Sorry for the terrible release consistency!!! College move in and first week are annoying~~
Hope you enjoy the chapter! Longest one yet at 3k words! :O (not that that's particularly long...)
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My eyes were drooping as I sat in my pocket home, and across the round table I could see Willin focusing on everything but the maps in front of him. I checked Crab to see what he was focused on, to find out that the only things he saw were the backs of his eyelids. Not that I blamed him. Captain had mewed incessantly through the night, letting neither Crab nor I get a wink of sleep.
Conversation behind me quieted down as the Chief came into view, taking his usual place at the table. Settling himself, he looked at Crab and cleared his throat. Crab slowly opened his eyes, rubbed them, and stood up from his chair. From my position I could see the men gathered around the table, all staring at the largest map.
“Alright, pay attention. I’m only saying this once. The Alpha’s den is here.”
The other humans leaned in to see the area Crab was pointing to. I inspected the map as well, trying to understand it. A mark had been made near the location of the den, with some writing I could not understand. There was another similar mark northeast of the den, closer to the upper edge of the map. Although the script next to these marks was unreadable, they were obviously meant to be villages, considering the layout of the map. To the west of these marks, a group of indents spread across a large area. At first they made no sense, but a memory of a crudely dawn map swam into my head. Curving lines, marks with script, and the same indents. This map in my memory helped me understand these were mountains, most likely the mountains of my birth.
Only one other major distinction was drawn on the map. Encroaching between my current location and the mountains was the edge of a dark shape. It had no marking, it was just an entire shade deeper than the rest of the material.
My attention was drawn back to the humans as Willin stood up, getting ready to leave.
“It won’t take too long to walk there. We leave immediately, get your gear and wait at the front gate.”
As Crab said this, the rest of the humans left, leaving Crab, the Chief, and myself. The Chief stared at the map for a few moments, before tiredly raising his eyes to me, and then Crab.
“Thank you.”
I felt Crab shift awkwardly, saying nothing.
“Promise me that you’ll keep Donnie at the back? He’s a reckless fool, but he’s my grandson.”
Crab chuckled quietly, and I felt his nod. Satisfied by this, the Chief sat back down, and Crab turned to leave.
About twenty men were waiting outside at the front gate as Crab and I approached. Among them, I recognized Willin and Mord. These two, along with the rest of the humans, wore weird, dull gray hats and thicker clothes than usual. Each man also held a stick with a metal pointy end, which I believed was called a spear, a small wooden shield, and the typical large knife.
I spotted a fidgeting Donnie standing near the back of the crowd, and he quickly saw us and walked over. Readjusting his hat, he addressed Crab in a strained voice.
“We are ready to go, uhh, sir.”
Crab looked at him for a moment before nodding and heading towards the front of the group. As he passed by Donnie, I felt an impulse to take action. This action was to push my way out of my comfy pocket and jump onto Donnie’s shoulder.
Donnie jumped in surprise, and Crab looked at me for a second before raising an eyebrow and continuing to the front of the group. I settled down on Donnie as he stayed unnaturally still, unsure what to do. I poked the side of his face with my fluffy wing and let out a ‘kaak’, and Donnie got the message.
My new human escort walked as steadily as possible near the back of the group. I couldn’t see Crab through the throng of gray hats in front of me, but undoubtedly him and Willin were guiding the rest of our party to the Alpha’s den.
A little way into our trek I felt a presence next to me and Donnie. I turned to see Mord staring at me, unblinking. Donnie, unsure what to do, said nothing until Mord started talking.
“You sure the Chief knows what he’s doing?”
Donnie failed to respond, startled by the bluntness of Mord’s question. In the silence that followed, another man, one with greasy long brown locks, responded cheerfully, “C’mon, Mord, don’ be so worried! When’s tha Chief ever been wrong?”
A chorus of agreement echoed around the man, as Donnie finally found his voice.
“Gran-er the Chief has always helped everyone in the village. If he thinks this is the right way to do things, then I trust him.”
Donnie’s voice wavered slightly, but Mord simply continued to stare at me, eventually saying, “I trust him as well. I just have a weird feeling about this whole situation.”
The man with the greasy hair responded, cracking a smile full of crooked teeth, “Yer just worried that I’ll kill all th’bastards before ya can even draw yer sword!”
This was met by jeering from all sides, making him grin even wider.
Mord simply frowned and said, “Just try not to piss your pants in fear, Kell.”
Another round of jeers sounded, but was quickly hushed down by the humans at the front of the group. We were approaching the den. I felt Donnie’s shoulder tense up beneath me, and Mord’s unwavering stare on my back. The front of the group had stopped next to some tall brush, and as the group huddled around Crab, the only sounds I could hear were the breathing of men and the rustling of gear.
I confirmed once again that there were no signs of life apart from us. No fluttering of wings in the trees, no animal calls, no tracks save for our own. I gave Donnie one more pat of reassurance before fluttering away and onto Crab’s shoulder. Perched there, I could see over the brush, and realized that I had been wrong about my previous observation.
There was a clearing ahead, marked by disturbed snow and pawprints. At the edge of this clearing, the entrance of a cave easily large enough for four humans to stand shoulder to shoulder was framed in glistening white. The cave’s mouth, however, quickly grew pitch black.
I turned back to see several humans walking away in pairs, seemingly to set up a perimeter. At the same time, one large human was removing some small planks of wood from a bag. Each of these planks had a small bit of cloth wrapped at the end. A familiar feeling came about my mind, as I seemed to recognize the contraption, but I could not place its use.
With these readied in the hands of multiple humans, Crab nodded and led the group quietly over the cave’s gaping mouth. Looking around, I could sense the tense atmosphere that contrasted so greatly with the cheerful one from earlier. I could see that even the Kell fellow had stopped smiling, and was starting to sweat.
Reaching the entrance, Crab nodded as two men worked silently to create something. I couldn’t quite see what they were doing until the light of a fire rose up, and the two began lighting each of the small cloth planks one by one. Realization hit me that these were torches, and I couldn’t see how I missed that fact earlier. It seemed so obvious now.
As the last torch was lit, the fire was stomped out and three men, including Donnie, stayed outside the cave. The remaining humans and myself, about twelve to thirteen of us, ventured into the dark.
Crab and Willin led the way, carefully making their way over the uneven ground. Willin held a torch, and from its light I inspected the walls of the cave. Scratch marks covered almost all of the lower rock walls, with very little smooth rock left. The only smooth rock I could see was coming from smaller offshoots. Near these offshoots, large, deep gashes appeared higher up on the rock face, sometimes revealing different colored stones and granite.
Further into the cave, at a point where the daylight did not reach, we finally reached a large cavern. The humans fanned out into a wide formation, each man alternating between spear and sword-shield. As Crab gave a signal, the group filed into the cavern, crouching low to the ground and taking cover behind scattered rocks.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
As the humans scanned the room, it became readily apparent that it was entirely empty. As torchlight revealed the rest of the cavern, it was obvious that the room had been evacuated recently. Bones lay strewn across the floor, and even some fresher carcasses lay half-eaten, covered in bite marks.
Inspecting the scene, I was overcome with a strong feeling. Captain’s fear-filled stare rose up in my mind as I clamped down on Crab’s shoulder three times with my talons, our agreed signal of danger when we needed to be quiet.
Crab immediately stopped, raising his hand, where his dagger gleamed faintly against the torchlight. Willin and the rest of the group froze, and I could hear their grips tighten on their weapons. Crab looked at me for an explanation.
I thought for a moment, before hopping as quietly as I could onto a rock. I retreated back to the entrance of the cavern, and into the winding passage that had brought us there. Crab’s footsteps following behind, I approached the nearest offshoot I could find.
I stared up at the large gash next to the offshoot, seeing a faint green sparkle to the cut. I then proceeded to the next offshoot, where a similar deep gash was located above it, this time glowing in a faint red. Hearing Crab behind me, I climbed onto his shoulder to take a closer look at the red glow.
The gentle light emanated from the gash. But, it did not come from the uncovered rock as I had expected. Instead, it seemed as though the gap left by whatever had made the scar had been filled in with this red nucleus.
Looking down into the offshoot, I realized what this meant as I saw the smooth, unscratched walls of the smaller corridor. I clamped down on Crab’s shoulder once again, gesturing my wing towards the gash. Crab looked at me with a face full of confusion, asking, “What? What’s wrong?”
I stared for a moment, and quickly gestured at the torch Willin had been holding behind us. Crab, understanding this, relayed the message to Willin, and the light was snuffed out. Darkness engulfed us, but the perfect pitch black was broken by the sole red glow from the gash. Crab froze for a moment, as he realized what I had figured out.
“Is it like this for all of them?”
I gave a single squeeze to his shoulder in affirmation.
“What? What’s tha problem?”
Crab answered Willin through the darkness.
“That light. There’s one for each smaller offshoot. They aren’t just Silver Wolf scratches, they’re planned markings, to find the way through the cave system.”
“That means…”
“That means that it wasn’t just Silver Wolves living in this cave.”
I heard Willin gulp through the dark, as immediately both men began carefully walking through the near pitch blackness back towards the cavern. Before long the faint light of torches shown, and the three of us met up with the waiting group of humans.
“There something else living here. Something fully sentient.”
“What are you talking about?”
Mord, along with the others, responded in confusion and disbelief.
“We need to check the side passages immediately. Stay together.”
At the serious tone of Crab’s voice, the men quickly fell in line behind us, wary and on guard, weapons held up, no question being asked. We quickly traveled down the green marked passage, reaching a small room at the end. Crab’s shoulder went taught as he froze, and I did the same.
A small rock sat in one corner, flat and sturdy. On it lay a handmade stone hammer, with small parts of leather and stone laying around it. On the other side of the opening, a rough sack of cloth lay across the floor, obviously meant for something larger than human to sleep in.
Each one of the men froze at the sight of the workstation and bed. Everyone was still and silent until a man yelled from the main cave tunnel.
“Crab!! Trouble!! Out here now!!”
Crab and Willin sprang into action, barreling past the unmoving men in the corridor, all sense of stealth lost. I barely hung onto Crab as he reached the man who shouted. I saw Kell staring wild-eyed at us, with Donnie holding a torch, panting and out of breath.
“Smoke… huff… from the village… need to get back…”
Crab waited no longer, as we ran towards the entrance of the cave, the group of humans and Donnie in tow. The men left outside were grouped closely at the entrance looking up in fear as we ran into the sunlight. Every man there and I looked at the sky in the direction of the village. A large, billowing cloud of dark smoke was rising, only growing larger by the second.
“Two lines! Drop anything that’s not a weapon! We’re going back!”
The confused men spurred into action on Crab’s commands, forming two lines with Crab, Willin and I at the front once again. We began a brisk jog back to the village, as Crab lifted me off his shoulder and onto a branch. I climbed a few layers and kept pace with the group.
We reached the village in a fraction of the time we had taken to get to the cave. I approached the edge of the trees looking over the village and stared in shock at the scene before me. Through the smoke and flames of the burning buildings, the snowy ground was littered with the bodies of villagers, red blood flowing freely. Howling and barking could be heard from further into the village, so I dropped from the branches onto the nearest roof, letting out a high call for Crab to follow, and to communicate the level of danger. I spattered across the roof and onto an adjacent building until I finally overlooked the town square.
More dead bodies lay across the wide area, as Silver Wolves bit into their victims, both living and dead. I quickly let out a longer high pitched whistle as Crab rounded the corner with the group of humans. Seeing the scene of death in front of them, the humans froze again, only to jump into action as Crab ran forward. As he passed by, he yelled towards me.
“Stay there! Let us know if there are any behind us! Join me when I give the call!”
I let out a short ‘kaak’ in response as I watched the group run towards the frenzied wolves, some humans much slower and hesitant than others. As Crab reached the closest Wolf, his knife slid up and through the surprised beast’s gullet, killing it instantly. Willin soon joined in as he wielded some sort of large hammer, crushing a beast’s torso to the ground.
Noticing the new group of humans, most of the rabid wolves turned and charged. The humans, encouraged by Crab’s and Willin’s actions, met the charge head on, using their slight advantage in numbers to surround and spear the beasts.
As the wolves lay twitching in their death throes, spears penetrating their mangy fur, more howling and footsteps could be heard further into the town. The men advanced towards these noises, brave from their first victory. As they reached the opposite end of the square, wolves began to crawl out of alleys and houses, until they equaled the humans in number.
Crab commanded the men into a defensive formation, spears out and shields up. As they readied themselves, the wolves stopped in unison. A single, monstrous wolf slowly ambled from behind a building. Nearly double the size of any other Silver Wolf, the beast stared directly at the humans in front of it with piercing yellow eyes. Sculpted muscles rippled underneath silken silver fur, combining elegance and ferocity into a single murderous monster. Two fangs protruded from its mouth, saliva falling to the snow as if in anticipation.
I ripped my eyes from the beast, and scampered to the edge of the roof. I gazed through the nearby alleyways and towards the entrance to check for more wolves, and thankfully saw none. As I reached my original spot overlooking the square, my stare met directly with two sickly, yellow eyes.
A muscled, leather clad creature stood upright in the middle of the road. The humanoid figure was a dark shade of green, with no hair and two large, tusk-like teeth on its jaw. As we locked eyes, I noticed the four similar creatures standing behind it, all equally menacing with large axes and clubs.
I broke out of my hypnotized state briefly, lifting my head up and letting out a screeching triple call for maximum danger. I was halfway through a second call when I sensed a spear racing towards my body.