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Gark Tuk, Blazlin of the Fireclaws. Up until a few weeks ago, he lived with his family of farmers nearby the north border of the Searing Deserts. Now, he serves as a soldier under the Fireclaws! This fate was shared by many of his fellow soldiers who partially consisted of friends from his village. They all were trained for war, but none of them honestly thought that they would actually be used for it.

They were wrong. Gark's entire village was drafted into the Third War of the Blazkul Hightribes, every individual expected to fight and, if needed, die for their Hightribe's cause. The Blazlin weren't angry or frustrated, no! With joy, they answered the call of the Blazkul to serve as skilled soldiers... except Gark. He would much rather continue to plow fields and herd cattle; being equipped with spears and armor to march through the desert was of no appeal to him.

Gark actually did not end up doing that. Well, sort of. He certainly marched, but not through the familiar dunes under the burning heat of the sun; his unit was commanded to secure a river among the giant mountains in the north and, so, he marched through the cold, forested valleys of the Aezrikka Zule. A river! Are the Arms of Life in the desert not enough? For what could you possibly need a stream in the mountains? "It's simple," his leader had explained, "The river flows from the rainforest of the Rizkul - the wood from said rainforest is very important to the war. With help of the river, the wood can be transported directly to the Fireclaws."

So, Gark was now on sentry duty, tense. They had seen a lot more Aezkul recently, equipped in bronze. Scouts, militias, garrisons. They never fought, but they held the unit under observation. Gark hadn't fought in a battle up to this point and hoped that he never has to. His comrades thought otherwise. Had the Blazkul Battlesteerer not ordered them to leave the Aezkul in peace, his comrades would likely try to shoot them with their bows and crossbows. It didn't matter that the Aezkul were always out of range.

Not only was Gark on a watchtower on the river, it was also the only watchtower for miles. Even worse, it was probably the smallest outpost along the banks; only Gark and his three comrades needed to take watch. Thankfully, he got along quite well with Turk, Zakar, and Glozk, but every so often they would mock him for behaving so cowardly.

Gark wished, since he could not go home anyway, that he could serve in a larger camp. A camp with walls and spear catapults instead of just a watchtower made of wood.

All of his wishing didn't help his situation. He stood again and again on the tower and looked around. Trees as far as the eye could see. The valley forest was not the desert, but it was still nice to look at. He even liked the forest; the colder weather didn't really bother him. Rain was an interesting experience and at least helped with hygiene. The forest would certainly be more beautiful if you didn't have to worry about Aezkul lurking in it. At least there were no Rizkul for Gark to worry about here. The reports that came from the rainforest were gruesome. About a month ago, a whole warband of Blazkul and workers were slaughtered. The leader is still considered missing, but has already been declared dead.

Hopefully nobody will declare me for dead, thought Gark with an anxious expression as he thought back on the report. Acid-decomposed flesh studded with poison-tipped arrows... the reporter was not squeamish when it came to describing details of the remnants found at the scene of battle.

When you heard something like that, you were happy to be in a pretty valley rather than a deadly rainforest.

Naturally, something must happen here in the land of the friendly Aezkul within the idyllic valley in order to make Gark fear and worry; there were Flamewings sighted. Flamewings were one of the many enemies of the Fireclaws in this war and they were in these mountains, nearby. But why? thought Gark. What do these winged barbarians want in the Zule? Near the river? Glozk, who stood with him on the watchtower, had an answer for these questions. It's obvious! They want to prevent that we take the wood... and besides, the Flamewings hate the Aezkul anyway. So, they take out two birds with one stone!

Because of the sightings, multiple artillery crew swere commissioned to prepare ambushes and be on the lookout for Flamewings. Gark and his three comrades were commissioned to play as spotters for these ambushes and to draw the attention of enemy scouts with a horn signal.

For several days there was no sighting of an enemy scout; even the Aezkul seemed to not care about the Fireclaws anymore... or perhaps they noticed the artillery? Gark didn't know.

It seemed as if this outing was going to be peaceful after all. Simply stand on a tower, enjoy the view and kill time with comrades by drinking or playing dice or any board games. Until one day...

---

"FLAMEWINGS!" bellowed Glozk from the watchtower. Gark and Turk, who were on watch the night before, were frightened out of bed. Turk stood up immediately and almost fell over his boots. Promptly, he put on said boots and leather armor before grabbing his crossbow.

Gark still sat in bed, petrified. "Hello? Gark? Move yourself! Enemies were sighted! Get your armor on!" Without further ado, Turk took Gark's spear from the wall and threw the wooden grip to him. Gark, not expecting it, was hit in the head with the shaft. That got him moving.

"I'm coming! Hopefully it's just a scout..." Gark stood up and put his armor on, during which Turk ran up the stairs to the tower platform. For a moment Gark thought about not following, but he rejected the idea; he doesn't want to do something so dishonorable. He gets himself ready as fast as possible, running upstairs while still tying his right boot.

Upstairs Glark, Turk, and Zakar stood, ready, with their hands on the wooden battlements and eyes on the sky. Gark swallowed; there were really Flamewings there! Their wings made them clearly recognisable. They're larger than the wings of the other Blazkul races, colored a different shade from the rest of the body apart from the patterns that can be seen on the scouts.

"Only three kul. Probably a scouting wing... Look! They've seen us! They're coming right for us!" Zakar's words were filled with excitement. You could tell that he was not afraid, but rather, he was excited to see a battle that the four soldiers alone could not win, even with their bows and crossbows. Glozk and Turk readied their crossbows while Zakar notched an arrow to the string.

Zakar's statements struck fear into Gark's heart. The enemies had really seen them and were flying towards them faster than ever.

"Give the artillery the signal, Turk! Go! Blow the horn!" Glozk urged Turk.

Turk took the warhorn out of a wooden box and breathed in deeply before blowing into it. The sound resonated through the entire valley. The Flamewings hesitated as they considered whether they had just flown into a trap or if the tower crew called in reinforcements. Their hesitation was their death.

You could hear the loud crack of the strings of the spear catapults even at the tower. With a loud_swoosh_, the dark streaks of the wing ripper bolts arced through the sky. Now unable to dodge, the Flamewings' vulnerable wing membranes were struck by the bolts and ripped to shreds. The Flamewings tumbled from the sky, flailing as they tried to grip the air again. Their screams were loud and shrill as they made for the ground.

Branches could be heard cracking in the distance as the kul struck the canopy.

"Hah! They should be dead!...or?" Gark asked uncertainly.

"Probably. But we should make sure that they are actually dead. I can hear one of them screaming..." Glozk was right. At least one of the Flamewings had survived the fall and was currently crying out in pain. These pained moans crushed Gark's certainty. "Should other enemies hear him, they might come to help. If we're unlucky, that could be more kul than our colleagues in the brush have bolts! We don't know how many Flamewings are hiding here. Now, let's go. Make yourselves ready to march!"

Tark and Zakar nodded approvingly and ran back down the stairs to prepare.

"B-but Glozk, you can't be serious?! You don't want to actually hunt a Blazkul, do you?" Fear rang clear in Gark's voice.

"Gah, Gark, you coward! It won't be a hunt... he's almost dead anyway. We will poke him once, then he'll keep his maw shut. Now move yourself!" Glozk gave him a spirited shove which nearly sent Gark falling down the stairs. He caught himself, however, and ran down them. Although Glozk was not the leader of the group, he was respected as such due to having fought before, unlike the others.

After a few minutes, the four Blazlin stood ready to march in front of the tower.

"See the mountain over there? The Flamewing crashed someplace around there. I have it marked on my map - see? Right there!" Glozk pointed with one of his claws on the map. It was marked in two other places with a red X as well. "The others should have fallen around here. They lie on the way, so we will drop by there first before we silence the screamer."

Zakar and Turk nodded. Glark gulped.

"Good, now onwards! After me." Glozk went ahead confidently, followed by his comrades. They clutched their spears and shields, carrying their bows and crossbows on their backs with quivers hanging at their belts. Gark had taken his throwing spears along, the weapon strapped to his back in its own holster. He had obtained the strength to throw them from his days working the fields. He'd always preferred throwing weapons over bows, even during training.

It took more than an hour before they finally arrived in the area near the first crash site. The place was not far from the tower, but the forests of the Zule were nearly impassible. The Blazlin also had to climb over small cliffs before they finally arrived at their first destination.

Carefully, preparing for a fight, they approached the clearing created only by the impact of a three meter tall kul. Glozk and Turk went ahead, brandishing spears and shields. Their shields resembled ovals with smaller ovals cut out from the sides, allowing the carrier protection while simultaneously allowing him to stab past his shield. Zakar and Gark went behind them, the latter with an arrow notched and the former clutching a spear in his claws.

Glozk then began to laugh as he entered the clearing. "Lower your weapons, he's down." He points to the kul's corpse. He was impaled on a tree! The tree pierced the belly, went through the chest, and emerged between the shoulder blades on the upper back. Blood ran down the trunk in little streams and turned the ground into a bloody mud. The Flamewing was definitely dead, held in an upright position as if nature was presenting its prey. Not a sound, even a croak, came from the impaled kul. The sight made Gark sigh in relief, but also caused him to gag. He had slaughtered cattle before, but the sight of the skewered kul was something else. Zakar looked at him funny for a moment, then shook his head. Blazkul and Blazlin should not start to gag at the sight of corpses! At least Zakar didn't comment on it.

"Hm, off to the next, I would say," deemed Turk with a shrug. With these words, Gark began to feel uneasy. This kul was definitely dead, but will that be true for the next, too? And the one after is certainly alive. He had no time to think on his worries; his comrades were already on the way.

The march to the second destination was substantially shorter and the grueling and painful screams of the third Flamewing had finally ceased.

"Maybe he's dead already? Then can we go back?" Gark asked hopefully.

"Maybe. But I'd prefer to be in a position where I can answer the question of his death with 'Sure!' and not with 'maybe...'. So, kindly go away, before I kick you!" Glozk replied, sour.

Gark did so and, from now on, kept his mouth shut.

What they found at the second clearing unsettled the entire troop.

"He's gone. Gone!" said Zakar with horror while Gark shook with fear, looking around. Before them are two trees with a third between them uprooted. Only the branches that faced the uprooted tree were gone; the rest were still attached. Blood was everywhere, but not enough to safely assume that the kul was wounded enough to bleed out.

"His wings are gone so he can't be too far away. Maybe he broke a leg and is limping through the forest; we could find him then." Glozk thought out loud.

"Or maybe he's somewhere here and we're walking into a trap! We should leave here!" yelled Gark, finding it unbelievable that four Blazlin want to hunt a Blazkul.

"Come on, Gark, don't be like that. We'll be facing what little is left after the fall. He'll be easy to kill! But where should we start to search? Can any of you read tracks?" Zakar asked the group.

The others shook their heads. There were no obvious tracks; it seemed as if the Flamewing slipped away without disturbing the environment.

"So... off to the third place. I'm assuming he'll bleed out somewhere. We won't be able find him without a proper tracker." Glozk shrugged his shoulders and sighed disappointedly before gathering himself and moving onwards. Gark, Turk, and Zakar followed him, each more observant than before. Gark flinched at the smallest sound, making his comrades grin and chuckle.

The trip to the third destination felt like an eternity. A hellish eternity filled with agony. There could be a Blazkul around at any moment, laying in wait to roast the four Lin with a burst of fire.

Yet, they arrived safely. A few meters away, the trees began to thin out and reveal the crash site. In the usual formation, they moved through the trees and stepped into the small clearing.

What they saw was definitely what they had expected. A dead Blazkul lay in a pool of its own blood. His entire body was badly damaged by the fall, especially his wings. They were completely broken, hanging limply. A broken tree had torn his stomach open, as well.

"Yep. He bled out. Probably not a drop left in it!" Glozk began to laugh loudly, Turk and Zakar joining in.

"But look! Other kul were here! See? Footprints! Strange, it seems there's two pairs of prints, one set bigger than the other," remarked Gark, his voice nervous and shaking while he examined the mud near the corpse.

"Maybe a pair of Aezkul scouts checked to see whether or not we actually took out the wings," suggested Glozk, after he finally stopped his malicious laughter over the death of the Flamewing.

Turk nodded, following the trail to the edge of the clearing. "Probably. But what do we do now? Go back to the tower? Or search for the other -" Suddenly something jumped out of the thicket and pulled Turk under itself. With a loud crack, his ribs and other bones gave way, killing him instantly.

"DAMN IT! That must be the second one!" yelled Glozk furiously. "Kill the bastard! For Turk!" With this battle cry, they charged the enemy. The kul didn't seem to be at the peak of his physical strength, but he was definitely not weak. His wings were completely ripped apart and useless, but his body only had a cut or a few broken joints here and there.

While Glozk stormed the enemy, Zakar quickly loosed an arrow from the string. It found its target; the arrow lodged itself in the shoulder of the kul. However, this didn't seem to disturb him as he snapped after Glozk. Glozk jumped back a step and plunged his spear towards the kul. The beast reacted too quickly, pulling its head back.

"Do you not have any fire left or what?!" Glozk shouted at him as they faced each other, both ready to dodge. The kul growled as an answer, baring its teeth. Zakar shot another arrow, hitting the four-legged foe in the breast. The arrow barely pierced the thick chest plates, but stuck. Then Gark realised - the firebladder of the Flamewing was running out. A hole gaped in the chest of the scaly creature and an oily fluid mixed with the blood dripping from it. With the fire breath decidedly not a thread, Glozk had decided to engage.

"Do something, Gark!" Zakar yelled to him. At first, Gark trembled in fear, but then he summed up all his courage and began to throw spears at the kul while Zakar shot his arrows. The projectiles weren't able to kill the kul, since they only hit his shoulders and chest plates, but they made him very, very wounded. He roared at Glozk loudly - so loud, that it made the veteran waver and dazed him for a moment.

Using his chance, the kul swept the lin out of his way with a backhanded swipe of his paw. He jumped for Zakar and Gark. The latter jumped off to the side, landing in the bloody mud around the third kul, and remained there.

Zakar, however, threw his bow aside as Glozk was thrown to the ground. He took his spear from his back and rammed the end in the ground, hoping the kul jumped into the point. Unfortunately the Flamewing was not that dumb. He stopped before Zakar and knocked the spear out of his hands. The force of the hit knocked him into the dirt. He rolled onto his back and pulled out his spare sword, a small blade that could serve as a toothpick for most Blazkul.

"Leave my comrades in peace!" yelled Glozk, who had stood back up in the meantime. His shield still lay in the dirt, but he clutched his spear with both hands and ran for the enemy. The kul turned around, but too late. Glozk stuck the spear directly in the right hindleg of the Flamewing, who cried out and snapped after the offender - with success. The kul grabbed Glozk's arm and tore him into the air before he, with a quick twitch of his neck, hurled him against a tree. There, Glozk slumped down with a bloody arm. Zakar tried to stand up in the meantime, but the kul easily stomped him into the ground, breaking his neck and various other bones.

Gark lay in the dirt, smeared with bloody mud. He had observed how three of his comrades died through this creature and now, it was his turn. No, I will not die, not in the dirt! He thought defiantly before something caught his eye - Turk's crossbow! Slowly he crept over the mud, drawing closer to the crossbow, for his own weapon lay somewhere under the mud. The kul didn't notice the movement. He licked his wounds and stretched with a satisfied growl before looking at his wings with a sigh.

Gark shouldn't stay unnoticed - the kul turned around. He probably remembered that he had four, not three, enemies! Garks heart pounded in his breast as fear took hold of him. With a loud and deep growl, the Flamewing leaped towards him! Gark shuddered and yelled out of pure defiance, or rather, blind despair: "Come here then!" He suddenly went down on all fours, trying to get to the crossbow faster.

Shortly before he reached the crossbow, he heard a loud crack and, for a moment, felt a hard blow in his back. He fell forwards in the mud, fingertips just out of reach of the crossbow. The kul was over him. "You will bleed for having taken my wings, Fireclaw," the kul spat at him. His voice was very rough and raspy. Gark grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it directly in the eyes of the kul, who shook his head angrily to clear his eyes. Gark took his chance and threw his body a bit forwards to bring the crossbow into his claws. He gripped it firmly and aimed at the enemy, who roared when his eyes were finally free, opening his mouth to devour the Blazlin.

As the maw dove towards him, Gark fired the bolt. The kul collapsed and his jaws pinned Gark to the ground. He breathed heavily in panic. His eyes were closed. Am I dead? Have I done it? As his eyes opened, he was overcome with joy.Hah! I live! And you're dead! Hah! Haha!

He wiggled himself out of the maw and walked away from the kul backwards, unsure whether or not he'll actually stay down. After he had examined Turk, or rather, the fleshy pile that was left of him, he knew that he did not need to look for Zakar. Maybe Glozk is only unconscious?

"Good shot, Gark. Right through the maw directly into the brain! Maybe you're useful for something, heh... Turk and Zakar... what a pity. Were good fighters." Glozk sighed and shook his head. He grimaced as he stood. "Ahhhh, my arm! Damn." He grunted in pain and began to bandage himself with a piece of cloth from his belt pouch.

"Come, Gark, let's burn Turk and Zakar here. Then we'll return to the watchtower... this war is far, far from over."