Keil woke everyone up and gathered them together once the moon rose. “All right, pack. Tharren, you will take my role while I am gone. I, Nari, Verik, and Lu will be back here in two days if everything goes well. All I plan to do is consult with the elders about what we know and then we will head straight back here. I don’t really like being away from you all, but a whole pack of wolfen travelling the land can make humans particularly nervous.”

Everyone nodded understandingly. Keil said, “Good, then we will be off.”

“Good luck!” Tharren called out as they were walking away.

/.\ /.\ /.\

“…and that was probably the BIGGEST frog I have ever seen. I wanted to eat it, but it would kill me if I did. Those things are very poisonous. It’ll melt you from the inside out. Very slow and very painful. Did you know that?” Syla had been going on for hours now, retelling all her many experiences for the last four years to Verik. Once she finished one story, she would move on to the next one, not leaving any time to respond.

Verik looked ahead at Keil and Nari, mostly tuning her out. Keil was fine with Syla’s rambling. This is the first she’d really spoken, so he was content with letting her as much as she wanted. Nari, on the other hand, was clenching her fists and swishing her tail in annoyance. She was probably ready to shove a rock in her mouth and tie it shut. She was not very patient, it seemed.

“And then there was one time where Nari was trying to catch a wind rabbit, but she wasn’t watching where she was running and then—”

“All right, that’s enough of your damn stories!” Nari finally turned and growled.

Keil stopped them and said, “Wait! I smell something.”

They all stood still, sniffing the air, but they could not detect anything. Though that was to be expected since Keil’s sense of smell was apparently many times better than the average wolfen.

“It’s human and…” a grin spread across his face and his tail began to wag slightly, “goblin.”

Nari had a similar reaction to this knowledge, but Syla lowered her ears and slouched. Verik did not really know what was going on, so he just stood there waiting.

“Let’s check it out.” Keil said and then he started leading them toward the scent. The closer they got, the scent began to become clearer to Verik and he began to hear sounds of commotion. When they reached the top of a hill, he could see that down a little ways away was a pale creature sitting on a wagon being pulled by a horse. Around the wagon was a band of seven small creatures who were holding long sticks with sharpened stones attached to the end. Three of them stood there poking at the other creature with the sticks while the rest of them were going through the contents of his wagon.

Verik looked at the creatures. They were all about half his size, their skin was a yellowish green shade and their faces came to a triangular point in the front. Their pointy ears were almost as long as their heads. Most of the clothing they wore were too large for them. “What are those things?” Verik asked.

Keil pointed to the pale one. “The one on the wagon is a human. The others around him are goblins. I’ll have you know that there is no prejudice in me when I say that all goblins are evil. I have lived a pretty long life and have seen much, but a good goblin is not one of them. Not all creatures are as sophisticated as humans and wolfen. There are other creatures, though they may be intelligent, whose lives are led by a single emotion or thought. Goblins only feel greed and want. Whatever someone has, they want it and they will sometimes kill to get it if they want it bad enough.

“However, they are not very good at fighting. They will usually only target defenseless travelers who have no protection. So,” he looked at them and asked, “You guys want to fight some goblins?”

Nari folded her arms, “I’m always ready kill those ugly bastards. Making the world a slightly better place without ‘em.”

Verik nodded.

Syla sat down on the ground, “I’ll just watch.”

“You sure?” Verik inquired.

Keil reached out and grabbed Verik’s shoulders. “Just let her be. She has her reasons.”

So the three of them descended down the hill and approached the wagon. The goblins were too busy tormenting the human and rummaging through the wagon’s contents to notice the wolfen approaching. “You guys go to the back.” Keil whispered. “I’ll take the front.”

“Fine by me.” Nari responded.

They took off running for them. As they got pretty close, Verik could feel the Hunter’s Might flowing through him. Just like before, his mind connected to the other wolfen’s minds. This time, however, he knew what it was and expected it. He could tell that Keil and Nari were experiencing the same thing. They were more excited and focused. Nari let out a short laugh and increased her running speed. “Hell yeah! This is what I live for!” She announced quite loudly.

The noise got the attention of the goblins. They all turned toward them and fear suddenly spread across their faces, their eyes going wide. Two of them started to flee the wagon, but Nari leapt strait over it and started pursuing. Keil met the ones in the front head on while rushed to the rear of the wagon to take care of the rest. Keil moved to the back to face the remaining goblins but he was aware of everything that was going on between the three of them. Nari pursuing the fleeing ones at top speed, and Keil pouncing on one and sinking his teeth into another.

On Verik’s side, there were three of them in the back, all holding spears. One of them threw their weapon and it flew directly at him. For a few seconds, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion and his senses became much more acute. Verik could see the spear coming slowly closer to stabbing his body. Seeing this coming, he easily threw his body to the side and caught the spear as it passed by him. Everything returned to its normal speed and Verik looked down to examine the weapon. Dried blood from multiple different species covered the stone tip and the front of the wooden shaft.

“That was a big mistake.” Keil growled and then he launched himself the goblins. He swung his spear as hard as he could, the spearhead connecting with one of the goblins’ throats, slicing it open. The other spear-wielding goblin tried rushed at him, trying to stab him while he was turned the other direction, but Verik quickly spun around, knocking the spear from its hand. It backed up slowly, but the wagon was in the way, preventing him from running. Verik reached out and quickly grabbed its head and smashing the goblin to the ground.

He turned to face the third goblin, but it was gone. Not seeing it anywhere, he jumped up onto the wagon to get a better look. About fifty feet away, the goblin was sprinting as hard as it could to get away. Verik looked at the spear in his hand and recalled the position the goblin was when it threw it. Mimicking that stance, he readied the spear and then launched it toward the running goblin. The spear soared through the air flawlessly and landed with the head piercing through its back and then burying itself into the ground, pinning the goblins body down. The thing shrieked and thrashed around on the floor, trying to remove the spear from him, but there was no way he was going to be able accomplish it.

Nari was coming back to the wagon when she saw the impaled goblin. She approached and knelt down beside it. She swiftly grabbed the goblins head and twisted it far enough to break its neck, ending his suffering. Both she and Verik met at the front of the wagon where Keil had just finished off the goblins there.

Nari smiled at Verik, “Nice throw! I gotta admit that you handle a goblin spear quite well.”

“Thanks, though I think it was all because of my abilities.” Verik responded.

“It doesn’t matter.” Keil joined them. “Good job both of you. Hopefully we—”

They were interrupted by the sound of a high-pitched voice yelling something incomprehensible. They all turned around and saw the human. He had gotten off the wagon and retrieved one of the goblin spears and was pointing it strait at them.

Verik took a step toward him, “You’re welcome by the way. We saved whatever was in your wagon here, maybe even your life.”

Instead of acknowledging thanking him, he yelled something else in a commanding tone and thrust the spear in Verik’s direction, stabbing the air.

Verik furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes at the furless human. “You have got to be kidding me. We just rescue you from those goblins and this is how you thank us?” Verik growled softly at the human’s impudence.

His growl apparently scared the human enough where he lunged the spear forward burying it about two inches deep into Verik’s shoulder. Verik let out a pained whelp, but turned it into a hate-filled snarl. He grabbed the spear from the human’s hand, ripped it in half, and threw the pieces away.

The human, backed away, a look of pure terror on his face as he continued speaking in a different language. He withdrew a knife from his cloak and held it up. Verik reacted quickly; rushing up and grabbing his wrists before he could swing or stab at him. Throwing his whole weight at the human, they both fell to the ground with Verik on top, holding him down.

“Verik, no!” Keil cried out, “Don’t harm him!”

Verik stared deep into the human’s eyes for a few seconds, sending a silent message through to the human that he was in control and could kill him any second. Also to savor the look of childlike fear emanating from his glassy wide eyes. He pried the knife from the human’s hand and slammed the blade down less than an inch away from the human’s neck. In response, he closed his eyes and whimpered like a pup.

“You’re pathetic. Not even worth my time.” Verik hissed and got up off of him.

Keil motioned for them to follow him. “Come on, let’s go join Lu.”

When they met up with Syla, she freaked out upon seeing Verik’s shoulder wound. She latched onto him and immediately started licking the injury. The contact of her tongue hurt almost as bad as the spear, but then it immediately started to sooth. “What are you doing?” Verik asked Syla.

She didn’t respond because she was too busy tending to his shoulder, so Nari stepped in. “She’s healing your wound. Wolfen saliva has pretty strong healing qualities. It should be completely closed in about a day.”

Verik thanked Syla and continued following Keil, who was obviously in a foul mood.

“That was a complete and utter disaster.” Keil grumbled. “I try to help the humans out whenever I can, so that word might be spread that we wolfen are not monsters like they so ignorantly think. That only works if we show them our best.” He turned and faced Verik, an angry look in his eyes. “You need to learn how to control yourself. The way you lost it, he will probably hate and fear us much more than he probably already did. And worse, he’ll probably share his story of today’s encounter with his family and friends.”

Verik lowered his ears and dipped his head. “Forgive me. I don’t know what came over me.”
Keil sighed, “I know exactly what came over you. It was the same thing that happened with me and most likely Nari. You just need to work on holding back your anger.”

“I’ll try my hardest. One thing, do all humans speak a different language than ours?”

“Yes, as far as I know. Any attempts at communication have fail quite miserably because neither of us can understand each other. The elders must have been able to communicate with them somehow. I heard that they worked together with humans to get the knowledge that they have. I’ll ask about it when we get there. If we could speak to the humans, than that might change everything.”

/.\ /.\ /.\

Aaron parked the wagon in the barn and then led the horse into the stables. After his long eventful journey, he was eager to go inside his house and relax for the rest of the evening. As he approached his door, he could hear the sound of visitors. He entered and walked to the dining room where his wife and the family next door sat eating dinner.

When she saw him, she rushed to him and hugged him tight. “I’ve missed you so much! Come, join us for dinner. We have enough for you.”

When he sat down and got a plate, she asked him to tell them about his trip. “Well,” Aaron started, “For the most part, it was pretty normal. After I dropped off the goods at Livingstone City, they filled up my wagon with the wares our storeowner requested. Most of the contents were jewels, metals, cloths. Very valuable things. On my way to the store to deliver the goods, my wagon was attacked by a group of goblins. I managed to fight them off, but while I was distracted, a handful of wolfen showed up as well, wanting to steal the contents of my wagon. One of them tried to attack me, but I stabbed it in the shoulder with one of the goblin’s spears and they all fled with their tales between their legs.”

“Did you deliver everything?” His wife asked.

“Yes. Everything was accounted for. He said he’ll pay me tomorrow and he might have another job for me soon!”

She leaned over and kissed him passionately on his lips. “That’s wonderful! I’m just glad you came back safe and sound.” She shook her head. “I hate those damned wolfen. You can never really feel safe while those creatures are lurking in the shadows. Maybe we should hire the hunters to get rid of them.”

“Maybe. But right now, let’s not think about that. Let’s just enjoy this meal and our company and have a good night.”

To Be Continued…