The 3rd Epsilon traveled to the border of the werewolves territory where the 1st beta pack was camped and making preparations for the rest of the army that would arrive shortly.
The officers of the 3rd Epsilon let the warriors take a rest while they walked to the temporary command tent of the commanding officer for the 1st beta pack in order to report on their mission and receive their new orders.
The warriors only had enough time for a short rest before the officers returned.
“Alright everyone, gather around!” said Ardolf, causing everyone’s quiet chatter to stop. When the 100 warriors of the 5th omega all stood in front of Ardolf he continued to speak.
“The 3rd Epsilon has been chosen to be the first to go out and scout the enemy army and its raiding forces. We already know there is a smaller force of around 1000 is near Madham and it will likely be where the enemy’s army starts their invasion from. We are to scout the rest of the surrounding areas to make sure that the enemy is not trying to do anything sneaky.”
“To do this with such a large border we will be breaking up into twenty teams of 5. This is only a scouting mission, with only five warriors in a unit your job I not to fight the enemy but to silently watch and observe the enemy if you encounter them.
If you must attack only do so if you feel you have a chance of winning without alerting a larger force or when there is no other choice. Otherwise, escape and report their position and a larger force of warriors will be sent to take care of them. All right, I’ll separate you in to your teams now.”
Akira and Klyn waited in the back of the group as Ardolf separated everyone into their scouting units.
“…and team twenty will be Akira, Klyn, Frang, Gonzalo, and Vilkas. Team twenty will be in charge of keeping watch of the 1000 soldiers already at Madham. Make sure not to get to close or you might alert the enemy of your presence. Now that you all have your orders you may leave whenever but you must return in 7 days or less and give a report on any information that you find out.”
With that, the twenty scouting teams were dismissed and went their separate ways after they gathered enough rations for a full week.
***
“Why were we given the easy job?” complained Frang for the 100th time.
His constant complaining about anything and everything as they ran to their destination was getting on everyone’s nerves.
Finally, Klyn. who had enough of listening to his complaining spoke up, “Will you quit your complaining? I don’t see how this is an easy job when only five of us are going to a place that has over a thousand human soldiers. One wrong move and we could be easily killed.”
“But how are we going to make a name for ourselves and get promoted if we are stuck with this type of mission. We’ll be unable to add any kills to our name and we’ll just be a grunt warrior forever,” said Frang.
“I have to agree with Klyn. This is also a very important mission to make sure we know where and what the enemy is up to so that our main army can respond to it if they need to.
We also need to make sure we get an accurate number of the enemy, the weapons, armor, and any other type of special weaponry they might have so that the army won’t be blindsided by any surprises,” said Gonzalo who was around the other three’s age.
Akira and Vilkas chose not to join the conversation and only listened to them as the small scouting group ran to their destination.
Vilkas was the oldest member in the group with an age somewhere around thirty and had even participated in the last few months of the last great war.
“Well I can count as good as any other normal person but with so many people moving around, I think it will be near impossible to get an accurate number of the enemy’s army,” said Frang.
“That’s no problem although Vilkas acts like he is a mute he has a good brain for counting things quickly. So he’s in charge of counting,” said Gonzalo.
With the help of Klyn’s buffs that allowed them to run for several hours without sleep and with the deep knowledge of the swampland’s that Vilkas had they were able to make good time and reached the forest near Madham faster than the time Akira thought it would take.
It was night time and the town of Madham was just barely visible in the distance due to the burning fires that looked like little floating firefly’s from such a long distance.
Since it was already late they decided to rest before they started the task of inspecting the enemy’s army.
They climbed up into the trees that were still full of leaves which helped hide them from prying eyes.
Akira was the first to take a two-hour watch while the others slept off their exhaustion.
From the height of the tall trees, he could see everything in the surrounding area unhindered unlike when he had been standing on the ground.
The night was calm and quiet. The swamp bugs buzzing and the night owls hooting mixed in with the calm wind flowing through the thousands of leaves created soothing natural music that made you want to fall asleep.
Akira had to pinch and slap himself a few times to keep awake.
Over an hour and a half had passed like this with Akira trying to find different ways to keep awake. While he was fiddling with a branch to his right he heard the loud crack of a dry twig in the distance and became fully alert.
“Everyone! Wake up,” said Akira quietly.
The four others who had been lightly sleeping sat up and looked towards Akira.
“Enemy,” was all Akira said before pointing in the direction the sound had come from.
“How many?” asked Gonzalo.
“Don’t know,” said Akira with a shrug.
The sounds of several people walking in the damp dirt were getting louder as they were getting closer to the trees that they had chosen to spend the night in.
“Let’s attack them!” said Frang in a voice too loud for the current situation.
“Shhh~,” said Akira trying to silence Frang.
“You’re not the boss of me so don’t to shush me,” said Frang as he readied his weapon to fight the enemy.
“Have you forgotten what our orders were? We are not here to pick a fight with the enemy, we’re only here to scout and gather information,” whispered Klyn angrily.
“He also said we can fight if we feel we can win. I am not afraid and there is no need to worry since they are just humans,” said Frang ignoring the others’ warnings.
With Frang being hotheaded and too stubborn to listen to anyone’s words, Akira took action before Frang did something stupid and got them into a mess they couldn’t handle.
He jumped from the branch he had been sitting on and slammed into Frang pinning him to the tree behind him. Frang struggled to get out of Akira’s arms but was unable to match Akira’s strength.
“Let go of….”
Akira quickly covered Frang’s mouth with his hand but the short struggle in the tree branches had already alerted the soldiers that were now almost underneath them.
“What was that?” asked a tensed voice of one of the soldiers who held up his puny lantern that only lit up an area of ten or so feet away and tried to look around for the source of the disturbance.
“The noise came from that tree over there,” said another soldier pointing with his sword.
A group of over twenty human soldiers cautiously walked forward looking around the ground first before looking into the trees for any monster that might be lurking in the dark shadows of the night.
Akira increased his strength and pinned Frang so that he could not move or make a sound at all.
He held his breath as did the other three all sitting unmoving as they clung to the tree that hid them.
“Damn it. It’s probably just a squirrel or something. It scared the crap out of me,” said the first soldier as he lowered the lamp.
“I hate this place why did we have to draw the short end of the stick and get punished with night patrols. This hell hole is already dangerous enough during the day but it’s a hundred more times worse at night,” complained a second soldier.
“What type of savages do the werewolves have to be in order to live in such a crap place like this, where everything from the plants, insects, and monsters are trying to kill you,” asked a soldier as the group continued to walk away. They wanted to get away from the spooky tree as fast as they could just in case there was a monster hiding up in the branches just waiting for a chance to eat them.
Akira waited several minutes before removing his hand from Frang’s mouth and releasing him from the pin before returning back to the tree he had been hiding in before.
“What was that! Why did you pin me to the tree? Do you think I’m not afraid to fight you?” asked Frang with a hiss in a low voice not wanting Akira to come back over and cover his mouth again.
“You and I are cousins so I only did it because if you had done something stupid to get yourself killed, I would have had a hard time trying to explain to Redbeard and Grand elder Clark, why you died,” said Akira.
Frang had not been expecting an answer like that and was not sure how to respond to it.
“You’re lucky that your outburst happened in this small group and that it was your cousin that stopped your actions. If you had done the same thing in a larger group and risked putting the lives of everyone in danger just for your childish thoughts of gaining points for a promotion, you would have been permanently silenced by everyone else without a tear shed in order to keep everyone else alive and out of danger,” said Vilkas quietly.
These were the first words that Vilkas had spoken and it threw everyone off.
“Vilkas is correct. You are not a little pup anymore you need to smarten up and act like you are an adult or you will find yourself in a situation that you will not like,” said Gonzalo.
Frang remained silent after receiving such harsh rebukes. Akira could see that he was deep in thought about what had been said.
‘At least he isn’t too dense and stubborn to know when he crossed the line,’ though Akira letting out a sigh of relief.
***
When morning arrived everyone had only gained a few hours of sleep. Even with such a short rest, they would still be able to function well enough to do the job they had been tasked with.
The group continued to walk towards the town staying inside the forest for as long as they could to keep undercover and get as close as they could without alerting the enemy army or any of the random groups of soldiers patrolling the area.
“Still too far away,” muttered Gonzalo as he looked through a small collapsible spyglass.
“There are a few gullies that lead closer but we have to cross open ground to get to them,” said Akira pointing to one of the many gullies in front of them.
The one he pointed to cut through a small hill that would allow them to have a higher ground to look at the enemy army while still being hidden from prying eyes of the enemy’s lookouts.
With only this option left they were forced to get on their bellies and slowly crawl towards the chosen gully.
After an hour of crawling passed Akira rolled into the gully and stopped himself before reaching the bottom where the swampy river water was flowing.
He waited several more minutes for the others to join him.
Everyone’s body and faces were caked in mud from the constant movement on the wet ground. Akira didn’t mind much since it helped with blending in with his surroundings.
Gonzalo handed Vilkas the spyglass as they silently walked forward to get a better view while still being hidden.
Another ten minutes of walking passed before Vilkas walked to the wall of the gully and dug his feet into the side before slowly raising his head and the spyglass over the edge.
A low curse came from his mouth several seconds later as he looked through the spyglass.
The others were curious but held their tongues and let Vilkas continue with his counting while they held their weapons ready for any attack that might come.
A long-time had passed before Vilkas finished and rejoined them.
“How many are there?” asked Klyn.
“20,000,” was all that Vilkas said.
This caused both Frang and Gonzalo to let out low curses. The number of the enemy was well over the full strength of their own army.
“The enemy army sure moved fast.”
“Did you get a good look at their equipment and anything else they might have?” asked Akira.
“I did but everyone should look since you might see something I missed,” said Vilkas handing the spyglass to Akira before returning to his usual silence.
Akira took the spyglass and went over to the spot that Vilkas had been using and looked at the enemy’s army.
It was an amazing sight to see so many tents and soldiers walking around outside the town of Madham.
It all looked like a medium-sized city of its own bristling with sharp and shiny weapons.
Akira handed the spyglass over to Klyn after he had gathered all the information he could.
Everyone took their turn and when they finished it was already late afternoon when they exited the gully and began crawling their way back to the forest.
