Sat.u.r.day evening, clear skies, twinkling stars, and a bright moon illuminating the edge of a forest. a group of six men and women sat on tree stumps surrounding a bonfire. hanging beside the bright flame was a blackened pot filled with boiling soup with bits of wild vegetables, meat, bones, and strange leafs, floating in itOn the other side of the flame there was a kettle whistling from the water vapours leaving its nostrils, not one of the 6 sitting there seemed to care about that, the atmosphere was very irritable and it seemed like a sharp edge of a blade is dancing between the six, any who witnessed the scene stayed far and waited for it to dissipate.
"How about a night of rest? we finished 6 out of the 10 and we can slack off for a night, take a bath and sleep" Bai was the first to break the silence, as the self appointed resting and leisure minister, he had to pet.i.tion for the well being of the whole party, there was a hostile growl from the audience, one which Bai did not dare to find who released it.
"Lets be done with this once and for all, my poor beard will fall off if i clean it just to be stained again" replyed master dwarf Balin with dead eyes full of grief and indignancy. that drew a nod from the very irritated elf Fae "yes i don"t want to spoil my skin care just for a night, do you know what that will do to my skin? it will be ruined i tell you, ruined!" the irritated elf had a look full of disgust, self disgust that is, even if they wipe away the aftermath of the battle once done, Fae never felt right unless she had a proper bath and could actually care for her skin.
"If i sleep i won"t wake up until midday, that will cause us to lose the bonus, i need the money to reforge my axes, look how blunted they are, i agree with finishing this at once" Dustan patted his axes with pity as if they were sick or maimed children, a look of hatred and a thirst for revenge was radiating from him, and so all looked at the Leader.
Leader was poking the fire without the usual smile on her face, she looked at the ones sitting beside her then cast a glance at the one who said nothing as he seemed to be in a trance. "Lucian, what do you think?", Lucian now had a taint of silver in his eye, he said with deeper voice than usual "rest untill midnight, then clear two nests at the same time, then rest until sunrise, then clear out the last two, and be done by the afternoon, if all goes well".
The full moon was both a blessing and a curse on the lykan race, it increases their power, but turn them animalistic by the time its full, it is a gradual increment that start the third day before the full moon and fully lost by the end of third day after the full moon, during the full moon, their instincts take over, they don"t lose their sanity and reason, so they won"t attack indiscriminately, but their l.u.s.t for blood and the hunt drives them almost mad, thus they prepare what is called a feast of the moon, they usually stock out on fresh b.l.o.o.d.y meet and some living beasts to hunt and feed on, this lasts for a full week every month.
Leader did trust Lucians judgement, as the scout he needs to determine if his teammates can reliably take a fight or how to better preserve their strength or restore it just enough for the planned fight, not all scouts can do that, most are just like carrier pigeons, they only relay, the information about the enemy and let the commander deal with the rest.
Thus after thinking for a moment, she understood that the next few nests are weaker than the last six and can be fought with external help without disrupting their teamwork, or caring much about the casualties, Lucian was indeed a top notch scout if he could take into consideration so many factors, so she gestured at the trees behind her to approach, soon afterwards a leader from the supporters came out of the forest and approached vey vigilantly, feeling that sharp edged atmosphere caressing his neck.
He would rather be with his men hiding in the forest until this group of devils left on their next hunt. after a moment he stood behind Leader not daring to approach further, this seemed to draw the disdain of the orc and the dwarf, while indifference was coming from the rest.
"We"ll sleep until midnight, tell your men not to approach any closer than 10 meters unless they want to die, after midnight prepare 50 archers to follow us, we need ones with good aim and better stamina, we plan to take on two nests in three hours, if you have some reliable swordsmen and shield bearers, send three swords and two shields in every group of ten archers, let them take on the outside perimeter and only archers can follow us deeper, while the swords and shield must protect the archers once we hit the heart of the nest, tell them to conserve strength and not try to help us or save us no matter how bad it looks, also see if you can make the same arrangement for the morning as well" with that she motioned at the man to leave, and started serving the soup in cups for the party, Bai took care of the tea kettle while Lucian set up a crude tent, a large canvas supported by two poles and two bedrolls as furnishings.
Once the food was eaten and the tea drunk, Leader and Fae got inside the tent, while Bai and Lucian used the tree stumps as pillows, each had a bedroll beneath him, the orc Dustan just lay on the gra.s.s hugging his axes while master dwarf Balin put his shield on his back, gripped his hammers and fell to sleep, literally, he fell back like a log and soon his snores mixed with Dustan"s own and made strange symphony.
Soon the 75 chosen -or cursed by their thinking- supporters made their way to the field and set up their sleeping rolls, they barely had four hours to rest before midnight, and the dreaded hunt, although their job was only to support from the back and stay alive and in good shape, still they saw how the demons fought and for the first time felt pity for the monsters. when midnight came, the party of six stood up at once, and silently cleaned up, the tent, bed rolls, pot and kettle dispeard, and the fire extinguished, the sleeping supporters barely felt anything and continued their sleep, well until the party started leaving under Lucians lead, and Lucian let out a howl to the moon.
It was not his intention to wake the sleeping ones, just instinct, the departing wolf always called to the moon. the howl jolted the supporters awake and soon the followed the party leaving a nice distance between them and the walking demons in front of them, the silence was deafening, and none dared to break it first.