Since Zoala saw the arrow fly, she was the most prepared. While Medi was lying on the ground, trying to get back up, Emma would crawl out from underneath him, her leg having been crushed between him and the ground, hurting a lot.

Zoala reached in her bag, grabbing a flute. She started to play a quick song, vines starting to sprout out from underneath the first couple of skeletons, entangling them. This wasn’t enough to stop them though, others going around them and continuing the charge up the hill.

She reached in her bag, grabbing a stone and throwing it in the air. A yellow rune got visible as the stone disappeared, making a soft cool breeze appear. The vines suddenly got encased in ice, freezing the skeletons they had captured together with the skeletons that were nearby.

She started to laugh, feeling as if she was going to win this on her own. Sadly enough a sudden forced pushed her onto the ground. The air got pushed out of her longues as she lay there, the pain finally getting to her brain as she realized that she had been shot. The arrow went into her left shoulder, dropping the flute. With her right hand, she grabbed a rock that wasn’t in her bag but that she had attached to a rope around her neck. She pulled onto the rock, the little rope breaking. She then slammed the stone onto the ground, another yellow rune appearing as a green orb surrounded her, Medi and Emma, keeping them protected in a small yet unbreachable space.

The sound of hooves on the ground was the only thing Emma could hear. She had her head against Jacksons shoulders. Jackson himself was focused on running, his eyes scanning the trees as they ran. He was scared as well but he was also more focused. It therefor also took a while before he noticed that Emma was crying. The longer that she cried, the slower he would run. Eventually even stopping as he looked at her.

“Are you alright? Are you hit?” He started to scan her for blood, panting due to the running as he was having difficulty to look at her due to her sitting behind him.

“We left them.” Emma was barely audible when she said that. “We just ran off.”

“We didn’t really have a choice. They attacked us. We need to make sure that we warn our king, my king.”

After saying that, he started to run again. It was slower than he was going originally, feeling tired as he had ran for a while now but he knew that he couldn’t stop. He tried to shut off his thoughts, not focusing on how long he had to go or how long he had been running so far. The wind was blowing through his hair as the weight of Emma on him slowed him down.

It took them all together around an hour of running before it started to get obvious that they were getting closer. The already plentiful trees and bushes got even more plentiful. The path which up until now was almost always straight ahead started to slowly go the right. As soon as the path got straight again, they saw two centaurs in the distance, standing in front of what looked like an entrance of a big bunch of bushes.

As they were able to see them, the centaurs also were able to see Jackson and Emma. One of them would get take a couple of steps forwards, holding up his hand in order to stop them. “Stop right now!”

After yelling that, he and his friend would notice that the centaur coming had a human on his back. This was very confusing to them. Jackson didn’t stop, causing them to get on the road, blocking his path. “Stop now!”

Since they had blocked the path and going around would slow them down a lot, Jackson would stop, panting and breathing hard as he had his hand on his chest. He tried to speak but nothing came out.

Emma saw this and knew that they had to move. “I’m the princes of the Human Gruge. We’re here because we need to stop the negotiations. You need to let us through.”

The centaurs looked a bit confused when she said that, knowing that negotiations with the Human Gruge were supposed to happen a while ago but nothing happened. They got out of the way to let them pass.

As they passed them, Emma would motion for them to follow, feeling that something was going to go down. Jackson started to run once more, going into the thick coverage while the other centaurs followed but being hesitant while doing so, soon riding into a clearing.

The Forest Gruge didn’t really have any castle and their main clan was very close to the border. In the clearing were a bunch of people. Straight ahead against the other side of the clearing was a big table being covered by a roof made of stick and leaves. On one side was a skeleton delegation as on the other side was sitting an old looking satyr

There were around ten skeletons. The leader had fancy but damage clothes while the two right behind him also had fancy clothes. The seven other seemed to have some kind of special armor that Emma recognized as kinetic energy absorbing metal made by the forges of the Mountain Gruge. They were quite difficult to kill. Some even said that these skeletons were able to take out small armies on their own due to their training and incredible armor. It was amazing seeing seven of these armors in one place being rarely made.

The satyr had on his side quite the group as well. There was the minotaur who immediately grabbed his axe upon seeing her but didn’t draw it, his eyes looking from her to the satyr and then the skeleton. There also was another satyr who looked identical to the older one but being younger, having the symbol of the royal lute on his chest. Then you had six elves. Two of those having a different symbol on them, one having the symbol of a clover as the other one had the symbol of a pinecone. The rest seemed to be their body guards rocking swords and shields instead of their usual bows.

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Of all the creatures here, the only royal species missing were the centaurs which was weird. There were more royal creatures for every species but each had their own rule of electing their representative for negotiations.

Not that the people around the bench were the only people since in the whole open area were people doing different things but all stayed away from the table, being quiet to not disturb the negotiations.

The Satyr would look up from the paper when Jackson and Emma rode into the open area. “What is the meaning of this?” He even sounded old as he looked at the two, obviously already having gotten a long life behind him.

Emma hesitated, trying to think of what to say as her eyes would wander to the minotaur. His black eyes were now peering into her soul, almost as if he could see her shivering spirit inside of her. His nose shivered as if he tried to smell her fear. Trying to not pay attention to him, she would focus back on the satyr leader. “We have reason to believe that the skeleton are trying to trick you and my gruge into a war your highness.” She even gave him a seated bow seeing as she was still on Jackson.

Both the satyr and the skeleton stood up, looking at her. The skeleton didn’t speak as no emotion could be seen on his face while the satyr looked from Emma to the skeleton before going back to her. “If that’s the case, then who are you to be riding on the back of a centaur.”

This was indeed a good question seeing how Jackson told her that Centaurs used to be slaves. “I am Emma, princess of the Human Gruge. We believe that the Skeleton Gruge has hired people from the Forest Gruge to assassinate me and my sister on your soil. When that failed, a group of skeletons murdered my father… and…” She started to have a difficulty talking, remembering the crown of her father. “When we fled… they… my sister…” She stopped talking, starting to cry.

Jackson walked forwards a bit, letting her cry and get her resolve back. “I saw it happens as well your highness. I also saw how the skeletons tried to clean the battlefield, only leaving behind the royal armor and the armor of his knights together with the corpses of the horses. We think they’re trying to frame us so the humans will attack.”

Emma would now look back at the minotaur, suddenly feeling anger was over her. She pointed at him, breathing deeply. “He’s one of them. We hid and saw him walk past us together with the hunters. He’s one of them!”

The minotaur was obviously not happy that she yelled that out loud. He also wasn’t that scared of her originally, not thinking that she had seen him ever during the hunt. He would grab his axe as he looked at Emma with burning eyes. “Your false truths will end now!”

He grabbed his axe and lifted it to his chest, ready to start swinging. Jackson and Emma weren’t that close to him but he was rather big and fast. With his head a bit lowered and the axe ready, he was a sight to behold.

Now that the minotaur had grabbed his weapon, the skeletons did the same, drawing their swords but waiting to see what would happen.

The satyr would sigh, holding his hands up to usher everyone to cool down. “Hold on, hold on. There’s an easy was to see who is lying and who isn’t.”

This didn’t really have the best effect on everyone. The minotaur quickly turned to look at the satyr, snorting deeply as he seemed to stamp with his hoof while the skeletons didn’t show any facial feature. Sadly enough for them their bones got to them, shuffling around a bit as they weren’t feeling so sure anymore.

As everyone showed their reaction, the satyr was keeping his cool, looking at everyone before going what must be his son. The son had a bag like Zoala had, filled with rocks. The father dug through the rocks until he pulled out a runestone, going back to where he was originally, looking at it before focusing back on the group.

He then waited for something, looking at the stone as he didn’t seem to be sure what to do now. After a bit of mumbling to himself, he came back into action. “Ah yes.” He held the stone in the air before squeezing hard on it. The stone disappeared and left behind an purple rune. Instead of disappearing like the others, the rune stayed for now. The satyr looked at the minotaur, having a small smile. “So… Pantyr… Tell me who is right here.”

Almost everyone in the clearing fell silent. Before there had been soft whispering between the forest Gruge but now everyone was listening. The minotaur who was called Pantyr didn’t answer anymore. He still had the axe in his hands and seemed to be breathing faster and faster. His eyes were focused on Emma and Jackson. They were 20 meters away from him, but it wasn’t that much for him. Everyone In the Forest Gruge ran faster than the regular human and he was the fastest of all.

“Pantyr?” The satyr looked from the minotaur to Emma. “What about you girl?”

Emma wasn’t sure what was happening. The minotaur was suddenly silent for seemingly no reason. She on the other hand had no idea why. When she opened her mouth to talk, a purple hue got around her as she couldn’t stop talking. “I’m not lying. We are being hunted. At one point we hid in a tree and a group of Forest Gruge creature came past, seemingly hunting. Not much later he came as well with more of you. It seemed to be the same group who made us flee our camp at the lake before.”

The minotaur looked up at the rune and then at her. She didn’t have time to say anything else as the minotaur already had lifted up his axe in the air, charging at her with his head bow down a bit. Seeing this beast run at her filled her with fear, causing her unable to move, the sound of his hooves slamming onto the ground sounded like thunder in her ears.

He had made it pretty far when suddenly multiple low sounding thuds could be heard. Around seven arrows had hit him in the chest, having been shot by both Jackson as the two centaurs that came with them. This didn’t slow the beast down a lot but just enough for the satyr to grab a fluit and started to play a quick tune. Just like Zoala had done, vines started to sprout and wrapped around his legs. Together with his upper body weight and speed, he fell forwards with his full weight on the arrows. As he forced them deeper in himself, he wouldn’t move anymore, blood slowly leaking down the arrow shafts.

Just to be sure, Jackson took a couple of steps back, looking at the dead body. Both his and Emma’s hearts were pounding like hell, being close to death like this doesn’t happen often although more often than before in Emma’s case.

Just as Emma started to cool down a bit and slow her breath, one of the two centaurs behind her fell on the ground. He grabbed his heart, screaming in pain. Out of his skull grew two horns, piercing his flesh as hair started to grow around his upper body. The white hair on his horse part started to darken as his ass seemed to get closer and closer to his front as his legs started to merge from four into two. His overall height started to grow as his screaming to more and more deep. Eventually it all stopped, a minotaur lying on the ground, breathing with a raspy throat.

Jackson seemed unimpressed while Emma stood there with her mouth open in shock, hand in front of her mouth. To her surprise, the minotaur got up and walked past them without even looking at them. He then picked up the axe the original minotaur dropped, walking to the king and taking guard, almost as if he had been there all along.

The satyr just nodded at him as he then turned to the skeletons. “Seems like our previous general was a traitor, my apologies. Do you have anything to add?”