Serena
The Red Tribe camp site was the scene of absolute carnage, with succubi bodies scattered everywhere. Some had been consumed by the fires still crackling here and there. The smell of burnt flesh turned my stomach. Where it hadn't been charred, the once red grass that covered the ground at the base of the mountain was glazed in silver blood.
Thick pillars of smoke rose from the embers of what had once been tents. This site had been home to dozens of fierce, beautiful succubi who now lay lifeless before us, defeated by a horde of Azazel's Destroyers and traitorous Sluaghs. The Red Tribe was no more, and our strongest alliance was suddenly our weakest.
Hansa was on her knees, heaving and struggling to control herself. Tears streamed down her cheeks. I wanted to hold her and tell her that everything would be okay, but how could I? We all knew it would only get worse from here.
Azazel had wiped out her entire tribe, her family, in one organized attack.
The spell was always an optical illusion, so someone must have known where to look to find the succubi's camp. Someone had known where to come or who to follow to deliver the deadly strike.
"I will kill them all," Hansa growled.
Draven stood next to me, his brow furrowed and lips pursed, tension throbbing in his jaw. Bijarki was close, his eyes wandering around us, his hands balled into fists at his sides. The pain marring his otherwise beautiful features was undeniable.
"Each and every one of them … One worm after another … I will slice them up and feed them to the beasts!" Hansa roared. She stood.
Her leather garments were drenched in succubus blood, and her hands trembled. I saw in her face a tidal wave of pure, uncontrollable rage.
"Hansa, I am truly sorry for what has happened here," Draven said in a low voice. "Where do we start?"
"Don't trouble yourself with such details, Druid," she spat back. "This is my war to wage against the Sluaghs!"
"But who did this? Who betrayed you? Who will you go after?"
"All of them! All of those filthy parasites! I will destroy them until there are none left to feed off the bodies of my sisters!" she shouted, her eyes wide and glassy. "Krol," she growled in a lower, more menacing voice. She looked around like a vulture seeking prey.
"Aida saw him in a vision." I remembered her account of that encounter. It hadn't been easy to forget, the Sluaghs were creepy as hell.
"It was my generals that he met the other day. He's the traitor. He's the one I'm after."
"We'll get him. Together," I said, placing my hand on her trembling shoulder. "We'll do this together, Hansa. Your loss is our loss. Remember that." I was trembling too, not just from the devastation around us, but from the fear that Hansa instilled in me. She was terrifying with such rage coursing through her veins. I looked around, wary of asking the one question that I knew I had to ask. We had so little time left against Azazel.
"Hansa, we will get them," Bijarki added in a calm tone. "But you will not do it alone. You and Anjani may very well be the last of your tribe. You can't leave her alone to fight a battle you know you'll lose on your own. There are so many of them and only one of you."
"I will take as many of them as I can before I fall! My sisters deserve retribution!"
Bijarki raised his voice. "Damn it, Hansa! Snap out of it!"
She stilled, and from the way she stared at him, for a moment I feared for his safety.
Several moments passed before she took a deep breath, followed by another and a dozen more, until her shoulders dropped.
We all waited patiently for her to regain her composure.
She looked around, swallowing back the tears, and nodded slowly.
"Okay then, what's the plan?" she finally asked.
I could hear a sigh of relief leaving Bijarki's lungs. He waved an arm around at the camp. "We need to find the book, first," he said. "Then, we need to burn everything down. We leave nothing behind, not a sliver of meat for the Sluaghs to occupy. Some must be lurking in the waters nearby, since they know where the Red Tribe is now … was."
We made our way to the remains of her tent, a jumble of burned animal skins and lumps of charred wood beams. Black smoke still rose from the middle, unraveling upward in trembling rolls. She frowned as she took the details in.
"The passage stone," she said.
We all froze as soon as we realized what she was talking about.
"It's gone," Draven said.
I gasped. "Oh no. What … what do we do?"
Hansa and Bijarki started digging through the remains.
"The passage stone is a peculiar instrument," Draven explained. "If one travels through a passage stone without a specific destination, one may pop out anywhere in Eritopia. There are thousands of these scattered throughout Eritopia, most of them lost-dumped in lakes or at the bottom of the seas or forgotten inside a volcano or in the darkness of a pit. It's extremely risky to take the way of a passage stone without knowing where you'll come out on the other end. No one is foolish enough to try it."