Shivarn village wasn't going to be safe for much longer. Although they had taken care of the soldiers that remained behind, an Elusis outpost was nearby. A passing harpy could spot the village when passing through.

Edina— begrudgingly without her undead dragon— and the Knight of Red flew circles in the sky to keep a lookout. Meanwhile, the rest of them helped Shivarn villagers gather what little belongings they had left.

"Nona, Guel, where are your parents?" Petyr asked as she hoisted a sack into the back of a pull cart.

The lamia boy's tail coiled defensively around himself.

"Taken," Nona answered, angry eyes cast to the ground. "The army took them. They took all the adults in the village and started looting. The elders told us to run for the hidey place under the stables, but…" She clutched her arm. "Some of them didn't take it. Can you bring everyone back? Like you did with Guel's parents?"

"We'll try, but the Harpy King's army has a big lead on us. Where are your villagers going to go? I can't imagine it's going to be safe anywhere," Kanae said.

"Hehe. Guel knows an abandoned village at the foot of the ridge. It's out of sight and kinda hidden. If you find our parents, tell them we're headed to Old Mill," she explained, and gave Guel a hard pat on the back.

Some of the villagers were already done packing. The dead had been buried. A couple of their ronoas survived and were harnessed to carts to pull heavier loads. The elders waved to the two kids, beckoning them to hurry.

"We better get going, Nona." Guel tugged on the dark elven girl's arm.

"Wait. Kanae, I don't ask for much, but will you let me go with them? If harpy soldiers were to spot them while traveling…" Petyr clenched her teeth and hesitated to say more.

Kanae wanted to say yes, but Nona beat her to it with a different answer.

"We'll be fine, swearsies. Now, you swearsies that you'll beat those meanies up. To within inches of their lives at least! Oh, and obviously bring our parents back. If you find my daddy, please don't hurt him! He's got a mole on his nose. He never wanted to fight to begin with," Nona explained desperately.

"Very well. I promise." Petyr sighed.

"Thank you!" the girl exclaimed.

"Thank you." Guel smiled.

They watched the children run off to join the elders. Both of them hopped into a cart, and the Shivarn villagers began their trek towards Old Mill.

"If you want to go, I won't stop you. I feel the same way about it being dangerous for them traveling alone," Kanae said.

"No. I made a promise, and I intend to keep it." Petyr lifted her gaze to the ruins of Shivarn. "Riley… If she had any part of this, I won't hold back smiting her."

"Hey, what happened back at the spire? Were you just hoping to bring the entire place down on you two?" she asked.

The paladin walked up to the ruins of a house still smoking. "I saw red. Figured if I couldn't save Riley, I'll just save her from herself. Three hells, after everything I did, I'd maybe go with her. But when we were falling through, fiery debris raining down alongside us…" She clenched her fist. "I saw tears well up in the corners of Riley's eyes, and I couldn't bring myself to finish it. When we hit the ground, I shielded her with my body. That's all I remember. If it wasn't for the dragonscale armor, I probably wouldn't be here. But I still am. So it doesn't matter if I need a fourth, fifth, or sixth chance to get through to her. I'll keep bashing my head on it until I do."

Kanae chuckled and extended a hand to Petyr, who looked down at it with a brief moment of revulsion. The high elf swallowed her deep-seated pride and clasped with her own.

"And if you ever need help again, just ask. I just won't be on board with any self-sacrificing attempts. You're part of Amethyst Hall, too. We're in this together." Kanae grinned.

"I still want my fucking castle, Kanae." Petyr squeezed her hand.

"Ow, ow, ow! You'll get your castle, but we're in the wrong part of the country right now!" She groaned.

The coaches were getting restless. Everyone piled back inside the covered wagons. Their caravan descended Shamsir into the rugged surface that Misiah's edirashem couldn't pass through before. Large stones jutting from the ground impeded them from a straight journey.

Kanae opted not to ride inside the wagon, and instead flew high in the sky to monitor the surface. Joining her was the Knight of Red, whose powerful wings beat like drums.

"Saw you and Go— Petyr talking earlier. Gotta say, it's weird seeing her so agreeable. The bastard used to give us the cold shoulder all the time. Never took her armor and helmet off either. Just grunted or snarled at us. Meanwhile, you're having full blown convos with her!" Red exclaimed in surprise.

"Trust me, it took a lot of work to get here. I always have to tread carefully, or I'll get her hammer to my face." Kanae rolled her eyes.

"Better from that felmetal than from Shifting Steel she had before. Anyway, what're we looking for? Archbishop mentioned something about a gigantic caravan out here?" the harpy warrior recalled.

"Yeah… but I'm not hopeful. The Harpy King for sure swept through here. We'll be lucky to find the edirashem's remains…" she murmured.

Unlike the other edirashoks, Misiah was plenty capable in the magic department. She might have escaped the Harpy King. She also could have fallen victim to his conquest. Kanae hoped it was the former.

But as the pair soared over the canyon outcrop where they had originally disembarked from the edirashem, the blood drained from Kanae's face. The large wagon, a symbol of Avanessi engineering, had been utterly dismantled. Its wooden frame stripped and metal pried out. Burns marked the body having been attacked by fire.

"No!" Kanae rocketed down.

"Amethyst, wait!" Red hurried after her.

They landed amongst the ruins of the edirashem. Clothes, weapons, and tools were strewn all over the place. But Kanae's terror softened, realizing that there wasn't enough rubble to make up the entire caravan. At best a single large wagon had been destroyed.

Then where was the rest? Did the Harpy King commandeer the remaining ones?

A sharp whistle put Kanae and Red on edge. They drew their weapons and put their backs together, expecting an ambush to jump out at them. Nothing happened.

"Pssst. Ova here! The tree!" someone whispered.

They followed the voice to the only tree in the area. Its heavy foliage of spiny leaves created an umbrella-like canopy. A goblin was sitting hidden atop one branch. When he tried to get down, his foot missed the lower branch and slipped.

Red caught him, and the goblin decided to take the chance to get a gander of her chest.

"Now that's a rack!" He wolf-whistled, only to have Red drop him on his ass.

"Wait, I recognize you. You're one of the goblin laborers on Misiah's edirashem. What happened here?" Kanae asked.

"Oh, and yous the succubus I fucked way back on the edirashem! We was hoping to hear from yous again. Better ask the boss lady herself. She posted me here to keep an eye out. This ova here was just a diversion. Worked flawlessly!" the goblin explained.

Kanae and Red returned to the others to inform them of what they discovered. The goblin guided them to where the remainder of the edirashem was located. Traveling northwest along a cliff face revealed a natural ramp leading inside to a hollowed out canyon.

The Harpy King's army would have had to go far out of their way to find this, especially since they were marching north to Bravost. What Kanae and the rest didn't expect to find, however, was an entire garrison within. The edirashem's surviving five large wagons formed a perimeter that surrounded a hastily-built outpost inside them.

"Heeeey! Friendly!" the goblin shouted.

A ronoa riding party rode out from the garrison to meet them. Misiah, the dark elven edirashok of Avanesse, was among the group and almost swallowed her tongue laying eyes on them.

"By the sands! Everything went to the three hells a few weeks ago!" Misiah cried.

"Yeah… Almost everything that can go wrong, did go wrong. We also saw one of your wagons out there. What was that about?" Kanae asked.

"A necessary sacrifice to make them think our presence here has been destroyed. But that isn't important. The last correspondence I received from Rasheena states that she and Sultana Cerberus fled Bravost. They returned to Avanesse to prepare for war," the edirashok explained.

"And what about Bravost?" Archbishop Patrice emerged from the wagon to ask.

"The Harpy King and his forces… they occupy it now. No news on the status of Sultana Dudula." She frowned.

Kanae staggered back, feeling faint from Misiah's revelation. Bravost fell that quickly? Savir's civil war had only just begun, and the Harpy King was already close to victory.

The group climbed aboard the forewagon. Kara had been on it before, so it wasn't anything special for her. Theena's last experience with one was a violent encounter, and so she seemed shy and meek aboard it. Seven, on the other hand, was giddy with glee.

"Wow! This is the biggest wagon I've ever seen! I didn't know they made wagons this big before. It's like a whole city!" Seven gushed.

"These are the pride of Avanesse, child. Marvel at them all you like." Misiah smiled.

Everyone on board was armed. Even those entering the bazaar to purchase goods wielded swords sheathed at their waists. The forges worked overtime, smoking like a chimney to produce weapons and equipment. Not one citizen and worker on the edirashem didn't carry a weapon, and it made sense given that an attack could happen at any moment.

Kanae peered down to the inner ring where the outpost was nestled at the center of the wagons. Rows of tents housed refugees and soldiers. Many were training in the open spaces underneath the edirashem.

From what Kanae remembered, Misiah was supposed to work with Bravost in establishing a supply line. This must have been what they achieved until the Harpy King attacked.

They entered the edirashok's manor, where a pair of guards saluted and escorted them to the upper floor auditorium. Several officers in robed uniform were studying a thread-woven map of Savir on the wall. Pins pierced multiple sections, mainly concentrated around the Bravost domain, and strings connected said pins together.

"The war begins with a devastating blow to us." Misiah walked up to the map, and an officer handed her some wrinkled documents. "Bravost has fallen, and we do not know if Sultana Dudula or her confidante, Archmage Donnu, are still alive. Once the Harpy King has solidified his power in Bravost, it is a given he marches on Avanesse next. Fortunately, my homeland still suffers from the cursed sun. It will take them some time to cross without edirashems. But according to Edirashok Zayn and eye-witness accounts, the Harpy King's forces can enter Avanesse. With great effort."

"Arenade sent a sizable Commonwealth force to Savir. If we can somehow link up with them in the Arkesian Waste, we'll have an army to fight back with. What are our options?" Kanae asked.

A human officer picked up a pointing stick. "Very few." He circled a vast desert between here and Bravost. "You can take your chances crossing the Sala'vir, or Dry Bowl as you call it. The Harpy King will likely have thinned his forces pillaging Bravost villages and towns. The journey is shorter, but traveling through risks being seen by them and alerting the main army. Or." The man traced his pointer to a canyon pass behind Bravost that curves northwest. "You take the Serpent's Tail. Longer, safer from prying eyes maybe, but it is rife with dangerous monsters. But I wouldn't put it past there being a detachment of Elusis soldiers guarding the pass just in case."

Kanae was about to choose the shorter path to rush through until Petyr came up to the map. The officers backed away.

"Your pins are color-coded. What does blue and red mean?" Petyr asked.

"Blue is where we know the Elusis forces are with certainty. Red denotes where we believe they will move to next, or their likeliest next location," an elven officer explained.

There was an abundance of red pins on the map. It just looked like a mess. Really, they had zero clue where any of the enemy forces were going. All of it was merely guess work.

So, Petyr started plucking out red pins one by one. Some blue pins, too. She grabbed an officer's dagger and severed strings tying places together. They turned to Edirashok Misiah for help, only to get waved off.

By the time the high elf was done, the map was much cleaner. There were less than a third of the pins left compared to before. They could even see the finer details of Savir's geography.

"Presume we share the same military stratagem," Petyr started in the tone of a commanding officer. "The main army will have scouts at increments of five, ten, fifteen, and twenty kilometers in radius. Smaller detachments will have five and ten. Posting recon or scouts any farther is a waste of resources and significantly reduces their effectiveness. The Harpy King has no reason to overlap his forces. We're also dealing with an army of soldiers who can fly. That raises their effective observable scouting range by two-folds. Two detachments are enough to cover the span of Sala'vir. We will be spotted immediately. It is out of the question. Take the Serpent's Tail."

"You're saying… I should not summon my undead dragon?" Edina raised her hand.

"Abso-fucking-lutely not. I'll kill you myself before you succeed," the paladin growled.

"Booo!" the necromancer complained.

"I have my qualms about Petyr, but I will attest to her expertise regarding warfare. The choice is yours, Amethyst. What say you?" Archbishop Patrice asked.

Petyr looked Kanae in the eyes.

"I trust Petyr. The Serpent's Tail it is." Kanae nodded at the paladin.

"In that case, my forces will stay put. Once you have regrouped with the Commonwealth, it will make coordinating an attack together much easier. However, understand that if Elusis marches on Avanesse, I am honor-bound to go defend my Sultan and Sultana," Misiah explained.

"That's that, then. Tomorrow, we join the war. I'll finally get my revenge on the Harpy King for imprisoning me all this time," the Knight of Red said.