Chapter 9 Ambushed
Bram
Nervous energy pulses through the pack of wolves as we make our way along the winding road north, toward Moon Falls Pack. I’m on high alert because of the letter I passed to Lyra earlier in the week. I think she found it because when I went back to the tree to see if it was still there, I picked up her scent.
That wasn’t the only scent I noticed. She’s with the same male I smelled the last time I was out there, several months ago. I try not to be jealous, but I’ve never been comfortable with Lyra being around other males for reasons I can’t explain.
It’s been months, though, since I’ve seen her with my own eyes, and I’m desperately worried about her. I’m trying to do everything I can to help her. So far, I’ve worked my way into a trustworthy position. Alpha Kaelen speaks openly to his advisors right in front of me. I hear more than I should.
Yet, he talks about his plans in front of dozens of people, so he won’t suspect I had anything to do with this if Lyra is actually able to do something to sabotage our forces.
My head is on a swivel as we move through the forest. I’m near the back of the pack, in the middle, so hopefully, I’ll have some sort of warning before anything goes down. I’m sure Lyra wouldn’t want to hurt me in this sneak attack, but she has no way of communicating to me what she has planned. I seriously doubt she stuck around to watch because our surviving pack members will scatter and hunt down anyone who may be responsible.
We round a corner where the path narrows. I’m familiar with this spot. It’s the perfect place to spring something on the group. I slow down a bit, waiting and watching.
Howls and yelps erupt from the front of the pack where several of our commanders and fastest, strongest warriors are running, and then, chaos breaks out in front of me. One minute, there are rows and rows of wolves in front of me; the next, a huge chunk of the group is gone.
I screech to a halt, and the wolves behind me run into me, but I don’t budge, and they go flying around me, oblivious to what’s happened around the corner. Not only are the wolves that apparently fell into a large hole screaming in pain, but from both sides of the path, arrows come flying out of the trees, striking several wolves on the periphery. Some of them fall dead immediately while others are injured and screech in pain like the ones in the hole.
With an enormous hole in the ground, some of the wolves fan out and attempt to go around. Those wolves trigger snares, and a handful of them are pulled up into the trees on both sides of the road by what looks like six different snares. Only, they aren’t just trapped. The snares slam them into sharp projectiles hanging from the upper branches, and they, too, are killed or wounded.
“Holy shit,” I think. She did way more than I expected her to.
One of the commanders who didn’t plummet to his death in the hole shouts through the mind-link, “We’re under attack! Retreat, retreat!”
“But sir, what about the wounded?” another wolf asks. “Some of the wolves in that hole are still alive!”
“We can’t get them out now,” Commander Robert replies. “We need to get back to the castle and get reinforcements!”
I disagree. Even if I’m secretly against Alpha Kaelen, a lot of wolves are lying here, suffering. They’ll die painful deaths if we don’t help them. I have no idea what happened with the hole up there, but I can imagine Lyra probably set up some sort of stakes that those wolves are impaled on now.
What an awful way to die.
Yet, they are her enemies, the wolves that wanted her dead, so I can’t blame her. And we were on the way to slaughter innocent wolves in another pack that had done nothing wrong.
We turn around and start running back toward the village, but as we go, the cries through the mind-link are unbearable. Wolves are shouting, “Please, for the love of the Goddess, don’t leave me!”
“I’m going to die! No, please, help!”
“Oh, Goddess, this hurts so bad. Please get me off this speer!”
It’s gruesome, and I can hardly bear it. But my commander has given the order, so I turn with the others and begin to work my way back the dozens of miles we’ve run from the village. It’s clear that all of us are shaken up. A lot of warriors have lost friends. I’m far from any of these soldiers, though I pretend to be so as not to draw attention to myself.
We are all careful on the way back, looking from side to side for more threats. The other commanders speculate through the mind-link as we retreat as to who could’ve done such a thing. Lyra’s name never comes up–probably because they think she’s dead. Instead, they believe it’s most likely that Moon Falls Pack caught wind of the attack and sabotaged us.
We tear into the sleeping village in the middle of the night.
One of the guards must’ve seen us coming and alerted the Alpha and the Beta. Kaelen and Penn, neither of whom could’ve been bothered to come with us, stand in the village green as we run in.
Commander Robert shifts, and one of the assistants hands him some pants. He puts them on and says, “Sir, we were ambushed. We lost a huge part of the squad.”
“What happened to them? Were you attacked by enemy forces?” Alpha Kaelen asks.
“No, the path was booby trapped. Many of our advance forces fell into a large pit filled with spears, including almost all the other commanders. Then, arrows fired from the side of the road, and several snares deployed, slamming dozens of our troops into spikes in the trees.”
“Where are the wounded?” Beta Penn asks, folding his arms across his muscular chest.
“We had to abandon them, sir,” Robert replies. “We had no way of knowing if enemy forces were about to descend upon us.”
“Robert, take a detail of healers at once and go see about the wounded. You cannot let cowardice cause you to abandon our brave warriors. Commander Bram, go with him.”
I’m still in my wolf form, so I use the mind-link to respond. “Yes, Alpha.”
Robert puts together some of the non-wounded warriors to serve as stretcher bearers, and we head out with about a dozen pack healers. I’m afraid that, by the time we get back, there won’t be anyone left to save.