Opening the map, we all looked at it intensely. The closest town was a small outpost village called White Moon and it was a few days away from where we were.

“By the time we’ll get to this town, the Festival of Lights will be upon us,” Aldric said as he looked at the map. I counted in my head, and he was right. The Festival of Lights was a celebration by the Mother Goddess’ followers. Tradition states that they hold a huge feast and once the sun sets they would light one hundred candles to honor the Mother. The candle’s light was supposed to represent the light of hope that humanity carries but not many people believe in that sentiment anymore. Some towns believed the more candles you lit, the more likely you'd curry Her favor and be blessed with special gifts.

But that hasn’t happened in a long time. Few people nowadays were blessed with the power to perform magic. Fewer were able to use high-level magic spells. Most people could only achieve amateur rank and if they were stupid enough to attempt a high-level spell, the spell would bounce and harm the caster instead. General Velox was one of the few humans who have been blessed with the power to feel and use the world’s energy to create magic. I’d imagine the other Holy Knight Generals could wield magic as well.

Double checking the contents of our bags, we saw that we would have just enough supplies to make it to White Moon. Which means that when we get there, we’ll need to procure some more items.

“We should probably set up camp somewhere safe,” I said while looking around for any convenient place to take refuge for the night.

All of us searched for a good place to spend the night and we eventually found a small cave in the mountain. Thankfully, it wasn’t as freezing as the rest of the mountain range and we were all able to catch up on some much needed sleep.

The sun’s light woke us up in the morning and we quickly dismantled our camp and started on our journey to White Moon.

We sometimes ran into elk monsters and their natural predators, packs of wild wolves. With all of these meaty monsters, we were able to scrounge some fresh meat to cook over our campfires.

During one such meal, Oda sighed as he ate, “We could totally use the fur from the wolves to line our cloaks”.

“Do you know how to sew?” I asked as I chewed my food.

Sadly, he replied, “No . . .”

Aldric spoke up, “I know how to sew”.

Oda and I both looked at Aldric with surprise, waiting for him to continue.

“It’s one of the many skills I’ve had to gain in my line of work. If we gather enough fur pelts, I can line all of our cloaks. But it will take awhile for me to sew three cloaks,” he said noncomittedly.

Oda’s eyes shined with hope, “So you’re saying there’s a possibility we can have fur cloaks?”

Aldric nodded his head silently as he carefully stored the pelts into his backpack.

After a few days of trudging through the snowy hills, we finally arrived at the small village. Apparently we arrived right as they were preparing their rituals for the Festival of Lights. The townspeople seemed extremely excited but underneath the laughs, there was a darkness looming underneath their smiles.

We decided that with our cloaks, we should be able to easily and safely infiltrate the town and buy our needed goods and then leave without a problem, not to mention that most of the townsfolk were oblivious to most things right now. As we entered the town with our hoods up, people paid us no mind since they were busy with collecting candles and firestarters. We made our way to the market area and bought some food for our journey. Of course some of them asked what we needed the food for and we used the excuse that we were in the middle of the holy pilgrimage.

One of the vendors asked why Aldric had a large warhammer if we were pilgrims but I smoothly lied about how he was our bodyguard for the trip.

We tried to keep our visit to the small town quick, but Oda made it hard to keep a short concise trip. He was constantly distracted by knick knack stalls and treat vendors. By the time we were able to pry Oda away, the villagers started their celebration.

The candles were lit one by one and the villagers took turns to help light each candle. Some of the children looked on in amazement as the light of the candles illuminated the dark town. The town elder then started a speech about how the Mother Goddess was kind and how we must worship her with clean hearts.

For the most part, it was a stereotypical speech but as it went on, it became disturbing.

“This year, as an added praise to the Mother, we shall sacrifice the demon scum that terrorized our village! With our devotion, surely the Mother will bless us with her love!” the village elder pointed to the wooden pillar that was behind him.

Some of the strong village men then dragged a young girl towards the pillar while she struggled against her captors but to no avail. I noticed that they had blindfolded and gagged the girl. Once she was tightly secured to the pillar, other villagers set the base on fire.

That’s when the girl showed her true demonic form as her gray hair swung from side to side as she struggled against her bindings. A large single horn protruded from her forehead and purple gray scales appeared on her throat.

Oda looked at Aldric and I and whispered to us, “We should help her! She’ll die if we don’t!”

Before I could say anything, Aldric was pushing through the crowd towards the flaming pillar. Oda and I followed behind him in the wake of his travel since the villagers were slow to go back to their original positions. When the villagers realized his intention, they tried to restrain Aldric.

“Oda, while Aldric and I distract the villagers, free the girl!” I said as I let myself be consumed by hatred. The villagers were shocked at the sudden transformation which was quickly replaced with “Burn the demons! The Mother will surely grant us her blessings now!”

As the villagers were trying to capture me, Aldric was hindering their attempts with his brute strength while I did acrobatics to stay out of their reach and tried to get them to follow me away from the pillar. I jumped and ran across the rooftops and windowsills making sure I was just out of the reach of the angry mob but just close enough for them to attempt to capture me.

Oda quickly made his way to the flaming pillar and pulled out his sharp weapons. It looked like he was talking to the girl trying to calm her down while he slashed through the restraints while avoiding the flames.

By this time, Aldric was getting annoyed at the village people and revealed his true form as well. With another demon revealed, they seemed to realize the danger they were in and stopped trying to hinder us. They looked towards their elder who was trying to stop Oda from freeing the young girl.

The village elder was roughly pushed off the stage by the girl’s flailing kick and with one last slash from Oda, she was freed. She pointed to the gag tied around her mouth and Oda got the message.

Carefully, Oda cut the fabric away from her mouth and she turned towards the terrified townsfolk. She opened her mouth and chanted as an intricate crimson magic circle appeared by her outstretched hands, “Oh raging fires of hell, burn all those who dare defy my existence. Purge them from this world and reveal their countless sins!” She then pointed to the middle of the crowd.

Aldric looked at me and tackled me into the safety of a nearby alleyway.

“Calamity!” the girl calmly said and a large pillar of fire erupted in the middle of the crowd. Their bodies burned to ashes and the people who were ‘fortunate’ enough to be outside the range of the spell only had severe burns.

The girl wobbled and Oda quickly caught her before she could fall to the ground. While the villagers were confused and panicking, all of us half demons fled. Oda was carrying the girl since she didn’t have the strength to run quite yet. We left the screaming town behind us as we sprinted away into the darkness.

We ran for what seemed like hours but in reality, it was only around ten minutes. After we were all out of breath, we stopped sprinting and sat down on the snowy ground. Silence reigned over us as we all tried to catch our breaths.

Once I regained my breath, I checked my bag and saw that we still had everything we bought recently.

“We should move to a safer location, we’re still too close to the village for my liking,” I said as I stood up and shook off some sticking snow.

Oda nodded in agreement, “Yeah, once they regain their senses, they’ll probably follow our tracks and try to kill us”.

The young girl spoke up, “If you’re worried about them following us, I could summon a strong gust of wind to cover up our tracks”.

“Oh yeah! You can do magic, can’t you girly?” Oda said.

“My name is Eurielle, not ‘girly’,” she replied bluntly. Then demurely, she stood up on her shaky legs and started to chant as a yellow magic circle appeared. “Oh fairies of the wind, create a powerful gust that will pierce the heavens. Cyclone!”

Quick as a flash, a finished magic circle appeared before her hands and a large gust of wind blew past us and whipped the snow around. The footprints we had created in the snow during our trek were hidden by the disruption.

“Impressive grasp on magic for someone so young,” Aldric complimented. “It’s rare to see someone with that high level of magic nowadays”.

Eurielle just shrugged her shoulders and looked away.

“So um, Eurielle, do you want to take off the blindfold?” Oda asked as he crouched down next to her ready to remove the cloth.

She immediately stopped his hand that was about to touch her and replied, “No, it’s fine. It’s better if it stays on. It’s not like I can see anymore anyway”.

Oda’s facial expression changed drastically and he apologized profusely, “Sorry! I didn’t know!”

“It’s fine. Shouldn’t we go somewhere safer than this, like the girl said?” Eurielle reminded him while pointing in my direction.

“Yeah, let’s go. We should try to find shelter for the night,” I said as I adjusted my backpack.

With that, we all shook off the snow and continued on our way. Oda tried to create conversation but when no one joined in, he took the hint and shut up.

We eventually found a groove of trees that would shield us from any falling snow. We all sat down and we ate some of the food we bought today. As Oda was rummaging through his backpack, he found the fire crystal we bought a while back.

Excitedly he handed it over to Eurielle, “Ooh, ooh! Since you can use magic, think you can heat this baby up for us?!”

Eurielle took the dull red crystal from Oda and rolled it around in her hands as if she was attuning to the crystal. She murmured under her breath and then the crystal shone with a brilliant red glow as it started to produce heat. She placed it in the center of our huddled group and we all sighed with relief as we warmed up.

Eurielle broke the silence by inquiring about our names and after a quick introduction, she nodded her head in acknowledgement. “So, where are we headed? I hope we’re not just aimlessly wandering the country looking for a safe refuge,” she asked.

Oda and Aldric turned to look at me, waiting for my reply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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 and Fridays.
www.patreon.com/FaerieWarrior