1. Battle at the Gully - Friday January 9th, Year 216

Four figures, all similarly dressed in cotton shirts and pants with open leather jackets marched up a dusty hill, rifles swaying with their steps and pistols jostling likewise in their holsters. Between the four of them, a dozen sheep trotted merrily along, unaware of their role to play this day.

Cresting the top, the late afternoon sun greeted them with a spiteful glare shining straight into their eyes. The view ahead was a familiar one. It was the third time this day they saw it and the fourth day they’d been here.

In front of them, downhill, there was an arroyo surrounded by sparse and dried out looking bush, tree and grass vegetation, feeding off the residual water retained from the previous spring floods, now three-quarters of a year past. Following the dry riverbed left and upward there was a wide gully or small ravine between two hills. The one on left side – their side – of the river was as barren and earthen as the one they stood on, while the other only had a smattering of dust atop a tiered, rocky mount, like a mesa buried in haste. Beyond them were more dusty and rocky hills, stretching onwards until they become dusty and rocky mountains.

The gully between the hills was bathed in shadow caused by the low-hanging sun, making the rocky hill overlooking it a perfect place to stage an ambush.

Or, in their case, to be ambushed.

Sally herded the sheep over and slightly down the hill, setting them to graze while her mentor and senior Warden, Niall, remained at the top and pulled out his compact telescope to scout the rocky hill. Marcy and Tarak, the other two Wardens, moved off to the side a dozen or so feet away, taking out their own monocular to scout the other.

After settling the sheep and making sure they stopped trying to eat her pants – to their disgruntled beeeh’s – she walked back up the hill toward her mentor.

“So, what is it? Shykes? Bloodfiends? Skinners?” Sally asked, before leaning in, back of hand beside her mouth, wiggling eyebrows and whispering in faux-conspiracy: “Erlings?”

She’d made her opinion quite clear the past three days.

The grump of a man – grey of beard, hair and mind – gave her an unamused grunt and a stink-eye, lowered the compact telescope and passed it to her.

Taking care not to look straight into the sun, Sally scanned the hill, looking for any sign of their predators. It didn’t take much to catch them.

Two skinny, pale skinned, long-limbed and eerily humanoid figures she knew to be taller than they looked were bunched up behind a rock and a bush much too small to hide their frames. Their long claws bore an unnaturally sharp edge, capable of slicing all along the edge rather than tearing with the tip. Although unseen behind their hiding spots, she knew from previous encounters their faces bore little feature beyond two holes for eyes and a circular, lamprey-like mouth.

“Skinners? Really?” She said, both annoyed and surprised. They’d gone through this much effort just for skinners?

The Palters Villa – which Niall and her called home – and the Guha Villa – the home of the other duo of Warden’s – had both lost a number of sheep and goats the past weeks. This was a common enough occurrence, there were plenty of predators haunting the Grand Circuit, even in their own little corner in the northwest. That they had done so without leaving a trace was rarer, true, but not so much as to be alarming.

What was, though, was the fact that the Guha had lost a farmer last week without a trace. No screams, no body, no blood, no trail at all to go by, and all within line of sight of the villa itself. That spoke to something more than base animal cunning.

That was why they here. Because while lost herd and even lost kin was unfortunate, it was part of living in the communities making their home around the Circuits. To lose someone within throwing distance of their most guarded places, without alarm or even a trace? That was not just dangerous, but an active threat.

Hence, Erlings. They might not be human, but the vicious furballs were definitely intelligent, belligerent and resourceful enough to pull it off. They also often sent scouts in advance of their raiding parties, attempting to gather intel on whatever defenses the Villa’s had built for their arrival. It would not be impossible for them to pull something like this off, though for what purpose was anybody’s guess. It was not like they could interrogate their victim for information.

The other thing to cast doubt was the timing. It was the beginning of January; winter had barely started. Normally, they would descend in the latter half of the season, when food and water were scarce and a supply raid on the Villa’s would be a success no matter the outcome; either they gained resources, lost mouths to feed, or both.

They were intelligent enough to build up food stocks, she knew, and unless something had happened to their farms these past months – which Warden’s would and had scouted for – the timing was strange. But it could easily be that the Warden’s had, in fact, missed something that set them off.

Either way, Erlings made the most sense. Not skinners.

“Was sure it was Erlings,” she grumbled, lowering the monocular and moving to hand it back. “Should be Erlings.”

“Look again,” he chided. “Carefully this time.”

Accepting the critique with grace and only a slight roll of the eyes, she did.

The same lanky forms, pale skin, sharp claws and pathetic skills at hiding. Twisting the dials, she zoomed in on one in particular, and once properly looking, it was easy to see what her mentor alluded to.

What she assumed was pale skin mottled with dust, in fact, fur, and while she still could not see their heads, a pair of irregular patches she had not noticed changed slightly as she looked. A set of ears, twisting ever so slightly in an attempt to catch sounds.

“Skinner-wolves,” Sally said. Damn, she didn’t say.

“How many do you see?” Niall replied.

She zoomed out a bit, looking more carefully at other bushes, rocks and trees. Beside the two obvious – were they even hiding, or purposefully visible in order to misdirect? – she spotted two more, and maybe a third slightly behind the hill. Perhaps not so pathetic at hiding, then.

“Five. Expect around ten?”

“At least.” He rumbled, gesturing for the monocular, and moved toward the other two wardens. Sally followed.

It explained his dour mood, and soured her own.

When a skinner catches an animal, it sometimes, well, skins them – thus the name – and attaches parts of it to themselves to assume some of its characteristics. In the case of wolves, skinners transform from near-solitary individuals only hunting larger prey in small groups of up to four, into large packs ranging up to twenty individuals. They also become cannier, more tactically minded, more coordinated and much more cautious.

They were rare. Not only does a skinner need to catch a wolf, it needs to catch and kill a whole pack and somehow convince other pre-wolved skinners to follow them. Which meant that at least one a particularly intelligent skinner was leading the pack. Considering the feats the skinners pulled so far, including evading them the past four days…

This was worse than a few Erling scouts. Much worse.

X

“So, what, we leave?” Marcy said, barely controlling her temper. “We still have the initiative, and the plan is solid.”

The plan being: sheep in the gully at the front, two Wardens behind them deeper inside and two on the hill opposite that of the skinner-wolves.

“And then what? We cannot hunt them quickly. Nor without risk. We simply do not have the firepower,” Niall argued. “Patience is key. We can come back later with more people, more rifles, a better plan and do this cleanly.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“We’re dealing with skinner-wolves here, they’re cowards,” Marcy countered “There’s no way they’ll attack such a large group. Hell, they’ve probably been observing us for the past three days, if we change behavior now the leader will know somethings up. And they won’t stop hunting us and ours till they’re dealt with.”

“We’ll die here, and the Villas would be without Wardens. Better double our watch, maybe reach out to the Zjevik-Ong and lay down a better trap, one with a fallback.”

Sally sat on the ground, rifle in front of her and idly petting a sheep as the back and forth went on and on for minutes. It was pointless anyhow. She was all in favor for the bold-and-daring approach, but she knew Niall. He’d made up his mind and would rather walk away on his lonesome than participate in what he sees as a doomed plan. She’d leave with Niall regardless of her own wants and there is no way Marcy and Tarak would do this on their own.

As Marcy got more heated and Niall grew a cold anger, she got more ticked off by the second. She hated pointless debates like these, where continuing wouldn’t make a difference besides more hurt feelings and such.

In fact, she should make their stupidity clear. The quicker she did, the quicker they could-

“I-I brought explosives,” Tarak mumbled somewhat sheepishly.

Sally, Marcy and Niall near snapped their necks to stare at Tarak. Their gaze prompted something within him and he opened his jacket.

Strapped on either side of the jacket with leather bands were two times four odd-looking rods.

Marcy sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Tarak…”

“W-well, Sally kept talking about Erlings yesterday, and I still had this from when that trader – remember, with the excess ammunition-”

“Why didn’t you say this earlier?” Niall questioned incredulously. “We could’ve been-”

“Alright, new plan.” Marcy interjected. “Me and Tarak on the hill with six of the bombs, you and Sally in the gully with two, just in case. You-” Marcy grabbed the bombs from Tarak’s jacket and tossed them over while continuing “-lure the skinner-wolves in with the sheep- wait, are they still-” Marcy quickly grabbed her monocular “good, still there. You move deep into the gully with the sheep, we watch them sneak up, throw our bombs and shoot who we can. Either they die or become too frightened and run away, hopefully for good. Any questions? Objections? No, okay let’s get going.” The bullheaded woman grabbed Tarak by the arm and stomped away, Tarak practically being dragged in her wake.

Sally watched her mentor as he stood silently, somewhat wide-eyed at Marcy’s momentum, before sighing and looking at Sally.

She shrugged, slung her rifle over her shoulder and began herding the sheep towards the gully.

From behind she heard another sigh, before he too began guiding the sheep into the gully.

X

They walked into and toward end of the ravine, before the bend turned around the rocky hill. Niall took position near the wall of said bent while Sally went to a larger rock stranded in the riverbed. It, along with a wall of sheep, would hopefully protect them from the explosives. Niall gave Marcy a hand sign, the image of nonchalant stoicism while Marcy nodded back before disappearing from view.

The wait was grating on her nerves. The darkening shadows cast by the setting sun, the shuffle and bleating of the sheep and her own impatience playing tricks on her mind. Any one of these shuffles could be a skinner-wolf missed by their overwatch, rush toward them and slice them to bits. And she could not wait before it actually happened.

There was no place she’d rather be. While the anxiety was annoying, it made her feel like a strung bow, taut, waiting to be pulled and then, finally, released.

That release was why she was here. Why she used to do the kind of stupid stunts from atop the Villa that made her parents clutch their hearts. Why she would, as a teen, sneak out during the night with her father’s gun to hunt monsters by the river. Why she quickly become angry, was quick to pick a fight, and wished to leave and run the Circuits in her early adolescence.

Why her parents convinced her to become a Warden, rather than go elsewhere to seek that thrill. To get that feeling, yet still contribute, still belong somewhere.

After about ten minutes, she spotted something moving at the mouth of the ravine. Beyond the sheep, nearly hidden behind their mass, she a different form. One longer, lower to the ground and moving with purpose. With humanoid limbs ending in knives. With a wolf’s head.

She unslung the rifle, checked her belt for her sidearm, knife and gifted explosive and turned toward Niall. He’d done the same and gave her a nod.

The silence lasted for a minute longer, more shapes creeping down from the covered mesa and into the gully. They were quiet and difficult to spot, clearly ambush predators, but eventually one of the sheep poked its head up from the grazing herd and gave out a single warning bleat. The heads of the rest snaped up, glanced at the skinner-wolves before scarpering away.

“Fire in the hole!” Marcy yelled and Sally took cover behind the rock.

A deafening series of dual explosions cascaded along the wall of the ravine while it rained pellets, sand and rock. The sheep screamed and began running in earnest panic along with pained howls and yowls of the false wolves. Once, twice, thrice this happened, the cacophony lasting for what felt like minutes, though was likely less than half of one. Then, the explosions stopped and all she heard was the buzzing in her own ear.

Five seconds passed in near-silence before being broken by the return of the soft cries in the distance from running sheep, the skinner-wolves unheard. Before long a few cracks of gunfire sounded from up the hill and a skinner-wolf howled in pain. Sally took that as her que.

She poked her head up steadied her rifle on the rock, making a quick survey of the field. A series of six small holes in the dry river bed was dotted with five forms of dead sheep and seven dead skinner-wolves. An eighth was wriggling on the ground in its dying throes. Five more remained upright, some on two legs while others remained on all fours, and were hunched up and looking around disoriented by the loud noises and dying pack members.

Sally took aim with an anticipatory – predatory – grin, ready to vent her irritation of the past four days. She targeted the chest of one of them, fired and scored a hit. She pushed the lever of her rifle, chambering another round while two other cracks sounded, one from her left and another from above. Both hit the same target and was enough to put it down, joining the other eight.

Only four more to go, and with more than enough ammo between them, what once looked overwhelming was quickly turning into an easy butchering. I should thank Tarak for this. Without his grenades this wouldn’t’ve turned into target practice.

But, as if hearing her thoughts, a yell came from above.

“Behind!” Tarak warned.

In one fluid motion she went from a crouch to facing the new threat, rifle at the ready.

Erlings. I fucking knew it. She hated being right sometimes.

They were between three to four feet in height, covered in fur colored anywhere from bright reds to dull browns and their foxlike heads ended in a pointed snout. About twenty of the creatures were sneaking up from behind, roughly fifty feet away, having probably hidden behind another hill further up the arroyo. Clad in simple belted tunics reaching barely past their hips, they were armed with metal knives and spears of mostly simple make, though a few were clearly loot from previous raids.

This wasn’t just an advance scout, it was a full raiding party.

If there was time she would’ve spat on the ground and curse at them, and then herself. It didn’t make sense they were here, not with the discovery of the skinner-wolves. Did they plan the ambush around them? She knew Erlings were smart, but not like this.

The creatures, realizing the jig was up, began their charge. Their lips curled and mouths full of overly large and sharp interlocking teeth emerged, a predatory grin. Yips and snarls were added to the battlefield chorus of growls, bleats and rifle fire.

Sally scowled and fired her second round, quickly pushed the lever, shifted aim and fired a third. Both shots hit, though only one of the Erlings fell. The other only briefly stumbling before running on. She heard five more shots, but only three more fell.

At least sixteen others were still rushing them, distance shrinking fast. The fifty feet gap had shrunk to less than thirty. Soon they’d be on them and their numbers would see them dead right quick.

This day’s quickly gone to hell, but perhaps she could turn it around. With Tarak’s gift, she could-

“Duck!” Sally only saw a glimpse of the thing, a precious second wasted trying to comprehend what was happening. Niall had been quicker on the uptake, having grabbed his grenade after firing only a single shot.

Nerves and neurons firing on all cylinders, Sally did a mad flip over her new favorite rock and landed painfully on her back behind it, pebbles and rocks digging sharply into her spine.

An explosion quickly followed and the familiar rain of sand, rock and pellets descended amongst the yelps of foxes. Behind her, she heard the shrapnel digging into the rock.

Good rock, she thought, taking quick breaths at the close call, the best.

She sat up and before her mind could digest what she saw, instinct took over. Pushing the lever, chambering the round, Sally fired once more, her fourth. The bullet slammed into the head of a charging skinner-wolf. Its body slid the remaining few feet between them, coming to a stop at her outstretched legs.

They were still here?! She’d hoped Marcy and Tarak had taken care of them, or that they’d run off like the cowards Marcy professed them to be.

She had a sinking feeling as the thought passed through her had. How many shots had she heard? How many skinner-wolves were left? How many Erlings? What happened to the other Wardens? Why didn’t she hear any more shots? Were they still fighting?

Were they even still alive?

Dread turned to panic, threatening to overtake her, her breaths becoming shallow and quick. She’d been a junior Warden for five years and had trained to become one for three more. Since age thirteen she’d hunted and killed many things, from mountain lions to corrupted alligators and devil-eels from the poisoned rivers, to skinners and all their variants, like skinner-snakes and harpies. Bandits and batkings, sheepstealers and shykes and all manner of demon inhabiting the Circuits, be they human or beast, she’d hunted and killed.

Yet she always had the upper hand, always a sense of what was going on and even at her most daring, Niall was there, a safety net ready to catch her when she slipped. And she’d slipped numerous times, each adding a number of scars on her chest, legs, sides and one even biting off a piece of her left ear.

But not here. She had no information, no knowledge of how many remained or where they were. No Niall nor either of the other Wardens. She might well be alone for this, the burden of responsibility solely on her. Perhaps this was her trial by fire, the culmination of all that effort. Survive this and she might confidently state she was a full Warden, ready to protect her community. Her final exam.

I can do this, she told herself. This is what I trained for, what I was made for. The thought was calming enough, and a sense of self returned. I am where I’m meant to be. She pushed herself up on her feet only to be presented with another crisis.

An Erling war cry came from behind. She turned around to see one of the creatures leap from her rock with knife in hand. Her newfound calm remained and she hit him with the butt of her rifle. The Erling cried and dropped to the ground.

A quick push of the lever chambered her final round. Another Erling had rushed her, this time from the right – where Niall should’ve been, something whispered – with a spear in hand. She took aim and shot, but the Erling timed its dodge and she missed.

Without lingering on it she let the rifle drop and drew her pistol, switched off safety and put two rounds in its chest. She turned around, instinct guiding her and was faced with a bipedal skinner-wolf rushing toward her, right arm mid swing and knife-like claw heading toward her head.

She leaned into the attack with her shoulder. Although she didn’t have to mass to throw off her attacker, it interrupted the swing and surprised the beast enough to send both of them tumbling to the ground, it on top of her. Before it could recover and take a bite Sally dumped the rest of her rounds into the beast’s chest, the gun slipping from her blood-soaked hands.

An Erling spear came from an oblique angle and she shifted accordingly. Rather than pierce the center of her chest and into her left lung, it hit her right ribs protected by her leather jacket, glancing off and hitting the ground.

Ignoring the blossoming pain, she grabbed the spear’s haft and leveraged it to slide out partway from under the body of the skinner-wolf. The Erling growled and yanked the spear in an attempt to get it back. She allowed it for a fraction of a second, causing the Erling to stumble back out of balance before she yanked it, making the creature fall toward her.

She let go of the spear and grappled the Erling, succeeding in putting her right arm around its throat and turning on her side, positioning the thing in front of her body. Other Erlings had begun to surround her, though with a dead skinner-wolf covering the lower half of her body and the thrashing Erling covering the rest, they seemed unsure of what to do.

Still, it was but a matter of time. The thrashing of the Erling became wilder and began tearing into her arm with its nails. Her position didn’t allow her to get a good enough grip to reliably hold it. Sooner or later she’d be forced let it go. Not that it mattered, its comrades would begin stabbing soon.

She was already dead, she realized. She had heard no other gunshots since Niall threw his grenade and Erlings had approached her from both sides of the gully. There was no rescue forthcoming.

Still, she had one last play to make.

With her left arm, pinned half underneath her own body, she reached for Harak’s grenade on her belt and pulled whatever it was that passed for a pin. With a final heave and grunt and cry of pain – the spear had hurt her more than she realized, apparently – she twisted her body to the right, squishing the thrashing Erling in her hold.

Grenade in hand, she thrust her left arm upward to the sky, a vindictive smile as three spear-bearing Erlings jabbed their spears into her.

A final explosion and a brief searing pain passing from hand to body to head was the last thing she remembered.

Until she snorted a nose-full of water.