When Ryan heard Ash Fur say that there was a smell of blood and that it was going towards the camp he decided to give it a try, however, he didn't catch the scent of anything. All he could do is look at where Ash Fur was pointing at.
After a few seconds, a large bright red wolf appeared from the forest, there were a few howls around camp and 3 wolves appeared from the grass and ran to the wolf. Ryan could see the white pelt of his mother stand in front of the wolf while the other two ran past and into the forest. After a few seconds, they returned and flanked the stranger and began bringing him closer towards the camp.
Ryan looked closer but didn't recognize the wolf, he turned to Ash Fur and asked: "Do you know him?"
The blue scaled wolf nodded and bared his teeth "Well it's hard to say but he resembles a warrior from the Blood Clan."
Ryan took another glance at the wolf and began getting a bad feeling there were several things that felt wrong "Hey Ash Fur you think that you can take me to them so I can hear what's going on?"
The scaled wolf looked at the young pup surprised "You have no need to be there, if Star Light sees me take you she will bite off every one of my scales for defying her."
Dust Thorn laughed and used his paw to push Ryan forward "Don't worry Ash Fur I'll take responsibility. She said that they were the future didn't she? I'm sure she won't mind Viper Paw gaining a bit more experience."
Ash Fur shook his head and sighed "One of these days you will bite off more than you can chew. You know how serious she gets when things involve Viper Pup, she sees herself in him and she is extremely overprotective."
Ryan looked at the scaled warrior and remembered his father's words "Star Light is an independent wolf she never liked to depend on others but that doesn't stop her from helping others when they are in need."
He began following Dust Thorn until they reached the Blood Clan wolf, He had thought that the wolf's fur was blood red however the closer he got he started to see that the actual fur was black and that he was covered in blood.
When they arrived the wolf had finally recovered his breath and began explaining what was going on "During our Patrol early in the morning we found a group of dead humans after some investigation we discovered that they were attacked by Swamp Clan. When we returned to our camp and reported the incident before our leader could do anything we were attacked by humans. We found that some of the Swamp Clan warriors led them to our camp, at this moment we are still in battle and we would like to know if you could offer us any reinforcements."
Star Light looked at the wolf with suspicion and bared her teeth "Swamp Clan states that their patrol was being attacked by humans. That's probably why you found the group of humans that were killed by them."
The bloody wolf shook his head "No there where children in the group that we found so that is highly unlikely. I fear that we were all played by them, now I must beg of you, please send help. We will offer you land if that is what it takes."
Just as Star Light began shaking her head Wave Whip and Raven Tail appeared from the forest dragging two bodies with them. They all ran to them to see what was going on and found that the two bodies they were dragging were wolves from their clan.
His mother began inspecting the two wolves but after seeing that they were no longer breathing she shook her head and turned to look at Raven Tail, "What happened?"
Raven Tail's ears and head dropped down "When we were on our way to the Snake Cave the Swamp Clan warriors caught us by surprise, before we could react; they had already killed them after biting a good chunk from their throats. They left us alive to deliver a message, "The Fallen Cliffs and the SunLight Meadow now belongs to them and …."
Raven Tail's body began to shrink further as he tried to say what he had to say "They also said that they had an ambush set for Moon Heart and that there was nothing we could do to save him."
As soon as they heard that everyone became tense, he could tell that Star Light wanted to simply run and try to help her mate but she shook her head and turned around to the Blood Clan wolf trying to make sense of what was going on.
After a few seconds, she sighed and looked at one of the wolves that had scouted the forest "Storm Blade I need you to send 6 wolves to help the Blood Clan, another 3 of us will try and sneak into Swamp Clan territory and see if we can help Moon heart. Now I know that it doesn't sound like a good plan with such small numbers but we all know that our Alpha wouldn't stop from helping when other wolves need it. With these groups, there would still be another 9 wolves protecting our camp."
All the wolves that heard her hesitated and who could blame them, Ryan looked at his mother surprised and thought to himself 'Who knew that she could go bonkers after being told that Moon Heart was going to be ambushed. Both of these orders are suicide missions.'
He took a deep breath and began to try to think about things rationally, if he let things go the way they were going then that would mean that he would lose another 10 protectors and what's worse he would lose a mother and father that he had recently begun to get to know. After a few seconds, he began to find some strange things.
He looked at the black Blood Clan wolf and began walking around him looking at all the blood he had in his body. After he was done he looked at his mother and went to walk towards her and rubbed his head on her leg. She immediately looked down and stared at him with a surprised expression, "Viper Pup what are you doing here, you shouldn't see any of this."
She began to try to pick him up but as soon as her head was close to him he whispered "Somethings strange about all this mother, do you think that I can try to figure out what's going on?"
Star Light quickly lifted her head and looked into his eyes she was about to say something but Dust Thorn who had been following him jumped in and nodded "Go on Viper Pup let us all know what you are thinking."
His mother turned at the young warrior and showed her fangs "Dust Thorn what do you think you are doing? I specifically said that all the pups should be kept in the den and protected at all times."
The brown wolf brushed off her actions and nodded as he looked curiously at the Blood Clan wolf "True, however, all of this is also bothering me, I know that Moon Heart is your mate and our Alpha however when he was my mentor he prepared me for a day that he might be gone. That's why I can keep a clear head however I've never had much in the smarts department so I was hoping Viper Pup here could put things together, he has shown some good intellect after all."
The wolves that were listening to him nodded slightly since for them it was hard to deny since the pup had shown a level of maturity that put them to shame as they remembered their early life. They still looked at Dust Thorn like he was crazy since he was putting his hope on a pup but the only other choice was to go on suicide missions so what more could they lose.
Ryan felt all the stares that were being directed his way but since he had a rough idea of what was going on he wasn't bothered by them. First, he had to make sure that he was safe so he walked backwards and sat down behind Dust Thorn and Star Light 'Avoid any hostage scenarios check, now let's begin.'
He looked into the wolf's eyes and asked his first question "May I know your name?"
The black wolf looked at the young pup with a shocked face and he was about to open his mouth and yell out "Why the hell do you care you freakin runt" however he noticed that this pup seemed to be one of the packs favorite. He came to this conclusion after looking at the way the other wolves were looking at the pup. He felt like laughing at them, it's true that this pup seemed to be muscular however when you compared his size with the Blood Clan's pup's there was no contest.
After making sure to keep his cool he looked at the bluish furred runt "My name is Death Jaw and you are?"
Ryan looked at the wolf and nodded and smiled "Nice to meet ya, I'm Viper pup now let's get back to business, you said that your camp was being attacked correct? Then that means that you probably fought a few humans before you came here for help. How many did you fight?"
Death Jaw looked at him and seemed to get surprised however after a few seconds he responded "I fought 3 different humans"
"Good and were you injured while you were fighting?"
The black wolf nodded and turned his head and pointed at his right side "I was hurt by a human with a pointy metal stick."
Ryan moved closer and found the injury however it was in a weird angle, it's true that the wolf was big however not big enough for a human to hit the wolf at an angle going up. He could imagine a human attacking straight or downwards but not in many cases would he attack downwards. Another strange thing is that the injury didn't seem to be all that deep. He nodded and moved back "Is that the only injury?"
"Yes after that I was ordered to seek help and I decided to come here."
Ryan gave a short nod "How did you kill them?"
All the wolves including Death Jaw looked at him surprised since he had been able to ask as if it were nothing. The black wolf hesitated and after a while began answering "The first one I killed with a bite to the neck, the other two I simply held down while my pack members finished the job."
Ryan looked at the bloody fur on Death Jaw and then at Dust Thorn "Do you think that you can give that blood a good smell and tell me if most of it is human?"
The brown wolf nodded and got closer to the Blood Clan member and sniffed after a few more times he went back to his spot and nodded "Yep that is human blood alright and it's pretty fresh too."
Ryan nodded "Then my last question is how did you find our camp? From the meeting that I attended the big wolf leader didn't know where our camp was so what makes you different?"
The black-haired wolf looked at the wolf cub as if he was his worst enemy "Well it's pretty simple really I just followed the strongest scents from your trails after arriving at your territory."
After hearing him several wolves began to show their fangs and crouch down low as if ready to pounce at any moment.
Ryan looked at Dust Thorn and asked "What direction is Blood Clan in?"
The brown wolf immediately pointed in a direction with his snout and had a big smile.
After he had gotten his answers Ryan turned to Star Light "Well there you go mother, I would suggest getting everyone ready for a good fight it seems that there is going to be a 2 vs 1 at any moment. Using him to make a deal wouldn't be a bad idea."
Some wolves looked at Ryan confused; they clearly had no idea what he was talking about; he sighed and began preparing his explanation. "Well, it's actually pretty simple, first of all, he said that he killed 3 humans and that all 3 attacks were done using his jaws. Then ask yourself how his whole body ended up getting bloody it's as if he purposely rolled in a pond of blood. After that was the injury that he had in his shoulder I don't quite know much about humans but father said that they stand on their back feet. If you all did that then you would be taller than any wolf so why is the pointy stick wound going upwards and not downwards."
All the wolves looked at the young pup with amazed looks as they thought 'Amazing just on that little amount of information he could figure out the accuracy of the wound.'
"I would understand that he would be this bloody if it was due to his injuries however as you heard from Dust Thorn that is not the case it's almost all human blood. Next, there is the part where he said that he traced back our scent and followed it to our camp. The thing is that Ash Fur was able to smell the blood coming from Death Jaw from really far away. I figured that would cause him to have difficulty smelling anything that wasn't the blood he has on him. This means that he already knew where our camp was located."
He paused and made sure that everyone was understanding so far, when they nodded he continued "Finally there was the part where he came out of the forest from that direction, which coincidentally is the same place our own injured and dead members came from. The thing is what the hell is he doing coming from the Swamp Clan side of the forest and not from the border that we share with Blood Clan. Another coincidence is that they arrived at such perfect timing and that stopped us from asking questions and completely believing his story. This could mean that he actually took his time and started his act when he saw them nearby. Now, this is the thing that's bugging me, why would Swamp Clan let us know that they were setting an ambush and why was Blood Clan asking for help if they didn't need it? One of the only reasons that I can think about is that they want to split us up and attack us when we are in smaller numbers. To sum it all up the Blood Clan and Swamp Clan have united to destroy our clan."
He looked at Death Jaw who had been left with his jaw wide open and smiled "Isn't that right?"
The black wolf quickly shook his head and looked at Star Light "That is all wrong we really are being attacked and we need your help."
Ryan simply sighed and shook his head "Stop pretending, you lost Death Jaw, see there was one more clue that told me that everything you were saying was fake. That clue was the fact that you actually took the time to answer my questions." He turned around and looked at the wolves that were there and asked "Who here would sit down and answer all my questions so calmly if their camp was being attacked?"
All the wolves present shook their head and began to form a circle that began closing in on Death Jaw.
After seeing that the plan was discovered the black Blood Clan warrior stood up and prepared for an impossible fight as he looked at the blue-furred pup with pure hatred, 'No matter what, for the future of my clan that annoying runt must go.'