Crimson watches as Mon leaps from branch to branch, her speed barely changing as she trails her prey. Looking away from her he begins moving across the branches towards his own position, though significantly slower than her. Looking down he sees a large doe racing through the forest towards him. Drawing back his bow he aims for the creature’s heart. With a soft thud the creature hits the ground, never even feeling the arrow pierce its body. Mon lands on the ground next to it, waiting a moment she confirms its dead and looks to Crimson with a thumbs up.

“Jump down!” She yells, acting as if the ninety-foot drop was nothing more than an inconvenience.

“I think I’ll just climb down,” He yells from the dense thicket of branches he was safely hiding amongst. “I don’t think breaking my legs would be fun.”

“Just tuck and roll like I taught you,” She yells up, her tail flaring in annoyance. “Or I’ll come up there and kick you down instead!”

“You teach too much like Fey.” He says as he still refuses to jump.

“Just jump!” She yells up in exasperation.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Crimson mentally prepares himself to leap to the ground. With a deep breath he releases himself from the branch and watches the ground hurtle towards him. As he’s about to hit the ground he bends his knees and transfers into a roll, doing two rotations before flattening out. Groaning in pain he stands, shaking off sticks and leaves while rubbing his injured bum.

“See, you’re fine,” Mon says as she sits next to the dead animal. “You even made less noise than last time.”

“Would be hard not to,” He says as he walks up to her, trying to forget about the last time altogether. “That thing big enough?”

With a nod she removes her clawed gauntlets and uses her natural claws to dig into its flesh and begin cutting it into sections. Crimson begins scanning the forest as a look out, this situation having become routine in the past three weeks.

“Trace said we should reach a village today didn’t he?” Mon asks as she rips the haunches off the animal.

“Yeah, it should be the last one we find until we reach that mountain range.” He says as he continues to scan the forest.

“I hope they have cows.” Mons says as she snips the last piece of useable meat from the doe.

Crimson turns to look at her, a long forgotten question having resurfaced. “Where did you even get milk back at Stena? I don’t think I-“

A growling amongst the foliage quickly makes him forget his question, instead drawing his bow in the direction of the noise. Mon quickly reaches his side, her gauntlets now attached to her hands.

“Think you could translate?” He asks her.

“Shut up…it does sound familiar though.” She says, her ears perked up and listening for further noises.

The rustling of foliage to their left alerts them as a large black sheen lunges towards them. Crimson and Mon quickly dodge the lunge and orient themselves to look at their attacks.

“Oh, I knew it!” She says as she begins walking towards the creature, its large fur covered body tensing in preparation. “It’s a regal, I didn’t know there were any here.”

“Aren’t these things territorial?” Crimson asks, the creatures purple eyes staring at him less in hunger and more cautious anger.

“I don’t know…they never liked me when I was around.” Mon says as she continues to inch forwards towards the regal.

“I’m pretty sure you were the one that told me they were…” Crimson says with a shake of his head.

Mon doesn’t respond as she continues to inch closer. Crimson still had his bow at the ready but decided to let Mon do as she wished, opting instead to be ready to help. Eventually Mon got within arm’s reach of the creature and began putting her arm out towards it. For a second Crimson thought she’d managed to touch the creature, just for it to suddenly bite towards her arm. In an instant Mon retracts her arm, barely avoiding the attack. The creature goes to press its advantage but quickly retreats to avoid Crimson’s arrow. It looks back and forth between him and Mon, deciding which to attack. Its indecision turns on it as Mon rushes forward. The regal strikes out with its paw but Mon slides underneath the strike and brings her gauntlets up to its underside, gutting the creature in one swipe.

“They are starting to get boring…” Mon says as she stands over the creature.

Crimson watches as she quickly jabs her gauntlets into its skull, ending its suffering. Shaking his head, Crimson wonders just how many she’s killed to think they’re boring. Walking over to her, he can see her already pooling the blood in her hands.

“You really shouldn’t drink anymore of these things,” He says as he stares. “You don’t need another tail.”

“You’re just jealous you don’t have one,” She says, her tail moving in pride. “And this isn’t for me. The best blood from these things is always in…”

Crimson looks at her confused at why she trailed off until he notices her ears twitching. Listening closer, he manages to pick up the soft crushing of vegetation all around them.

“More?” Crimson asks, his bow now primed.

“No, regals don’t come in packs.” She says, snuffing his idea.

Suddenly the crushing stops and silence follows. Crimson scans the forest in confusion, until he hears a familiar sound. “Shield!”

In an instant Mon is tucked next to him as his cloak covers the both of them. The twanging of bows starts shortly after. While the arrows don’t puncture it still feels like being sucker punched repeatedly. Eventually it ends and Crimson peaks his head out to see more than a dozen figures moving about the tree line.

“We really need to stop standing around in clearings.” Mon says, a bruise already forming on her cheek from one of the arrows.

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

“I’ll drop a powder and we’ll run for the camp.” He says, internally agreeing with Mon’s suggestion.

Mon nods in confirmation and places her goggles on her head. Crimson reaches to his lower back, where he is now keeping the more unique arrows, and pulls a blunt arrow with a white ring from it. Dropping it to the ground he quickly crushes it with his foot, a thick cloud of smoke billowing out. Mon and Crimson quickly bolt to the camp under the smoke screen, rustling and yelling surrounding them from all sides. She exits the smoke first, Crimson hears a surprised gasp and screaming as he exits as well. On the other side he finds three people, Mon pulling her claws out of a now glassy eyed man and a furious woman charging her. Before the woman can reach Mon, Crimson’s sword pierces her side. With a practiced movement his blade slides free of her ribs and arcs towards her neck, two thuds following after. Looking down at them Crimson examines their equipment. Both are clad in a mixed assortment of green and brown clothes, a mediocre attempt at camouflage. A bow and short sword were all they carried, both standard in every way. Not waiting to check any further Crimson bolts forward once again with a bit of spurring from Mon. A minute-long sprint later they arrive at camp, the inhabitants already packed.

Trace walks up and hands both of them their packs before nodding for them to follow. “Let’s get moving, you can explain when we get to Arger.”

“Arger?” Crimson asks as he slips his pack on, quickly adjusting it to comfort.

“The city along the mountain-range.” Deidra answers, glancing at the blood on his sword as he does.

Nodding he looks to see Trace already moving into the forest, and rushes to keep up. A slightly hurried rush through the forest melds the time and its nearly evening by the time he sees torchlight in the distance. Bursting out of the brush, his breath hitches at the sight before him. A massive city sprawled out in front of him. Stone walls so tall he could barely see over them, with watchtowers sprawled along it. Despite the magnificence of the sight, reality hit him soon after. The light he saw wasn’t just from torches, it was from burning buildings. Lining the walls were crudely made ladders, as well as bodies. A barely holding wooden gate confirming Deidra’s suspicions.

“They’ve been sieged.” She says horror.

Trace’s eyes grow wide at the scene, but a nudge from Navi draws him back to reality.

“They have two sets of walls; this outer section was built more recently.” He says after a moment. “We need to get to that second wall, the bodies are fresh so it’s likely those are still secure. Up those ladders.”

“We won’t make it.” Mon says, pointing towards a massive group of similarly clothed people to the ones they just encountered appearing out of the brush a few yards from them. “Any other ideas?”

Trace doesn’t say anything, attempting to think of a way out. As they get closer, Deidra looks towards the wooden gate.

“The gate.” She says, double checking the bracings on her shield.

Taking a moment, she begins full sprinting towards the gate, everyone else close behind. As she nears it she pulls her shield in front of her and puts her shoulder into it. With a massive crack the gate gives way to Deidra’s charge, both the gate and the warrior falling forward into the city. Crimson rushes to help her up as the others begin sprint past. As she stands, her right arm is limp against her side, though her shield is still attached.

“Dislocated,” She says through gritted teeth. “I’ll be fine.”

Despite the injury she begins running as well, the both of them quickly catching up with the rest. Trace was leading them down a straight stretch of road leading to the heart of the city, the wooden buildings burning as they run past. As they ran Crimson looked around in horror. Bodies of all shapes, sizes, and ages littered the streets. He sees multiple other attackers barging into homes, setting fire to more, or worse. Too his horror he saw a group of bandits finally break into a larger building, he could hear the screams as they entered.

“Keep moving,” Deidra says to him, having noticed him reaching for his sword. “You’d only join them.”

Crimson swallows his guilt as he continues running, attempting to ignore more screaming. As they run he can see a man was backed against the wall by one of the bandits, a knife against their throat. Fortunately, they were close enough to them that they could easily intervene without being caught by their pursuers. Crimson expected Trace or Navi to stop it but neither paid it any attention, choosing instead to continue running. Mon bolted past as well, Echo glanced but ultimately chose to continue running. Crimson huffed in rage as he drew he own sword and dashed towards the bandit. Hearing the approaching footsteps, the bandit turned and spotted Crimson. Pulling his knife away from the man he swung it in a horizontal arc at Crimson. Merely ducking his head, Crimson dodges the strike and sinks his sword into the bandit’s midsection. Not taking any additional time he quickly removes his blade and sprints to catch back up to his group. As he does another wall comes into view, this one marked with damage but lined with armed soldiers and bowmen. Turning he can see the group that was chasing them had given up, not wanting to be attacked by that force.

“We’re Stena!” Trace yells up at the soldiers. “We require entry and an audience with your current leader!”

At the mention of Stena, the soldiers scramble to open the gate, its iron heft lifting a few moments later. They all walk through and into the company of well over a hundred armed and ready soldiers. Trace walked up to one of the clearly high ranking soldiers, the gold brim on his armor giving his position away.

“Where is Hima?” Trace asks.

The soldier looks closely at Trace’s neck, then at everyone else’s before speaking. “Our leader is in the manor’s meeting hall; you’ll have to find it yourself.” The man says.

Trace nods in thanks and walks past, clearly knowing his way around. With their safety secured Crimson finally got the opportunity to take in the décor of the city. None of the buildings were uniform, each having its own unique style and quirks. So extreme were the designs that one building was made entirely out of a boney red material with spikes lining the roof. The one neighboring it was almost entirely vertical; each room of the house being connect by an outside staircase.

“The buildings in the outer layer weren’t like this.” He muses as he continues following Trace.

“These buildings are probably for the wealthier citizens,” Deidra says. “It’s unlikely anyone else could afford such expensive deigns.”

Crimson looks at her, nodding towards her dislocated shoulder. “Do you need help with that?”

She shakes her head as she continues walking. “I’ll reset it once we stop, just need a bit of time.”

Crimson nods as he looks ahead, his eyes locking onto a massive building surrounded by a dense garden. Three stories tall, wooden accenting, stone walls, and countless stained glass windows made it a beautiful sight to behold. Iron fencing wrapped around the whole building, and statues of countless people sat atop it. As they approached the large steel gate, two statues stared down at them. One was a short woman missing her right arm, sporting a buzz cut and holding a polearm in her left hand. The next was a man carrying two children on his shoulders, his leg was replaced by a what looked like a peg leg.

“Who are those people?” Mon asks as they walk past.

Seeing her interest, Navi falls back from talking with Trace and falls in line with her. “These statues are of all the previous leaders of Arger, the two nearest to the gate are the most recent to pass.”

As they continue to walk, Crimson notices a pair of women examining a solid column of marble with craftsmen tools strewn about them, neither of them looked especially happy. Shaking off the scene he follows Trace through the large wooden door of the manor. Inside he’s greeted by a similar chandelier hanging in the entryway. Wooden furnish and lush carpet decorated the whole building, more exotic decoration littered about. Countless trophies from monsters lined the walls, less like prizes and more like warnings. Opened doors on the ground floor revealed numerous luxuries, from a library to a twelve person dining room. Above him was a balcony where multiple people leaning on wooden railing looked down at them. Hurried footsteps drew his attention towards the staircase in front of them. Rushing down towards them was a small redheaded girl with dark skin. She skids to a halt in front of them, dusting off her frilly yellow dress as she looks up at them.

“Welcome to Arger Manor, Zima asks for your presence.” She says, her blue eyes showing impatience.