-HER-
There was no hint of him in his own tent when I woke up the next morning. Now, I was fairly surprised.
For the first time, he'd done what he'd said he was going to do. Well, Ezekiel was a man of his word but I didn't expect him to keep his word in this situation given the kind of pervert he was. I was actually expecting to wake up beside him.
I was already feeling cranky that morning due to lack of good sleep and I am sure had I seen him sleeping beside me, I'd have chopped him into small pieces the first thing after waking up. Fortunately for him, he was nowhere to be seen, even outside the tent because I was seething with anger.
I was in a bad mood that day and my wolves were smart enough to have noticed that right away and didn't utter a single word to me as I went about the camp, looking at the work they'd done so far.
Even though everyone pretended to be busy around me, I did feel some curious eyes lingering on my back. I could feel their curiosity to know what actually happened last night but I want going to let them on much. I didn't owe anyone any explanations.
Even Lua kept her mouth shut and didn't speak to me until I spoke to her.
"How far are the preparations?" I asked her grimly, standing beside her and looking at the wolves building the boats to cross the river.
"We're on time," she returned, "We would be able to leave within an hour. They have just started building the last boat,"
"Good," I rasped coldly. She glanced at me from the corner of her eyes before she walked away, whistling to herself. She was smart in doing so.
The Lycan who had disrupted my night was gladly nowhere to be seen otherwise I was afraid I'd have challenged him for a proper dual at the first sight. Or worse, I'd have shot him with a cannon.
I overlooked the work my wolves were doing for the time being and also to distract myself. The army of thousand wolves was divided into five regiments, each having 200 wolves, and wolves of different regiments were assigned different work to maintain more accuracy and swiftness in our actions and movements.
On the other side of the camp, Tryfon and his lycans were building their own ship from scratch. When everything was done, we finally started our march towards the river. Ezekiel was still nowhere to be seen and I could feel Lua getting slightly anxious due to this.
"If he's not there, how would our plan work?" She frowned.
"He'd be there," I told her confidently.
"How could you be so sure? None of us had seen him ever since last night at dinner. I think some wild animal in the woods ate him but this seems very unlikely. I am sure all the animals, no matter how hungry must avoid him. He'd be such a bad pray. Bad for the stomach and bad for the head," Lua joked. I'd have joined her but currently, I kept my face straight because I wasn't in the good mood.
"I know he'll come. He'd have to play knight in shining armor, remember?" I gritted.
"Of course, a damsel in distress must only want his knightly ass," Lua snorted. "If I was drowning and he came to save me I'd rather drown," she said nodding towards Tryfon. Tryfon, who'd been marching in front of us threw us a look over his shoulder.
"We're currently headed towards a river. Are you suggesting something?" He asked Lua pointedly.
"Yes, when we are there please wash your face. It spoils my spirit every time I look at it," Lua spoke back to him. Tryfon grumbled something under his breath before he looked away and didn't utter a word.
"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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