Brace For the Wolves

by Nathan Thompson

  Eadric took the chain armor the guard outside had been wearing and Karim grabbed one of the spears. Weylin kept his bow and added a few more combat knives to his new uniform.

  That was another thing. Once I had begun slaughtering other projected bodies, I had received a notice that some extraplanar council had decided that I had begun Stellar War with Rhodes’ organization. I still had no idea what Stellar War was or how that happened, but someone somewhere was now keeping a tally of how many people I was killing and was rewarding me with random supplies and basic gear. I didn’t have enough credit or whatever to outfit everyone with the same kind of uniform I had, but I had been able to get everyone clothing that at least didn’t look like it would fall off their bodies at any given moment. Karim, Weylin, and Eadric all received a sturdy set of clothing similar to mine that came with a belt, boots, and pockets.

  After that, we began our trek out of the dungeon. Weylin began singing very quietly, Eadric broke one of his figurines, and Karim drew some blue symbols into the air. Somehow it made everyone hardier, quieter, and harder to notice. We moved quickly out of the dungeon entrance, and I still had to suppress a snort whenever I passed one of Rhodes’ company slogans. I went ahead and used my handle’s recording feature to take a picture of it, in case someone was ever able to prosecute him for interplanetary invasion.

  We exited out of a very wide cave that matched Karim’s description as an indefensible location. I was happy though, to see trees and grass again. It was one more experience I wanted to take time to process, but I knew we didn’t have time and if I started kissing the sweet ground all the villagers behind me would break down too.

  Fortunately, I was able to immediately direct people to where we were going. My mind-screen was still calculating my internal changes but it was still able to process a route given to me by Avalon. The planetary intelligence would warn us of hostile creatures long before we could see or hear them. So for a number of miles we were able to move without trouble. Avalon asserted to me that we would reach the shelter soon.

  “Horde detected,” Avalon messaged me privately. “Adjust your course thirty degrees, northeast.” I relayed the order to everyone. It passed quickly, and the train of escaped captives kept quietly running, feet padding across the ground while Weylin kept whispering a barely audible song. I saw Eadric take out another figurine and break it.

  “Horde are changing direction and increasing proximity. Adjust your course forty degrees, northeast.”

  Once again, I passed on the order. But I was growing more nervous.

  Despite being outside, the scenery was not helping my nerves. Avalon was a place usually lit by either starlight or a cloud-covered sun. Right now it was night again, though it had only been an hour or two since I escaped my execution and I could have sworn that it had been scheduled for the morning. Perhaps my enemies were still operating on Earth’s time instead of Avalon’s?

  But the worst of it all was the silence as we padded past the trees. Aside from our own noise, the woods and glades of Avalon were completely quiet, lacking all of the usual night noises the magic forest once had. No nightbirds. No insects.

  “Hordebeasts are changing direction and rapidly decreasing distance. Retain your direction but double your speed. Shelter is close by.”

  I passed the message on once again, and everyone’s speed doubled. I frantically checked to make sure we hadn’t lost anyone, but I saw Eadric jogging at our rear, and he gave me an encouraging nod. I moved my eyes forward and did my best to set a steady pace.

  Then I heard the howl.

  Even after everything I had experienced my skin still threatened to jump off my flesh. A couple of the prisoners began to whimper. I didn’t blame them. I called the noise a howl in my mind, but no wolf could ever make its throat warble enough to produce the sound I just heard.

  “Horde approaching detection range. Cease all movement and focus on concealing presence. Avalon will assist.”

  “Everybody stop,” I said as loudly as I dared. “We can’t outrun this group. Be quiet. We’ll have to use our magic to hide.

  The whispering shushed immediately. Eadric broke another figurine and Karim began writing in the grass and dirt. Weylin kept moving his lips but now I couldn’t even hear him breathe.

  Mist began to gather around, and the women and elderly huddled into it, tightly clutching children close to them. I quietly reactivated the spells that gave me rocky skin and wind-assisted movement. But beyond that there wasn’t much I could do. Breena hadn’t taught me any concealment spells yet. I hunkered down with the former captives, holding my spear in one hand and gripping the hilt of my short sword with the other.

  Another howl sounded out, and this time a whisper crawled through the air right behind it.

  “Traitor-prince.”

  Another howl sounded out as well. This one came from farther away than the first one. But the whisper followed nonetheless.

  “Traitor-prince.”

  More howls joined, as if a pack of wolf-like ghosts were hunting us.

  And judging by the chant that followed, they were.

  “Traitor-prince, traitor-prince. Hunt-and-catch-the-traitor-prince.”

  I couldn’t even tell who was speaking. But I realized that they were after me.

  And judging by the cocked heads all around me, everyone else could hear it too.

  Weylin seemed to be cocking his head at the words, but judging by his facial expression he thought the words to be utter gibberish.

  Another series of howls. They seemed to be congregating around us, but still searching.

  “Traitor-prince, traitor-prince, hunt-and-catch-the-traitor-prince.”

  “What are they saying?” one of the captives whispered.

  “Hush,” Karim said. His eyes were closed. “I’ll look up the language later.”

  What do you mean you’ll look it up, I wanted to ask. It should be plain as day.

  For all of their unnaturalness, the Horde were usually easy to comprehend when they spoke. And that wasn’t just me, Breena had assured me. If a Hordebeast was capable of speech, it was also capable of making itself understood to any locals.

  I usually didn’t have to worry about languages at all either, because part of the benefits to being a Challenger is that the mind-screen helped translate visual and oral communication. I could still learn languages as a hobby, but for all except the most ancient of languages, Avalon or the mind-screen would take care of the problem for me.

  So that meant that the Horde were speaking in a language that I knew personally but Karim and the others had never heard before.

  And the only language I knew well was English.

  “Ran away, but left his scent, find the trail, drag him back, and kill the traitor-prince!”

  Shit, I thought as I gripped my weapons tightly. They have my scent. They’ll find us.

  I have to do something.

  “Remain hidden,” Avalon intoned. “Avalon is assisting with concealment.”

  I gritted my teeth and kept still. Another series of howls sounded out.

  “Quit the brood, cursed his blood, left a trail of fear behind. Keep the scent and seek the trail and kill the traitor-prince!”

  “Momma, are they talking?” a hip-tall child whispered fearfully.

  “Shh,” the mother hissed. “It’s gonna be okay. They’re just babbling.”

  I wanted to scream at the mother, but the truth was if she didn’t calm her child down there would be even more noise. We couldn’t have a confrontation. There were over half a dozen beasts howling. And something about the creatures told me I wouldn’t be able to battle them and protect the refugees at the same time.

  Another series of howls.

  “Trail found, scent left. Chase him to the rocky cleft. Track him down, bring him back, then kill the traitor-prince!”

  They were even announcing that they found me. I would have drawn my blade then and there, until I realized something.

  The
y were massing behind us, and getting further away. They must be tracking our trail back to the dungeon.

  More howls sounded, and this time I realized that there were over a dozen of the strange creatures. But they had gotten farther and farther away. I could tell by hearing the heavy footfalls in the distance, as the creatures abandoned stealth for speed.

  “Concealment successful,” Avalon intoned in my mind. “Proximity clear. Continue journey to secure location. Shelter is close by.”

  I nodded and motioned to everyone.

  “Avalon says we’re clear. Let’s keep moving. We’re almost safe.”

  Several sighs of relief, and then everyone was moving again.

  I was not one of those who sighed.

  These things knew both my tongue and my scent.

  Chapter 2: Safe Place

  We kept running. Howls sounded behind us. Children whimpered into their parents’ chests. I kept us doggedly following the path Avalon gave me through the trees and rocks and shrubbery. The howls grew more and more distant, but I knew that it was only a matter of time before they realized I was no longer in the dungeon. Hopefully the fact that it was now sacked and looted would puzzle them.

  Then again, why were they looking for me at all?

  Could they already know I was free?

  Maybe they got a similar message about me taking their territory, much like what I had received when I slew their cultist? Were they getting messages at all?

  Come to think of it, I didn’t even know if Rhodes’ people had mind-screens at all.

  Karim interrupted my thoughts by jogging next to me.

  “We have a problem,” he said.

  “Be more specific,” I panted as I jogged around a tree root. Though I actually didn’t even feel winded yet. That was a good sign.

  “You have fought the Horde before, correct? According to the legends?”

  “If by ‘legends’ you mean three or four of my weeks ago, then yes,” I panted back. “They were disgusting, and disturbing.”

  “Then you must remember their ranks and progression,” the man said as he kept up with me. At under six feet, he was a few inches shorter than me, but his muscles were toned and he seemed no more fatigued than I was.

  “I only fought the weakest of them,” I replied. “Ilklings and an empowered Wretch. Got my silvery sword from them.”

  “But the Lady of the Mists must have explained more about them,” Karim pressed.

  I took a moment to point out with my arm the change in direction we needed to make. I was relieved to watch our caravan make it successfully. The fact that we still hadn’t lost anyone on this mad dash was a literal miracle, made possible only by the magic of the three people with me.

  “I got a general rundown on their different species and organization,” I said as I looked ahead. The perimeter of the shelter should be coming up in a few hundred yards. “Is this about the howls?”

  “Yes,” Karim huffed. I really wanted to argue that now was not a good time for this discussion, but I figured the man knew that too and had still decided that this conversation was important enough to bring up right now. “Those are not one of the normal broods of Horde.”

  “I figured that,” I replied. “But I understand that Horde broods often mutate.”

  “Not often,” Karim said with a shake of his head. “And this isn’t a mutation. They wouldn’t just randomly breed a bunch of tracker-type monsters.”

  “Do you think they knew to be looking for us?” I asked. The Shelter should be coming in view in under a hundred yards.

  “They shouldn’t. Not this soon. But I think they’ve been spending a long time looking for someone in particular. And this current breed is designed to find him or her. And I suspect that person is within our group. And I further suspect that they may track us back to this shelter you have for us.”

  “That’s not good,” I panted. “But I think we’re about to find out more.”

  Avalon’s directions ended as I came to a break in the treeline.

  Beyond that break…

  Was just more trees.

  “Avalon,” I said out loud. “Confirm whether you have a dark and deadly sense of humor.” And whether or not we’re screwed.

  “Negative,” Avalon intoned. “Insufficient power for humorous pranks. Restricted to basic operations and acting on life-saving opportunities.”

  “Such as getting us to a shelter?”

  “Confirmed that the Challenger has reached the perimeter for protocol In Case Of Trouble. Basic warding will activate when Challenger crosses protocol threshold.”

  “Avalon,” I said again. “I have over fifty people to save. And the only thing I see ahead of me is a short break in the treeline.”

  “Confirmed. Warding area is beyond clearing.”

  “I see…” Karim began thoughtfully, looking at the ground. “Fascinating.”

  “Please tell me you see more than a break in the treeline that just leads to more trees.”

  “I do,” Karim said, shaking his head. “But this level of inscription magic is probably beyond anything even my masters have seen.”

  “Where is it?” I asked, looking at the floor. “I don’t see anything.”

  “The writing is invisible to the naked eye,” Karim admitting, still staring at the grass. “There are trace emanations of script magic that can be noticed if you know what to look for. As magical writing goes, these inscriptions have been written in invisible ink.”

  “That’s possible?” I asked.

  “It’s not supposed to be.” Karim shook his head again. “This might be powerful enough to protect everyone. At least for now.”

  “That’s great,” I muttered. “But hopefully it comes with buildings as well further in.”

  “Confirmed. Structures are located further inside the warding circle. Hostiles nearby. Speed is advised.”

  “Right. Everyone move!” I waved my arms. “Get to the other side of the clearing and you’re safe!”

  I watched dozens of feet pump as people ran. Weylin began chanting more loudly, and I felt a rush of adrenaline pump through me. I hung back to make sure we still hadn’t lost anyone, and then I had the terrifying realization that I had never learned everyone’s names and faces to begin with. I had taken a headcount at the beginning but right now everyone was running too fast for me to take a proper number. The thought of these people stumbling out there on their own, with no way to make it back to the rest of us and surrounded by hungry nightmares, terrified me in ways my torture sessions never could.

  But Eadric put me at ease when he passed by me. The dwarf had been running at the back the whole time, making sure no one was left behind.

  “That’s everyone,” he said as he ran by me, and I let out a sigh of deep relief.

  The next howl tore through me like an icy whirlwind.

  I swore.

  “Keep running!” I shouted to the escapees. “Cross to the other treeline and you’re safe!”

  My gaze snapped back to Eadric, who had stopped running and stood next to me. “You said your figurines were helping hide our trail somehow. Can they help hide them now?”

  “Doubt it,” the dwarf said as he shook his head. “Whatever howled before is able to track us anyway. And that last howl came from a different direction. I think this was a patrol.”

  “...That we just happened to catch right when we were almost free,” I added. Great. Welcome back, Murphy. Should have gotten you more vacation time.

  I turned and looked at the fleeing prisoners-turned-refugees. They were maybe a third of the way across the clearing, running full-pelt to the other tree-line. They seemed to blur as they ran farther and farther away, though. I blinked as I realized that.

  “Avalon…” I began.

  “Concealment rituals are engaging as the refugees enter the perimeter of Avalon’s last shelter. Full concealment will be attained upon successful crossing of the warding circle. Warding shields are also activating,”

>   As the planet-intelligence spoke, I thought I could see strange shimmers cover the visible parts of my new people. That was another relief. As long as they keep running, they will be okay, I told myself.

  Then a little black-haired girl stopped running and turned back to look at me.

  “Buddy Wes! You need to come too! Buddy Wes!”

  An expletive and a snarl both choked in my throat.

  “I’m coming, Little Gabby! But I can’t go until everyone else makes it across! I need you to keep running!”