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Chapter 2 Warlord

  • I cowered behind the tree just outside my village. Crouched and covering my ears to block out the sounds of men, women and children dying.
  • And the smell...The smell.
  • I'd done as my uncle had told me and covered my pretty hair in mud and scraped my face with rocks and dirt. Tossing on one of uncle's oversized tunics and cloak.
  • Hide how you look. Uncle Tom had told me.
  • I did.
  • But I had returned and watched in horror as the sorcerer strolled through our village. Dressed in black and followed by licking black tongues of smoke.
  • He lifted his hand, and a man running at him with a blade was thrown back an impossible distance until he slammed into a tree and slid up it as though lifted by an invisible man. Then his neck craned to the side with a loud snap and he dropped limply.
  • "Warlord." King Detry called. Making the sorcerer turn.
  • Warlord. That's what they call him. It was as terrifying as the smoky dark man himself.
  • When he turned and paused there was long waving black hair visible beneath a hat which had the brim pulled low to shadow light blue eyes. A single white feather dancing softly from it as he moved.
  • But those eyes were like flinted bits of ice. Cold and immoveable.
  • Even from this distance, I could sense it.
  • The King pointed to another man.
  • A flick of Warlord's fingers sent the man careening back into a pile of boulders then crumpling to the leafy forest floor. Dead already.
  • He waved a flat hand and huts levelled. Crushing in on themselves. Like deflating haystacks.
  • I'd never seen anyone so terrifyingly powerful. What is he?
  • My body was shaking and I was so afraid he'd see me that I was shaking trying not to bump the tree I hid behind or the dense shrubbery at my back.
  • Just stay here. Don't move. But I'd never been so terrified...
  • ***
  • I'd heard whispers, we all had, that King Detry kept a guild of mages in the castle. Led by the man he only referred to as his warlord and Warlord's second, Hawk. A man also know for his vicious ruthlessness.
  • The commander of the mages.
  • But I was a she-wolf only now grown. My aunt had been careful to keep me locked away in the hut because she said I was beautiful enough to tempt the male wolves under the Mating Moon.
  • So she and my uncle did well masking my scent and hiding that I had been given to them when my mother and father, my uncle's brother, had been killed by the wolf plague that had torn through the land.
  • Decimating entire packs.
  • "What are we looking for, My Liege." Hawk tipped his head up to squint at the king.
  • "We're destroying these wolf pack's. I'm tired of them feeding on the sheep in my kingdom and building walls in the forests. But if you see anything of particular interest alert me. Occasionally there's something pretty amongst the mutts. And it's amazing what a shifter wolf's body can endure comparable to a human woman's..."
  • That sounded terrifying. I forced myself to remain utterly still.
  • "Found something." I heard a man near me shouting.
  • Too close! I turned in a crouch to see a knight standing far too close near the shrubbery. But he was tugging a woman out by her arm.
  • She looked disheveled and was sobbing.
  • "Can I have this one, My Lord?" The knight eyed her and her torn clothes. Paying particular attention to where the gown was open in a slit along her skirt and torn across her flat belly.
  • The King shrugged. "As you wish. Long as you put her down when you're finished. I'll have no pups in my household."
  • "Yes, My Lord." The man beamed. Catching her by her brown curls in a fist and marching her in-front of him as she struggled and fought.
  • Seeing the knight had moved back toward the militia with his prize I knew it was my opportunity to burrow through the shrubbery and deeper into the forest.
  • That had been too close. But as I turned in a crouch. I found myself looking at polished boots peering from beneath a black mage's cloak. My eyes followed up and stared at Warlord's blue eyes which peered down at me in interest.
  • "No." I whispered.
  • He was so close I had no prayer of lunging from his reach.
  • But I can't not try. I twisted and lunged over the shrubbery in a bound. My body twisting as I tried to take wolf form to flee faster.
  • But my body wouldn't obey my commands. It stayed in the shape of a woman and I yelped as I had to land in a roll to keep from getting hurt along the rocks.
  • I kept the momentum going and rolled onto my feet. Catching my skirt as I took off in a run. My feet barely hitting the ground.
  • But a hazy black mist swept before me. Blocking my path. As the movement stopped it congealed into the ominous figure of the mage again.
  • "Please let me go." I begged trying to veer around him.
  • He lifted a staying hand.
  • "Stop." He commanded. His voice seeming to echo from far away. Smooth and hypnotic and rarely used, I sensed.
  • My gut dropped as I fought to lift my legs but found they adamantly refused to cooperate.
  • "Don't take me. I won't cooperate." My brown eyes flashed in fury. Determined to be as difficult as I had to for them to 'put me down'.
  • Better than the alternative.
  • "I don't need you too." He caught my chin and turned my face to get a look at me. Voice still echoing and deep. Making my senses feel dizzied.
  • From the long study he was giving me I could tell that my mud and oversized tunic were not fooling him. I wondered if anything could fool him.
  • He's cruel. And dangerous.
  • "Kill me now." I ordered.
  • His lips turned in a half smile behind the outline of a black goatee. "Not nearly."