Captain Walter P. Henriksen stared into green twilight under the trees. Beyond the forest the day was just short of noon, but the bloody leaves were so dense, not a single ray of light found its way down to ground level. He flinched at a slapping sound behind him.

"I said, Keep it down, you morons", he growled.

"Sorry, Cap", Linchpin mumbled. "Goddam mosquito was eatin' me alive."

Mosquito. The creatures had about as much to do with a mosquito as the trees of this god-forsaken forest resembled any tree he had ever seen.

What did you expect on a continent that just appeared out of thin air in the middle of the Pacific? And that NSA's best spy satellites can't map.

He took a look at his GPS. No signal detected. Whatever killed any form of electromagnetic wave in this place was some serious shit. They couldn't even radio Base Camp.

You wanted to be Lewis and Clark. Now you know how they felt.

Only, he lacked the native guide. At least nobody had died on his expedition. Yet. It had been bloody close when that spider-thing bit Wilson.

"You tell that to whoever is lurking in those trees, before they blow your head off", he whispered.

Walt was sure someone was watching them. He could feel their gaze in the back of his head. But neither his men's eyes nor the best infrared imaging technology detected anything but a bunch of animals. Most of them unknown, of course. Then again, he didn't trust any technology very far out here. Above them a bird sang. The sounds of the animals unnerved him. He had served in just about every jungle on earth, from South America to Southeast Asia. But he sure as hell had never heard a bird like that.

At least most of the noise sounded like birds an monkeys and other animals he knew. Worse were the creatures that just shouldn't exist outside a really bad trip. Three days ago they had shot something that looked like the lovechild of a hyena and a some sort of lizard and made sounds like a rockslide killing an school of whales. There were even plants that tried to bite you. They were too small to seriously harm them but their poison was worse that the mosquitoes'.

He was not even sure what they were supposed to be looking for. Scouting, the colonel had told Walt and the leaders of a dozen other teams he had sent out a week ago. But what was the point? In this forest you'd overlook New York City if you passed it within half a mile.

"Greetings", a voice came from the trees in flawless English.

Every gun swiveled to where it seemed to have come from. Which meant six different directions for the six members of his team.

"Who are you?", Walter shouted back. "Come out here! Hands where I can see them!"

"With pleasure", the voice answered opposite from where it had first come from. It had a melodic quality that would make an opera singer pale with envy. "First, I will have to ask you to lower your arms, though."

"And why would we do that?", Henriksen replied.

A breath of air stirred right beside his face and when he turned, an arrow stuck in a tree behind him. An arrow! He lifted a hand, before his men fired at the shooter. He doubted that he had missed him by accident.

"Because I have three arrows pointed at each of you", the invisible speaker said, from yet another direction. "And please be assured that this armour you wear will not protect you."

Walt gestured and his men slowly lowered their guns.

"Alright. We didn't come here to attack you. We are explorers from the Outside."

Right in front of them a woman stepped out of the trees. She was short an slender, with hips like a ten-year-old boy and no boobs to speak of. Her face on the other hand was almost unnaturally beautiful. And she wore a bright red coat, richly embroidered in what looked like gold thread! How the hell could they not have seen her?

Others appeared under the trees all around them. Intricately carved bows pointed to the ground, but each one had an arrow nocked. Unlike the woman in red they all wore shining metal armor from head to toe, gilded and engraved in intricate floral patterns and long staves across their backs with slightly curved blades at both ends.

Not exactly the ideal weapons to fight in a forest. Then again, you don't usually wear a red coat to camouflage in a forest.

"I am glad to hear that", she said slowly. "My name is Nianrilvoris an Gerendonahan. We were sent to escort you to our camp."

The woman brushed long, silvery-blond hair behind an equally long, pointed ear.

"What the hell are you?", Henriksen asked incredulously.

She smiled. "When we still walked the earth, I believe your ancestors called us Elves."