"Finally, it has been too long. Let's get to the king everyone. Hold nothing back." All at once eight of us shifted into wolves starting the horses and ran forth as the women kept stride alongside us pull long daggers from their sleeves. We all spread out as we made it to the bottom of the field and immediately began ripping apart anyone in our path. I ran in the direction of the breach in the wall smashing a soldier up against the rubble while snapping my jaws down on the shoulder of another shaking him before throwing him at his allies.
"So there are some here." A stout man laughed as he walked forward and shifted into a wolf. I snarled as I lunged at him both of us on hind legs clawing at each other trying to bite the others throat. We rolled to the side over a few soldier getting small cuts from the armor and weapons before disengaging. "You are one of the original ones, useless, weak, we are better than you in every way. Give up and maybe they will take you back." I snapped at his leg as he jumped past me over the wall. I gave a short howl as I chased him to the castle the others showing up a moment later. My opponent stood on the steps of the castle as another man who's scent was similar walked out and raised a severed head throwing the decapitated body to the ground.
"Kill them all." I growl to the others and immediately lunged at the one I fought before. My mind became flooded with rage, running on animalistic instruct, to kill the enemy before me. The next three minutes was flashing teeth and claws, snarling and snapping, and a painted yelp as I snapped his neck tearing a gaping hole in his throat as I did. I looked around at the others seeing the battle was over and the enemy soldiers that were left were running away. Shane walked slowly over looking at the scene before him.
"You are Shadow right." He looked at me. I nodded them shifter back into a human stopping some tattered pants off a nearby corpse.
"The king is dead. What do you want to do now?" I gestures to the head on the strip of the castle.
"With the king dead whoever sent this force will most likely regroup and come to claim this place. We need to get everyone here to the place we have been building. It is not common knowledge so we will have time before they find us.... if they even do. We will see from there." He looked up as he finished speaking as if looking for an answer from above.
"In that case you get everyone together and moving in that direction while we patrol and keep an eye out for any stragglers. This also means any obligation we had to the king no longer matters." Shane looked in my direction real quick worry on his face. "Right now we have no plans but we will be taking more control of what goes on. We are not going to enslave you or anything of that matter... unless you give us a reason to." Laughter resonated in my mind as the others grinned. Shane got a blank look on his face and went on his way without a word.
Hours passed as the surviving towns people were gathered and shepherded to the castle in the south, the process taking longer with the wounded. The four women and for wolves were sent to see how large scale this war was. Taking two days to get to the castle seemed long until we traveled six days just to see the town in the distance. When we reached the town the others made it back and shared what they found thru our pack connection.
War had broken out everywhere. Without reason every kingdom was fighting each other out of fear that the others were the ones sending the demonic wolves after them. Others used it as an excuse to claim more land. No one was spared and some were trained with blood from our kind changing them. People were turning into twisted mindless creatures while others turned into what we were albeit considerably weaker.
Shane joined us so we could fill him in on what they saw and what was going on. He would be acting as the leader with us as advisors, strongly, advising him on what should be done.
"We are far enough away from it all we have time to build a fortress before we are noticed and a large force sent after us. By the time the turn their attention to us we will be able to withstand any seige and have a force large enough to deter an attack." I seemed up our thoughts.
"That is as good a plan as any but there is already talk if your group." Shane looked around at us.
"Let them talk. They don't have to stay here. They are more than welcome to leave." Without another word he went out to gather all he could and spread the word.
Over twenty two months passed as construction continued. The castle was tucked back in the mountain where the ravine was cut out and a large gate closing it in, a draw bridge lowered over the dug out moat fed by a spring running down the mountain. Three half rings arched out in front of it, each blocking houses, farms, and shops from outside threats. The cavern we had cut out was of limits but fitted with shackles to contain the wolves when full moons rise and the magics were at their strongest, while the women would watch over them keeping people away.
There have been fights break out among the people since one group absolutely hated what we were but knew they couldn't fight us and others who admired us and wanted to be turned into us since word got around about what was going on outside the walls.
A few bumps but everything ran smoothly getting a fortress together and plans were being made on making a smaller fortress when a scout burst thru the door interrupting us.
"We may have a problem. There is a massive boat on the other side of the mountains with people I don't recognize from here on it." I look over at the others with me about to speak when another scout runs in.
"There is an army marching from the north. Looks to be about seven thousand."
" Dammit I was hoping we had longer. Eight of you go scout out the army to the north find out how many are human and how many are not. If you can take out some of the ones that are not. The other three follow me we will go greet the people to the north."