Hammers in the Shadows

Part One: Shadows and Ice - Chapter Nine

"Afternoon, so what's the damage Alex?" I asked, knowing that for every battle there was always a cost in both personal, equipment, and physical property.

He looked at me and glanced down at a crinkled and worn piece of paper that looked like he'd had to put it in and out of his pocket more than a few times. "For Blackwater and our allies, it is relatively light, 15 KiA and 24 injured, of those injured 6 are critical." He said, "Ice Lake and their allies suffered far worse. Ice Lake got off relatively lightly with only 22 killed in action with unknown numbers of injured, Forest Depths lost 18 killed, though we did manage to take six of them prisoners, and lastly Midnight Forest. With the number of killed I don't expect they will continue attacking us because they took the lion's share of those either killed or injured in action at 41."

Both dad and I gasped in shock at the numbers, especially with the severity of the numbers for Midnight Forest. "Good fucking grief." Dad gasped, "I knew that truck that we killed belonged to them, but I wasn't aware of how heavily they engaged us."

I nodded. "The Dashka was a nasty surprise for them, that's for sure, otherwise they probably would have brought up something with a bit more armour that a truck covered in half an inch of steel plate."

Alex shook his head, "That was probably the most heavily armoured vehicle they had. They aren't like some Prides and Packs that possess heavier armour." He stated while my dad and I traded glances. Since both of us were well aware that we did indeed possess heavier armour, though it was hidden in the back of the Pride garage.

"Wonder what they would have though had they come up against a Grizzly." I asked while winking at dad.

"What the heck is a Grizzly?" Alex asked, his expression looking rather mystified.

Dad shook his head for a moment and then decided that the mystified expression on my cousin's face needed to change so he answered Alex, "The Grizzly was a Canadian variant of the M4A1 Medium Tank."

"You have a damned Tank?!" Alex almost shouted, the look of disbelief on his face was almost comical and both my father and I burst out laughing.

After we both got control of our rather wild laughter I blinked at Alex with tear filled eyes. "Yes Alex, we have a tank, though I'm not sure how much use it would have been... that armour that was fitted to that truck wouldn't have even slowed down a shell from it... and it would have kept going for another few hundred meters." I told him, trying not to chuckle.

Alex shook his head and massaged the bridge of his nose lightly. "Wish we'd known this before... would have made this whole yard clearing exercise rather unnecessary."

Dad spoke up, though he tried to keep his voice at least reasonable, as he was still getting over his laughing fit, "Alex the reason we didn't tell anybody about it is, like Mark said, against what we were facing it would have been both massive overkill, and actually in danger of getting overrun and destroyed."

Alex closed his eyes for a second and nodded before he looked down and I could tell that he was focusing his thoughts before he picked up a marker and drew a red line around the Pride Compound. "I've established a perimeter here around the compound, and I've had some of your people join in with our wolves. Your cats know this terrain and they know where best to place our defenses."

I looked at the map and then nodded, "Have you established a fall-back line Alex? So, that there's something for the defenders to fall back to should they need to?"

Alex nodded grabbing a green marker and marking out a series of positions behind his red line. "I've had these positions established as fall-back positions, though they don't form a complete line. Instead I'd rather consider them positions to counter-attack from."