The Storm of Warcania

Chapter 25

The Kings guard and the Alpha were staring at Kenzo. And Kenzo was staring at Storm. And Storm was looking at everything. His eyes danced between the Kings guard, the dire wolves, the Alpha, and Clade. He paid the most attention to Clade. It was about to happen.

Then the cold air evaporated with the radiant heat emerged like a sea storm torrent crashing into land with a wall of water. Storm screamed "NOW!" and the wolves of Woodland Academy all quickly leapt into the woods to their left, just as a ball of dense fire blasted from Clade into the back of the bear, then continuing on to eclipse the Alpha and spread into the forest. The trees immediately burst into flames.

The dire wolves where dumbstruck by the igniting of the fire and were unprepared when the group attacked them. Buck had crashed into the side of a skinny male cracking his ribs and breaking his hip joint. Holly tore a chunk of flesh off the shoulder of a muscular male. Winter caught a young warrior around the windpipe and cut off blood flow to the brain. Shadow broke the front leg of a dangerous looking young adult. And Storm injured the hind quarter of two dire wolves. The rest of the group attacked the stunned dire wolves inflicting injuries on their frozen bodies.

The fireball had burned Kenzo's face and during their attack Storm had kept an eye on him while he spun unnervingly, then extinguished the flames as rubbed his face into the ground. His brother had only half of the dire wolves from his pack with him and they too were horrified by the sudden explosion.

Wolves like most forest dwelling beings did not react well to fire and Storm had assumed correctly that its sudden emergence would stun them.

The burning forest and sound of fighting caused confusion in the dire wolves on the right side who ran around in a panic. The Alpha was on fire and took off running, spreading the flames to the bone-dry pine and spruce trees. Eight of the dire wolves chased after trying to help their bolting leader.

Meanwhile the dire wolves on the left side were being taken apart and huddled together by the circling classmates. They pushed the bigger wolves up against a wall of fire. Most of the dire wolves hadn't put up any fight and were now hampered with major wounds.

As Storm choreographed his group to corral the dire wolves against the forest fire, he studied the chaos. He instructed Winter to gather Clade, then sent Mrs. Rahool and Addax in to attack a dire wolf that was getting ready to mount a defense. He turned to observe if Kenzo had recovered and noticed that the half pack was spreading out in an attack formation. He became alarmed when he couldn't find Kenzo in the blazing forest and was about to direct his group to flee, when great weight fell on him, burying its fangs into the back of his neck.

Kenzo wildly flung Storm around to each side, shaking him so violently that he couldn't determine up from down. Kenzo leapt forward and battered his younger brother against a burning tree. He beat him repeatedly until the younger dire wolf fell unconscious. Storm hung limply from Kenzo's mouth and he dropped him onto the pine needle strewn ground with a thud. Kenzo howled, signaling for his pack to attack the Woodland Academy students. The pack charged into the smaller wolves creating a fury of fighting inside the growing forest fire.

Shadow had been running towards Storm to render assistance when Kenzo gave the order and was slammed in the side by a charging dire wolf. The two rolled on the ground wrestling for a position of dominance. The larger wolf snapped his mouth towards Shadow's neck, and he had to quickly contort his body to avoid those foul nasty teeth.

Insanis had a group of four dire wolves chasing him as he slashed and dashed among the burning trees. He would target the other dire wolves who were attacking his classmates, and run under and around them, causing his pursuers to crash into the wolves from their own pack. He circled around towards the main body of flames and skidded to a stop. The four dire wolves fanned out to block all escape pinning him up against the wall of fire. Insanis grinned and feigned jukes towards all the wolves, letting them know that if they moved forward, he would dash around them. Suddenly the wall of fire behind Insanis exploded as the Kings guard erupted through the burning trees.