The End of Eternity

Deep in the Shadows

"We can open a butchery! Providing everyone with fresh meat is surely a good deed in my book!" A picture of huge amounts of meat overwhelmed Claw's brain. and he sniffed unconsciously.

"No way, we should aim higher." Davena shook her head.

"Or we can please many people by opening a brothel, pleasure of all being our mission!"

"You are joking right? Do you even know, what a word society means? Brothel is a degenerative phenomenon."

"You act so smart, what ideas do you have?"

"I-I, We can. We can be a . . ."

"Pha none, you do not know!"

"Of course I do, just shut your maw and let me think for a minute!" Davena frowned.

"We can do good, by founding an order . . "

" . .. of knights and earn a ton of gold by providing our services!" Claw finished her idea.

Davena just stared at him viciously.

"All right, my bad. I am listening." Claw lowered his ears realizing, he had none, but it was a bad habit left over from the old days, when he had been a red wolf. He ended up lowering his head instead. "Sorry."

"I meant an order dedicated to healing injured people." Davena finished her point.

"That is just weird. I mean, you are a vampire and I am basically a big, scary, reptile specialized in killing large volumes of living things. Do you want to walk around founding hospitals with that setup? And what about money? To run a hospital costs a lot of money! Not speaking about the fact, that we almost never get injured and therefore, have no proctice healing anyone." Davena sighed and Claw realized he had just utterly destroyed her idea and lowered his head even more.

"Eh, I mean, it is a good idea, but . ."

"No forget it, it would not work." Davena stopped his apologizing.

* * * *

Laela had finally managed to get hold of herself, breathed out deeply and watched the argument. They were still arguing about their next course of action, but she could not, but to note a peculiar fact.

"The reptile is acting differently compared to the times, when he talked to that cursed blood-sucker." Laela mumbled for herself. "The difference , is minor but. . "

Laela knew the devil was always in details and anyone's body language was usually more reliable, than actual speech.

"He just might be her pet after all." Exactly in that moment, Davena looked at her briefly and Laela had almost suffocated, breathing in her own saliva.

That was no coincidence, she has heard me!

A thought flashed through Laela's mind. Slowly regaining her composure, Laela decided to join their debate.

"You should become instructors." Laela entered the ongoing discussion.

"Instructors?" Both of them looked at Laela.

"Emerald Dawn has its army and a part of the army is the Military Police of Emerald Dawn. A unit used to keep order inside the empire and in the regions with some sort of ongoing military operations. With your combat skills, you will be surely accepted as instructors and you can help to keep order and have a respectable place in the society."

And I can contact my father, who will wipe you off the face of this world.

Laela added in her mind. The blood-sucking race was just evil, no matter how she looked at it.

"That sounds good, what do you think?" Claw looked at Davena, who just shrugged her shoulders.

* * * *

Having no better idea, they decided to go with Laela's proposal. She tried to suggest a few places, but they knew, she just wanted to contact someone and decided to head outside of the borders of the Emerald Dawn, to the region, which had been recently reconquered by elves, the Forest of Giants.

The Forest of Giants, was a vast forest with many unique species and the trees, which were towering to the sky. The giants in the name were actually the trees, which were extremely big. Elves lived for many centuries in the forest, but they lived in the tree tops, not inhabiting the dark corners on the grounds, the corners forever unreachable for sun rays. Many elves did not like the forest, because they felt like monkeys there, never stepping their foot on the ground.

Just recently, the fact that elves kept themselves off the ground encouraged an invasion of unknown predators, who ambushed many colonies in the Forest of Giants. Although the situation was pretty much under control, problems in the Forest of Giants kept piling up. As a consequence, the demand for instructors was high and Davena with Claw decided to settle in the place.

They had no contacts with the military, but were sure to be accepted after showing off a bit.

Leaving Mei's early grave behind them, they set off in the direction of the forest. Walking on and on, they soon reached the point, where traveling on the ground was too dangerous for ordinary elves and saw paths, which led up into the leaves above them.

They stepped onto one of the paths, which had been made out of massive branches, naturally bent to form a path. They gazed down, into the dark depths below them and continued up to the tops of giant trees, entering the Forest of Giants.

* * * *

A few hundred kilometers away, in the crypt located in the very same depths, five elves heaved mightily, rolling over a big stone slab.

"Ha, this is it. This should be the oldest tomb, predating everything we have looted yet." The elf"s eyes shone with greed.

"Are you sure, we should keep this up? The thing from the last tomb have caused quite a stir."

"Yes and had a lot of gold in its coffin. It is easy boy, we open the coffin, grab the gold and leave the trouble for the elder farts up there." He pointed up with his finger. "That is what I call a perfect harmony." He laughed and stepped closer to the unveiled coffin.

"Hey boss, this one is bigger than the last and the same symbol is on its face. This should be easy money for us."

"The symbol has no magic, we have been examining it the last time already, just a scratching of some freak. " Another elf said.

"I wonder how much will the contents be worth this time." Yet another greedy voice sounded through the darkness of the tomb.

"We will see." The leading elf smiled and smashed the symbol, which was sealing the coffin. It broke and a pungent smell of rot filled the room.

"Come on man. Looks like this one kept farting for centuries before he died." One of the elves plugged his nose, while lending his hands to others, who were trying to lift the stone slab, which was covering the inside of the coffin.

After a while, they managed to throw the stone block aside, revealing the insides of the coffin. They looked inside and saw a skeleton, which had lain inside for untold amount of time.

"Good morning." The bones of the skeleton crackled and it . .smiled.

"You look distressed, rest assured, I vowed to bring peace to all souls troubled with life."

Deep down, at the bottom of the Forest of Giants, five screams were fading into the night, as five bodies were dying on the cover of a coffin, their blood pouring into the name engraved into the stone, which now looked like painted in blood.