Valley of Battle

Gora:

"Ugh.." I groaned as the morning sun woke me. (Go away, you damn sun!) I thought, covering my eyes. I tried hard to go back to sleep but had no such luck. Frons was busy wrapped around me like a snake preparing to crush its meal. I decided I'd let her sleep a little longer. She and Canis had been pushing themselves hard lately. Every night they would train until they could hardly move. At first, I objected to this. I needed them at the top of their game if we ran into any beast. However, we had been scaling the mounting for a week now, and there was no sign of any beast. The mountain seemed bare and empty. I hadn't even seen a bug. Something was off, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

(It's hard to believe this massive mountain is so empty.) I thought as I looked towards Frons. Although I wanted to sleep alone, I would always wake up to Frons in my bed. The woman would sneak in while I slept. I scolded the guardian at first but soon released that it was no use. I did convince her to at least wear clothes to bed. I had to admit that waking up to a beautiful woman every morning was pleasant.

"Master! master!" Canis shouted as he ran towards us. The man looked concerned as he raced to us. Frons started to wake and uncoil herself off of me. I sat up and waited for Canis to catch his breath. Frons wrapped her arms around me from behind and rested her head on my shoulder. I could feel her breast pressing against my back, and it took everything in me not to focus on them. Thankfully Canis began to speak.

"Master, the scouts have found something strange. They say it was alive." Canis explained. His words got my full attention. (Maybe they found my mother's people.) I wondered as I began to stand. This got a groan from the half-sleeping Frons.

"Was it a human?" I asked with a bit of hope in my voice. In a week, we had managed to make it pretty far up the mountain. Without any beast to give us any resistance, the journey had been uneventful.

"I don't think so. The scouts said it was something they hadn't seen before. It was neither human nor beast but a mixture of both." Canis said, looking confused. I was also a little confused. The hound then described the creature to me. It was humanoid with ears as sharp as daggers and eyes as black as night. The strange creature was the size of a toddler with ashen grey skin.

"Hmmm. It could be a goblin or imp. But I doubt any of them would be up here. Also, I've never seen an Imp or Goblin with grey skin." I said, deep in thought. I racked my brain, trying to come up with an explanation.

"There's only one way to figure out who or what this creature is. Canis, Frons, gather the troops we will move out soon." I announced as I began to stretch. We needed to move anyways. I estimated that it would take a month to reach the mountain's peak. I didn't like this mountain. Everything about it seemed eerie. I wanted to be done with this journey as quickly as possible.

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"The troops are ready, your majesty. They're all waiting for your word. Frons announced. The group of 50 old beasts began to move out through the mountain with my word. We would rendezvous with the scouts before going further.

The snow crunched beneath my feet as I walked. The icy wind bit at my face and hands. (I wish I had better winter attire.) I thought as our group marched on. My coak caught the worst of the cold, but it still wasn't enough. I wished I was more adaptable, like the beast that followed me. They had fur to protect them from the chill.

"Your majesty, the scouts are just up ahead." Canis said. I commanded the group to stop while my two guardians and I moved forward. A layer-four wolf raced towards us when we were a few feet away from the troops. The wolf was one of Canis's men. They began to talk in the beast's tongue. ( I wish I could speak their language.) I thought as I listened to the two growls at each other. All of my followers were beasts, and most of them were under layer five, meaning they couldn't speak. If I knew the beast tongue, I could talk to them all and wouldn't need translators.

"Master, the scout says that the creature left a few moments ago. The boys have its scent, though, so we can give chase if you want." The hound explained. I shook my head no as I noticed blood in the distance. I walked past the group to investigate finding a corpse. It was the half-eating carcass of a bear's cub.

"Did one of your wolves do this?" Frons exclaimed from behind me. Judging by the tiny bite marks on the corpse, I surmised that it wasn't any of my troops.

"No, my troops wouldn't do this! It was the creatures doing." Canis retorted. I didn't say anything, only looked over the dead cub. It was a shame the bear was no older than Leafy. The cub would have grown into a powerful beast. I took my eyes off the dead animal and onto the tiny footprints in the snow. Whatever the creature was, it was had to be relatively small to leave these size footprints.

"What are you thinking, Master?" Frons asked. I sighed before standing up.

"We keep moving. The creature isn't something I want to deal with. I also don't want to be heard when momma bear finds her cub." I said as I looked on. A few miles away was a narrow valley. We would need to pass it if we were to continue forward. Something didn't feel right about the pass. It was too quiet, like the rest of this forsaken mountain. I didn't feel comfortable sending my group through such a narrow pass.

The problem was, we couldn't go around it. Most of my followers had four legs and wouldn't do the climb around the valley. ( It screams ambush.) I thought as I tried to think of a way around it. I needed to be quick. I didn't want to wait to see if a mama bear was looking for her cub. Judging by the size of the dead bear in front of me, I figured its mother would be rather big. I was sure the mother bear was at least a layer seven, if not higher. We needed to get as far away from the body as possible.

"Canis take half of the troops and lead them threw the pass. Frons and I will take up the rear." I ordered both my guardians to begin to move.

"Canis, if anything happens, I want you to run as fast as possible. You got me? We don't want to get trapped in the valley." I shouted to the running beast. The hounded nodded his head, but I could tell he had some reservations about my orders.

It didn't take much time to organize the group. Canis and his group were headed through the pass in minutes while the remaining troops stayed with me. My plan was to start marching as soon as Canis's group reached the middle of the valley this way, I could limit the casualties if there was an ambush waiting for us. I hope I was being paranoid, but I still couldn't shake the uneasy feeling I had.

"Master, are you alright?" Frons said, placing her hand on my shoulder. I hadn't even realized how tense I was until she touched me. I simply nodded as I looked on. I watched as Canis and his men moved quickly through the valley. When his group reached the halfway mark, I gave the signal for my team to move out.

We marched on through the snow. I kept my eyes up the whole time, searching for any signs of an ambush. The pass was so narrow that we could only walk three beasts side by side. Still, we were making good time Canis was almost at the end, and I was reaching the halfway point. (Maybe it was just my nerves.) I thought as I continued to walk.

Grrr.

An awful sound resounded through the valley, causing me and the group to stop. I looked ahead to see Canis and his group had also halted. I looked around franticly, trying to determine where the voice had come from. I saw nothing, however. The gurgling noise stopped, and the valley was silent once again.

Whoosh!

I move back just in time to see a spear pass by me. I examined the projectile noticing it was made out of pure ice. I looked up to see tiny dots appear at the valley's top.

"Ambush! Run!" I shouted. My followers all pushed, forward-moving as fast as they could in the narrow passageway as ice spears rained down. A few of my men were hit, but the rest kept moving. ( Damn It!) I thought as I erected a barrier made of the void.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Spear after spear hit my barrier. It took a massive amount of mana to cover my men. Luckily the creatures throwing the projectiles weren't powerful, so I didn't receive much backlash. Still, the sheer quantity of the spears was a problem. I looked behind me to see a sea of black beings headed our way. (So many!) Was my first thought upon gazing at the hideous creatures. They were precisely how Canis described them. Tiny grey things with sharp teeth and claws. The strange critters rushed at us with toothy grins and ice weapons.

"Frons, gather a few men and protect our rear!" The guardian nodded and set off to do as she was ordered. But she suddenly stopped to look towards Canis. I looked his way to see that another group of the tiny grey beings set upon him. (There are hundreds of them!) I thought as I stared in the direction of Canis. Behind the grey creatures stood a tall man. He resembles the tiny attackers with his dark skin and pointy ears. But that's where the resemblance ended. This newcomer was taller than Canis and wore dark grey armor.

"He must be their leader. I have to stop him," I said as I struggled to keep the barrier up. The enemy almost reached our rear, and a few had broken away from our troops at the front. The man ahead of us was a layer six, so I was worried about the Canis.

"Master, trust Canis. He has been training hard, and trust me to protect your back." Frons said, grabbing my shoulders. I nodded my head before focusing more on my barrier. Lucky for me, most of the ice spear missed us altogether. The tiny creatures weren't good at aiming.

"Frons, you better not die! You hear me!" I demanded. The woman smiled and gathered her gorillas. (Damn, I feel so helpless!) I thought as I kept my barrier going. If I stopped, most of my men would be impaled by the icy spears. Unfortunately, keeping my guard up was draining my Ki at an alarming rate. I would collapse if we didn't make it out of the valley soon. Then I would be no help to anyone. Our backline collided with the enemy, but I was helpless to do anything as the attacks from above continued.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!