Days before the war started, you could already feel the tension in the air. Each fighter had his own personal weapon forged by those of us who were skilled with weapon forging. No two weapons were the same. The blacksmiths were not the only ones kept busy. The city had the ocean at its back and there were already Sea Tribes preparing the defenses there. We placed runes at paths we thought the soldiers may tread one and planted traps at every river, mountain pass and even under bushes and rocks.

Birds of every species patrolled the air and even the most common animals were spies for us. The only animals that refused to obey us were the tamed ones in the city. We could not rid the soldiers of their war horses or turn their hounds against them. They were far too loyal and afraid of their masters. We all did not doubt the city was making preparations. Our warriors were instructed not to harm women or children, should we succeed in pushing the humans back into their city, and we were to aim for the master of the Blood Warriors. All human warriors who willingly put down their arms were not to be harmed, merely imprisoned temporarily till the war ends.

When all the preparations were done, we retreated to a mountain pass where we would ambush them while they marched past.

Unfortunately, we had underestimated them.

When they came through the mountain pass, we could clearly see they had fallen for some of our traps. Just when they all entered the mountain pass, those of us with wings swooped down from the back and ambushed them, just as we had planned. Everything went according to plan for approximately 5 seconds, and then it descended into chaos.

The soldiers at the back alerted the soldiers in front the moment we attacked. I lead the charge for the winged ones. As expected, Blood Warriors attempted to attack us from above, but were met with other winged warriors. Warriors from the heavy-built land tribes like the Ox tribe streamed down the mountain and attacked the battalion from its sides. The plan was to take down as many as possible, and then escape to prevent too many deaths on our side. And we all thought we would succeed, until the soldiers pulled out weapons we had never seen in our lives. They had weapons that could fire small pellets at high speeds, appearing to be superior to our bows. They could shoot at a faster rate than us and took down a few of the winged ones I lead before we even reached them. Those skilled in archery had to hover just below the fighting above them and a distance away from the fighting below while dodging pellets and attempting to shoot at the correct person. It was a nightmare.

With every soldier I brought down, there were three more to replace him. There were still soldiers in the battalion who used swords and I engaged those in battle. It took all my years of fighting and some luck to keep me from being killed. The cries of those who had fallen in battle rang in my head, serving to spur me on. Finally, we pulled out of the pass, casting a barrier while retreating, preventing any of their strange pellets from hitting us. The barrier was originally meant for arrows they might have shot at us, but it clearly worked against the pellets.

Knowing the Blood Warriors would try to cut us down while we were escaping, Talon and I held them off. There were only five of them there, but it was like fighting ten of them. The warriors on land were having a hard time retreating, so I did the only thing I knew would work.

Leaving Talon to fend the Blood Warriors off, I grabbed and flew over the battle below and dropped it at what seemed like the right spot, praying my memory had not failed me this time. The rock landed on a rune I had left uncompleted on the ground of the mountain pass. By hitting the ground, it made the last stroke, and completed the rune. A bright flash of light blinded everyone, temporarily stopping the battle and giving the warriors on land time to retreat. The light reached where Talon was fighting and blinded the Blood Warriors too. I used my wing to brush against him and led him to the point we were suppose to retreat to, flying solely by memory. When the light finally faded, we were glad to see that some of us had managed to survive. But too many had died and that itself could tip the balance of the war.

We were all unused to death of this scale and we mourned the loss of our loved ones. Some of those who had fallen had come from Raven Tribe; they were people I knew when I was young, people I had played with or talked to, and now they were gone. Would it have been better if we had chosen to hide underground instead of fight? But if we had hidden, would the humans have tried to destroy our world? There were too many questions and regrets.

That night, all the nearby tribes gathered together to mourn and to plan. We had underestimated our enemy today; we could not afford to do it again. There was no gossiping among us that night, no happy chattering of children who had no reason to listen to the meeting. We re-did some of our plans, and it was agreed that the children would be moved to an island cave that was far from these lands during the night itself.

Suddenly, I recalled a memory of the elders telling stories during our past cheerful tribe meetings. They had mentioned something, a poem about a small rag doll that was supposedly imprisoned when its makers had deemed it too evil to live but yet too beautiful to die.

But when I asked Talon to let me search for it, he refused. “Itzel, it was just a story, a poem told by the elders to scare us. Don’t look for it, it would be a wild goose chase and we would be losing our most valuable fighter.” That was his argument, yet, I saw a hint of fear in his eyes when the doll was mentioned, as though it really existed.

That sparked my curiosity more than anything else, and led me to ask my old rune master about it over the next few days. Everyday brought a new battle which always led to more deaths than we could afford. Our warriors fought excellently, giving everything they had to throw off the enemy, but it was too little, too difficult. They were better equipped than us, and their numbers were greater than ours. It was as though they had recruited the entire male population in the city into the army.

Finally, it was decided that we would use the Grave Rose seeds I had harvested and changed. Those that were not killed by the Grave Roses, we would kill. It was a long-shot, a plan we did not expect to work, but we did it all the same. We planted seeds everywhere, either by dropping them while flying over the land the army would march over next or by walking around and randomly throwing seeds at places we thought the army may walk over. At night while the soldiers were asleep, animals were sent to destroy as many weapons as possible or bring them to us. Especially the weapons we found out were called guns. “Looks like tomorrow is going to be a long day,” I muttered to myself.

Not my favourite or best written chapter :/ - Wolf