Without showing any fear, Grarr lead the way deep into the forest jumping over the burning logs of fallen trees and agilely making his way through the maze of the tall slow-burning trees.

The air was thick with smoke and gray burning ash which fell from the sky like fresh snow.

Fluffball had given up trying to run through the fire and was now laying on Akira's lap in his mini form. His small body was quivering due to the oppressive heat that was pressing down on them coming from everywhere that they looked.

It was nearly impossible to see where they were going even with the brightly burning fires all around them. They had to trust Grarr and the other Garg's sense of direction and hope that they could break through the fire.

Akira breathed a sigh of relief ten minutes later as they managed to pass through the worst of the fire and were now trying to outpace the spreading wall of fire behind them.

The smoke around them was still thick but it was not as bad as before since there was an easterly wind that was blowing through the area every few minutes fanning the flames but also clearing the air of the smoke.

Akira pulled down his cloth face covering to try and sniff out the scent of the cultist enemy as he scanned the ground and trees for any traces of their passage.

Unfortunately, the smoke clogged his nostrils and made it impossible for him to catch their scent, even Fluffball and the Garg mounts were having a hard time using their noses to find anything.

“We need to keep going forward, I have a gut feeling we will be able to find their tracks farther ahead,” said Akira in a hoarse voice due to the thick smoke. He replaced the cloth over his mouth and taped Grarr on the side to continue forward.

Several minutes later they found the trail once again. It was leading towards several tall gnarly dry trees that had little to no needles or leaves left on their branches.

The cavalry silently followed the path into an area where the thick maze of trees was thinning out. This was good as it allowed them to spread out and move faster. The fire was still raging behind them slowly moving forward and would soon reach the dry wooded area.

THUMP!

“Ahhh!”

A cavalryman cried out behind Akira and Grarr.

Akira turned around and saw a man had been knocked off his mount because he hit a branch. Up to this point, with the superb movement of the Garg mounts, they had been successful at dodging anything that may have hindered them.

“Be careful! We can't afford any slip-ups with the fire right behind us!” shouted Akira as the cavalryman jumped back onto his mount.

Thump!

“Growl!”

This time when Akira looked behind him he saw that the large Garg had been tripped up and face planted into the ashy snow.

With this happening shortly after the first accident, Akira felt something was wrong and scanned his surroundings as they ran through thinned-out dead trees, but he found nothing suspicious around them.

Several other cavalrymen were knocked off their mounts as they moved forward, but no matter how hard Akira searched and thought about the situation he could not figure out what was happening.

But then it hit him and he was finally able to understand.

Thump!

Akira, Mileena, and Fluffball were thrown off of Grarr as a branch struck out from a nearby dead tree.

Akira rolled to his feet and focused in on the branch that had popped out to knock him off Grarr.

[Zombie Treant lvl 110]

“The trees!” shouted Akira, his voice echoing in lukewarm air.

As if his warning was a trigger, the entire surrounding trees woke up, and several branches from the immobile trees started to whip out and attack the passing Gargs dismounting several of the cavalrymen before they could understand what was going on.

Akira lashed out using his skill [Sword slash] sending out a blue crescent to cut down several tree branches that were whipping towards him.

Several branches targeted Mileena and pierced right through her.

Poof!

Using the [Blink] skill Mileena appeared above the attacking branches and sliced them apart with her daggers as she fell back down to the ashy snow and rolled towards Akira.

Fluffball grew to his full size and his holy ice armor gleamed in the fiery light as several branches reached him and slammed into his body.

Those branches were immediately frozen by Fluffball and torn apart as he smashed way towards Akira and Mileena.

Grarr was making his way towards Akira, slashed his way through several branches before he was able to stop and pick up both Akira and Mileena.

Fluffball joined Grarr in slashing and shooting ice chunks at the [Zombie Treants] that were blocking their way back to the others.

As they were dealing with the attacking branches that were constantly blocking their way forward, the fire was creeping forward and soon leaped onto the dry [Zombie Treants].

Loud creaking groans of pain could be heard all through the forest.

“Just keep pushing through!” shouted Akira as he constantly sent [Sword slash's] out in front of him to cut the burning branches that were aimed at them.

When the [Zombie Treant's] started to receive major damage they switched tactics and...

Pew, pew, pew!

“AHHH!” “Gahh,” “Growl!”

...shot the remaining needles on their branches towards the cavalrymen wounding them as well as the Gargs.

But Akira and the cavalrymen continued to push forward through the fire and hail of needle projectiles.

“I see an opening up ahead! Keep going!” growled Akira.

As they weaved, hacked, and slashed through the branches of the [Zombie Treants] the Garg cavalry successfully exited out of the forest and the reach of the [Zombie Treants].

“HALT!” shouted Akira.

He saw several shadowy figures ahead of them and did not want to continue running into unknown danger now that they had just escaped the fire and the [Zombie Treants].

Everyone was in poor shape, all sporting scrapes, bumps, wounds, and some had minor burns.

Akira strained his senses to look at the dark figures that were shrouded in shadows and covered by the gray smokey air coming from the burning forest.

The wind once again rushed past them pushing the smoke aside for some distance and revealing several large black stone statues.

As Akira inspected the statues he felt that they looked to be carvings of dwarven warriors but they seemed to be a little different than those Akira was familiar with, like Delgar and such.

The rows of statues lined both sides of a rocky path that appeared to head towards the base of the dark mountain. Akira could not be sure as the majority of the path was covered in the smoky fog blocking all sight.

Ding!

+1 to Akira's bad gut feeling.

The statues made Akira feel a sense of danger, but looking at them intently revealed no special information at all. They were nothing but creepy statues.

“Those statues, I think I remember reading something about them in the scrolls from the dwarven library,” said Klyn.

“What are they?” asked Akira.

“They should just be statues. But I think they are carvings of the Dark Dwarves. This could be one of their lairs.”

“Dark Dwarves?”

“They are supposed to be an offshoot clan of the main branch. The Dark Dwarves were viewed as evil and were supposedly wiped out by past generations of the Dwarven clans who waged a fierce war long ago.”

“Why go to such lengths? I thought Dwarves took kinship very seriously. Killing off an entire branch of clansmen seems unlike them,” asked Mileena as they inspected the statues from afar, not daring to get close yet.

“According to their records, the Dark Dwarves allied themselves with what I believe to have been the cult of science during the ancient dark plague that wiped out many demon races and kingdoms.”

“How fitting for the cultist to escape here. With the statues in such good shape, do you think that some were able to escape the culling?” asked Akira.

“Could be...”

“Everyone should treat their wounds while I go and check and see what is ahead of us. It'll only take a moment and be back soon,” said Akira, as he hopped off Grarr and slinked into the smokey pathway.