Our company made its way away from Frigga’s Tavern and toward the settlement that was once its charge. It was a slow-moving single line with Jonah in the lead. His guidance wasn’t necessary, but it was a natural way our sect of Bastards has always traveled. The smoke rose above the treeline straight ahead, letting us know that we were heading in the correct direction; the smoke that was rising was almost white, showing that fire had snuffed itself out.

The ride to the settlement was a silent and somber one. With each passing moment, more abandoned items littered the road. Abandoned shoes joined the personal mementos and weapons that had been abandoned along the route. People were frantically fleeing to a point that they were simply running out of their shoes. The number of death marks increased until the mud beneath the horses was just a bloody mess.

The path ahead was starting to lighten significantly as we reached the end of the forest. Jonah raised his fist for us to stop at the mouth of the path became visible. Each of us pulled to a stop, ready to go on foot from here. I held out my arm slightly to help Tarik dismount from behind me, then I followed suit.

As my feet touched the ground, I looked over my shoulder to see that Jonah and Roy were dismounting as well. Tarik had walked over to the girls’ steed to hold their traces and help them dismount. Each of us held our traces and led our steeds into a huddle, each ready to hear what the plan was going forward.

“Tarik,” I started. “You and the girls are staying here with the horses while we go in.” I looked over to Jonah and Roy. “We’ll do a perimeter check before going in. Jonah and I will go to the right of the path; Roy, you take the left. We will meet up on the other side and then walk in from there,” I said to Jonah and Roy. I then looked back to the children.

“Questions?” I asked.

“May I go with you?” Lorelle asked hesitantly, “I need to see it myself. What happened to our home.”

Everyone looked at me. I hesitated a moment and then nodded, understanding better than most the desire that was driving her.

“Do you have a blade or anything? Something for protection?” I asked. Lorelle pulled out a small cutting knife as an answer.

“Okay, but stick with me at all times,” I said.

“What? Why does she get to go? She‘s a girl…” Tarik gestured over towards Lorelle as if I didn’t realize who he was referring to. “Not even a Flyer.”

I stopped tying my steed to the tree branch and turned to face Tarik, allowing my dissatisfaction to plague my words. “You are of the Guild. You go where I tell you to go. She isn’t, thus she can go if she pleases; though she should heed our advice. And what of it that she’s a girl?.”

Tarik’s face lost all color. He realized that he finally offended me. Not by questioning my motives as Lead Bastard, not by being a jitterbug before we confronted Loren, but by questioning the ability of a person because they are a woman. He started stuttering over his words. “No…. nothing…. I was just saying that…”

Roy finished for him. “That’s it’s not fair that a smart Flyer boy like yourself can’t go and see the destroyed settlement but the little lady does?” He let out a huff of air and leaned in, telling him in a mocking whisper, eyebrows raised, “shows that you know nothing about the strength of women.” Roy said. With disappointment in his eyes.

Roy’s face of iron turned soft as he turned to face Lorelle, cutting off any further response from Tarik. “The settlement might be worse than it was at Frigga’s little miss. Staying back will save ya the image.”

Lorelle looked down a moment, pondering the words of the wild stranger before her. “Thank you, Sir, but I need to see it, or else….” Her words faded.

Or else her imagination will make something up. Something worse.

“She comes with us,” I stated, again. Nods all around with Lorelle letting out a sigh of relief.

Lorelle turned to her sister and crouched down so they were eye to eye. “Stay here with Tarik. We will be back soon” Lorelle said.

Ella started to cry. All of this was too much on her. I didn’t blame her, she was just a child living within a nightmare. Lorelle pulled her sister into a tight hug.

“It’ll be okay. I am going to go but I’m going to come right back okay? I promise,” she said as she stroked the girl's hair.

“But... I don’t want you... to go” Ella said through sobs.

“I know. But I have to all the same.” She pulled back from the embrace and looked her sister in the eye, seeming to become so much older than I thought her to originally be.

“I need you to be brave, okay little one?” Lorelle said. Something about the words had an instant impact on the child. Ella stopped crying, wiped her face with her sleeve and nodded to her sister.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Jonah started moving towards the settlement and Roy motioned for Lorelle to follow suit, she stood back up and followed the rest of the way down the trail to the smoldering settlement. I stayed back for a moment to stand beside Tarik.

“I’m sorry Miss Stone,” Tarik said softly. “I, I didn’t mean to say she couldn’t go because she is a girl.” He looked down, ashamed of himself.

“What did you mean then?” I asked, genuinely curious. I’ve gotten my words twisted on more than one occasion.

He looked up, acknowledging the chance to explain himself. “She’s a girl who is untrained. She won’t be able to protect you if something goes wrong.”

“Her going has nothing to do with protection. It has to do with closure. Her closure.” I paused “Plus, Lorelle and Ella are the first to survive one of these attacks to the best of The Guild’s knowledge.”

“She will have important information,” Tarik said in understanding.

“Exactly”. I stepped forward to follow the others. “Stay here within the tree line, with the horses and stay with Ella,” I said.

Shouldn’t be able to wiggle his way out of those orders.

“Be safe Miss Stone,” He said as I left.

I turned my head back to show my smile. “Be smart, Flyer”

I jogged slightly to catch up with the rest of my group. Jonah, Roy, and Lorelle were waiting for me at the mouth of the path with the smoldering settlement waiting behind them. Jonah and Roy were standing slightly to the side of the path, with Lorelle standing in the center, staring at the smoking settlement. My approach caught her attention.

“Lorelle and I will take the right side. You two take the left.” I said to the two gentlemen.

“You sure? One of us can accompany you two.” Jonah said.

“That won’t be necessary,” I said flatly.

I have had enough of people second guessing my orders for one day.

“See you on the other side,” I said to them. I walked off to the right, following the treeline, with Lorelle on my heels. With the settlement on our left, we started to make our way around the perimeter of the forest. It was a quiet walk, as I had no idea how to bring up what happened to this girl.

“Are you going to ask me about what happened?” Lorelle asked as if she knew what I was just thinking.

“In time,” I said. “You will have to tell the story many times over before the end, I figured I would give you some time,” I could see the displeasure on her face about telling everyone about what happened.

“Plus, I can start piecing things together a bit based off what I’ve seen thus far while you find the words,” I said.

“Like what?” Lorelle asked.

“Well,” pointing through the treetops toward the smoke rising into the sky. “From the color of the smoke, I can tell that whatever happened occurred late last night. When we first saw the smoke it was extremely dark. The smoke color has lightened throughout the day; meaning whatever was on fire is mostly destroyed. The fact that it took so long to turn colors makes me think that the fire probably moved quickly through the settlement and was all-consuming.”

“It was,” she said sadly.

She stared at the settlement as we walked along the perimeter. We fell into an awkward silence again as we walked along the boundary between the settlement’s fields and the forest. I continued scanning the woods around us, taking in the occasional abandoned item and drag mark as we walked.

“Anything else?” Lorelle asked. She continued to walk alongside me, looking at her burned home.

She didn’t see a junction of drag marks and was about to step onto them. I reached out quickly and pulled her to an abrupt stop. Looking down, Lorelle started to see how all of the grass was crushed and pushed aside. The bushes to our right were crushed and a small path was made with whatever, or whoever was dragged through here.

Without another word, Lorelle fell behind me as I walked through the bushes into the tree line. The path was once again a blending of blood and mud. A few strides within the tree line revealed another line of scorched ground. A bloody trail led up the blackened line with everything past it being left completely undisturbed.

We silently stared at the line of death. I finally broke the silence by answering Lorelle’s question from before while motioning to the bloody ground surrounding us. “I can tell that Whatever attacked held no mercy within them.”

Silence fell between us for a few moments. I pulled out a small journal of my own from my breast pocket and noted the location of the scorched ground on one of its clean pages. Then we walked back through the tree line to follow the perimeter of the settlement. The crunch of the ground beneath us filled the silence for a few minutes.

“They looked like people,” Lorelle said, breaking the silence. “At least at first glance. But their screams were like the roars of an animal...or a demon.” I looked over to see her staring at the ground. “Everyone was fleeing their houses and funneling into the main road.” She looked at the settlement longingly but continued along on our perimeter check. “That’s when the creatures fell on us. On me.”

“It clawed cut up my leg a little bit, but Father killed it before it could bite me.” Lorelle’s voice became hollow as she continued to recount the events that happened the night before.

“There were so many people screaming and pushing each other. I saw one of the elders accidentally get pushed into one of the burning buildings.” She paused for a moment, looking back towards the settlement before continuing again. “Father led us down a side street to get away from the main fray. But we accidentally crossed paths with one of those creatures.” She continued. “Father had me go ahead with Mother and Ella and take them to the forest.”

“Your Mother?” I asked gently.

Lorelle stopped in her tracks.

“I’m sorry Lorelle. I have to ask,” I said, looking back to see Lorelle shed a silent tear.

“I know.”

“Would you like a moment?” I asked.

“No,” she said sadly. “It’s like you said. I’m going to have to tell this several times over”

I approached her until I was standing face to face with the girl. She was a head shorter than me. “All the same, you are allowed to feel. You’re only human.”

“No, I can’t,” she started. “My Mother is dead,” She said as another tear escaped. “My Father is missing, just like every other person I have ever known from the settlement.” I could hear the iron in her voice “I have to take care of Ella now. I’m all she has,” she finished. She wiped angrily at the tears that betrayed her.

Another child taking over the responsibilities of an adult. She’s afraid that if she starts to “feel” now, it’ll come crashing in.

Lorelle started to move forward again, reinitiating our perimeter check. Even though she said that she didn’t need a moment to collect herself, I gave that time to her anyways. In the meantime, we came across another drag mark that led into the woods. We followed the drag marks to another scorched line in the ground. The area around it looking like the others. I pulled out my impromptu map and marked the location of the line. It was a couple of hundred feet away from the last one.

“This is where we came through the forest to go to Frigga’s,” Lorelle said. She pointed down to the drag marks “These weren’t there. At least I don’t remember seeing them. But it was dark.”

“What happened here, in the forest?” I asked. I looked over to see Lorelle staring through the trees, back towards Frigga’s.

“We thought it would be safe, the forest. We thought that the creatures were just in the settlement. But they were already here, waiting. We were almost to the forest edge when we could hear the screams and I saw a glowing red light through the bushes.”

“Red light?” I interrupted, looking over to her, shocked. I know that the Guild hasn’t heard anything about a light, red or otherwise. “What red light?”

“The creatures had these metal bands around their necks, like an animal collar. At the heart of it, there was this pulsing red light.”

A collar? With light? Lorelle had the answers to many of The Guild’s questions. But each answer spawned many more questions.

“How many creatures?”

“Enough to illuminate the bushes like they were bathed in torchlight,” she said grimly.

Enough creatures to attack and demolish an entire settlement while still having enough to have some waiting in reserves to kill off stragglers.

“Mother led us through a section of treeline that didn’t seem to have any light, so we figured that meant there wouldn’t be creatures,” Lorelle said, looking back to the scorched ground at her feet. “But we were wrong. As we made our way deeper into the forest closer to Frigga’s, a bright white light appeared in front of us, almost like a door opening in the air. Mother had us climb up one of the trees the moment she saw it. She stayed below us. We had just gotten to a good height when I heard the creatures and saw them pour out of the light. When they got closer to us, Mother loudly led them away so we could get to Frigga’s and warn them.”

A door of light?

“She could have gotten away,” I said, echoing the false hope I tried to give Roy earlier.

“No, they cut her down a few moments later,” Lorelle said, emotion slipping out of her voice. “I blocked Ella’s view so she didn’t have to see.” She turned, hiding another set of tears.

She looked down at the scorch mark, an angry mask starting to slip over her features. Lorelle glared at the line as if she could destroy it with her pain. “Someday, I’ll figure out how to go into the pool of light.” Lorelle’s voice was iron. “Someday, I’ll go through and I’ll cut down the ones responsible for this.”

Damn, this girl is potential. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

“Not alone,” I said, coming to stand beside her.

“Good,” Lorelle looked to me. “I don’t know how to fight. Not really,” Lorelle said.

“Then it’s a good thing you vowed to do it ‘someday’.” I smiled. “We should keep moving,” I said, looking back through the treeline to note we still had a bit more of the perimeter to cover. “Otherwise Jonah and Roy won’t let me hear the end of it.”