Demon Wolf

Fiona smoldered. She considered herself drenched in blood, but compared to Wolf, she was a pristine snowflake. For a moment, he wondered how she recognized him, painted caked red as he was, but his slender figure was unique amid this barbarian war-horde.

“One hundred and ninety good women died because of your fucking stunt!” She saw Wolf was soaked in more blood than her, but she did not care.

Cloudy night made it impossible to see Wolf while he slaughtered Monster Beasts on her side, but Liam witnessed everything after the clouds parted. Especially the brutal grace with which Wolf dispatched the beasts while dodging lethal blows from dead angles with supernatural prescience.

I killed seventy monsters. Boss, you couldn’t have killed more than a hundred and thirty, but his body count has a ‘give or take a hundred’. Fiona’s lieutenant cleared his throat, wanting to prevent an incident.

Unfortunately, Fiona ignored him. In part, it was her prejudice because he was a male, but mostly, it was her fury. Under normal circumstances, she would not have lost more than a hundred warriors, but Wolf opened a gap in her side’s defenses. He even carried off one soldier.

Even without considering the people who died to loss of concentration from his shout, just that hole killed ten competent fighters.

Fuming with those thoughts, Fiona shouted, “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you on the spot?”

Wolf’s lip twisted as spittle flew from Fiona’s mouth. He wished to retort with a snarky ‘because you can’t’, but he was at fault. That being the case, he desired to remain silent, but Fiona refused to let him.

“I made a mistake,” he said without guilt. Those barbarians raided his world, likely slaughtering commoners in their so-called blood haze. He had no spare sympathy for them.

“You made a fucking mistake! Tens of brave warriors died because of you! Members of our clan! Friends and family!” Fiona kept shouting, her face twisted from rage, then Wolf turned to leave.

“Fuck off. I saved over a hundred lives tonight,” he growled, walking away to avoid conflict. One, two…

Then he heard Fiona’s feet batting the wooden deck as she ran towards him.

Wolf awakened his senses. He inhaled, forming a mental image of the world behind him based on sound. Liam slowly shifted, leather brushing against his skin as the soles of his boots scraped against the rough, blood-soaked wood. He drew a breath through his nose and his lips made a nearly inaudible pop as they parted, ready to shout for his superior to stop.

Wolf heard dilated gasps, snickers and rustle of weapons.

The scent of blood was so thick it drowned him.

I need to wash up. He thought, hardly paying attention to the whizzing of a club Fiona drew from somewhere, likely her holdingring. At least she’s using nonlethal weaponry.

Is her club-swing lethal or nonlethal? At least she’s not using her hammer…

I’m wasting Anima. Wolf sent his senses dormant.

He pivoted, avoiding the downward smash. He timed his swivel to smack Fiona’s cheek with an open palm. Before turning, he had a choice; either backhand her off the wall and let her drop eight-point-five meters, or slap her into the breastworks, where depending on inertia she may or may not fall over and tumble down the slope of corpses.

Wolf chose the less dangerous option, still rattling Fiona’s jaw and having her brain dance a jig inside her skull. The bulky woman flew for a split second. She smashed shoulder-first into the solid wood, shored by corpses from the outside.

“I’m going to wash up.” Wolf did not spare Fiona a glance. He hopped down the eight-odd meter tall wall and landed without strain, without the gleam of Qi reinforcing his legs.

The bloody mud squelched under his feet, ending the silent spell his slap produced.

“Warleader!”

“Are you all right?”

“What was that?”

Liam’s shout died on his lips. Wordlessly, he kneeled next to Fiona. Her eyes were out of focus; blood oozed from her split lip, and a red palm-print adorned her cheek

She’s alive. He had seen Wolf fight. He witnessed the ease with which he wielded that war-ax and the grace of his movement.

Is he a legendary body cultivator? Liam wondered. Body cultivators were a stuff of legends. Allegedly, in ages long forgotten, before the Undying Tyrant appeared, their ancestors were mighty. They were the ones who resisted the tyrant and got banished to Forsaken Wastes.

Some stories from that period persisted. Body cultivators were one of them. Women and men who cultivated not their Qi, but their bodies, free of bias of gender. Wolf landed without strengthening himself with Qi, which meant he either used it stealthily or not at all.

“Warleader, wake up.” He shook the groggy woman’s shoulder displaying bedside manners which would appall any healer.

“Who? What?” Fiona mumbled, but Liam cut her off.

“Warleader, listen up. While we were fighting, that fellow…”

As Liam brought Fiona up to speed, Wolf checked on the civilians and saw they were fine. He did not approach them. He looked like he spent a day wallowing in red mud. Instead, after confirming Kira’s safety, he returned to his tent to clean himself.

Blood already fused with my skin. Otherwise, I could move the damn thing into my holdingring and then throw it back out. He took out a barrel of water from his ring, followed by a heatingstone. He set the magical device to hot and was about to toss it into the cask.

I’d get blood all over it. He turned off the appliance and stored it for future use. He discarded his clothes. The leathers did a poor job protecting his body from sprays of blood.

Wolf took a deep breath and dunked his head into the water. He would rinse his face and hair with the cleanest water. Then, after tying his long black hair into a bun, he would scrub the rest of his body and see whether one bath was enough.

Dammit! I wish I had Ignore Elements. Better yet, Clean. Wolf’s skin crawled with goosebumps as he complained about the cold water, a part of him still admiring the restraint with which he handled Fiona’s dumb shit.

Meanwhile, Fiona got her dumb shit together. Liam briefed her on what he saw and heard, and she inwardly cursed his stupid male ass for not knowing when to speak. If he had informed her of everything clearly or at least gave her some sign, she would have swallowed her indignation and would not have provoked Wolf.

Still dizzy from her light concussion, Fiona went to find Ronit. As expected, the matriarch remained on the wall. She inspected the wounded, offering warm words and motherly nods, acting her role, just like Fiona acted hers.

“Matriarch, something happened, and I need five minutes of your time.” Fiona did not need to state she wanted a private conversation. By virtue of not discussing the matter in front of others, she declared this was a sensitive topic.

Ronit nodded, affectionately smiling under the flickering blend of lights from torches and the steady brightstones. The matriarch was a mediocre actor. Anyone paying attention could notice her smile never reached her eyes. Despite lacking the glint of cold calculation Fiona often fostered, the primal note of wariness tinged Ronit’s gaze as she glanced left and right, conflicting with her warm smile.

Deep down, in her gut, the matriarch felt hunted. And there was no sign of the hunter.

“Something’s wrong,” they duetted when they entered the tent.

Fiona lifted her eyebrow, expecting an explanation, but Ronit just shrugged.

“I don’t know what. I just feel something’s off. You know the feeling when someone’s eyeing to stab your kidney? That feeling.” Few would understand this sensation. Fiona, however, nodded.

“Monster Beasts which crossed the wall didn’t rampage. Instead, they clawed and chewed the wall once they got inside.” Fiona filled in the blanks while musing about Ronit’s sharp sense of danger, which proved a blessing and a curse. The matriarch never needed to use her brain too much. Her gut did the thinking, and it usually turned out right.

“I think someone somehow drew that beast-wave…”

Ronit nodded. Someone’s softening us up or tiring us out.

“When?” she interrupted her warleader.

“We are still tense and battle-ready.” Fiona tapped her lower lip considering when the attack would come. “They will give us enough time to calm our hearts and for our blood to turn sluggish; for our attention to slump, and for our muscles to cool and cramp. That’s how I would do it. Waiting an hour would be the best, but that’s cutting it awful close to dawn. This reeks of Foxes, and they won’t fight us head on like Bears; they’ll send elites and elders to kill us in our sleep. But they didn’t pull this just because the rift vanished. They didn’t have enough time. Meaning, they planned monsters to tumble into the rift, maybe to make it easier to invade Treasure World. But it’s too damn acc—”

Fiona’s finger froze on her lip, her mouth hanging open.

…it’s too damn accidental for this to happen the day after the coup. Foxes are behind the coup, meaning our tribe…

“Ronny, we’re in shit; nose deep.”

Random Roll - Fiona figured out something was up, and she figured out a lot. Changed her life, it did. Changed the story arc too.

Random Roll - Fiona’s losses, they ranged from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty.