Crouching down behind the house, I took a quick inventory of the food I was able to snatch. It would be enough for a few days but I’d like to grab more if I could. As I was working, I could hear a fight starting in the town center. Peeking around the corner of the house, I saw that a few of the townsfolk were yelling at the holy knights while the holy knights were trying to give out orders.

It was a cacophony of noise and I used that distraction to run towards another house. No one heard me or saw me and I was looking for a way into the house when I overheard something that stopped me in my tracks.

“Please be quiet and listen!” a holy knight soldier projected his voice loudly. “General Velox will be here in a few days and we’ll need you to open your homes to the reinforcements. There have been sightings and tracks of demons around here!”

I tuned out the rest of the speech as I quickly ran away from the village to the trees Oda and Aldric were sitting in. As I was running, I heard the sound of footsteps behind me as a holy knight yelled out to me, “Miss, it's dangerous to run into the woods at night! Stop!”

I ignored his pleas and ran even faster. I didn’t want to lead him to the others so I weaved through the trees with the hope to get him off my trail. He was relentless and was able to keep up with me. I quickly glanced back at him and he froze in his tracks. Using this opportunity to put some distance between us, I ran right into a giant behemoth of a monster.

Well, I guess that answers the question of why the holy knight stopped.

Its tusks were easily the length of Aldric’s height and its eyes were trained on me. Its pupils dilated and then pinpointed on the soldier who threw a rock at it.

“Everyone! There’s a behemoth monster out here! I need reinforcements now!” the soldier yelled while drawing his sword and shield. The man then charged the beast and I fled into the darkness. As I ran around the monster, I noticed that he had some wounds already on his body and the monster was enraged.

I quickly ran to Oda and Aldric and updated them on the situation at hand. Without a word, they jumped out of the trees and we ran towards the Lunaris Mountains.

Once we put enough distance between us and the holy knights, we took a breather under the shade of a large oak.

Panting, Oda said with dismay, “I can’t believe a holy knight general is already on our tail!”

“Yeah, but we have the advantage that they don’t know where we are and where we’re heading to,” I said, trying to calm him down.

“Yeah, but you haven’t told us where exactly we’re going either,” Oda scoffed.

Pulling out the world map, I looked at our route. The Lunaris Mountains were the regional border between the west and northern counties. Once we pass through the mountains, we’d be in the cold north.

“I hope you like the cold. We’ll be trekking through the cold until we’re in the east county,” I said while still avoiding Oda’s accusatory glare.

“This journey to the east better be worth it Nocturne,” Aldric stated coldly.

“I hope it is too,” I concurred. Rummaging through my bag, I tossed some oranges and peaches to the others to eat. We ate in silence as we were all lost in our thoughts and worries.

Once we were done, we buried the food scraps and continued. At the rate we were running, we should reach the mountains within a few days. The tall scenic peaks gleamed in the morning light and the snow reflected the hazy morning sky.

Due to all the excitement last night, we were still wired with energy and anxiousness that kept us going. When we got tired, we found a safe place to take a quick rest and we took turns having a short rest.

As the other two men were sleeping, I was intently staring at the map and our supplies. Scrunching my eyebrows, I didn’t like the conclusion I was coming up with.

We would run out of food while we were in the mountain range. And that would mean death for all of us. The nearest town was the one near the foot of the mountain. I had heard of this place before and if we wore hooded cloaks, we could portray ourselves as being devout followers of the Holy Mother going on the holy shrine pilgrimage.

When the two men woke up, I explained my plan to them. They both looked at our supplies and agreed that we needed more food if we wanted to survive the mountain. It was said that the mountains were one of the coldest locations that the north offered. The mountains were almost as cold as the most notorious city, Zetsubo, the capital and prison center of the north. This place was also the home of the northern holy knight general.

Anyway, with everyone restored with energy, we continued on our trip and made haste to the mountain town.

The monsters in this area were vicious and kept ambushing us but we made quick work of them all. We were able to harvest some of them for meat and ate nice meals around a campfire. It was a nice change of pace from just eating rice and fruit all the time. Eating all the meat we cooked, we disbanded the small camp we made and headed on our way.

“When we get to the town, I want to buy a super fluffy cloak to wear in the mountains!” Oda happily said.

“I doubt we have enough money to buy something that fancy,” I shot his request down. “We’ll buy what we need at a cheap to reasonable price”.

“Ughhh fiiiine,” Oda pouted with his arms crossed.

I rolled my eyes at his childish antics.

As we traveled, we occasionally had to avoid other travelers which was extremely hard to do since there wasn’t much cover around here. Much less comforting were the sightings of holy knight patrols. Having them this far out was panic attack inducing.

Due to all of the holy knights in the area, we mostly traveled at night and found places to rest in trees during the day.

Eventually, we made it to the mountain town of Moon Haven. We stood posted outside of the town and saw with dismay that holy knights were checking every single person who entered and left the town.

“Shit, what are we going to do about that?” Oda asked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Can't wait for the next chapter?
Become my patron for as low as $1 a month to gain exclusive sneak peeks and early access chapters! Chapters will be released early on Tuesdays for patrons.
www.patreon.com/FaerieWarrior