Leon and Riya: How to Raise a Gnoll

Chapter 7

The next several minutes of silence were excruciating, Maria noticed that the Vulpine was staring straight at her. Then in one sudden movement the Witherlings began attempting to scale the wall. Mu and Jahga immediately went to start to throw javelins while everyone else readied their weapons so that they were ready to force the Witherlings off the wall when they got close.

After several minutes of this the Witherlings showed no sign of slowing down, the Vulpine started to slowly make their way closer to the wall. Upon reaching it they sheathed their sword and began rapidly scaling the wall, far faster than the Witherlings were. As they were doing this Mu tried to hit them with a javelin but every time they managed to change the direction they were moving in and dodge her throws.

Once the Vulpine reached the top of the wall they vaulted themselves over to the inside of the fort. Reacting quickly Leon made his way back down to the bottom of the wall near the practice field. How had the Vulpine even survived leaping over the wall like that? The Vulpine was looking around before it spotted him and drew their sword.

Finally having a chance to breathe Maria looked at the inside of the wall for the Vulpine. She spotted them fighting with Leon, he was just barely managing to keep them a spear's length away from himself. Taking the small window she had Maria threw one of her throwing daggers. The dagger flew true and hit the Vulpine in the back of the neck, there was no blood and the Vulpine didn't even react.

Maria: Irya, you need to get down there to help him now!

Irya: We're barely keeping the Witherlings off the wall, if I go help him...

Maria: Just do it!

With that Irya ran down the stairs that led to the training grounds. Once she was there she could see that Leon was having trouble with his breathing and was barely keeping away from the Vulpine. She managed to run over and put herself between Leon and the Vulpine and deflect a strike that Leon wasn't going to manage to get out of the way of. She could hear Leon's gasping breaths behind her.

Leon: Thanks...was starting to have trouble.

Irya: Whoever this is, they don't bleed.

Leon: What!

The way the Vulpine stares without blinking was starting to creep Irya out. Who the hell was this? Just then Maria had run in from the side in an attempt to blindside them, the Vulpine managed to get their shield up and put some distance between them.

Irya: Maria? What are you doing here! What about the Witherlings?

Maria: The Witherlings have started to retreat so I figured I'd come help here.

The Vulpine continued to stare unblinkingly at Maria. She was getting an awful feeling from being this close to the Vulpine, it was a feeling similar to the Witherlings, the feeling of something that shouldn't exist but does. Suddenly they began to speak but it sounded painful, as if they were being suppressed.

Vulpine: Maria...friend.

With that the Vulpine sheathed its sword and quickly ran over to and scaled the wall to escape.

Irya: What just happened?

Leon finally had a chance to catch his breath and shook his head.

Leon: I've got no idea. All I know is I'm glad to be alive.

They heard someone shouting.

Rose: Dad!

Rose made her way from the hallway out into the practice grounds.

Rose: Are you okay? We heard fighting!

Following behind her were Sessa, Vuth, and Riya. Upon seeing him out of breath Sessa and Riya had concerned looks while Vuth looked indifferent.

Sessa: Is he okay?

Riya: What happened!

Maria hesitated slightly.

Maria: There was an attack. It consisted primarily of Witherlings.

Upon hearing the word Witherlings Riya looked like she had seen a ghost.

Riya: What?

Back at Gloomfang Citadel Zenkoh was trying to figure out how she was supposed to evaluate the two that were sent to Stoneholde to be trained by Leon when Thorn came bursting into the room, practically destroying the door.

Zenkoh: You best have a good reason for nearly destroying my door, Thorn.

Thorn: Witherlings just attacked Fort Stoneholde!

At that her eyes had widened considerably.

Zenkoh: What did you say!

Thorn was startled by her shout but steadied himself.

Thorn: Witherlings attacked Fort Stoneholde, they were apparently being led by a Vulpine.

The look in Zenkoh's eyes told Thorn that her utter disgust for the undead abominations hadn't changed.

Zenkoh: What about the fort?

Thorn: They managed to repel the attack, according to the scouts that were in the area the Witherlings retreated into the forest.

Zenkoh: Witherlings don't retreat, someone ordered them to run into the forest.

Thorn: Regardless, as of right now they are within a day of both Foxpine and Gloomfang Citadel. Where they will attack next is unknown.

Zenkoh had hoped to never need to deal with such abominations again. But of course things had to pan out this way, she couldn't defend both the citadel and Foxpine equally. She was going to have to prioritize, which would be easier if she knew what they were after.

In a camp in an unknown part of the forest.

There was an 8' female gnoll whose fur was black as charcoal. The entire camp was filled with Witherlings, there didn't seem to be any living gnolls nearby. In front of her was the Vulpine that had led the attack on Fort Stoneholde, the failed attack.

Oshka Blightgaze was furious at the failure of an attack, everywhere else they had attacked had no such issues. But she guessed that was to be expected as they had moved into Clan Deadfang's territory. Gnolls would know how to fight Witherlings after all.

Oshka: Why did you stop the attack?

The Vulpine was silent but Oshka could feel that the spirit bound to the body was trying to fight against her magic that had bound it. It has done this a couple of times and those quickly subsided but this was different, it was trying exceptionally hard to fight the binding magic. Not that it would get anywhere, it would fight for her whether it wanted to or not. The thought of sending it to Gloomfang Citadel next brought a smile to Oshka's muzzle, oh how she would love to see the look on Zenkoh's face.