Corporal Luna had been enjoying the human invasion so far. Her job, as the giant wolf assigned to Sir Histel’s company, had been to surprise and frighten the humans. The distracted humans were then easily grabbed by the buggebears. She thought it great sport. If you can’t eat something, you can at least tease it and scare the hells out of it.
On the last pass she’d smelled something which had made no sense – the cloak of the leader of the invading humans had a whiff of Kat’sheth about it. It was as if that knight had been in contact with one of the cat-demons recently. But the Kat’sheth had long been wiped-out from the north. As Luna trotted back to camp she pondered if it were really possible that they’d returned, and how one would have left its hair on the cloak of a Vatharian knight.
She arrived back at Histel’s field camp just as the princesses arrived. She loved the princesses, and started walking toward them, when another giant wolf appeared in front of her, vigorously wagging his tail in greeting. He was mid-sized for a giant wolf, handsome with dark brown fur speckled white, and thicker fur around his neck like a mane. His fur was well-groomed and shiny – he was known to use fur oil after baths.
“Heyyyyy, girl. How you doing?” barked Fluffy.
Oh, hells, it’s Fluffy, Luna thought to herself. Her tail didn’t return the wag. Fluffy believed himself to be the Sky Father’s gift to the female wolves.
Fluffy came a bit closer, moving in for a sniff.
Luna made a guttural growl, followed by curling her lip to show her teeth, and two quick snappish barks. In Northern Pointy Canine, the language of the wolves and foxes of the area, it meant “Don’t even think about sniffing my butt, Fluffy.” Of course, in Eastern Tearing Canine, the related dialect of Luna’s mother, the same phrase translated as “Fluff-head, if you even attempt to sniff my butt, I will not only bite your nose but then I will go for the throat.”
Fluffy was a well-educated wolf who could bark both dialects. He stopped, and his tail drooped.
Luna spotted Shadow, and bounded over toward him, giving him a big lick across the face. She’d known Shadow for years and had only respect for him, as did all the wolves. Shadow’s tail wagged back in greeting as he responded with the canine bow.
Fluffy worked to recover the initiative, so said, “Luna, it is good to see you. I understand you have a problem with armed humans here. Have you been able to eat any? Can we help you all out?”
“Fluff, we are not eating the humans,” she said sharply. “We are just teasing them. We are rescuing a few that we like from the bad humans. Sir Histel told us not to eat any of either group.”
Upon hearing that they weren’t eating the humans, Shadow wandered off, presumably looking for another source of food, or at least a place to lie down.
Fluffy was still trying to talk with Luna. “Well, are we supposed to grab humans too? We came to help you.”
The two giant wolves turned their attention to the princesses and the officers who were conferring with Sir Histel. The werewolf, Major Adane, was there too, but Luna thought him rude so didn’t feel like going to greet him. Werewolves were tricky to deal with in social situations. They didn’t always understand proper wolf etiquette. They didn't understand sniffing as a social greeting at all, for example. Luna had tried to sniff his butt once, just to be polite, and had come within a hair’s breadth of being turned into a were-human. The thought of how close she came to being forced to transform into a human at the full moon, and wear clothes and take showers, still gave her shudders.
The princesses and officers were all gathered around a map Sir Histel laid out on a table. They began discussing “ambush points'' and “hostages,” but it seemed clear that they didn’t want to kill the humans as that would be an “incident.”
An “incident” didn’t sound so bad to Luna, but she generally felt that the princesses knew how to best handle things. “Ambush points” sounded like good fun though.
- - - -
Cloyd and the non-sleeping members of his squad were outside the cave, observing the enemy officers’ meeting from a distance, and trying to figure out what was going on. Then a giant wolf Cloyd would later learn was named “Shadow” walked over toward them, his tongue hanging out of his mouth and a vaguely hungry look on his face.
It was a creature out of Cloyd’s nightmares. It was big, it was bad, it was a giant wolf, and it had laid down a few feet from him, on his back with its tail wagging lazily.
Kemble looked back to Cloyd, a worried look on his face. “Sarge, I think it wants us to rub its tummy. What do we do, Sarge?”
“Well, Kemble, when a giant monster comes to you and demands tummy rubs, I think the best thing to do is rub its tummy.”
“It could tear me to bits in three to five seconds!”
Shadow seemed to understand the guard’s reluctance, and responded with what sounded like a short high whine, followed by a longer low growl3.
Cloyd, as an officer of the Keley City Guard, had trained in intercultural communication, and understood at least the basic point. He began to rub Shadow’s tummy. The tummy was large, really too much for one guardsman to handle, even with both hands. He ordered Kemble to join in. Shadow relaxed to enjoy the tummy rub.
Kemble had a dog, so partially out of habit and partially out of wanting to keep the large monster happy, he started in with “Oh, yes, who is a good boy. Who is a nice doggy?”
Shadow growled slightly at Kemble at the word “doggy.” Kemble quickly switched to “Sorry, yes, I meant, who is a massive ferocious wolf? Who can snap off my head within five seconds? Very very scary giant wolf. Yes, you. Yes, you are the ferocious wolf, yes you are!”
Shadow’s slowly waging tail showed he was happy with that.
A few other of the braver members of the City Guard joined in, working on the area behind his ears, which Shadow clearly greatly approved of. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he made a noise that was as close to a purr as a giant wolf can get. Overall it was a successful exercise in intercultural communications.
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After several minutes of scritching the giant wolf, Cloyd sensed someone approaching. He looked up and saw his former count, who was maybe still his count, walking towards him and the squad. Cloyd and his men stood at attention and tried to look presentable. Cloyd tried to rapidly calculate whether they were supposed to obey the count or attempt to capture him.
When the tummy-rub stopped, Shadow flipped over to his belly and looked to see what had happened. He saw Count Rassler approaching and seemed to understand that Rassler had been the cause of the interrupted tummy-rub. Shadow growled at Rassler, baring his teeth.
Rassler took a step back from the growling wolf. He was thus at something of a distance when he addressed Cloyd.
“My good man, Cevyn Cloyd. I think you are Sergeant Cloyd now if I’m not mistaken.”
“I am indeed, my liege. You raised me to the rank of sergeant two years ago, you did.”
“And it was well deserved. I remember your loyal service as part of my personal guard.”
“Yes, my lord. It was an honor, my lord.”
“Now, Sergeant Cloyd. We find ourselves in a certain confusion now. A confusion that I am certain can be cleared up, so we can all return to our positions in Keley.”
“Yes, my lord. It can be hoped we all get out of this alive, my lord.”
“Right, good man. Exactly. We all want to get out of this alive. So I wanted to ask you for some help, if you might join me over where Princess Wyndyn is finalizing her plans. She wanted to discuss a few small issues with you.”
“With me, my lord?”
“She told me to bring you specifically, Cevyn. Do help her. It can make this easier for everybody. Her Highness is trying to avoid killing anybody.”
“I’m certainly all for that, sir. I will try to help there. How should I behave? What do I tell her?”
“I would really suggest being respectful. Very respectful. She may look like a girl, but she and her sister were about to incinerate me when we first met. I’m still not sure they trust me.”
Sensible girls who clearly understand men, thought Cloyd.
“But be honest with her. Be assured that you are not being a traitor to our nation. She has told me she just wants to get the Vatharians off her land without violence, if possible. I believe her. You are helping your fellow soldiers by helping her accomplish that.”
Cloyd felt there were varied levels of being a traitor here. He asked himself where his loyalty lay, and quickly concluded that it was primarily to his own survival and being able to get home to his family. He’d also like the men of his squad to survive, if possible. Vathary and Pelsa could sort the rest of it out without his middle-aged pudgy self.
Cloyd followed Rassler over to the makeshift table, which consisted of a few planks placed on a tree trunk and a pile of rocks for support. There were some maps with markings that were covered up as Cloyd approached. The taller of the two girls had striking sunset-colored hair and orange eyes that seemed to spark when she looked in his direction. She stepped away from the table and walked towards him. At her side, a step behind, was the sharply dressed gray-furred buggebear with the silk waistcoat they’d seen earlier, and the largest orc he’d ever seen, in jet-black armor, his massive sword still in his hand.
Cloyd tried to guess which of the three he should be most worried about. Given the obvious deference the two great monsters showed her, Cloyd decided it was probably the girl.
The princess spoke in Cloyd’s native language of Common Vatharian with just a hint of an elven accent. “I understand you are Sergeant Cevyn Cloyd, from the Keley City Guard. You are a native of Keley, have a family there, and have served Count Rassler for some time.”
Cloyd did a courtly bow, or the best approximation of one that he could manage.
“Please understand then, Sergeant Cloyd, that I and my soldiers here are motivated for this all to end without bloodshed. That would cause an incident between our nations, and we’d been doing so well recently, I think it would be a shame to mess it all up over a small misunderstanding. An issue that Vathary can just sort out amongst themselves and leave us out of it.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said Cloyd, with another small bow.
“Now, to help us do this, I wanted to get your opinion on the leadership of the invaders, and the general courage-level of the men. I want to know how easy it would be to just scare them off.”
“Oh, miss, yes, we were already about to turn around and make a run for it. Certainly we in the City Guard have zero faith in the two knights leading this adventure. I don’t know the Royal Army as well, but they didn’t seem happy and convinced that any of this was a good idea.”
“So, will they fight hard, or run away?”
“If it isn’t obvious that they can win, I think most of the men will just run away if they can escape and the knights can’t stop them.”
“The knights are leading it. I understand it is Sir Bowen, and along with a younger knight we don’t know. Will they fight to the death?”
Cloyd thought for a minute and took his best guess.
“The younger knight is Sir Hargest. Honestly, he just seemed very nervous to us. Wasn’t exactly inspiring confidence in his men. I think he will run away if you give him a reason to. Sir Bowen is another matter. He is the new king’s man, and doing his bidding. He will try to fight, but, while he is arrogant, he isn’t a complete idiot. He thought this whole thing would be easy, and you all would run away and not dare attack a force from Vathary. I tried to tell him it might not go that way, that Pelsa was well-lead, but he didn’t want to hear it. I don’t know about that guy.”
“Understood, and I thank you for your help. Sergeant, just one more question. Is there a wizard with the invaders? Understand, we won’t hurt the wizard, but we would then need to neutralize him to make sure he doesn’t hurt others.”
“Well, yes miss. Bowen has a wizard with him. Blond guy, about forty, in a black cloak and tunic. Mostyn is his name, I think. They keep him towards the middle of the formation as people kept getting nabbed. He said he was casting something to try to stop the buggebears, but whatever he tried didn’t work. He didn’t seem all that impressive a wizard to me, to be straight about it. Seemed like some random minor noble who had a tutor once and could say a few words in the Old Tongue.”
“Thank you for your help, Sergeant Cloyd. We do appreciate it.” Wyndy turned to leave. Cloyd had a request himself though.
“It is just, well, Your Highness, could we make a humble request?”
Wyndy turned back to Cloyd. “You may make a request. I will listen to it.”
“Could we escape, miss?”
“We haven’t officially taken you prisoner. Just wait an hour, then you can go back to Keley.”
“Yes, but, it will be difficult for us back with the Vatharian officers if we just walk out with all our equipment, miss. They would think us traitors. Traitors who had an arrangement with your folks. They might try to blame us. Maybe we could stage it a bit so it looks like we had to fight our way out? A little bit at least?”
Wyndy stepped back and spoke to Sir Histel. “Can something be arranged? Can we get these people out of here, maybe stage something so Cloyd’s men think they had to do something to escape, and it looks better for them back in Vathary?”
“Yes, Your Highness. We cannot spare many buggebears, but we have one wounded who can’t fight anyway. He can get them to the other end of the cave, and they can run away from him there. They will be near the road back to Keley. We could ask Mirko to help guide them. With any luck, many of the Royal Army will be running that way soon too.”
“Please make it happen, Sir Histel. Also, as you heard, we will need to start off with the anti-wizard plan we discussed. It sounds like he is in the middle of the formation. Can you spare the buggebears to do it?”
“Yes, of course, Your Highness. On both issues. We will make it happen.”
Wyndy walked back to Cloyd. “Sergeant, you may just be able to escape from my forces. A buggebear will contact you soon with the arrangements. I wish you a pleasant escape and a safe journey back to Keley.”
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3 Translator’s Note: In an interview later with Shadow and his son Spike, Shadow revealed to me that he had growled “I’m not allowed to eat you today, but if you don’t rub my tummy now, I might pee on you.” He also told me that this episode had given him a more positive opinion of humans, except for Count Rassler.