I am providing this book for free here on Royal Road because I love my fans! Have a read for free! If you wish to buy to support me, or want physical media, buy from the links below please c: <3

BUY THE DIGITAL VERSION HERE.

BUY THE PAPERBACK HERE.

----------------------------------------

“Is it time to go?” the gray speckled she-wolf asked.

It was twilight. It was definitely time to leave the druid camp and move in for the battle.

“Yes,” she said solemnly. “Gather the patrol. We move out when the moon peaks over the horizon.” Titus and Zachery decided to wait with the dragons in the clearing for their return with or without the druids.

“Okay!” Akemi barked and rushed away to sort the group.

When the moon began to rise, just as it had during the last battle, the patrol was divided into six wolves a line, six in back of the front line and so on. Sascha the white wolf led the patrol, much like a captain knight would.

As they stood upon a large tall hill at the very edge of Rosewood Forest overlooking the entire majestic city of Aerulis under the winter sky, their moderately long wolf fur swayed in the cool light wind like flags or trees.

They had come a long way for this. They had their chance to storm the castle and take back what was rightfully theirs. Sascha could feel Tairek’s presence beside her, his hand on her shoulders. The wind carried his scent into her nose, and she breathed it in happily... she had missed his smell.

Sascha turned to face the patrol, her face beaming with anger. Her tail was erect straight up in the air, her fangs bared with immense aggression.

“The King of this city has stolen what is precious to me,” she snarled with rage. “At long last it is time to take it back.” For some reason, Sascha felt as if the knights of Aerulis knew that she was coming somehow. “Pack, you do not have to fight in this battle if you do not wish it!”

All eyes were pointed attentively toward her and the patrol was soaking in every word she spoke. “If it is our destiny to die,” the great white wolf continued, “then so be it. But let history remember that as a wolf pack, we chose to make it so!”

The patrol cheered, barked, and shrieked their approval when she had finished.

“FOR AERULIS!” The white she-wolf howled.

When the cheering died down a bit, Sascha expressed her plan for the castle raid. “Riza…! Distract the guards at the drawbridge, and have Hikaru and Stone sneak up on them to knock them out!”

They dipped their heads in agreement.

“Once they’re knocked out, the rest of the patrol will move in quickly through the city!” Sascha continued loudly. “Akemi, Snowdrop, and Izor; I will sneak in the back way into the dungeon where you will fight the guards off. I will knock out the dungeon master and take his keys, then set every druid free!”

“And what are we supposed to do?”

“Yeah, are we just supposed to keep fighting while you just wander the dungeons and open prison cells?”

“Yes, you are,” Sascha said to her patrol. “But I promise you; once I have released the druids I will lead Akemi, Snowdrop, and Izor to the courtyard for battle. Then, I will go find Xanthus... and kill him.”

And so, the patrol moved out. They ran down the hill and out of the forest, unsheathing their claws and digging them into the earth to increase their speed down the steep slope.

Barking and yapping like feral dogs they soon approached the gate to the city of Aerulis. Sascha skidded to a stop and spun around to face the battle patrol.

“Halt!” She barked sternly, her ears as pointed as a snowy peak.

They obeyed her, stopping quickly and holding their heads up high with as much honor as she would see in the eyes of a strong, noble knight.

They awaited her very first order as a battle leader patiently, some flicking their tails back and forth. Their paws were under the snow, already so cold that they felt a bit numb.

A few specks of white snow clung frozen to their thick fur.

“Hikaru, Stone, sneak through the city and do as I told you both,” Sascha ordered solemnly. “When you’ve cleared out the drawbridge area, please send us a signal to move in.”

“Like a howl?” Stone inquired quietly, approaching the white she-wolf with his sister Hikaru by his side.

“No, that would alarm the knights in the castle,” Sascha disagreed and then thought for a moment. When she spoke again she tilted her head a bit. “Perhaps... you could actually go a little farther than the drawbridge?”

“What do you mean?” Hikaru questioned.

“On the side of the courtyard there are stairs leading up onto the ledge that overlooks the kingdom and Rosewood Forest. You should be able to see us from there,” the white she-wolf explained, her green glare flashing importantly. “Guards pace those ledges all the time, so you’ll have to watch out for them.”

“The point being...?”

“At all four corners of the castle there is a watch tower attached. There is a guard in each one of them, looking over the land in case another kingdom attacks,” she went on to say. “Knock the guard out there. I believe that there is a lever one of you can pull down that sends off a ball of fire into the sky. We will take that as our cue that everything is clear. Everything understood?”

The two siblings barked their agreement and then scrambled under the open space in the gate. They rushed off into the city, careful not to be seen by the unknowing villagers.

They waited for about twenty minutes, anxiety clinging to their pelts. Sascha had faith in the two wolves, but she hoped that they wouldn’t fail and be caught by the knights.

Then suddenly with an ear splitting sound a large ball of orange flame shot up into the air from the watch tower on the right side of the castle. That was their cue!

“Okay!” Sascha growled to her patrol, lashing her tail with seriousness. “Listen up! Organize yourselves into a single file line. That was our cue to move into the city. We have to hurry!”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

As the great white wolf bounded toward the gate, the patrol gradually developed a single file line.

Sascha slithered under the gate, the wolves of the battle patrol following close behind.

Akemi was the first to slip under the gate, Riza behind her, then Izor, Strawberry, Tsute, Siber, Raven, Thundermist, Sorrel, Evia, Shin, Jason, Tasgall, Amara, Snowdrop, Zuri, Aeron, Yorath and Kira.

They raced through the city, unseen and unsought for. It reminded Sascha of the time she ran through Windstorm City trying to find the Master Rei while escaping the guards.

Except now it was a peaceful trip because they were not being chased. Soon they reached the drawbridge and Sascha sent the patrol into the courtyard, but removed four from that group and hurried eagerly to the back of the castle.

The snow almost hid the small iron barred opening but they were able to find it. Sascha tried to break out some of the bars so that a wolf could fit through the opening, but she had to pull extremely hard to even get one loose.

She let go of the bar and shifted her head back to her four patrol members. “Akemi,” she called to her gray speckled friend to come and help her.

Sascha grabbed onto the loose bar, Akemi biting onto the same one, and they both pulled.

BANG!

The two wolves flew backward, the bar still in their jaws. Standing, they spat the black bar out and summoned the small group to do the same as they had just done with the rest of the bars.

There were only five bars left now and they all tried to work very hard to get them out. Their teeth ached but they ignored it. They were not going to whine about the pain, they wanted to continue their quest without stopping for a mere second.

They entered the dungeon once every bar was removed.

“Okay, listen to me!” The white she-wolf growled softly to the four other wolves with her in the dungeon hallway.

There were no guards pacing this little area, thankfully. “I want you all to go to the entrance of the dungeon and pick off the guards. Snowdrop and Izor! Go your separate ways and search all throughout the dungeon for people that would pose a danger to me or Akemi and Thundermist. Understood?”

Snowdrop, the white and gray she-wolf with yellow eyes, and Izor, a jet black male wolf with blue eyes, dipped their heads and raced off in a random direction in search of the dungeon entrance where the most guards would be.

The rest of the wolves followed her quickly, and that left Sascha alone with her own task in the dark and moldy prison.

The white she-wolf wandered the dungeon for a short while and then spotted the dungeon master.

When she saw him she had been crossing through a hallway full of prison cells, but then she backed up immediately behind a wall when she realized that he was heading her way.

She felt a surge of surprise which froze her in place for a moment, her breathing picking up. It wasn’t that she was scared or that she did not have faith in her fighting abilities, she was just not used to being in danger in the unfamiliar castle of the evil King Xanthus de Taske.

She knew that the dungeon master had seen her, so she prepared for him to walk around the corner. When he did she leaped into his side, his head hitting the ground. The dungeon master fell unconscious, and that made Sascha switch into a hurry.

She did not know how long the man would be out of the conscious, so she quickly pulled off his belt and let the metal ring with keys attached to them slide off of it. She grabbed them and rushed off to find the druids inside the prison.

She didn’t want to bark in case any guards or knights were lurking around there.

She picked up that strong familiar scent and followed it. It was the scent of the druids! Something that Sascha hadn’t been able to smell since the fire.

Coming around a corner, the scent growing stronger, she saw the entrance to the dungeon. She saw Akemi and Thundermist at the base of the stairs that led upward into the castle, five guards knocked unconscious by the stairs that led upward to ground level.

“Is everything going okay?” She asked them.

They both nodded their heads. Akemi pointed her nose toward the first cell across from the stairs.

“Look,” she barked.

Sascha tilted her head and followed her friend’s glare to see something long awaited by her. It was King Avyrus of the druid clan. She looked around and spotted all the other druids in the cells in the hall. Finally she had reunited with him and the rest of the group. Sascha knew that they couldn’t understand her, but she started talking to the handsome King anyway.

“You would not believe what I’ve been through, Sire,” she barked. “I will get you all out, I promise.” It was kind of hard to talk with the ring of keys in her mouth, but she managed.

The King was sitting in the corner, looking kind of pathetic. He seemed very depressed, and mangy. He hadn’t bathed in a while so he smelled a bit dirty.

His hair was screwed up and looked horrible. He hadn’t even bothered to run his fingers through it to keep up a decent appearance. Avyrus scratched his head, not even bothering to look up. “Leave me alone,” he growled with little to no energy.

“Avyrus?” Sascha raised a brow with confusion. She could only assume he was depressed because he had been in the moldy dungeon for so long without any of his needs tended to properly.

“What’s wrong with him?” Akemi asked, approaching Sascha from behind. Sascha didn’t answer; she stood up on her forelegs and tried all twenty of the keys until the very last one fit into the keyhole, and she turned it and unlocked the cell door.

The white she-wolf did not let go of the key that was correct for each of the prison cells. “King Avyrus, I’ve come to rescue you and the others,” Sascha rushed into the cell once she had opened it wide, which would ensure that it would not close on them.

That would be horrible, being locked in.

“Get up, okay?”

Avyrus sighed impatiently, barely even noticing that the door had been opened, and looked up.

When he cast his nearly white ice blue eyes upon the white wolf that stood tall before him his face filled with great awe.

Sascha realized that he was just starting to recognize her. “The Great White Wolf has come to save us!” He exclaimed with shock and was completely speechless. “How...? But how... how is that...”

Sascha covered his face in wet wolf kisses affectionately. “Just give me a moment,” she barked quietly. “Akemi and Thundermist will guard the entrance while I release the druids.”