It stood before me, a mockery of a man armoured in rusting chainmail and steel, its head a rotting, bloodstained skull with the thinnest strip of skin on it. It gave me a ghoulish and sharp toothed smile and its large misty eyes focused upon me. I had never seen such a thing before, not even in the darkest corner of the Fade where nightmares tormented me; it was not human, elf, dwarf or quanari but a monster.

It let out a mocking, deep laugh before it swung its axe, fast and with ease.

Move! It was an instinct that thundered through me, driving me to turn and swing my sword as fast and hard as I could. My blade clanged loudly against an axe blade sending painful vibrations through my arms as the metallic sound set my teeth on edge. Our weapons parted and I staggered back.

My foe swung its axe again and I jumped back to dodge, but I was not prepared for the speed of the creature as it lunged forward and struck me hard in the chest with the blunt end of the axe.

I fell back with a cry of pain and raised my short sword to clumsily block the axe from running me through. Sweat lashed down me as I gritted my teeth and pushed up with all the strength I had. The axe swung back, and I rolled away before it could come down again. I scrambled to my feet and swung the sword out in a wild curve that the beast dodged easily with a taunting smirk.

We parried back and forth. My blows were clumsy strikes that hit its armour only twice, doing no damage. Its returned blows were powerful and blunt causing me to stumble and lose my breath.

I shrieked in pain when the flat side of the axe's blade caught me hard on the hip, sending me off balance. I saved myself from falling and turned with a cry of fury. I forced myself forward, remembering my lessons with the Howe children and how their father Arl Howe had told us to bully large foes back, to be too swift for them to retaliate, to use speed to force them back when strength would not do. Repeatedly I struck out, left, right, up, down, forcing the creature to take a step back and then another to dodge. The axe came forward again and my sword came down.

I gave a cry of triumph as the creature hollered in pain as its grotesque hand was half-severed from its arm in a splash of sickly, blackish blood. The axe went down, pulling the fiend with its weight and I swung out again and again. CLANG! CLANG! I missed its throat and hit its chest. Another swing and another! I was desperate for the advantage and ignored the ache in my muscles as I continued until my blade hit flesh and hacked through its neck.

Three blows and at last the creature keeled over with a death cry.

I had mere seconds to savour my victory.

The snarls and hisses came at once and I turned sharply to face their source. Six creatures were coming towards me! Three more tall monsters in steel armour clutching weapons, and three short, stocky creatures, just as ugly as the others with pale, green skin, tight on their skulls, pointed ears and fanged smiles too big for their mouths, they too were in armour and holding weapons.

Fear took hold of me and with a scream I turned and fled.

Hearing them begin a pursuit, I tossed my sword to one side, deciding in an instant that the burden of its weight was not worth the potential of its protection. Armed or not, against six of these awful things I did not stand a chance.

I could hear my heart pounding; its beats were so rapid I thought it might smash my lungs to bits. I forced myself to sprint through the trees as horror overruled exhaustion and pain. I glanced over my shoulder and to both sides warily as I ran but I could not see them. I could only hear them running through the trees as they pursued, their low laughter and hungry hisses coming from all directions. They were everywhere!

I tripped over a rock and fell with another scream. My face slammed hard against the ground, and I tasted blood as I bit my tongue in the process. Not wasting any time, I pushed myself to my feet and continued to run. Closer, closer, I could hear them hot on my heels and did not dare look back. I flung my thin, mud-fouled cloak off as branches snagged at it and my hair, before I turned sharply to the right to evade a cluster of bushes.

I found myself running down a hill, too fast to stop as the slope sped my descent and too afraid of tumbling to try and alter my speed or direction. The trees were thinning as I neared the bottom, and I realised it reached a clearing. I was free of the woods! I moved with a desperate gasp as my eyes blurred and blood trickled down my chin.

BANG! I hit someone or something hard, bruising my face instantly as it smacked off metal. I heard a shout of alarm, it sounded distant, almost fuzzy as my ears rang and throbbed and my vision flashed red as I hit the ground once more. I rolled, at first in a daze but then it was deliberate as I felt hands reaching down for me. I snarled out a protest and felt a metallic boot on my chest in response that winded me as it held me in place.

"That's enough! Leave her alone; can't you see she's terrified?"

The boot was raised, and I took my chance to roll away from it and push myself onto my hands and knees.

I spied two pairs of feet, one the metal boots of a soldier and the other a pair of soft, supple, blue travelling boots. I crawled back from them in alarm, and glanced over my shoulder to the hill fearfully, to ensure I did not move back to there. I had to get to my feet; I had to run!

"Hey, it's alright," the voice spoke again, it was gentle and masculine. "We won't hurt you."

I shook my head; I had to go! I tried to stand but my right leg screamed in pain, and I crumpled like a limp doll with a groan of pain.

"Must we waste our time with her?" A different male asked in a complaint, he sounded older and sterner.

"She's injured," the first voice answered.

I heard feet approach me, the blue boots, and I shrank back instinctively.

"I won't hurt you, I promise," he murmured.

He crouched down, putting himself in my blurry vision. I blinked a couple of times and then he became clear. He was a dark-haired male, a few years older than me I speculated, with a hint of brown stubble, a straggly fringe, bushy eyebrows, a handsome, fair skinned face and kind, grey-brown eyes that soothed me a little. His mustard robes and midnight blue leather capelet betrayed him for a mage while the large, gold brooch at his capelet suggested he wasn't a poor one.

"My name is Niall," he introduced as he held out a hand to me tentatively.

"Does she need healing?" a woman's voice called out, she sounded firm, practical and older.

I shuddered as I wondered how many people I had come across.

I looked to the hill and its foreboding trees again, and babbled, "monsters, you have to run, I have to run!"

I tried to stand again and made it upright with several winces and gasps.

"Get away from here," I urged as I looked back to Niall.

My knees buckled beneath me, but I stayed upright and gritted my teeth as I realised, I did not have the strength to run. I felt myself shake as I thought of those things running down in an ambush and hacking us all to bits.

Three days and two nights I had spent travelling blindly with wounds in need of better treatment than I had given them, I was done. I had been trying to go to Ostagar but then bandits had chased me from the path I had been attempting to follow and I had become lost in these woods. I had survived only through luck, sheltering from rain under the trees and sleeping when exhaustion claimed me as fear, cold and damp usually kept me awake long into the night. My energy was sapped, my healing injuries ached anew in the cold, and I did not know where to run to now except away from those creatures in the trees.

"Please," I begged as I met Niall's gentle stare, "there are too many."

"She's not making sense, mad bitch," the scolding male voice from before mocked. I searched past Niall and spied an armoured soldier glowering back at me.

"Really now, there's no need for such language," I heard the woman scorn. I looked again and spotted her further back with another soldier. She wore her silvery white hair brushed back in a tight bun and was clad in robes of fine carmine with a gold trim, and a corset of brown, black and gold trim under her bust. At her back was a tall, wooden staff, twisting and looping around itself at the top and giving her away as a mage.

Three days I had suffered without contact, no one to converse with, and no sign of civilisation to suggest I wasn't alone in the world until now. I didn't know how to feel about it, should I be relieved that I was not alone with monsters or wary because I had learned all too well how easily people could betray me?

I reached a hand to my torso instinctively as a wound ached there.

"There now," Niall said gently, "whatever you were running from, you are safe from it now."

I shook my head futilely. No, no one was safe from those creatures.

"What were you running from?" the soldier demanded. "That's some mark on your neck."

My hand reached up to the ill-treated burn instinctively as I felt the lick of fire fresh against it as if I still stood in my burning home. I thought of my father lying in his drying blood as angry amber flames crept towards him while his friend stood watching as he held the bloody blade that had brought so much death to our home. Instead of dying with my family I had fled, escaping through an old trap door to tunnels only our kin knew of.

"I'm going to Ostagar," I admitted.

"Well, there is some luck for you then," Niall said cheerfully, "for that is where we go to."

"This isn't an expedition, we aren't inviting people," the guard grumbled. "And why would a chit of a thing like you be going there, then?" He frowned and eyed me up suspiciously.

I could not blame the guard for his mistrust of me much as I loathed his attitude. My armour, if one could call it that, was ill-fitting, light leather garments for when I had made a pretence of being in the guise of a common woman in my home, to sneak about lofty, forgotten rooms in the castle to meet with Flynn. I had considered myself skilled for my climbing and thinking, never realising how naïve I was in my estimation of my talents until I had come here to the mercy of the wilderness.

"She's only one person," the female mage said gently, "and clearly one in need of help, that we can manage."

She gave me a warm smile and for a fleeting moment I thought of my mother's soft smiles and wanted to cry.

"I'm Wynne," she introduced herself, "and we are Circle mages, so you need not fear us."

"Let's find somewhere safe for camp," Niall said. "It'll be dark soon."

"What do we call you?" the grumpy guard demanded.

"Avery." A lie of course but a necessity, my true name was a danger to me now. Perhaps at Ostagar I might save it but until I reached there, I couldn't risk it.

I looked up to the sickly yellow sky and saw the bloody red veins of sundown staining it. I couldn't imagine trying to evade those creatures with the burden of nightfall.

Wynne directed her staff forward and we started to move.

I hissed out as my leg throbbed in pain. I felt Niall's concerned gaze upon me and tried to wave him off as waves of dizziness tried to pull me under.

I had not eaten for days, surviving by drinking from creeks as I walked until my feet bled as it was all I could think to do. Despite my mind's protesting, my body was done and as I tried to push it on, it resisted and the blackness came to claim me.