The spire soared high into the night sky, resembling an enormous termite mound. The tiny specks that swarmed across its surface, looking like so many insects only served to underline the similarities. They were illuminated by deep red lights that spilled out from the numerous hatches that dotted the alien structure's surface.

  “Just how tall are they going to build the bloody thing?” Aeldra wondered out loud.

  She was an elf, possessing fair hair and pointed ears that were typical of her kind. A bow of pure white ash was slung across her back, and she studied the structure from the branch of a tree high above the ground and close to the forest’s edge. The leaves around her shimmered, emitting a pale silver light that bathed the forest in a faint, ethereal twilight.

  “I'm more concerned about what its purpose is,” a middle aged human man remarked from the ground. “They say the Enemy is building these on the doorstep of every Sanctuary for a hundred leagues.”

  His name was Galfin, and he carried a large axe in his hand. He was a tall, muscular man and had once been a lumberjack before the Enemy came. The Enemy. He looked at the spire and shuddered knowing that each of the specks that swarmed around it stood a head taller than he did and was strong enough to tear an ox in half with its bare hands.

  Aeldra frowned. “Whatever it is, it's ruining the view.”

  Galfin’s heart ached when he looked out at what had once been a lush river valley. Not so much as a blade of grass grew there now. Not since it had been reduced to a barren wasteland on the Night of Fire. The spire towered over it like an eerie sentinel. Galfin then turned his gaze up at his partner for the night. Despite being at least two centuries older than he was, Galfin found her attitude immature at times. He held his tongue, though. She was an expert marksman and the reason he was still alive. For that, he would be eternally grateful to her and her people.

  "It looks like another quiet night," he observed, pulling his silver-green cloak of the Helurid Rangers tighter around his shoulders to protect himself from the cold. " But we should continue with our patrol all the same."

  “They're up to something...” Aeldra warned.

  “Well, that much is obvious,” Galfin muttered before cursing himself for forgetting that his partner's keen elf ears would have heard him as though he had shouted it.

  “Well, nothing has changed with the spire,” she sighed before hopping down gracefully from branch to branch until she was back on ground level. “Let's...”

  The elf's sentence was cut off by the low note of a horn that came from the wastelands.

  “What in the world?” she breathed as she peered out into the darkness that surrounded the spire.

  “There!” Galfin cried, pointing at flashes of light in the distance. “What do your elf eyes see?”

  “Do I ever ask what your human nose smells, or what your human ears hear?” She snorted indignantly.

  “It was a slip of the tongue!” Galfin gasped in disbelief. “Are we going to have this argument right now?”

  “You started it,” she muttered sourly before turning her attention back to the altercation. “What do your elf eyes see indeed!”

  “I see six on horseback... Four humans and two dwarfs... They're being pursued... What are those idiots doing?” she gasped. “Dawn is almost upon us!”

  “Survivors from a fallen sanctuary, perhaps,” Galfin mused. “A fair number have reported that they are at their breaking point... Perhaps…”

  “I see banners..." Aeldra barked, cutting him off. “One depicting a castle under a mountain... and the other, a winged foot."

  “Messengers from Karlhad,” Galfin remarked. "What message could be so important that it would drive them to travel by night?”

  “One that we must receive at all costs,” Aeldra answered grimly. “With me!”

  “Wait!” Galfin cried as the elf sprang from the tree line. “We are responsible for this entire quadrant. We can't just abandon our post!”

  Aeldra paid him no heed and tore headlong towards the flashes of light that were charging towards the forest.

  “The Captain is going to give us an earful for this,” Galfin muttered to himself before taking off after her. “At least stay within the light of the trees!”

  Once he had run beyond the trees, Galfin’s feet sank into the charred soil that now resembled blackened sand, bogging him down. It had been two years since the Night of Fire, the night the Enemy rained down from the sky without warning in great balls of fire that set the continent ablaze. To this day, nothing would grow in the devastated lands beyond the elven forests that had been miraculously spared the destruction, and many feared nothing would ever grow there again.

  That was not Galfin’s immediate concern, though. He looked up at the fleet footed elf who seemed to float across the top of the ground. She already had an arrow in her bow and was poised to fire when she turned her head to look at her partner over her shoulder.

  Their eyes met only for an instant in the dark of night, but they had worked together for long enough to come to an understanding in that brief moment. The man came to a halt and ran back towards the tree while Aeldra let out a high pitched whistle. Galfin looked over his shoulder and saw an arrow fly gracefully from the elf’s bow. Moments later, an unseen creature shrieked in pain when the arrow found its mark.

  “Over here!” Galfin came to a stop at the edge of the trees and turned around to shout at the top of his lungs. “Over here! Towards the trees!”

  More lights flashed, and now, they were close enough to see that they were bolts of lightning arcing from one of the riders’ hands. Likely a wizard, which meant the message was important indeed. Each flash illuminated the riders briefly, and then their pursuers when they struck their mark.

  “Fel stags,” Galfin murmured to himself and tightened his grip around his axe.

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  Fel stags were scouts of the Enemy that looked like stags that had been twisted into foul, nightmarish creatures. They stood almost six feet tall at the shoulder, their forelegs resembled long, lanky arms that ended in large human like hands. They ran on all fours and were keeping pace with the riders on horseback easily. Their skeletal faces were twisted in looks of horrific fury, and a maze of gnarled antlers sprouted from the tops of their heads.

  Something in the spire was now alerted to what was going on, and a light pierced the darkness from its peak, casting a circle of deep red light around the riders. The light filled Galfin with a primal sense of dread and made him feel sick to his stomach. The light followed the riders doggedly as they fled for their lives. The creatures on the spire, though, seemed content to watch as they continued whatever foul work they were performing on its surface.

  There was a flash of blue light as the wizard unleashed a bolt of lightning, striking a fel stag in the chest and causing it to tumble, another raised one of its forelegs and took a swing. One of the riders urged his horse forward and intercepted the blow. The force behind it was enough to rip the rider in two at the waist and caused his horse to stumble and fall. When it did, the beasts ceased their pursuit and tore the horse to pieces with their forelegs and jagged tooth filled mouths before it could get back onto its feet.

  The remaining riders increased their lead, but it wasn’t long before more fel stags appeared out of the darkness and began to close the distance. The riders seemed to wilt under the light, and one of their number vomited before slumping off his horse. He screamed when the fel stags pounced upon him before being quickly silenced. The wizard among them too was beginning to flag under the light. At this distance, Galfin could see that it was a woman, and her spells were beginning to slow.

  A barrage of arrows from Aeldra picked up the slack, felling three of the foul beasts in quick succession. One of them grabbed an unlucky rider off his horse as it fell, crushing him like an overripe tomato in its massive fist. Now, only three riders remained, but they had almost reached Galfin, and the forests edge.

  Two of the beasts veered off to pursue Aeldra, who was running ahead of the riders. She fired an arrow at the closest creature but it was bearing straight down on her, and the projectile clattered harmlessly off its antlers. Galfin knew his partner could take care of herself and turned his gaze to the remaining riders. There were still four fel stags hot on their heels, and it was clear to him that they would catch them before they could reach the safety of the trees.

  “To me!” Galfin cried, raising his axe high above his head as he strode forward to meet them. “To me, brave warriors of Karlhad!”

  The riders changed course, pursued doggedly by the fel stags and the foul light. The wizard raised her hand. Lightning arced from it, but she was weakened, either by her earlier efforts, or the light, and the creature it struck shrugged it off without breaking stride.

  Galfin planted his feet and the ground and gazed upon his axe to calm his nerves. Its head was made from dwarven steel, possessing a sheen that was unique to metals forged by their hands. It was sharp and almost indestructible. The handle was made from the sacred wood of elven trees and was over a meter long. Longer than he had been used to initially, but he had grown accustomed to it over the course of many battles.

  The riders were close now. Close enough for him to see that the lead rider was young. Barely a man from the look of it. His eyes were wide with fear. His companions, a human wizard and a dwarven banner carrier, lagged behind, placing themselves between him and their pursuers. This boy was important, whoever he was.

  The lumberjack exhaled and raised his axe, picturing his swing in his mind’s eye. The horsemen thundered past him. The closest creature snarled and aimed a swipe at the wizard who was the closest to it. It was so fixated on the kill that it didn’t notice Galfin, or his axe.

  The lumberjack swung his axe. It was something he had done countless times throughout his life, and it was when he felt the most calm. He was able to focus only on the implement in his hand, feeling his connection with it, the way it cut through the air, and then the target. That’s all it was. It wasn’t some grotesque beast fresh out of a nightmare, just a target. No different from a tree, and he had felled more of those than he could count. The contact of the axe head, clean against the creature’s neck, encountering little resistance as it cut through, severing the creature’s head from its shoulders.

  The headless creature tumbled to the ground, and one of the other fel stags let out a blood curdling shriek. Galfin watched as the three that remained broke off their pursuit of the riders and circled around to charge him.

  Galfin took a deep breath and took a lengthened grip on his axe, shifting his left hand to the very bottom of the handle to get as much range as he could. The first fel stag lowered its head so that it could gore him with its antlers. Galfin spotted a gap which his axe could slide through and swung. It was a precise blow that no one other than he could pull off, and he landed it perfectly. The axe head splintered a few of the smaller branches of the creature’s antlers before burying itself in the creature’s skull. The lumberjack jerked the axe free and leapt at the second creature, which had to sidestep the bulk of the first.

  The second stag’s head was out of position, so the creature attempted to swipe at Galfin with its arms. The lumberjack shortened the grip on his axe so that he was holding it closer to its head. His swing was faster than the stag’s, and he severed the creature’s arm at the elbow. The blow was so clean that the creature hadn’t realized its arm had lost half its length and it was momentarily confused when its strike didn’t connect. Galfin didn’t let the opening slip and swiftly dispatched the creature with a second blow.

  The third fel stag looked at its fallen companions and halted its charge. Galfin stared it down, willing it to make the first move. The creature skipped from side to side before rearing onto its back legs. It raised its grotesque arms high into the air and let out a defiant roar that was cut short by an arrow that struck it in the throat. Galfin looked to the trees and spotted Aeldra standing on a branch high above the ground. Below her were a pair of fel stags, attempting to tear the tree down with their bare hands while their blood red hides sizzled and smoked under the light from the leaves.

  “Get over here!” she cried as the creatures trying to topple her tree succumbed to the light and fell over with sickening thuds. Their bodies continued to sizzle and smoke under the light of the leaves. “More are coming!”

  Galfin didn’t bother to look. He turned to the trees and ran for his life. As he did, he saw the spire’s red light shining into the trees, searching for the riders. The light of the trees seems to neutralize that of the spire and the red light would not penetrate through the leaves. H The footsteps of his pursuers rant loud in his ears and he quickened his pace. An arrow flew past in the periphery of his vision, and a fel stag cried out as it was struck. The cry was so close that it raised the hackles on Galfin’s neck. His feet struck the firm soil of the forest, enabling him to quicken his pace.

  When he was well among the trees, he whirled around to face any foe that might have followed him in. Then, he saw them and froze. There were dozens of fel stags, standing just out of the glow of the forest, staring at him. Galfin glanced at where the red light was shining on the same patch of forest. He saw the leaves were beginning to wither where it shone, and his heart sank.

  Then, the light from the spire died abruptly. Galfin breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to the fel stags. They were still standing there, motionless and watching.

  “Yeah, stay right there,” he muttered. “Dawn will be here soon.”

  A hail of arrows came from the trees to their left, striking several of their number down, and Galfin’s heart soared. Reinforcements had arrived. The elves of Helurid Forest moved swiftly when they had the mind. The beasts didn’t scatter, though. Instead, they slowly withdrew into the night.

  “Well met, Master Axe Wielder!”

  Galfin turned around to see the wizard approaching him on horseback. She wore silver robes and a head full of coppery red hair blazed like fire under the light of the trees poked out from under a pointed wizard’s hat. To his surprise, she wore a cheerful smile on her face.

  “I am Ondra Kethlin. Rejoice, son of Elbarad, I bring momentous news,” her voice was loud and bombastic, like a ringmaster introducing her performers to a cheering crowd. “The salvation of our beleaguered people is at hand. Now, where might I find your leader?”