The next day went off with little trouble. They had woken early, as one should when trying to get the jump on an enemy, and set off for the day. They kept their camp as it was. It was well enough hidden no one would find it and if they did, it would set off a flare. Eliqinor said that it was a magic flare that the cavalry often used to coordinate scouts to certain areas, which meant he had gotten it from Katar. Shafir cursed Katar under his breath, but when asked what he had said, Shafir brushed it off. 

So now they rode down the road, trying to scout out the area. While the investigation scene was still quite a while away, they could already see signs of the orc's movement. He had most definitely expanded his hunting range, which was clear from the piles and piles of dead animals' bodies they had seen while riding their horses. 

Nabu's ear twitched while they were riding, and her head turned. Shafir followed her line of sight and he stopped her. He saw nothing, but if she sensed something was off, then he wanted to make sure there was nothing wrong. No sound or movements happened, but Shafir got off his horse anyway, and quietly Eliqinor followed suit. Looking into the dark, Shafir saw nothing. His eyes scanned the area over multiple times, but nothing seemed out of place. 

"Shafir? Do you see anything?" Eliqinor asked as he came up behind Shafir. The tip of the dark elf's ears twitched and his eyes unfocused from the darkness. 

"Sadly no," Shafir said as he straightened himself and accidentally bumped into Eliqinor, who was right behind him. DID THIS MAN NOT KNOW WHAT PERSONAL SPACE WAS? He would usually snap and yell at Eliqinor, but something didn't feel right. Shafir looked toward the tops of the trees and his ears twitched again. "Do you hear that?" 

"Hear what?" Eliqinor asked as he looked in the same direction Shafir was. Dark elves had better senses than most elves, so it made them most formidable to fight in dark places. Their dark vision let them see and their heightened hearing let them hear more things. Though something was terribly wrong because Shafir couldn't hear anything. "I hear nothing."

"Exactly. When we were riding the horses that was fine because the horses would've drowned out the sound but now…" Shafir looked around the woods trying to find the cause of the silence and a loud bang drew his attention back to the way they came from and he saw a large red smoke cloud in the sky. "Fuck."