After a quick, cold meal Niall was on first watch that night with Rafaela. He had slept in the woods on the way to the village before, but this was different. As the others settled into their bedrolls, he looked into the black of the forest. There was a rustle in the undergrowth. He crept towards it with his spear in a ready position.

“Relax, Patrol Leader.” Niall jumped as the Tate’s voice came from his shoulder. She had come up without him noticing. He started to turn but she grabbed his head and forced it back to the forest. “No. Keep your eyes looking outwards. A dire wolf just needs a second. You’re looking for the dark that moves in the dark. I don’t know what you’ve hunted in the past but dire wolves are different. You won’t hear a dire wolf if it’s going to approach. Listen for the silence, that’s when you need to worry. Oh, and keep breathing, you can’t do anything if you run out of breath.”

Niall let out the breath he didn’t even realise he was holding. He glanced to his side. “Thanks, Corp...” He trailed off. Tate had already disappeared. Niall stepped backwards and looked back into the darkness. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt better.

Tate was as good as her word. She had them up and moving rapidly through the forest in the pre-dawn light. That morning, Tate gave Niall the lead. From her close scrutiny he realised it was a test of his skill. However, his time with Gwen had not been wasted. Tracking something on the scale of the dire wolves posed no challenge. In fact, when the trail was particularly clear, he had the patrol moving at a slow run.

After they finished a quick lunch, Tate gestured at Huff. “Huffport, you’re up.”

Huff looked at her with a confused look on his face

“Take point.” Tate clarified. “Your Patrol Leader and I have shown you what to do for over a day. Now it’s your turn.”

Huff went to the front of the group and took a few hesitant steps forward, then looked back.

“Come on Militia Huffport,” Tate said. “We don’t have time to lose.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Tate cycled the lead through the rest of the Patrol, correcting them when she needed to and chivvying them when she thought they were going too slowly.

That night, Niall fell asleep as soon as he shut his eyes. The exertions of the day had hit him hard. It felt like he had only been asleep for a moment when he snapped his eyes open and jerked into wakefulness. He looked out into the darkness. Everything was still and unnaturally silent, but something had woken him. Then it came again, shattering the silence and echoing through the trees. A drawn out, loud howl that lasted longer than Niall thought it could.

Niall had heard wolves howl before. This was like seeing the sea with his own eyes after having only seen pictures before. It was not to do with the volume, it was to do with the quality. The howl had an intent behind it. An intelligent, killing intent. More than anything else it reminded Niall of the bellow of the Bulvine fighter that had frozen him in place on his first day in Gwilliant.

Tate spoke into the silence that followed. “That is what a hungry dire wolf sounds like. Nothing we can do tonight except keep watch and get some sleep.”

Within moments, a light snore came from the bedroll of the experienced Corporal. By contrast, Niall lay awake. The howl had triggered a primal fear inside him. The fact they were about to face a true apex predator struck home. Every hoot of an owl or rustle of a field mouse made him start. He was still awake when Huff came to get him to stand watch.

The following morning, Tate stopped them half an hour after they left camp. She knelt and poked through a pile of scat in their path. Niall had been introduced to the pungent odour of the dire wolf droppings the previous day and did not envy her.

After a moment, Tate called them over. “Look at this” She prodded at the scat with a stick. “This is a day old. We’re not catching up.”

She stood up. “We’re going to have to start to speed march as we track if we are going to catch them up. Prepare yourselves. This is going to be fun.”

With that, Tate called Tierra to the front to lead the tracking and they all set off at a slow run. Niall found the rest of the morning excruciating. Tate had them alternating between jogging and a quick walk. What started off as manageable became increasingly hard as the day wore on.

Tate was also not cutting them any slack with the tracking, rotating the lead tracker every half hour or so. Given his experience, Niall took the lead more frequently than the others. Tate would expect him to push the pace faster than the others as he could keep track of the trail more easily than the others.

Niall did not object. Tate was pushing him harder than Gwen had. Tate’s approach to tracking was a far cry from the careful deliberate method Gwen had insisted on and Niall was certain that when he checked his Tracking Skill again it would have improved.

The pace was brutal. Breaks were only five minutes long. It was just enough time to fill water bottles, rehydrate, force down some food before they had to start up again. As the sun set on that long day Tate was back on her knees over a pile of dire wolf scat.

She looked up with a satisfied smile on her face. “If we keep this up, we should catch up with them when they are resting tomorrow. One more push today.”

With a groan the Patrol lined up and started to move again. Tate took pity on them and they stopped for the night after another half hour or so. She looked down at them as they collapsed on the ground. She seemed barely out of breath despite the day they had had. “Good work, everyone. I’ll take the middle watches of the night by myself to give you the best chance to recover. Stretch off and check your weapons and armour before you turn in though. It’s a big day tomorrow. Oh, and check your Testimonies but don’t get too excited. You need to rest before tomorrow.”

Niall sat on the ground with his back again a tree. He was physically and mentally drained. However, after a few minutes, he forced himself back to his feet. If he stopped now he was never going to get up again. A stretch, a long drink of water and some food inside him, and Niall felt a lot better. He swiped across at his Testimony, curious as to what Tate wanted them to look at. He spotted the improvement immediately.

ATTRIBUTES

Strength: 44

Endurance: 55

Agility: 35

Will: 31

Perception: 34

CLASSES:

Junior Smallholder 6

Apprentice Blacksmith 6

Acolyte Healer 8

Hunter 4

- Woodsman 10

- Tracking 6

- Longbow 5

- Butcher 4

- Trapper 4

- Navigation 7

- Soft Step 4

Brawler 2

Militia 1

UNALLOCATED SKILLS:

- Meditation 5

- Flow 8

- Steelmind 12

- Telepathy 1

For obvious reasons, his Hunter level had not changed while he had been in militia training. This mission was not only keeping his Hunter skills fresh, but the new terrain and the more intense tracking style had led to an additional level. He was not unhappy at the increase in his Attributes, he was certain he would need every edge he could get in the upcoming fight.

Speaking with the others, he realised they had picked up a specialist Tracker Class. It came with fewer Attribute improvements compared to his Hunter class, but it was still nothing to sniff at from just a couple of days of effort.

Niall gave a small smile and grabbed his sword and sharpening stone. If he came back from this, then he might just get some worthwhile improvement. His smile faded as he unsheathed his sword and looked at his reflection. If he came back.

The following afternoon, Niall was on point as the Patrol headed off after lunch. It had taken some time to shake off the aches of the previous day. But, as the sun rose that morning, it helped to warm his sore muscles. He barely admitted it to himself, but he was starting to enjoy this mission, at least when he was not thinking about the fight that was coming ever closer. After a couple of hours, he held up his hand for the Patrol to stop. Tate strode up to join him at the front. “What is it, Patrol Leader?”

Niall pointed at some marks on the ground. “It looks like the dire wolves came through here, Corporal, but their tracks have been cut across by something else.” He pointed at a mark. “I’m not sure how this is possible when we are so far from the town, but I’m pretty sure that’s a boot print. And, look at that.”

Niall pointed the stream of smoke that had started to twist its way into the clear blue sky nearby.

Tate looked down at where he had pointed. “And it’s fresh. Good spot. This is worth a detour. Follow the footprints, Patrol Leader.”

Niall did as he was told. The tracks were far easier to follow compared to those of the dire wolves and the patrol moved swiftly. Within a few minutes he held up his hand again. This time, Tate did not need to ask why. The sound of people talking and the clank of metal could be heard by them all.

Tate motioned for silence and took the lead again. The Patrol crept forward and stopped in the shelter of the trees as they saw a campsite. By the look of the clothes strung up on lines between the trees, this was not somewhere the inhabitants were looking to move on from in a hurry.

There were two tents on the site with a sturdy carthorse on a long lead tied to a stake between them. However, the site was dominated by logs in various states of being dismembered. A large conical mound of clay was next to it. The smoke that Niall had seen earlier curled out from the top. To one side, a pile of charcoal spilled out from under a large oiled cloth that was staked over it.

Two men and a woman busied themselves around the camp. The smell of stewing meat and vegetables drifted over to Niall from a smaller cooking fire in the middle of the camp.

“Well, that’s a complication we didn’t need,” Tate said below her breath. She stood up and gestured to the patrol to follow as she walked in the camp. All three of the people in the clearing stood as soon as the patrol revealed themselves and picked up large single-bladed axes. They kept them low, but were clearly ready to use them if required. The two men stayed where they were while the woman stepped out in front of them.

She called out to the patrol as they approached. “Good afternoon. What brings you out here?”

Tate looked at the woman. “Are you in charge?”

The woman nodded. “Jenna’s the name.”

“Fine, Jenna. You need to leave. All of you. Now. It’s not ideal, but we’ll accompany you until you can get to the road.”

“Now why would we do that?” Jenna said. “We’ve just started to cook a fresh batch. That charcoal won’t be ready for a day or so, and we’ve got another week before we have enough to make it worth heading back to town to drop it off.”

“And it will be your last week if you don’t leave.” Tate moved closer to the woman. “We’re here because there’s a pack of dire wolves in the area we’re tracking. They came past here last night and they’re ready to hunt again. If you don’t leave, you’re going to be their next meal.”

One of the men stepped forward. “Dire wolves? Rubbish. There are no dire wolves in these parts. We’d have heard.”

Tate turned to him. “Tell that to the people they killed over the past few days.”

Jenna moved between the two of them and looked at Tate. “Listen, thank you for the warning, but we’re going nowhere. We don’t work, we don’t eat. This is our job, and we’re used to the forest. I’m sure it was just a large wolf that got the folks over at Low Vale excited. They’ve always been a bit soft.” She slapped a hand on her axe handle. “But, there’s nothing out here we can’t handle.”

Tate looked as if she was about to speak but then paused. “Fine. Well, we can’t force you to do anything. If anyone asks we’ll say we tried to warn you.”

“That you did,” Jenna said. “And we heard it. If that’s all though, then we need to get back to work. As I said, we’ve got a lot to get done.”

Tate looked at her for a moment longer and then gestured to the patrol to leave. Niall could feel the eyes of the three charcoal makers on their backs as they walked away. Tate led them five minutes or so away from the camp then called a halt.

“Right,” she said. “That changes things. We don’t need to track the dire wolves anymore.”

“Really?” asked Rafaela.

“The dire wolves must be no more than three hours from here and we can see they haven’t fed since we started to follow them. They’re going to want to feed tonight and they’re not going to pass up an easy meal like those three. We need to prepare.”

Tate had them circle round the charcoal maker camp until they were in a position downwind of them. The next hour was spent building a hide. Tate’s standards were almost as exacting as Gwen’s, and she kept them at it until she was satisfied the hide was as perfect as they could manage.

After the hide was complete. Tate gathered them round to brainstorm, and agree a plan. Nine out of ten of the suggestion that the patrol made were rejected by the Corporal but eventually they had a way forward. It was only then that Tate allowed them to light a small smokeless fire.

“Are you sure Corporal?” asked Mak. “You taught us to always make a cold camp in hostile territory.”

“Welcome to the difference between theory and practice.” Corporal Tate said. “We’re downwind and we’ll put the fire out as soon as we’re done. Any lingering smells should be masked by the charcoal burners. Having a full belly for the upcoming fight is worth the small risk.”

Niall savoured his first hot meal in days then settled down to rest for a couple of hours while Tate stood watch.

As dusk fell, Tate woke them up and had them gather around. “Right, let’s go over the plan once more. Huff, you start.”

“The dire wolves are likely to attack those idiots tonight, or at the latest tomorrow night,” Huff said. “We’re going to wait in the hide downwind of them so the dire wolves don’t smell us. We’ll keep watch in groups of three through the night. Two with eyes on the charcoal makers camp, the other covering our rear so we don’t get ambushed ourselves. If we’re not on watch we get some rest but with our armour on and weapons ready.”

“Good,” said Tate. “Militia Velaz, what happens when we have eyes on the enemy?”

“We are working on the basis that the dire wolves will attack the charcoal makers camp.” Tierra started, then stopped as Fangast interrupted.

Fangast wrinkled his nose as he spoke. “I still don’t like putting the charcoal makers in danger”

Tate shrugged. “We’re not debating this again. They had fair warning. I’m not going to put our lives at risk to protect people who won’t help themselves. In any event, the objective is to we take out the dire wolves before they reach the charcoal makers. They should be fine. If they aren’t, then I’m not going to lose any sleep. Carry on, Militia Velaz.”

“When the attack on the charcoal makers happens we’re going to surprise them.” Tierra said. “In terms of tactics, dire wolves aren’t stupid. There are three of them so we should assume they will be flanking us. The plan is that we outflank them in turn. We take them in pairs. If we need to leave the hide then you and I, Corporal, will head out.”

Niall was the one to interrupt this time. “Corporal, I would like to formally request that if we have to leave the hide then it should be me rather than Militia Velaz.”

“Noted and denied Patrol Leader. You will remain in command here if I have left. Mak, what’s your role?”

“My job is to cover our backs until we have engaged all three.” Mak said. “No matter what I hear, I don’t engage with the dire wolves we’re already fighting until I’m sure all three of them have engaged. I just keep watch for the others.”

“Exactly,” Tate said. “If one gets in behind us when we’re distracted, the rest of the pack will take us down in seconds. Any other questions?” She looked from one to the other as they each shook their heads. “In which case, good luck. Just remember that once we make contact, anything can happen. Keep listening for orders, things will change fast.”

With that, the Patrol moved forward into position. Niall was not on the first watch but still looked on from a distance as the charcoal makers finished their meal. Oblivious to the watching militia, they checked their smoking kiln and settled in for the night.

As the hours passed, Niall’s nerves grew taut. The fight was coming and he had no idea if he, or any of the people in his charge, would see the dawn.