(MxM) Tales Of A Shifter (P1) - The Meeting

Chapter 38 - Threat In Darkness

The moon sat like a bloated dot in the balmy night sky as the party of seven finally crested the steep hills located to the far west.

This part of the Clan Lands was at least eight miles into the western fields, where only a few log cabins sat and the open sky hung like a diamond studded blanket over the world.

The tall grasses snapped and flipped in the slight breeze and the pine trees that boarded their entire village tinged the air in crisp scent of pine and sap.

Ezekiel glanced up into the sky, calculating the moons position with his internal instincts.

One AM?
He thought to himself as he walked beside his mostly silent and calm older brother Walter and just in front of Erin and Drin who made much more noise trekking through the supple grass, than Ezekiel and Walter combined.

Dammit, in just a few more hours Dads seriously gonna kick that stranger out into the wilds to fend for himself.

Ezekiel spent his next few minutes thinking of what he could do. But he didn't have the time. What he could say to his father to make him be lenient to the stranger. But he didn't have the words.

As much as Ezekiel wanted to turn his thoughts to his current duties, the mortals face and scent rose up to unexpectedly befuddle him... Ezekiel actually remembered the heat of his skin just beneath his lips as he scent tested his blood or his face pressed against Ezekiel's palm as he fell into peaceful sleep.

Ezekiel was actually trapped in his mind remembering the strangers beguiling green eyes and the fact that he still didn't know the mortals name... he ruminated on that unfortunate fact that was until his father led them over the last rise and they hit the nose melting stench.

Like a ocean tide of putrid rot, the smell hit every single one of the Guardians, sending almost all of them into watery eyed hacks and coughs of deep disgust.

Erin, who was more delicate then the rest of then retreated from the hill and Ezekiel heard her vomiting a few feet back.

Ezekiels belly rolled and he let Drin go over to her, while he threw an arm over his nose and tried to take slow deep breath through his mouth. It barely helped to stall the stench from attacking his heighted sense, but he wanted to believe that somehow he was keeping the offensive smell at bay.

For the most part it appeared to Ezekiel that Walter was completely unhindered by the scent, and Mantilo almost seemed to ignore it all together. Lander snarled and plugged his nose, while Nate growled, silvery eyes as bright as the moon above peered almost hungrily into the darkness that hid the multitude of bodies that the overbearing smell of rotting blood must have been wafting off of.

For a long second the Wolf alternated between whimpers and growls as he sniffed at the abomination that saturated the entire area.

To Ezekiel it was like Naye was having a private conversation with the beast inside of himself, but as the wind picked up, flinging even more of the smell up on to him, Ezekiel had to move away from that thought and focus on holding is lunch down.

"What in god's name is that terrible smell Mantilo?" Erin began to bemoan coming back up over the rise, with Drin after emptying her stomach.
Ezekiel didn't fault her for her reaction in the least, and felt terrible for her when he saw the way her throat worked to hold down more sickness as she moved closer to the other Guardians and thus closer to the scent. "How do we track anything in this!?"

But either because of the smell or all of the talking he had done before Mantilo wasn't in to mood to chat idly.
Standing to the side on the grassy rise overlooking the carnage he addressed them all quickly and precisely with a plan of attack.