North Drake
patreon
Book 1: Chapter 37: No Place For Wolves
🕑 Added 2025-06-18 14:40:41 +0000 UTCChapter 37:
No Place For Wolves
It had been two days since the first battle of the Stonefang Clan. Since Rhel’s father died. Since the mountains turned red. He had watched it happen — had seen a war-mage, draped in robes and steel, raise his hands and call the earth to life. Stone spears erupted from the ground like jagged teeth, impaling the entire frontline in a heartbeat. His father didn’t even have time to scream. One moment he was there, blade raised. The next, he was skewered like an animal. A dozen others died the same way.
They tried to charge again. Once at dusk, hoping the shadows would give them an edge. Once just before dawn, when frost still clung to the rocks. Both times, the humans held. Their formations didn’t break. Their front lines didn’t scatter. Rhel had seen young soldiers falter, yes, but behind them came knights. Fully armored. Slow, but unstoppable. Like golems from old tales, they held the ground and cleaved through charging Wolfkin like a butcher cutting meat. The mages behind them didn’t just cast. They hunted. Fire. Stone. Ice. Magic like scythes through flesh. It was not a battle. It was a slaughter.
So, the Stonefang Clan was retreating.
Not in shame. Not openly. But every warrior in the line knew what this was. They weren’t regrouping. They were limping back. The charge had failed. The mountain hadn’t opened. The humans hadn’t broken. And now, they were moving to join the others — the four remaining Wolfkin clans — at the agreed meeting point near the second ridge.
The snow was thinner here, but the cold bit harder. Their wounded walked if they could, carried if they couldn’t. There weren’t enough hands for proper stretchers. Not enough food either. One of the younger boys had already collapsed. No one spoke of him.
Rhel kept to the middle of the group. Not out of caution, out of numbness. His leg ached. His ribs were still wrapped. He could smell the blood on his tunic, even though it was mostly dry. He hadn’t changed it. He didn’t care to.
They walked for hours without speaking. The older warriors ahead watched the cliffs. The Seer, that remained in his part of the group, hadn’t said a word since the night before. But even he looked more alert now. There was something in the air. Smoke. Fresh prints in the frost. A scent on the wind.
They reached the meeting point by dusk.
It was supposed to be safe ground, a flat stretch of stone and snow just before the third ridge, where the five Wolfkin clans would join and then walk together to the main force under the Ursin’s command. There were no fires. No banners. No voices. Just wind, and the low rustle of armor plates shifting with every uncertain step.
The scouts returned quickly, their expressions grave. One of them spoke to the elder warriors in a tight voice, but Rhel didn’t have to hear the words. He saw it in their eyes.
Signs of battle. Scattered tracks. Ash in the snow.
And no bodies... That was the worst part.
Rhel stood at the edge of the column, his spear clutched too tightly in his hand. His fingers were numb, not only from cold, but also from something colder inside himself. His thoughts were frayed, his chest hollow. Fear wasn’t a sharp thing anymore. It had soaked in, slow and quiet, like a frostbite.
He tried to breathe.
Then the sound came.
At first, he thought it was thunder. Deep. Rolling. Distant. But then it grew. Louder. Heavier. Like the world itself was shaking.
And beneath it—screams. Not from Beastkin, but in the human tongue.
The warriors of the Stonefang Clan turned too late. Some barely had time to raise their weapons. Others didn’t even draw steel before the first wave hit them. They came like a black tide. Armored knights on warhorses, lances gleaming in the last light of day. Shields crashed like walls. Hooves pounded like drums of war. The charge wasn’t organized. It was ruthless. Fast. Perfect.
And at the front of it, something worse.
A beast tore through the sky, leathery wings ripping the air apart, black scales gleaming in the dying sun.
“Wyvern!” someone shouted.
Rhel had never seen one. Never thought they were real. But there it was, massive and snarling, its roar deafening as it dove toward them. And on its back, a figure in full black plate, cloak trailing like smoke, helm shaped like a beast’s skull. The figure roared and pointed towards the Stonefang Clan.
And then the slaughter began.
The knights hit the line like hammers to glass. Spears shattered. Bones snapped. Screams rose and fell in seconds. Rhel saw one of his cousins, barely older than him, cut down in a single swing. Another was trampled, face-first into the snow, blood streaking behind him like paint.
The wyvern passed overhead, and fire followed it. A gust of heat. A line of bodies burning where they stood. One of the Seers tried to do seidr— tried to invoke a barrier — but something hit him mid-spell and sent half his body in one direction, the other in another.
Rhel didn’t fight. He tried but he couldn’t. He was frozen. The fear gripped him harder than any wound. His knees shook. His spear slipped from his hands. Around him, warriors roared, screamed, died. The clan that raised him was dying faster than he could understand.
And the humans, they weren’t men. They were monsters.
Armored. Cold. Merciless.
Everything Rhel had believed — about strength, about pride, about what it meant to be Wolfkin — shattered beneath hooves and steel.
He didn’t know when he fell. He just knew the snow was red. And that he was alone when everything went dark.
--:--
Rhel woke to pain.
A sharp, throbbing pulse behind his left eye. His head ached like it had been split. His vision swam. Everything was dim, shifting, cold. Metal rattled when he moved. Chains? No bars. He was in a cage. Iron and wood, with straw crusted in blood and snow at the bottom, just high enough to sit, just wide enough to kneel. His arms felt bruised. His lip was split. His breath came too fast, and every inhale burned.
It took him a minute to see the others.
Two warriors from his clan were slumped in the far corners, one groaning quietly, the other silent. And beside him, almost pressed to the wall, was the same warrior who had dragged him from the front line during the first charge. His leg was bandaged, poorly. One of his eyes was swollen shut. But he was alive.
Rhel tried to speak. His throat was dry. He croaked, barely above a whisper.
The older warrior shifted. A slow, heavy movement. Then a glance. Recognition.
“You’re not dead,” the man said, voice like gravel.
Rhel couldn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.
Outside, the cage jolted. He realized it was moving. Wooden wheels beneath them clattered against frozen stone. They were on a carriage, a convoy of them, from the sound of it. He could hear other cages. Other prisoners. Wolfkin voices. Groaning. Breathing. One crying quietly and trying to stop.
Soldiers marched alongside the wagons, speaking in the human tongue. Their voices were calm. Bored. One laughed.
Rhel didn’t understand the words, but the tone was easy to read.
Victory.
The cage rocked gently as the wheels bumped over uneven stone.
Rhel pressed his back to the bars and tried not to pass out again. Every breath still hurt. His head throbbed. Blood had dried in his hair. He could feel the crust of it every time the wind shifted through the cage slats. The warrior beside him stirred. Slowly. Carefully. His movements were stiff, like every joint had to be reminded it still existed.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” he said, after a long pause.
Rhel looked over, eyes still adjusting. “You pulled me out.”
The man gave a slow nod. “Didn’t think you’d make it the second time. Didn’t think I’d make it.”
Rhel swallowed once, then finally asked. “What happened?”
The warrior exhaled, head tilted back against the bars. “We’ve been moving since yesterday. They dragged what was left of us out of the pass. Down the mountains. Into their lands.”
He glanced toward the slit of light between the wooden bars. “I don’t know where we’re going. Don’t think it matters.”
Rhel stayed quiet and the warrior continued, voice rough with quiet anger. “This wasn’t a battle. Wasn’t a fight. It was a trap.”
Rhel looked at him. “You’re sure?”
“I don’t need to be sure.” He turned slightly, teeth gritted. “The clans sent ten thousand warriors. Five clans. The proud of our kin.”
He slammed a fist softly into the floor of the cage. “And we were wiped out in days. Days! That doesn’t happen. That can’t happen. Unless someone knew we were coming.”
Rhel felt his mouth go dry. “You think the Ursin led us into this?”
The warrior didn’t answer at first. Then nodded once. Slow. Reluctant. “He marched first. He broke through. No word since.”
Silence stretched between them.
Rhel shifted slightly. “What about home? The others?”
The warrior’s eyes darkened. “I don’t know. But if this is what the humans had waiting here—” He cut himself off. “—then our lands are open. Our families... they’re exposed.”
The cold returned. But this time, it wasn’t the wind.
It was the silence.
Rhel didn’t speak for a long while. He kept his eyes low, watching the slats in the wood floor shift and rattle with every bump of the carriage. The pain in his head had dulled to a heavy throb, but it made everything feel distant, like the world had been muffled. Every breath reminded him how close they’d come to being wiped out completely. And still, the image wouldn’t leave him, that creature in the sky, the black wings and armored rider crashing down like a story gone wrong.
Eventually, he broke the silence.
“The… thing,” he said slowly. “The one with wings. That wasn’t a big bird, was it?”
The older warrior turned his head slightly, face worn and shadowed. His good eye narrowed.
“You mean the black one?”
Rhel nodded. “Was that… a dragon?”
The man let out a sound. Not quite a laugh, more like a cough shaped into bitterness.
“No,” he said. “That was a wyvern.”
Rhel blinked. “What’s the difference?”
“A dragon would’ve erased the whole ridge,” the man muttered. “That was just a wyvern. Smaller. Cruder. Still fast, still deadly, but not the same.”
He shifted with a grunt, adjusting his bad leg slightly. “Wyverns are smaller than dragons, and dumber. They fly, they claw, they burn what they’re pointed at. That’s all they need.”
Rhel’s hands tightened around the cage bars. The memory of that shadow overhead, the fire, the screaming, it hit him again. That was small?
“And they just have those?” he asked, voice low.
The warrior nodded grimly. “They do. Not many, but enough. Raised in war stables. Strapped with armor.”
Rhel felt cold all over again. “How are we supposed to fight that?”
“You don’t. Not like this.” The man spat, then winced. “We weren’t meant to face something like that alone.”
Rhel’s voice came small, shaken. “Then why did we?”
The warrior leaned back against the bars, jaw clenched.
“Normally, in full war, the clans stand together. Not just us Wolfkin. The Stonemares have armored tusk-beasts. The Horned Ones ride hill-giants. And in Korr Veth…” he paused. “They still keep dragon stock. War-dragons. Real ones.”
Rhel blinked. “So the Ursin…”
“He was supposed to have one with him,” the man said. “Leading the real charge.”
They sat in silence for a while, the clatter of the wheels filling the void between them.
Rhel finally asked, “Do you really think the Ursin betrayed us?”
The warrior didn’t answer right away. He didn’t even look at him.
“I don’t know.”
His voice came rough. Tired.
“But right now… it doesn’t matter.”
They both fell silent again.
The travel was without rest. Not real rest at least. The wagons never stopped long. When the horses tired, the soldiers swapped them. When the guards grew bored or hungry, new ones came in. Rhel hadn’t seen a single break in five days, just a constant, grinding descent from the mountains into the lowlands. Down into the humans’ world.
The cages rattled on every turn. The wheels hissed through mud and stone. Occasionally, a soldier would toss a strip of meat through the bars, salted, tough, barely food. Sometimes a waterskin followed. Rhel took what he could and said nothing. No one talked much anymore. The warriors who still lived had fallen into silence, like speaking aloud might shatter what little strength they had left.
He watched the landscape change.
The rocks gave way to soil, and the trees grew thicker. Human farms passed by, fenced, orderly, quiet. Then came roads. Bridges. Signs carved with letters Rhel couldn’t read. Everything was built with straight lines, with purpose. That was the part that unsettled him. Nothing here grew wild. It was all shaped. Controlled. Claimed.
By the fifth day, his body ached from too long spent in a crouch. His head still hurt. His ribs still burned. But none of that mattered when he saw what waited on the horizon.
A city. But no that was wrong... it was not just a city, it was a fortress.
Black walls rose like cliffs from the land, towering, seamless, ancient. They stretched farther than his eyes could follow, dotted with towers, lined with spiked battlements. Behind them, clustered buildings twisted upward like stone teeth, dense and shadowed, choked in smoke and steel. And in the center of it all, high above, was a citadel that cut the skyline open like a blade.
“Velwick,” the warrior beside him muttered. His voice was hoarse, almost reverent. “By the old claws… we’re going to Velwick.”
Rhel stared.
He’d heard of cities. Of tradeposts. Of border forts and merchant camps. But nothing like this. This wasn’t a place for humans. It wasn’t a place at all. It was a beast — vast, coiled, unblinking — built from stone and iron, daring the world to challenge it.
As the gates opened and the convoy rolled toward them, Rhel felt his heart shrink in his chest.
The jaws of the black walls yawned wide.
And the city swallowed them whole.
