ilyánur strolled about the courtyard, inspecting everything with the eyes of a hawk. Soldiers of the king lay on their knees, hands behind their heads. It was a scene of malcontent (as it should've been): the prisoners were visibly frustrated.

"Arial," Vil called for her, leaning towards her, "tell your soldiers to finish the tying up, reassure them that they shall not be harmed as long as they comply."

"Yes, sir!" she pounced into a military salute, relaying his command to her forces. And Vil watched, nodding ever so gladly at how humane it looked, for one moment he felt like a spell or salve of health rubbed on a wound.

"My lord," his second-in-command called for him. He turned about, but the officer said no words, for he didn't need to. He could tell from the concerned look: something was unright.

Vil nodded, eerily following, prepared for the worst.

Two paces he moved ere encountering a squad gathered in a circle around one man: in the hands of his comrade, his dead body lay. "Maurus," he felt the whisper in the wind: one dead stare up into the heavens, one weeping soul complying and six lamenting.

One death, he felt himself whisper, one death for ten fells, but who could have predicted his fall would be so devastating: his comrade-in-arms maybe, or maybe men of his legion, or I? For I understand the pain.

He knelt, his left hand resting on the weeping soldier's shoulder. "I will not say do not weep, for not only the gods should know of your pain."

Two minutes the lamenting continued, and then it turned to unbridled anger, such hate that would melt the darkest metal. The legionnaire got up, proceeding towards one of the fallen like a lion on a pinned gazelle.

"He!" he yelled in distress, "he is the one who smote down my friend dearest, and cracked a smile as he lay dying, blood oozing from his face! He was not man, but monster most foul!"

"If he was a monster then what did it make you?" questioned Vil. "He was dear to someone too, do you not feel?"

"You would not-" he lashed out, restraining himself at once thereof.

"I would not what?"

The soldier remained silent.

"I would not what?" asked Vil, this time in melancholy.

The soldier fell silent, "forgive me . . . I . . . forgot."

The two shared gleeful exchanges, the whole century looking in awe. They were both silenced; they dared not part their lips before four hundred pairs of eyes. A good look later, they parted. "Load him onto a cart; we shall bury him whence they may not find his body to desecrate."

The soldiers nodded, returning to their errands.

...

"How many foes fell, captain?" asked Mey.

"Ten fell, eleven have been wounded, and two dozen surrendered," a captain answered, "that makes a total of forty-five men."

"Impossible," said a chaos-hunter, "I checked the logs: forty-six are to be stationed here."

Their faces ran pale, "tarry, does that mean one of them escaped?"

They looked at each other in horror, had word gotten out of them, the consequences would have been severe: what would the king do should he know that his son chose to side with high-elves against him?

"Fear not," a guard shouted, dropping a barrel to the ground to reveal a wood-elf.

All the elves thence breathed a sigh of relief: it was not a case of escape, but mere cowardice. Vil chuckled, placing a palm on his breastplate to feel his heart even from beneath the silver scales.

"Anyway, jokes apart," said Mey, "put the prisoners in the brig, leave ten men behind to tend to the wounded and guard the fortress until we return. Should you be discovered, kill the prisoners and run away."

Vil looked at him in question, wondering what strange concoction he drank in the chambers.

"Forgive me, Lord Vilyánur, but they are not likely to survive in there for long either. But I promise should we encounter little to no hindrance, we shall return and send them back to their families. Furthermore, I do not know if any of these have the secret prowess for long-distance telepathy, you can never be sure of those things."

"Whatever you say," Vil shrugged, "you understand your people's politics better than I do."

*****

By the time they set out, having left behind a considerable amount of forces, the sun had already begun her descent into twilight. And though there was still plenty of light in the sky, the forest floor was dark beyond reckon, enough to make them shun the unhallowed darkness.

The trees of the forest had grown tall and fair, towering above the forest floor as obelisks of brown, their peaks upholding the mesmerizing green ceiling which barred the light of day from bursting down the forest floor. The scent of summer flowers mingled with the aroma of rotting branches and leaves enchanted them, occasionally the light of the sun barged in through the canopies and fell upon the shrubs and moss-ridden, lichen-covered stems of the ancient trees.

The path they trotted upon had grown narrow and wreathed in a sea of white mist which approached out to them as pale, skeletal hands. They were in a cathedral of darkness, walking through a mist-haunted, gloom-ridden corridor which seemed to be dominated by nothing more than nature herself.

"These roads are bad," complained Aeresil, pulling on his courser's reins as she refused to trot through bad ground, "knotted roots and slimy loam makes poor passage for legions."

"You haven't seen bad, for we're crossing at the best time possible," Mey replied, "half the year these roads lay beneath a layer of water that bellows out every spring of the pools dark and noisome which litter this bog, and the other half – when winter's breath begins to bite, these waters freeze into a floor of ice. Seldom to the waters recede, but when they do, they leave all sorts of abominations behind, whom scavengers love to feast upon."

"Then I do not want to be here again," said Aeresil, pulling his hood up.

"What should we expect?" asked Vilyánur, "should we be prepared for another battle?"

"Not likely," said Garamond, "the satyrs of Frostfire Clan are fairly open-minded, loyal to no king but the Forest Gods. I see no reason why they should not let us pass, in case they think our plight is dire enough."

"But first we have to find our way through this forest," said Vareth. "I'm having a feeling as if these forests are not friendly to us folk."

"They are not," said Meneldir, "these vales are home to many creatures more than wood-elves, and even though we came dominion of it all, we are but one of the billion denizens of these forests, and obviously in no position to claim dominion over these lands."

Vil nodded to Meneldir, but in his mind a different feeling loomed: wherever he looked, he felt high radiations of chaos energies emanating from the surroundings. It seemed these forests still bore the taint of the daemons who had once assailed these groves years ago.

Every tree, every vine, every root – every piece of the forest bore radiations of chaos. Though at first he turned a blind eye to it, deeming it as nothing more than the shadow of what had happened; it soon became clear to him that these were not a reminder of the past, but the foreshadowing of what was to occur.

"Vil," Meneldir looked at him, "you seem . . . startled."

"Do you feel it too: something amiss?" he asked.

"Yes," he answered, "the forest, it seems, is eerily silent, and as if mourning a grave wound. But . . . why do you ask?"

"Have you ever observed the woods of your forest ere the daemons of chaos assailed your people?" he asked.

"Yes..." he answered, "wherever the daemons of chaos camp, the forest withers and dies . . . all life surrounding ceases to exist, plants halt to grow, animals begin to die, flowers start to wither away, shrubs and grasses commence rotting . . . and then the foul daemons attack."

"Same goes for us," said Vil, "our mages are taught to know chaos energies: it's a powerful force, chaos, a form of vibration which disintegrates matter and energy as it passes through. Being nexii of chaotic energies, these daemons leave behind a trail of decay as they pass."

"What do you mean?" asked Mey, "I mean . . . do you mean what I think you mean?"

"Yes," he said darkly, "be wary, Prince Meneldir, I fear we may be-"

"There!" the twins announced, "we have reached our destination."

"Good," said Garamond, dashing for the village with a love in his heart, but ere the winds even could bid them, he stopped – the radiation was overwhelming.

"Wait . . . something's wrong, something's amiss."

...

And indeed it was: the village of yore they knew was no more, no more were they serene fay, but now a serpentine spirit overtook their ungulate nature. Black claws armed their hands, Grey, scaly skin armoured their body, hooves slender and black sped them across the blighted terrain, and curved horns helmed their heads. Fire-red eyes burned therein, glimmering menacingly at the elves.

"Oh, no! The village has already been corrupted!" Meneldir came about, "what do we do now?"

Lord Vilyánur glanced at his warriors, chuckling eerily: "Now..." he said, "...we fight."

Ere they could make any movements, a chaos satyr approached them, standing atop a high cliff and looking down at them with a hissing laugh. "Silly elves, do you think you can stop us? We are the agents of Lord Morthaur, the Heralds of Chaos: harbingers of the end times!"

"Serethir!" shouted Garamond, "brother, which dark spirit possessed you?"

"I am freed of my worldly shackles, brother, and now I stand in union with Him! Join me and together we shall restore balance to the world!"

"You are mad!" he screamed, drawing out his bow. "I'd rather die than be a slave to some Chaos God."

"As you wish," said Serethir with a grin, turning back at the village, issuing a rallying cry.

And the dead answered them: rising from the ground to enact their wrath upon the elves. A green fluid encircled them, controlling their dead bodies into the servitude of Serethir. Three hundred the chaos-satyrs numbered, armed with axes and shields and chaos energies.

But the high-elves were not afraid; they were the elites of their legion, battle-hardened by centuries of war. Between the two armies was a flat treeless plain, excellent for heavy infantry warfare, on their left was a cliff and on their right a lake: flanking manoeuvres impossible.

"We do not have to kill all of them," said Mey, "see that cave nearby? We can use it to go around the village, just wait for my powers to regenerate, after that I can bar the entrance."

"As you say," Vil nodded, signalling to his officers.

The enemy stood as a wall of shields, spears poking out like the spines of a porcupine, ready to take the brunt of the force. But the legionnaires stood a red bulwark, the spirit of their zeal awing the enemy.

...

With a cry of battle, the satyrs charged en masse, lashing upon the shields like a wave upon rocks. And the legionnaires answered back with burning brows and glistening hope, throwing their javelins upon the charging hordes, and then hacking them apart with their shortswords.

Eyes watched on both sides, eagerly hoping for the balance of power to turn. The satyrs outnumbered the elves two-to-one, but their inferior training and technology fell vain before the elven shields – those ominous shields forming a wall, the crosses on them forming a fence of bronze upon a field of red. Five minutes later, the enemy retreated. The elves faced no wound, but one hundred satyrs had fallen. Though the undead felt no fear, they knew struggling like this would achieve nothing more than broken bones.

Serethir looked from the cliff, sneering in disdain at his folk. "Stand and fight!" he yelled, but his warriors would not risk such a folly.

Three blasts from a horn pervaded, and the wall of shields began to march forward, marching in silence much to the dismay of the enemies, wood-elves from behind used their bows and slings upon the satyrs, diminishing their already-waning courage.

But that was not to be, for Serethir had one last trick up his sleeve – a sinister plan to thwart the elves. He raised his right hand into the air: calling powerful daemons to the battle.

The wall stopped, hope turning to despair and courage to fear: these daemons were too many and too powerful to be held back – one of the kinds they had experience with. Destroyers – nine feet tall, carrying battleaxes fashioned from the teeth of fire-drakes.

"Now!" yelled Meneldir, and the elves complied with a volley of javelins and arrows at the daemons, this time in unison. A great many fell, but more daemons were summoned to replace them. Once more they let loose a volley, but again an equal number of daemons warped into the battlefield.

Serethir chuckled, "you fools, you cannot stop the daemon-tide, it is beyond your power! Try all you want, but I will keep summoning them back-"

An arrow loosened from Vareth's longbow hit his shoulder, and the daemon-horde stopped their insane respawn, now left at the mercy of the elves.

"To the caves!" screamed Mey, drawing his soldiers into them, the high-elven warriors following. Vareth and Aeresil jumped upon them, taking the brunt of their numberless hordes upon themselves, buying enough time for the soldiers to escape.

Vareth let out a roar of terror, shaking the very earth they stood upon, dismantling the binding of many a daemon. As they charged on, he shifted from his original form to a ravenous bear, his eyes gold and claws silver. The daemons and undead charged, but their weapons fell vain before his stony flesh. He mauled them down with his metal-cutting claws and stone-crushing jaws, Aeresil following with axe and light.

The elven host was inside now, Vareth and Aeresil protecting the entrance.

Aeresil walked within, Mey thereof commencing his spell, but Vareth was engaged with someone else there: a big black wolf, slightly bigger than a horse, lashed upon Vareth with fang and claw, and the two fought on in an eternal duel. Ere long the others watched, as Vareth clawed his face, and rushed in at the last moment.

Thus the ceiling collapsed and darkness took over, thus the battle ended much to all's relief.

*****

"What were those creatures?" Niall questioned as their host walked down the caverns, "Never before have I seen satyrs that twisted."

"Chaos shapes the forms of its users," answered Vareth, "those who dabble in the dark powers often don the appearance of those they fight for."

"Such a tragedy," Arial raised her hood, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. "Another great mind lost to evil."

"Such is the fate of mortal life, to succumb to forces greater than the ones we can control," Vil continued, "even an arcanist who reveres the forces of order may begin to consort dark forces, and even a decrepit warlock can turn to good. If evil is what you may call the servants of Morthaur, even though he himself is but the decay of time."

"Wise words, Vareth," said Vil, "you are right, and I agree with you here, even though I acknowledge how ironic it sounds."

"Irony is life," Vareth chuckled, "and the world is but a shadow of greater truths."

"But that still doesn't explain," Arial continued, "why would someone as wise and peaceful as Serethir succumb to the taint? Why would anyone in their right mind vouch for the obliteration of their own world?"

"Many, my friends, see this is the natural thing to do," said Garamond, "to them Morthaur is a force of nature, a reaper of that which is due. In fact to them we may seem unnatural, like lambs to the slaughter resisting what is due, and honestly I cannot disagree with them."

"Right," Vareth shook his head, "now come away, our soldiers are tired."

"Right thing," said Vil, "soldiers, take rest for the night. Light a fire, tend to the wounded, bury the dead, have some meals, and prepare for departure at dawn."