It was tense, as if an electric bolt had zapped through the area. Limbs moved in laboured, stiff manners, breaths came out strained and as thorny clouds, and eyes jerked from side to side, every person on edge. The thick coal clouds of war had drifted above the war camps, and the fierce bullets they rained onto the ground below drenched spirits and souls as much as hair and boots.

The trio of Seekers stood in the Merchant’s circle, as it was called, although the messy formation of tents was far from that of a circle. Merchant’s circle was a leech on the warcamps and the only other camp allowed so near it. While there was an identification check at its gates, this wasn’t rigorous and the three Seekers had been allowed in without a second glance.

The trio spent a good deal of time walking around, not searching for anything in particular but taking in the mood, the stiffness of the air. After this, they left with haste, hiking up to the Black forest a few kilometres away from Yupker. Despite being infested by men of different factions, the trio easily sneaked past their notices, progressing deep into the forest while looking for a post high and hidden enough to scour the lands below.

The trees in the forest were large and alive, yet they didn’t seem such as they were all shades of rotten-black and had few leaves on their sickly branches. The foliage that grew around them were similarly dull in colour, making the landscape dark and bleary, instantly giving chills to anyone that entered. In the past, it had used to be a hotspot for particularly vile monsters but they had been cleaned up in a large Seeker’s expedition a couple years ago.

They came upon a massive hollowed tree eventually, obviously a watchtower created by someone else. Regardless, it was in an optimal spot and Orion took the lead slipping into the tree. With his head through the bark, he spotted the sentry, surprisingly a Metole. Luckily, the woman hadn’t seen him spying her, instead, her gaze stuck fast on the plateau below the Black forest. She was perched on a wooden post, looking out through a hole in the bark. She had brown skin and wore light armour over her heavily built frame. Her arms were sculpted and muscular, her body more that of a beast’s than that of a human’s.

Before Kasib or Kora had a say, Orion acted. He turned his left palm against the wooden post, sending out shockwaves which quickly toppled it. Simultaneously, thick tendrils of ice sprouted out of the ground, heading for the woman. As the post fell, the Metole swiftly reacted, though in shock. She leapt away and spun in mid-air to face her enemies. Unluckily, or luckily, this was all she had time to do as the tendrils wrapped around her limbs, pulling her to the ground with such force she crashed down.

Despite being dazed and confused, she reacted as any Metole would – through strength. She used Giah with Strengthening, her eyes turning snow-white and her skin sheening over, and cracks spread across the ice tendrils as she tensed and pulled away. It was such terrible strength she upturned the ground as she tore the tendrils off herself, her eyes twisted with fury. As Orion shot more Ice spears at her, she burst from her spot, moving so fast she was in front of the trio in two seconds.

Well, technically at least. Despite being in front of them, there was a spear of ice jutting out of her stomach. Blood seeped out of her wound as she snarled at the trio, figuring out their identities as more ice pierced her body. She fell in the following seconds.

“Why did you attack her?!” Kora asked, straining herself to not shout in the forest.

“There was no point in her being alive,” he responded.

“If she had been more than a greenhorn, she would have torn off your head,” Kasib said, walking past the corpse to erect another post near the hole in the bark. “Still, I’m surprised you’re this strong,”

“If she was more experienced, she would have died in a more gruesome manner. That’s all,” Orion said. While he knew his attack was too impulsive, he had lost control over his anger once he had seen it was a Metole, the same people who supported his cousin.

“Hubris will be the death of you if you don’t learn how to control your impulses. Remember, the Metoles are the physically strongest, fastest, and have the best defence out of all your Houses,” Kasib said, Kora immediately agreeing with him.

“Still, what’s a Metole doing scouting? I thought they were too high up the chain to be doing lowly grunt work like this,” she added.

“I’m sure they’ve got normal scouts in the forest as well. It seems they’re taking no chances with an ambush, so I guess we were right. It’s going to happen now,” Kasib answered.

Orion nodded, recovering from their scolding. “The atmosphere, the excessive guards and scouts: Eira knows it’s wartime,”

****

Several hours had passed since their journey to the Black forest. Below the forest was a large, sweeping plateau with frosted over ground and trampled plants. Close to them in the plateau, they could see the Imperial army hastily setting up formation. Eira had somewhere between 5 thousand and 10 thousand men, all nameless dots from their vantage. In the distance, the trio could see the Tribes marching towards them. Kora estimated the Tribes had roughly 10 thousand men in their army.

When about a kilometre away, when the trio expected the Tribes to set down their foundation and begin a short stare-off, the Tribes instead began their charge, the nameless dots now a tsunami as it swept towards the Imperial army.

While there was shaking in the Imperial army’s formation, there weren’t any shocks as the strongest mages stepped forward, these men and women the size of two dots from the Seeker’s vantage. These mages attacked, roaring fireballs crashing into the Tribes in a dreadful manner.

Still, before they hit, they clashed into an overarching golden barrier over the Tribes and fizzled out into nothing.

Orion widened his eyes at this. Sustaining something of that size would take at least tens, if not hundreds of mages and even then, it would drain them rapidly. It seemed the Imperial mages knew likewise and as they began shooting the elements with frantic abandon, fire and earth and wind and water barraging the golden barrier, to little effect though.

Then came tree-sized icicles which battered the golden barrier to a point the ground shook. These were not only effective but apparently effortless as they continued decimating the shield at an exhausting pace, thunder sounding out every few seconds.

It wasn’t hard for Orion to figure out who was doing this as he found the shining gem on the battlefield. It hurt him to see Eira use Szu with such mastery, her ice sculptures forming so quickly and yet with such strength. Considering the fact she hadn’t set off any earthquakes to annihilate the Tribes’ army, he correctly guessed the Tribes had already set up a countermeasure. Still, they could do little but watch as she tore through their defence, her attacks puncturing through tens at once.

Then the two sides made contact, the clash both bone-crunching and grief-filled. The sounds of war - of agony and fury and murder - sounded out and continuously echoed without stop as grimy blades turned bloody and as the limbed became limbless and the alive became lifeless. The thrill of war was in the gamble, and thousands of soldiers gambled with their lives as they struck and struck and struck and fell like broken toys.

While the golden barrier had protected the Tribes for so long, they completely fell after the clash, liberating the men below to the catastrophic elements made by soft-handed mages. Regardless, the Tribes seemed not to care as their own mages turned their eyes towards the Imperial army, the Earth’s means of reckoning used artificially to reap lives by the tens, and sometimes even by the hundreds.

Orion trembled with anticipation and fear and bloodlust as he watched. Still, he kept his feet in place as he waited for the right moment. His eyes always gravitated back to Eira no matter what happened, always back to the woman of war which dominated the field with ease. He wondered if she had been similar during the Zakari’s reckoning, and he wondered deep inside whether he could kill her.

He had grown up hearing tales of her strength and cunning, and now finally witnessing them, he bought into why his uncles and dad had praised her so much. At the same time, this brought about heavy pangs in his heart as the old question repeated itself.

Why had she massacred her own family? She used Szu with such pride and skill that there was no chance she was embarrassed of her heritage, so what was it?

Kasib watched the scene below in mourning. He knew the danger of monsters first-hand, and so it dug into his flesh to see men do to men what they should be doing to monsters. Even then, he wondered about the missing pieces from both sides. There were few Metoles around Eira, but still only a fraction of their whole Household. So where were the rest? And where was Yhaoli and his band of monsters if not with the Tribes? Had the rumours been false?

It was as he meditated on these thoughts a deep-throated voice rolled over him, tensing him even to the heart.

“There you are, little one. Who knew you would wait for me, little one?”

It boomed like thunder and chilled flesh like the coldest and strongest gusts of wind, overwhelming all senses at once. They barely had enough time to react as the hollow tree was uprooted and smashed onto them in a matter of seconds. Orion created an ice barrier around them just in time, and as it shattered and the dust settled, the giant looming above them became clear.

It was a monster twenty metres tall with bristly fur covering its body. Its arms and legs were the size of buildings and the width of tree trunks. It was heavily muscled and almost looked like a giant human. Obsidian spikes ranged its spine and arms and it had an oversized head for its body, one as large as its chest. This head was constantly twitching and jerking, its crusted lips stretched to reveal colossal teeth dripping out yellow saliva. Despite the seizure its head was under, its eyes were focused and frighteningly arresting.

Orion felt a hole being bore into his chest under the monster’s gaze.

“YHAOLI!” Kasib roared, a savagery befitting a monster in his voice.

“Little one,” it said, pools of yellow, sticky liquid plummeting out of its mouth.