Song One: The Road to the Beginning.

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Stab. In went the arming sword, out came some blood. With it, the last of the direwolves died, and the rest of the recon squad relaxed.

“Yeah, it’s only getting tougher from here… You should head back soon, Kern. The usual.” The leader, Gintz, called out to a lightly armored member wielding a simple engraved magic staff and wearing a large backpack. “The route back should still be clear from here.”

“We haven’t found anything concrete yet, and I can’t help but feel the direwolves here are strange, though…” Kern rifled through his pack for the correct logbook. “I think I should stick around, just a bit more. Ah, yeah, right here, I remember now. These direwolves have an extra set of fangs, and their fur is thicker and sturdier. Something’s definitely up, so let me investigate a bit more.” He held up the logbook, page opened to an older diagram.

Gintz winced slightly. “If you insist… alright. Stay in the back, keep yourself safe. Everyone, we’ll pick back up in just a moment.” He sat to clean his sword off, the rangers went for their javelins, and the healer made her rounds with the bandages, herbs, and alcohol. In the back, the marksman retrieved what arrows he could from the wolves before skinning them.

“You sure about not going back? I can tell it’s hard on you, too, y’know.” Kaerie’s leather lamellar rustled as she moved off to treat Erik, one of the two rangers, for his scratch wounds. “We can’t afford any serious casualties… The outpost is already understaffed.”

“Hmm… I do feel like there’s something we need to find out and report in better detail, though.” Helea, the other ranger, chimed in.

“Welp, Helea’s hunch has spoken.” Erik took his turn while polishing a javelin. "That's that."

Gintz eyed Murik, who provided no response. “Alright, but you’re splitting off by half a bell from now, got it? It’ll be too risky any further than that.”

“Yeah, that’ll do.” Kern lifted himself from the floor, patting the dust away from himself and his backpack.

“‘Kay, up we go.” On this signal, the recon party continued forward.

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The next group the party encountered was another handful of black direwolves. Helena opened with a javelin, skewering the side of one of them. Erik took a moment to aim, and impaled a second through its eye.

The direwolves raced towards the party, but an arrow from the marksman stabbed itself in the upper leg of the frontmost wolf, and Gintz summarily executed it with two fast slashes.

The next wolf bashed itself against Gintz’s kite shield, raised in the nick of time, and Helea opted to step up and impale that one with her second javelin, thrown just barely not from point blank.

Erik bashed the third wolf away with his round shield before sending a javeling straight into its belly, and Gintz moved up to finish off the last wolf, now impaled by a javelin and two arrows.

The wolf jumped back, before managing a loud howl. Not a problem, as it stopped moving for more than long enough to let Gintz step up and stab it to death.

At least, normally it wouldn’t have been a problem. Today, however, was unlucky; a much louder, and slightly deeper, howl echoed from not too far away. Perhaps a few hundred, maybe a thousand long paces away, a howl far too loud to be a normal direwolf rang out. Then a second. Then a third.

“Greatwolves… at least three, no less.” Kern stepped out from the brush he stayed hidden in.

Everyone knew what this many greatwolves meant; something important was hidden here, and it was most likely some tool to attack with. The Beastmaster was preparing a large offensive to strike from here.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

And now, said Beastmaster’s forces would all be ever so willing to murder these moths wandering too close to the flame. In order to not be caught from behind, and in hopes of learning more, they’d have to press on.

“Forward we go, and stick tight. Kern, Kaerie, it’s gonna be rough from here. Kern, you know what you need to do. Kaerie, stick tight.” Gintz picked up the pace while issuing the reminder, twice for the all-important healer. The rangers and Murik followed breezily, while the two members in question scrambled to close the gap.

Only a hundred or so paces, the first greatwolf appeared, charging in and tackling Gintz with its bear-sized body. Gintz had his shield raised, so the wolf had no chance to bite, but it shoved the vanguard away mercilessly.

Gintz landed on his back and scrambled back up. Erik and Helea launched their javelins, but Helea’s only grazed, and Erik’s only stabbed in shallowly on the wolf’s front left thigh.

Murik just barely managed a shot on the right leg, but it wouldn’t do much. Gintz decided to capitalize, and rushed forward before hacking away at the wolf’s left leg, while Helea rushed in towards a flank, preparing to launch another javelin.

The wolf knocked away Gintz again and tried to run past, bit Gintz kept his balance this time, taking two steps before launching a brutal vertical slice on the wolf’s side.

Staggered, the wolf halted for just a moment, and Kaerie stepped up to whack its head with her staff, while Erik drove his javelin into its belly. An arrow landed with a thunk into the beast’s eye, and Gintz pulled off.

“The second one’s here!” Helea called out as the second Greatwolf made its appearance a hundred long paces away in the trees, howling as it charged in. Murik let loose an arrow after just a moment, but it grazed off the wolf’s pelt.

“We’re finishing off this one, hold it back for now!” Gintz’s reply snapped back.

Helea steadied herself before countercharging the oncoming greatwolf. As the two collided, both ended up dazed for a moment; another two arrows flew, one hitting the nose and grazing it, another hitting the ear. Kern stepped up and used his staff to strike the jaw from below, while Helena took her javelin and stepped to the side to impale its belly.

The wolf jumped back in time to avoid the impaling, and lashed out with its claws. Shield raised, Helea blocked the giant paw, but Kern was forced back as the wolf lunged its head at him.

“Third one’s here!” Gintz called out after finishing off the first with Erik, right as another chilling howl rang out from ahead. “Helea, Kaerie, Kern, counting on you to handle the second now! Murik, on the third with us!” Direwolf howls were drawing near, as well. “Looks like the rest of the pack’s coming too!”

Murik moved over to get line of sight, while Kaerie moved to flank the wounded greatwolf on the left. Kern took a deep breath before circling to the right of the greatwolf, swapping with Helea, and Helea bashed the wolf on the head with her round shield.

Kern swapped to his knife, while Helea distracted the wolf, and Kaerie took another swing at the wolf’s head. Unfortunately, this time it was a miss. Even worse, on second lunge, the greatwolf’s fangs grazed Kaerie’s arm, cutting through the leather lamellar and drawing blood.

Kern’s blood chilled just a bit, but he gripped himself. The third lunge didn’t connect, thankfully.

Kaerie was forced to retreat and heal herself, but she had bought enough time for Kern to jump in and stab twice, as well as enough time for Helea to slam a javelin into the wolf’s neck.

Another stab to the gut, followed by tearing through the hide as much as possible, and the second greatwolf finally fell. Kern looked over towards Gintz, as Helea sprinted her way over. Kern himself made his way over to Kaerie, to cover her as she finished bandaging herself.

Over at the third Greatwolf, a number of dead direwolves lay, victim to Gintz’s arming sword, Murik’s shooting, or Erik’s falchion. Or all three. Gintz, however, had as a result suffered numerous scratches and bites, only lessened by his iron scale mail.

The greatwolf was still standing, but already bloodied. A few direwolves still paced behind it, but one fell instantly as Helea sent one of her last javelins into its skull. Erik, in the meantime, aimed a javelin at the greatwolf.

Threatened by an enlarging firing arc, the greatwolf tried to break away from the fight.

Gintz would have no such thing, however, and sunk his arming sword into the wolf’s side, while Erik sunk his javelin into the wolf’s other side.

Followed by a stab from Helea’s falchion, the greatwolf fell. The direwolves howled, but no response came. The rest were still too far out.

The direwolves made a mad dash towards Kern and Kaerie, planning to take out the weaker ones and open an escape, but a couple shots from Murik and a few swings from Kern took out the remaining wolves.

“Alright, let’s move, move, move!” Gintz gave no rest, and Erik and Helea scrambled to recover a few of their javelins before continuing on.

“Gintz, you’re wounded. You’ll need to be treated sooner rather than later.” Kaerie started walking fast to keep up, and Kern was left scrambling again.

“Later it’ll have to be. We can’t stay here, got to get to a river and wash off our scent, now.” That was the only real way to avoid being tracked by the hounds and revealing the scouting routes.

The party made their way quickly forward. Now, the silence of the forest settled in.