Tsaimath
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Chapter 229
🕑 Added 2019-12-27 17:01:01 +0000 UTC
My original hope, to attack the centaur supply-team during their nights-rest was sadly out of the question. They hadn’t moved on after arriving at the western centaur-camp during the middle of the day, instead, they had stayed there, obviously planning to spend the night. For us, that was both good and bad news. Good news, because it meant that all wolves would be able to join in our attack, bad news because it meant we were lacking the cover of the night. Luckily, I’d be able to make our own cover, the massive amount of humidity in the air made it stupidly easy to create fog. I had been doing that as much as possible, relying on the wind to carry the fog-clouds, hopefully making the centaurs accustomed to those clouds. If they never saw fog-clouds without being attacked by wolves coming out of them, the surprise-factor of the clouds would be greatly diminished.
During the day and evening, Adra and I were outside, moving around to create more fog. Originally, I had suggested to go alone but Sigmir had strongly opposed that idea, yet, at the same time, I had noticed how difficult it was for her to move on the soggy, swampy ground we had created. That had lead to a short discussion and her acceptance that Adra would hopefully be able to keep me out of trouble.
We moved around for a few hours, a strange combination between patrol and walk-in-the-park, as we discussed magic while keeping an eye out for possible danger. Neither of us thought there were any dangerous foes around, the centaurs had apparently hunted most of them to the point that they had either left or died off, making the forest almost eerily quiet. At one point, I stopped, the eeriness reminding me of the forest around Tegi, both before and after the Devourer had destroyed the city, making me wonder if the area was headed for the same fate. It wouldn’t be as grave as the situation in Tegi had been, I doubted the centaurs were using the same form of blood-magic, but they spilled a lot of blood, the vitality seeping into the soil, some of it turning into miasma. And we would spill even more blood on top of that, exacerbating the problem. Maybe I should try to cause an intrusion of Nethersprites, simply to give the Centaurs something to worry about, it would buy the wolves the time they needed and more. When I told Lenore of the idea, she sounded quite intrigued, it was the type of plan she liked, using our enemies life-force to attract problems for our enemies. I even had a great idea for the delivery mechanism, wondering if the Centaurs had ever heard of Troy.
“What are you laughing about?” Adra asked, making me realise that I had first fallen quiet, before starting to giggle to myself.
“Just an idea for our next gambit, after stopping them from getting one or two supply-shipments, we’ll have to alter tactics, you know? And the quiet forest reminded me of Tegi, giving me an interesting idea.” I explained, not going into too much detail, doubting that Adra would be happy with my idea.
“I don’t want to know. Hopefully, it won’t blow up into our face.” she quickly assured me, renewing my giggles.
“That’s just fine. You’ll see soon enough.” I grinned, before starting to create the next fog-bank.
We returned to the den in the evening and found it packed, with a few unfamiliar wolves, their coat less silver-grey and more of a tan colour, their size clearly smaller than the wolves I had grown accustomed to. When Adra and I approached, Windpaw came to greet us, looking mightily pleased with himself.
“Greetings, honoured friends.” he barked, once we were close and I noticed that the new wolves looked at us with curiosity in their eyes.
“Greetings, Windpaw. I see you got our message. Who are our new friends?” I asked in return, looking them over without using Observe. As I had noticed before, they were smaller, looking a little scruffy and almost starving.
“We met them when we were keeping an eye on the Centaurs. They are from a pack living quite a bit further west but they have been driven from their accustomed hunting-grounds by the centaurs, forced to leave or die, either by starvation or the spear of a centaur.” Windpaw explained and gave a bark, causing one of the wolves to move forward.
“This is…” the concept that he transmitted was another of the inexplicable ones, the sound of fir-needles breaking in the frost. “She asked to be called Frost Needle.” Windpaw introduced the other wolf.
“Greetings, Morgana. We were told that we might be able to strike back at our foes here.” the wolf growled, sounding both annoyed that they needed the help but also eager to sink her teeth into their foes.
“Greetings, Frost Needle. And yes, we will kill some of the silly ponies but know that, right now, our mission is not to fight them, it is to delay them. Once that mission is completed we can go about killing them at our leisure but if we recklessly attack them now, we might cause an overreaction, risking our mission. If you are unable to accept that caveat, you and your wolves will have to leave.” I explained, keeping my voice steady but making it abundantly clear what the mission as.
“Yes, I can accept that.” Frost Needle nodded, both of them falling in next to me.
“Tell me, Morgana, were you responsible for the weather over the last few days? There was a small riding on the wind that reminded me of you.” Windpaw asked as we walked, causing me to grin and Frost Needle to make a surprised sound.
“Lenore and I thought that the silly ponies would be much less eager to go out and make trouble if they risk sinking into the mud up to their bellies. And it worked, the camp we watched didn’t send a single patroul out over those days, the only centaurs in the open are the guards and the poor sods that guard their supply-group. Want to guess who we’ll visit tomorrow?” I asked, stepping into the den and using the trick I had learned to dry off, causing a puff of mist to float out behind me. Inside, I noticed the rather obvious smell of wet dog, making my nose crinkle while drying off Adra as well.
“You could have warned us, you know? The last few days were wet and soggy.” Windpaw grumbled good-naturedly, standing a few steps behind us and shaking, trying to get the water out of his fur
“We just used what Nature offered. Even the two of us can’t whip up such a storm out of thin air, we just made sure that the storm lasted as long as possible and was as unpleasant as possible. If you want, I can dry you off but tomorrow you’ll just get wet again. It might help with the smell though.” I told him, laughing at the expression of disgust. Apparently, he didn’t like to get wet.
“Sure, do your thing.” he told me, while Frost Needle nodded nearby. I did as asked, causing him to shiver from the cold for a moment before continuing inside, while I did the same with Frost Needle.
“Now, you said something about the centaurs’ supply-group?” he asked, the eagerness returning.
“Yes, we saw a few oxen, guarded by just a couple of centaurs and loaded down with what might be magic bags. They got to the camp we watched yesterday in the afternoon and stayed there. They’ll either go back tomorrow or continue on the the eastern-camp. If they go east, I don’t want them to make it, that way, the silly ponies will have to go looking for food. Maybe we can find some good grazing for them.” I explained, mocking the horse-part of our enemies, making them sound like prey for the wolves.
In response to my explanation, Frost Needle made a chuffing noise that I had come to interpret as happy laughter, making me raise an eyebrow.
“Good, good, the Centaurs killed our food, starving my pack. If we can kill off their supply-group, we can starve them in turn. I like it, giving them a taste of their own medicine.” she growled before offering me her throat in respect and padding off.
I told Windpaw that we would head out the next day and he was to make sure that the wolves were rested and ready, before going to the area where Sigmir was already waiting, having spent some time training Rai. Even if we had only been apart for a few hours, it felt good to be with her again and I happily took a seat on her lap, wiggling around a little until she securely held me in her embrace, causing me to quickly relax into her.
