Royal guard first class, Shelby Finch, had unwittingly woken up to the last day of his life. Three days had passed with him watching the terrain with the utmost suspicion and after crossing from his home, Greater Tzaneen across, Lukhanji, Mogale Central, Emadlageni and now the Neidaburg cliffs, an incredible mix of greenery, hard barren land and savannah between with mixes of hazardous of towering rises and pits. They were close to a particularly nasty outgrowth, which had, over time, started to crumble and break away. Ghosts of a river leaving patches of jagged rock. Some a meter high, others blotted out the sun. The took half the day to escape.
To his frustration there were bigger ones ahead.
He looked up and saw two birds in the sky. This wasn't important, they were just birds.
'The only difference' rang a thought. 'I should not be able to see them.'
His mind wasn't allowed to linger as the carriage came to a slow stop. The group spread drawing a parameter approximately fifty meters wide. An hour passed before they moved again. A full day passed, they crossed toward the end of the cliff before coming up on an expanse of green, behind it, dense forest.
The commander didn't like it. The road was thin, the shrubbery thick, it looked like a solid wall. It formed a bull's horn right before the forest. Finch stopped the carriage and looked for his superior.
"Sir" he began.
His superior, with angry eyes turned to him.
"Why would we stop?" He said cutting him off.
"I don't like this sir. I think we should go around the forest." He immediately regretted his choice of words.
His commander bristled; Finch could see his shoulders bunching up. It was impressive.
"You don't like the forest Finch? You don't like the forest!" His commander yelled and gestured for the caravan to move. The commander held the bars and watched Finch jog after.
"You misunderstand" Finch began.
But his commander was the type who didn't let go of a thought until it was completely out, he was good at sarcasm and unnaturally slow at detecting it yet still prided himself on it. He was determined to get it out.
"You want your phobia of trees to slow us down? Well I guess that's fine Finch. I'm sure the King Mbizana and the peace treaty will be just fine waiting a few extra days so you can avoid spiders, eh? Finch?"
There was an argument in Finch's heart, he wanted nothing more than to fight, half of what was said was pointless and worthy of complaint but there was no one to complain to. Finch looked to the ground and saw they'd already passed into the green. He called the commander one more time.
"I think entering the forest is dangerous, at the very least allow me and two front runners to please, please have time to act as scouts. You could take an early break then a slow start, give the front runners time to-"
He slowed, mostly because he was looking up at the sky yet again. There were three birds circling, which shouldn't have mattered, every soldier knew vultures and ravens weren't good omens but that didn't mean instant death. Though, once again, they shouldn't have been able to see them at all.
"Finch, here's what we'll do, just to ease your paranoia, we'll stop on the grasslands but speed it up before we take a break. Allow us to keep time, maybe move ahead of schedule with the early pause."
"Fine" Finch said absently.
He pulled himself up and stared at the three, after a while he drew his commander's attention. The commander did an awkward shrug, considering how he was holding the carriage.
"What? You see vultures flying high up often, especially in these parts. But," The commander trailed off, it wasn't just Finch.
"They're pretty high up, aren't they?" Finch said still jogging behind the carriage, he jumped up and held on tight after the commander made space.
"Yes but"
"But we shouldn't see them from that high. It's impossible unless they're absolutely massive, also against the light of the sun they look almost as if they're gleaming."
THUD!
Finch stopped talking.