Akira and the rest of the werewolves in the small scouting unit stealthily escaped the territory occupied by the human army and continued to travel at a quick pace and returned within the 7-day limit.
“20,000? Are you sure that number is correct?” asked Ardolf.
“We each took a good look and checked for ourselves. The number may sound high but it’s an accurate number,” said Akira.
“When I counted they were set up into three different camps near each other. 5000 on the left 10,000 in the center and 5000 on the right. This is probably how their army is organized with the 10k as their core army while the right and left armies could be used for other things,” said Vilkas.
“I’ll have to take this information to Redbeard and let him decide what to do. You can rest until I receive new your new orders,” said Ardolf before leaving his tent that doubled as both his sleeping quarters and his temporary office.
***
“Elders, general Blaez,” said Redbeard as he saluted to general Blaez and gave a slight bow of respect to the elders that had been talking to the general and the other officers in the tent.
“What is?” asked Loup who was a somewhat famous warrior from the large Ironhide clan. He had fought in both of the last two great wars now nearing 50.
“I have received important news about the enemy army and have come to report on the strength of the enemy army and the equipment they are using.”
General Blaze waved his hand allowing Redbeard to continue.
“The enemy numbers are around 20,000 soldiers. The army is made up of 11-12 thousand foot-soldiers with various melee weapons, 4-5 thousand archers, and somewhere around 2 thousand Cavalry. No siege equipment was seen but they could be built it later if needed,” said Redbeard.
At the mention of cavalry one of the officers gave a loud laugh but was quieted when an elder gave a quiet cough and looked at him with a glare.
“How accurate is this information?” asked general Blaez.
“It was given to me by the commanding officer of the 5th omega just moments ago. This is the information given by the scouting unit that was sent to Madham. I have the utmost certainty that they would not lie about a serious matter like this.”
“Very well, If the information is found to be true then your unit and the scouting team that gathered the information will receive proper accommodations. You may return to your post I will send you new orders when we have finished discussing what to do with this information,” said general Blaez.
Redbeard again saluted general Blaez and left the command tent.
“The enemy having a slight advantage in numbers is not a big surprise, I think we can still manage,” said general Blaez continuing the conversation on what to do.
“Their cavalry will be next to useless in the swamps unless they find a large enough piece of dry land to fight on. We shouldn’t worry too much about them being used to harass us since they pose little to no threat in the current battlefields of the swamps,” said Loup.
Several other officers nodded their heads and gave words of agreement.
***
Akira’s small scouting unit was one of the last to have returned and when they reached the area where the 5th omega had set up its tents many other warriors were lounging around talking or cook food.
When the bored warriors saw Akira and the others had returned many walked over to them to see if they had found out anything important.
“Vilkas, did you guys see anything good? Did you get into a fight or two?” asked an older warrior that was about the same age as Vilkas.
Vilkas nodded his head but didn’t say anything to clarify what he was nodding to. He only looked to Akira as if telling him to do all the talking.
The other warriors seeing this turned to Akira expecting an answer.
“We ran into a few close calls but we didn’t fight anyone. What we did find was the main human army near Madham,” said Akira.
“How many were there?”
“Around 20,000.”
The warrior let out a whistle, “They sure have pulled out all the stops to make sure this war will not be easy.”
“Did any of you get in a fight with the humans?” asked Frang excitedly.
The older warrior nodded his head, “Squad 7 and 14 were both ambushed by the humans and received several wounds but they were able to kill the enemy. Luckily no one died. They are all bandaged up and resting right now, but they should be able to fight again before any big fights happen.”
The different squads continued to talk and trade information that they had found while they were out scouting their designated areas.
***
As the werewolf army consolidated its power and continued to gather information over the next few days the scouting units sent out started to encounter more and more enemy scouts which led several battles.
There were even a few deaths, the first of the war, starting to pop up as a result of the constant ambushes and fighting with the enemy scouts.
It was getting bad enough that if they wanted to send out scouts to keep an eye on the enemy instead of the original squads of 5 warriors, squads of twenty warriors would have to go out in order to fight off any enemy attack or ambush.
The fighting would only continue to escalate as the humans would just bring more soldiers the next time in order to counter the werewolves own force.
Akira’s scouting unit 20 along with four other scouting units had been consolidated into one group with Caleb as the commanding officer. Caleb was one of the many low-rank officers under Ardolf’s command.
They had only been given a few days of rest before they were sent out again but this time to a different section of the border near the Griiq territory.
Everyone had a grim or serious face as the continued to move through the swamp on their patrols keeping a sharp lookout for any signs of enemies or traps.
“Are we strong enough to fight off an enemy ambush?” asked Frang nervously.
Before they left they had all heard that several hot spots of fighting on the border now required a full omega wolf pack to deal with the enemies large skirmishes between the scouting units.
Caleb overhearing Frang’s worried question gave a laugh and said, “No need to worry, this area of the border has been quiet so far and if we need any help all we need to do is retreat to the Griiqs army near their border and they can kick whoever is chasing us.”
Six days passed just as quietly as Caleb had said it would. Tomorrow would be when they headed back to the main army and would be able to rest for a few days before being sent back out to another position on the border or receiving a different mission.
It was now a dark and cloudy night. The moonlight was randomly peeking out of the clouds and lighting up the area whenever a cloud moved away every so often.
The werewolves had switched to sleeping during the day and scouting at night in order to counter the humans who seemed to like ambushing the scouting units during the night.
Akira was walking at the head of the scouting pack next to Caleb in order to help block any sudden attacks from the front.
Both Akira and Caleb stopped when their alert ears picked up the sound of several footsteps coming from the direction of the Griiq territory.
Akira gave a quick silent whistle, which Caleb acknowledged and motioned the other warriors behind them to form up and head towards the sound.
They moved with well-practiced steps from dry patches of land keeping the sound they made as quiet as they could all the while keeping to the shadows as they neared the sound of running feet.
They could now hear loud splashes as a large group of people not trying to be stealthy continued to run through the watery swampland with loud breathing.
“What were those demons!?” asked a voice from the group as it huffed and puffed.
“Mop, didn’t you say that they were supposed to be a dull and timid race that wouldn’t fight us if we showed up?”
“I call bull crap! They killed over twenty soldiers even though they were outnumbered! I don’t know who you got that information from but they were lying!”
“Quiet you two! Stop talking and focus on getting out of this hellhole. The enemy is right behind us. We need to escape and regroup with a larger force and give our report!” ordered what appeared to be the commanding officer of the group.
From his hiding spot, Akira counted just over 30 soldiers running perpendicular to the werewolves spread out formation.
Caleb gave a short whistle command for the warriors to get ready to ambush the enemy when they drew near enough to intersect with the line of hidden werewolves.
Frang was standing next to Akira shaking with either fright or excitement, or it could even be both.
Not that far away the sound of larger and heavier footsteps could be heard coming from behind the fleeing human soldiers.
When the fleeing humans entered the kill zone where they would be unable to escape Caleb gave the order to attack with another short whistle.
All twenty of the werewolf warriors transformed growing taller, more muscular, and having thick fur cover their entire bodies there were many different colors of fur.
Several of the warriors let out howls as they launched their ferocious attack on the fleeing human soldiers that were unwittingly running right towards the werewolves.
“Ambush!” shouted the human commander but it was too late for them to do anything.
“Awooooooo!” as Akira transformed he used his class skill [Howl].
The loud Howl raised the morale of the charging werewolves while sending chills of dread down the human soldier’s spines.
Ding!
-
The enemy has been affected by the skill [Howl].
They are now stunned for 5 seconds and have lost a portion of their fighting morale.
The human soldiers wobbled around in a stunned panic as the werewolves ran towards them.
They were unable to shoot any arrows or cross bolts at the charging werewolves and only recovered from their panicked stupor when the werewolves were right on top of them.
Snarls and cries of pain and screams of horror sounded through the night as the werewolves slammed into the group.
They unleashed their various attacks on the weak human bodies using whatever weapon they wanted. Whether it was their claws, teeth, swords, spears, or daggers it mattered not as long as the enemy was killed.
In the first clash, ten soldiers were killed making the forces equal in numbers but not strength.
A fierce fight broke out between the two sides with the werewolves having the advantage in strength and the fact that they were fresh compared to the enemy who had been running for who knows how long.
Several minutes into the fight the loud splashing that was heard before arrived behind the humans making them fight even harder to try and escape from being hammered in the rear as well as the front.
It was a useless struggle.
What appeared behind them was a group of Griiq riding on large Lizarsaurus.
Seeing that the enemy they had been chasing was in a fight with the werewolves they spurred their mounts forward to help in the slaughtering of the mutual enemy.
When there were only three human soldiers left Caleb gave the order for the warriors to stop their fighting.
The Griiq followed suit but did not lower their weapons and kept them pointed at the remaining three humans.
Caleb stepped forward still fully transformed and stared at the cowering soldiers in front of him.
“You three will be killed. You have a choice to tell us what we want to know and have a quick and painless death or we will get the information out of you by other means,” said Caleb with a growl.
The two soldiers on the left and right started to sob and looked at the man in the middle on what to do. But he had a hard face already accepting his fate that they would die which only made the sobbing soldiers moral fall to rock bottom.
“Which is it?” asked Caleb looking at the man who looked to be the officer.
“We surrender! we’ll tell… Gurgle…” one of the soldiers tried to surrender but the officer next to him slashed open his throat silencing him.
He turned to the last soldier and decided to silence him as well. The soldier tried to dodge the attack but stumbled and also received a slit throat.
“You can do whatever you must but you will not receive any information from me,” said the officer before raising his dagger to his own throat.
Akira was the first to react. Using the skill [Pounce] he leapt forward and slammed into the human’s body and grappled with him. The man seeing a chance to kill someone tried to stab Akira but before he could Akira used his full strength to break the man’s arm.
“Ahh!”
With the dagger dropping from his now crooked and limp arm both his suicide and attempt to kill Akira failed and was under was now under Akira’s complete control.
“Alright, we’ll do what you want,” said Caleb as he motioned for two other warriors to pick him up.
“We will help you,” said the Griiq officer in charge of the group of warriors that had been chasing after the humans.
Several hours passed with the chilling sound of screams of pain as the human officer was questioned by both Caleb and the Griiq far away from the main groups who sat around making sure that nothing tried to ambush them.
“I don’t understand why they had to all die aren’t we supposed to take prisoners?” asked Akira to Vilkas who was standing next to him.
He only knew of war through the training he had learned when he was younger and was still learning the tactics and customs of the Earth tribe.
“Don’t be naive. The humans do not treat us as equals, and with that point of view, they never leave anyone alive that they capture. They show no mercy to the young or old it matters not if they are male or female, they all die. Not even the Griiq and the goblins who are known for their savagery during war, would refuse to take prisoners. We can not be lenient with the enemy or they will take it as a sign of weakness and use it against us. Until they stop slaughtering everyone they capture we can not do anything else,” said Vilkas.
