The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

No Answers, Only Questions

After making sure the transports were out of the way and under camouflage tarps to keep prying eyes on satellites from seeing them, the remaining members of Truk's team fell in behind the grim Lash as he began to hike overland towards Magnar's castle. It was over rough territory and at a decent climb but, thanks to vampire physiologies, the team was able to traverse the ground in less than a half-hour, twice as fast as any human could've.

Still, the sun had swung out of its high noon position and was beginning its descent towards three o'clock when they crested a low ridge only to have Lash wave them back into cover. A quick point at first Truk, then Narcist was followed by pointing at his own eyes. Then Lash was slipping a pair of powered and enhanced binoculars from his pack.

The two vampires were nodding in acknowledgment before he had even reached for his pack, also freeing their own pairs of binoculars before Truk slid north along the ridge to get a different viewpoint. For her part, Narcist went in the opposite direction, both vampires veteran enough to leave their packs behind to go slithering through cover to find before leaving his pack to slide forward.

After making sure they were clear and that the rest of the team was hidden enough to avoid accidental discovery, Lash made his way straight forward back to the top of the crest.

"Wolf, Truk. I'm in position," came the quiet report into Lash's earpiece. Which was quickly followed by Narcist: "In position, Wolf. Standing by."

"Numbers and emplacements," was the big vampire's terse reply. "Take a good look at the castle itself as well and find me a breach point." Then the binoculars were coming up and he was scanning along Magnar's property line.

As apparently was customary in this part of the world, the humans that originally built Castle Magnar had lined the property with a stone wall approximately a meter and a half tall, the wall running unbroken around the entire piece of claimed land. A single gate broached that wall, sitting astride the gravel road that came up from the highway and ran through the hills to reach the castle. A gate that was currently bracketed by two elevated machine nests.

Seeing those, Lash's eyes narrowed. Those were certainly added recently as they weren't there the last time he visited three years ago. Using the zoom function on his binoculars, he moved his view in close to see who was manning the nests. And he felt a frown twist his mouth to see that they were not Hand operatives in day cloaks. Nor were they members of Magnar's own personal guard, which was a mix of nestari and familiar troops.

No, these soldiers, and he used that term by how economically and efficiently they moved in a way that suggested they had extensive military training. These soldiers were dressed in advanced black tactical gear, likely kevlar-threaded fatigues married with stealth tech, if he went by how the binocular's distance measuring tech kept skittering off the material. They also wore helmets with extensive face shielding and respiratory attachments, along with heavy battle armor. That gear, along with the advanced weapons they carried in addition to the 7.52mm mini-guns they had mounted in the nests, suggested these soldiers were more than prepared for a significant direct assault.

A quick scan further along the wall revealed more elevated machine gun nests, some tall enough to be categorized as towers, set at regular intervals to cover the entire property line. Additionally he spotted three-man patrols walking the perimeter, one sporting a communication set-up on their back that had enough complexity to indicate they weren't only monitoring local transmissions, but those in the region and perhaps even to a satellite as well.

All were dressed in that black tactical gear and armor. And, if he were to go by the subtle physical tells they were giving him, they were all human.