“No.” Tanjung interjected again. “I’ll take over from here. Follow me.”
Tanjung at least listened to Hex’s advice. Asril breathed a sigh of relief as the party veered off the road for the night. Once they selected an opening in the woods, Hex unrolled a blue tarp.
“What’s that?” Asril queried.
“A tent that I brought from home. It houses three.”
Tari set Ani down in the tent and tended to her. The other three sat in the open moonlight. Asril folded her legs together and turned to Hex.
“So, um. Where are you headed Hex?”
“The edge of the world.” Hex stared off past the treeline.
“That’s where my brother is supposed to be. I’m going to find him. He was orphaned before the monsters came to our country.”
“…Your country?”
“Yeah. You might know it as the Peninsula of Kitsunes.”
“A Kitsune? Sorry I don’t know much about anything far from Miamar.”
The golden fox smiled and took out this map once again. It seemed Hex had an explanation for everything. Asril looked on, with Tanjung standing behind them with his arms folded.
“See that dagger-looking peninsula? Way north of Miamar?”
“You mean… The monsters have taken all the land between there and here?!”
“Yes. And then some… Anyways, my brother is here.” Hex pointed to the clear other end of the map, past the mountain range, a desert and a long sea, to a tip of rock facing some limitless ocean. Why would Hex’s brother, or anyone else, go so far away?
“Ahem. But don’t you think the Ahuranis will stop the monsters?” Tanjung suddenly called out. “Nobody has ever toppled Ahuran.”
“I don’t know. Ahuran is certainly the strongest nation left on the continent. Though I heard an interesting rumor: The Deltians have some secret black air machine that they’re going to use on the monsters.”
Asril frowned. To her, this topic was so uninteresting.
“Hex, what does your brother do?” She mewled out to him.
“He’s too young to do anything just yet.”
“And he’s all by himself? Who takes care of him?”
Hex sighed. “I… Uh, that’s why I’m going to get him.”
“But… Wait. Why didn’t you go with him when the monsters came?”
The fox shook his head. “It’s a long story. A really long one.”
“Hmph. Well, you don’t have to tell me.” Asril and stood up and turned her back to Hex, flicking her tail as she did.
“…It’s been a long day.” The cat sauntered her way into the tent and disappeared.
“OK. We’ll stay here for tonight and maybe tomorrow if Ani needs us to.” Tanjung asserted himself once again. “Then we’ll make for Dalaam and the golden monkey.”
Crucible
“Found them! There they are!”
Meiss whispered as the three wolves knelt in the grass. The Green-skinned head hunters had gotten much more careful scouring the wolven, Goldgrass hinterland. Their caution may have been due to Reince, Kasha and Meiss. It was hard to know if there were other wolves stalking these grasslands, but Kasha did notice the enemy’s changing tactics. Head hunters now traveled together in large numbers. Today, five of them waded through the wheat fields in search of ‘lone wolves.’
Reince handed Meiss a hand ax.
“Cover for me and Kasha. The green guy in the middle should act first. So aim for the middle guy.”
“Right,” he whispered.
Reince nudged Kasha and the two stalked forward, then charged the headhunters at the same time. The headhunters didn’t know what was coming. Kasha lunged atop one of them and stabbed the thrower right through the chest.
“Yeow!”
Meiss’ ax whizzed by but missed. Kasha and Reince used the chance to jump and roll away before any of the head hunters even knew what was attacking.
“Go! Go! Run!”
The three wolves sprinted through the field as quickly as they could.
“Almost there…”
The headhunters couldn’t keep up. Kasha and the others bounded towards a gully which marked the informal boundary of the ‘Shattered Paw.’
“There they are!” An infernal impish voice yelled out. This one from atop a ‘wolftaur.’
“Kill them! I am so sick of these annoying little flies!”
“We’re going to make it!” Reince shouted in encouragement.
The gully was already in sight and beckoning for them to cross. With the headhunters now atop their giant canines, the three of them were no longer a match for the Grimeskins, who were gaining fast.
“Jump it!” Reince instructed.
Kasha leaped into the verdant green valley. He felt his legs buckle, then he stumbled and somersaulted down to the creek below. A paw reached for his arm, and pulled him up. It was Meiss’ paw.
“They’re coming! Climb!”
Kasha staggered up and began running up the steep incline. The Wolftaurs hesitated at the gully’s edge but came bounding down with frightening agility. Meiss pulled Kasha up over the ledge. The three of them all fell back and doubled over onto Shattered Paw soil.
“Oh, shit!” The impish voice on the other side called out.
“You wolfies! Come back here and we’ll kill you!”
Kasha ignored them, staring up at the swaying sunflowers.
“Your heart still beating?”
“Yeah… Sure is.”
That night the three of them made a fire without any worry of the Shattered Paw. The wolven tribe on this side of the gully didn’t seem interested in stopping attacks on a dangerous new neighbor. Still, Reince knew better than to let their celebration grow raucous.
“You know, what’s best is I actually took this from the lead headhunter today…”
Reince held up a slip of parchment and showed it to the other two.
“What is it?”
“Instructions for our friends the headhunters. Says they’re pulling back to town tomorrow.”
“Huh? What for?” Kasha asked.
“Important baggage train is coming in. Probably carrying people and a lot of stuff.”
“Nice. So maybe we can go back into Goldgrass and find some more of our friends while they’re busy.”
“No,” Reince said. “We’re not doing that… Starting tomorrow we’re going to get serious.”
“What?”
“We’re going after that baggage train tomorrow. When we do, it could stop the invasion right there. The monsters won’t even be expecting us.”
Reince had beaten the morning sunrise, and in silence the three of them crossed the gully back into their tribal home. The plains were empty today.
“Where do you think they all are?” Meiss asked.
“If the orders were right they’re close to our village. The baggage train should be further east.”
The three of them walked for hours against the sunrise. Just as Reince had said, the Grimeskins were nowhere to be found on the flat lands today.
“There it is guys…”
A long line of horses, oxen and big carts streamed by in the far-off distance. Kasha squinted and saw headhunters’ silhouettes on each side.
“There’s got to be a whole damn column of throwers,” Meiss complained.
“We’d have to kill a lot of them to even get to the good parts,” Kasha shook his head.
Reince growled in frustration.
“No. We’re not going to get another chance like this. We’ll have to sneak on, ah, hey! Look at that! At the end of the train!”
Coming up well behind the baggage train were some wooden vehicles rolling. Even at this distance the wolves could hear their faint creaking.
“What’s that?” Meiss asked.
“What the hells do you think it is? Come on…”
“I don’t know!”
“Remember all those exploding rocks? Those are the vehicles that threw them at us,” Reince said.