A few minutes earlier… not far from where the battle raged, deeper in the same forest, another group was moving.
Ten men and women, all armed and hardened by years of rough work, stalked carefully through the undergrowth.
At their head was Darel, their leader, his eyes sharp and alert. They had only been walking for barely a minute when a sudden noise tore through the trees — distant, but close enough.
It was the clash of steel, the roar of something monstrous, and strange, bone-chilling shrieks unlike any beast they had ever heard.
Darel raised a hand, and at once, his party stopped dead in their tracks, muscles tensing and eyes flicking toward the source of the commotion.
