Chapter 11

We were woken up by the howls of wolves near the camp. As it was my turn on the inside of the wagon I leapt out just as the mother wolf and her cubs came charging out of the forest looking panicked.

I could smell smoke in the air.

“I need your help again two legs. The forest and the plains are on fire and it's coming this way fast. I'm too weak and I need you to take the cubs to safety.”

“Fuck that bullshit. You're coming with us as well.” And I motioned over to Grim and Aura who were also awake by this point. “Grim you help wolf mom here into the back. I don't care what you need to dump out to make room.”

Grim nodded and went to work.

“Aura you and the skeletons work on getting the wagon and the cart hitched up and ready to go. I'll have two skeletons help drag your cart and the rest help drag the wagon so we can make extra speed. We go back the way we came. I remember us crossing a small bridge about two hours up the road.”

I spent the time carrying each wolf cub up onto the top of the wagon, one by one.

Credit where credit is due we were ready to go in under five minutes. In the fading darkness, I could see a faint glow now. As well as the roaring of the flames. Up and down the forest edge I could see animals fleeing into the grasslands. With the grass being almost a meter tall in most places it had more than enough fuel for the fire to just keep going.

Hoping that the grasslands would slow down the progression of the fire we made our way back up the road.

With Grim driving, I stayed up top with the cubs to try and keep them calm. Looking back I could see that the fire had reached the edge of the redwood forest. The flames reaching to almost double the height of the trees and at certain points nearing two hundred meters tall. We got lucky and the wind shifted a little bit and the grass didn't immediately catch.

I don't know if it was because the horses were spooked by the fire, us going mostly downhill or a combination of both but we made it to the river in under an hour. Not five minutes after we crossed the fire had made it to the riverbank.

The run had left the horses exhausted so we made our way slowly back for another 15 minutes or so and set up a new camp on a small hill overlooking the river. The wind had shifted even further and it seemed as if we were safe for now and the fire hadn't skipped over.

We helped the Wolfmother out of the wagon. “Thank you for your help, again. As a reward for saving my life twice now. I will give you a great gift. I am the last of a breed of wolves called spirit wolves. My cubs were fathered by a normal wolf so don't have my powers. In days of old before the sundering of this continent, we bonded with people who we felt were worthy.”

In the corner of my eye, I noticed a message coming up on my HUD saying milestone completed. Must be a big reward for AI-Me to overrule my settings to show me it.

“You are the first person that I have met, that I feel like is worthy of my allegiance. As my bondmate, I give you this gift.” And in her jaws, a medallion on a silver chain appeared. When I took it from here I could see that the medallion had a wolfs head stamped on it. “If you accept and wear this amulet our spirits will join and I will enter the amulet. Whenever I am needed you can summon me and I will act as an advisor, mount and battle companion.”

“I would be honoured. But what should I call you? Right now I have just been calling you Wolfmother.”

“You can call me Lunarian, or just Luna for short. I was named after the goddess who spawned us.”

“Thank you, Luna. I Drakon will accept you as my bondmate.” And with that, I put on the necklace.

“If it is not much trouble. Can you unsummon me, just think it and it will happen. I will heal faster inside the amulet.”

“If that is the case why didn't you do this sooner?” I wondered

“Being bonded requires absolute trust. Even subconsciously. Until you risked everything to try and save me, I don't think that I trusted you fully enough to propose this.”

“Last question. What about your cubs?”

“They are not full spirit wolves so they can never bond. But they will form the basis of your cavalry if raised and bred right. But that will take several years. Until then they can be useful in helping with hunting or when bigger acting as mounts for other officers. And if you are wondering how I know you are a Necrolord. One your skeleton unit. Two we are now bonded so I can see your character sheet. Now if you don't mind I need rest.”

And with that, I mentally commanded her into the amulet. I kept forgetting that I was the only one who could hear Luna. So I filled in Aura and Grim on what the deal was and then helped them put the camp back up again. We spent the rest of the afternoon keeping an eye on the fire burning in the distance.

I was just hoping that the village we were going to would be ok as they were somewhere inside that conflagration.

I took a small bit of time to meditate and have a look at what the notification was,

Milestone completed:

Save the Wolves

Reward: Spiritwolf Medallion. 5 wolfcubs

Bonus reward: For finishing the milestone with a perfect track record.

+1 level cap. Level cap now 7

+1 level

Level-up:

Level 2

Skillcap set to 2

Path points unlocked: 2

I would think about what paths to take tonight. With how good the bonuses were I didn't want to rush that decision.

Coming out of my meditation I just sat on the hill playing with the wolfcubs. Although they were cubs, they were still the size of an average dog. As the inside of the wagon was huge, Grim didn't have to dump out much earlier in the day. So he was able to make us a good dinner and we used up some of the leftover venison of the previous night to feed the cubs.

We would have to spend a couple of days on this side of the river until the ground had cooled down. And we needed to stock up as there would be almost no hunting or foraging in the burnt-out forest.

Just to be safe we decided to have a few watch shifts tonight, to keep an eye out if the fire would skip the river. I drew the short straw and had the middle shift.