2.7 Miles Southwest—Hidden Within an Ancient Tree

The trunk of the grandfather tree was so massive that its hollow interior could have housed a small dwelling.

Scarlett and Swana huddled in that hollow, pressed against ancient wood that smelled of age and slow decay, trying to control their breathing, trying to remain absolutely silent.

Swana was injured.

A serpent-chimera had gotten through her defenses during the initial attack, its venomous fangs puncturing her left thigh before she'd managed to decapitate it. The venom was working through her system, slowing her reactions, making her limbs feel heavy and uncoordinated.

She'd applied a tourniquet and used basic healing magic to slow the venom's spread, but it was a temporary measure.

Without proper treatment, she had perhaps a couple of hours before the toxins overwhelmed her enhanced elven physiology.

Scarlett crouched beside her, the Earth-born woman looking completely out of her depth but trying desperately to be useful. She'd torn strips from her own shirt to create additional bandages, and now she pressed them against Swana's wound with shaking hands.

"You're going to be okay," Scarlett whispered, more trying to convince herself than Swana. "Jorghan will find us. He'll come looking, and he'll find us, and everything will be fine."

"Probably," Swana agreed, her voice strained but steady.

"My cousin is... remarkably good at finding people who don't want to be found. And at killing things that threaten his family."

"How can you be so calm?" Scarlett asked, her voice cracking slightly.

"You're poisoned. We're hiding in a tree in a strange forest. We were just attacked by impossible monsters. How are you not panicking?"

Swana managed a slight smile despite the pain.

"Experience. And the certainty that Jorghan Sol'vur, son of Ser'gu, bearer of the Berserk Lord bloodline, will move mountains to protect those he cares about. I've seen him fight. I know what he's capable of. Whoever orchestrated this attack... they have no idea what they've provoked."

She shifted slightly, trying to find a more comfortable position, and grimaced as the movement sent fresh waves of pain through her leg.

"The real question is whether we can stay hidden long enough for him to reach us."

As if in answer to that question, Scarlett suddenly tensed, her hand gripping Swana's arm with painful intensity. "Did you hear that?"

Swana's enhanced elven hearing picked it up immediately—footsteps.

Multiple sets, moving with practiced stealth through the forest, spreading out in a search pattern. And beneath the footsteps, voices speaking in a language Scarlett wouldn't understand but that Swana recognized immediately.

The Nue'roka clan dialect.

"We need to move," Swana whispered urgently, trying to rise despite her injured leg.

"Now. They're—"

"Too late," a voice said from directly outside their hiding place, speaking in perfect Common. "You're already surrounded."

Figures materialized from the forest shadows—red-skinned elves, seven to eight feet tall, armed with curved blades and bows, their polished amber eyes gleaming with predatory satisfaction.

At least twenty of them, positioned in a perfect perimeter that left no avenue of escape.

And at their center stood a young male elf who commanded immediate attention despite being surrounded by warriors who were clearly his subordinates. He was perhaps seven feet six inches tall, with the build of someone who'd trained for combat since childhood. His features were sharp and handsome and currently set in an expression of cold fury barely held in check.

He wore armor that was clearly ceremonial as well as functional—plates of enchanted metal decorated with the symbols of the Nue'roka clan, a cape of deep crimson that spoke of high rank, and at his hip, a sword that seemed to pulse with barely contained power.

Lamorg, son of El'ran.

The new young patriarch of a clan that had just lost its ancient leader to a half-blood challenger.

"Swana of the Nor'vack," Lamorg said, his voice carrying the trained precision of someone raised for leadership.

"Daughter of Sigora. Cousin to Jorghan Sol'vur."

His lips twisted into something that might have been a smile but carried no warmth.

"How convenient. And you've brought a companion—a human, if I'm not mistaken. Even better."

Swana tried to stand, to position herself between Lamorg and Scarlett, but her poisoned leg gave out, and she collapsed back against the tree trunk with a gasp of pain.

"Leave us alone," she managed, her hand moving toward the blade at her hip.

"Whatever grievance you have with my cousin, it's not with us."

"Isn't it?" Lamorg moved closer, his warriors maintaining their perimeter but giving their patriarch space to confront the captives.

"Your cousin murdered my father. Cut him down like he was nothing, like seven hundred years of life and power meant nothing. So yes, Swana, my grievance is very much with you."

He crouched down, bringing himself to eye level with her, his polished amber eyes boring into hers with intensity that bordered on violence.

"You're going to help me deliver justice. You're going to be the bait that draws Jorghan Sol'vur out into the open, away from his allies and his protections. And when he comes for you—because he will come; family means everything to people like him—I'm going to kill him the way he killed my father."

"You can't," Scarlett said suddenly, her voice shaking but defiant.

"You have no idea what he is, what he can do. I've seen him fight. I watched him destroy an entire military force on Earth without breaking a sweat. You can't kill him."

Lamorg's attention shifted to her, and Scarlett immediately regretted speaking.

There was something terrible in his gaze, something that promised violence in response to defiance.

"A human," he said, as if the word itself was distasteful.

"From Earth. The world that's been contaminating ours with their technology and their strange philosophies. Tell me, human—were you there when Jorghan killed my father? Did you witness the murder?"

Scarlett opened her mouth, then closed it, clearly trying to decide if answering would help or hurt their situation.

"I'll take that as a yes," Lamorg said.

"Which means you're a witness. Which means you have value beyond simple bait. You can tell me exactly how he fought, what techniques he used, and where his weaknesses were revealed." He stood, gesturing to his warriors.

"Take them. Bind the injured one carefully—I need her alive and relatively healthy. The human can be handled more... roughly."

The Nue'roka warriors moved in with professional efficiency.

They pulled Swana from the tree hollow with surprising gentleness given the circumstances, supporting her injured leg while securing her arms with ropes that glowed with suppression enchantments designed to block magical abilities.

Scarlett tried to run—pure instinct overriding tactical sense—but she made it perhaps three steps before a warrior caught her around the waist and lifted her off the ground. She kicked and screamed, fighting with desperate human strength against elven power that vastly exceeded her own.

"Let me go! Jorghan! Jorghan, help!"

"Gag her," Lamorg ordered.

"The last thing we need is her screaming, bringing every predator in the forest down on our position."

A cloth was forced into Scarlett's mouth, cutting off her cries. She continued to struggle, tears streaming down her face, but it was futile.

Within seconds, both she and Swana were secured, bound, and being carried through the forest by warriors who moved with the speed and silence of those who knew this terrain intimately.

Lamorg walked beside them, his expression thoughtful.

"My father underestimated Jorghan Sol'vur. Treated him as a half-blood upstart rather than the genuine threat he represented. I won't make that mistake. I'll study him, learn his patterns, and identify his weaknesses. And then I'll destroy him completely."

He looked down at Swana, who, despite her pain and the poison working through her system, maintained a defiant glare.

"Your cousin awakened something ancient when he transformed into the Berserk Lord. Something that terrifies most people. But fear can be useful. It can be weaponized. And I intend to use his own power against him."

"Do you think he will let you do as you please?" Swana said. She didn't struggle and went along with them willingly.

"I will make him immobile. You don't worry."

They moved deeper into the forest, away from where Jorghan was searching, away from where Sik'ra was attempting to regroup with Sarhita and Scarlett, into territory that the Nue'roka had scouted and prepared specifically for this confrontation.

Behind them, the forest whispered its warnings.

But no one was listening.

And miles away, standing in a clearing surrounded by chimera corpses, Jorghan felt something cold settle in his chest.

The hunt had changed.

No longer were they the hunters tracking prey through unfamiliar territory.

Now they were the prey, and the trap was already closing.

The Berserk Lord's heir stood alone in the Whisperingtris Forest, his crimson eyes beginning to glow with barely contained rage, and made a decision.

Whoever had taken his family would regret it.

Even if he had to burn the entire forest to ash to make them understand that mistake.

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