They don’t seem to care that getting out will be death. They know they’re losing and are frantic to die any other way than by our claws. They’re trying to escape, but the sun is up…..
It’s a wolf approaching me, meeting us on our path. A familiar voice of one of our experienced sub-pack sentinels, one of our warriors. One of the fog enchanted as he follows up after another flying creature and happened to come upon us, gawping upwards. He bows to me, makes it clear he’s not staying, and proceeds past me at speed to take off towards the ceiling to catch any that go up. His smile and enjoyment at finally getting to rip these creatures apart give me shivers, but I know most of our warriors have been waiting for this day. Ever since we moved into the shadow of these beings and had to watch our every move. Our fiercest have longed to invade this place and eliminate the threat. Even Colton, but his need to see our people safe always overrode the urge to scourge the mountain clean.
We should break through up there, let the light in. Change the game.
Carmen cuts into my shocked thoughts and grabs my hand gently with her mouth, hauling me back instead of down to follow the sentinel. It takes me a second to catch up with what she said, but it’s a smart idea, and I follow at speed, not caring if she once again decided for me. Turning on our heels to trace the steps moving skywards, Sierra and some of our pack follow me. The rest head down to help with the fight.
“Up there.” I point to the way the narrow walkway cuts off at the other side, to one going up into the rock, and gesture we should get as high as we can if we’re going to break some vent to let the sun fry these freaks. From this angle, with all of them below, we can kill many with such a simple act and help our fighters below. They may be winning, but this mountain is full of these creatures, and this may take hours yet to defeat them all. I know Colton. He’s come into their lair and won’t leave until every last one is dead. He’s had too long staying away and keeping us safe, now is his opportunity to rid this place for a while, and he’ll take it.
Carmen grabs two wolves on the passing, both strong sentinels from our pack, pushing them with me. They see me and obey as they are heading up anyway, chasing more flapping creatures.
“Come with us,” I command, knowing they recognize me immediately and get instant head bows as they do. I lead the way at speed as we climb higher, looking for weak points with thinner rock formations around us. Look for ways to break to the outside…. Thinner patches, crevices. Tiny cracks or even tunnels formed by nature that are small. There has to be areas we can break through… Strength is our gift, and our claws were built for this. A wolf can rip through most terrain, and our ability to do it easily and quickly is incomparable to most in nature.
I point out a patch where the rocks indent from us, and slight cracks of faint light seem to permeate on areas almost undetectable if you were not looking for them and know we found them. A weak point where the hollow is close to the outer edge, and we can dig through with some effort.
Even though I can’t use any of my wolf gifts, Carmen takes the lead and starts digging, scraping, and hauling rubble out of a nearby crack as she turns and gets to work. Other wolves are piling in to see what we are doing and immediately understand the plan, so help.
It’s not unlike the forest, being up here. The sounds traveling make my skin goosebump, and my inner angst grows. When we were in the throes of violence, eerie screams, and chaotic noises. Thuds, thumps, cries… ripping, screeching, smashing. The scent of blood filling the air of both Lycan and Vampire, but I know both species have healing abilities, and this isn’t going to be as quick as taking down a small patrol out there in the woods. There are dozens of them in here. Maybe even hundreds.
“Alora…. Move.” The familiar voice of the witch comes at me from far behind, shocking me into a moment of disbelief, and I spin to see her striding this way. A bright white light in her hand is her mode of seeing where she’s going again, and she smiles at our attempts at clawing through solid stone.
“If you want it done right… you do it yourself. When will you wolves learn that the witch is always a better option?” She smiles, that arrogant demeanor on show, but I can’t fault her for it. After all, she broke the spell, and my respect for her abilities has grown a thousand-fold. My wolves look at me, and with a nod, I make them clear the way as they all turn back and flank me instead.
She throws me a smug twitch of her lips and tosses her light at the wall in front of us with a simple flick of her wrist. Absolutely no effort, and for a moment, I wonder what a small glow of nothing can do for a huge expanse of mountain wall. I expected something a bit more dramatic and with a lot more vavoom. This was like tossing a match into the sea for someone so powerful.
It’s a boom of light, like a large lightbulb shorting out, and we are hit with pitch darkness once more, without very much of an explosion at all. I look rather deflated as my eyes adjust and wonder what that even was, expecting more.
The air that whips around me catches my breath so suddenly that I’m startled for a moment. An after effect, like a storm in a teacup brewing, and there’s a pause of inhale. Almost like a silent stillness for a second, I realize as something grows in the air around us, I should never doubt this witch.
A growing groan, an uneasy sense of atmosphere tingling around us as if I’m suddenly feeling gravity changing direction, and it stirs up my instincts to be afraid.
With a weird noise of shifting earth, the mountain shudders and groans again, and then the full side rips out away from us with the release, like a silent blast as though a giant person grabbed a handful of rock and hauled it out.
The full front before me crumbles outwards and collapses down the outside with a crescendo of noise that can be heard for miles around and echoes back on us. Birds in the distance from our newly acquired view scatter from trees for miles of the endless forest canopy, and animals scurry in panic. The rubble bounces down until it meets the forest and rips down trees in its wake. Daylight floods the space around us so that we blink to adjust, filling the cracks and the crevices with gleaming bright, illuminating all below.
“You couldn’t have done that already and saved half a battle?” Carmen asks drily, cocking an eyebrow at the witch as two equally cold and sassy women lock eyes. A tingle of energy zapping through the air.
“I was a wee bit busy killing witches, my pet. Do you want to add a wolf to the death toll?” Leyanne snaps right back with a salacious smile, and I wave my hands at them in a ‘shhh’ motion to calm the brewing hostility. My eyes now locked on the fruits of her labor.
With this new light, I look down to see the clear way to go and realize how high we are and how narrow those walkways are. In the dark, it was not so terrifyingly steep because we couldn’t see how far a fall it would be. In the light, it’s a deep and crazy long hollow that stretches beyond the imagination, yet the dazzle still makes it down from this impressive hole that is still crumbling wider from the witch’s magic to let more in.
The screams and burning smell of flesh catching fire soon fill the air with clogging thick smoke that makes us choke and gasp and pull back as winged creatures crash from wall to wall to escape. Their panic is their demise, writhing in burning agony with scolding light. They fly up into the fullest part of it and combust like a puff of dust right before our eyes. It becomes chaos and confusion, and we all pin ourselves back against the walls as the hollow fills with frantic wings and shield our faces from explosive dust particles.
I’ve never seen them die this way, and the howls below as many perish instantly send the ones shaded or shrouded in shadow reeling into tunnels to escape. Only more wolves await them, in every nook, due to our sheer numbers present as the entire pack has filtered in now, and their death is imminent.
I spy Colton when I look down into the drop-off, standing proud in the center, light shining on his black fur as he throws his head back and howls a successful call. The shadows around him are eerie but only make it look like he’s standing in a spotlight. That long blood curling message to our pack that we have overthrown an enemy’s leader, and even if it confuses me, I still focus on what he’s got. Holding up high, a dead vampire corpse in his claws before he tosses it aside, I don’t hesitate in making my way down to where he is. Confused that this was a leader when I know the source should be Varro. I don’t doubt his call. I just don’t understand.
He isn’t my gentle, loving Colton at this moment. Standing huge and formidable on hind legs, towering over all around him. A sight to behold as an enraged black Lycanthrope, his eyes glowing so bright they look like flames. A battle cry in his throat and his fur caked in the blood of our enemies, adding to his warrior-like power.
He’s Alpha of the Santo pack. A once feared and unrivaled pack that began crumbling under Juan’s reign but has hope in a new leader. I get goosebumps staring at the king who will make our people great again and know when he’s in control, there will be no stopping our people from taking back what’s rightfully ours. Losing him made me realize how capable and invincible he can be, and I won’t let anything take him from us again. I am wowed by his presence, pulled to him by my need to be with him once more and not at all swayed by his filthy furred body or the pile of carcasses around his feet that hold him higher on a podium made from death.
Wolves take off after the escaping few, but I can already tell that compared to what we have seen in the forests, this mountain has way less than I anticipated, and I wonder where the hell they all are. The stench here reeks of thousands of crammed vile souls, but all I see is a mere hundreds in terms of bodies scattered all around. Not even high in that count either.
“Where are they all?” I turn to Leyanne feeling her on my heel as we carefully descend and keep scanning where I’m stepping, so I don’t fall as her light once again shines the way. Carmen pushes in front of me to watch my step while Sierra stays on our rear, both femmes close and forming a shield. Sierra seems quiet, lost in thought, and I wonder if this brings back unwanted memories of old battles.
“It seems this mountain only held a small amount in recent days… It was half empty when we got in, which made finding the witches easier. I’m guessing Lord Varro has pulled them where he needs them, and it wasn’t here. Your Meadow is quite the soldier.” Leyanne seems impressed by that and not at all fazed by her first statements. However, I spin on her in alarm.
“And the witches, they are where?” I blink, reeling thoughts splaying out, remembering that she had to take them on alone to break the spell, and as of yet, I’ve only seen vampires. If they are a threat here, I want to know about it. Will they now be something else to have a showdown with?
“Dead…. They weren’t much of a challenge. Took all seven of them to make that spell, but faced with me and panicking, they didn’t achieve much before I disintegrated them. Such pointless wee beasts they were. Quite disappointing, really.” She sounds almost guilty for a second, or maybe truly deflated, and I flash a look her way, catching an odd moment of melancholy I wasn’t expecting, and then it’s gone. It also confirms that despite not seeing much evidence of it, she is obviously as powerful as Sierra told me. Seven witches who managed to hold so many of our pack hostage for a week, and yet she blows in and takes them out without messing up her outfit or her hair.
“I’m sorry you had to kill your own kind.” I try to console her, feeling I should, but she shrugs with one shoulder. That cool demeanor is back in place, and that care no less expression firmly on that attractive face. She still reminds me of Carmen in a way, only brunette, with dark eyes.
“You have to weed out the bad to benefit the many sometimes. They were practicing things they had no place to mess with. They were no sisters of mine; they were something the world could do without, and the high council will agree when I present them with my findings on why I rid them of an entire coven.”
She seems to want to end the conversation and moves past me fast to flash bomb a creature in the face as it stuck out its stupid head into where we are moving. So quickly, Carmen didn’t have time to react even though it was right at her side. It’s semi-shadowy here. It didn’t expect a blinding light to expand its face all over the wall dramatically and disgustingly.
I recoil in ‘Ewww’ and dodge the flopping body before I make the last speed dash down to the final floor below, skipping over and seeing even Carmen grimace with the up-close body showering she just got from its blood.
“Thanks for that!” Carmen mutters sarcastically back at the witch and shakes herself to try and remove the worst of it. I jump back so her spray doesn’t get to me, then realize it’s futile. I am covered in my own blood, and God knows what else. I can’t even imagine how I truly look from all angles.
“You’re welcome. It’s not like you could smell any worse.” Leyanne bites right back, and I eyeroll at the constant power struggle of personalities. Sighing at Carmen’s snarling growl and pushing her onwards to stop them.