Chapter 1

458 A.C.

It was a bright, yet strangely cold, summer day. There were no clouds visible in the sky. The western sky began to turn red, as the sun began to set. A black blur was moving through the sky. It was a large bird with two heads, black feathers, green eyes, four talons on its feet, and two red beaks. The bird was flying to a series of mountains that were in the distance.

The bird saw a large herd of humans and horses on the plains outside the mountain range. It slowed its flying speed to observe the herd. The bird counted at least three thousand humans in this herd, before giving up. The humans were stampeding about like a herd of urus. The bird was intrigued when it found small groups of humans, no more than five individuals, splitting away from their herd. Eventually those groups came back, and when they did, the human stampede would stop, and slightly change directions.

Slowly, the two-headed bird passed by the peculiar herd of humans. Within an hour, it reached the mountains. It was slightly curious about what the humans were doing.

Those strange creatures have always been interesting to watch. It thought while one of its heads glanced back.

On a small mountain road, a small group of cavalrymen, no more than twenty, were protecting a covered wagon. They traveled on an old and worn brick road.

The road had few trees on its sides, with their roots occasionally breaking through the path. But, even so, the trees were enough to isolate those on this mountain from seeing outside it. Occasional grey and brown boulders randomly populated the side of the mountain. Some boulders were as tall as some trees.

The group found a small sign leading them down a road which led to a small stream.

As the group got closer to the stream, the trees became more abundant. So, too, did the roots. Their occasional interruption of the road became more and more numerous. Until recently, it was a common transgression.

The cavalrymen were lightly armored. They were in chain mail, with a metal breastplate. Each person also carried a cavalry sword and a short spear. The wagon they guarded was made of wood, and was covered with a jade green sheet with intricate purple designs.

Slowly, as the group progressed, the mountain road grew wider, as if to fight the increasing interruptions of roots. The road continued its battle, as a clearing on the mountain side became visible to the group. One of the cavalrymen stopped the group.

He climbed on top of a boulder and pulled out a wooden tube that was hollow on both ends. The tube was the length of a hand, and had many inscriptions carved into it. The green canvas audibly rippled in the wind, as the cavalryman held the tube up to his eye. Squinting that eye and closing another, he peeked through the tube, and saw an army on horseback traveling parallel to the mountains. They were about sixteen kilometers away from the mountain.

"Sir Ild," the cavalryman shouted, "the Tal army is going north towards the Lodh empire. They do not seem to be heading towards the Havso estate." The wind blew, as a shadow crossed the small group. A voice came from the covered wagon. "Good!" the voice exclaimed. "We will find a place to camp for the night, and head back towards the estate, at sunrise tomorrow." As they were talking, an unnoticed shadow was circling around the group.

"There is a shallow cave here. It should be large enough to fit all of us. Do you think we should set up camp here?" A voice called out to a young man who was exiting a covered wagon. "There is a clear water spring four minutes to the east. I think we should stop here." Another voice called out. "And the elements are somewhat abundant here." A third voice called out.

The young man had exited the wagon. He was about two meters tall, and looked fairly fit. He looked to be no older than twenty. The young man was wearing loose fit robes. His eyes were a peculiar mix of orange and red. If you looked at the center of his right pupil, there was a small fiery orb. Small jets of orange energy connected to the veins in his eyes from this orb.

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He looked at the cave and muttered under his breath, "This cave is somewhat clean… is it inhabited? What do I do in these situations? That spell may work, but if I use it... well, it’s not like I will need to fight today."

Sighing, he clenched his fists before opening his palm. A red ring with was formed on it. Lines intersected inside the ring, forming a cube. At the intersections of the lines, strange runes twisted about. Two seconds later, the ring grew to the size of the room and disappeared. A red light flickered as strange footprints were uncovered.

The footprints were similar to those of a bird. They were 30 centimeters long, and each toe was 7 cm thick. Each footprint had three toes, two in the front, and one that was in the back. They covered the entire cave, and the area surrounding it. Following the footprints, there were many paths leading both away and to the cave.

"Sir Ild, what exactly did that spell do, and how old are these footprints? Do we need to worry?" "The spell shows me any footprints from the past week, and the likely stage of the one who laid these footprints." The youth responded.

"In this case, this cave is home to an unknown monstrous beast. Due to the shape and prevalence of the prints, it is most likely to be some sort of flightless bird. The bird in question is likely to stand more than 2 meters, and is probably at least one meter wide. We can infer this due to the size of the prints. This beast seems to be in the early to middle of the core formation stage."

"Should we camp here?" A voice asked.

"Yes, the majority of us have a solid core. It would be difficult for this beast to harm us." The youth known as ‘Sir Ild’ called out. "We camp here, we will have a three-man guard outside the cave, and we will switch every four hours." Ild continued.

As the group were talking, the bird in question was hunting. The bird was as wide as a washbasin, and had a head shorter than two average-height men stacked on top of each other. It had two long wings, with three small claws. The wings were similar to those of a bat. The bird had green and grey colored feathers that covered its entire body, with the exemption of its long legs.

Occasionally, the bird stoped and looked at its surroundings. It was tracking a group of deer.

As the sun set, the bird saw twenty deer grazing. The deer all appeared to be average in height, strength, and speed compared to the bird. They were spread about 20 meters apart. There was a deer that was more than fifty meters from the closest other deer. It too, though, was grazing. The bird decided that it would chase down this deer.

As the raptor-like bird was a forming a plan to strike the deer, a roar was heard as a big catlike beast, with red and gold fur, pounced at the walking bird.

The bird, while narrowly dodging the beast, kicked out one of its legs towards its exposed belly. The talons drew blood, yet the effect was minuscule.

When the attack landed, the catlike beast swept its rightmost arm at the bird in anger.

The swipe missed. Ceasing the moment, the bird jumped on the beast's back. Using its talons, the bird anchored itself onto the beast's back, and pecked at its head.

The beast roared, and rolled over, trying to dislodge the bird. The bird jumped off the beast, and as if expecting the bird to jump, the beast caught one of its wings.

It was then that the bird saw another cat approaching.

…

The bird decided to run.

Realizing that struggle was futile, bird let its wing be cut up by the first beast's claws, while managing to break free.

It ran to a nearby tree, and positioned itself, so the tree was at its back. It ran without looking back. Occasionally the bird would occasionally change directions.

Eventually, when the sun had fallen, the bird looked behind itself, and it saw nothing. With caution, it decided to change directions two more times before heading towards the cave.

The cavalrymen in the cave were sleeping. There were two people watching the group's horses, to make sure they didn’t wander off. There was another person standing to the side of the cave entrance. He was nodding in and out of sleep. "Why did Joseph decide to watch the cave?" One of the people guarding the horses asked, while looking at the cave's entrance.

"Don’t know, and I don’t really care. We are safe anyways. We have been in the mountains for a week now, and nothing has attacked us." As he responded, the other guard sighed. It was then that three people left the cave.

"Hey, Joseph, it’s time to switch shifts."

"Get back to the cave and sleep."

The two called out when they saw the group approaching them. The new shift was exchanged for the old one after a couple of words. The moon was reaching the center of the sky as they retreated back to the cave.

There was a large two-headed bird perched on top of a tree that the relaxed guards did not see. The bird would occasionally glance at the cave, in curiosity. It was then that it saw a raptor about a kilometer away, glancing behind itself as it fled towards the cave guarded by strange humans. It cooed in anticipation, as if it was watching an interesting play.