Chương 47: Merlotus Part 2

Day 67 Merlotus 15th (June) When we woke up the next morning we ate a cold breakfast of berries and bread and washed it down with water from our canteens. I had actually given Colin my canteen and filled up his empty one with water from a stream we found the day before. I had been assured that at level 20 my constitution would be high enough that anything short of a real poison in the water supply wouldn't cause me any issues. Might be a bad time to test the theory, but oh well.

Once we were done eating I addressed Colin.

"Well kiddo, whaddya think? We haven't seen any sign of big game that is less than two weeks old. Should we just go back and report this to the mayor or the militia captain?" Colin didn't answer right away. He looked down while he broke old pine needles in half with his fingers as he thought. With a frown furrowing his forehead, he finally replied.

"I think we should go a little further. But we probably shouldn't camp out again out here."

"Good enough for me," I said.

"Let's get our kits packed up and load our rifles then get off this rock."

"Great view though." Looking around from the vantage point of the rock, I could see back towards the Western Territory, even though I couldn't make out any detail. Colin joined me in looking at the surrounding terrain but didn't say anything else. His mood was clearly not great. We climbed down from the cool boulder, which I made sure to make note of on my UI map. It had been a perfect place to sleep off the ground and hidden, at least from sight. We kept moving upslope for the next two hours.

As we neared the proper Barrier Mountains the trees began to thin out and we really began to climb. Fifteen minutes later Colin stopped and said, "John, come here." There was some emotion in his voice for the first time in over a day so I quickly moved to join him. When I looked at where he was pointing I saw what had to be the largest pile of dog poop I'd ever seen in my life. He looked at me expectantly and said, "Well?"

"Well what?" I said.

"Looks like a huge pile of what I'm guessing is wolf poop?"

"Scat. Do you notice anything about it?" His tone seemed excited, not nervous or frustrated so I decided I'd play along and knelt down to give it a closer look. I found a stick on the ground and grabbed it before using it to poke the wolf scat.

"Well, it's not fully hard, so probably not super old. I can see some brownish hair, so deer or elk. Aside from that I was, and am, a farmer not a tracker."

"Exactly!" he exclaimed.

"The scat is only a couple days old and there's deer fur in it. That means that at least the wolf that made this pile was here recently. That means that not all the deer are gone. We should keep going farther to see if we see anything else." I wasn't sure I wanted to track down an animal large enough to make this pile of scat, but aside from that Colin said he couldn't find any more details about the animal. The forest floor was littered so thickly with pine needle debris that there weren't any clear tracks.

I made sure that I could easily get my axe free if it was needed. Then I made sure my percussion cap was in place and took a deep breath. Then I reluctantly agreed to follow him forward. A few hundred yards to the north we found another pile of scat, similar to the last. We also found a footprint in one of the rare spots that wasn't thick with pine needles and it made my blood run cold.

"Colin, I don't want to be an alarmist, but I think we should be going back if this is how big your wolves are." I said as I pointed to the track that I was the first to notice. Looking back at me Colin's mouth moved without any words coming out for a moment before he stuttered out.

"W-w-what t-t-the…"

"So this isn't normal?" I asked, worry in my voice. He just shook his head. Right then the forest went silent for a moment. I whispered loudly to him as I scanned the forest.

"I thought you said the forest never goes silent." He didn't respond until after he had put a percussion cap on his rifle, an action I quickly repeated.

"Not unless everything is scared. That almost never happens." He whispered back. Still speaking in a low voice I said, "Well, we need to do something." Colin looked all around us and responded quickly.

"I think we should go forward. The trees really thin out in only a few hundred yards. We can see much better then." I took a deep breath to try and calm my pounding heart and began walking forward, my head on a swivel. Suddenly, off to our right, a flock of crows took flight, cawing raucously. Immediately after, the squirrels in the trees began chittering loudly. I looked over and saw something moving towards us through the trees. It looked like it was the size of a pony.

"Oh fuck." I said quietly. I immediately raised my rifle into a firing position, then I looked over at Colin. He was already taking aim. As I was about to pull the trigger on my rifle I suddenly heard a ruckus behind us as well. I acted almost on instinct and whirled around. Another pony sized wolf was only twenty feet away and running at us at full speed. I aimed and fired, hearing a yelp a moment after my gun went off. Colin fired at the other wolf right as the first one hit me.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. The collision knocked me off my feet. Luckily, its momentum carried it past me. It felt like getting hit by a truck but my level reinforced body didn't even have the wind knocked out of me as I went to the ground. I landed right next to my axe, which had somehow been knocked loose. I picked it up and got into a fighting stance. The wolf that had hit me was piled up against a tree trunk, unmoving.

Colin was busy trying to reload his rifle as the wolf he had shot at was nowhere to be seen. Breathing heavily, I addressed him.

"Colin, where's your wolf? Did you hit it?" He shook his head, not speaking as he was biting the top of the cartridge off to pour the powder down the barrel. I started looking around as he did that, not bothering to reload my own rifle, which was laying on the ground just behind me. A quick glance showed it appeared to be in one piece. Once he was done he finally spoke as he shoved the ramrod down the barrel of his gun.

"I don't think I hit it. But when I shot it turned and ran away. You want me to load your rifle too?"

"Sure thing." I said, constantly moving in a slow circle. As Colin was loading my rifle I heard the wolf I'd shot make a whining noise as it tried to get to its feet. It stumbled towards us, but then fell, blood leaking from an eye socket where my bullet had found its target. Adrenaline coursing through my body I rushed forward and drove the head of my axe through the top of its skull. The enchanted blade didn't stop until it had fully buried itself inside the wolf's skull. That stopped it from moving.

I looked around, paranoia taking hold before I finally took a deep breath and brought my emotions under control. The forest noise had evened out, so I hoped that meant the extra wolf had fled at the sound of the guns. Colin had loaded both rifles by this point and he attempted to hand mine back to me. I raised my hand and refused.

"I feel better with this axe for now. Keep both rifles." He nodded and took the percussion cap off of my rifle for the moment.

"Do you think we can skin this one?" I couldn't help myself and began laughing hysterically.

"No, I don't think we have the time. Do you want to be out here skinning this big beast for an hour while we wait to see if the rest of the pack are on their way?" His face paled and he shook his head.

"We still need to at least take a paw to show to the authorities in Weston." That seemed like a great idea so I quickly pulled one of the front paws out flat so I could cut it off at the first leg joint. My enchanted axe doing the job in one easy swing. I put the rest of our food into Colin's pack and placed the paw in my own. Once we were done we began moving at a quick, but deliberate pace back the way we came. It was only 10 a. m.

, and I was confident if we didn't run into any more trouble we could make it home. There wouldn't be any meandering to look for tracks. I think our mission was still a success. Too bad I didn't have a quest. It did make me do a quick check of my militia class, but I hadn't gained any XP from killing that big wolf. I didn't even remember to identify it. I would pull the paw out when we got back to see if an ID would work. I'd had my UI set to only ID things when I focused on them.

I didn't care about any birds or squirrels I might see, and normally if I saw any movement it would have been easy to just give the mental command to activate the function. In the adrenaline fueled rush, I hadn't had the wherewithal to do it. I asked Colin.

"Hey, did you happen to get an ID on that wolf?" He grimaced.

"Yeah, I had my UI fully on. You're not gonna like what I saw though." I gave him a sideways glance before responding.

"Why? Was it a direwolf or something?" He gave me a confused look of his own, "What's a direwolf? Wait, that doesn't matter. No, it was a warg."

"Like the things goblins ride?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yeah" he said, worry in his voice.

"Well, shit." I said.

"Wait, you know what a warg is?" he said. I laughed bitterly.

"Well, if it's anything like in the fantasy books I read on Earth they're the wolves that goblins ride. Is that the same here?" He nodded.

"Unfortunately so. Obviously I've never seen a warg or goblin, but the soldiers say that they used to be in big packs, up to a hundred or more. Maybe we'll be lucky and these were just wild wargs that managed to stay hidden in the mountains." It was my turn to grimace, "We can certainly hope. There were only two right?" He nodded.

"That's all I saw. The forest is back to normal right now."

"Well, let's get the heck out of here." I told him. My heart had calmed a little, but it was still beating way too fast. We kept a steady pace, never stopping. I refilled my canteen in a stream and gave Colin the third that I had been carrying. The tension never left my shoulders until we hit the meadow and made it out of the trees. Once we hit the log to go across the river to our plot of land I heard Colin let out a heavy sigh of relief. It was still only around 4 p. m.

and we found Emily in her garden, like usual, pulling weeds by hand. When she heard us coming she stood up and using both hands pulled her apron up to wipe the sweat off her face before smiling. A smile that quickly fell as she saw our expressions.

"What is wrong? You were supposed to be gone for another day, correct?" She asked the both of us. Colin was quickest to respond.

"Ma we were attacked by wargs!"

"Wargs?" Emily asked confused. She looked at me in a questioning manner. I nodded grimly.

"Big ol' wolves, the size of a small horse. I didn't get an ID, only Colin did, but we were able to cut a paw off the one I killed so we can take it to town tomorrow." She was frowning now as she asked another question.

"How far out? How many? And they didn't follow you back right?" I'd asked Colin if there was anything we could do to mask our trail but he said that wouldn't matter. Wolves could track trails for days or even weeks after we'd made them. If the wargs wanted to follow us they would. I let him respond.

"There were two, we were only a couple of miles from the actual mountains. If they did track us they never gave any indication. The birds and squirrels were pretty agitated when they moved the first time." She listened to him speak, peering towards the river as if she could see them if she looked hard enough. Once no one had spoken for a few moments I piped up.

"I'll go into town with the warg paw tomorrow. I'll stop by Brendan's first and tell him what happened then I'll go and tell the mayor and the militia captain." Emily and Colin both agreed, and since it was a Sunday, and we had a long hard day of walking, I took a bath and made Colin do the same. We kept our rifles close, but baths were still had.

Contrary to popular belief, wargs are not supernatural beasts. They are flesh and blood wolves that historical sources say were selectively bred by the orcs to be large enough to be ridden by their goblin scouts. Wargs are not exceptionally hard to kill, they have no natural immunities to spells, and they have no skills as far as anyone is aware of.

Their only true advantage over horses as mounts is that they terrify horses to such an extent that it is impossible to counter goblin warg cavalry with our own empire cavalry in a head to head fight. During the Reconquista the empire troops suffered several early defeats when attacked by large forces of goblin warg cavalry. Eventually, cavalry use was discontinued in heavily forested areas. On the plains wargs were rendered ineffective through mages, and the use of firearms, which terrify wargs.

Excerpt from, Abilities of the Fauna and Megafauna of the Western Territories by Sine Goodfall. This book is available in the Albion Guild Shop.