Across fields of the dead and dying, Eliza searched for her brother.

  It was dusk, and the night air mixed its cold misty drought with the reek of blood and corpses. Crows wheeled across the grey skies above, their shrieks like the mourning regrets of fresh ghosts, or settled atop corpses like watchful silhouettes in the distance.

  The dead, Eliza thought bitterly as her boot crunched the blood stained grass, all look the same in the end. Elves, Man, Orc, and Demon. When the Night cast her velvet cloak, all became huddled shapes, shoulder to shoulder. Even with her illustrious career, she felt a sense of futility at the sheer scale of death.

  We either retire or end up like this.

  Brushing her red hair aside, Eliza tucked it under her cloak against the stirring breeze. She wore none of the crimson colors marking her as a Blood Elf or mage, and most of Lord Agnon’s forces must have left several days ago to continue Man’s evangelical crusade. But still it paid to be safe.

  To many, the elf would appear a slim, simple figure wrapped in a plain grey cloak she had found in a burned down tavern a few miles south. Not that Eliza needed to really hide - there were maybe 5 things on the Mortal plain that could harm her - and two of them were titanic in size and a few continents away. But her days of roguish adventures when she’d first left her Island had slowly weathered into exhausted, pragmatic quiet. She was here on a mission, and that meant stealth.

  But if Eliza were to cast off her cloak, like her brother, her hair, as red and deep as sin, along with her pale green eyes and long ears, would’ve given her away in an instant. There were, following her and her Torren’s departure, other Blood Elves who’d ventured into the outside world, but not many. And none as infamous as her and her brother.

  So Eliza kept her cloak bundled tight and trudged up the mountain of corpses, pretending to be an undertaker or graverobber. Her long legs ate up the steep distance, and soon she found herself cresting the top of a tall hill, where the vantage was best.

  The mist was thickening but one quick wind spell and it quickly dispersed as though frightened. Eliza couldn’t blame it. Frowning, she peered down.

  She froze. “Oh Torren, what have you done?”

  Below, a broad valley unfurled in the grey dusk. Amid the clumps of shivering evergreens, a thin river meandered. At first glance, the valley appeared thick and lumpy with shrubbery or debris, bursting from the river edges and crawling up the trees.

  At a second glance, they were bodies. A hundred thousand bodies, carpeting the valley end to end, clogging the river like bursts of rocks. Men and women killed in a thousand different ways, charred and frozen and chopped, hanging from branches, impaled on spears, pocked with arrows.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  It turned out Lord Agnon’s army never made it far past their initial victory. The Orcish warlords must have ambushed them shortly afterwards. Only, the warlords had obviously underestimated the sheer volume of human soldiers - a very classical mistake most races made - and both sides paid a very steep price.

  The worst part: this had her brother’s schemes written all over it.

  A familiar panic settled into Eliza’s heart. She closed her eyes, feeling the valley start to close in. A few savvy crows widened their ink black eyes and fluttered away, squawking. The rest weren’t so lucky. Eliza let out a concussive blast of mana. It was no spell, no incantation, just an outward expression of rage.

  The blast sent every corpse in a two hundred foot radius hurtling as though shot from a crossbow, the flesh pulverized. Seconds later, Eliza was gasping, sweat curling down her cheek, a stray strand of red hair obscuring her eyes. The crater was sizzling, glowing embers smoldering, and seconds later a crash of metal as flung soldiers slammed back down.

  “Torren, you bastard…” Eliza’s words died as she felt a sudden movement in the skies above. Idiot! When am I going to learn to control myself? Her left hand came up, long fingers flexed, while her right hand drew the sword on her hip from its sheath in one practiced arc.

  It came as a shiver in the dark. The air rippled with the tell-tale hint of a magical veil, before the veil parted and its owner - suddenly huge and dominating the sky - descended.

  The hill shook as it landed, its huge wings folding silently, and a long serpentine neck coiled down. Two colossal amber eyes gazed down at her.

  Eliza let out an annoyed sigh.

  “Zeus’ Beard! Abyss, I told you I was covering the east side. Don’t tell me you finished scouting the mountains already?”

  “I grew bored.” Those huge golden eyes blinked ponderously. Despite his age, the demonic dragon often felt like a giant cat to Eliza. He had been her familiar for almost ten years now, a formidable demon in the form of a black fire drake, yet she hadn’t found a way to quench his indomitable curiosity. “And I think we’ve found everything we need, no?”

  “Don’t even joke about it,” Eliza muttered. “I know his handiwork.”

  She collapsed onto the hill, gazing hopelessly at the carnage. “I’ve spent the last five years undoing all the harm my brother has done. All I want is to end the suffering he’s caused and finally retire somewhere far far away in peace.”

  “And do what?”

  “I don’t know!” Eliza fingered the burnt remnants of her cloak. “Learn to knit maybe?”

  “Eliza Bloodsworn in a rocking chair knitting? I still can’t believe it.”

  “Don’t call me that!” Eliza snarled, stabbing a finger at him. “That’s not what I am anymore!” She swung her arm and hurled a bolt of lightning, tattooing the night sky with its bright veins.

  But Abyss was already flying up, dodging her hasty spell. His spiked maw opened.

  “You wouldn’t dare…” Eliza started. She yelped as a column of demonic fire spewed from his maw, nearly hitting her. Her heel hit a rock and she wheeled her arms, succeeding in only crashing down the valley below faster. “You stupid…” She spun away from another lance of flame. “Stupid lizard!” More curses left her mouth as Abyss weaved through the night, shooting blasts of hellfire down, his chuckling like thunder rolling.

  So much for stealth.

  Eliza hurled another lightning bolt, this time catching Abyss squarely and sending him plummeting into the trees below.

  “Got you bastard,” she panted. A grin cracked her lips. Okay, so that was kind of fun. Maybe when she retired she could take up archery.

  An hour later, their search had begun to tire. Eliza rode atop her familiar, scouring the valley and beyond for any traces of her brother’s mana. Torren could not have been far - and she doubted he could evade her detection spells.

  Still, there was the uneasy feeling of waiting for the other boot to drop. Whatever trickery Torren had played, she’d yet to reach the punchline. To many nations, the younger Bloodsworn sibling was simply an agent of chaos - yet Eliza knew better.

  “It’s big, whatever he’s planning this time,” she said. “Remember the war on the Tiestal continent? Afterwards, the Dwarven king’s vault was emptied. Torren’s not one for trinkets.”

  “Wherever he is, we can’t find him here,” Abyss complained. “What now?”

  “I think I know,” said Eliza grimacing. There in the distance, one of the corpses began to rise. “Over there. We have a visitor.”