The forest was thicker than Nao-Zai expected, making the entire atmosphere darker than it should be. Leaves blocked the view of the sky, giving him no chance to tell the sun's position. That way, he had no idea if he was walking for an hour or for five.

His feet started throbbing inside his boots but he couldn't afford to stop to rest. For all he knew, Kai-Se was already being feasted upon by those filthy gods. Sure, the prince was the embodiment of chaos and they didn't exactly go off on the right foot, but Nao-Zai couldn't bring himself to say the prince deserved what happened to him. Far from it.

Kai-Se was a good person and Nao-Zai regretted he was only seeing it now.

Dark trunks of a tree he didn't know the name of flanked his every direction, their bright orange and leaves dancing with each and every passing breeze. Every once in a while, he saw critters scamper through the branches and munch on a bark, a nut, or an insect. Each time, what he saw didn't quite make sense with the creatures being nothing like anything he knew from Xuijae.

There was a squirrel-like thing but instead of a bushy tail, it was decorated with a beautiful fan of feathers. Another was an owl but instead of natural colors like brown or white, it sported blue and green feathers. On some occasions, Nao-Zai passed by deer-like animals but instead of antlers made from ivory, they had sharpened horns glistening like gold. A sickening feeling erupted in his gut when the notion that maybe those horns were the ones decorating the roofs of the palaces in Dansarun entered his mind.

Nope. He's not going there.

A few more hours of walking and he didn't know where he was. Had he passed by that lone tree with an off-white trunk and black leaves? Why was he passing that colony of rat-like birds hanging from their tails from a branch again?

The next step he took, something crunched against his soles. Oh. The world rushed away from him, his body going weightless. By instinct, his hands went to the hilt of his sword but before he could draw it, thick ropes slapped against his cheeks.

When he got his bearings back, his head was dangling a few feet from the ground and his entire body enclosed in a net which closed around him like the petals of an unbloomed lily. He cursed, squirming his arms to regain control of his situation. Who sets a trap in the woods? Shencai hunters looking for some human meat? Dansarun gods looking for escaped criminals? Oh, the possibilities are endless.

Like a fool Nao-Zai attempted to maneuver around the net just so he could be upright again. He wouldn't want his head to splatter against the lonely forest floor should he decide to cut the rope. He got about halfway through, with his neck craned so dangerously close to breaking, when he heard snorts, hoots, and thundering hooves. That couldn't be good.

The bushes and leaves rustled, scaring a flock of red-feathered birds into scattering into the sky, and out stepped a creature Nao-Zai had to figure out for the next three seconds. It was...a boar but its body belonged to a bull complete with the fur and the muscles. Its legs resembled a wolf's and the creature was standing on two legs with two bulging arms crossed against its hairy chest. Tusks which could impale Nao-Zai to the moon and back glinted against the meager sunlight streaming past the canopy. Slitted eyes glowed yellow. In short, the creature didn't make sense.

Metal creaked against metal as more hooves and, ultimately, more creatures with the same manner of mismatched animal features, stepped out of the foliage and surrounded Nao-Zai's frame hanging from a random branch with all the kinds of frowny faces he hadn't counted seeing on an animalistic face. He must have eaten something bad in Urkaze and this was his brain playing cruel jokes on him.

When the boar-creature-thing stepped closer to Nao-Zai's net, the smell of rotten fish combined with the musk of wet fur hit him square in the face. Dear spirits. He couldn't be dreaming.

"What are you doing in our territory?" the boar-creature-thing asked, his breath reminding Nao-Zai so much of the fermented shrimp paste his uncle used to dip all his fishcakes into back in the fortress. "Humans belong in Xuijae."

Nao-Zai nodded. "Yeah, about that," he said, keeping his fingers busy in trying to unsheath one of the extra knives he had slotted into his belt. "I was just passing by on my way to Urkaze. You folks wouldn't happen to know the way from here, would you?"

A wave of bristles passed through the crowd of creatures. The boar-creature-thing got into Nao-Zai's face, its tusks almost brushing his arms. "Are you part of the Xuijae traitors looking to make Dansarun stronger with trade relations?"

He knitted his eyebrows. A what, now? "I'm not part of anything," he said, succeeding in getting a knife partially out of its sheath. "I'm just trying to get my friend out. He's framed the worst way possible. I happened to pass a crowd of Xuijae soldiers fleeing the palace and stole the armor they discarded. I went on my way and now, I'm here."

The boar-creature-thing's eyes narrowed. Its snout twitched as if sniffing for something. Lies, maybe? "What is your friend framed for?" It scratched what's supposed to be its chin. Now that Nao-Zai was paying attention, he noticed it wore some sort of armor complete with mismatched greaves and a dented breastplate. In fact, the whole crowd seemed to be wearing it like a uniform.

"He's a piper," Nao-Zai replied, flexing his fingers to get the knife's point against any part of the net. If someone saw what he was really doing, then it's all over. "You know—one of those people going around telling stories and flitting from one place to another like a piper...bird thing which you probably don't see around here very often...?"

He shook his head. "But anyway," he said when he saw a few gaze getting unfocused. "We came in from Xuijae to earn our living telling stories and somehow, the gods saw this as helping found a rebellion of some sort and detained my friend. I was lucky to get out after one of our, ah...friend got me out. But, you know, I could never leave him behind. He's the better piper."

A few nods appeared among the crowd. Good. He's gained sympathy. The boar-creature-thing didn't react. "So, it would be really nice if you can get me to Urkaze instead of ah...possibly eating me here?" Nao-Zai said, hoping the grin he gave wasn't a desperate grimace.

The boar-creature-thing jerked its chin somewhere behind Nao-Zai. Before he could ask what's going on, the rope holding the net up snapped. His face zoomed towards the ground before being stopped. His fingers desperately found the sheath and stuck the blade inside. Soon, the rough strands pressed against his cheek loosened and his feet found solid ground again.

He tried not to look too relieved as he dusted his armor off. "Thank you for getting me off that," he craned his neck towards the branch he used to hang from. "How can I repay you?"

"You can start by providing crucial information about the gods and Urkaze's security. You seem to know a lot about it if you spent considerable time inside the Imperial City," the boar-creature-thing said, crossing his arms against his chest once more. "We'll talk on the way but, for now, let's get off the road. We can't stay out in the open for too long."

Nao-Zai trotted after the boar-creature-thing as it turned and the whole crowd began disappearing back to where they came from. "Where would we go?"

It looked back and he could swear it just smiled. "Underground."