Part of me wondered if the Centaurs were somewhat related to ants. Watching them gave that impression, they looked rather agitated as they moved around camp and I thought I could smell their unease, even through the scrying magic I used to watch them.

But it was somewhat understandable that they were spooked, at first, they had lost about thirty percent of their troops without managing to bring down even one of their canine attackers, followed by a storm pinning them into their camp for days, turing the surrounding area into a muddy, swampy bog, taking away their biggest advantage, their mobility. After that week of rain, sleet and hail, their first supply-shipment never made it to their camp, vanishing without a trace and at that point, they must have caught on that something bigger than just a few random wolf-attacks was going on.

After those events, they had started to act skittish whenever they noticed mist rolling in, even wholly natural mist was sending the scurrying back into their camps, hiding behind their trenches and in the light of their perpetually burning torches, those had to be magical. But for now, the mission the wolves and I were on was working perfectly well.

Sadly, there was only so much we could do without giving the game away, the uncertainty with what they were dealing was keeping them off-balance, otherwise, they’d simply use overwhelming force to deal with us, forcing us back into the forest where our only chance would be to hide away. I had one more strike in mind, after which I would have the wolves pull back a little, letting them wallow in their fear, until either the mission was completed or the centaurs needed to be reminded of the fear they were feeling right now.

And the target for that last strike was moving towards the camp, I had luckily seen it the day before, another group of oxen and centaurs, carrying magical bags like the supply-group that we had ambushed days before. Half of those bags were now used by us, the other half was distributed amongst the wolves, which was just fine. It mostly meant that we had more than enough carrying-capacity, even if there might be some way to weaponize such bags, I’d have to look into that one.

I shook off those thoughts, watching through my scrying-field as the centaurs, double the complement of the last supply-group, were moving along their oxen, with the wolves slowly shifting to get into their way. The centaurs had learned, their path was no longer the fastest and easiest path, they seemed to more or less pick their way at random, making ambushes much harder.

Not that we had that in mind, at least not fully, the plan was to use a wide fog-bank to either pin them or drive them into the jaws of the waiting wolves. Most of them were on the other side of the centaurs, compared to me and only a few wolves would actually be in the mist as it rolled in. I had discussed it with the other wolves and they agreed, it would most likely be the hardest fight, made even harder by the fact that I needed to take down a few of the centaurs, three to five optimally, without killing or wounding them too grievously. But sadly, it was necessary for my next gambit.

I had to smile when their first reaction to the mist rolling in was to turn the oxen and flee from the approaching cloud as fast as possible. While they were getting smarter, they were also getting predictable and being predictable was getting them killed in this case. The wolves hidden by the mist added to the speed of their flight by snarling, howling and growling, turning what had looked like a controlled change of direction into a slightly panicked flight, as they tried to keep in front of the cloud of mist I had conjured up.

In front of them, the rest of the wolves had hidden in the grass and mud, waiting for the centaurs to come to them, if they managed to get away from the mist. I noticed a centaur falling, after stepping into a hole in the ground, maybe breaking a leg, but the rest of their party simply ignored the downed figure, moving on as if nothing had happened. It drove home just how afraid they were, abandoning one of their own, literally leaving them for the wolves. But maybe that was just part of their mission, to get the supplies to the camp no matter what, no matter the sacrifices. For me, I was quite happy about it, as it meant I had the first captured centaur.

When the rest of the centaurs made it to the waiting wolves, they leapt up and another battle broke out, the centaurs realising that they’d have to fight back, or they would get picked off, one by one. Once the battle broke out, I abandoned the scrying spell, instead quickly making my way towards the battle-field, satisfied that my plan had worked thus far. I wasn’t too far away and was able to see the end of the battle, as the wolves circled the last few centaurs that had clustered together to make a stand.

Lenore, who had been watching the whole time, told me what I had missed, which was not a lot. The wolves had their tactics to take down centaurs, which worked quite well, especially in the muddy swamp they were fighting on and ultimately, the fight had played out very much as hoped. While some wolves had been injured and a few even died before I ever got there, they had managed to achieve our goal, four centaurs were immobilised but alive, looking as if they were praying to whatever deity they believed in to make the wolves miss them when cleaning up the battleground. Not that it would help them if the wolves missed them, I was the one with plans for them.

Once I was in range, I started to lob a few Icicles towards the harried centaurs, causing screams of surprise and shock, once they noticed that it truly was a humanoid that was attacking them, and soon, the battle was over. I gained some experience, not enough to advance me another level, and Lenore and I started the after-battle work, healing, cleaning up and finally, the gambit we had planned out.

The first step of that gambit was to bind one of the downed centaurs, a female, and heal her. As I did, she was whimpering, asking why I was doing this, pleading for her life and all that. Not that I really cared or listened, I had work to do. But there was a part of me that was a little curious why the centaurs were here, so I asked Adra if she would talk to the centaurs once I had healed them, to pump them for information while we relocated.

Healing them was relatively easy, I had a good working knowledge on centaur anatomy, which allowed me to work quickly and effectively, bringing them to a point where they could walk but not without pain and running would cause the fixes I had performed to break, leaving them immobilised once again. Which was just as well, I didn’t want them to flee, once they understood my plan.

We set out all together, captured centaurs, my party and the wolves, all moving hidden in a cloud of mist, towards the north-eastern centaur camp, the one the supply-group had been moving towards. As we walked, one of the centaurs tried to plead with me again, blabbering how their herd would trade for them and the best way to go about things would be to negotiate their return with their people. I highly doubted that anything he said was true, but I let him ramble on, curious if they would give any useful information or merely misinformation. Ultimately, I would return them to their people, just not in the state they wanted to be in. Lenore, once again flying high overhead, allowed me to direct the combined group around any obstacle and, soon, within two hours of walking, we were about a mile away from the centaur-camp. The camp, seeing the massive cloud of mist, was on high alert, Lenore spoke of fully manned trenches and a bristling forest of pikes and enough archers to make her return to the safety of the cloud of mist I had conjured up.

After coming out of the mist surrounding us, she landed on my staff, impressively flapping her wings for a moment, making the centaurs gawk. I wondered if they realised that by showing them one of my biggest advantages, I would make sure they would never live to return to their people. Shaking my head, I shackled the centaur-captives again, this time adding gags to their mouths, to make sure they would be unable to scream, it might distract me at an inopportune moment. In a fit of fancy, I created a dice to pick the first centaur to work on, drawing my Athame as I walked towards the suddenly panicking centaur with a smile.

I loved to experiment with magic.