The Speaker stepped out of the tunnels and took a deep breath. The first snow of winter had fallen and the ground was already white. The Speaker ignored the snow and the cold. All they felt was relieved.

A short distance from the mouth of the Great Creator’s tunnel was the Alpha who was speaking to the chief of the Ratlings. The Speaker took her first steps towards the two leaders and was slightly amused by how friendly they were with each other. There’s nothing like a common enemy to get people to ignore their differences.

The Speaker stopped a few steps from the leaders and waited. Both leaders were in their human forms and the Speaker took her first good look at the Chieftain. He was exactly much taller in his human form than in his Ratling form and was only half a head shorter than the Alpha. His hair was white and he had a habit of turning his head side to side. The Speaker guessed this was a habit gained from his previous life as a lowly rat.

The Speaker immediately closed her eyes and silently admonished herself. Her thoughts were unbecoming. The Chieftain and his Ratlings had proven their loyalty to the Creator and that should be more than enough for the Speaker. Who knew what could have happened if they weren’t here to protect the Creator?

The Speaker opened her eyes and looked up at the mountain that was Big Keg. The Keg Mountains were a trio. Small Keg was the shortest and sat on the east end of the range. Big Keg was in the middle and Middle Keg, despite its name, was on the west. South of the Keg Mountains was the Great Kar Forest.

Starting from Small Keg, the great forest stretches west and continued beyond Middle Keg, ending only at the edge of The Windy Depths, the great lake of the west. When the Creator agreed to make more werewolves, the Pack left the next morning. The Alpha wanted to grab every wolf on the Keg and in the Kar, and bring them all to the Creator to be changed.

Personally the Speaker thought the plan was too ambitious but she knew it wasn’t her place to argue. She defined the role of the Speaker as one who conveyed the wishes of the Great Creator to the pack. She did not lead. She did not want to lead. That’s the role of the Alpha.

After they left the Creator, her worries became joy. The joy the wolfgirl felt running in the forest near the tunnels was nothing compared to the joy she felt during the journey. Using senses she didn’t know wolves had, the pack tracked down several loners in the forest. Then, they met their first pack.

To be fair, it wasn’t difficult. They weren’t trying to hide their presence and the moment they wandered into another’s pack territory, the pack in charge came to meet them. By now, the Speaker was used to the surprise on their faces of the wolves. The wolves had no idea what the werewolves were and the look of surprise on their faces was similar to the ones she saw on lone wolves the Pack had picked up in the forest.

However the Pack smelled like wolves and when the Alpha made his challenge, there was no backing down. The fight was mercifully short and only 3 of the wolves, all enemies, laid dead by the end of the battle. The rest followed the Pack as they went further into the Kar.

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The Pack followed this pattern for the next three weeks, challenging and absorbing other packs in the forest. The Speaker was of little help in the tracking. She fought when she had to, but most of time she was looking out for plants to harvest. The Creator had proven that it could grow Emperor Daises within the tunnels and the Speaker could see no reason why the Creator couldn’t do the same for other plants and herbs.

During the journey, the Speaker roamed away from the pack on many occasions, hunting down valuable plants and herbs. The Alpha had no problem with this as long as she came back before they met up with another pack. The Speaker felt a freedom in her roaming that she never felt before as a slave.

That life was a lifetime ago.

The weeks passed and the air was getting colder. The land was getting ready for the first signs of winter and the Speaker was wondering if their journey would finish before the start of winter when they heard the cry. A wordless scream that rang loudly in the head of the Speaker!

All six members of the pack looked around and they noticed that the wolves that were with them had heard nothing. It was then the Speaker understood. The werewolves then looked in the direction of the cry and the Speaker felt dread in her heart.

The source of the cry was clear. The Creator was in pain. The Creator was in anguish. The Creator was in danger!

By then, the pack was at the western end of the Kar. As one, the Pack rushed back to the tunnel. Even travelling at their top speed, it took them over six days to reach back to the tunnel. All through this time, the fear grew in the heart of the Speaker. When the pack finally reached the tunnels…things had changed!

Ratlings armed with spears met up with them before they even reached the tunnels. One of them went ahead of the Pack to report their return and when they reached the tunnels, the Chieftain was waiting for them at the mouth of the tunnel.

The Speaker was unsurprised by the Chieftain’s human appearance. By now, three of the werewolves could change to a human form so it was highly unlikely the Creator had withheld such power from the Ratlings. Despite her misgivings about the rats, the Speaker knew in her heart the Great Creator was fairer than that.

The Chieftain quickly explained what happened. The attack from the humans; how the Ratlings were unable to stop them despite throwing their numbers at them; how they stole from the Creator before making their escape! The Creator was in a rage and created a range of weapons and armour for the Ratlings.

Looking around, the Ratlings seems to favour the spears and their Chieftain looked kind of embarrassed by their failure but none of the werewolves blamed him. The Ratlings were weak but they were willing to put their lives on the line for the Creator. That counted for something among the werewolves.

The Speaker had gone into the tunnels and saw the damage. All the Emperor Daisies were gone as were both of the beautiful jars the Creator had created. Fortunately, the Great Creator was unhurt and its rage had passed. However it was still upset the invaders escaped but it sounded delighted when the Speaker introduced the new wolves.

“How?”

It was the Alpha who was asking and it was clear to the Speaker who he was asking about. She replied. “The Creator is unhurt though a little upset by the humans. I introduced the new wolves to it and it sounded happy about that, but it did say not all the wolves could be changed into werewolves.”

The Alpha looked puzzled by the last bit of information but all the Speaker could do was shrug. She had no idea what criteria the wolves need to meet before they could be changed into werewolves.

“Humans.”

The Alpha growled the name and the Speaker nodded. She understood where the Alpha was coming from. The tunnel was the home of their Creator and it had been invaded. Wolves do not understood revenge but humans do and for better or worse, werewolves were part humans. As a former human, the Speaker knew vengeance better than the Alpha. She spoke again.

“There is a village…”

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