Blood Isle

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Silent Allies

The forest about them concealed the unit with a cloak of darkness; like ghosts, they traveled through the wood as silent spirits seeking signs of danger. An errant breeze filled the air with the scent of flowery blooms from a nearby thicket.

Katar led the pack up a hill and paused at the wooded crest at its top. In the concealment of evergreens, the five wolves nosed the air, and their blue eyes quickly discerned the undergrowth before them. A distant cough sounded in the direction of a tree surrounded by thick undergrowth; the wolves gave the tree a wide berth until they were downwind from the concealed Nyen.

Leaf-covered vines concealed the platform the Savage stood on. He would have been difficult to locate before his crossbow bolts killed several soldiers.

The night was early, and Matay's ears had immediately switched when she heard him cough. He eyed her silently, giving her respect, and waited for her to claim her potential kill.

Matay silently transformed into a human that used a tree trunk for cover as she unslung her crossbow. Then she loaded the bolt; the group had applied poison to every bolt in their quivers. The Savage was oblivious to her movements as she crept forward; a whisper of sound announced her shooting the crossbow. The hunter slowly withdrew as she slung her crossbow on her back. Her grim smile revealed the success of her latest stalk.

Close by, Tikay sniffed the air; something had piqued his interest in the air; now, everyone in their group nosed the as they slowly approached what had attracted Tikay's interest. It was an earthen pit full of wooden stakes covered by a lattice of vines and dried leaves.

Katar and Bodise carefully lowered Tikay down by rope to pull out the stakes while the rest of them destroyed the vines upon which the dried leaves had rested. A short while later, the five of them padded into the wood as they sought other devices.

Katar's blinked his eyes; the stars and moon bathed everything in soft silvery light. To a hunter, the soft glow was a death knell to anyone that walked within it. As a learned habit, they slipped among the trees as they kept to the shadows.

The pack leaped over a narrow gully; an acrid odor wafted upward from it. Katar slowly crept forward to investigate; what he saw made him pause. It was a primitive crossbow, cocked with a poisoned bolt resting upon its string. The trigger was attached to a narrow limb about a foot above the forest floor. He transformed into human form and severed the bowstring with his knife. Then, he dismantled
the entire apparatus; if someone had stepped into the gully, it would have been the last step they would ever have taken.

As they crept through the greenery, their group winded the day-old stench of Nyen and Kang.
It can from a concealed trebuchet.  Nyen and Kang had placed it to bombard a small valley below; a stack of rag-covered rocks and two oil kegs sat ready to use.

As a team, they destroyed the trebuchet with their knives. They pulled the wooden plugs out of the kegs and tipped them on their sides to drain out.

As they reverted to wolf-form, they filed downhill, congratulating themselves on a job well done. That was when Katar froze; in front of him was a poisoned stake. As he looked around him, he noted that his teammates had likewise discovered other wooden stakes.

The floor of the narrow valley had numerous concealed sharp wooden stakes. The Nyen and Kang had placed the trebuchet solely to create panic among the allied soldiers; then, they would have lept to the side onto the poisoned stakes. Depraved killers had created the kill zone; there was no honor to kill in such a manner. As one, they searched harder to uncover more of the deadly devices, to render them useless.

The keen nose of Calen had caused him to pause, as the pack they circled back to find what their kinship brother had detected. The scent of a Nyen that was standing in a tree was the source of the odor. The wolves circled until they were downwind of their prey.