In the middle of a damp, almost untouched forest stood a wooden barricade, built around a small man-made settlement. The haphazardly nailed wooden planks are splintered here and there, revealing spies lurking from within. Thin smoke billowed from a simple kitchen guarded by two people-a woman with a scar on her left cheek and a middle-aged man who kept wringing his shirt.
Behind the main hut, men with fierce faces stood tense and alert. They were dressed in shabby clothes, but the wooden weapons in their hands were well maintained. Every now and then, the sound of rustling dry leaves or breaking twigs made them turn their heads alertly, fingers ready to fight.
At the center of it all stood Maxel, the leader of the Levin group-a tall man, his shoulders broad as a stone wall, his skin a ha
