The air chilled with every step further east, the sky grey and mountains reaching ever higher to the bleak clouds above. Nearly a week had passed uneventfully, their path crossed by only a few other caravans and parties who solely acknowledged them. They dodged the packs of raiders, waiting them out as they passed and packing up camp before dawn could fully break.

They ate as they walked, today’s breakfast consisting of stale bread and dried berries. The grass underfoot was wet with melting frost, the ground glistening white as the sun slowly rose from behind the snow-capped mountaintops. Neri and Arna always kept their position at the back of the caravan, the warrior constantly on guard with her gaze never settling for long.

Arna spent the time quietly watching their travel companions, trusting her keen hearing to pick up on any danger as they moved ever further into the cold, each morning greeting them with an even thicker blanket of frost that crunched and snapped underfoot before it melted into fresh dew.

Eduard, the leader of the caravan, spoke the most. He was older, his beard flecked with grey, and he knew the road home well, a journey he was eager to finish. He always walked by Ruben’s side, the bald man dwarfing Eduard in terms of the amount he effortlessly carried on his back. Ruben barely seemed to reply to the constant conversation in his ear, instead nodding and offering a few well-placed words to let Eduard’s story flow.

Magna cared for the horse, both as stocky as each other. She never left the animal’s side, and she had very soon picked up that it maintained a safe distance from Arna walking behind them. Blue eyes had pierced into the shapeshifter, and the short yet wide woman decided to ignore her ever since.

The three of them kept to themselves most of the time and, from what Neri told her, that was normal behaviour towards warriors recruited to escort caravans. They weren’t there to be friends. They had a job to protect them and their supplies, to get them to their destination and move on.

Polenya would take another week to reach, however their destination was a small town nestled within a forest rolling across the mountains and would only take a few more days of trekking. Polenya was a city sat in a small valley sheltered by the mountain range. The land they currently traversed was rocky wilderness dusted with lush green come midday, only paling with wintry frost when night fell, but soon the flora grew taller, looming fir and pine trees standing like sentries in a fog that never strayed far, protecting them from the icy cold. The ground sloped and curved, browning and dry, brittle grass brushed their shins, and birds rustled in bushes decorated with yellow and pink flowers.

The lack of clear sightlines obviously unnerved Neri, the warrior’s hand clenched white on the hilt of her sword. Raiders or wild animals could tear free from the forest and rush them down with barely a second’s warning, but Arna ensured her senses was aware of every snapped twig and breath taken beyond the heartbeats of their caravan.

If anything were to happen, they would be ready.

Sure enough, Arna could exactly pinpoint that just below the soft ridge of a rugged elevation north of them played a small pack of wolves. Without the danger of humanity, wild animals had thrived and the wolves were not the only creatures roaming the forests and mountains. For the most part, they left the caravan alone – the mere aura of the shapeshifter ensuring that they didn’t attack for easy pickings although the wilderness provided everything they might need, but some curious eyes stalked them every now and again.

A fox. Deer. Squirrels jumping the canopies above. Curious, but not tempting fate by treading too close.

“Neri, look,” she softly called, touching the warrior’s elbow to distract her. She was going to tire herself out long before they finished their mission.

Neri’s eyes dragged across the climbing landscape before meeting Arna’s gaze. “What is it?” she asked, her voice just as soft so not to gain the attention of the trio in front.

Arna turned off the forest path, dropping down into a small burrow-like area amongst the swooping, bare roots of a tree. Neri stopped walking, watching her anxiously yet interested as the shapeshifter reached out to a bush growing beside the tree and plucked a handful of berries.

“Are they poisonous?” Neri questioned, bending down onto one knee in the dirt to take a berry from the bowl Arna’s palms formed.

“No, they’re safe to eat.” To confirm the point, she threw one into her mouth, relishing in the sweet juice as the berry popped between her teeth. “Better than the dried ones too.”

She clambered back up onto the path and they resumed their journey up the mountainous forest, sharing the berries until all that was left were bright stains on fingertips.

Night soon fell, but they kept walking in the darkness which only grew deeper as the trees stood taller and closer, the canopies above becoming one large blanket of cover. Eduard carried a small flickering torch at the front, trying to conceal the flame from any watchful eyes with his other hand, keeping it close within Ruben’s shadow. They followed the orange dance through the forest, ducking beneath overarching branches and carefully rustling through overgrown bushes, focus always on every shifting movement in the bracken.

It was perhaps another hour or two before the gentle trickle of a stream reached Arna’s ears, and another hour before their feet touched damp soil, stones glistening in the flame as crystal clear water flowed through the forest and down the mountain.

“We camp here,” announced Eduard, extinguishing the torch and waiting for his eyes to adjust to the night. “We arrive at Visaf tomorrow.”

Camp meant holding up a pair of ancient, tattered curtains with a series of metal rods and crawling under it, the horse tied to one of the poles by its reins. If anything spooked the horse, the entire construct would come falling down on top of them – but maybe that was the purpose. They replenished their water bottles and tankards in the stream, splashing the day and grime out of their faces and off their hands with the cool, pure water.

Eduard and Ruben ducked into the curtain tent, Magna coaxing the horse to take its own drink while she prepared its meal in a rust-coloured bucket.

Neri sighed, folding her arms across her chest, fingers drumming against the armour on her arm. “How are you holding up?” she whispered.

Arna let her head fall to one side, wiping the refreshing water off her lips. “I should be asking you that. You haven’t relaxed at all since we left the city.”

The warrior’s eyes blinked shut, the dark shadows under them clear to Arna even in the gloom. “I…”

“I know,” the shapeshifter said. “I know, but you’re not alone. I can tell if there’s anyone nearby. No one is going to ambush us.”

Neri’s eyes opened and her exhaustion was painfully obvious. “I just feel like if I let my guard down for even a second, it’s going to happen all over again.”

Arna took the woman’s hand and led her across the stream, settling down on a patch of dry forest debris, their backs resting against the great trunk of a tree. Once Neri got comfortable, Arna brushed the hair out of the woman’s face and squeezed her hand.

“Relax, please. You won’t be strong enough to protect yourself, never mind someone else, if you don’t just breathe.”

A warmth pressed against her side, the warrior leaning against Arna with her cheek on her shoulder. A deep inhale, then Neri squeezed her hand in return. “You take first watch?”

“Just sleep, Neri,” she murmured in the woman’s ear, barely touching as she caressed a single finger along the line of her face. “I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

An affirmative hum, vibrating against Arna’s arm. “You can hear…what’s around us?” she sleepily asked, the exhaustion rapidly enveloping her in its embrace.

Arna bent her head back against the tree, gazing up at the canopy above, leaves swaying in the night breeze and completely blocking out the shining stars and moon. Magna cast one final glance at them, patted the horse, and then she too disappeared within the curtain tent. The horse ate, chomping down on whatever gravel-grated meal they carried with them, and soon too the animal would sleep.

She let her senses roam further, the quiet snoring of the men mere whispers of disturbance in the immense wilderness. “The stream carries up the mountain, splitting into two. There’s a small herd of deer drinking, and there’s an owl hunting in the trees.”

“No…people?”

“No people,” she confirmed, letting her head tip away from the tree and rest against Neri’s. “The worst danger nearby is a couple of foxes. You don’t need to worry.”

“Foxes…” she mumbled, sleep cradling the warrior away. “I like…foxes.”

Arna smiled, closing her eyes and allowing her hearing to be the watch for the night. “Sleep well, Neri.”

And sleep well she did, the warrior resting the entire night through and only waking when the time came for camp to pack up. Visaf was half a day’s journey and the caravan moved faster, Eduard guiding them along ‘shortcuts’ with a pace that sped up at each turn, the lure of home quickening their stride.

They kept up, their positions maintained, but with every step taken something gripped tighter in Arna’s chest. The loud noise they made - the horse heavily snapping twigs, the men storming through the undergrowth, the swoop of Magna’s arm as she shoved branches out of her way. Arna’s senses were crowded, rushed, and she halted, sharply turning away to pivot herself outwards, away from the humans assaulting the forest calm. She heard Neri pause behind her, glancing over her shoulder and calling out her name, wondering what was wrong.

There were no raiders, no humans to know of except for their caravan, and even though this form dulled her senses, Arna still knew something wasn’t quite right. Humans were not the only dangers to be wary of. She found the wolf pack from yesterday, miles away with no interest in them. The deer had moved on, the fox and her cubs safe and sound, but yet the birds did not sing.

It was like the forest was holding its breath, waiting, hiding. She cursed this form, wishing she could rely on the keener hearing and sense of smell of her other self, but soon the answer came with the rumbling crash of stones dashing down the mountain side, a cascade of pebbles and dirt bouncing off trees and diving into bushes ahead of them.

Arna turned, scanning the forest for whatever had disrupted the ground, and yet the caravan blundered on, a healthy distance growing between them and the trio.

The warrior glanced nervously between her charges and Arna, wishing to return to her duty but something held her back, a concern for her companion, a question in her eyes, a knowledge that the shapeshifter sensed something.

“Neri,” she called back, low and pointed. “Neri, we need to get to them now.”

The warrior nodded, spinning on her heel and running, tripping over loose stone and roots, and Arna followed, an alarm blaring in her entire body, telling her to change direction, to go back.

The horse was the next one to know something was coming. It huffed, rearing up, its carriage of supplies shifting haphazardly while Magna struggled to control it, pulling harshly on the reins which only caused it to throw its head back in panic.

Eduard stopped, mildly annoyed. “What’s going on?”

Ruben saw it first, the bald man stumbling backwards against Eduard.

The thick scent washed over Arna, and she realized in their rush to get home, they had been led straight into the territory of a mother and her cubs, barging through her land and causing a ruckus, a big chaos ruining the serenity of her forest, threatening her children with careless abandon.

The brown bear was three times larger than the ones Arna had known, the lack of humanity endangering the species and the environment, and the plentiful resources meant the animals thrived. A pair of cubs tittered on the small elevation above them, the origin of the crumbling stone where the mother had dropped down.

Arna grabbed Neri’s arm before the warrior could unsheathe her sword. Intimation or further threatening the bear wouldn’t help them at all. They needed to back away, carefully and quietly.

But the trio had other plans. Magna still struggled with the horse, raising her voice in frustration and swearing when she spotted the bear glaring them down. Ruben kept his silence, but his hands groped for his weapon, holding out a metal studded bat before him while staying still. Eduard met the bear’s stare, his face contorting in fear and wrath as he growled back at the animal, reaching behind to grasp a cloth-wrapped object from his bag, uncovering it with haste and poising it before him – a large chainsaw-like weapon, something built with the remains of the past, sharp shards jagged and shining along its length, and he yanked down on a plastic rope and the entire thing roared to life.

The mother roared in return, enraged, and the cubs above whined, ducking their heads.

“Neri, we need to r-”

But the warrior tugged her arm free and raced forwards, straight towards the charging bear, straight into the gap between the men and the furious mother, her sword unsheathing in a blinding glimmer of polished metal.

I just feel like if I let my guard down for even a second, it’s going to happen all over again.