Wolfe Pack

by Gerard Bond

  Finally she was heading back the way she came but off the road and she could see riders up ahead in the darkness, they were closing fast and she raised her hand, it was Wollfen and Dark. As they flashed past she cried out,

  “Three on me!”

  It was only seconds before the bandits clashed with the other two, Wollfen and Dark both let off a bolt and two of the three riders fell from their horses, one was clutching his stomach as he hit the ground and the other was already dead. The third swung his blade hard at Dark but she dropped her crossbow and slid down onto the side of her horse as he careered past. Then she was up again turned her horse around to give chase, the bandit too had also turned, he was showing no fear and swung again at her. This time she had her sword out and was swinging in reply, the two blades clashing with a loud ring.

  Wollfen fired off a bolt but unfortunately he hit the bandits horse causing it to falter. The man fell from his saddle and rolled on the ground then disappeared into the underbrush. Dark in the heat of the moment dismounted and gave chase, Wollfen called out to her,

  “Dark! Let him go! It's too dangerous!”

  He dismounted too and quickly walked into the surrounding woods and then stopped perfectly still, listening carefully for any sound. There was none, the silence was unexpected, a deadly game of cat and mouse had begun.

  Wollfen sighed quietly, he knew there was nothing he could do, he had no idea where either of them were. So he stood there scanning the greenery hoping to see something. Then all of a sudden there was movement to his right only six feet away and he turned. Just in time to see Dark spring up with her dagger and catch the man who had also jumped up. Her blade bit deep into his abdomen and the man gripped onto her shoulders but he couldn't do anything, the strength went out of him and he fell back clutching himself. Wollfen walked over as Dark knelt and in one swift movement she drew her blade across the side of his neck causing a gout of blood to shoot out,

  “Dark! You didn't need to do that.” She looked up at him,

  “Aren't we supposed to be killing them?”

  He shook his head and sighed,

  “Well, not in cold blood no.”

  She gave him a look and wiped her blade on the dead mans shirt.

  “He would have done the same to me without a second thought, I didn't know you were so soft Wolf.”

  “I'm not going to argue the point right now Dark, but we are going to have to talk about this later. Right now we have to see to our companions.”

  The two of them mounted up as Keera returned and drew in beside them, she informed them immediately of what was going on,

  “Justin was doing the same thing as me on the other side, seeing that you had three on this side he must have been followed by the remaining four. We need to find him and the others fast.”

  They agreed and immediately rode straight for the road crossing it over and then heading back towards the valley, it was a dangerous thing to do but if Justin was in flight then who knew how far he had traveled? After a minute it was obvious he was nowhere in this direction so they doubled back and continued on looking. Again there was no sign of him but they kept looking for another ten minutes, but where he could be they didn't know, in fact there was no sign of the bandits anymore either. And what of the other companions? Had any fallen? Were some or all of them heading back to the rendezvous point?

  “So what do we do? Do we keep riding around in circles for the rest of the night?” Wollfen looked to Dark after she spoke, he was shaking his head and thinking,

  “I don't think there is much we can do, Justin may have lost them and be returning to our agreed meeting place, or maybe the others took the bandits out.” Keera wasn't so sure,

  “I think if the last four bandits had been taken down we would have found something. We can't just abandon Justin.”

  “I know Keera but there's not much else we can do, we need to regroup and see where we are at then decide what to do next.”

  She sighed at his words, she knew what he was saying was right but she was worried for him, in fact she realized she cared a lot for him.

  “Well let's get going, if he isn't there then we have to work out what to do next and fast.”

  “I agree Keera.”

  The three of them spurred their horses on and rode back toward the west.

  In the meantime Justin was riding hard with the three bandits still on his tail, he had become lost in the woods and couldn't get his bearings at all, he wasn't good at looking at the stars to see where to go. He had grown up and lived on that same farm all his life. He knew things were getting desperate, while he had managed to keep the bandits at a distance his horse nevertheless was getting tired and there was a lather of sweat covering him. It was only a matter of time before they caught up and there was no way he could take on four of them and win.

  He had tried turning in his saddle and firing off his bow at the pursuers earlier on and initially had success in bringing one of them down, but the horse would slow down and he had to keep spurring it on. He couldn't do that turned in the saddle so he had to give up firing his bow. What was he to do? This had started off being exciting and he had enjoyed it at first but now the reality of what could happen was hitting home and he didn't want to die.

  All of a sudden two crossbow bolts flew past either side of him and two of the men behind fell from their saddles. The third man immediately turned and fled back in the direction they had come. Justin looked back to where the bolts had come from, two women on horseback came racing out and passed him pursuing the retreating figure. He too turned and attempted to follow but his horse was slowing up, he couldn't keep up their pace. Finally he managed to catch up as he spotted the blonde woman fire off another bolt catching the last bandit in the back. The two had pulled up and were looking back as he approached, the brunette was a striking figure with two short swords strapped to her back.

  “Hello, thank you so much for saving me, I really thought my goose was cooked eh?”

  The blonde smiled and looked him up and down before speaking,

  “My my aren't you a strapping young lad? What's a young boy like you doing out in the wilds all by yourself?”

  He noted that the brunette gave the blonde a dark look after her comments.

  “I was separated from my companions during the fight, these three were chasing me down, I was with Wollfen and his team hunting these bandits.”

  The brunette thought that a strange thing and said so,

  “You often come out into the wilds to go bandit hunting in the middle of the night?”

  “I well, I haven't done anything like this before, this is all new to me to be honest.” The blonde girl laughed out loud and slapped her thigh,

  “By damn that's the funniest thing I have heard tonight!”

  “Tell me your name young man.”

  “It is Justin madame.” The blonde looked to the brunette,

  “Ooh, he called you madame, you must be feeling very special right now my dear.”

  “Well Justin my name is Nightwing and this girl with the smart mouth is Loranda.”

  “Hello to you both.” Loranda was tickled,

  “Oh he is so polite too, can I keep him? Huh? Can I?”

  This time Nightwing couldn't help but smile and give a little laugh, Loranda was a cheeky girl who always liked giving people a hard time. She decided to play along though,

  “No you can't keep him, he belongs to someone else and you will have to return him to his rightful owner.”

  Justin for his part was starting to get lost, he was having a hard time trying to work out if these women were being serious or not. He was just too naive. Finally Night turned back to him,

  “Tell me Justin, do you know where your companions are?”

  “Oh yes we established a rendezvous point before we attacked.”

  “Well then why don't you lead the way and we shall meet up with this Wollfen and return you safe and sound.”

  “I er, well, it's just that
um.”

  “What is it?” Justin felt embarrassed,

  “I am lost, I have no idea where I am, I have been riding around in circles.”

  This time Loranda couldn't stop laughing, her head was tilted back and she was laughing loud and hard,

  “Oh the gods, I have tears in my eyes, you are so precious Justin. So cute.”

  He was turning bright red with embarrassment and Nightwing took pity on him,

  “It's okay Justin, describe to me where you are supposed to meet up and I am sure we can find it.”

  Five hours later Wollfen and the rest of the team were gathered around a small fire set in a hole in the ground, it stopped the naked flames from being seen at a distance. Everyone was there except Justin, none of the other four had seen or heard anything when Justin had entered their area. It could only mean that he had led the bandits in the wrong direction and since that was the case, who knew where he was? It was an issue that Wollfen wasn't sure they could solve in the short term, he knew that the bandits would send out scouts in the morning looking for signs of the attackers and he couldn't waste any time looking for one lost person. They would have their hands full dealing with the immediate problem of the gang.

  Keera was upset,

  “I just don't want to accept that his is lost, we can't give up on him.”

  Wollfen understood how she felt, he too would rather they go searching but that meant splitting up to cover more ground and if they did that then the bandits were sure to have some easy pickings. Especially in the daylight. This evening the gang was disorganized and didn't know what was going on until it was too late. They wouldn't be so easy to deal with now. They would be on high alert and on guard.

  “I'm sorry Keera, there's nothing we can do right now, we can only hope that if he is still alive that he finds his way back here during the night.”

  Keera could only shake her head and look down at the ground despondent. Wollfen looked up, Solynne called out from the darkness, she was on guard duty,

  “Three riders approach.”

  They all jumped up and grabbed their weapons retreating into the surrounding bushes, waiting and watching. Within less than a minute Justin appeared out of the gloom with two women in tow. The dark haired one called out,

  “Hail to Wollfen!”

  The two girls both had their hand up as the three of them came into clear view by the fire. Wollfen called out in a stern voice,

  “Dismount from your horses and state your business.” Justin called out,

  “No it's okay they aren't bandits, they rescued me.”

  “They could be spies Justin.”

  “No, no, they killed the three bandits following me, really, they aren't part of the gang.”

  At the mention of the three bandits being killed Wollfen relaxed a bit.

  “Alright then, please state your names.” Night spoke up,

  “My name is Nightwing and this is Loranda. We came across Justin here being chased by bandits and helped him out. He told us what you are up to as well. I feel we are safe to be with you Lord Wollfen.”

  “It's just Wollfen thanks, I am not here as part of any official business.”

  Nightwing found that curious but at the same time interesting. Wollfen went on though, he still wanted to know more about these two,

  “So tell me, what circumstances brings two women out into the middle of nowhere?”

  “You will appreciate this Wollfen, it is a mission of vengeance. Do you know of a man called Oberton?” Wollfen nodded, “Well Loranda and I have known him for many a year and we counted him as a close friend. We were out here to track down the leader of this gang and kill him for killing our friend.”

  Wollfen found that an intriguing story,

  “Did you really think you were going to just sneak in and kill one man then walk back out?” Loranda couldn't help but put her bit in,

  “Well that would be a heck of a lot easier than trying to kill them all. I mean seriously? Do you have any idea how many are in there?”

  “To be honest no, do you know?”

  “Yes we do, we have been watching that cave for weeks now, we count about 45 bandits at any one time in there.”

  He was surprised at the number, that was more than he had contemplated, how had they managed to put together such a large gang? He rubbed his chin in thought,

  “Well that certainly is interesting news and it is a sobering thought, I hadn't imagined it would be that many. We only number eight here.”

  The two girls sat down and looked over the fire at Wollfen as he too settled by it. They had given him some valuable information.

  “So do you have any more intelligence you could share with us?”

  “You are still interested in attacking them? Don't you think there are too many? They are tipped off now to you being in the area, they won't be easy to take down.”

  Wollfen sat there in quiet contemplation, while they had been talking he was also sizing them up, they appeared lean and fit. The fact that they had easily disposed of three bandits also spoke of their prowess with weapons. They also didn't hesitate in using them either. Could they be good allies?

  “We took down ten bandits tonight in this first raid, that means they are now about 35 in number, I don't intend on attacking them directly, that would be suicide. I want to continue to use hit and run tactics to wear their numbers down over time. Can you offer any more information about their comings and goings?”

  “Yes, they have two wagons of provisions that show up every two weeks, but they don't all come from the same direction. One time they came from the west, the next time from the north.”

  “That's interesting, I'm not sure if we can use that but it's worth keeping in mind. Tell me, would you two be interested in teaming up with us for now? In light of the numbers they have. You two would help to even up the odds somewhat.”

  Loranda gave Nightwing a hit in the upper arm which she ignored. Then she looked away for a moment in thought, finally she looked back.

  “I think since you have stirred them up, us two won't be able to sneak in anymore to carry out our mission. So I will agree to your offer and hopefully we can still achieve our goals.” Wollfen smiled a little,

  “I think this could work well Night and you Loranda, I can see you are pleased too.” The woman smiled,

  “Oh yah, so many men for me to drool over here, it's wonderful.”

  Night glared at her and gave her a slap on the upper arm. What was going on with those two? Night looked back and saw Wollfen with a questioning look and decided to speak up,

  “Just so you know, Loranda and I are lovers. I'm telling you this so you or any of the men here don't get any wrong ideas, we are not interested in any male attention.” Now he understood,

  “Oh I see, okay you are fine, well I am with Darkling here as it is anyway and Kane over there is partnered with Solynne the girl on guard duty. Justin, well, I can't speak for him but I think Keera has an eye on him?”

  He looked to Keera who blushed and Justin also looked with wide eyes,

  “Me, Keera? You are interested in me?” Wollfen chuckled,

  “You should have seen her earlier, she was so worried about you, she was almost in tears.”

  “I was not in tears!”

  The group all laughed and Justin smiled broadly, that was the best news he had heard in a long time. Keera had a little smirk on her face too.

  The four of them started a conversation and Wollfen watched on, he turned to Dark and leaned in talking quietly,

  “You know I think they all like each other.”

  The next morning found the ten of them discussing their next move, with the bandits now on high alert and knowing how many there were Wollfen knew there wasn't much they could do for now. The bandits would have to understand that in the short term their numbers were what kept them safe and not venturing beyond the valley would keep them from being attacked. No he would have to work out some other way of getting them to come out
.

  He kept going over what they knew and the more he thought about it the more he felt that the wagons were the key here. He could sit around for weeks attacking and destroying the wagon loads as they came in. But the question was, how much supplies was already in place? Did they have a big stockpile? If they did then Wollfen and his compatriots would run out of supplies long before the bandits did. No that was not an option. He turned to Kane,

  “So Kane, you have any ideas?” The man was shaking his head slow as he thought,

  “I can't think of anything right now, could we sneak in some people in the wagons maybe? I don't think so, they are too great in number in there and anyone we sneak inside would be cut down pretty quick. We really need a larger force of men to go in there to be honest.” Wollfen shook his head,

  “Well that's out of the question, the Kingdom won't bother, they have little interest in sacrificing soldiers that they feel can be better used elsewhere in more important places.”

  Kane went quiet again for a spell, still turning things over in his mind as was Wollfen too. They were simply out of ideas.

  “If only we could smoke them out and get them in the open, then we can do some damage.” Then all of a sudden a light went off in Wollfen's mind,

  “Wait! You've got it Kane! That's exactly what we have to do! We have to smoke them out of that cave! Listen, if we can somehow get those wagons inside filled with barrels of lamp oil and get it alight, we can start a large fire that will drive them outside. They will be disorientated and we can shoot them down from a distance. Of course they will recover but I am sure they would go after us again if we pulled a stunt like that. Then we can take down even more as we did before.”

  Then all of a sudden he heard a voice inside his head,

  'That's a very good plan Wollfen, it just might work.'

  He looked around in shock, who was that? His eyes settled on Nightwing and realized that she had just used mindtouch on him. He reached out with his own mind,

  'I had no idea you had magic skills, I see your beacon now. How skilled are you?' He felt her words in his head again,