C11 The hunt: Part 4

They were led into the village for apparently stopping their resources from being stolen, which saved a few more beasts.

They passed through many paths and finally entered the village, it was torn down it seems the birds had been there. Although broken the houses were huge almost thrice the size of normal village houses. There were giant ants helping the other orcs carry the rubble out of the way and help those who were injured.

Elor, was taken to the healer where they were to heal the shock from him and they were led to a slightly stable house and the got in. they were sat down and the chief explained what was with the birds.

They were Echo birds, scavengers of the south. They somehow made their way north where weaker beasts leave and started taking their food. They became so bad that the beasts had to leave the mountain where the birds decided to stay thus causing the humans who lived there to move.

As she spoke the queen instructed two orcs to go get something, they left and returned after a while with something golden in their hands and Circe raised a questioning eyebrow, he had read that when an orcs canine turns gold it becomes a very powerful weapon its kept by the orcs as tradition and them giving it to them means they want something from them.

"You want something from us," he said.

[VERY CLEVER. WE WANT YOU TO AID US WITH SOMETHING]

"What is it?"

[THE ECHO BIRDS THAT KEEP ATTACKING US I NEED YOU TO KILL THEM OR AT LEAST SEND THEM AWAY]

He turned to the others and he knew they understood their mission.

"Do we need to agree?" Asnir asked with a pout.

"Technically yes, unless you want to lose," he said and looked at the rest of the group.

"Sure, we don't mind," Rode said.

"Then we should leave, we have two days left," he said.

The orcs gave them a little food and they walked to the direction of the mountain.

[GOODLUCK]

The queen told them as they left her eyes lingering on the four who had slaughtered the birds like they were mere playthings. With a smile on her face the look in her eyes if one knew they would clearly attribute it to the king.

The journey up the mountain was tourturingly slow, but they didn't rush, the terrain was new to them and they only had a basic understanding of their opponent.

But it was easier than expected.

The orcs had told them that this Mountain was full of Echo birds. They have been climbing for long and not even one had appeared.

"Ahh!"

A scream!

It came from somewhere in the ahead of them, it was a human's scream. Well, it sounded human.

As they cautiously moved forward, Circe could smell the faint stench of blood — someone was there.

"Keep your guards up, be careful, other than us there could be other people," he told them.

And they became even more cautious. They didn't dare neglect anything. The enemy could be watching them.

Circe stopped after a while. There was fog in front of them. It was so thick they could barely see what was in front of them

"Is this a sign to stop?" Asnir asked weakly.

Circe looked in front of then closed his eyes. He could feel the surroundings clearly and because of the snow he could 'see' what was ahead. An extremely thin winding path.

"I have a way to get us past the mist but you have to listen to me and dop everything as I say that way unless an external disturbance occurs, we will be fine."

They nodded.

"Follow my footsteps and do not divert from them even a little bit. I need one of you to hold my clothes and the rest follow,"

After doing as instructed, Circe began to walk. The path was small enough to fit one person and it was steep to the p[oint that if he hadn't compacted the snow beneath his feet the ones behind him would have fallen.

'Crack'

Circe reflexively back causing those behind him to stop. Something rushed towards them the force causing them to feel the pressure around it as it crashed infront of them very close to Circe's feet.

Crash!

Circe felt something land on his face, by the smell it was most likely blood and the familiar scent of it told him that it belonged to the one who they heard screaming so whatever fell infront of him was probably a corpse.

A dead body had fallen in front of them. It was provocation. The beasts were smart enough to have learnt provocation, it was interesting.

The others tensed and the hands on his cloth which belonged to Elor shaked.

"W-what was that?" he asked slowly.

Before he could answer Rode spoke.

"It smells like dirty blood, is it a beast?"

"Oh, I smell it too, it smells dead, so it is a beast corpse," Asnir said.

"It's human," Circe said crushing their fantasy, "I'm going to walk past it, jump and don't trip over it."

He opened his eyes and looked down straining his eyes in order to look at the body.

His eyes shrunk, and he almost stepped back in disgust. No wonder it smelt rotten, the body was mutilated to the point where one would wonder whether it was human and not. He couldn't even tell it's gender. Its skin was scratched off by what was clearly claws and half of his face and lower back were beaten off. it's ribs were taken off and dug into the place where the eyes had been and the mouth was twisted to show the person was screaming when they died.

Calming his breath, he continued facing their previous destination and walked over the body indifferently. He didn't want blood on him, it could attract beasts.

From where the fog started to this point, the others had gotten used to walking behind him. And Circe though gradually his mana got integrated with the surroundings and he could see further.

Suddenly, they heard a sound of something exploding ahead, it wasn't far from where they were.