rama, kids five and six years old. They are missing. We can’t find any trace of them. Not even a foot print.”

“Maybe they have climbed up some tree.”

“Maybe. But there are only beasts’ tracks leaving their home. We followed their trails. They all united outside the village lead where they came from, up north, into the mountains.”

“They went from the same place they came from. Are folks ready to go and find that place?”

“We might.. Form a search party. Go and look for them around,” Trim said, but with unease and uncertainty that made El highly doubt anything like that might actually happen. So, he added, “That’s a good idea. I’d come with you, but first, I need to do something. Give me an hour, and I’ll be ready by then.”

“Take longer. We’re waiting for the help from Eston.”

“And Eston is?”

“It’s the town a few hours ride from here. We lighted the beacon, signaling for help. They should send someone to help us. That is the agreement we have with their Lord Wan.”

“I see.”

Their conversation ended as two hunters came out of the tavern, each carrying a heavy backpack stuffed with cuts of salted meat ready to be smoked. It was the best Holgar could do in a hurry.

"You're good at fighting. Thank you for the help last night," Holgar thanked them, walking behind them and seeing them off.

"We do what we can, and what we must," Dimintiz, the older of them, said.

“You can come back in a week for the rest of your meat. The hams will be ready by then, together with the sausages.”

All what he was seeing was not going well with El and he stepped toward them and said, “I’m not sure there is going to be anything standing here in two weeks. Most likely, these beasts will be back, stronger and smarter than before. That’s how it usually works.”

They stopped leaving and looked at him in the eyes which gave him a chance to talk.

"I know you're scared for your families and that you want to go to them right away, but you should know that this evil that came this way, came from somewhere. And it will come again, and it will not stop. Not here. And if it overruns this village, it will move elsewhere down the river, killing and butchering everything around. And the small isolated farms will be next and they will not be able to stand up against it. They need to be stopped here. Here, united, we have a chance to defeat them.”

“We need to leave,” Dmintiz said, the regret displayed clearly on his face. "Our families need us."

“I understand. Just like people here need all the help they can get. Sure they are strong and independent. But, this fight is not only theirs. It's of all people who live in these parts. United you stand, fight, and live, divided you all fall and die,” El said. "If not for these people, you should do it for you and your families."

The man nodded his head. "I know. But I need to take the food to my family. Dying from hunger is the same as dying from the long fangs of the beast. It all

comes to be the same."

"So, go, I just hope that when you decide you need to fight there is someone, anyone left to stand next to you to fight.”

“We have to take care of our families first. But, I can tell you this, didn’t want to say anything on account of people not believing stories like that. But now… I might as well say it. We kind of expected these beasts.”

“Say again?”

“This is not the first time I heard about these creatures. Old Fox had mentioned seeing monsters just like these not more than two full moons ago. Old Fox might be a lot of things, but he is not one to make up stories. That is why we got a bit giddy when we saw those lights too. Now I guess it all makes sense and we need to tell our families all about it.”

“And you say, that was two months ago?”

“Yes, two full moons ago.”

El did not expect to hear that, and it was a lot to process.

"We will return, as soon as we drop this food. Expect us soon."

El nodded his head, seeing there was no way he could ever change the man's mind. He doubted he was ever going to see them again. Yet, the information he just received changed everything. If there were these creatures in the mountains two months ago, that would imply that it could not be the work of Vermal. It means that he was just losing his time here while Vermal was running somewhere free on this planet, planting his seed and nurturing it. He felt an urgency to find him overpower his senses and his legs headed automatically down the road before he could stop himself.

Through the mind fog, somewhere in the distance, he heard Holgar say,

"They'll be back. those men are true to their words.”

“Leave their children and wives, old and sick to go and fight here with us? I’m not so sure, Holgar,” Trim added as he watched them slide down the snow-covered road.

"Yeah, but their hams and half of the other meat are still in my kitchen."

“Yeah, maybe… but not before they get hungry,” his friend added.

El looked at them both as if he was seeing them for the first time, turning around and seeing everything as nothing more than a time trap, realizing he could not stay there any longer. Realizing that these people could probably not be saved.