It'd been a couple of days since Raisha had left the Redcloaks' Euran base, the Range. It was apparently named as it was located at the base of Erdas' longest mountain range, the Evros.
Raisha was fairly sure that she wouldn't have been alive if they hadn't taken her in. The Range was a friendly place, she had made good friends there, and they had accepted her. Enough for Raisha to love them.
What she did not love was her current situation.
Tilt had said that her rations were about enough for a two-day trek. The rations were over. She should've checked it earlier. Tilt was also cartwheeling around the room and using her tail to hold her comfort branch when she packed it.
She made a mental note to tie up Tilt's tail the next time she had something to do.
The trek was gonna be of a maximum two days anyway. Or so she thought. She hadn't expected the Euran forests to be so confusing.
The map at Nottingshere had been clear enough: continue east. And yet, Raisha had been walking east for a day now, and she was yet to find a human settlement. Or a human. If only she'd gotten a map for herself.
She'd tried to buy something from Nottingshere, but she found no shops in the town, and no one opened their doors when she knocked. Then she read the city's name.
"Of course." She'd sighed, in anger. "Of course there'd be nothing at a place name Notting-'s-here!" She kicked at a stone in her frustration. An act that she'd seen many people do, but the stone was a real big one.
Her toes now looked funny and the dried blood attracted insects. Now those darn things were buzzing around her feet, and the sound was the single most unpleasant thing she'd heard.
She stood in front of a big oak tree and leaned her head on it. Now would be a good time for the memories of the time she rode through these forests to resurface. The only memory that surfaced was of a cut along her scalp.
Gerathon seemed to be amused at her human's struggles. She seemed to be in no hurry to find a town. Socializing wasn't her idea of life anyway. She could get her food from her wild and had managed to find a fresh water source on the way. Actually, if not for her, Raisha would not have been able to cover so much ground.
Actually, she realized, after a bit of thinking, that she'd never have been in Eura if Gerathon wasn't there. She was her only support for the big risk Raisha was taking. Having a Great Beast by her side gave her some real confidence.
But Gerathon was not exactly playing the role of a Great Beast that well. She had a bad practise of ruining Raisha's hair, and sometimes felt like she wanted to go back to being the controller of minds. The way she used to control people bonded with the Bile.
Apparently she even controlled Meilin's mind once. She had always wondered how Gerathon had managed to control a Great Beast summoner.
Anyway, Raisha didn't feel like being mind controlled. Her experience with the Wyrm had been enough for a few lifetimes. The feeling of something in her head, overpowering her own wishes, controlling her body... Raisha did not want to think about it.
She tried to think of happy thoughts so she could clear her mind. The first one that popped into her head was the creepy seer who'd gripped her shoulder and said, "Talon, ooh Talon, that girl's in trouble!"
em style="box-sizing: border-box;"Not/em a happy thought.
She tried again. This time she was flooded with images from the last time she tried to go to the Torch, the original Redcloak base.
Everyone at Range had tried to stop her. Tilt was acting peculiar, and finally Raisha had snapped.
"Why don't you want me to go?" She had tried to thunder, but Tilt was taller than her and her face was twisted in a grimace, so it came out as a whisper.
"Well... it is that..." Tilt's tail swished nervously. Hollow had covered up for her.
"The other Great Beast summoners stay there," he'd continued softly, "and they wouldn't be very happy to see you around."
No no no. That was a horrible attempt at happy thoughts. Raisha tried again. Three's the charm.
She closed her eyes and her meeting with Stead popped up. He'd come to request her to go on a quest to bring back Talon. According to Yumaris, their seer, she was stuck somewhere in Eura and only Raisha had the answer.
He was completely blunt about it, as if it were as important to him as his life. He did not carry the powerful, almost magnetic aura that most leaders possessed, but felt more like a soldier - his words crisp, stance attentive and alert. His cloak seemed worn out, and somehow looked as if his own blood was used as the dye.
His plan was simple: Gerathon knew where Talon was. Squeeze Gerathon, get the answer. But to squeeze the very controller of minds, you needed a direct link and that link was Raisha.
Raisha understood his helplessness. He was the leader and it drained him. Talon must've been very important to him, and his inability to help her was frustrating him.
Raisha readily agreed. For one, it would be fresh to save someone after betraying people left and right, and for two, it let her go out of the Range. The place had helped her, but she couldn't help but feel restrained.
Stead did not stay for long, but had a long chat with Hollow. He was their weapons and stealth expert, after all. After it, Hollow had called her to the armoury.
She'd picked up the dagger immediately; she liked the shine of the metal and the grip. Plus, daggers were the most trustworthy weapons. They didn't have the reach of a sword, but were as dangerous, if not more, in close quarters.
The silver knife was apparently needed to ward off the Red Foxes, and her stealth outfit was meant to camouflage her. She'd tried asking what Red Foxes were, but Hollow shushed her. Then Tilt'd told her that they were basically werewolves, the descendants of the first Pheonix, Tara Clio.
She'd read of werewolves from the historical books of Tara Clio, who was the Zhongese schools' favourite author. But she did not know anything about Tara Clio being the Pheonix or werewolves called Red Foxes, but no one would explain any further. Stupid Euran superstitions and bed time stories.
Raisha shivered at being reminded of them, though. Maybe the silver knife was doing its job after all. She hoped that the Great Beast at her shoulder would help her if things came to the worst. She glanced at Gerathon for assurance and possibly a happy thought.
The Serpent was mirroring the movements of a bird.
"What are you even doing?" Raisha asked, but as usual, Gerathon wouldn't reply. The snake was too engrossed in her own little game.
Raisha couldn't move, as a single movement would ruin Gerathon's balance, and Raisha's unprotected neck was unnervingly close to Gerathon's head. Grudgingly, she stared at the dance, the snake and the bird looking at each other's eyes and the bird almost in a trance.
It took sometime for it to make sense to Raisha. The bird was the prey.
Displaying her speed and precision, Gerathon lunged at the Euran fleming, a bird that Raisha had seen on the travelogue at Nottingshere. It was meant to be really quick, but it was taken by surprise, and was no match for the Great Serpent. She displayed her appetite as well, and she swallowed the bird in a single gulp and looked at Raisha for a moment before going back to rest on her shoulder.
Raisha was fairly sure that the look was meant to convey something like, "Oh, poor girl. Can't catch food to save your life, can you?"
Raisha was livid. "Did you just-" Raisha's outburst was cut-short when Gerathon's head stood up, her tongue flicking back and forth.
Raisha felt her senses being amplified by the serpent. The first time that had happened, Raisha was sent reeling as her brain couldn't exactly comprehend all the input she was getting. This time was no different.
Overwhelmed, she closed her eyes, counted till three, and opened them again. A trick she had picked up.
When she opened her eyes, the sight was still overwhelming, but it didn't send her out of balance. The evening had suddenly taken a different viewing angle. She could see everything she could normally see and more, but not exactly as she normally saw it.
She could hear the squirrel's feet on the trees. The weasels scampering across the forest ground was so loud, but she was certain that weasels were extremely quiet. Furthermore, she could taste the fear from almost every being around her. A variety of scents bombarded her.
And the crickets. They were em style="box-sizing: border-box;"loud./em
Then, she caught their scent. Her pulse quickened as she imagined the Red Foxes stalking her.
Nah. These were humans, a distance behind her. Spread out. She could smell each one of them, distinctly. The heartbeats. Their footsteps. Their fear.
They were walking in the direction of the wind. Amateurs. Their scent was easy to spot. Raisha continued walking, slowly, giving them no indication that they'd been spotted. She glanced at Gerathon. The adrenaline rush hadn't stopped yet. Why was she so tense? Hadn't they spotted their stalkers? Was there something off?
Turns out, something was terribly wrong.
Raisha saw the man. This one was walking without trying to hide. He was a big, bald man, easily 6 feet tall, with a scar across his face, long and ghastly enough to be visible from a significant distance. He walked casually, his black cloak behind him. The problem was, she hadn't a wind of his existence in the forest till she'd seen him.
Gerathon's senses were still wild, searching for something else. Raisha's instincts told her that she was completely surrounded, and not by good people.
She had some really bad company. And like what everyone said, em style="box-sizing: border-box;"keeping bad company is not good./em
She noticed the man's right hand which was in his coat pockets, and she could have guessed that he hid something in it.
As he got closer, the cut across his face looked as if a huge claw had raked him. Or a sword. The wound must have been gruesome, but had healed well.
"Raisha. The summoner of the great serpent." He said casually. Gerathon, sitting emotionlessly on Raisha's shoulder, hissed at her recognition.
His voice was smooth, like one of those fraudsters in Amaya who knew how to sell their wares to almost anyone. Even Zerif had bought a pendant claimed to be the Granite Ram from one of those lot.
He didn't sound any more afraid of Gerathon than Raisha was afraid of an earthworm.
He must've noticed her staring at his scar. He touched it, very softly. "The Great Beast Uraza. Tried to catch the Four Fallen at Glengavin. Almost succeeded, but the heroes were too crafty. Managed to beat us."
Raisha did not know what the man was talking about, but the fact that he had fought the Four Fallen put him on the baddies' list.
That got her thinking. Hadn't she fought Great Beasts once? Did that put her in the baddies list, as well? If so, they were in the same team. But she was not being herself back then. That made them opponents. Did it?
"It has healed quite wonderfully, yes." The man went on, misinterpreting her silence caused by the internal debate for a em style="box-sizing: border-box;"go-on/em gesture. "The Northern tribes have some superb healers, they do." He chuckled. "Speaking of healers, I suppose you would have guessed that there are none nearby."
Uh oh. That sentence creepily informed her that they were not in the same team. She inched back, a safe distance from the man. Enough distance away from any dangerous and sharp object he held in his pockets.
Gerathon's head swivelled, and Raisha could have sworn that she had heard the sound of a crossbow clinking to the ground.

PS: It took me a lot of time to write out, so hope you like it! The Red Foxes! Now, Tara Clio? Pheonix? Lemme know your theories about the RFs! And lemme know anything else you'd like to say about the chapter! /span
Thank you for reading so far!
Also, how was the "creative" chapter name? Should I go back to naming chapters with the main character? 😕