Book 3 Chapter 13: Blood Covered Muzzle

It wasn’t difficult to see what had happened. A group in the woods that looked so rough, he didn’t have any personal experience with their like, but he could tell that they were of a kind with him. Bandits though, rather than thieves. A distinction that was only to indicate that one group struck from shadows in the woods, and another from shadows in an alley. Same god as far as he knew, though he had a feeling the god of thieves favored those of Dantes’s ilk more, it was in the name after all. From what he could tell from above, the bandits had somehow captured Musk’s partner, the she-wolf they’d always seen him with, and were using threats to her life to control him.

The bandit camp was well kept, and the men and women in it seemed to be full and content. That meant that they’d been at least moderately successful in leveraging Murk for their uses. Dantes imagined that having any travelers surrounded by packs of wolves as they robbed them made things much easier.

Dantes sent out his senses across the woods, and very quickly located nearly twenty large cousins of Murk's prowling the forest nearby. He could feel frustration and annoyance emanating from them, but they didn’t take kindly to his attention so he withdrew it. As he did so, he could feel Murk’s attention briefly cross his own.

Murk sat up a bit more alertly and looked directly at the sky where Dantes and Jacopo were circling. He didn’t make any moves, but Dantes could feel a kind of pleading from him. He assumed that hurt his pride a bit.

Dantes clenched his beak. Murk was an asshole, and he didn’t give much of a shit about what might happen to him. He even knew that Murk had been aware of when he’d lost his hand and chosen not to come and help. He did not appreciate that his choices in the matter had been so limited. Still, he couldn’t always have complete agency over everything he did. The mortal plane wasn’t so fair as that, and with the game the gods seemed to playing with his life and everyone else's in the background, maybe there was no such thing.

He did a headcount of the bandits and noted at least twenty seven of them that were outside, and maybe ten more scattered throughout the tents and other ramshackle structures. He could probably take them on directly, but it would be risky so far from the terrain he was used to and without the same resources to call on. It would make more sense to play things cautiously.

He sent Jacopo the details of his plan, and they separated, with Jacopo landing within the camp and assuming his usual form to start sneaking his way toward Murk’s she-wolf companion.

Dantes landed in the darkest corner of the makeshift fence that they’d created, and shifted into himself as well. He pulled Tel’s finger from his jacket, smiling a bit as he thought of how amused Tel might have been about starting a fire in a bandit camp. He sent his will through the finger and a small flame appeared at its tip. Dantes ran the finger around the fence until it started to catch. Once that was done he shifted into rat form and started a fire at the edge of a small tent, and then a third one near a pile of wood that was under a tarp. All three fires were in the same corner of the camp, and they quickly started to spread. Dantes shifted back into a pigeon and landed on top of a tent to watch what happened next.

It took a good amount of time for the bandits to realize what was happening. They may have thought the smoke came from their other fires, or they were simply not very attentive. By the time the first of them had realized what was happening, that entire edge of their camp was ablaze.

A number of them began to move toward the flames, shoveling dirt onto it, or getting what water they could to try and douse it. Their leader yanked Murk's collar, making the wildman grimace.

“Do something!?” he yelled at him.

“What? You want me to wolf the fire to death?”

The man cursed and handed the leash to one of the two spearmen that was monitoring the caged she-wolf. He then went toward the fire to yell such useful orders as, “Put it out!” and “Stop this fire you damned fools!” He was a true paragon of leadership.

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It was the she-wolf behind him that had let out the howl, and as she’d done so, the already panicking bandits fully lost it. Some of them ran into the fire, others threw themselves towards Dantes and Jacopo with panic in their eyes, and others made more sensible runs to the parts of the fenceline that weren’t aflame.

It was there that they met the wolves that Murk had been keeping near the camp. As the bandits made their way over the fence, massive forms launched themself at them, tearing into their bodies with powerful sharp teeth and sending out spurts of blood that glistened in the moonlight.

Dantes put the wand in his palm away and turned his fingers into long vines that he used to simply trip those bandits that came near him. Jacopo would follow their falls up with a swift spear strike using the second of the spears that had been dropped.

Between them, Murk, and the wolves soon only the bandit leader was left.

The leader had kept his calm, holding his own spear up, pointed in front of himself ready to catch any wolf that leapt at him. The pack circled him, and only Murk stepped forward to meet him.

"You'd let me put that leash back on you and your bitch if you knew what was good for you."

Murk just growled, low and rumbling as he loped forward toward him.

Dantes could see the sweat on the side of the man's face, reflected in the firelight. His breathing was heavy and sped up the closer Murk got to him. He leapt forwads, stabbing toward murk with his spear, but the strike was easily dodge. He followed it up with a half dozen more. They were powerful, forceful, blows, but it didn't matter if they couldn't hit anything. He wound up and sent another one forward, and this time, murk caught the spear between his jaws and clamped downward, breaking it in half.

It was at that moment, the man broke. He turned and ran, trying to leap into the fire as some of the others had done, but Murk caught him by his ankle and dragged him back. He didn’t go for the neck as he had with the others he'd slain, instead he took his time. He opened him up at the stomach, and tore through him even as he screamed. The she-wolf joined him, and they didn’t stop eating until the man’s screams ceased and their muzzles were wet with blood.

Dantes watched dispassionately as they gorged themselves, along with Jacopo and the wolves. He found himself feeling a bit jealous of the ability to become a wolf. It wasn’t a practical jealousy, he knew that his other forms were much more useful for his own purposes, but the power that came with those larger beastforms. He imagined the satisfaction that he’d feel if he could wrap his teeth around an enemy's neck before clamping down on it would be incredible.

Murk finished his grizzly meal, and then directed the wolves to start kicking dirt and mud onto the flames in the camp. The fire likely wouldn’t reach the tree line, but there was no reason to risk that. He approached Dantes with his blood covered muzzle, and looked at him for a few moments.

Dantes kept himself from tensing, even as all of his instincts told him that he was in danger, and looked Murk directly in the eyes.

Murk lowered his ears and bowed his head toward the ground.

“You saved my sister. I owe you both of our lives.”