His Decision

5. Reluctance and Duty

---Marco POV--- 

It’s been almost two months since the start of the attack on Tauleran, we had almost stopped all the spats of violence in its entirety, but we were still putting out small scuffles of panic among the commoners or spats of attacks by rogue wolves that somehow entered our territory.

My squadron was still camped outside off a small village just east of the capital, waiting for my orders to move back home. I on other hand was trying to put off the inevitable, I didn’t want to go back home, I didn’t want to go back and meet Maria.

“Commander, everything is at peace and we have no matter of business here. The men would like to head for home. Can we give them the order?”

Looking out of the tent at the vast expanse of dry and derelict earth around the village, I said nothing instead I sighed with unhappiness and reluctance.

I hesitated to even turn and look my captains’ in the eye, they would immediately see my hesitation to return home written all over my face.

I was just about to turn and give the order to head back home when there was a loud commotion coming from outside and quite a few of the soldiers seemed to be moving hurriedly away from the source of the commotion. The captains and I moved towards the entrance when the curtain blocking the entrance of the tent from view was pulled across hastily and Vlad ran inside.

“There has been another attack at the next village, the werewolves have rounded up a couple of hostages from the village and are heading out of the territory.”

The captains were already on their way outside getting their squadrons ready and I hurriedly reached for my weapon, silently thanking Vlad for giving me a reason to not go home.

“Vlad, get everyone ready to leave, tell them we are going to run, no horses. We will reach there faster to stop them leaving the border.”

Vlad nodded and hurriedly walked outside sending a shouting command to everyone gathered there. Within a few minutes we were all ready and starting to run in direction of the village which now that we noticed looked like it was burning in the distance. We could even get the slight scent of burning corpses and wood coming from that direction.

We ran at our maximum speeds which was extremely fast and crossed the short distance in record time, the stench of wolf burning our nostrils the moment we set foot at the outer perimeters of the village.

Looking around at the absolute devastation of the village and the number of our subjects burning after the unnecessary and blood thirsty attack, made my body shake with anger. How long were we to keep dealing with this loss of our people before we can retaliate and eliminate the obvious problems, my father was so pre-occupied with his own agenda that he didn’t think about the lapse in his duty and responsibilities to his people. This was the reason I wanted to ascend the throne as soon as possible so that I could fix the problems that have arisen from the ineptitude of my father.

Slowly walking through the main road of the village and assessing the devastation of the whole scene unfolding in front of us. Vlad and I were right in the center of the village when a shout made us turn immediately towards one of the cottages that we already passed.

“I found one! Alive!” shouted one of the soldiers who had entered the cottage for a more thorough search.

I ran over to the cottage followed closely by Vlad, before I could so much as take a step into the dwelling, the soldier walked over dragging one of the werewolves in his human form, blood streaming down his face making his appearance distorted and maybe even unrecognizable to his closest family and friends.

“Tie him up! Don’t let him out of your sight!” I said walking slowly over the prisoner.

“What is your name?” Vlad shouted at the wolf.

The wolf just looked up at him with an expression of pure loathing, one of the soldiers paused in tying him up with the silver chains we brought to aim a hard punch to his gut.

“Ooof… arghhh… Kane… arghhh” he sputtered in response.

“Am glad to see that you found your voice, in which direction did the other filthy scum that came with, took our people.”

“I am not telling you anything, you demonic plague on this earth.” He spat onto the ground right in front of Vlad but before the soldier could so much as lift his arm to aim another punch at him, the sound of thundering hooves met our ears and we all turned in the direction of the sound, a cloud of dust rising in its wake.

“Commander! Commander! We found them! We were able to stop the wolves from leaving the territory. There were a total of 25 hostages, all of which are women.”

I looked at the soldier in confusion, what were they planning to do with our women, “Have all the wolves been killed?”

“Yes, my lord all of them had to be killed, none were willing to stand down.”

“You there! Kane! Did you say? Why were you wolves only taking our women as hostages?” I shot a question at the wolf who was already tied up and shackled with silver.

I was answered with another hateful glance and silence, “Take him back to the castle dungeon, let’s see if we cannot make him talk.” I said with as much venom as I could muster in my tone of voice.

“You there, soldier. What is your name?” Vlad shouted at the soldier who informed us of the successful rescue of the hostages.

“Luther, sir.” He replied bowing in respect.

“Luther, go ahead and inform the ones up front that the commander and the rest of us are on our way. Scout the area and ensure there is no more danger.”

He bowed in reply and immediately ran in the direction he came from sending a rush of air with his speed and in doing so a small sniff of his scent reached me.

I was about to turn towards Vlad again when the very slight enticing smell of roses and honeysuckle met my senses. A scent that reached my notice as he ran ahead of us, a scent that was definitely not his but looked like it belonged to somehow he had contact with.

I turned back into my former stance and stared after the soldier who just left, confusion marking my expression for sure.

“Marco, what happened? You look like the wolf tried to kiss you.” Vlad asked me laughing loudly, while strapping his weapon into his belt.

“I don’t know what it is; I am just uneasy and restless. It might just be… I don’t know. Let’s go! We have work to do.”