The patrol had just passed under the cuckoo’s nest, Wolf realized. What should I do? Go back, climb the tree and hoot pretending to be a sentry?

After raking his brains for a moment Wolf turned back and ran for half a minute. Once he believed he was far enough the youth canceled Silence and patiently waited, then hooted.

The cuckoo answered, followed by the nightingale’s chirp.

All right. That bought me three more minutes, Wolf thought. So, what now? I only have two more Subtle Silences remaining. Should I use up one to kill the patrol? Then I’ll have a quarter of an hour to take care of the two sentry birds.

In the end, Wolf retreated fifty meters beyond the Alarm’s area, waiting for the patrol. He hooted once more before the footsteps became loud enough for him to act.

“I’m telling you,” a man whispered barely audibly. “The new piece of ass we captured for Boss today is prime meat. Once he grows bored of her I can bet you we’ll destroy that ass in two days.”

“Buck,” another hushed voice replied. “There’s a reason why you’re always the last one to get a turn.”

The third voice snickered while Buck growled, “Now look–”

Buck’s growl was cut short by the unnatural silence while his life was cut by a blade with which Wolf cleaved the man in half. After everything he’d experienced, Wolf hated rapist bandits the most.

Before Buck’s two friends could react the snickerer had the top of his head chopped off, while Wolf smashed his fist into the third man’s face, killing him with a punch.

“Damn,” Wolf cursed in silence.

Smashing a skull with his fist hurt Wolf a bit as well. He moved his fingers and was glad that nothing was broken, or even dislocated, his knuckles smarted, but that’s about it.

“Hoo Hoo!” Wolf hooted as soon as he dismissed Silence.

Damn, I only have one left now. Should I kill them using Silence and take a chance on what happens when they don’t let out their call, or should I risk it?

***

“Sir, Corky reported that our lookouts are all making their calls from the same place,” a huge man wearing black armor said while entering a large tent.

A man with elegant bearing got up and put on his clothes, then his plate armor. Despite the quickness with which he performed the action he still exuded a calm aura.

“What’s the situation?” he asked, running his fingers through his silver hair.

The huge man tore his eyes off the tied woman and looked back at his captain.

“Sir, the lookouts reported from the same location in sector four. Then Corky made an ‘all is well’ call, but got no response. After waiting for a minute he followed the procedure and came to wake me up,” the bulky man with a huge sword tied to his back reported.

“Well, if that’s the case, go and wake everyone. Have them ready for battle in five minutes,” Griff the Silver Fox said with a sigh. “If those guys come back from patrol unharmed everyone is to cane them on the ass once. We don’t tolerate that kind of fuckery in the Band of the Fox.”

“I already issued an order for everyone to quietly don their armor and get themselves ready, Sir,” the giant responded with a stiff expression. “We’re ready for a fight at any time.”

“Good lad,” the mercenary commander patted the warrior on the shoulder, making the significantly taller man’s lip twitch.

The commander either failed to notice or didn’t care as he continued saying his piece.

“Bernard, it seems you’re up for a promotion soon,” Griff reassured his several months younger deputy. “The band has grown nearly into a hundred-man squad. After we recruit some more we can have two separate companies. But, we’ll talk about that later. Come on, let’s prepare for our guests. I doubt there’s anyone in these peaceful parts as scary as the Bloodridge clan.”

Griff the Silver Fox left his tent. His tender facial features and the overly ornate armor made him look like a good for nothing noble scion, which was in stark contrast with his well shaped, scar-riddled body.

***

Wolf was annoyed. He’d come to this camp with the intention to slaughter these bandits to vent his frustration with Anna. Yet, these mercenaries set up their defenses in such a way that Wolf felt like he was playing chess, not going on a rampage.

Wait, this is strange, Wolf thought as blood dripped from his clenched fist.

He’d just mauled the nightingale with his bare hands, somewhat sating his bloodlust.

Why did I feel so enraged and why was I unable to control my thirst for blood and slaughter? he wondered with a deep frown. It can’t be just the thing with Anna. Why would I need to brutally murder people to restore my calm? I have to carefully consider everything that’s happened on this trip. Was I exposed to something? Could this be related with whatever was beyond that silver wall?

Just as he was about to make another blind guess Wolf realized it was time for him to make the three bird calls. And so he did, losing his train of thought and focusing on the mercenary camp.

*Chirp Chirp*

Is that a mockingbird? Wolf wondered after hearing a new bird call.

He waited for three minutes and let out the three bird calls again, but there was no fourth call this time.

I guess it was a real bird, Wolf thought, easing up a bit and making a round around the encampment, doing the bird call thing every so often. After going the full circle Wolf confirmed that the closest manling was always inside the camp.

After one final round of hoots and chirps Wolf headed towards his target. During the day he’d scouted out the camp and found it quite amateurish. The Band of the Fox used tents instead of building cottages. They hadn’t built a palisade around their camp either, but instead piled up thorny bushes in a rough circle around their compound.

Wolf was unfamiliar with this kind of shabby defense. It seemed very ineffective and most certainly not worth the effort. You could bypass it with decent enough garden shears or just plow your way through it, if you were willing to get scratched up a bit.

Wolf felt very confident about his idea until he neared the two meter tall wall of brambles. The fence let off multiple shimmering lights, displaying three different auras.

Detect Magic told Wolf that this tangle was magically altered. Bright green glow warned of the vicious toxin with which the thorns were coated, and finally jarring red patches on the ground and in some parts of the wall indicated the existence of traps hidden under and inside the jumble of thorns.

Wolf cursed under his breath. What originally appeared to be a byproduct of a gardener’s industrious work was actually an extremely sinister defensive perimeter. And quite lethal, if the vitriolic glow from those poisoned barbs was any indication of the poison’s potency.

Wolf didn’t know much about the art of trapmaking and mechanisms. Without a spell he’d never notice anything wrong, nor that there was more to these toxic brambles than met the eye.

I guess I’ll either have to fly over the wall, or go in through the front gate, Wolf mused as he watched the multicolored wall shimmer in front of him. Maybe I really should learn how to set up and craft traps? But given my talent at crafting, it’s a fool’s hope.

Then a memory from the dreamscape struck Wolf. He’d already realized years ago that mechanisms were a false path, so he completely banished the thought. Relying on external tools is something only the weak resort to, and using this approach meant you’ve given up and admitted your weakness.

Wolf sat down, fully awakening his senses to monitor his surroundings while he prepared Fly. He was kind of excited, for the first time ever he planned to use Walk Unseen in a practical manner.

“Sir, we’ve cast an illusion at the gate,” a scholarly voice whispered off in the distance. “Whoever looks from outside will see our sleeping camp. It will appear as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.”

“Good job, Corky—” a rich baritone replied just as quietly, but the speaker stopped himself as a sound of heavy footsteps approached him.

“Sir, whoever is out there didn’t bother making the call now. I’m afraid we lost all six sentries, otherwise someone should’ve sent out an alarm by now,” a deep bass reported, probably trying to sound quiet, but he did as good a job of it as a Dire Bear hiding behind a sapling.

“They already figured it out? How?” Wolf’s Mental Aspect muttered, almost fumbling the casting of Fly spell.

He quickly calmed down, focusing on the chant and flow of Soul Force while detachedly listening to the conversation outside the palace of his soul.

The rich baritone spoke quietly, but remained loud enough for everyone to hear him.

“Boys, it appears that some poor sods have a death wish,” he said as he started rousing his men’s morale. “We don’t know how many they have, but they are either too few, or they are very sloppy. Either way the Band of the Fox fears no enemy. If we could break free from a siege of the Bloodridge clan, there’s nothing to be afraid of in this rural part of Silverhound which has never seen an orc raiding party. Just wait patiently, and we’ll fuck them up and take revenge for our fallen brothers.”

There were no cheers, no applause, nor impassioned banging of weapons against shields. Everything remained perfectly quiet. Wolf imagined the burning gazes of gathered mercenaries, and he thought he heard their breathing quicken.

These men were ready for battle and bloodshed, and so was Wolf. He’d just finished preparing Fly and two spells later the young Mage flew over the wide wall of thorns.

Once airborne Wolf saw the eighty-odd men gathered before the entrance to the camp. They were fully armored, their weapons drawn and ready.

The most conspicuous figure Wolf saw wore a shiny plate armor and a horned helmet which completely obscured his face. The visor was styled to resemble a snarling metallic demon.

The second figure to draw Wolf’s attention wore a black suit of armor. The man was a giant, nearly twice as tall as Wolf and he had a huge blunt sword strapped to his back.

Then there were the Mages. Two of them, and they didn’t seem all that weak as he was led to believe.

The report’s been tampered with, Wolf realized. I thought there were too many people milling about for a company of only two dozen strong. And now that I see them in person, all of these people have a bloody air. Especially that hound in black plate.

“Move into formation six,” Griff the Fox said, and his men immediately started moving.

Nooo! Wolf silently screamed, they were bunched up perfectly for a Fireball!

Wolf watched as the Band of the Fox moved into a strange formation. Each of the Mages had a group of twenty bodyguards around them. Both groups were some ten meters from the entrance, one to the left and one to the right. At the center was Bernard, or black hound as Wolf called the man due to the design of his armor, who stood in front of a group of heavily armored soldiers. Nine meters behind his group was the archer squad.

They each held an arrow in their hand, but hadn’t notched them yet. Griff was in charge of this group, wearing his plate armor and wielding a crossbow.

Wolf observed the formation and could guess how it was supposed to work. Central force halted the enemy advance while the archers and Mages laid waste to enemy ranks, with two support squads ready to hit the enemy flank in case the center needed help.

The situation’s not quite as good as it was, Wolf thought while calming down. I just have to make sure that the Mages die at the start. Being on the receiving end of a Fireball is no fun.

Wolf flew down towards the left flank, making sure to stay out of the Mage’s line of sight, cursing the man who invented Fly. The spell was absolute rubbish.

Even without enchanting his speed, Wolf walked faster than he flew with this piece of trash.

Luckily, the crowd wasn’t moving. Wolf saw sweat pour down the nervous mens’ brows as they braced for the slaughter which may begin at any moment. And the slaughter really did begin just as abruptly as they thought it would.

As the Band of the Fox nervously waited for the enemy force to appear, a ball of flame suddenly flew from the left flank straight towards the center of the right.

Corky and his men didn’t have the time to scream before flames swallowed them. In an instant, a group of twenty turned to ash along with the surrounding tents.

Griff the Fox was a calm veteran of a hundred battles against orcs. But even such a man had to blink in confusion after seeing this absolutely insane friendly fire.

“Alex, have you gone mad,” he roared. “What the hell are you doing?”

He turned towards the left to see what that damned alcoholic was doing. However, instead of seeing a wasted Mage going mad or betraying him, Griff saw Alex’s head flying through the air.

“Ambush,” he yelled as Wolf materialized in the air next to Alex’s falling body.

Wolf dismissed Fly, hating how slow the spell was. Using the moment of confusion the youth swung his blade in the middle of the bunched up group of mercenaries, killing three more in one swoop.

With the Mages gone, the rest should be easy, he thought calmly. The only thing he feared were the Mages. Who knows what kind of weird combinations and chains of spells they had ready.

Mages like Anna and Barbara were easy pickings, but battle hardened Mages were a force to be reckoned with. Even a humble Fourth Order Mage, if properly used, was a weapon of mass destruction. And these two corpses were well trained and very experienced. If left unchecked, they might have been able to kill, or at least distract Wolf.

“Left wing, kill the assassin,” Griff shouted, jolting everyone into action. “Bernard, Archers, hold! Be ready for a frontal assault!”

The man guessed that following the assassin’s action the main force would advance.

Bernard on the other hand wanted to go and help the flank. By the time Griff was done shouting his order, five more men went down.

The hulk grit his teeth, but no enemy came. He had to stay still and listen as more screams came from the side. Then he said ‘fuck it’.

“Avenge our brothers!” Bernard charged towards Wolf, leading his squad, causing Griff to curse the brainless brute. Now the enemy charging in would lay waste to his archers.

“Take out your swords and help kill the assassin,” he ordered from the back while observing this whole mess unfold.

The left flank’s survivors tried fighting back, but against a Sword-Sage and Mage of Wolf’s Order their resistance hardly made any difference.

By the time Bernard made his decision and covered the short distance to engage Wolf, the left flank was annihilated. The ground was littered with the dead and the dying.

While Bernard’s eyes turned red and he became berserk, Griff watched calmly and realized the situation was already beyond repair. If only he’d known that his men would die so quickly he would’ve ordered the archers to just keep shooting until they turned the bastard assassin into a pincushion.

Unfortunately, there was no undoing the order he’d given.

In reality Wolf wouldn’t have cared. He was under the effect of Deflect Arrows ever since he’d approached the first sentry.

“Aaaah,” Bernard shouted and swung down his great-sword at Wolf. He poured all of his Internal Energy into the blow, but the youth flickered. Bernard’s target moved so fast he couldn’t keep track of it.

He ducked, then saw the reflection of fires on a blade rapidly approaching his eyes, and then he saw nothing but darkness.

*Slash*

The top of Bernard’s head went flying along with the steel helmet, but Wolf didn’t pause for a moment as he continued reaping the lives of the members of the Band of the Fox.

Griff watched as his heavies were decimated. The halfling attacking them wasn’t as overbearing as he was when he struck down Bernard. He aimed at the joints and slid his blade through armpits and hacked at people’s groins, the speed and familiarity with which he executed his moves was terrifying.

Griff knew this band was finished, so he did the sensible thing any fox would do. He turned around and fled.

There was a safe passage at the back of the camp, if one knew how to disarm the traps that is. However Griff didn’t want to gamble on whether or not he would be able to shake the crazy halfling’s pursuit.

He didn’t even know whether or not there were more people waiting outside the camp. Instead he ran into a tent and took out a magic ring from his Ring of Holding.

As he put it on his hand a peculiar thought ran through his head. I hope this doesn’t get me screwed.