The Journey Begins

Brand and Aldroro made their way to the stables and found Alreya and her mother, Maneya, already waiting by the caravan. Brand looked the caravan over and found that there was three wooden wagons covered by a leather top. The wagons were each being pulled by a team of two animals that looked like large deer. Looking at the enormous antlers that shot frontwards, Brand shuddered at the thought of one of those things charging at him. Next to the wagons were several elven soldiers dressed in green leather armor riding unicorns. They all had various weapons, mostly swords and bows.

"You look like a proper member of the Ostish Forest now." Alreya smiled at Brand's new clothes as him and Aldroro walked over. "Although it looks like you picked a spear. Not many elves use spears."

"Good thing I'm not an elf then." Brand teased back. "So, are we going to riding in one of the wagons? Because if I'm being honest, I don't really know how to ride a horse, err... unicorn."

"For the most part you will." answered Maneya. "The elders want for the two of you to be rested and ready for the ritual as much as possible. You will be riding in the middle wagon for most of the way."

"Great. How long to... the capital?" Brand asked forgetting the name of the place they were soon to be headed.

This time Aldroro was the one that answered him. "The journey to Ragash will take about a week if things go smoothly. Then you will have about four or five days to rest in the city before the ritual begins."

"What do you mean if things go smoothly? Is there a chance they won't?" Brand asked starting to look a little concerned.

"The forest is filled with monsters." Aldroro said. "That is why you have an armed escort going with you."

Seeing the look on Brand's face, Maneya interjected. "Do not worry Brand. The guards are very capable and can handle any of the monsters between here and Ragash." Maneya shot Aldroro a glance as he just shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

One of the elven soldiers pulled out a horn a gave two short blasts signalling that the caravan was about to depart. Alreya hugged her mother and grandfather and said "I love you. I will not let you down."

"We know." Maneya replied as her and Aldroro smiled at the hard working elf girl. After Alreya turned to leave, Brand approached her family.

"Thank you for everything." Brand said.

"You are welcome." Maneya told him warmly. "And good luck."

Aldroro slapped one of his hands on Brand's shoulder. "Look out for my granddaughter if you would."

"I will. Definitely." said Brand. Then he turned and followed Alreya to the caravan. When he had climbed aboard the middle wagon moving past the driver, Brand put his spear and satchel down on the floor in the back of the wagon and sat down opposite Alreya. As soon as he was seated, Brand heard another two blasts from the soldier's horn and the caravan started to move. They were off to Ragash.

After a few minutes of sitting in silence, Brand started to become bored as they bumped along. He tried to strike up a conversation with Alreya. "Is it going to be this bumpy all the way to the capital?" he joked.

"Once we start getting away from Masarch, the ground will start to even out." Alreya told him seriously.

"I see." Brand responded. After that they fell back into silence for a few minutes.

When Brand was about to comment on the weather, Alreya suddenly asked him "What was Earth like?" She looked at him with expectant eyes. "I imagine it must have been quite difficult to survive without magic. Earth must have been a harsh and brutal world."

"Actually we have a pretty advanced civilization." Brand had seen this conversation happen before in movies and television, but never imagined that he would actually be in a scenario where he would get to explain just how advanced Earth had become to someone from a medieval like society. "There are metal wagons on Earth that move by themselves and travel faster than a bird flies. Not to mention the metal wagons that fly through the sky carrying tons of people. There are buildings that reach past the clouds and ships as big as a small town."

"You are not lying to me are you? That seems unbelievable." Alreya said wide eyed.

"It is all one hundred percent true. I swear." Brand said seriously.

"Amazing." Alreya muttered.

"That's just the beginning, on Earth there are moving pictures with sound called movies, and we can record various moments in our lives with things called cameras..." Brand continued to tell her about the various advances Earth had made since ancient times as the caravan continued its way south. After a while, the sun went down, and the caravan stopped for the night. Various elves made campfires and prepared dinner while Brand and Alreya helped set up a few of the small, brown leather tents for themselves and the soldiers.

"You are telling me that in a world without magic, humans have developed a weapon that can destroy a city of millions instantly?" Alreya said incredulously while using a long poll to prop up one of the tents. "If that is true than Earth truly must be a terrifying place."

"It can be sometimes." Brand answered her. "But there are a lot of international laws against using those weapons, so mostly people just ignore the possibility of instant annihilation and distract themselves with various things."

After setting up the tents, all the elves and Brand gathered around the campfires and had a meal of yak jerky, some fruit, and water that a few of the soldiers summoned from thin air. It wasn't long til Brand was ready for sleep. After bidding goodnight to the soldiers and Alreya, he found his own small tent and crawled inside. Lying on the yak fur blanket that was in the tent, Brand quickly fell asleep and ended the first day of his travels.

The next few days passed rather slowly as the caravan fell into a routine. They would wake up, eat, pack up all the tents, start travelling, stop for lunch, then continue for a few hours, and finally stop for dinner and sleep.

On the fifth day of the journey, while they were riding in the middle wagon, Brand and Alreya heard shouting coming from outside. The wagon stopped abruptly and Alreya yelled to the driver "What is happening? Why did we stop?"

Not seeming to hear her, the driver grabbed the bow and arrows that were resting behind him and flew off. "Stay here." Alreya told Brand as she also grabbed her bow and arrows and quickly exited the wagon. Brand did as he was told and sat at the back of the wagon as the shouts grew louder. Then there was the sound of a large explosion and Brand couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed his spear that was on the floor and went out the front of the wagon. What he saw made him want to run away as fast as he could in terror.

The elven soldiers and Alreya were fighting a giant moving tree with a hideous looking face. It was swinging its giant branches like arms trying to swat a few of the elves flying near it who were shooting it with arrows and magic. The moving tree had two giant legs that were sunk into the ground and looked like tree roots that were snaking in and out of the dirt dragging the tree along and shooting out various roots at the elves riding unicorns who were circling the tree on the ground.

Brand heard one of the elves say "What in the world is an oaken doing this far south? And why is it so big?" right before one of the roots connected with the unicorn he was riding and sent them both flying through the air. At that point Brand decided maybe it was best if he just stayed in the wagon like Alreya told him to do and was about to climb back into the wagon when one of the snaking roots missed an elf on the ground and continued to where the wagon was. As soon as the incredibly fast root hit the wagon it exploded. Brand yelled as he dropped his spear, crouched, and held his head with both hands as wooden fragments landed all around him. The deer like creatures pulling the wagon bleated loudly and ran off.

After the shards of wood had finished falling, and he had regained his composure, Brand looked up again to see a lot of the elves lying around the forest floor injured or worse. It was at that moment when he spotted Alreya get hit by a branch and fall to the ground. The horrible looking face of the tree monster turned its gaze on the fallen Alreya and drew back one of its branches to strike the helpless elf.

Brand didn't know what came over himself as adrenaline suddenly pumped into his veins. Without thinking, he bent down, grabbed his spear, ran forward, and threw the spear as hard as he could at the monster while yelling like a crazy person. The spear sailed through the air and for a single moment in time, Brand felt like one of the heroes that he had read about from ancient Greece.

The spear then turned to the side and bounced harmlessly off of the monster who abruptly turned to face Brand. "Oh. That sucks." Brand said as a nasty looking tongue came out of the tree's scary face. It roared and sent one of its snaking root legs hurtling right at Brand. Knowing he wouldn't be able to dodge, Brand closed his eyes, turned his head, and scrunched his face.