Two

“You’re late Greyson.”
“I know Captain, I’m sorry.”
The Captain, Talmar, was strong, strict, and everything a captain should be. He was dark skinned, with think brown hair and piercing black eyes. He could make a troll back down with that stare of his. No matter how strong or intimidating you were, that sharp gaze would bring you down. And he wasn’t as unnerved by my eyes as everyone else; that stare was just as intimidating to me as it was to anyone. We all had great respect for him, and letting him down alone was enough of a punishment.
“Why were you outside the camp after dark?” he asked as he stared me in the eyes. I felt myself starting to become nervous. After all, it would sound ridiculous to tell him that I, Jasper Greyson, one of the strongest warriors in the regiment, had been paralyzed in fear for half an hour because I thought I saw a monstrous wolf.
“I was daydreaming sir,” I said lying quickly. “There’s no excuse for my behavior.”
“That’s right, Greyson. You will go without dinner ration tonight. You are dismissed.” I raised my hand to my forehead in salute and he left. I stood at the edge of camp without moving for a long time. What had I seen? I wasn’t creative enough to imagine that creature in the woods. But it was too large to be a wolf, and yet it wasn’t the right shape to be anything else. Stories of werewolves made more sense but everyone knew werewolves weren’t real. There had to be some explanation…
I awakened from my thoughts as one of the men called to me as he passed by. I answered with a quick hello and began to make my way to my tent. I probably needed a good night’s rest to clear my head.

Morning came too quickly for my liking. I had just closed my eyes and next thing I knew there was light in the tent. And soon after that I heard the captain calling us to first hour training. It dragged on longer than usual, and I was actually bored by the time it was over. I was still wondering about the wolf-thing when I went down to the river to bathe, and I was beginning to think I would go crazy if I didn’t stop thinking about the damn thing.
Luckily, something did make me stop thinking about it.
It happened during midday. And it was about to change my life.

“Someone call the captain! Something’s happened!”
I heard the men before I saw them. I could tell it was the hunter’s group because I recognized a few of the voices. At first I ignored them, thinking it was nothing of interest, and continued to polish my sword, but more and more voices joined in, the tone growing more urgent. After a few minutes I dropped my sword and left the tent in curiosity.
There was a crowd gathering around the captain’s tent, and I could hear people talking loudly, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then I heard the captain’s voice boom out, and everyone fell silent. I made my way to the edge of the crowd, trying to see past the man in front of me, but in the end I had to be content with listening.
“-happened?” the captain was asking loudly. All at once I heard the hunter’s group muttering amongst themselves before Jonathan, Fredrick’s elder brother, spoke.
“We were out in the woods trailing some stray deer, and then Alexander disappeared.”
“What do you mean disappeared?” I heard Garrett call out.
“One second he was there and then he was gone!” James shouted with a hint of hysteria in his tone. “I remember thinking that he was oddly quiet at the back, and when I turned he wasn’t there!”
“We have to go search for him!” I heard a voice I didn’t recognize yell.
“It’s no good,” Jonathan said darkly. “He’s dead.”
There was an awkward moment of silence. Then the muttering started again.
“Alexander… is dead?” I heard the captain ask uncertainly.
“Yes sir. We searched for him and found his body nearby, torn to shreds as if by some animal. It was unnatural. Those teeth marks were too large for a bear mauling.”
I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach, and the image of the wolf-thing came to my mind again.
“And when we were coming back, we saw something in the woods, but we don’t know what it was. It was terrifyingly large and it growled like thunder,” he paused. “We ran back to camp as fast as we could. Captain, there’s something out there, we need to do something!”
More muttering.
“We’ll hunt it down.” The captain said finally. “It shouldn’t be as bad as all that, and what are we if not an army? We’ll hunt the creature down and bring its pelt back. Every available man must ready now. We’re going into the woods tonight.”
The sickening feeling in my stomach intensified as we were dismissed for battle.

The dark was pressing at me from all sides. I tightened the grip on my sword; it was unnerving not to be able to see. I strained my ears for any breath of noise other than my feet crunching through the forest floor, but it only made me more wary of the unnatural silence filling the usually lively woods. It gave me a horrible feeling of foreboding.
If only I knew at that moment how accurate that feeling was.
I continued my steady journey deeper into the forest, conscious of the fact that my fast pace was quickly leaving the others far behind. That did little to make the dark easier to bear.
The sun was quickly taking its light with it, and it was already very dark. I could see a few stars through a clearing at the top of the thick trees, and it was shortly after the wind began blowing eerily that I heard it.
At first I thought I’d imagined it. After all everyone was left behind, I was the only one who had come this far. And yet, somewhere ahead of me I could hear footsteps. I listened closely to make sure I wasn’t imagining them after all, but there they were, and yet they were all wrong; too light for any man from the camp, and definitely only one set, a human’s.
It confused me. What was going on here? I found myself increasing my pace, following the sound briskly. But it seemed to be getting farther and farther away, and suddenly I found I was running. I remember thinking that I would never catch them, when suddenly I bounded into an open clearing filled with moonlight and saw something that would ultimately change my life.
There was someone sprawled unconscious in the center of the clearing, an arrow buried deep in their back. The blood from the wound had spread and was dripping steadily onto the grass, and staining her long silvery blond hair.
She was wearing long robes with pieces of light armor, but it seemed it had been discarded carelessly, showing most of her exposed back…
And most of the gruesome wounds.
There were slashes crisscrossing over and over on her bare skin, burning red and even bleeding. It made me slightly nauseated as I made my way over to her. When I was close enough to take in her face, I noticed that she was quite pretty, in her own way. She had high, thin cheekbones, thin eyebrows the same shade of silver blond as her long flowing hair, and a dainty face structure. Around her neck she wore a thin silver chain with a single small emerald charm shaped like a crescent moon. I barely had time to take it in as I picked her up with barely any effort and began running as fast as I could back in the direction of the camp.

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