Chapter 113: The Other Road
Perrin’s party waited until the following morning before entering Level Three.
News of the secret clear spread through the Sanctuary before they finished eating. Adventurers gathered around the Hall of Achievements to see the new entry. Others followed Perrin through the central square asking where he found the hidden door, how many prisoners survived, and whether the Warchief’s Brother dropped anything valuable.
Perrin answered the questions he considered useful.
He did not tell anyone exactly how to open the door.
"I told you it existed." He said when one adventurer complained. "Finding it is the enjoyable part."
His healer disagreed with Perrin’s definition of enjoyable, but not enough to reveal the mechanism.
The five of them had bought food, replaced damaged equipment, and slept before gathering at the Level Three portal that morning. Its ordinary image showed a dwarven airship floating above a sea of clouds.
When Perrin approached, a second choice appeared beneath it.
[Dwarven Airship]
[Entry condition: Complete the Orc Highlands.]
[The Elven Road]
[Entry condition: Complete Prison Break.]
Only members of Perrin’s party could select the second option. Other adventurers could see that an alternate route existed, but the portal did not let them borrow another group’s discovery.
Perrin selected The Elven Road. The clouds vanished from the portal. In their place stood a forest road beneath morning sunlight.
The party crossed together.
They appeared beside the nineteen elves and two dwarves they had freed. The prisoners’ injuries had been treated, and several wore clean traveling clothes. Aelith stood near the front of the group speaking to a mounted elf.
The riders wore green-and-silver armor. Their horses carried light barding and pale runes along their reins. The woman leading them sat on a gray mare and held a long spear upright beside her.
She looked down at Perrin.
"Aelith says your people opened the eastern gate."
"We had help."
The rider introduced herself as Captain Sylwen Aranor of the Dawnhoof Patrol. The name meant nothing to Perrin, but the system identified her as an allied commander rather than a guide who would disappear at the first sign of trouble.
"The orcs will search the highlands when they discover where the prisoners went." Sylwen said. "The shortest route to our refuge crosses the old watch road. Veyrath’s creatures have made that road dangerous, but the longer path gives the orcs time to catch us."
A level notice appeared.
[The Elven Road]
[Travel with the Dawnhoof Patrol.]
[Protect the rescued prisoners.]
[Reach the Shattered Watch.]
[Mounted route active.]
Perrin looked at the horses waiting behind the patrol.
"None of us know how to ride."
Sylwen studied him. "That explains why you are standing beside your horse."
His horse was a dark brown gelding with a patient expression. Perrin had assumed it belonged to one of the elves.
The shield bearer received the largest mount. Their scout was given a narrow gray horse that seemed incapable of standing still. The healer’s mare stayed close to the animals carrying wounded elves. Their mage approached his dappled mount as if expecting it to explode.
Sylwen gave them a lesson that lasted less than five minutes.
She showed them how to mount, how to hold the reins without pulling constantly, and how to tell the animal to turn. Then she explained that a frightened horse listened to balance and pressure more quickly than shouted instructions.
Perrin’s horse walked three steps backward.
"What did I tell it?" He asked.
"That you do not know where you are going."
"It understood that quickly."
The patrol moved before he could ask for more instruction.
Riding on a road seemed easy for the first mile. Perrin’s horse followed the animal ahead of it. The pace remained slow enough that he could keep his seat by gripping too tightly with both legs.
Then the column left the road.
Sylwen led them down a sloping trail between pines. Roots crossed the ground. Low branches forced the riders to lean. The wounded traveled on two long frames carried between paired horses, which meant the entire group had to leave enough room for the wider teams.
Perrin discovered that watching the path directly beneath his horse was a mistake. By the time he saw an obstacle, the animal had already chosen how to cross it. His attempts to correct every step only confused both of them.
The party’s scout adapted first. She loosened her grip, looked farther ahead, and let her mount pick a line through the trees. Their healer learned to match the mare’s movement because she spent more time watching the wounded than worrying about herself.
The mage bounced painfully against his saddle until Sylwen told him that magic could not replace having knees.
The shield bearer’s first improvement came when he stopped treating the horse like a mobile wall.
Perrin was still arguing with his gelding when the creatures found them.
A Dawnhoof rider raised one hand. The column stopped beneath the trees.
Small shadows passed across the ground. They moved too quickly to belong to the clouds.
The first creature dropped through the branches and struck at one of the packhorses. It resembled a lean hunting bird until it spread four limbs beneath its wings. Bronze scales covered its chest and flashed around its eyes.
"Razorwings." Sylwen called. "Keep moving. They want the animals separated. At that point they will pick you off one by one."
The patrol did not form a stationary circle. Half the riders moved around the prisoners while the others maintained the trail. Elven bows forced the creatures above the branches, but more followed through the canopy.
Perrin drew his sword and nearly fell.
His gelding changed direction when his weight shifted. The blade passed beneath a creature without touching it. Perrin caught the saddle with one hand while the horse continued along the trail.
Their scout fared better because she did not try to swing from horseback. She called where the Razorwings approached and let the elves fire. The mage shaped short barriers between trees, forcing low attackers to climb over them. The healer stayed with the wounded instead of chasing every injured mount.
Their shield bearer took the first direct hit.
A Razorwing struck his horse’s barding, leaving a glowing crack across it. The animal did not bleed. It shuddered beneath him, and a small status display appeared.
[Dawnhoof mount stability: 61%]
These were dungeon mounts rather than permanent animals. Enough damage would dismiss one for the rest of the attempt, leaving its rider on foot.
The shield bearer moved closer to the center of the column and used his shield above the horse’s neck. He stopped two more attacks without losing his seat.
The party contributed little damage during the encounter.
When the final Razorwing disappeared above the trees, Sylwen did not congratulate them.
"You held weapons while mounted." She said. "Next time, try using them."
The forest became quieter after midday. A pale mist collected between the trees even though sunlight still touched the upper branches. Perrin recognized the way distances changed before anyone warned him.
"Fey grounds." He said.
Sylwen nodded. "A crossing, not a realm. Stay on the trail and do not follow anyone who offers a shorter path."
A tiny blue figure in a patched green coat appeared on a branch beside Perrin.
It held a wedge of cheese.
Perrin stared at it. The creature grinned and vanished into the mist.
His healer laughed so hard she almost slid from her saddle.
The fey crossing turned an afternoon’s travel into less than an hour. The patrol passed streams that flowed uphill, trees with doors too small for any of them, and a clearing where a formal dinner waited beneath hanging lights. Nobody left the trail.
The Moonlit Glade’s quickling appeared three more times with Perrin’s stolen cheese.
It never offered directions.
They emerged from the mist into open hills beneath a different sun. The forest stood behind them, but the mountains ahead were much closer than they should have been.
The Shattered Watch occupied a ridge in the distance. Part of its stone tower had collapsed. Smoke rose beyond it from a valley hidden between two lines of peaks.
Sylwen increased the pace.
"We must cross the low hills before dark."
The road through the hills carried old wagon ruts and newer claw marks. Perrin saw the first print beside a broken marker stone. It was too large for a Razorwing and deep enough to suggest something heavy had landed there.
They never discovered what made it.
Scaled raiders struck the column first.
The attackers rode narrow, two-legged creatures that ran with their bodies low to the ground. Scarves covered the raiders’ faces, but dull scales showed around their wrists and eyes. They did not try to hold the road. They raced beside the Dawnhoof formation, cut at reins, and threw hooked lines toward the frames carrying wounded elves.
Perrin’s party understood the objective too late.
Their scout warned them about the riders on the left. Perrin turned toward her call, leaving space on the right. Two raiders entered the gap and pulled one carrying frame sideways.
The healer caught the wounded elf before he fell. Her mare slowed.
The entire center of the column compressed around her.
Razorwings descended at the same time.
The attackers had not appeared in separate encounters. They were parts of one ambush.
Sylwen’s patrol fought to open the road, but Perrin’s party lost the formation they were supposed to protect. The mage’s horse disappeared in a burst of pale light after a second hit. Perrin turned back for him and allowed a hooked line to catch his own saddle.
He struck the ground hard enough to lose his sword.
The last thing he saw was the patient gelding running without him as scaled riders divided the prisoners into smaller groups.
Once the column broke apart, the remaining fight ended quickly. Perrin’s companions died in separate pockets along the road, unable to reach one another before the raiders and Razorwings closed around them.
Perrin awoke in the Sanctuary hospital.
His healer sat up in the next bed and pressed both hands over her face.
"You followed the line." she said.
"I noticed."
"You chased the person pulling you off the horse."
"Yesh... maybe not a great idea."
The attempt record showed that they had reached the final third of the route. It also showed twelve different moments when one rider’s mistake forced another part of the column to slow.
The shield bearer had protected everyone near him and still opened the largest gap when he turned across the road. The mage lost his mount because he watched the attackers instead of the animal beneath him. Perrin followed the hooked line. Their scout called the first half of the ambush correctly but had no signal that told the group to ignore a threat. The healer remained with the wounded and became isolated because everyone assumed someone else would stay beside him.
None of the mistakes required better weapons.
They had entered because Perrin found a secret. They had died because they weren’t skilled enough.
Across the Sanctuary, a new set of gates opened beside the western fields.
Max had designed the attraction weeks earlier. He had linked its deployment to the first entry into The Elven Road, just as the Skyyard had appeared when adventurers first entered the dwarven version of Level Three.
Now that Perrin’s party had triggered the condition, Max approved the final command.
[Dawnhoof Riding Grounds deployed.]
The unexplained countdown stood at twenty days.
Max looked past it and toward the new trails forming across the Sanctuary. Perrin’s second attempt would not begin with a five-minute riding lesson. If he wanted to actually succeed he would have to learn to ride properly.