Chapter 1
458 A.C.
It was a bright, yet strangely cold, summer day. There were no clouds visible in the sky. The western sky began to turn red, as the sun began to set. A black blur was moving through the sky. It was a large bird with two heads, black feathers, green eyes, four talons on its feet, and two red beaks. The bird was flying to a series of mountains that were in the distance.
The bird saw a large herd of humans and horses on the plains outside the mountain range. It slowed its flying speed to observe the herd. The bird counted at least three thousand humans in this herd, before giving up. The humans were stampeding about like a herd of urus. The bird was intrigued when it found small groups of humans, no more than five individuals, splitting away from their herd. Eventually those groups came back, and when they did, the human stampede would stop, and slightly change directions.
Slowly, the two-headed bird passed by the peculiar herd of humans. Within an hour, it reached the mountains. It was slightly curious about what the humans were doing.
Those strange creatures have always been interesting to watch. It thought while one of its heads glanced back.
…
On a small mountain road, a small group of cavalrymen, no more than twenty, were protecting a covered wagon. They traveled on an old and worn brick road.
The road had few trees on its sides, their roots would occasionally break through the old path. But, even with their small numbers, they were enough to isolate the group from seeing anything from outside of this mountain. Occasional grey and brown boulders randomly populated the side of the mountain, some were as tall as trees.
The group found a small sign that marked and led them to a road which led to a small stream.
As the group got closer to the stream, the trees became more abundant, so to did their obnoxious roots. Their occasional interruption of the road became more and more numerous. Until, it was a common transgression. The group had to move slowly and carefully, because one of their horses fell after it tripped on a series of roots.
The cavalrymen were lightly armored. They were in chain mail, with a metal breastplate. Each person also carried a cavalry sword and a short spear. The wagon they guarded was made of a strange white wood with sky blue highlights. Its cover was jade green, and had intricate swirling purple designs.
Slowly, as the group progressed, the mountain road grew wider, as if it were fighting the increasing interruptions of roots. The road continued its battle, until it reached a clearing on the mountain side. The group stoped as a distant army became visible to them.
“‘Young master’ Joseph, you are the one with the telescope, stop staring and get your ass over there!” Yon shouted before the group began to laugh.
A young man with brown hair began to leave the wagon, he stopped and turned around and took something out of the wagon.
“You know what Yon, you will do it.”
The young man threw a telescope to Yon, before yawning.
”If you need me I will be talking with cousin Andha.”
The young man quickly entered the wagon as some people began to laugh. Yon sighed and dismounted his horse. He climbed on top of a boulder and pulled out the telescope.
The telescope was made from three different sized wooden tubes that were hollow on both ends. The difference in the size of the wooden tubes allowed the telescope to extend and shrink. At its smallest, it was the length of a hand, and had many inscriptions carved into it.
The wagons green canvas audibly rippled in the wind, as Yon extended the tube and held it up to his eye. Squinting that eye and closing the other, he peeked through the tube, and saw an army on horseback traveling parallel to the mountains. They were about sixteen kilometers away from the mountain.
"Sir Ild," the cavalryman shouted, "tell ‘young master’ Joseph that the Tal army is going north towards the Lodh empire. They do not seem to be heading towards his Havso estate." The wind blew, as a shadow crossed the small group. A voice came from the covered wagon. "Good!" the voice exclaimed. "The young master says that we will find a place to camp for the night, and head back towards the estate, at sunrise tomorrow." As they were talking, an unnoticed shadow was circling around the group.
…
"There is a shallow cave here. It should be large enough to fit all of us. Do you think we should set up camp here?" A voice called out to a young man who was exiting a covered wagon. "There is a clear water spring four minutes to the east. I think we should stop here." Another voice called out. "And the elements are somewhat abundant here." A third voice called out.
Two young men exited the wagon. One had dark brown hair, and clear blue eyes. He wore a green shirt, and brown pants. He was about a head shorter then the other man. Who was about two meters tall, and looked fairly fit. He looked to be no older than twenty. The young man was wearing loose fit robes. His eyes were a peculiar mix of orange and red. If you looked at the center of his right pupil, there was a small fiery orb. Small jets of orange energy connected to the veins in his eyes from this orb.
He looked at the cave and muttered under his breath, "This cave is somewhat clean… is it inhabited? What do I do in these situations? That spell may work, but if I use it... well, it’s not like I will need to fight today."
Sighing, he clenched his fists before opening his palm. A red ring with was formed on it. Lines intersected inside the ring, forming a cube. At the intersections of the lines, strange runes twisted about. Two seconds later, the ring grew to the size of the room and disappeared. A red light flickered as strange footprints were uncovered.
The footprints were similar to those of a bird. They were 30 centimeters long, and each toe was 7 cm thick. Each footprint had three toes, two in the front, and one that was in the back. They covered the entire cave, and the area surrounding it. Following the footprints, there were many paths leading both away and to the cave.
"Cousin, what exactly did that spell do, and how old are these footprints? Do we need to worry?" Joseph asked while yawning.
"The spell shows me any footprints from the past week, and the likely stage of the one who laid these footprints." The youth responded.
"In this case, this cave is home to an unknown monstrous beast. Due to the shape and prevalence of the prints, it is most likely to be some sort of flightless bird. The bird in question is likely to stand more than 2 meters, and is probably at least one meter wide. We can infer this due to the size of the prints. That also means that this beast will be at least in the early or middle of the core formation stage."
"Then should we camp here? Can you defeat that bird cousin?” Joseph asked.
"Yes young master, the majority of us have a solid core.” The young man swept his arm out while pointing at the many cavalrymen. “It would be difficult for this beast to harm us." The youth called out. "We camp here, we will have a three-man guard outside the cave, and we will switch every four hours. Also call me Sir Ild in public young master." Ild continued.
…
As the group were talking, the bird in question was hunting. The bird was as wide as a washbasin, and had a head shorter than two average-height men stacked on top of each other. It had two long wings, with three small claws. The wings were similar to those of a bat. The bird had green and grey colored feathers that covered its entire body, with the exemption of its long legs.
Occasionally, the bird stoped and looked at its surroundings. It was tracking a group of deer.
As the sun set, the bird saw twenty deer grazing. The deer all appeared to be average in height, strength, and speed compared to the bird. They were spread about 20 meters apart. There was a deer that was more than fifty meters from the closest other deer. It too, though, was grazing. The bird decided that it would chase down this deer.
As the raptor-like bird was a forming a plan to strike the deer, a roar was heard as a big catlike beast, with red and gold fur, pounced at the walking bird.
The bird, while narrowly dodging the beast, kicked out one of its legs towards its exposed belly. The talons drew blood, yet the effect was minuscule.
When the attack landed, the catlike beast swept its rightmost arm at the bird in anger.
The swipe missed. Ceasing the moment, the bird jumped on the beast's back. Using its talons, the bird anchored itself onto the beast's back, and pecked at its head.
The beast roared, and rolled over, trying to dislodge the bird. The bird jumped off the beast, and as if expecting the bird to jump, the beast caught one of its wings.
It was then that the bird saw another cat approaching.
…….……..no.
The bird decided to run.
Realizing that struggle was futile, bird let its wing be cut up by the first beast's claws, while managing to break free.
It ran to a nearby tree, and positioned itself, so the tree was at its back. It ran without looking back. Occasionally the bird would change directions.
Eventually, when the sun had fallen, the bird looked behind itself, and it saw nothing. With caution, it decided to change directions two more times before heading towards the cave.
…
The cavalrymen in the cave were sleeping. There were two people watching the group's horses, to make sure they didn’t wander off. There was another person standing to the side of the cave entrance. He was nodding in and out of sleep. "Why did Joseph decide to watch the cave?" One of the people guarding the horses asked, while looking at the cave's entrance.
"Don’t know, and I don’t really care. We are safe anyways. We have been in the mountains for a week now, and nothing has attacked us." As he responded, the other guard sighed. It was then that three people left the cave.
"Hey, Joseph, it’s time to switch shifts."
"Get back to the cave and sleep."
The two called out when they saw the group approaching them. The new shift was exchanged for the old one after a couple of words. The moon was reaching the center of the sky as they retreated back to the cave.
There was a large two-headed bird perched on top of a tree that the relaxed guards did not see. The bird would occasionally glance at the cave, in curiosity. It was then that it saw a raptor about a kilometer away, glancing behind itself as it fled towards the cave guarded by strange humans. It cooed in anticipation, as if it was watching an interesting play.
Yo!