Beneath the collapsing shadows, shrouded by moonlight and foliage so thick even the keenest of sights would have trouble seeing through, two figures clocked in ebony ducked and shifted through the obscuring jungle floor of Gwendra. Just from a brief glance, it would be clear that the two figures were not used to this terrain nor were they enjoying trekking through it. Both their cloaks and clothing beneath were littered with countless cuts and scrapes from extending branches or thorny underbrush, some deep enough to draw that ever-elusive scarlet.

In spite of this and heaving for breath every chance they had, the two men didn’t stop their escape efforts. For the woes of mortality to shake their faith would have been the highest level of Heresy. So they ran, holding the two rucksacks on their back that would jab them from time to time.

“Connor, do you know the way for sure?” The smaller of the two asked, still easily above six feet tall.

“Knowing anything for sure in these cursed woods is impossible unless you’re an elf, spirit, animal or beast. I know we are heading north; that’s it.” The taller one replied, sounding tired and vexed as they pushed through a particularly dense set of trees. “This place is a damned nightmare, be thankful I have my faith, otherwise we’d have looped back to the road by now.”

The Gwendra forest was one of notoriety not so much for its beauty nor its charm but because getting lost was so easy. Too many war horror stories during the old days of Pora had been passed around for either of the two men to be confident in anything other than faith to guide them. Even magic would do little to help in a forest that seemed to twist the very fabric of reality to its whims.

“This place is worse than I thought Jared, it feels almost…” The man named Connor paused for a moment, checking his surroundings in paranoia. “…Alive.”

“But we can’t stop, our holy intervention has not been fully enforced.” He added.

“Will we ever rest though?” Jared the smaller one queried, sweat dripping down his exposed face now that the hood only concealed the lower half of his face.

“Not while there is work to be done. Invading that temple was only the first step brother, returning our bounty to mother is where the rewards of our faith shall bloom.”

Although conviction ran strong through him, even while saying those words the two fanatics found it hard to cleanse themselves of doubt. After countless months of planning, hundreds of sacrifices piled high and two third layer mages dead, two of the weakest faithful were left to carry out their mission. To not be disheartened by such a momentous loss would be one thing, but running into a convoy of vampires made it seem as if fate itself was trying to thwart their mother’s machinations. The rest of their unit, knowing full well they couldn’t best the sheer amount of undead had entrusted the successful bounty onto them, but even after narrowly escaping in the chaos they couldn’t shake the deep unruly feeling crawling up their spines…

…that they were being followed.

It was not so much that either of them, only Connor being a mage, could sense that something was following them. The shadows just felt longer, the moonlight and sign of their holy mother dimmer. Like their mistress could not reach them, her influence obscured.

“We spent too much time on the divination pact and preparing the Hexcraft, to think that filthy Heretic would be so much trouble,” Connor mumbled gritting his teeth.

As a mage he knew better than Jared how helpless they would be should those bloodsuckers behind them catch a whiff of their trail. They had to get to the Seam before it was too late.

So many fumbled steps and obstacles slowed their paths yet the two managed to make it to their destination without the enemies from behind catching up. Whether by miracle or chance they had made it to the small clearing familiar to them.

“Oh… thank mother we… got-t here.” Jared spoke, panting through his slurred words. He was barely standing upright on the slippery grass below, hands stuck to his knees like glue as he slouched over almost ready to throw up.

The deep cowl of night had made it nigh impossible for him to see anything other than the silver glow his fellow faithful were alighted in, leading to the fanatic feeling quite lost and hesitant about moving forward. With nothing in sight and his compatriot inspecting the small ripping Seam of space, Jared felt it fine to strike a piece of wood that commonly littered the ground against his fire starter, a small triangular piece of flint that would turn red hot on the pointed edge if pressure was applied.

Sparks turned to embers and embers to a small flame that crackled with life at the end of his poorly made touch and albeit faintly, illuminated his surroundings.

Trees of a thick dark brownish colour morphing to green the closer it got to the ends of the countless leaves and hanging vines that for some reason all contorted around the small grove they stood in. The grass beneath them and soil evened out unlike in their previous terrain, going from a healthy white, to a worrying yellow and then finally dead black or just soil a few feet from the Seam.

“Fucking animals, Hey Connor!”

“What is it?” He asked, too worried about being caught by a wandering beast to reprimand his dullard altar boy for lighting a torch in a forest with no natural light.

“The wildlife shouldn’t attack us right?”

I’d take wildlife a thousand times over what might actually catch us.

He thought replying with, “No, Seams are an affront to the natural order of Kur, no animal even migrates near them.”

“Then why do I hear so much shifting between bushes all around us.”

“You hear them?”

“Them?”

“Just keep away from the borders of the grove and you’ll be fine. Make sure you keep that fire stick low as well and for mother’s sake don’t put it so close to the bounty.” Connor said in a stern but hushed tone, working his way through his belongings to make sure nothing would trigger a less than desired reaction from the Seam.

His black cloak fluttered slightly, revealing the chain mail beneath and clothes all in black for the covert operations they had undergone. He would’ve preferred to wear his priest robes while cleansing the sickness of the unfaithful but alas in effectivity, they couldn’t compare. Many daggers in small sheaths covered his upper torso while the belt around his waist held a half-sized staff probably three-quarters of a metre long with a black gem the size of an apple affixed crudely to its front end.

“Jared get the bounties ready, we’ll be ditching the sacks and our cloaks here,” Connor said, taking off his cloak to reveal half of a face with bronze eyes and hair to match, long enough to reach his chin.

Jared followed by pulling his cloak from his back and throwing it to Connor before dropping the rucksack down and ripping it away from what was inside, same as Connor. Both rucksacks opened revealed two bruised small elven children that couldn’t be over the age of eight, teal hair and violet eyes that faintly reflected Jared burning touch, both drawn to the first form of illumination they had in hours.

“Mmmm!” both started to murmur, barely perceivable and worried tones through the cloth that covered their mouths, same as the ones that bound their hands and legs tightly together.

The one near Jared had far shorter hair and his fine white clothes with a lavender undershirt and silver lining had been tattered more, the bottom half of his clothing consisting of patchy pants instead of his counterpart's small dress.

By contrast, the one Connor pulled by the back of her long hair seemed just as panicked as her brother, clothes far less destroyed but still in a wretched state like her bruised face. Both faced and leaned towards the other, desperately bidding their efforts to get to one another and escape their adult captors. Neither of the children were old enough nor had tasted enough of the world's cruelty to realise how hopeless their efforts were.

There was a kind of sad serene image of innocence the twins painted.

“Stop moving you little devil, you’ll be with mother soon,” Connor said, ripping the girl up by her hair and causing a muffled screech that almost broke through the cloth.

The boy, seeing his sister screech, started to violently kick and yell through the muffled cloth, trying to break free of Jared's grip. His efforts earned him nothing more than a hard slap to the side of the head that almost knocked the boy out cold.

Both of the siblings started to pacify quite quickly again while Connor took out two red vials and began drizzling their contents across his cloak, sniffing the articles of clothing to make sure they had properly absorbed the odour.

“Leaving bloodied cloaks and rucksacks should lead them off the trail just a little. As long as they don’t wait for the Seam to reemerge we won’t have any nosey rodents on our tails.” Connor stated confidently, slicking back his hair after throwing both the cloaks off the ground and carving out a few faulty track marks. “Can’t believe I’m finally leaving this unholy forest. Being around such heathens for this long has undoubtedly infected me with their vile worship. By mother how good it will feel to be cleansed by a cleric, maybe even a bishop.”

“Yeah, I can’t wa-” Jared paused, Connor too focused between readying the Seam and imagining himself being praised by their patron to notice. The shorter man felt there was something not right, like a gut feeling in his stomach was slowly churning to fruition.

It took him a few moments to realise that the sounds of scuttling and shifting between the jungle around them had stopped. What caught him more by surprise was when he looked down to see the once heartily defiant elven boy frozen still more pale around the cheeks than he had ever been, eyes locked on something in the direction behind them.

Jared turned around and immediately caught a glimpse of what had scared the boy still. A pair of two topaz eyes glowing in a light that was eaten by the shadows surrounding it, sitting probably on a branch of some kind that Jared couldn’t see in the darkness and staring silently at him.

He froze. Unable to blink or look away from the two yellow suns burning under the veil of darkness.

W-what… is that t-thing?

He raised his poorly made touch in the eyes direction only for them to vanish with the shadow. All that remained was a single branch with ten clean marks etched in like sharp talons had cut through them.

“C-connor.” Jared stuttered pulling the torch back only to see that the pair of topaz eyes had vanished from the darkness as well as the light. The creature was gone yet that only served to make his blood run even colder.

“What is- JARED!” Connor screamed in spite of the threats that might be stalking them, rushing towards his friend as a figure clasp onto the man's neck and stole him into the shadows. Connor couldn’t see through the darkness that elapsed around them and Jared’s dropped torch had been snuffed out by the figure. All he could do was wait in the silence until words that made his hairs stand on ends echoed through the grove.

“Such a shit person and yet you’re my first decent meal.”

********

My hand’s let go of the limp neck as I let the man clad in black drop to the ground with a thud. I liked my lips still feeling starved after the meal, wondering if the hungry sensation that was so much like a thirst would ever truly leave me. Questions for later. Right now I just wanted to enjoy for a brief moment that divine taste that for the first time wasn’t beseeched by a moral dilemma.

Unlike those I had previously drunk from, the now dead man didn’t garner my sympathy in the slightest. What’s more, I seemed to have grown used to the idea of drinking someone's blood, weirdly enough. That part disturbed me a bit but I didn’t want to let it ruin my moment of reprieve before I was faced with the repulsive reality in front of me.

My head swivelled from being enamoured at the stars above to back on the children with long ears like I’d only ever seen in picture books and the man with bronze eyes who had one of them pulled by the hair just moments before.

I had followed the two of them out of sheer curiosity and also the assurance that they were weaker than myself, staying far enough behind that I could flee should they be retreating to stronger comrades. There were many ideas that bubbled up in my head about what might be in the sacks and why I smelled four scents of prey, but only the darkest had conjured images that might involve children.

It made me sick to my stomach to see how frightened the poor kids were and how these filthy sinners treated them. They deserved more than to be fed upon. They deserved to be made an example even if no one saw it. They deserved to suffer, to scream, to burn.

THEY DESERVED TO BE TORN LIMB FROM LIMB, DANGLED FROM THEIR OWN ENTRAILS FOR BEING PUPPETS TO THEIR OWN FIENDISH DESIRE.

…what?

I reeled back for a moment finding that my train of thought had derailed into… darker ideas. That wasn’t me. No, it couldn’t be me. Never.

In need of a distraction, I took a moment to inspect the insignia embroidered in silver onto the shirt of the man I had just killed. His friend still hesitantly eyes the direction in which I stayed and I knew my magic could hit him from this far. I felt confident, which was a relatively new and calming experience.

…Oh Sol.

A silver crescent moon with a lazy eye hanging from a string, staring into my very soul was what I saw embroidered on to this man's clothing. These people were members of the Night Guard. Cultists that even those who hadn’t stepped foot in a church of Sol would know of, if not from the rumours then from the notice boards entailing all the heinous acts they had recently committed in the name of their wicked god.