They were able to steal a few horses and they rode to the Northern edge of the city before making their way up the rocky road and turning off towards the dragons.

"Sorin!" Sephira called as she dismounted and looked up to him. "I think you should stay with the dragons." He frowned like she expected and glanced at Craven and Rauka before looking back. "You don't look or sound like an orc and fight too much like an elf. I think you'll give me away."

"Yeah, she's right." Malina agreed.

"You don't fight like an orc either!" He accused Sephira. She raised her eyebrow.

"You can trade places with me." She offered slyly.

"Can't I pose as half human, half orc as well?" he asked lamely.

"How many human-orc hybrids do you know?" Sephira asked Craven and Rauka.

"Sephira will have an easier time against Azaesel since she's female. He probably wouldn't be interested in having another male that looks too similar to him." Craven guessed.

Sorin took a deep breath because he knew they were right.

"I can link with you at greater distances than I can send images to Caius." Sephira continued. "The dragons need to keep as far away as possible so they aren't noticed."

"How far?" Leuthil wondered.

"Two leagues?" Sephira guessed, making Leuthil's mouth drop open.

"You can contact each other that far away?" He asked.

"I'd be able to signal you and maybe you could come closer for me to be able to send more information or get images to Caius?" Sephira guessed. She could tell Sorin was nervous about that distance and he knew she could get hurt if they were a few lengths too far apart. He knew she was willing to take the risk, but he knew he'd end up staying closer than she'd like.

"You're right, but I don't like it." Sorin growled, getting down from the horse reluctantly.

*

They made their way down the path as the dragons took off to the west and took a longer, less travelled route to Thule. It would take about a week to get to Thule on horseback and Leuthil planned on having Isis contact Sephira twice a day to check in so they could make sure they were staying within range.

It was the second day, when they came across an encampment of about one Centri. Sephira and the orcs tied their horses and then hid to spy on the Nimbi. They moved around normally, eating, making fires, and gathering firewood like any normal army. Most of them were human, but there were a lot of orcs as well. Sephira guessed a mix of turned and non-turned Nimbi and she eyed a few orcs that were near the edge of the large group of about 100 soldiers.

"We should wait until nightfall to grab them and just watch to see how they act." Craven suggested.

"Yeah, that sounds good." Rauka agreed.

They spent the day observing interactions between Nimbi and turned Nimbi. It seemed, the turned Nimbi were able to speak normally, but only to answer questions from their non-turned cohorts or commanding officers, who they noticed were all Lightning Territory subjects and not stolen soldiers. Sephira started ruminating on where she should say she's from if they ask. She had only been on the outskirts of Lightning territory before the war and she decided she knew the villages near orc territory and chose one she stayed in on a mission to the Southern 'Spirit' forest, South of the Hessian desert.

The turned Nimbi ate and drank what the regular Nimbi and the Officers ate, but ate quietly and with their eyes blank while the others would laugh and joke and fight while they ate and drank like regular soldiers. Often, the turned Nimbi would be laughed at or punished for no reason. They seemed unable to defend themselves or protest against their unturned Nimbi peers or officers. Rarely, the Officers would stop the unturned Nimbi from molesting the turned Nimbi. Other than the turned Nimbi's need to eat and drink, they did not sleep as long and had no other needs but those. They didn't seem to favor any particular group to be with and did not segregate themselves from their unturned Nimbi tormentors as if they were unaware of the difference between them and the Lightning Kingdom subjects. The staining around their mouths seemed to fade on some of them, but still remained even as they ate and drank. Sephira and Sorin decided to use their black paint to paint Craven and Rauka's faces. Sorin was hesitant to give Rauka his pouch of paint powder, but he knew it was for the best. Sephira looked up to Craven's serious face as she marred it with the black paint. She was frowning as she looked up to meet his golden eyes and wondered if the gold was too obvious since it wasn't the fluorescent yellow of the other turned Nimbi.

"We can do this. We'll just have to stay away from the others." Craven told her in a low voice when her soft touch left his face and he saw the worry in her eyes. She took a deep breath and he pulled her into a warm hug.

"Do you think they'd heed your order if you just told them to walk West and be quiet?" Rauka asked Sephira as they gathered preparing to capture one of the turned orcs.

"If he doesn't, I could be caught. Maybe it's better if Sorin silences them and one of us knocks him out?"

"But if he's knocked out, we won't be able to question him." Craven pointed out.

"We have six more days to Thule. That should be enough time to question him. We'll have them take him with the dragons far away from the road." Sephira said. Both orcs agreed and Sephira reached out to Sorin and he came faster than she expected in the Nimbi garb. The others stayed away, but Sephira sent Caius an image of them going toward the large Nimbi camp in their Nimbian armor. Caius sent the image to Isis and Sephira focused her eyes on her companions as they moved through the dark towards one of the turned Nimbi orcs on watch. She saw Sorin weave his sign and the turned Nimbi seemed confused as he started looking around and didn't see the well concealed abductors. Craven and Rauka emerged together on either side of him and Craven choked him silently until he went limp. Sorin followed them back to Sephira and they all breathed a sigh of victory before binding the abductee and getting his heavy body onto Oryx and sending him back to the Undine and Naiads.

"That was quick!" Dawn exclaimed when Sorin returned with a well-bound unconscious orc not sixty minutes after he left with Oryx. They struggled to get the heavy orc down.

"God, is this how much Craven weighs?" Malina crowed, as she helped Demitro and Leuthil attempt to catch the solid body that Dawn and Sorin shoved off of Oryx.

"Probably." Leuthil said in a strained voice as he heaved the orc over to the fire so they could take a better look at him. Sorin noticed Caius looking on with interest and realized Sephira had entranced with him to see that they got the orc back without trouble.

*

"Hey, how do you do that?" Craven asked, when Sephira's eyes returned to normal and she informed them that Sorin had gotten back to the others with no problem.

"You have to find your dragon's mind and let your consciousness leave your body." Sephira explained, looking to both Rauka and Craven. Craven's eyebrows furrowed as he thought, but decided he'd never be able to do what the elves could do. "Think about how you summon Crow to you and instead of sending him to you, send your mind to him." Sephira urged Craven.

"It's no use. Orcs aren't psychic like elves." Rauka commented, making Sephira turn her eyes on the female orc, intimidatingly.

"Were orcs not elves once?" Sephira asked, with a charming voice that Rauka had not expected.

"Our Magick was lost when we were bred for size and strength rather than psychic abilities." Rauka answered, stubbornly.

"Then, how do you explain Craven being able to fly Crow without reigns?" Sephira challenged.

"Maybe he's just a mutant." Rauka argued.

"I think you're all capable of developing this ability." Sephira insisted. Craven had been concentrating and then he frowned.

"Gorram it, I've called the stupid beast here." Craven growled, making the others laugh.

*

Sephira tranced with Caius in the morning to see that the naiads had begun trying to question the orc Nimbi who remained silent despite Sorin ending his silencing spell on the creature. Sephira watched from the high vantage point of Caius' eyes and she saw Sorin look up at the dragon as he felt her presence.

"Perhaps, something has been summoned into his body." Sorin spoke up as Malina slapped the blank-faced orc who seemed unaffected as he turned his head to face forward.

"What do you mean?" Dawn asked in surprise.

"Like a demon?" Leuthil asked.

"Like an entity." Sorin shrugged.

"What about if we tried to heal the body and mind?" Dawn suggested, looking to Malina and Demitro who both still looked agitated.

"With water?" Malina asked.

"Yes, if you bless the water?" Dawn speculated. Sephira wanted to point out that they should have him drink blessed water in order to heal him from the inside out and she wished she could speak through Caius or transport herself there to speak for herself.

"Sephira thinks he needs to drink the water to heal him from inside." Sorin spoke up to Sephira's relief.

"How do you know that?!" Leuthil asked, looking around for the dark elf. Sorin raised an eyebrow under his mask and pointed to Caius who rumbled Sephira's approval of her brother's ability to hear her.

"She's watching us through her dragon?!" Demitro and Malina asked with horror in their surprised expressions.

*

They spent hours preparing to perform a 'cleansing' on the Nimbi and Sephira had let Sorin know they were going to start heading North at their slow pace on horseback before she withdrew her mind from her dragon. Sorin let her know that they would move back into range by the next day after they tried to reverse the spell on the orc. They knew the dragons could make it to Thule within about four days, but the horses would take about a week or more if they were slower.

Craven and Rauka followed Sephira and they could see the impatience in her as she urged her horse into a fast canter rather than the usual slow trot most travelled at for long distances.

"Sephira, you're going to wear him out!" Craven argued, cantering up beside her. She huffed and slowed her horse down.

"This is torturously slow!" She complained.

"I agree! I haven't ridden a horse since I was a teenager." Rauka breathed, sounding just as frustrated about the slow pace.

"They can't go as fast as dragons and they become lame very easily especially on rocky soil like this." Craven informed them.

"I know... I have several horses." Sephira sighed waving a gloved hand.

"My horse is better fed and in better shape than these ones. They're skinny and small from living in the desert too long." Craven said, looking down at the small dun horse he rode with its raggedy black mane and skinny neck. His large black horse back home had a much thicker neck and long healthy shiny mane. He was from a high-ranking family so he often went with the King's Council on trips to other cities in orc Territory and he had been to Earth Kingdom Territory and Lightning Kingdom Territory as well. Many cities did not like dragons to come because they tended to eat their livestock without permission, so the leaders and Nobles would take horses to visit the people instead.

*

It took the naiads the entire day and into the night before they were ready to perform a cleansing and Malina was worried without their third coven member, Nileh, the spell would not be successful. The brown-faced orc had piercings along his nose and his ears were severely pointed. Sorin guessed that he had his ears cropped when he was young, a practice that Sorin knew was to make them better soldiers to make them more frightening to foe. Some of the more handsome orc families didn't need their ears cropped and were born with well-pointed ears like Craven and others often practiced cropping to emulate the better bred families. Rauka, Sorin noticed did not have her ears cropped, but they were slightly longer and straighter than Craven's more elf-like gently curved, sharply pointed ears. Often, only the male orcs destined to become warriors would have their ears cropped as boys and usually their mothers did it to increase their chances of being chosen to become Valkyri, the dragon riders of the Fire Clan's famous Red Army.

"Here we go..." Malina said, carrying a basin of water that she and Demitro had bent over to bless for the majority of the day. She already felt like her magick was low and she knew it was likely that she and Demitro would have to bless more water and repeat the process if the spell the Grey Council had put on the orc was too strong.

"How are you going to get him to drink it?" Dawn asked as Malina approached the orc. Before Malina could answer, Demitro grasped the orc's head and pulled it back while he tried to open his mouth. Sorin jumped in as the orc started fighting and was able to practically throw Demitro off. Malina poured the water onto the orc, aiming for his mouth which took Sorin and Demitro all their strength to hold open and keep the muscular soldier still. The clear stream of water splashed everywhere as the orc spluttered and squirmed in their grasp. The Undine shrunk back, neither wanting to witness the innocent orc's drowning torture. When all the water had been poured out of the wooden basin, the orc's eyes were wide as if there was an internal struggle inside him. He suddenly vomited what looked like his black orc blood making Malina and Dawn gag at the sight.

"Ughh!" Demitro exclaimed in disgust as he practically leaped away from the orc. Sorin was the one brave enough to pull the orc's face up and look into his still yellow eyes.

"Who are you?" Sorin demanded, his hand holding the orc by his hair.

"Jaerek." The orc croaked with his eyes wide at the sight of the black-clad Duvendis. "Where am I?" he asked in shock as Sorin let go of his head and stood back.

"We're on the outskirt of Lightning Kingdom Territory." Leuthil told him as Jaerek's eyes went around to each of their faces and he looked confused and shocked at the races that surrounded him.

"Elves and Naiads?" he muttered with his lip curled up and his eyebrows furrowed over his still wide eyes.

"What do you remember, orc?" Sorin said with his voices startling the orc into looking into his eyes.

"I...I remember... fighting the Nimbi outside of Elysium..." He answered with difficulty.

"You're from Elysium?" Dawn asked.

"No, I was stationed there in a unit of Ohrn riders to kill the Nimbi trying to invade the Elysian fields." He explained.

"What's an Ohrn?" Malina asked.

"It's a large canine about the size of a horse." Jaerek answered the naiad.

*

They fed Jaerek, but when he went to sleep, he started having hallucinations and strange nightmares. When he woke screaming, they knew something was wrong. Dawn and Leuthil exchanged nervous glances, before they decided to continue to fly around to get closer to Sephira and the orcs. Sorin was uncomfortable with the distance and worried his sister would reach out and hurt herself when she found they were more than two leagues away. Sorin and the others were relieved when the orc elected to ride one of the orc dragons and Crow was agreeable and let the orc ride him. Crow's red eye seemed to study Jaerek as he watched him climb to Craven's saddle.

Sorin reached out to Sephira towards the end of the second day after they had performed the spell to let Sephira know they had cleansed the orc and his name was Jaerek, but he wasn't doing well enough to be able to join them. The naiads guessed they'd have to try to perform the spell again when Jaerek began to act unwell. He had been the most lucid right after they had performed the cleansing and was starting to seem unable to figure out reality.

"Leave me alone! What do you want?" Jaerek yelled as Dawn approached him after he had fallen off Crow during their descent and Crow had caught him in his talons. Crow squawked uncomfortably as Jaerek fell back into him as he stumbled away from Dawn.

"It's alright! We're not going to harm you!" she told him in alarm.

"We should try to cleanse him again." Malina said darkly as Sorin knocked him out before he could try to run from them into the woods.

"Yeah." Dawn agreed, still sounding disturbed.

*

They cleansed the orc two more times and the same thing happened as before where it worked for a few hours and then he began to hallucinate and become agitated randomly. When Dawn woke up on the fourth day since they had began questioning the orc, she cried out when she found him hanging from a tree.

"What's wrong?" Sorin asked, when he was by her side the quickest. She spun from the sight of the body and Sorin found himself with his arms around her as she hid her face in his chest with her hand covering her mouth and tears leaking from her eyes.

Demitro and Sorin had taken the body down and Oryx dug a hole where they buried him. Dawn had recovered from the shock, but she was worried that this news meant Craven and Rauka would be in more danger than they thought if they were discovered. She wasn't as worried about Sephira because she guessed she wouldn't be as easily cursed as the two orcs.

*

They were about a day's journey from Thule and the road had become more and more crowded with Nimbi. Sephira trotted along ahead of Craven and Rauka quietly on her very obedient bay and she had been worried about how long it was taking the others to send the orc back to them. When Sorin contacted her, he sent an image of the body hanging and Sephira gasped.

"What's wrong?" Craven asked, riding up beside her.

"The orc killed himself." She answered, appalled.

"He what?" Craven gasped.

"Sorin thinks the naiads' spell wasn't enough to uncurse him. His mind was still cursed." She explained, before falling silent as they came upon a large group of soldiers.

"Where are you headed with so few troops?" An Officer called to her as Sephira tried to guide Rauka and Craven around the slower soldiers marching in rows behind three mounted Officers.

When Sephira's eyes met the Officer who spoke, he seemed to lean towards her as if he needed a closer look to figure out if he was seeing correctly.

"Are we not on the road to Thule?" Sephira questioned the Officer in sarcasm.

"Where is your Centri?" one of the other Officers by his side asked in a more polite tone.

"The former Officer's Centri was attacked and killed, we three alone survived and he granted me his rank after he fell on the battlefield. I've been granted a post on the training grounds at the Capital." Sephira answered smoothly. She didn't wait for an answer and figured since they were all technically the same rank, she wouldn't need to report to them anyway. Instead she pushed her horse straight into a canter with Craven and Rauka following her lead as they left the three Centri's in the dust.