The Heroes I-The Black Fire Lighthouse

Chapter VII-The Dark Forest

The corpses had started piling up again as they made their way to the Dark Forest. They wanted to reach it before nightfall, but didn't know if they would be able to or not with the planet throwing off their sense of time. Garen and Max looked around at their surroundings carefully, not wanting to get attacked from the Hell Raiders who did this.


“Max?” Garen stopped and looked over at him with a questioning look.


“What’s the problem, Garen?” asked Max, also coming to a stop.


"When do you think this strange sense of time will end?"


“It won't, it has something to do with the war,” said Cody’s voice from behind them. They both turned on the spot to see the man who told them the story looking off in the distance. “When there’s a large-scale war like this about to happen, the planet can feel it. Therefore time, distance, weather, everything is corrupted. Nothing will seem right until the Tablets return to their rightful home. ”


"Where did you come from? I thought you left,” said Garen looking up at Cody.


"The only people who can understand the earth in any way at all would be the elves. It’s just something that happens," Cody said, ignoring Garen's question at first. "I did leave for a while, it just so happens that I got bored and figured that it would be so much more exciting following you people around.”


Garen’s eyes flashed quickly as he heard the harsh tone that Cody was directing toward him, and Garen instantly looked back up at him to show his anger and challenge him. Cody looked down and smirked at him as if he was doing something amusing rather than threatening him.


“Try it,” Cody challenged. “I guarantee that you will be on the ground before this minute is through.”


Garen swung his fist at Cody’s face at full force, but all Cody did was grab his wrist. He put his free arm up to Garen’s chest, let go of the wrist, and lightly waved his hand to send Garen flying only a couple of feet and then slamming him into the ground. Cody looked down at the curled up body, chuckling to himself.


“You are young and foolish; still a boy,” Cody said, his smile turning into a cold face. “I will not hold this stupidity against you…for now.”


Max ran over to Garen to help him get up and looked back over at Cody with disgust. Garen got up, his legs shaking, and scowled at Cody, who seemed not to be paying attention. He was looking up in the sky, examining something off in the distance as if there was something there that no one else was seeing. What he was staring at was soon made clear. The area where Cody was staring at exploded and a body came hurling at the ground faster than Max or Garen could keep up with. The body hit the ground barley five meters in front of the three, making a large hole in the ground and sending clouds of dust and rocks into the air. Max's and Garen's horses reared up out of fear and tried running off until they were both hit with a stream of Purple Fire, sending them to the ground. Both their horses were dead. Kalish had met the same fate as the one he was named after barely a month into their journey.


Garen looked up at where the body came from to see who had killed is horse, but nothing was there. “I’m going to take a wild guess right now,” said a high, cold voice behind Garen, causing him to shiver in shock. “Would you possibly be looking for me?”


Garen turned around slowly as he heard a cold laugh start behind him. Before he could fully turn around, he was, again, flying through the air, but he kept going this time instead of being forced to land. He tried getting himself to stop, but it was not working for him. The next thing he felt was a body behind him, catching him to make sure he didn’t go any further, when he turned around he saw Cody’s grey eyes, now looking cold rather than gently, staring at Nerag.


“You have a pretty nasty glare there, boy,” Nerag snarled at him. “I would get out of here if you don’t want to get killed.”


“I promise you that you will not be able to come close to hurting me,” Cody shot back, dropping Garen to the ground. “I don’t think you would be able to lay a hand on me in the first place.”


“Watch it with this one, Nerag, he’s much stronger than the other ones,” said the man with the mask floating down from the air and land behind Nerag. “Let’s stay concentrated with this filthy little half-elf.”


He turned around and looked down at the girl lying face down in the dirt. Her hair was a wonderful reddish-brown color, but it was all ruffled up and out of place, full of dirt. Her ears were slightly pointed but not as of an elf’s and as she turned her head, they could see her once gorgeous face, now bloodied from Nerag, and her beautiful blue eyes. The masked man walked toward her slowly and lifted up his arm. He flicked two of his fingers up and the half-elf turned over with pain and anger in her face. He started to lift his other hand up, but was stopped as Cody grabbed tightly hold of his arm.


“If you lay another hand on her, you will not be able to leave this spot without at least a couple of broken bones,” Cody growled into the masked man’s ear with fierceness.


He turned around slowly and the glowing red dots that were his eyes stared Cody directly into his pale grey ones. They were both built pretty much the same; same height, same warlike build, and even the same hair. “Do you really think that’s possible, Cody?” he asked with sarcasm in his voice.


Cody twisted his arm tighter and brought him close enough to whisper in his ear, “There is one way to find out, but I would be very careful if I were you.”


The masked man twisted his restrained arm in an odd way and brought it back to make contact with Cody’s chest, causing a little ring of air to appear and making Cody to slide back a few feet. He moved his arms up in a fighting position and Rainbow Lightening started sparkling from his fingertips.


“You don’t want to start this with me, Cody,” he said straightening up and holding his arms at his side, tilting his head down to look up at Cody through his hair. “I know how strong you are and you can’t stop me.”


Rainbow lightening started shooting at the ground from his fingertips, then it stopped and he vanished. Just as soon as he was gone he was standing behind Cody with his elbow caught in Cody’s hand. They were shaking from the contact and then Cody was on the ground with the masked man standing over with his hands in the pockets of his robes.


“You are quite a bit faster than I remember, Cody,” he said with a smirk, “but yet, you’re still not faster than I.”


“I don’t know who you are,” said Cody shakily, trying to stand up. “I can tell you this, though, there’s no one faster than I am.”


The man, then, disappeared from Cody’s sight and the next thing he know he was being attack at every point of his body at one time. He fell to the ground not knowing what to do, blood spilling out from all parts of his body and a pool of blood lying under him as he fell heavily to the ground. His fingers began twitching beyond his control, his eyes started growing blank, he couldn't feel anything except for an intense pain and the only thing that he could muster to get out of his mouth was blood. Cody could see the blurry outline of the masked man's legs as he started slowly walking away and finally disappear.


"Leave that nasty elf and let's get out of here," he growled. "We have the Lighthouses to light anyway." His mask formed a nasty, rotted, black toothed grin as he vanished in a wisp of dark grey smoke, followed by Nerag, leaving Cody and the elf on the ground barely breathing and leaving Garen and Max standing there, horrorstruck.


The elf started standing up, brushing her mid-back length, beautiful reddish-brown hair out of her eyes. They seemed to be an angry type of grey color, but it looked as though they were changing into a deep, ocean blue. She was somewhat on the taller side and quite thin, held a golden bow in her hand and a quiver of golden arrows slung behind her back and she looked up at Garen and Max with a grateful, beautiful smile, then immediately rushed over to the injured Cody, not two meters away from them.


Max leaned over toward Garen and whispered into his ear, "Didn't she have wounds before? So how does that work?"


"Elves have healing properties, helping them heal much faster than a human," replied the elf, causing Max to jump slightly, then she added with a grin, "we also have very excellent hearing."


"Oh, alright then," Max shakily answered, causing her to giggle slightly.


"You're not quite a full elf though are you?" asked Garen. "Your ears aren't as pointed and you have some of the facial features of a human."


She crouched over Cody and her hands lit up with a blue light and it looked to them like rain was falling from them and into Cody's wounds throughout his body. "No I am not a full elf. I am half human. We're called Elfians, though we prefer to be called elves. My name is Becky, by the way, yours would be?"


"C-Cody," Cody choked as the sound of his bones snapping back into place echoed out, with his blood seeping back into his wounds. "I don't need you to do this," he growled through the pain of his bones.


"Well nice to meet you, Cody," Becky said with a gentle smile. "You do need this healing though, otherwise you will probably die."


"Something that I more than deserve," Cody said under his breath so no one could hear him, though Becky's right ear did twitch at it.


Whether she heard it or not, she didn't make any mention of it, she just turned over to the other two and asked, "And what would your names be, boys?"


"My name is Garen son of Gar."


"And I am Max son of Moshian, it's a pleasure to meet you," said Max, taking a little bow.


"Well, the pleasure is mine," Becky said, also bowing.


"Now that we're done with introductions, you can probably tell us why those two were chasing you as you heal up Cody," Garen said in a strict voice.


"I can see you're not one to be trusting people you meet, which is very wise," said Becky, her smile fading to a straight face. "It is a simple answer, though; they wanted to know how to light the original four Lighthouses; Blue, Red, White, and Yellow. Judging by your faces, that's a new subject to you. Well, these Lighthouses represent the four elements surrounding us and powering our Fire of Color; water, fire, wind, and earth. I'll tell you more about them later, he's healed."


"I could have done it myself when I woke up," snarled Cody. "I don't need help from a Elfian that has the nerve to call me a human."


"You're welcome, Cody," she answered with a little smile. "And for that last comment; I wouldn't quite call you a full Fire Raider yet. You just simply aren't skilled enough."


Cody's eyes flashed at that remark as the ground around him started shaking and raising up around him slowly. His hands started glowing Rainbow Fire and the wind around him started growing heavier and more furious. "If you knew my past," he growled at her, "then you would know I have much more than the average skill of a Fire Raider." Then the earth and wind around him started calming down and his hands dimmed out. "I need to leave," he said calmly, and then he vanished in that same wisp of smoke as the masked man and Nerag.


"Like I said before," Max said in a rough voice, "what a strange fellow."


"Does he do this often?" asked Becky in a puzzled voice.


"We've only known him for a little while and he did this last time he left us, then came back to get his ass kicked by this masked character. Maybe we should just call him the Masked One," said Max, looking into the sky. His face then turned pale and it looked like he started shaking as he lifted up an arm very slowly to point at something that looked very large flying around in the sky above a forest a few kilometers in front of them. "What is that thing? You know how huge it must be when it looks that big now and we're like four kilometers from the Dark Forest?"


Garen was looking at the creature frozen; he couldn't see it clearly from this distance, but there was no mistake in what it was; a skyright. A large dragon-like creature that was at least thirty to fifty meters long, very muscular, had a wing span of ten or twenty meters, and had teeth as large as Garen. They were often known to be the monster of choice for the Hell Raiders to ride on. Garen had been taught about them in his History of Extinct Races and Creatures not too long before all this started. The skyright had thought to have disappeared around the same time as the Hell Raiders, so obviously they never went extinct, or the Hell Raiders really have returned as Cody said and the skyrights returned with them. His first reaction was to grab both Max and Becky and hide behind the nearest boulder they could find, but there were none around, nothing to hide in or tuck under, they were stuck in the wide open ready for an attack from this horrible creature; who knows how fast it could get here or how far it could see (or how far its rider could see). He looked around some more but all there was left were pebbles and distorted earth from the fight before, why does his journey have to be over so soon, he was just starting to make new friends.


"There is no need to panic," Becky said calmly. "Even if it could see us, it wouldn't waste it’s time to come over here. It's probably just scouting the area for any intruders and we're not yet in the territory of the Dark Forest."


"Well, it doesn't matter because we'll be heading that way soon," said Garen.


"Wait, wait! Can't we just, maybe, go around or something?" pleaded Max with a worried look on his face. "I mean, we don't have to walk directly into deadly situations like this, do we?"


"This forest stretches around the country, Max," said Garen, causing Max to slouch over in disappointment. "Anyhow, it seems that Cody was right; the Hell Raiders are back and there is soon to be a war."














The wind was blowing heavily and the smell of rotting bodies had faded away, though the smell in the air wasn't as fresh as it used to be. The three could smell something different in the air as they grew closer to the Dark Forest; the smell was dark and evil and the skies were darkening over them even though it was still midday. Garen could feel some sort of darkness creeping inside of him, unnerving him. He looked over at Becky, who looked calm, but Garen could sense her nerves leaving her as well and could see her complexion leaving her face. Then he looked over to Max who was very obviously losing his nerve, in fact, Garen thought that he could almost see him shaking. He didn't know what was causing this uneasy feeling, but he had a strong feeling it was coming from the heart of the Dark Forest and it was somehow connected to the Hell Raiders and the war that was most likely soon to be.


"I have never felt anything like this before," Becky said, still trying to keep herself looking calm. "As long as I've been alive on this planet, I have never felt something this dark and unnerving, nothing even close to it."


"A-are you sure we can't find some way around this place?" asked Max nervously. "Can't we just try to practice what that Cody guy did and what Nerag and the Masked One can do?"


Garen looked over at Max and studied his unnerving face, then glanced over at the dreadful forest that lay in front of them. "I'm sorry, Max, but that would take more than the time that it's worth." He then looked over toward Becky, trying to see if he could see her face losing its composure somehow, but it seemed that the elves were a very trained race in keeping a straight face and not losing control of their emotions unnecessarily. "How is it that you can keep such a calm face with this presence around us? I can sense that you fear this place just as much as us, there's no reason to hide it."


"It's something that we elves are trained into at a very young age so we don't show any signs of fear or anger. Those feelings are believed to be signs of weakness and to show those feelings means that you are too weak of a person to do anything useful."


"You're wrong," said Garen causing her to look quickly up at him with curiosity on her face. "Fear is not a sign of weakness and neither is anger. To be fearful could protect you from something that could end up killing you. One can only be brave in times of fear. Our bodies are giving us this uneasy feeling to warn us that there is something in that forest that is very dangerous and deadly. Anger is a feeling that comes across people for a number of reasons and most of them are caused by, what you said, a person being too weak to control their emotions. Then again, some things are cause for anger, such as those bastards kidnapping my friends and murdering Kyle and hurting you."


Becky's eyes softened a bit as she listened to Garen's explanation, nodding only a couple of times as she agreed and understood all that he was saying. "I can see what you're getting at here, Garen," she said very calmly, "and I would have to say that I do agree with you one hundred percent."


"Really?"


"No, I'm just saying it to make you feel better about yourself," she replied back, then looking at Garen's face, she smiled. "I was only kidding. What you say is very true and you speak with a wisdom that is beyond your age by far."


Garen just nodded to say his thanks, not knowing how to respond to her compliment. He then looked back over toward the Dark Forest, took a deep breath, and started walking toward it slowly, Becky and Max following behind him. The feeling crawled its way deep into the core of them as they grew closer to the forest, so deep that it felt that there was no turning back now. Looking around unnerved them even more because the darkness around them was thickening as though they were in the dead of a cloudy night, but instead of a nice night time breeze came a wind that went right through them, causing chills to ride up their spines.


Max came up to Garen and whispered into his ear, "Do you think this is the same thing that happened to us before? With that Lost World village?"


"No," Garen replied back, looking around trying to see if they've entered the forest yet. "That village felt different; haunted. This place doesn't feel like a haunted area, it feels more like there's an evil presence within it."


Becky looked over at their conversation, but ignored it. It was obviously supposed to be a private conversation between them. "Boys," she said gently, "I think we have finally entered the Dark Forest."


As she said this, Garen and Max could feel some sort of dark force come over them, almost causing them both to collapse under the pressure. It was nothing like it was before they entered the forest. Garen wondered what kind of horrible creature could leave this terrible and indescribable force of darkness, a darkness almost too strong to walk into. He remembered feeling this darkness before. When Kio was attacked three years ago and when they were in Mount Killimore. Only now the darkness was much stronger, meaning that whatever it was was much closer. The sounds of screams and unnatural animals reached their ears, piercing through them like wood stakes and the smell of rotting bodies was forcibly entering its way into their noses, causing them to gag uncontrollably, even Becky was having troubles holding back her gags.


Max pointed over at something covered in the trees with a shaking hand. Garen and Becky both looked over at the glowing red eyes watching them carefully as it began to make a horrible gargling, hissing noise that caused all three of them to step back in fear. The creature stepped out of the bushes and stood straight up, glaring down at them. It towered over them by at least a meter and they couldn't make out any of its detail because it was covered in a black mist.


Max leaned over and whispered into Garen's ear again, "Now what is this thing."


The creature made a horrible howling sound before answering in a deep, cold hiss, "I am more of a whom than a what. Be respectful toward your elders, boy."


"Really?" Max answered nervously. "You look a lot more like a what to me."


There was a quick flash of a black mist and Max's eyes widened as he began screaming horrifically. He collapsed to the ground clawing at his body and face, causing himself to bleed violently, still screaming in a torturous and painful way. The eyes in his skull started to bulge out a bit as his voice started cracking in stress and he started thrashing around, still trying to claw at himself. Then, in a sudden instant, he stopped; stopped screaming, thrashing, and clawing at himself. His eyes returned to normal, except he had a horrible look in them, as if he had seen something horrific, and he was breathing very heavily.


Garen ran over to him, sliding down as he reached him, shaking him violently, trying to wake him. "What the hell did you do to him?" Garen screamed furiously at this terrifying creature.


"First," it hissed back in an amused way, "I'll tell you who I am. You may call me the Dark Lord and that attack you just witnessed was my own technique, Nightmare Mist. It causes the person who is ever attacked by it to experience the most horrific torturing around today and, if you get lucky, will happen in the future. I can tell you exactly what his torture was. He was having small needles slowly hammered into the tips of his fingers, a very sensitive area that makes you feel as though your body is on fire. The reason for his cracking voice near the end would be his tongue being torn out of his mouth very slowly, then, what ended this torture because it would've ended his life, were wooden stakes being hammered through his chest and eyes. One of my more favorable tortures if you asked me."


Garen stood up quickly and charged over at the Dark Lord, but before he could think of anything to do to him, he was gone in a black mist leaving a harsh and very cruel laugh behind for them to listen to until it finally traveled with him. As soon as he was gone, the forest started to clear out. The screaming had stopped and the unusual howling animals had left them, along with the darkness and the cold presence it left with it. Garen looked around him, looking at the clear blue sky above them, covered by the occasional tree. It seemed they had made it almost half way through the forest already. He took a deep breath and the beautiful fresh air fought out the smell of the rotting bodies, he could see Becky doing the same. He then looked down at Max, who seemed to have returned to his normal self, he was beginning to stand up and also take a deep breath.


"This has been called the Dark Forest because of him?" asked Garen. "How long has he been living here?"


"Obviously quite a long while," Maxed choked out.


"How are you feeling, Max?"


He looked over at Garen, as if about to answer, then he looked over towards Becky and then started looking around himself, observing how beautiful this forest actually was. "Better now," he finally answered


"Betuvial tv Forstael." Becky said to herself before Garen could respond to Max's answering.


"What?"


"Betuvial tv Forstael," she repeated, then looked over at Garen and Max, who were looking at her curiously. "It's Elvish for Forest of Beauty. That's what this forest used to be called before he came. Betuvial tv Forstael, then the humans changed it to the Dark Forest after that horrible bastard came into it and took it over with his disgusting powers."


"So how long has it been?" asked Garen. "I don't remember a time where this wasn't the Dark Forest."


"Around forty years at least," she answered in a daze, "but there have been other Dark Lords since then. When you kill him, his spirit just leaves the host body and travels to another. He is a parasitic dark spirit."


"Enough of this talking and explanations," Max cut in quickly before Garen could ask something else. "We need to get to Langholm before those guys light the Lighthouse. And we need to stop those Hell Raiders before they start that war."


Becky looked over at him quickly, then she vanished from both Garen and Max's sight and reappeared behind Max with her hands over his shoulders and her lips not three centimeters from his left ear, causing his face to go blank in shock. "Listen here, Maxie. Something has gotten over you since you saw that creature, something that is causing you to be more spoken out and cocky. Personally, I don't like it. I liked the old you better, the Max that was like a little child and kind of amusing at his fear of confrontation; he was much less of a liability then." She whispered all this gently into Max's ear, looking at Garen (or possibly through him) the whole time she was saying it. Her eyes had turned from the brilliant blue to a duller grey for an instant and then they went back to the usual blue that brought out her beauty that much more.


Garen looked beyond Becky after she let go of Max's shoulders and tried looking through the forest to see what lay ahead of them. He thought he could make out an outline of a massive fortress with something landing down on its roof. That confirmed it; the Hell Raiders are staying in the Dark Forest for the time being and, more than likely, the Dark Lord had brought them back for this war. Garen looked back over at Becky as he saw her ears twitch to a sound that was beyond his capability to hear, but he closed his eyes and listened anyhow. He could hear the rustle of leaves and the snapping of twigs as the natural animals walked passed him and he could smell the damp ground below his feet. He concentrated harder and thought he could hear the flowing of a creek, then something crashed in the depths of the forest where he saw the outline of the fortress, causing him to jump violently and fall over to the ground. When he opened his eyes, he could see Max on the ground hugging onto a tree and Becky in a fighting stance with two slender gold blades drawn, ready to strike anything that came at her.


Becky's ears were perked up like a deer on alert for a predator, her eyes had changed from blue to a dark grey, almost black now and were moving around unnaturally fast, searching the forest up and down for anything that might attack them. The grip on her swords started loosening a bit as she relaxed her tensed muscles, then she sheathed them, stood up straight and looked over at Garen smiling a little. She looked over at Max next, laughing slightly at the sight of the goofy and frightened Max that had returned back. Becky walked slowly over to him and held a hand out to him, which he slowly clasped, and she helped him up with perfect ease, while Garen was helping himself up, brushing the dirt off of his clothes.


"It's alright," Becky said, as Garen could, once again, see her eye color changing back to blue. "The Hell Raiders are up ahead of us, which Garen had noticed not too long ago, and they just so happen to be having a meeting. That loud crash you heard was the Hell Raider who sounds the war drums. It seems that he dropped them and is now getting a very stern yelling about it."


Max slumped over on the ground, letting go of Becky's hand and started rolling around laughing uncontrollably. Garen just stood there and watched him for a while then also started laughing at the sight of his new friend losing control of himself, which, eventually, got Becky giggling a little bit and then finally started laughing a high pitched laugh. They had no idea what they were laughing about, maybe they were losing their minds from the stress coming onto them from the upcoming battle, but all they knew is that it felt great to be laughing. Max could barely breath from his fit, Garen was holding his stomach and Becky was wiping tears from her eyes. After being so scared, so sad, angry, and stressed, the laughter that came to them out of nowhere was the best laugh all of them had ever had.


“What got you laughing so hard in the first place, Max?” asked Garen, still try not to lose control of another laugh.


“Well,” he answered, standing back up, “I just find it funny how Hell Raiders think they’re so high and mighty, but then they do something a toddler is trained out of and then gets a scolding for it. Such a beastly monster getting yelled at.” Then Max started laughing again, leaning up against a tree so he didn’t slump back to the damp earth beneath him.


Garen didn’t laugh this time, just looked at Max, smiling and shaking his head, then looking at the ground so the sight of Max wouldn’t cause him to laugh again. Becky just looked off in the distance, towards the fortress, and smiled, also trying not to look at Max losing his mind.


“Who would have thought,” Becky said, barely opening her smiling lips to speak, “that we would be laughing like this before the start of a war that we know will be one of the worst wars in history. I think you need to get control of yourself now, Max; as amusing as it is and as great of a stress reliever it is, we need to concentrate on the upcoming battle.”


Max’s face right away went serious and he stopped laughing in an instant, starting to stand up straight. His eyes grew furious and hard, as his mouth went into a straight line; his face now looked that of an aged, experienced warrior rather than an insolent, goofy child. “You’re right, Becky. The bastards who attacked you and that are going to start the war are the ones who burned my village down and killed half the people I knew and grew up with.”


“Uh, Max,” Becky said quietly, getting Max to look at her, “the Hell Raiders are starting the war, not those people.”


“Oh, you know what I mean!” he said loudly. “They’re the ones probably controlling the Hell Raiders and if not, it’s probably that Dark Lord guy. But like I said before, enough talk, we have to move on!”


Becky and Garen just looked at each other as Max started walking toward the fortress and started following him. There was something new in Max that both Garen and Becky were observing, he wasn’t goofing around or cowering behind a tree as they grew closer to the Hell Raider’s fortress. Instead he was focused and serious, he even seemed to be walking faster the closer he got to the it. They looked at each other again and smiled, both thinking the same thing. How long will it last before he loses it again? They both started snickering a little bit, then looked ahead of them as Max turned to look back at them.


As they grew closer towards the center of the forest, it started clearing out a bit as if they were coming out the other side. Ahead, there was a line of bushes just high enough to hide behind and on either side of them there were towering pine trees that you couldn’t see the tops of, a little creek flowing beside them, some smaller trees with fruits on them, and animals everywhere, running away from the danger in front of them. When they came to the bushes, they squatted down and made an opening for them to peer through to see a mass crowd of giant monsters in front of them.


The Hell Raiders were several times larger than a man, at least three meters tall; some of the large ones could be four. Their teeth were razor sharp, along with their claws, definitely meant to tear and rip the flesh off of bones. The skin was a greyish color, some were reddish-brown, and they all had muscles on their arms and legs as thick as small tree trunks. There was no way any normal human could even hope to stand up to one of these beasts, it was impossible, they would be torn to shreds and probably made into a desert before a main course dinner.


“Holy frabbin’ froley,” Max managed to spit out. “These things are huge!”


Garen and Becky had to stifle their laughs at Max’s choice of words. They were soon cut short of their laughing as a booming growl rolled over their heads and rumbled through their ears as, what seemed to be, the leader Hell Raider called the attention of his subordinates.


“Now is the time!” screamed the largest Hell Raider. “We will be starting the war against these disgusting humans and show this planet who the true rulers are!” At this point a roar of approval came from the listening crowd below. “The humans will remember this as the Hell Raider War, if there are any left to talk about it. Now get all necessary preparations ready, we will be beginning our slaughter tomorrow as the Near Star rises!”


Garen, Becky, and Max all looked at each other with worried looks in their faces, all thinking the same thing; now what? The inhumanly large creatures walked back into their housings inside of the fortress, leaving the three to sit out there and wonder whether it was a good idea to run across the camp or not. Then came a wisp of smoke behind them with Cody squatting there with his chin resting in his hands as if he was there the whole time and causing Max to squeal and fall onto his back. Cody moved his eyes to follow his fall and cocked his head slightly with a confused look on his face.


“What was that about?” he said calmly and quietly. “It’s almost as if you saw a demon.”


“Close enough!” Max said back in a harsh whisper, helping himself up. “After seeing these things and that Dark Lord creep back there, anything is going to set you off. And you’re pretty scary anyway."


Cody seemed to not hear the last sentence because as soon as Max had said the Dark Lord’s name, his eyes widened and it looked like he was almost starting to shake. His pupils dilated for a split second and retracted back to their normal size, just as Cody started looking scared his sudden fear was over. He looked over at the Hell Raider’s fortress with a stern look, and then looked back at the three standing beside him.


“We need to get to Langholm now,” Cody said, seeming to ignore his little shake up of the Dark Lord’s name. “The city lies just beyond this forest, which is only about fifty meters or so from this place. Let me warn you now, Max, Garen; this is a massive city that holds a large number of people, beyond the likes you have ever seen or imagined. Do not get too overwhelmed with the intense crowding you will more than likely experience here.”


Cody then grabbed Max and Becky in a quick swipe and disappeared in one of his smoke clouds. He came back within a matter of a few seconds looking Garen directly into the eyes with his hard warlike, grey eyes that were so hard to read; they looked somewhat fierce now.


“They’re waiting for us,” he said harshly. “I’m going to take you to Langholm and when you get there, make sure you find the King’s Mansion, it will be the largest thing in the city probably, and I will be heading for Naron to warn them of the raid and to get their assistance in this battle.”


“Right,” Garen said, then Cody grabbed firmly to his arm.


“This will not be an easy war,” he whispered into Garen’s ear, and then they were gone from that spot and were off to their areas of importance.