by Mark Tufo
CHAPTER 18 - Mike Journal Entry Twelve
Talboton went a lot like I expected it would. The council really didn’t want to hear anything about what we speculated, and was even less impressed with what we were asking for. And how could I blame them? We were asking them to diminish their guard to help communities that they had little to no ties with.
It was Bailey that fought tooth and nail for them to see our point. In the end we got something, but it was like lighting a fire to stop a flood; basically it wasn’t going to do shit. Talboton agreed to send ten men to four different communities with five hundred rounds. And that wasn’t each…that was total. Each man or woman would have fifty rounds – less than two full magazines. They had bows and swords as well, but by that point, we might as well start throwing rocks. Then there came the question of would the other villages accept our aid. Ten armed people could actually control an entire population. They might not be so inclined as to let us in even if it was for their safety.
Getting man to get over his innate distrust of strangers was not going to be easy. And then there was also the problem if Xavier decided to do an ‘end around’ on us. There were only so many frontier places we could assist; if he went further east, he would find places ripe for the picking where Lycan and werewolves were only tales talked about by traveling merchants. Without firsthand experience, those towns would never prepare until it was too late.
Unbeknownst to me, Azile had arranged a plan with the Landians to track any movements of humans. The Lycan would have to bring their war machine into place before the moon turned full. Humans on foot were slow, noisy, and always left tell-tale signs of their passing; especially an assemblage of that many. We’d know soon enough if Xavier was trying to press further east.