Sely took Rhys and went back to the house. She wanted to play one of Rhys’s unknown games with Cil, so Rhys went inside and played. Later on, when Sely wanted to take Cil for a bath, the little girl was in the middle of one of her naps and growled at her.
Sely just growled right back, and Cil got up without causing a fuss.
The rest of the evening went on as usual, and Rhys eventually went to sleep. The only real difference now was that Cil clearly had a new favorite between the two.
“Rhys, Rhys…”
“It’s too early,” Rhys said. He couldn’t feel a weight on top of him, but he couldn't move from his position either.
“Hey, come here,” Sely said, lifting the sleeping Cil off of him.
“Rhys, it’s time to go.”
“Oh, Lycan,” Rhys said, waking up. “Let me change clothes.” He pulled off his shirt.
“We will be waiting outside,” Lycan said, walking out.
Rhys stepped outside a few minutes later. “What about them?” he asked.
“They remain. Some of the men will stay here,” Lycan replied.
“They will be protected as our own,” Vaikor added.
“Even Sely?” Rhys asked.
The two alphas went quiet. Though both were felids, the biggest difference between Cil and Sely was that Sely was much older and carried a far worse reputation than the little girl.
It took them a few minutes to answer, but when they did, Lycan spoke up. “Yes. After what you have done since coming here, what’s yours is part of ours.”
“Then let’s go. What do the Kernivic look like?”
“You can see them for yourself,” Lycan said.
“Here, take this,” Vaikor said, handing him a bow and a quiver full of arrows.
“Never used these before,” Rhys said as they began walking.
“Well, you can train now,” Lycan replied.
Rhys was stunned as they stepped out. Having been confined to the village, he had never been outside these poorly made walls and fences. All he could see was endless green stretching out just a short distance from the perimeter.
There were many canids gathered—not as many as there were during the digging, but a good number of men and older teens.
“Oh, here,” Lycan said, reaching out to remove Rhys's collar.
“No, it’s fine,” Rhys stopped him. “If I remove it, I’m just a stray human. I don’t think that will end well. It’s better to be seen as a slave than precious cargo. Precious cargo is a bad target.”
Lycan and Vaikor mostly just registered the "no," but they understood his reasoning enough to drop it.
“And you need a bigger wall,” Rhys added. “Stronger, too.”
“We are waiting for Setil and his canids. They can help with that,” Vaikor replied as they approached the group advancing into the forest.
Chatter and laughter echoed among the pack as they moved deeper through the trees. Lycan and Vaikor explained how they hunted, how many they intended to kill, and asked Rhys what he thought of their strategy. Rhys didn’t have much to offer—he hadn't hunted before, and even though he used to watch a lot of TV, hunting was never his specialty.
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They walked for a long time, seeing mostly birds. Lycan mentioned that if they started seeing yellow-feathered birds with red accents, it meant they were getting much closer. So far, they hadn't seen any, and none of the scouts had reported back yet.
“Look, there,” Vaikor whispered, pointing behind a cluster of trees.
“A vulpine,” Lycan said softly. “They usually move in groups and get big, but this one is alone. It’s either near its group or they left it behind.” He kept walking.
It looked like a wolf, just with thicker fur, but it was too far out to make out the details, so Rhys kept moving.
They pushed deeper into the green expanse.
“Far to the right, there are aurochs,” Lycan said, gesturing sideways. “But that’s a long distance from here.”
“When we first started hunting the Kernivic, we didn’t look at it as a secondary source of growth,” Vaikor said. “Oh, I wanted to tell you the reason why we hunt them.”
“They rarely stop moving in the forest,” Lycan added.
“We have all been through it—the fighting,” Vaikor continued. “It’s like it’s part of us, so much that we used to fight among ourselves. Not that it has completely stopped; some canids still treat others like they aren't kin.”
“So hunting the Kernivic became a way of uniting our people, even before we thought of sharing our villages,” Lycan explained.
“When we hunt them, we get meat, and it unites the younger ones. They wait a long time for this,” Vaikor said.
Rhys stayed quiet, listening to the history of the canids. They had been walking for hours, and he was beginning to wonder if the Kernivic were even coming. The thought barely had time to cross his mind before a scout slipped back through the brush.
“Come here,” Vaikor whispered, moving first while Lycan fell in behind Rhys.
“Look at that. That’s a Kernivic—a male,” Vaikor whispered, pointing.
Rhys squinted through the trees. Looks like a massive white deer with way more horns—and bigger ones, too.
“I don’t see a dick. How do you know it’s a male?” Rhys whispered back.
“The males are smaller than the females...”
“Wait, that’s small?”
“The difference isn’t huge, but they can run,” Vaikor replied, watching the beast graze.
Lycan raised his left hand toward the nearest hunter, then raised his right hand, displaying seven fingers. The other canids dispersed quietly, bows in hand, slipping into the underbrush.
“We will take seven,” Lycan said as he shifted position. “They move in herds, so the others are close.”
“Are we moving away from that one?” Rhys asked.
“That one’s not ours. Come on,” Vaikor said. Mikok joined their small group as they moved to a patch of higher ground.
“That’s ours,” Vaikor said, pointing toward a female Kernivic with two young ones.
“I’ll get the mother,” Lycan said.
“Wait, shouldn’t Mikok be with the others?” Rhys asked.
“It’s fine, I’m good here,” Mikok whispered back.
“Since it’s your turn, why don’t you take the mother?” Lycan asked Mikok.
“What about you?”
“I’ll handle that one,” Lycan said, pointing to a flash of white behind a tree trunk.
“Okay,” Mikok agreed.
“Let me help you with the big one, then Rhys can get the small ones,” Vaikor insisted.
“Yes, good plan,” Lycan agreed. “You start, Mikok, then we follow.”
Being right-handed, Mikok gripped the bow in his left hand and pulled the arrow back with his right. Vaikor and Lycan lined up their shots right behind him.
“Come on, Rhys…” Lycan prompted.
Rhys briefly considered switching to his left hand, but stuck to his dominant right. The raw physical difference between him and the three canids was glaringly obvious—Rhys was strong, but their draw weight and posture were on a completely different level.
The female Kernivic had her head down in the grass, grazing while the two young ones hovered near her.
Mikok’s arrow whistled through the air first, piercing the mother straight through the neck. Just as it landed, Lycan released his shot, hitting the distant target. The beast reared up with a piercing shriek that bounced off the trees. As it spun toward them, Vaikor caught it right in the eye. The beast kept moving, but Vaikor reloaded with blinding speed and sent a second arrow into its neck, dropping it.
“Let’s follow the young ones,” Vaikor said.
“I got one in the leg. It shouldn’t have gone far,” Rhys said, nocking another arrow.
“That’s a male,” Rhys noted as they tracked the blood trail.
“No, that’s a female, just a young one,” Lycan corrected with a smile.
Rhys’s arrow had landed true. Blood painted the grass, making it easy to track, and the young Kernivic hadn't made it far. The other one was nowhere in sight.
“Try aiming for the head,” Mikok suggested.
“I haven’t used a bow in a long time. I can’t hit the head from here—I’ll just take two body shots,” Rhys said.
He drew back and landed two more arrows, cutting short the creature's frantic breathing and cries.
“Where are the others?”
“They scatter and run,” Vaikor said. “Today is our lucky day. If it weren't, they’d be the ones chasing us.”