The Lycan King's Rebel

𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲-𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞

"Where is he?" Lua asked, getting impatient. "I really want to see him getting his ass whipped today," She grumbled.

"He'll be there," Was all I told her as we headed towards the river.

Guess what?

I was right. He was already at the river. Waiting for all of us. Even before the river, Ezekiel was the first thing I spotted through the gaps of trees and it instantly had my blood boiling but I didn't say anything to him yet as we walked up to him.

I reminded myself to be patient. That was the key thing here.

"I think we don't need to discuss our plan again," He declared when we finally reached up to him. I felt his eyes burning on me while I scanned the eerily calm surface of the river water which was flowing from north to southeast.

In front of us lay almost a mile of river to be crossed and if this was an ordinary river then we would have crossed it within an hour, given the flow of water. But this wasn't any ordinary river. This river had a lot of monsters lingering in its depth. Monsters who'd leap out of the water and threaten to eat us as soon as we'd touch the water.

"I think we do," I finally told Ezekiel, tearing my eyes off the river and thence locking it with his dark, dangerous ones. He cocked his eyebrow at me and enquired, "We do?"

"There has been a slight change in plan," I told him.

"What is that?" He questioned a bit impatiently.

Just, wait you scheming son of a bastard.

"My men will only cross the river. Your lycans will only do the fighting," I told him. At this, I saw Tryfon's eyes widen before he jumped forward to question me, "You're pulling back from this because you're scared, aren't you?"

I looked at him and burned my eyes at him, "Remember the original deal," I turned to Ezekiel, "It was only about my men guarding the frozen valleys. My men should raise their swords only when they are in the frozen valleys. Of course, if there's any threat to them, they shall fight for their self-defense outside the frozen valleys. That's it. It wasn't part of our deal to fight river monsters on our way to the frozen valleys," As I spoke, I could see the anger swirling in Ezekiel's eyes. "The skill my men acquire is scarce and extremely vital for defending the frozen valleys. I cannot lose them over silly things like these. It would be costly on both sides,"

The flare in his eyes rose even more at this because both of us knew that I was saying the truth. A moment of tense silence followed my words as he glared at me for a good couple of minutes.

"We only have a hundred lycans," Ezekiel spoke.

"Why?" I questioned, glancing at Tryfon and speaking, "Didn't you say your hundred men were equal to my thousand wolves? What happened to that?"

This seemed to have done the work for me. The fire in his eyes was burning so intensely that I could swear it was enough to set fire to the sun again.

"Alright," He finally gritted. His eyes had enough fire in them to leave scorch marks on my skin, "My men and I will solely fight the monsters,"

He didn't look particularly happy with this but he knew it well deep down that he was in no position to bargain. I set the rules here and I break them too.

After making sure that everything was in place, we finally took our positions. Ezekiel stood in front of us, of course. I watched, holding my breath as he took his sword out, raised it high in the air, and striked the water with his sword.

There was enough power in his sword and strike that for a moment, the upper layer of water in the river parted all the way to the other side before collapsing back together. This was the invitation to the monsters and as soon as the water fell back to its place, those giant, ugly creatures were out of the water, ready to eat us all alive.

I told Ezekiel grimly before leaving, "If I lose a wolf in this river, it would be on you,"

With that, I turned around and went to my men who were still waiting in the shadow of the woods with their boats, weapons, and cargo.

The sun crackled in the middle of the sky and Ezekiel gave out a war cry behind me as I walked back. I heard those monsters roar behind me, shaking the ground beneath me but still, it wasn't strong enough to shake me.

"We need to cross the river within half an hour," I told the Captains of the regiments. At first, they were shocked to hear that but they didn't argue. I myself knew that it was impossible to cross the river in just half an hour but I was the one setting the bar here. I was the one responsible to push everything so I was going to push, even if it meant doing the impossible.

This had to be done.

Without glancing again towards what was happening to Ezekiel's side, I led my men to the least dangerous side of the river. There were still river monsters here and there but I could deal with them. I'd left the big headaches to Ezekiel.

It was more to less like divide and rule. I'd split the responsibilities. He was responsible for keeping the monsters away and I was responsible for taking all the wolves on the other side in one single piece.

I boarded one of the boats and as soon as we were ready, I gave a commanding roar. Everyone instantly started rowing. I was sitting at the very front of my ship, rowing tirelessly with my eyes set only on the opposite shore.

Whatever came between me and the opposite shore got slaughtered by my sword. Nothing else mattered to me at that moment. My only focus was to get to the opposite shore somehow in the record-breaking time.

I heard several cries, growled, roars, and whatnot from Ezekiel's side but none of it was important enough for me to tear my eyes away from the opposite shore. The opposite shore was our northern star at that moment, our only goal!

I didn't realize that I'd been holding my breath all this time until my boat hit the opposite shore. I looked around to see that the other boats have reached the shore at the same time.

"How long did it take?" I roared.

"Twenty-nine minutes," Lua answered in astonishment.

"Could have done better," I grumbled more to myself and asked out loud, "How much loss have there been?"

"None!" This surprised me but I didn't show it on the surface and looked around. I saw that most of the lycans had made it to this side as well despite the mounters. The chaos in the river seemed to be dying down slowly.

I walked up to the lycans and looked at them. Some of them were injured, some of them were missing. Ezekiel and Tryfon were among the latter category. Though I saw more Lycans climbing out of the water.

I searched the crowd for Ezekiel and Tryfon but they were nowhere to be seen yet.

"Where are others?" I asked one of the Lycans who's just crawled out of the water.

"Dead," He answered with a tone of shock.

"Where's your king?"

Silence.

_

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