CHAPTER 10
Raid
The enemy camp glowed in the distance.
Bash lay prone on a ridge overlooking the valley, pressed flat against the cold stone. Ten werewolves spread out on either side of him, their dark fur blending with the shadows. In their wolf forms, they were nearly invisible. Silent as ghosts.
Below, the camp sprawled across the valley floor. Hundreds of tents arranged in neat rows. Cook fires burning low. Sentries posted at regular intervals, their torches cutting weak circles of light into the darkness.
Bash activated Investigator and studied the guards.
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Jason crept up beside him, in his wolf form. His eyes reflected the distant firelight.
“The plan?” he growled, barely above a whisper.
“Two kills each. Then we retreat. In and out. Just enough to scare them.”
Jason’s ears flattened. “Only two?”
“We hit them again tomorrow night. Can’t risk losing anyone on a raid. Save our strength for the real fight.”
The wolf considered this. Then nodded.
They’d discussed hitting the camp multiple times in one night. More damage. More fear. But the risk was too high. One good raid was better than two sloppy ones.
Bash studied the sentries again. Five visible from this angle. Probably more on the far side.
“After the next shift change.” Jason growled
Bash nodded. The other wolves had crept closer, listening. “Okay. We all know the plan. Wait for my signal.”
Ten pairs of eyes gleamed in the darkness.
They waited as twenty minutes passed. Bash counted his breaths. In. Out. In. Out. The cold seeped through his clothes, but he didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Any motion might catch a sentry’s eye.
His muscles ached from holding still. The urge to move, to act, to do something crawled under his skin like insects.
Patrick’s face flashed through his mind. The blood. The dagger. He wanted to hurt someone.
Movement below. Finally. The sentries stirred. One of them stretched, said something to his partner. Laughed. Then they walked away from their posts, heading toward the tent rows.
New figures emerged from the darkness. Fresh guards, still rubbing sleep from their eyes. They took up positions at the posts, blinking against the firelight.
Bash watched the old guards disappear into the camp. Watched the new ones settle into their routines.
Their eyes would need time to adjust. Four minutes, maybe five, before they could see properly in the dark.
He gave it two. Bash raised his fist. Held it for a heartbeat. Then dropped it. The wolves moved.
No howls. No sound at all. Just ten dark shapes flowing down the hillside like water, silent as shadows.
Bash followed, Reflex Surge sharpening his senses. The world slowed. Every footfall placed with precision. Every breath controlled.
The first sentry didn’t even turn around.
Jason hit him from behind, jaws closing around his throat. Teeth punched through flesh. Blood sprayed black in the moonlight, soaking the guard's collar. The man's hands came up, fingers clawing at fur, at nothing. A wet gurgle as his windpipe collapsed. His legs kicked twice, then went still.
Bash reached his own target a heartbeat later. The guard was young. Barely old enough to shave. He was staring at the stars, lost in thought.
Bash's fist crushed his windpipe before he could make a sound. Cartilage crunched under his knuckles. The guard's mouth opened, closed, opened again. Bash watched the man as he struggled slapping at his throat, eyes wide in terror. No air. No scream. Just the soft wheeze of a broken throat and the smell of piss as his bladder let go.
The other sentries went down just as fast. Five guards. Five seconds. Not a single alarm raised.
They dragged the bodies into the shadows and crouched low, waiting.
Bash’s heart hammered in his ears. Every sound seemed amplified. The distant crackle of cook fires. The snoring from nearby tents. A horse shifting in its sleep somewhere down the slope.
Any second now, someone would notice. Someone would raise the alarm.
But nothing happened, the camp slept on.
Bash released a slow breath. Beside him, Jason’s tongue lolled out in a wolfish grin. They moved deeper into the camp.
The tents were arranged in clusters of four, each cluster sharing a small fire pit. Bash crept to the nearest one and carefully lifted the flap.
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Four soldiers inside. Sleeping on bedrolls. One of them was snoring loud enough to wake the dead.
Bash held up four fingers. Four wolves detached from the group and slipped inside.
He watched through the gap in the tent flap.
The wolves positioned themselves. One at each bedroll. They exchanged glances, coordinating without words. Simultaneous, they struck.
Four sets of jaws closed around four throats. Fangs sank deep. Blood welled up around muzzles, pooling on bedrolls, soaking into fabric. Four pairs of heavy paws pinned four chests to the ground. The soldiers' eyes flew open. Hands grabbed at fur, at snouts, at anything. Legs kicked. Backs arched. One of them made a sound like a clogged drain, blood bubbling between his lips. Another's heels drummed against the ground until they didn't.
It was over in seconds. The wolves withdrew, muzzles dark with blood.
Next tent.
***
They cleared six tents before Jason pulled Bash aside. “That’s twenty-four,” the werewolf hissed. “Time to go.”
Bash looked at the rows of tents stretching into the darkness. So many. So close. “A few more.”
“We agreed…” Jason began, before Bash cut him off.
“I said a few more.”
Jason’s eyes narrowed. But he didn’t argue. They moved to the next cluster. Four more tents. Sixteen more soldiers. The wolves were getting faster now, more efficient. They’d developed a rhythm. In, kill, out. Silent as death itself.
Bash watched each one die. Watched the terror in their eyes. Felt nothing.
No. That wasn’t true. He felt something. Satisfaction. A dark, ugly satisfaction that coiled in his gut like a snake.
These were bots. They weren’t real. They were just code wearing human faces. Killing them meant nothing. But it felt like something. It felt like revenge.
“Again,” Bash said. “One more cluster.”
The wolves exchanged uneasy glances. Jason stepped forward. “Lord Bash. We need to leave. Now.”
“I said one more!” His voice came out louder than intended. Too loud.
Somewhere in the camp, a dog barked.
Everyone froze. The barking stopped. Started again. Closer now. Accompanied by voices. Confused. Questioning.
“Move,” Jason growled. “Now.”
They ran.
***
The alarm went up before they’d made it back to the perimeter. Horns blared. Torches flared to life. Shouts echoed through the camp as soldiers stumbled out of their tents, grabbing weapons, looking for threats.
Bash sprinted through the chaos, wolves flowing around him. An arrow hissed past his ear. Another thudded into the ground at his feet.
A soldier appeared in front of him, sword raised. Bash didn’t slow down. Psionic Strike flared red. His fist connected with the man's chest. Red lightning tore through armor, through ribs, through everything. The soldier's torso split open, organs spilling out. What was left of him flew backward and hit the ground in two pieces.
More soldiers. More arrows. The wolves were fighting now, no longer silent, snarling and snapping as they carved a path through the chaos.
Bash heard a yelp behind him.
He spun. One of the wolves, a younger one, gray and white, was down. A spear jutted from his back, just below the shoulder blade. He was trying to stand, legs scrambling against the dirt, but he couldn’t find purchase.
“Cover me!” Bash shouted.
He ran to the fallen wolf and grabbed him. Three hundred pounds, maybe four hundred with all that muscle and bone. Bash’s arms screamed in protest. His back threatened to give out.
He lifted anyway.
The wolf whimpered. Blood soaked into Bash’s clothes, hot and wet.
“I’ve got you,” Bash gasped. “I’ve got you.”
They ran.
Arrows whistled past. One caught Bash in the shoulder. A glancing hit, barely more than a scratch. Another buried itself in a wolf to his left. The wolf kept running.
The edge of the camp. The slope of the ridge. They scrambled up the hillside, rocks sliding under their feet, the shouts of soldiers fading behind them.
They didn’t stop until they were back up the pass, hidden by rock outcropping and darkness.
Bash collapsed against a boulder, the injured wolf still clutched to his chest. His lungs burned. His arms shook. The wolf’s breathing was shallow, ragged.
“Is he alive?” someone asked.
“Barely,” Bash said. “We need to get him back. Now.”
Their fastest runner had gone ahead and spread the word preparing for their arrival.
By the time they got there, the medical tent was ready and the healers were already waiting, two human women and two female werewolves in human form, their hands steady and their eyes sharp.
Bash carried the injured wolf inside and laid him on the table as gently as he could manage. The spear was still embedded in his back. Every breath made it shift, drawing fresh whimpers of pain.
“Let us work,” one of the werewolf healers said. Not unkind. Just firm.
Bash retreated to the corner of the tent. He couldn’t leave. Couldn’t make himself walk out that door.
This was his fault. His greed. His need for blood.
The healers moved with practiced efficiency. They cut away fur, cleaned the wound, debated the angle of the spear in low, urgent voices. One of them gripped the shaft while another pressed down on the wolf’s shoulders.
“On three. One…”
They pulled on two. The wolf's howl turned into a scream, too human, too raw. The spear resisted, caught on something inside, then tore free. Blood followed in a dark rush, splattering the table, the healers' arms, the dirt floor. Hands pressed gauze to the wound. Herbs. Bandages. Quiet words of encouragement.
Bash watched in silence, until finally, one of the healers straightened and wiped her hands on a cloth.
“He’s stable,” she said. “The bleeding has stopped. His body is healing on its own now.” She looked at Bash. “He’ll recover fully. Werewolves are resilient.”
Bash let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Thank you.” He walked out of the tent to find Jason and the other wolves were waiting outside.
They sat in a loose semicircle, still in wolf form, their eyes tracking Bash as he emerged. Arrows still protruded from two of them. They’d refused treatment until they knew about their packmate.
Bash stopped in front of Jason. “He’ll be fine,” he said. “Full recovery.”
Relief rippled through the group. One of the wolves huffed. Another’s tail wagged once before he caught himself.
Bash lowered his head. “I’m sorry. I pushed too hard. Got greedy. That’s on me.”
Jason rose to his feet. In wolf form, his head came up to Bash’s chest. His yellow eyes studied Bash for a long moment.
Then, slowly, his lips pulled back. That too-many-teeth smile again.
“Forty-seven kills,” Jason said. “In one raid. Without losing a single wolf.” He shook his massive head. “You have nothing to apologize for, Lord Bash. You proved yourself tonight.”
Bash blinked. “I almost got him killed.”
“Almost doesn’t count. He lives. The enemy dies.” Jason’s eyes gleamed. “You fight like a wolf. You think like a wolf. You stayed to carry a fallen packmate when you could have run.”
The other wolves were rising now, gathering around Bash. He could feel their eyes on him. Weighing him.
“The pack has a long memory,” He dipped his head, a gesture of respect. “You have earned our loyalty, Lord Bash. Not as a lord. As pack.”
And then they howled. All of them. Ten voices rising into the night sky, long and mournful and triumphant all at once. The sound rolled across the village, echoing off the new stone walls.
Bash stood in the center of it, blood drying on his clothes, exhaustion dragging at his bones.
And for the first time since Patrick died, he felt like he belonged somewhere.
***
In the empty void, Bash floated in darkness. No menus. No skill trees. No stat sheets or experience bars or endless lists of things to do. Just stillness.
Shai floated nearby. She didn’t speak. Didn’t offer analysis or probability calculations or helpful suggestions.
She just wrapped her presence around him like a blanket and floated there, warm and quiet and close.
Bash closed his eyes. It wasn’t sleep. He couldn’t sleep here. But it was the closest thing to rest he’d found since arriving in the Shard.
Tomorrow, the enemy would be one day closer. Tomorrow, there would be more training, more planning, more impossible decisions.
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