“Why are they still chasing us?” asked one of the warriors running next to Akira.
They were able to easily outrun the humans who were no match for their speed, stamina, or familiarity with the area. But for some reason, the humans were still trailing after them like a dog chasing after someone who stole its toy.
“Why are you so worked up about it? The answer is simple, we destroyed their baggage train,” said Akira.
“But they are chasing only our small group and not the others who attacked the front defenses.”
“We don’t know that right now. All we can do is escape them and meet up with the others so that we can escape this land that will be crawling with demigods soon.”
“Shouldn’t they be running out of food soon? I thought the whole point of the plan was to force them to head back home because the prince was a smart and rational person?” complained Frang on Akira’s right.
Frang had volunteered to join the raids when he heard that Akira had joined. He wanted to get some merits to help get a promotion.
Redbeard had come to Akira before he left with the main army and asked him to keep an eye on Frang and make sure that he didn’t get himself into any trouble.
“We should be nearing the blue moon territory. We should be able to take a rest in the city away from the chasing soldiers,” said Dolph.
There were many grunts of acknowledgment, many of them happy for a night of sleep in a bed.
***
Nighttime.
“Akira,” a voice whispered next to Akira’s head waking him up from his light sleep.
“What is it Dolph?” asked Akira.
“We have a problem. A group of Beorin soldiers are camping under the city right now. Everyone is gathering to decide what to do with them.”
Akira quickly got out of the bed he was staying in and followed Dolph to a room that the others were quietly whispering in.
“Looks like everyone is here,” said Dolph after a quick glance over the tired faces of the warriors. “Are we going to clear out the rabble chasing us or hide up here and hope they don’t find us?”
“Of course we will attack them! How can we let them escape and cause us more problems,” said Frang.
“They outnumber us over 2 to 1 almost 3 to 1. They may even have other groups of soldiers join them at any time tonight. If we stay silent they may not notice the city above them and leave the next morning,” said Neal.
“For once I agree with Frang, if we leave them alone they will only cause us more problems. If we defeat them now then that’s one group less that will be able to hinder us and we can throw them off our tails,” said Akira.
“This is not going to be an easy battle,” said Neal.
“We have the element of surprise, and with Akira’s and my strength we can easily clean up this little bit of rabble and make a clean escape,” boasted Frang.
The arguments went back and forth for another 5 minutes until they came to an agreement that they needed to kill the humans below. They would wait until the humans lowered their guard and entered their tents for the night.
***
“It’s time,” said Akira as he looked at the tents far below them. The ground was lit up by several dim fires that were still burning in an attempt to keep the creatures of the night at bay.
Several rope ladders were lowered down so that they were around 30 feet off the ground and out of the sight of the patrolling soldiers.
A drop from that height may have been deadly for humans but for the warriors who were now all transformed into muscle fluff-balls. To them this drop was nothing.
Akira and the rest of the warriors silently descended from the city above the enemy tents and waited on the last rung until everyone had positioned themselves.
At the sound of the dog whistle, all 25 warriors let go of the rope ladders and dropped to the ground.
Thud! Several muffled sounds could be heard as they reached the ground.
Akira executed a controlled crash landing, rolling forward and back up onto his feet, stopping right in front of a shocked soldier who was just staring at Akira with his mouth hanging open.
Before Akira had fully regained his balance his hand shot out and covered the man’s mouth. Using his full strength he jerked the man’s head sideways snapping his neck like a dry twig.
The body dropped to the ground with a low clatter as Akira moved forward in search of his next target.
“Awoo!” someone in their excitement and blood lust, from killing let out a short howl which was loud enough to alert the enemy!
“Enemy attack!”
“Frack! Who was the idiot who did that!?” asked a red-furred Frang who had fresh blood splattered all over his furry face.
Several shouts rang out as the human soldiers scrambled to form up and fight the enemy that had appeared.
“There are only 25 of them no need to fear them!”
“Hey! Isn’t that the werewolf the prince want’s captured?”
“Everyone! Capture that werewolf with the black fur. Kill the rest!”
“Out of my way! I will be the one to capture him!”
The soldiers all ran towards Akira with a green look of greed in their eyes thinking of the large reward they would receive if they handed him over to the prince.
Awooooo!
Akira leaned his head back and used the skill [howl] making the soldiers stiffen up for several seconds.
Well… certain bodily functions were not stopped as several small puddles were created on the ground due to fear caused by the howl.
Akira used the few seconds to retreat to where Dolph was in order to not get surrounded and captured.
“Nox, I need some help!” said Akira as he summoned Nox.
“Hmph, another hard fight,” said the grumpy Nox as he leaped out Akira’s shadow and looked around to assess the situation.
“So it was you that they were after this whole time. Why is the Beorin prince interested in someone like you?” asked Dolph.
“I used to be a childhood friend of his, you might even say we were as close as brothers,” said Akira as he used the skill [Shield bash] on a soldier’s face in front of him caving the man’s face in and killing him instantly.
“I would hate to be his friend if this is what he thinks is hospitality,” said Frang as he joined the two.
“Nox, try to help keep Frang alive,” said Akira ignoring Frang’s comment.
The werewolf warriors were now fighting in groups of two’s and three’s against groups of 4 or 5 soldiers.
The soldiers were now nothing more than an unorganized mob trying to get past the other warriors and gather around Akira, making it so that the largest group of soldiers were gathered the Akira, Dolph, Frang, and Nox.
Akira was holding off over 6 people while Frang and Dolph fought another two people on the sides and Nox pounced on anyone who tried to attack from the rear.
Swoosh, bang, clang!
Attack after attack was blocked by Akira’s shield. The attackers were either pushed back or received a deadly bash to the face if they got too close.
“Gyaaa! My eyes!” came a pained shout from one of the soldiers on Akira’s right.
Akira quickly glanced over to see a soldier grabbing at the bloody pits that should have been his eyes. Seconds later Frang’s sword separated the man’s head and his hands from his body.
Another soldier cried out in pain next to the last one. On top of the soldier’s head, was a small bushy-tailed squirrel. This particular squirrel looked somewhat familiar to Akira.
When the squirrel saw Akira looking at him it waved at him with his little bloody paws and angrily chattered and pointed at the soldiers in front of Akira who were trying to attack him while he was distracted.
Due to his moment of carelessness, he received several hits to his armor which blocked the stabs from pricing his fur and skin but did nothing against the blunt attacks that knocked him back and caused several large bruises.
Akira struggled to keep his footing and block the hail of incoming blows both Dolph and Frang were being blocked from helping him as they were forced to fend off the new assaults from the soldiers in front of them.
But with the help of the squirrel Frang was able to easily dispatch the soldiers that had lost their eyesight. Relieving some of the pressure on them.
“Kill that damn squirrel!” shouted a soldier as he tried to wildly swing his sword at the squirrel only to miss it and end up receiving a claw to his own eyes.
“Gyaaa!”
A soldier next to blind man recklessly swung his sword at the squirrel that was still sitting on the man’s head… and split the man’s head in half.
There was a loud chattering that sounded out in pain as the squirrel clumsily leaped off the dead man’s head blood trailing behind him.
The small squirrel landed on Akira’s broad muscular shoulder and hid from the enemy by clinging onto Akira’s large back.
By now the other warriors had finished off the soldiers that had surrounded them and were now attacking the mass of soldiers that were trying to capture Akira.
Several minutes later the last human soldier was defeated allowing the warriors to let out sighs of relief.
Although there were no deaths on their side, everyone other than Akira, Dolph, and Frang had been wounded and were now bleeding from several unblocked attacks. They had received many new battle wounds and future scars to show off.
“Whose the little friend on your back?” asked Dolph as he helped another warrior bandage up his wounds.
“I think he’s someone I met when I went with Klyn to gather ingredients for the medicine that was used to cure Yuki’s illness,” said Akira.
Akira put his hand out behind him and the squirrel jumped onto it letting Akira bring him to the front so he could look at him.
“Ah! Looks like you were wounded let me get something to stop the bleeding,” said Akira as he reached his other hand into his bag. After rummaging around for a few seconds he pulled out a low-grade potion.
The squirrel showed a surprising calm obedience, as Akira used a portion of the potion and poured it over the little stub of a tail that was left and bandaged it up.
The squirrel chattered his thanks and clumsily hopped onto Akira’s head. He was having trouble adjusting his movement due to losing a large portion of his tail.
“Get off my head,” said Akira trying to smack him away. But the squirrel just dodged Akira’s hand.
The warriors all laughed at the sight which helped the mood to lighten up from the tense atmosphere.
“Alright! With this group defeated it will be some time before another group comes in this direction. We should use this time to escape,” said Dolph.
Everyone agreed, and after gathering their belongings, they set out for the final destination where they could meet back up with the rest of the rear guard.
***
Several days had passed since the night fight.
They had not seen or heard anyone following them since then.
“We’re only a few hours away from the meeting point where the ships that will take us away from this continent should be waiting,” said Dolph to cheer up the tired warriors who had not had any proper sleep in over a week.
Even though they had received several wounds and had an entire army still searching for them everyone was in high spirits because of the new adventure that lay ahead of them.
It did not matter that the demigods had returned to cause havoc as they would soon be leaving this land that was full of danger.
“Just think of the adventures we will have! A brand new unknown continent where we will have to explore and discover all its secrets!” said Frang happily.
“For some reason, I always feel so invigorated, whenever I fight near you Akira,” said Neal as he looked at Akira with a weird look on his face.
“You felt it too? I heard from my grandfather that people also felt something like this while fighting with the legendary hero ‘Akira’. You know, the great warrior who united the clans during the first great war,” said Frang.
“Suspicious…”
“What’s his name?” asked Frang pointing at the squirrel that was now sitting on Akira’s shoulder.
“He doesn’t have one. But I guess he should have one, shouldn’t he? Hmm… how about… Stubby,” said Akira after looking at the squirrel to gain inspiration for a name.
Stubby turned to Akira and angrily waved his lit claw at him unhappy with the name.
“Hmm, suits him well,” said Dolph.
“Ah! I see the rearguard up ahead!” said Neal.
“What happened to you guys? It looks like you got a real beating,” asked a warrior as Akira and the rest of their small group joined back up with the rear guard.
“The enemy decided to chase after us and would not stop following us. So we were forced to resolve the problem by killing them. They outnumbered us so we took some damage,” said Dolph.
“It’s a good thing you arrived when you did. The ships are up ahead and will only be waiting a few more days,” said another warrior as he slapped Akira on the shoulder.
“Who will be guiding us to the other continent?” asked Frang.
“I heard they were friends of grand elder Wulfric’s granddaughter,” said the warrior.
***
“General, we have lost all contact with the enemy. If we don’t…”
“Enough! I know what has to be done. Send out the order that everyone is to return to Madham. We will have to take care of them later…and if I have to…I know there are people always willing to help with something like this,” said Rodger with an unhappy look on his face thinking about those people.
