Shadows of the pack

Chapter Two - Meet my wolf

Sebastian’s POV

“Until they came in the middle of the night, barging through our defenses like a raging storm embedded in an arrowhead after a 58-day siege. The Dulguans came fully prepared to conquer our kingdom. Although we had heard from scouts and neighboring kingdoms about a possible war coming to our walls, the king and his subjects were too engrossed in the kingdom’s affairs, and as such, not much defense was prepared,” he ended but continued.

“Alas! Conquered us they did. Was it not only the king whom they wanted? But they went after all the subjects, killing them and most of their soldiers alike, although they spared the prince to become a king, subject to the king of the Dulguans, having to pay homage to their king through an envoy every quarter of the year. Escaping the city was not easy, but I did manage to escape by killing one Dulguan soldier and disguising myself in his battle armor to leave the city. The king of the Dulguans had conquered the kingdom of Nolria because he wanted a part of the resources available in the kingdom and for their king to be subservient to him like many other kings that came to be. So, when I say greed has always been a part of the history of humans, I know what I’m talking about. But who am I to blame humans? After all, it is my sin that has led me to where I am now. If only I hadn’t killed Abel, I would have died peacefully a long time ago. I was the first human ever to commit one of the big sins in human history: murder!” He ended. “And staying alive has been my punishment,” Cain continued. “How ironic.”

I looked Cain in the eyes; they weren’t only filled with regret but also rage. Maybe he was angry that God cursed him? Or that he killed his own brother over a petty feeling like jealousy.

A thought brewed in my mind as Cain kept narrating his ordeal in the war that happened in the past. I felt as though I could do something to stop this war from happening if that would at least save the lives and homes of the innocent people. Even though some humans are cruel enough to kill their own kind by starting a war, some of them still deserve to be saved.

“You know we could stop this war from happening, Cain,” I said to him, suddenly interrupting his brief moment of sorrow because I wasn’t sure of what to do to comfort him, and he needed to hear my newly profound idea anyway, so I awkwardly interjected it to divert the entire topic.

“All we need to do is find the enemy, kill their field commander, and force them to retreat to stop another human war from happening,” I continued.

“Yes, we could, but the enemy will return,” replied Cain, now having a serious facial expression, but it was different from how he looked a minute ago.

If there was one thing I disliked the most, it was seeing other people wallowing in sadness and despair, so I was glad that I was able to divert the entire topic to something else.

“But the next time they do, this city will be prepared to defend itself against them,” I replied to him.

Cain stared into the now-dim campfire as though he was thinking about it.

“Let me give it some more thought; I’ll let you know by tomorrow,” Cain said, not looking at me but at the campfire. Then he stood up, bidding me goodnight, and left for his place to sleep.

I woke up very early the next morning, and I felt like running. My wolf has been itching for a while now since we’ve not been running much these days because of Cain, whose speed couldn’t match ours even though he’s an immortal. I looked over to where he was sleeping, and I could hear him snoring, seeming like he was still deep asleep, so I moved towards the entrance of the abandoned village’s forest and cracked my bones to prepare for a bone-shattering transformation because I was about to transform into my full wolf. This was only possible because the full moon was edging in, and I had been feeling it since yesterday morning. I took off my clothes, and after cracking some joints in my body, I began running first in my human form, then leapt into transformation to my full wolf form, dark and blazing with deep red eyes.

I landed first on my forelegs, followed by my hind ones in my wolf form, and started running through the forest, but I wasn’t fast enough, and I could feel the dissatisfaction of my wolf. He and I were both not familiar with this forest and were running through it blindly. We kept running anyway because we needed to reduce the itch caused by the incoming full moon. Not long after, we spotted a deer. My wolf needed to hunt and feed too, so we slowed down and hid behind a tree, crouching slightly while keeping an eye on the deer. Watching and moving slowly towards it from tree to tree so as not to make any slight noise that would startle it and give the deer a very wide running gap. We are still going to chase anyway, because my wolf does seem to enjoy playing with prey naturally. After closing in to a few meters of the feeding deer, it spotted us and began running, just as expected.

We began the chase, and it was easy to catch up with the deer because of our speed, but we kept taunting the deer as though we were allowing it to escape. It kept galloping forward with all the strength it could muster as though it knew it had met an angel of death but would still try to survive by all means.

I could see through the eyes of my wolf that of the deer filled with fear. One could easily tell that it was afraid, from the way its eyes stretched wide in alarm. I could almost feel its terror as though it were mine. This made me wonder if this was how I would feel if I ever met an angel of death, or perhaps I would just die from natural causes and not feel fear.

Noting that the sun would be out in no time and to avoid being seen by humans when in transformation back to my human form, we closed up on the deer and began running by its side, and in one sudden leap, my wolf caught it by the side of its neck, grabbing it to the ground and sinking its beastly fangs into its neck. The deer tried fighting to escape, but of course, it was no match for our strength.

Finally, it gave up the fight, and we carried its lifeless body back through where we came, made a stop along the way, and fed on the deer, leaving only a few parts to take back to Cain. I transformed back to my human form with the sound of bones shattering, painful, but I had gotten used to it.

I took out my dagger from the clothes that I hung before I transformed into my wolf form. I cut the remaining edible part and took it back to Cain for breakfast. By the time I got back to where we set camp last night, the sun was already out and casting its rays. I met Cain awake, and he was already packing up some of our things.

“You could have woken me up to run alongside you; I could use some exercise too,” said Cain.

“Good morning, brother, but you wouldn’t be able to catch up with my wolf,” I said to him.

“I could try,” he replied, giving me a look that seemed to mean that he wasn’t that serious about it.

“I brought back some meat for you, though,” I said, handing the dry-blooded deer meat to him.

“Ah, sweet!” he said in his usual funny tone. “Thank you; thank your wolf. Now we conquer the warring kingdoms,” he added.

“Kingdom, brother, there’s only one kingdom we need to discourage from starting a war,” I replied to him, then continued, “I see you’ve made your decision.”

“I know you’d still attack them even if I didn’t go with you, so what’s the harm in just following you? I won’t be fighting anyway; I’d leave that to you,” said Cain.

Cain doesn’t always fight, although he’s very skilled in swordsmanship. Something that I think might be because he wanted to avoid committing another grave sin.