The cavalry thunders towards us, metallic and dangerous. They’ve got horses and honest to god lances. As they come into view, it becomes clear what’s going on. They’re doing an actual cavalry charge twelve horses side by side, lances leveled at the wolves.

Wolves are good at getting out of the way when something is chasing them. Discovery channel said their whole hunting approach is based on the theory that you run away when something chases you, and then have your friend attack from the back. When it turns to chase your friend, you nip at it’s back. I think all pack hunters work that way. Injury is something of a death sentence in the wild, so being able to kill things without injury is a huge win. A twelve-wide row of horses charging in formation is a lot harder to nip at, and the knights seem to know how to harrass. They chase the first set of six away from one section of the base of the hill. Then they wheel around in impressive formation, and chase another swarm back.

They’re not ignoring the big wolves...just clearing the others. With the horses being as effective as they are, I record the sound of a charge, and start playing it behind wolves that aren’t paying attention. The ones surprised by my noise scatter as well. Within a minute, the fifty horse-sized wolves have all backed off quite a bit. They're now a hundred yards off, maybe a hundred and fifty, and all we’ve got left near us are the elephant-sized ones.

The horsemen wheel just like a marching band drum line, and face one of the giants. The choreography here is impressive. The wolf growls. The horses start walking forward, lances up still. So does the wolf. Looks like pup wants to play chicken. It starts to run towards the enemy, and so does the cavalry. They're thirty yards apart, then twenty, then ten, and then the wolf jumps over the horses and their lances. The twelve foot wolf gets twenty-four feet off the ground and soars over the riders. It probably covers sixty feet in the leap, and then it’s loping off, while the riders are pointing in the wrong direction. They wheel towards the next big’n, but the other three are all trotting off.

“Smart beasts,” says the center knight as he pulls up the visor on his helmet. He’s very manly with a strong chin, thick neck, and arms as big as my legs. I wonder if he eats five dozen eggs for breakfast, 'cause he's roughly the size of a barge. It’s a wonder the horse can hold him.

“Apologies for our late arrival," booms Mr. Manly, "We’d just come back from a patrol, and were recovering when we heard the big ones howl.”

Priya speaks for us, “There is no cause for apology. No one here is hurt, and the wolves are driven away. Please allow us to thank you for your timely assistance.”

“You’re ten miles from the town of Cerberus. We have an obligation to help folks in our territory.” He sounds French. Maybe Quebecois?

Randi blurts out, “Cerberus? Like the dog?”

“Cerberus was the guardian of the gates of hell. We are too. Can I offer you the hospitality of our town? We have walls so that the monsters don’t visit, and guards, and alcohol.”

Looking around at Randi and the Band, Priya gets ready to answer.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Steve interrupts. “The safety and the alcohol sound great. What are our obligations if we come with you?”

“Are you asking if we’re like Rocco? We’re not. That scum is hundreds of miles away, else we’d clean him off the map. In town you’re expected to behave like civilized folks. No killing, no stealing, no breaking stuff. If ya' stay past a week, you’ll be expected to help out.”

“Thank you then,” says Priya, “I’m Priyanka, and this is my team: Steve, Miguel, Snake, and Randi. We would love to accept your hospitality.”

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Gaspard, and these boys are Cerberus’s bite.”

The other eleven riders wave.

“Do you need to clean up here? Can we help? And will you need transportation assistance across the ten miles?”

“Give me a few minutes, and I can be ready to go at horse speeds” says Miguel, as he starts quickly packing up camp, and turning some of the wall parts into a cart.

“Dude, where’s the magic?” I ask. Everyone here has to have magic. Why did these guys do the physical thing instead of magicking the wolves.

Gaspard answers, “Cerberus’s Bite does not use magic except in the case of mortal danger. We’ve all got magic, but working together is more important than just having more firepower. That’s how the Romans beat my Ancestors, the Gauls, two thousand years ago, and it’s still true. Our unit only uses magic if things go bad. The rest of the time, we use just our physical gifts, our steel, and our horses.”

I’m throwing a lot of attention into checking his voice, and he seems like he’s on the up and up. I’m comfortable going with them. I give Piyu a quick nod.

“Seems like good training,” says Randi. “Where’d you get the horses?”

I start putting the drums away as Miguel is finishing turning the camp into a cart. Of course I'm still listening, but nothing else interesting is said. Blah blah blah. Old-world rancher for horses. Wolves are smarter than you'd think. Wolves mostly stay away from town and vice versa.

When the camp is packed up, we head out. The dozen horsemen ride, of course. Miguel, Steve, and P. all ride in the auto-cart. Randi and I jog alongside the horses. She’s clearly put at least three stat boosts into speed, making her jog about the same as the horse’s run. She’s pretty fit too, and built like a distance runner. I don’t know which way I’d bet if she had to race one of the horses in a sprint, but with a jog/trot, it shouldn’t be too hard.

It isn’t. Ten miles only takes an hour and while we run I learn how Randi cheats. She can banish her muscle fatigue by duplicating and then poofing the older body. She does that every ten minutes or so. If we were moving at faster than a crawl for me, I might want to do the same, but I could’ve made it to town in six or seven minutes, and we’re taking an hour. It’s like walking with toddlers, but these are horses and a weird wagon.

While jogging, I find out that Randi’s been wandering like me, mostly solo. Well, it’s mostly solo, except there’s four of her. She’s died a bunch of times, but since she works in a quad usually, one death doesn’t matter much. Usually, a monster chewing on one copy of her isn’t trying to grab the ones running away. She’s like a perfect shell game for tricking monsters. Grab one, it dies, and she keeps going. Doesn’t even matter which one it gets. All the shells are the wrong choice.

Other things I learned: she’s looking for a bit of peace, and has had a few close calls, so the offer of a town seems nice. She doesn’t play any instruments, and her singing voice is untrained.

We arrive at town pretty late at night, but in a group of almost twenty, it’s not dangerous for us. We get through the gates, and are offered a visitor cottage. Randi opts to stay with us, and we set up our stuff in the cottage.

I think we’re safe for a bit.