Lady of the Wood

IX. Genevieve

I pushed a branch out of my face to look out over what had been my home from my perch in a tree. A shaky breath escaped my lips as I surveyed the ransacked wasteland that had once been an entire village. A tear slipped out the corner of my eye when I saw that Morwyn y Pren, formerly one of the most magnificent estates in Evalor, had been reduced to nothing but a shell of its former glory. The outer walls were piles of rubble sprawling out from the keep, which stood mostly intact, but had large portions of the walls missing and shattered windows at every turn.

Henry sighed from the branch below to me, and I could tell he was just as rattled as I was to see the extent of the destruction wrought at the hands of Corran and his wretched minions. We had known he was a danger to Evalor, but we had miscalculated the extent of his wrath miserably.

I pulled my hood down farther over my features as I shifted my focus to what we had come to observe; the number of troops, the number of weapons, any fortifications, anything that might turn the tide of the battle. There were at least 1,000 wraiths milling about, sharpening weapons, tearing into the remnants of what looked to be a deer carcass. I looked over at Henry nervously--we only had 300 men back at camp.

We both returned to sweeping our eyes over the estate. Corran apparently hadn't felt the need to build any sort of physical fortifications or blockades, but I was sure there were some kind of magical wards around the camp. He only had guards posted several meters apart from each other, which seemed odd until you considered the capability of the wraiths under Corran's control. He was smart enough to put the armory in the center of camp, where it would be the easiest to reach for any point inside the camp, but nigh on impossible to sneak into from outside the camp undetected.

Aside from the sheer number of Corran's troops, the camp seemed fairly harmless to the untrained eye, but I had come to know better. I looked at the camp and saw strategy and careful planning in everything from the placements of the tents to the lack of open cook fires throughout the camp. In fact, I couldn't find a mess tent anywhere either. The wraiths must not have been civilized enough to even feel the need to congregate in a designated area to feed on the bodies of their poor victims. I shuddered at the thought of one of those beasts tearing into Ophelia's haunches after shooting her.

There was a tent in the center of camp that was significantly fancier than the others. I assumed it was Corran's, but it was too big for just one person. A few figures were standing outside the main entrance. I looked closer and I realized they weren't wraiths. They were humans; probably other magicians Corran had converted into his twisted, lawless campaign to destroy the monarchy.

Henry turned and looked up at me from his branch. He pointed back in the direction of our camp, and I nodded in acknowledgement before starting to climb back down the tree after him. I slipped from limb to limb as quietly as I could, disturbing as few leaves and twigs as I could to avoid being detected. I reached the bottom of the tree, and set my feet on the ground gently Henry steadied me as I almost fell over from the sudden landing, and we started back in the direction we'd come.

We were almost back to camp when I tripped over a root and fell to my knees. A splitting pain pierced through my consciousness, right where the diamond in my circlet rested on my forehead. My hand flew to the gemstone, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't make it stop. I cried out as my vision went black, and the rest of my senses faded into nothing.

I stood up shakily, my cheek stinging like I'd been slapped. My entire body ached with the pain of someone who'd just been beaten within an inch of their life: a feeling I knew all too well. I looked down at my dress: tattered, my hands: bruised and bloodied. I looked around the room, spinning around me, shattered glass from a mirror scattered on the floor.