The forest was too quiet.
Nathan noticed it first. No birds. No insects. Not even the wind moving the leaves. The only sound was the horses' hooves on the dirt path, and even that came out muffled under the thick trees overhead.
He raised a hand, and the group stopped.
"What is it?" the prince asked in a low voice.
"We're being watched."
Nathan activated his skill.
[Hunter's Insight]
The forest around him sharpened at once. Mana signatures lit up in the dark spaces between the trees, faint and pale, each one marking something that was alive and waiting.
He counted fourteen. Then two more, further back behind a fallen log.
They were surrounded on three sides.
"Ambush," he said.
And right then, the demons came.
They broke out of the shadows all at once. Twisted bodies, burning eyes, and claws long enough to tear straight through a soldier's breastplate.
