“So we are all agreed on the terms of this truce?” asked Erock as he looked between Akira, Varbu, and the two goblin royalty.

“It's the best we can do for now,” said Akira.

Ding!

Quest Completed!

The Saber fang clan's army was successfully stopped from reaching Kodria!

Special upgrade for the outer city wall will activate when you return to the city.

Akira quickly closed the window and glanced at a pale-faced Tormoid who was still recovering from his wound. Tormoid did not look at Akira and continued to stare at the ground silently.

“What are we going to do with the northern Demigods causing trouble?” asked Varbu.

“It is such short notice and since we are not there to coordinate any type of defense, I need to ask you to put aside the grudges we have and help us push the Demigods back,” said Erock.

Everyone was silent for several seconds, their gazes all shifted to Akira to see what he would decide before speaking up themselves.

“I have no issue with helping you defend your city from the demigods. I just wish that you would have not started such a conflict in the first place,” said Akira.

“We will follow your lead,” said Varbu as he thumped his chest in salute.

“Gi Gii giiiii,” said Prince Goobers, voicing his own agreement.

“What are we to do with the wounded, and the Ramia that will be here any day now?” asked Erock.

“We'll send the wounded to Kodria where they will be taken care of. A messenger group will be stationed here to wait for the Ramia and inform them of everything that has happened. We need to head north immediately as there is no time to waste.”

“My boats have a better carrying capacity than normal troops ships. We should transport your cavalry north first while your ships travel north and pick up our troops and transport them,” suggested Erock.

“Let's do that,” said Akira. The faster they arrived the faster they could handle the crisis, and the most flexible units of the army were the cavalry who could quickly respond to almost anything the demigods had planned.

***

The boats traveled up the unfreezing river and made their way along the shore cutting through the thin layers of ice that was starting to cover the water.

“Crowmaw is just over there,” said Erock, pointing towards a large city made out of a large gathering of several hundred if not thousands, of tepees, other leather tents, and movable structures.

“Let's get as close as we can and then we can start ferrying everyone to shore,” said Akira talking to the captain of the ship as he looked at the ice and the snowy shore.

Within a few minutes, they arrived at the spot closest to the shore that they could get without beaching the ship.

Akira and Erock both rode the first ship to shore so that Akira could organize the cavalry as they arrived onshore and Erock could start working on preparing Crowmaw for the arrival of the demigods.

It was the next morning when the first of the troopships started to arrive one after another.

Varbu arrived onshore in the first wave of troops. Akira made his way over to him to get him up to date on what had to be done.

“...that is all you need to do right now. Just make sure that you are able to cover the entire village to block any sneak attacks. I will be going out to scout the surrounding area and warn any villages we may come upon,” said Akira as he finished giving out orders.

Minutes later Akira bid Mileena goodbye, and then gathered all of the Calvary and headed out on their scouting mission.

They rode for nearly half a day before they encountered their first small village. Several dogs started to bark loudly warning the villagers of strangers.

Several loud children rushed to the tents and Yurts they lived in and then poked their heads out to see who had come. The many adults all exited the housing fully equipped in armor with their weapons ready.

“Who be ye? What do ye want with such a large force?” asked an elderly werewolf who seemed to be the leader of the small nomadic village.

“I am Akira, lord of Kodria, and the Darkmoon clan. The demigods have been terrorizing the northern villages and towns. I advise you to head towards Crowmaw for your own safety.”

“So the rumors were true?” asked the elderly werewolf.

“They are. We can not stay to talk with you longer as we have to warn others of the danger. Do you know of any other village or settlement nearby?” asked Akira.

“If you keep heading east there may be two other groups or they may have already packed up and left,” said the elderly man as he pointed to the east.

Akira waved to him and ordered the cavalry forward again once more. It was nearing dinner time when they saw the tents, tepees, and yurts of another nomadic village.

Unlike the last village, there were no barking dogs and no noisy children. The only sound that could be heard was the crunching snow as the Gargs ran through the snow as well as the slight hiss of the metal runners on the sleds that were pulled by the reindeer.

The blowing wind brought the smell of fresh snow that had a hint of stale smoke mixed in alerting Akira that there was something wrong.

Akira unsheathed his weapon and issued a silent order for everyone else to do the same. They split into two and silently surrounded the village.

The smell of stale smoke grew stronger as they reached the outskirts of the village. The outside dwellings seemed to be fine but as soon as they passed them they found that everything inside had been torn down and burned.

The village was empty of enemies as well as its original inhabitants.

'Several bodies were burnt here,' said Graarr as he sniffed the air near a large ash pile.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Akira hopped off and kicked around the ground uncovering several frozen bloody patches that had been covered by new snow.

“They were definitely killed by the Demigods. I didn't see any footprints that indicated anyone escaped,” said Vilkas.

“The smells are only a day or two old. The demigods should be within the vicinity,” said Dolph.

“We'll continue to search for them and warn anyone else we see. I fear that all the other villages and settlements from here on have already been attacked,” said Akira as he returned to Grarr.

They continued searching all through the cold winter night but could not find any traces of the group of demigods tormenting the area.

With little luck finding the elusive demigods Akira ordered the cavalry to return to Crowmaw village.

***

While Akira was away Varbu and the Kodria soldiers helped Erock move the village back away from the shore so that they could better defend against any shore attack.

When that was completed, they started creating temporary walls by packing snow and sprinkling water gathered from the ocean on the snow, creating a semi-solid ice/snow wall.

The demigods had been sighted and would be here soon. They had little time left to prepare and the naval ship could only give a small amount of relief as they would be unable to stand long against the demigod's skill attacks.

***

Clang! Crash! Kaching!

The sound of a fierce battle reached Akira's ears as they neared Crowmaw city.

'I think we found where the demigods went!' said Grarr.

“Yap!” said Fluffball who was running next to Akira.

“Awooo!”Akira let out a howl, ordering the cavalry to move towards the enemy.

They spread out from a marching line formation, into a battle formation that they had trained in several thousands of times.

The Gargs continued to let out short howls as they charged towards the enemy letting the allied Werewolves know of their presence.

Several howls echoed out from the temporary ice/snow walls of Crowmaw as fighting soldiers acknowledged their presence.

The Demigods hearing the howls all around them start to curse.

“Buther, I thought you said that this place was going to be easy to take down!” shouted Ranche one of the crazy pirates.

“Bland and his group are the ones that scouted them out and gave me the information! How was I supposed to know that they would have such a huge army!”

“We need to get out of here quick or we're going to get surrounded and wiped out!”

“Retreat!” shouted Buther.

Of the several hundred demigods as well as the hundred-plus captured warriors that had started the fight against the werewolves, less than a hundred demigods were all that now remained. They had been met with heavy resistance which led to all of their captured warriors being killed before they could even help secure the supposed weak city.

The demigods turned as one and rushed to the shore fighting off their pursuers while trying to reach their boats before the cavalry could cut them off.

“Faster!” ordered Akira.

When the ballista sleds were in range, they started to shoot and zero in on their targets as they rushed forward alongside the other Calvary.

They were successful in scoring direct hits on several of the demigods piercing their bodies and creating many bright lights of fragments as the killed demigods disappeared from the battlefield.

Akira and the cavalry were not fast enough to stop the demigods from reaching their rowboats. The demigods all piled into their boats and pushed off heading back to the main ships floating farther out at sea.

The ballista sleds continued to shoot at the rowing boats trying to kill and poke holes into the boats. They were successful in capsizing one of the fast-moving boats sending its occupants into the freezing water, where they floundered with their heavy wet armor. Those that were not rescued by passing rowboats sank under the floating ice chunks and did not resurface.

Before the Buster sleds could target another boat, several fire, ice, wind, and other special skills flew off of the demigod's large ships and targeted the sleds forcing them to turn around and head back out of the range of the ships.

The boats of both Kodria and Crowmaw's navy used this distraction of the enemy to play footsie with them by getting close enough to shoot off several volleys of arrows and ballista at the enemy before turning around and sailing out of the range of the enemies skills.

“Damn it are they going to get away?” asked Varbu, who had joined Akira after chasing the demigods all the way to their rowboats.

“What are those?” asked Zundar as he pointed towards a spot on the distant sea.

“What?” asked Akira.

“Several more ships have appeared! Are they enemy reinforcements?”

Akira found the ships that were sailing towards them after a few seconds of searching the large icy sea. He could see that they were all a mixture of sizes and shapes.

They all had two things in common. One, the wood of every ship looked as if it was rotten, every one of their sails had so many holes in them. The second thing they all had in common was the flag they all flew. It had a certain skeleton's head on each of the flags. Despite the extremely poor shape of the ships they sped across the icy water as if they were brand new.

“What is he doing here?” asked Akira.

“You know them?” asked Varbu.

“They are the former inhabitants of the islands that now make up Kodria,” said Akira.

The demigods were spoiled for choice of targets and were now a little overwhelmed as they were being attacked from the shore as well as the naval ships nearby and now several other ships were coming to block off their escape.

“Target the approaching ships!” shouted the demigod commander of the ships.

The ships were not fully crewed by demigods, they also had several hundred warriors who had been captured and forced into serving them.

The ragged ghost ships continued forward weathering the barrage of skill attacks as if nothing was happening. On top of the decks of the ships skeletons milled around waiting as the ships raced towards their target.

Akira watched as the ships continued to sail straight towards the demigod's ships and did not look like they were going to slow down.

“Move the ship to starboard!” shouted the demigod commander frantically.

Crack! Crash!

Akira was amazed at Captain Pegleg's crude tactics.

He had t-boned the ships crashing right into the side stopping both ships with loud cracks and groans of wood.

“Kyahahahah! Your snips now belong to me!” shouted a skeleton who had a large black triangle leather hat on his head and two leather eye patches covering each of his empty eye sockets.

“My what?” asked the demigod captain.

“Kill them all!” cried Captain Pegleg.

Like a flood, the undead skeleton pirates swarmed from one ship to the other and started a fight with the demigods and those they had been forced to serve.

The demigods were dropping like flies because the skeletons kept on re-assembling themselves and attacking them when they were not looking.

The regular humans and demon races that had been captured saw this and turned on the demigods helping kill them.

Many of those that rebelled were cut down by the skills of the demigods and killed immediately, they were not undead so they did not revive.

Although the numbers were against the demigods, they were able to kill over half of the captured warriors before they were completely wiped out by the undead pirates.

Pegleg used a special type of magic and commanded the dead warriors to revive adding more skeletons to his naval force.

This scared many of those who had known them when they were alive.

Pegleg looked to the shore and saw Akira standing there.

“What's this? Is that my old friend that is not my friend?” asked Pegleg as he held his hand to his forehead to block the nonexistent sunlight and stare at Akira on the shore.

“Take me to the shore!” shouted Pegleg.

***

“Weren't we supposed to be helping the forbidden and Cunning shadow clans fight the werewolves?” asked Phobia.

“While they busy themselves with the small fry Crowmaw village we will be preparing to take over the human city Froit!” said Bland.

“What a sneaky plan,” said Kooter.

“Why risk attacking a strong force when we have a weak one we can focus on. We can build a base there to attack any other place we want,” said Bland.

“So that's where we are going. Are you sure we can take down that city?”

“Trust me, I wouldn't have started this plan if I wasn't sure,” said Bland.