Swift-River bounded through the forest canopy. The Orc throng's efforts to secure the ironwood sap remedy had given her valuable intelligence. Her keen senses detected two figures moving through the shadows. Crimson Ruby's agents. She shifted direction, compelled to investigate this new threat to the Orcs she had been observing.

  The night coiled around them. Sweat traced paths down Miikka's spine as he motioned for silence, crouching low against damp moss. In the distance, the Orc camp burned with crude torches.

  Moonlight fractured through the canopy. Miikka's breath slowed. The whip-like vine he'd released earlier had lashed across Vardan's face, leaving a vivid welt. Miikka's lips curved into a satisfied smirk. It wasn't an accident.

  Three hours earlier, he'd spotted a long, flexible vine while walking ahead on the forest path. Vardan trudged several paces behind, muttering about delays. Miikka grabbed the vine, measured the distance with a quick glance, and waited.

  When Vardan stepped into the perfect position, Miikka simply let go.

  CRACK!

  The vine sliced across Vardan's pale cheek. His head snapped back, hands flying to his face. His mouth opened in shock, eyes widening as a sound escaped. High and sharp. Birds scattered from nearby branches. Vardan's fingers trembled against the rising red welt.

  Miikka burst into laughter. "The great sorcerer, felled by a plant!" He spun his coin faster between his fingers. "That sound though. Like a stepped-on squirrel!"

  "Miikka," Vardan whispered, his voice smooth yet venomous. His pale fingers twitched over the glinting tools at his belt while his eyes narrowed. "Trust is such a fragile thing, wouldn't you agree? Especially... tonight."

  "Serves you right, you slithering schemer," Miikka retorted, his coin dancing between his nimble fingers. "Life's a rumble, eh, Vardan? Let's see if the Orcs play nice with your pretty face now." He slipped deeper into the shadows, his compact frame vanishing from sight.

  Betrayal was inevitable. Miikka just planned to see it coming, block the blow, and deliver a deadly counterstrike. After all, why waste energy starting a fight when you can end one with perfect timing?

  The camp loomed closer now. Miikka assessed the sparse cover ahead, his mind racing through escape routes. He sensed Vardan's agitation. One mistake, Miikka calculated, tightening his grip on his dagger, and he won't see the dawn.

  "Get to work clearing the ground," Vardan said. His shoulders tensed as he surveyed their surroundings. "Down to the dirt. Now."

  Vardan upended his small backpack, allowing jars and cans to tumble out. Each vessel contained dried, crushed substances spanning a spectrum of colors.

  "Your wish is my command, oh exalted one," Miikka drawled with mock reverence. He twirled his dagger, then dropped to his knees. He cleared the forest floor, revealing moist soil beneath.

  While Vardan arranged his jars into precise groups, Miikka implemented his sabotage. The diminutive rogue moved with calculated stealth, swapping identical flasks between positions. His thumb smudged their carefully written labels into illegibility. Each act of subterfuge passed unnoticed.

  Vardan's wrist flicked as he sorted through his arcane containers.

  I wish Swift-River were here. Her thorn barriers always kept us safe. Miikka's pulse quickened as he watched Vardan carve intricate furrows into the soil. The sorcerer poured a glittering, sand-like substance into the grooves.

  The mixture shimmered under the moonlight as Miikka crouched low, his dagger spinning between his fingers. "Hope you're watching your masterpiece unfold, oh great sorcerer," he said. His earlier switch might derail their fragile truce.

  Vardan, oblivious to Miikka's sabotage, commenced his guttural chant. The rhythmic sounds reverberated through the clearing. Miikka observed with calculated interest, his thoughts drifting to freedom from Crimson Ruby's control. He listened as Vardan's incantation filled the night with foreboding power.

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  Miikka's instincts prickled. Movement, somewhere just out of sight. He turned his head slowly, scanning for danger, but found nothing. His instincts screamed of unseen eyes watching their ritual.

  Vardan's spell reached its crescendo. The tension in the air thickened. A swirling mist gathered within the magic circle. But instead of the hulking beast Vardan had envisioned, a fluffy white rabbit materialized, its pink nose twitching innocently in the moonlight.

  "Behold your fearsome creature," Miikka crowed. "Tough spell, huh? Go on, try again. Maybe I won't mention this particular triumph to Crimson Ruby. Impress me with your next attempt."

  Vardan's face transformed into a mask of lethal intent. He opened his mouth to deliver a retort when a low, rumbling growl echoed from the direction of the Orc camp. Fear seized them both. They crouched lower in the shadows, hearts pounding as they waited.

  "I'll scout ahead, see if the Orcs are stirring," Miikka said, the coin never ceasing its hypnotic dance between his fingers. His grin flashed before he slipped toward the nearby stream. Perfectly sized for shadow-work, he thought. His gaze locked onto a moss-covered stone. Nature's perfect billboard for his message.

  With practiced speed, Miikka's fingers etched the Druidic symbols for "first-quarter moon" into the stone's surface. Hidden in plain sight, he thought. Beneath the symbol, he added: "Phase two begins."

  When Miikka returned, Vardan had prepared a new sand circle. The sorcerer launched into another chant, deeper and more ominous than before. The earth beneath them shuddered, and a repulsive bird-like beast erupted from the soil. Now that's the real nightmare, Miikka thought, suppressing a shiver. The creature shook clumps of damp earth from its grotesque plumage.

  Bathed in spectral moonlight, the colossal bird-creature towered over Vardan. Its form swirled with darkness. "What tasks await your servant, O' Mighty Master?" it asked, its voice like stone grinding against metal. Its razor-sharp talons carved furrows in the earth. Eyes glowing, fastened onto Vardan, awaiting command.

  Vardan's thin lips curled into a satisfied smile as his fingers traced arcane patterns in the night air. "Transform into an Orc," he said. He paused, his gaze narrowing toward the distant torchlights. "Unleash the spores slowly. It’ll take ten days to become contaminated."

  Miikka's coin froze between his fingers as he witnessed the creature transform into a female Orc warrior. The metamorphosis completed, the creature vanished into the darkness. Miikka exchanged a wary glance with Vardan, and together they followed her trail.

  "Thank the ancestors I found you. I've been lost since the attack," the disguised creature called out upon reaching the Orc camp perimeter.

  The tribe's sentries responded with guttural challenges. Their voices rose in harsh interrogation as they surrounded the newcomer.

  Vardan shifted beside Miikka, fingers twitching. "It begins," he whispered, voice barely audible. His eyes narrowed.

  Miikka and Vardan retreated as shadows deepened within the woods. Yet Miikka's conscience twisted. The creature's transformation was revolting, he reflected. Freedom should neither taste of betrayal nor reek of death.

  His dagger spun restlessly between his fingers as he imagined it slicing across Vardan's exposed throat. Is this truly the path to liberation? Or just another strand in Crimson Ruby's web of control?

  By the stream, Miikka had left his message. If discovered, it would shatter his fragile alliance with Crimson Ruby. As he retreated, Miikka's eyes darted to the night sky, scanning for the telltale silhouette of Ivory, Crimson Ruby's winged messenger. The pale creature's absence offered temporary relief. His dagger spun faster, a habit that intensified with his anxiety.

  Swift-River transformed from her shadowmink form, crouching low over the marked stone. She deciphered Miikka's cryptic warning. She committed each symbol to memory.

  The symbols revealed their meaning. The message was incomplete, but its warning struck her with undeniable force: The Great Dying approached. Not just sporadic deaths, but the systematic annihilation of Orc-kind.

  Crimson Ruby's ambitions weren't merely conquest. They were extinction. He hungered to eradicate the Orcs from the very fabric of existence. The nightmares tormenting their sleep, the poisons weakening their bodies. These were just the first cold breaths of a coming storm that would leave nothing but dust and memory where once a proud people had stood.

  Swift-River rose and transformed once more, her sleek shadowmink form becoming a blur of motion as she leaped into the trees. She caught the lingering scent of Miikka and Vardan, their trail still fresh enough to follow. "I need to see what else they're planning," she thought, racing through the canopy in pursuit.

  Shadows stretched ahead of her, the forest itself guiding her path forward. The symbols by the stream gradually faded into the soil, but their warning remained burned into her memory along with her new purpose: track Crimson Ruby's agents and stop the coming slaughter.

  Within the Orc tribe, the disguised creature stood in its stolen skin, thoughts divided between fear of discovery and determination to fulfill its dark purpose. It glanced toward the eastern horizon, where the first light of dawn pierced through the morning mist. The sun rose heavy and crimson.

  Crimson Ruby's machinations had set catastrophic events in motion. The creature had arrived bearing its silent message of death.

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