The morning light arrived, the floor of the forest shaded green from the light filtering through the leaves. Jeria had climbed into the upper branches of a tree, from where he watched as the golden orb lifted above the canopy of the forest, as the sky went from black, to turquoise to alive with golden fire. He watched, elated, loving the way the sun reflected off the clouds, the way the trees changed colour in the light. He sat there, wondering at the sunrise, enjoying his first one, for as long as he could and then, with a sigh, descended to the ground, to where Gruzz stood with Mekior and Gyv.

With the light, and the canopy of the forest overhead, Mekior had recovered. He looked at the rest of the group, his face a mask of misery knowing how these people had all seen him in his moment of weakness, they did not know what drove his fear, but he had revealed a part of himself that brought him shame. Worse, the half-fiend had been the one to push him, to move him, to get his courage up, unwittingly and without knowledge, but it had still been him that spurred him on. Mekior felt shamed, a failure, one of his enemies better than he. He walked behind Gruzz, his mind working on the problem, worrying that if they should leave the canopy of the forest, if he should feel exposed and vulnerable again, he would be paralysed with fear yet again. He feared, they were patient and never forgot a slight. He followed the group, anxiety gnawing at him, anxiety everyone else wrote off as the remnants of his fear of being outside

The group stepped quietly through the shadows, the occasional beams of light that shone through the leaves overhead illuminating the forest floor in patches, giving it an eerie quality. Green and red veined leaves covered the ground beneath them, vines covered with thorns trying to trip them up and climbing a few of the trees, but the redder the tree the fewer the vines. They travelled mostly in silence, their thoughts company to their silent march. Mekior worried at his weakness, terrified his fear of his enemy may betray him. Gruzz worried about the path, unknown, moving into territory he did not know intimately. For Jeria it was fear of the fiends, never met but always lurking on the edge of perception. Fear of those that while he carried their blood, he hated them and his unknown father, the killers of his mother, the fear of those he lived amongst. And Gyv? She feared the voice she heard every night, the laughter that haunted her sleep and stole her will. She looked back over her shoulder, at the mountain peak that was fading behind her. If you asked her why, she would not have been able to tell you, it just felt right, a compulsive action that helped her to orient herself as they moved deeper into the trees that soon hid the sight of the mountain behind them.

***

Two days travel passed uneventfully beneath the green canopy. Their ears strained for the sounds of movement, for a glimpse of anything that may prove threatening. They saw nothing and the silence was only occasionally broken as Gruzz took time to point something out to Jeria, to teach him some of the vast lore and knowledge of the outside world he had accumulated over years of travel. Gyv fell into the same pattern, pulling Jeria aside, pointing out plants, small insects and the forest creatures around them telling him of their properties, which were useful and which to be avoided. Even Mekior occasionally dropped his hostility towards the half-fiend to point out the minute details that provided clues as to what was, and was not, tainted. The other three often thought him crazy, not seeing what he said was obvious, but never doubted his word. He, in turn, wondered how they could not see the faint red capillaries that wound through a green leaf, how the hairs of a caterpillar stood too straight, spikes of poison rather than hair or how the cry of a bird was call to predators, a betrayal of their position, why an insect danced in a certain way and used the breeze to carry messages to those they would rather avoid.

Jeria absorbed it all, his thirst for knowledge of the outside world insatiable. He found himself lying awake at nights, peering through gaps in the trees trying to catch a glimpse of the stars above. The world was like a new book, pages to fill and be scribed, a place to learn, fill him, so much more than the stone halls of his world before. It was so much more alive, more bewildering. The stone walls of the caverns had their own world, own charm, but nothing like what he found above ground in this forest. His ancestry meant that he did not need the same amount of rest as his compatriots and he used this unnatural stamina to stay awake for long hours, conversing with Gyv and Gruzz as they sat on guard duty. He used the time of Mekior's watch to get the sleep he needed. He knwew that this, too, marked him as different to the Fiend Hunter, and added to the sense of otherness that the Fiend Hunter hated within him.

It was just after midday on the third day when it happened. Gruzz led them through a thicket of thorn bushes. The group was careful to make sure no one was scratched as Gruzz had noted the reddish sap clinging to the points of some thorns as they approached and Mekior had agreed with his assessment that the bushes were tainted. None noticed that Gyv, as she went through last behind the rest, carefully placed a thorn just under her nail, her eyes gleaming slightly in the dim light as she did so. Gyv herself did not notice, forgetting a scant few seconds later that she had done so.

Beyond the thorn bushes was a small clearing, all entrances similarly covered by the tainted plants. Within the centre of the clearing was a small altar, the sides stained with blood, the ground around it reddened from a recent sacrifice. The smell of dried and rotting blood reached their nose, and they instinctively stepped back, looking about the clearing for whomever tended to the site. The altar was a plain back stone, obviously brought here from elsewhere as nothing nearby was even remotely similar. None could discern a reason for an altar to be there, in the middle of a forest, skirting a desert, forlorn and seemingly deserted.

Gruzz knelt down, scanning the area, carefully noting the placement of every strand of grass, every root that he could see. The silence remained unbroken save for the sounds of small insects rasping and the occasional bird calling out its territory. Everything seemed in place and peaceful; only the altar and its bloody remnants any indication that this was different to the myriad other clearings they had marched by and through. Eventually he stood, moving forward slowly, the group following behind as he skirted along the edges of the clearing, keeping his distance from the bloodied altar.

Halfway round the circle, with the altar to his right, the air shimmered, and the temperature in the air rose as if a curtain had been lifted into Hell itself. Standing on the altar, with a smile upon its face, stood a fiend. Easily nine feet tall it had massive, heavily muscled arms, thick gold and platinum bracers upon its wrists and an armoured skirt around its waist. Faint flames danced around him, dying away as he jumped down, landing with catlike grace on the grass.

"What, passing by without saying hello? How rude!" The fiend's voice was melodic, cultured. It looked at the group, its face betraying no warmth, though it stood with a smile upon its face. Then his lips moved, to reveal rows of sharp fangs, his hands came up in front, claws rhythmically clacking against each other, making an odd noise. “Warriors, come out to play? Come to visit my little home, my little bit of paradise?”. The fiend grinned, the clacking echoing around the clearing, into the forest.

The standoff did not last long.

From where he stood Mekior saw the fiend, saw the hated enemy standing there with a cold smile upon its face. His war cry was inarticulate, but his actions more eloquent than any words. In one smooth motion, he jumped forward, closing the gap to the enemy, his sword being drawn in mid-air, striking down at the fiend as he landed, the momentum of his movement providing devastating power to his blow.

And from behind he heard laughter, the image in front of him flickering, dying away. He moved just in time. He ducked and rolled away, nimble despite the confines of his armour; his sword spinning round with the rest of him, blocking the claw that had appeared from behind, that had been swung with enough force to decapitate him with a single strike. The claw clanged off his sword as he twisted his body around and brought his sword back to a ready position before him, the power of the blow still reverberating through his arm. Mekior saw Jeria charging forward, his axe at the ready with Gruzz close behind and Gyv drawing her bow. He wondered for whom the axe was meant, him or the fiend?

The fiend moved; it flipped itself over, striking with its feet at Mekior while, somehow, managing to twist itself so that Jeria’s axe passed harmlessly by. Once again, Mekior found himself forced onto the defensive, his sword sweeping up to block the taloned feet, keeping the wickedly sharp edges from his face. Gruzz’s axe crashed into his sword, sending vibrations up his arm. With a look of despair, Gruzz caught Mekior’s eye; the devil had manoeuvred the two to perfection. Gruzz blocked the line of sight from Gyv, stopping her from releasing her arrow for fear of hitting the massive half-ogre. Mekior's blade had done duty as shield for the fiend while being unable to strike at him.

Frustrated, Gruzz reversed his swing, sending his axe low, while Jeria cut high, Mekior's sword slashing through the centre. All hit nothing, stumbling off balance as the fiend disappeared, laughing as it reappeared atop the altar.

"Ah, all the poor little heroes can't hit one little devil?" It spread its arms wide, releasing darts of flame that shot out at the three. They dodged aside, scattering in all directions, Gruzz cried out in pain, engulfed in fire as three of the darts shot into him. Mekior ducked beneath the darts that shot towards him, rolling beneath and feeling their heat as they passed above him, setting alight some of the dry thorn bushes behind to send billowing sheets of foul smelling smoke into the air. He came up with his sword and stabbed into the gut of the devil, spilling its entrails to the ground, leaving the altar slick with its blood. Jeria, in turn spun out, allowing the flaming missiles to pass him by. They singed his hair, leaving red, inflamed skin in their wake. He swung out with his axe, the momentum from how he had dodged the missiles imparted to the axe, the blade a blur as it chopped into the fiend and sent its arm, trailing a stream of blood, into the night.

Gyv, her bow lowered to the ground, watched as the fiend collapsed and felt a clutch of horror. She was sure it had looked at her, had winked as it went down. She felt cold and fearful and still could not tell the others her fears, how the face laughed mockingly at her in the night. She looked at them, hoping that they would see the despair, the inability to communicate, upon her face. Neither of the two said anything, engrossed with the damage done to Gruzz. They moved across to where Gruzz’s body lay and they looked at the body burnt and blackened, unrecognisable if they had not already known who it was.

The three stood there, Gruzz’s burnt body at the feet of Mekior and Jeria, the gutted, dismembered corpse of the fiend just a short way off. They moved to the altar, hoping to strip the items off the fiend, and watched as the corpse dissolved, disappeared, leaving nothing, just fresh blood on the pristine black stone.

They moved off into the forest, taking the corpse of Gruzz to bury nearby. The night was cold and the stars uncaring as the three sat, contemplating their loss and the altar in the forest that seemed to have no reason for existence.