The moon stood high and was giving off a lot of light. A near full moon to lead everyone on their way, both friend or foe. The sound of cold wind could be heard as the only other sound was the sound of leaves being pushed out of the way. It was soft enough to not be noticed by the sleeping people. Even though the moving of the leaves could be just the wind, Lilly still woke up.

“Ah fuck…!” She opened her eyes as she grabbed her leg once more. She was feeling sick and her leg stung like hell. She slowly moved her blanket away, using the light that pierced through the tent to look at her leg. She saw her leg getting worse and worse, the infection having spread as puss leaked out. But her pondering about her leg was getting cut short as she now heard it, someone was walking around the outside of the tent. “Emma? Emma wake up, there’s something out there.”

Emma didn’t wake up, being deep asleep. Lilly saw no other way but to slap her sister.

“Lilly what the…!” Her words were cut short as Lily covered her mouth.

“Shhhh… There’s something walking around her tent.” As she said that, a creature on all fours would slowly walk around the side of the tent sniffing.

Emma grabbed her bow and arrows, getting ready to fight if needed. After she got her bow, she slowly got up, crawling to the entrance and opened it a tiny bit. Not wanting to go outside and hoping for the tent to keep her safe, she would wait. The creature kept walking forwards along the sides. As it rounded the corner and got into her field of view, Emma sighed out of relieve. “It’s Darter. That wolf from Ninke.”

“What? What is he doing here?”

Emma shrugged as she opened the tent. Even though she trusted the wolf, she was still careful. The wolf froze when he noticed movement, sniffing the air. As their scent hit the wolves nose, he would wag his tail, sneaking forwards.

“He has a paper around his neck.” Said Lilly as she saw a rope holding a paper. She started to untie it while Emma started to pet the wolf, enjoying dogs a lot. The wolf made her think of their own dog at home.

“So cute isn’t she?” Said Emma. The wolf tilted his head, hoping to get more pats.

Lilly finally managed to get the rope loose, grabbing the message off him. “It’s a he.

As soon as the wolf felt the rope get taken off, he turned around and ran off. Emma seemed a bit sad by this, wanting to pet him a bit longer. Lilly on the other hand was busy with more important stuff, trying to read what it said. It didn’t take long for her to give up, giving the paper to her sister.

It took her a total of three seconds to stand up and leaving he tent. That was something that Lilly didn’t like.

“Hey! Where are you going, you’re naked!” Lilly didn’t yell but she still spoke loudly while whispering.

Emma gestured to Lucas his tent, not being bothered that she was naked.

“Yeah well, he already has seen us naked so what gives?” She turned back around as she continued to walk to Lucas. She didn’t even wait, opening his tent, kicking his leg. “Wake up sunshine. You have a message!”

Unlike them, Lucas slept with his underwear on. He was confused when he woke up, looking down and seeing her standing there with the moonlight mostly able to enter through the opening of the tent, showing her features more clearly.

“What? What’s for dinner?”

Emma threw the paper in his face. “Look, we got a paper with symbol on. It’s from your girlfriend and we need you to translate it.”

Lucas grabbed the paper, opening it up as he started to read through it. His focus quickly disappeared though, looking back up at Emma. “What is it with you and being naked in my tent anyway? What happened with being royals and having high standards. Are you even allowed to look at your subjects while being naked?”

“Read it now before I cut off your manhood worm!”

“Okay okay! Hold your horses… or in your case centaurs.” He laughed at his own joke, shaking his head slowly as his laugh quickly disappeared as Emma didn’t think it was so funny.

“Okay I’ll read it.” He opened the paper again as he started to read the symbols. It didn’t take long for him to change from happy and cheerful to worried and scared. “Get dressed, we have to go now!” Lucas himself jumped up as he grabbed his clothes and got dressed. “Now!”

“Why!? What’s wrong!?” She didn’t sound mad anymore, leaving his tent as she waited for him to get out as well.

Lilly showed up behind her, hearing that something was wrong. Unlike her sister, she was dressed, not wanting to be naked in front of Lucas if she didn’t need to be.

Lucas got up, grabbing everything that seemed important. “Emma! Clothes! Now!” He saw her turn around and run to their tents. This gave him a chance to talk to Lilly. “They followed us to Ninke. She didn’t betray us but they kept following our trail. They’re right on our asses!”

As they talked, a light could be seen coming out from above the bushes from where they came. It still was a fair distance away but Lucas and Lily both shut up, looking at the light.

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Lilly sounded scared as she felt the pain in her leg disappear a bit. “They’re here…” Lilly turned away from the light, starting to hobble in the way that they had been going. “I’m going ahead, my leg…!”

As Lilly went ahead, he would groan, looking back at the tent as he grabbed his clothes, getting dressed. While doing that, he would look at the newly obtained tent, knowing he had to leave it behind. He grabbed his bag and the bag with food, turning around to see Emma leaving their tent. He threw her the bag with food, pointing to where Lilly had gone. “She went ahead, run!”

“Do we really need to carry this bag Lucas!?” She ran past him, holding the heavy bag with food.

“If you want to eat then yes! Now shut it and run!” He slowly caught up to Emma, holding his own bag. Emma had to carry her bow and arrows and also Lillys weapons seeing as she didn’t go back to the tent to collect them.

As they ran, it didn’t look like they were spotted yet. The light continued to move at the normal pace at it was still far enough away to not have heard them and they also hadn’t found the camp yet, giving the enemy no reason to go faster.

As Emma and Lucas ran, the would suddenly get into a rather big open area. There was a stone road going from the left to the right that was elevated of the ground using dirt in order to have the water run off. That’s where they saw Lilly standing, panting at the bottom as she wasn’t sure where to go. It wasn’t more than a meter high but still enough for her to wait.

Emma and Lilly were about to run up the Hill when Lucas grabbed both their shoulders.

“Stop, we go back and hide in the tree. They’ll think we got onto the road as it leads back to the Human Gruge.”

Neither of the girls seemed to understand the plan really. They followed him but hesitated.

“Isn’t that good? We’re close to home.” Asked Emma, not wanting to waste time hiding in a tree.

Lilly wouldn’t be so lost as her sister, understanding why Lucas wanted to do this.

“Lucas is right. We heard them say that they blocked of all the roads. And even if we get past them, just because we’re in the Human Gruge doesn’t mean we’re safe. They’ll keep hunting us until we reach the castle.”

Glad that someone else saw the logic, he would choose a tree. “They’ll think we’re stupid and follow the road to try and catch up. I wouldn’t be surprised if at this point we have a bounty meaning the ones to capture us gets a reward.”

Sadly for them, in the distance they could hear multiple hooves on the ground. They were closing in fast and it was clear that they were following their tracks. Lucas looked at the bush line, separating the rest of the bush filled forest with the road and around 20 meters of only trees connecting said road with the bushes.

“Fuuuuck… Get in now!” Even though he was keeping his voice quiet, the panic was audible.

Emma started to climb as she didn’t have an infected leg, completely forgot about her sister. Lilly saw this and felt slightly betrayed, but she couldn’t stop her as she knew that it was life or death. The voices could be heard, centaurs galloping quickly. Their voices getting louder and louder.

“Oh come on, get in the damn tree. I’m not going to die for you.” Lucas was serious about it. He lifted her up and saw her flailing and missing the branch right above her head as her useless leg wasn’t able to help her. “I swear I’ll drop you!”

She finally managed to grab the branch, lifting herself up as Emma finally helped her sister. Lucas didn’t even care that she wasn’t fully in yet. He threw his bag as far as he could which wasn’t far, knowing that he probably didn’t have time to get himself in the tree with the weight of the bag dragging him down. With some cursing he lifted himself up into the tree, climbing as high as the branches would allow it, Emma and Lilly following him.

Just as they entered the pack of leaves, a group ran out of the bushes following their tracks to the road. They knew which road this was and also what it meant if they reached the border. Without checking for any other tracks, they ran down the road. The border was still a fair distance away as the road made multiple turns.

As they ran off, Lucas would sigh, closing his eyes and leaning against the tree. Even though he was relieved, Emma didn’t understand how this worked. “Why? Why aren’t they checking around?”

Lucas looked at her, shaking his head. “This is because they don’t know how recent we left our camp. For as far as they know, we’ve gone hours ago. They know that the border is closed off by their own groups but they don’t know that we know. So this is…” He shut up, hearing another group talking.

Out of the bushes came a wide assortment of creatures. One human, a couple of elves, satyrs and a big brown creature that looked like a humanoid bull.

“What is that?” Asked Lucas to himself. He had never seen anything like it before.

“What’s what?” Asked Emma to him. She looked down, not knowing what the problem was.

Lilly who knew what Lucas was talking about would come a bit closer to talk to him. “That’s a minotaur. It’s one of the commanders of the Forest Gruge.” Lilly sounded a bit surprised though. “That means that we can’t trust the Forest Gruge…”

Emma was a bit scared. They always had the suspicion that it was the whole gruge. Seeing him being part of the hunters meant that they were right. “We’ll never make it alive.”

As they sat in the tree, they watched how the group followed the path of the centaurs but slower, jogging in order to keep up but they were never going to catch up. As the group got onto the road, they would hesitate for a bit, not able to see any tracks. One elf pointed into he right direction. “That’s the border.” Not much else had to be said, starting to run down the path.

As they started to run down the road, a singular satyr stayed behind. He had a two handed battleaxe and walked back to the side of the road, looking at the tracks. The moonlight wasn’t enough to clearly show him what happened here but he thought that something was off.

He ran back down the hill to where Lucas, Lilly and Emma had been, seeing a trail going to a tree with a bit further away being a bag. He started to walk to the tree, playing with his axe as he tried to be silent.

Not that him trying to be silent mattered. They had been watching the hunters the entire time. As he started to get closer, Emma would grab her bow and arrow, giving Lilly hers. Both of them got ready, keeping the arrow resting for now.

As the satyr came closer, he started to look up in the tree. His eyes slowly scanning through the branches and the leaves. After a while he started to notice three dark spots, blocking more light from the moon.

Just as he was about to call for back-up, something hit him in the chest. It felt like something had rammed him full speed, causing him to stumble back, gasping for air. He felt something warm run down his chest as he started to couch, some thick liquid coming out of his mouth.

A sudden searing pain erupted from his chest, causing him to grab at whatever it was. He looked down, seeing that he grabbed an arrow which was deep in his chest. Arm strength was the first to go, dropping the axe as he took another step back. The warm feeling of blood slowly turned cold as his legs gave out as well. He fell to the ground, looking up at the sky, couching once more as he tried to call for help. His mouth open and closed like a fish on dry land. The cold spreading through his body as the light disappeared from his eyes.