Chapter 31

Jamal POV

Maybe I needed to take more combat practice, or better still, more endurance practice. My performance in the fight was not what I expected and it was not encouraging at all. I really needed to up my game if not I would not be getting anywhere in the future. After the White Witch had left the castle, I knew she was going to go in search of the Dark Witch. It was what I expected her to do, and she did just that.

She might be a witch, but I was a werewolf, and if there was anything I prided myself in doing as a werewolf, was stealth. It was a werewolf thing and once you were a werewolf, you could do it. However, that was the undoing of a lot of us. They never practiced it because it was a gift and once a gift is not expanded upon, it becomes a liability.

Nothing is worse than thinking you are capable when in reality you are incapable. That ignorance is the parent of dangerous confidence. Confidence that was not backed by ability.

I was different though. I trained my stealth, and I had gotten so good with it that even a witch with all her magic was unable to spot me once I was in the zone and ready to trail. And that was exactly what I did to the White Witch. She was hard to follow, she was skilled, experienced, and light on her feet thanks to her magic and it took all my intuition and senses to keep up. On the way, she encountered perils that she dealt with expertly so I really did not have any problem. She was the wall and my first line of defense. If anything got past her, which hardly occurred, then I would deal with it myself, assuming it found me too.

The outback of the wolf realm was no joke. It was no place for mere folks to wonder. It was no place for feeble men. Sometimes, wolves went in packs or armies when going through the outback and only the best of the best made it out and back into the wolf realm alive. There were all manners of darkness that lurked in every corner. The whispers of dead men through their dried-up bones were muffled by the echoes of dark magic and the remains of past wars that had been fought here centuries ago. The stories went that whenever two armies made their way to fight a war in The Outback, three armies ended up fighting the war. The last army being the army of the dead. Jamal himself had had a taste of war here, howbeit just a skirmish in the sight of the other ones that were fought here during riskier and treacherous times. It was during the Great Mutiny of the Dark Witch or so it was called by the young pups who heard the story. A fierce encounter, it was. However, most of the fighting happened within the walls of the Wolf Realm because of the methods of the Dark Witch.

Now the Outback was a place for traitors and those who were accused and found guilty of mutiny. However, those sorts were sure to not survive in the face of others such as the witches and wizards of dark magic that were also sent here as punishment. From word-of-mouth sources, it was also speculated that tiny communities were formed by these outcasts to help their chances of survival. This I could support. On the first night, I saw campfires burn and after making sure that the White Witch was still in my sight, I followed them to come into a small town. Not too small to overlook, but not too big to take notice of. I came as close as I could dare but had to keep my distance. I would not want people to notice me in a land they have dwelt longer than I have. I did not want extra trouble for the ones I had already prepared myself for.

Sure enough, I was able to recognize some of them. The ones I had personally banished after the Great Mutiny of the Dark Witch, others I had banished before then, a very few after then.

The next day was when we had finally reached the cave that the Dark Witch dwelt. Still, the White Witch was oblivious that I had followed her till this point from the start of the journey. I was really good at stealth.

The cave was dark and cold. It was not the sort of cold one would typically associate with winter, but the type of cold that fit the description of the word ‘death.’ I had felt this cold before. And it was a menace that followed. I stealthily followed the White Witch as she made her way into the cave. Using her magic to try to locate the Dark Witch. She had gotten this far with her magic, I knew she could eventually locate her. And she did.

But there was a problem. The Dark Witch was clearly not going to sit still and watch her enemies approach her. And so she went on the offensive. She must have sensed the magic the White Witch was using to track her.

Out of nowhere, a mist of black smoke filled the cave and shots of dark goo sprouted out of the smoke and lunged haphazardly at every site. The White Witch must have expected it or sensed it too because it did not take time for her to be out of the mess, leaving me fighting for my life.

A bout of goo struck me on the chest and it sent its cold finger deep into my chest to pierce deep into it. The feeling was like icy. My chest shrank in on itself and I curled into a ball to preserve my body heat. My heartbeat began to reduce and my heart started to stiffen. The beats were slowing and the feeling spread into all other parts of my body.

Another one hit me and I sprawled backwards and slammed into a rock. I regained composure quickly, realizing that if I stayed down, the effect of the mist would fill my body and make me succumb to the harsh feelings. Luckily, I heard the duel of the two witches close by and knew that the Dark Witch in her weakened state, would be unable to hold this magic while fighting the White Witch.

It took quite some time but the Dark Witch’s magic finally disappeared and I got up to my feet. I then headed deeper into the cave to find the two fighting witches. Their noise was echoing from all the sides of the cave so having to pick the correct path that led to them was another challenge that I had to face.

Noises could echo, but not smell. I went on all fours and assumed my wolf self. Shutting my eyes, and placing my nose to the ground, I focused hard and begun to sniff out the two witches. I did not keep a nose out for the Dark Witch, I tried to follow the scent of the White Witch.

The White Witch was who, in recent times, I was more familiar with so by nature I had already memorized her smell. As for the Dark Witch, her time here must have changed her scent so it would be futile to waste time trying to find hers. It also made sense to go in search of the White Witch just in case she was in trouble and I needed a quick getaway.

It was better to locate friend than foe. There was every tendency that things might go wrong and when things go wrong, it was better not to be with or around the source of the peril herself.

Hence I went on, sniffing and searching, prowling around the cave almost directionless as I traced their scent. I came to a stop. I caught a whiff of the Dark Witch. Truly, she had done as I had anticipated. She had changed her scent, or her scent had changed naturally. It had to be magic. No matter the condition, whether you were rubbed in mud for ten years, or you had taken a nice shower and had applied all the perfume that existed in the world, there was always an underlying smell, an underlying smell that was distinct for everybody. It was the scent the perfume enhanced, and it was the scent that the mud destroyed. It was the scent that the werewolves followed.

Once that smell was marked in a werewolf’s nose, it could not be unmarked. With the amount of time I had spent with the Dark Witch, and with the amount of time we were intimate, I ought to be able to tell her scent from miles away even in my human form.

As I followed the two scents, I stopped dead in my tracks. The tales that said that if two armies rallied to fight in the Outback, three armies fought, the last army being that of the dead came back to me suddenly. I shivered. There were two witches fighting in the cave, but I had just caught the scent of a last person, and this scent I knew well, it was that of the Dark Witch.

The moment I caught the Dark Witch’s scent, the other strange one disappeared. Then the moment of realization came to me: The Dark Witch never changed her scent, someone else was impersonating her in the fight.