Chapter 42: Scouts and Spies
'Thinking'
"Talking"
[System]
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- Grey Wolf Queen Den -
- Arthur Pendragon -
After the battle demonstration the Queen, our guards, and I all made our way out of the throne room and into a smaller meeting room down the hall. The room had four sandstone pillars, two on either side of the wall, with shelves filled with books as well as an ornate carved wooden table in the middle of the room surrounded by brown comfortable chairs. The guards that had accompanied the Queen were Leon and a still wounded Mortas.
We took our seats so that we were sitting across the table from one another and for the next few minutes sat and stared at each other in silence. That was until I decided to break it.
"Look we got off on the wrong foot, I'd like to fix that but first you need to comply to some of my demands." I told her placatingly.
"What are these, 'demands?'" She asked.
"You and mostly the rest of your people will move and establish your land in Arkadia. Recently we were able to clear out a forty-acre plot of forest that I think would be perfect for you and your people. Also, I want a small group of your werewolves to escort a group of miners up here and protect them while they mine the mountain."
"I've already told you this is our ancestral mountain you can't just expect us to let you mine it for all it's worth!" she shouted, slamming her fist down onto the table.
"The miners will only mine the more valuable minerals that are not common anywhere else. They won't mine the entire mountain and if they do then your small skeleton guard that you will leave behind will put a stop to them."
"Well, how many should I leave behind?"
"How many of your people are there?" I asked.
"Including the few number of children, I would say roughly one-hundred and ninety-three werewolves live in this mountain."
"That's good, also if you wouldn't mind telling me, how many werewolves do the other wolf kings have?"
"Hmm... I would say that the black wolf kings have around three-hundred or so while the white wolf king had a little over one-hundred and fifty but I'm not so sure now." she said with a shrug of her shoulders.
"What do you mean, 'you're not so sure now?'" I asked.
"We haven't been able to communicate with the white wolf king for a while now and considering he resides in Ice Nation territory it's not impossible that he was wiped out by the vampires. Damn blood suckers." She said gritting her teeth.
"Alright then considering your numbers you should leave behind a small garrison of twenty-five or so. We need to make haste to Arkadia and win this war, so prepare your citizens and be ready to move out we'll leave early tomorrow morning." I said, rising from my seat.
"Wait where will you be sleeping?" Ghislaine asked nervously.
"I... Don't know, I wasn't told I had a place to sleep. Considering I was thrown into the crypts before I could be given one." I said as I made my way to the door.
"You could always sleep with me?" she asked with a nervous grin.
"Not after what you did, if you want that to happen then you're gonna need to earn my trust. Now, where is my room, please?" I asked, giving her a firm look.
"I will show you to your room, follow me." Leon said walking past Octavia, my guards, and I.
I nod my head towards the guards and Octavia, we quicky follow Leon down the hall and towards our rooms.
- 5 Days Later -
The sun shined down onto the tall redwood trees as the tops of the trees swayed in the wind. Down beneath the leaves of the trees the forest was filled with the sounds of chirps and tweets from different birds. Caterpillars and other small animals such as rodents feasted on the nearby brush that contained juicy berries waiting to be eaten.
Abruptly the birds quieted down and the smaller critters all stopped and waited with bated breath as the nearby apex predator sprinted through the forest at unnatural speeds. The only thing that gave them any indication that he was coming was his midnight black fur and his piercing violet eyes that you could make out despite it only being a black blur too fast for their eyes to track.
The animals soon resumed their actions and sounds with the birds chirping and tweeting even more loudly than before. Then once again all life abruptly stopped what it was doing as a second blur of black, and gold sped past them and after the previously seen black blur. The animals could tell that both creatures held immense power but the second figure of black and gold practically radiated it. This caused a few of the supernatural creatures that had been in the area to turn away in fear even more so by the next fifteen blurs of assorted colors of browns, grays, and blacks that followed the black and gold one.
'Where are you leading us, Lupus?' I thought as me and my attack force of fifteen werewolves followed behind my large midnight black Dire Wolf. (From this point on Shadow has been officially changed to Lupus.)
With all the scents in the air it was hard to point out the truly significant ones like the smell of steel or cooked food. As we continued sprinting through the forest, however, the smells of people, steel, and cooked food filled my senses. 'An Ice Nation encampment! Nice going Lupus!' I thought to myself as I signaled to the transformed werewolves to slow down and break off so that way, we could surround the encampment.
The werewolves split off into three groups of five, one went to the right, another to the left, and the last group followed behind me and Lupus. We entered a slow crouch and stalked up towards the border of the small encampment, after watching the guards roam around for a few minutes while waiting for the other werewolves to get into position, I had observed that this was a relatively small group of Ice Nation soldiers. Most likely scouts, I had told the werewolf group that had chosen to follow me.
I wanted to send in Lupus because of his recent gain in evolution. One of my rewards from one of the random loot boxes was an evolution crystal and since there was no way I was testing it on myself first I decided to give it to Lupus, I mean what could go wrong? It didn't go wrong it went very very right.
[Lupus]
Race: Shadow Wolf
Sex: Male
Level: 36
HP: 10,500
MP: 5,500
I nodded to the werewolves and after a few howls that told us they were ready to attack, I sent Lupus on the hunt and the massacre began. Lupus charged forward out of the brush and erected a wall of shadows behind his kill blocking him from turning around and fleeing. Lupus jumped onto the man and ripped his throat out with his K9's before dropping him on the ground and bolting off after another victim.
Not wanting to be left out I unhooked the spear that I recently gained off my back and threw it at the nearest group of soldiers. The spear impacted one of the soldiers through the chest and as he was sent falling to the ground purple lightning came sprouting out from the spear zapping the three nearby soldiers.
The three soldiers began convulsing and were unable to move their body of their own volition allowing a werewolf to attack them from behind and slice their heads off with a single swipe of his claws. The werewolf yanked the spear out of the first man's chest and threw it back to me; I caught it easily and gave a nod in thanks. He nodded back and I resumed my dance of death.
After running through the camp hacking and slashing I made my way in between a few of the large Ice Nation tents when suddenly I heard several voices shout from behind me. "DIE!"
I swiveled around to face a group of eight Ice Nation soldiers all rushing towards me with spears and swords poised and ready to strike at me.
"Now where to run now Sky boy! Die!" One of them shouted, rushing forward, all of them swung, stabbed, or slashed their spears and swords.
'Unbreakable Justice!' I thought as I swung a glowing Dark Sister horizontally at them.
As I swung, Dark Sister released a small wave of dark red energy and upon contact with the Ice Nation soldiers the energy wave phased right through them. However, the soldiers breathing suddenly stopped and giant blood dripping wounds opened up from where the energy wave struck them. They all took a few steps forward before falling onto the ground lifeless.
*Growl!*
Hearing an animalistic growl, I turned to look where it came from and found no one to be there. 'Where was that from?' I thought, but before I could continue my thoughts the tent next to me ripped open and a man collapsed to the ground in front of me with a large midnight black beast on top of him, tearing out his throat.
"Hey, Lupus!" I greeted cheerfully causing the massive wolf to lift its head up, striding over to me I quickly began scratching his head in a place right behind his ear.
*Purr*
"What the hell Lupus? You're purring like a cat." I said aloud to him.
*Snarl!*
"Okay, calm down. Jeez, I was just saying." I said to him as I continued my menstruations behind his ear.
After a few minutes one of the werewolves that I oversaw came running around the corner and informed me that the camp was cleared out and that they had discovered the Ice Nations intel tent.
"Great, lead the way then." I said as I followed after him. "Come on, Lupus let's go." I told the wolf as he leisurely trotted behind us.
We made our way through the camp passing by werewolves licking their teeth and marred dead Ice Nation bodies until finally we came upon a central larger tent when compared to the rest. Stepping inside I noticed that there was a desk on the far-right side of the tent and on the left side there was a large bed, in the middle of the tent was a large oak table that had a few maps and different scout plans and routes to take in the case of being discovered.
"We busted in here and found a vampire, he seemed to be in control of this small scout party as he wasn't very powerful."
"I take it we didn't lose many then?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, stepping forward and picking up a few of the pieces of parchment laid out on the central table.
"We lost one, sir. The vampire got the jump on him when we entered the tent, we swiftly dealt with him after that." He said walking up beside me as I studied one of the Ice Nation scouts maps. "What is it, sir?"
"This map," I say holding the map up in my hand. "It is a map of the commander's front lines and their numbers. This map is a detailed report of several troop movements that both me and the commander made, and this is a report of the werewolves' arrival and settling down in Arkadia." I say holding up a few other pieces of parchment.
"They've been here for a while then." The werewolf said in realization.
"They have. Grab a few of the others and gather this all up, we'll be taking back to Arkadia before heading back and searching for anymore scouting outposts." I ordered him as I made my way out of the tent with Lupus at my hip.
"Yes, my King." He said with a bow.
- Somewhere near the Azgeda and Trikru Border -
"Damn, why do you have to be so heavy?" Marquis Crowley complained to the human in his possession.
"Then why the fuck are you carrying me over your shoulder? If you want to complain so fucking much, then let me walk!" Jonathan shouted over the vampire Marquis' shoulder.
"You think I'd fall for that human?" Crowley sneered, "Besides if I let you walk you would only slow me down."
"It's not my fault that you beat the shit out of me and almost killed me." Jonathan muttered but due to Crowley's superior hearing he was able to hear it.
"What was that blood bag?"
"Shut up blood sucker."
After those remarks, an uncomfortable silence fell over the both of them as Crowley sprinted through the forest in search of anything man made, even if it wasn't friendly. They continued through the forest, both lost in their own thoughts when suddenly a sound broke the silence and startled Crowley.
The vampire in a blur of movement jumped up into a fifty-foot-tall tree and waited for whatever made the sound to show itself.
*~Grumble~*
The vampire looked over his shoulder and saw the human rub the back of his neck sheepishly. "It seems I'm hungry, huh?"
As Crowley went to respond and talk shit to the human his stomach growled as well, telling him that he was indeed similar to the human in his charge. At the 'you too?' look the human gave him Crowley glared at the human causing him to avert his eyes. "It seems I am hungry as well. Oh, well deer will have to do, I don't want to drain you just yet." Crowley said with a small smile enjoying the fear he could smell coming from the human before jumping down from the tree and sprinting off towards the nearest deer he could smell.
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A/N: Late Night Chapter you gotta love it! Hope you enjoyed!