A Blood-Like Rain

— Kaden —

I came out of the plane two hours ago, and was already through with the meeting. It hadn’t been that complicated. Nubinero had refused all our demands. This was the last minute-ditch effort to end things peacefully but their forces and mine were already in position for battle. Weeks of back and forth. I wasn’t that invested in the matter, but a few of my allies were, so I did them the curtesy of indulging them a bit.

There were nine packs in the end who stood here today. Warriors and Alphas. The battlefield would not be so far from Monaweard, the first pack to have raised the alarm about this whole mess, but far enough not to put at risk Mariqueen’s territory and non-warrior residents. But still close enough to be a respectable commute.

The place chosen was far enough from humans not to notice and get involved, in the nook of a small mountain range that would—along with its extensive forest—defuse the sounds of battle. Not all conflicts have locations this well prepared, but the extent of human society’s sprawl is considerable and it has to be taken in consideration, unless you want to trigger the human warning bells and find yourself facing a government’s military might, or find yourself locked in a facility of which you’ll never escape. It’s not only werewolf society that worries about that, but the entirety of the supernatural world. To take blatant risk with humans can have a lot of other species ready to rally against you to take care of the threat. I’ve been part of such party before.

Thankfully, Nubinero has not pushed us in a situation where we had to readjust on the fly and risk for this to occur. They’ve been rational enough to know how problematic this could become, but also that making this conflict fought in a more risqué setting could lead to the involvement of others who were not originally willing to be involved, only to stop them from attracting human attention.

On the other hand, it also meant that they were confident enough in their capacity to fight us head on, without land advantages, surprise on their side, or guerrilla warfare, and still have a good shot at winning, or even taking us down.

We had to be careful about this one.

From what we found, the facility we shut down was mostly a source of income, and their victims aimed at the black market. But they had a few groups they controlled on the payroll, like the one that attacked Ghealach. It was mostly what the facility was financing, and those were bringing in what was far more worrisome things to take into account about our enemy. Super-weapons.

That’s what a lot of powerful artifacts can become. Their use are sometimes extremely arcane and particular. Some could only be used by a certain person, some at a specific confluence of planets, others may have widely different result depending on who uses it or how. Knowledge about such artifacts is sometimes scarce, sometimes conflicting, and others completely lost to time.

On the up side, they targeted mostly smaller artifacts, in spiritual weight that is. Those were easier to steel and were not as strongly protected. Or so that was the information I had on them. I could be wrong and they could be holding the Lance of Destiny, or the Book of Thoth, or the Cintamani Stone. That would suck for us.

I’d manage to have a partial list of what they may be in possession of—we also found a few artifacts they sold either because they found no use for it, or were too strapped for cash, or in one case, the artifact attracted too much heat to keep it—and so far, nothing terrified me, but it got me very careful nonetheless.

path through the thick forest. The hoods were whipped by branches and brush. It was a trail seldom travelled and it was narrower as we went in deeper. We knew we wouldn’t be

that every battle is possibly the most difficult piece of exercise someone can perform, and everyone

It was a long endeavor. We had to stop often to take a fallen tree off the trackway, or readjust our driving to the rugged terrain. But we had calculated this in our schedule and would not be late to

fraction of the time, but again, I wanted everyone as fresh and rested as possible. And this way we could carry a lot more with us. Weapons, ammo, or medical supplies. We had food and water too. I’ve faced battles before that has lasted days. Though, those were generally more a series of small attacks over a period of time than a full on army against army type battle. Yet there were still

of the best

lot of altitude, but eventually we had to continue on foot. So we set up camps with the trucks and supplies, and finally

at camps, while others piled on their weapons

from a different angle. Mariqueen and her husband were at the head of the smaller pack and allies. David stayed at camp, and with a team, was getting aerial visuals and was connecting to infrared cameras some of my men were installing around the perimeter as we spoke, along with an array of sensors

him, would be our eyes and ears

a little under an hour of walking, teams began diverging. We had prepared for multiple directions assault.

my most faithful men. Ylva was with me on this team, as was Sam and our newest recruit Mishka.

guy much and I didn’t trust him yet. So I kept a good eye on him. But so far,

The group I was travelling with was much smaller now that

everything okay?” asked me Sam in a hushed voice.

confused at his question. It took me a few seconds to realize my

timing. But I stopped for a few seconds and gave Sam a signal to wait. He signaled for the others

tried to assess the situation. I moved my attention from my head to my breathing, to my limbs, nothing clicked.

I

so I shook my head

area himself, trying to catch any

Maybe this was a magical attack. I tried to feel the air around me, but magic as never been my strong suit.