The Chronicles of a Scalebound Sage: Wandmaker Vol.2

WM [28] Snake In The Grass

Bjorn had to run as fast as he could around the raging forest fire that started because of his Plague Fire breath. He could put the fire out but it was all or nothing. The white flames that coursed with aetheric energy was the reason that the monsters were flooding the druid camp. It just so happened that the camp was in the direct path to the flames. He didn't know how long he had run before he could finally see the town through the thick brush.

Almost immediately after, Bjorn felt the bond getting closer to him at an accelerated rate. Between the time he felt Tanisha move and when she finally reached him was less than a minute. When he saw her riding on the back of a black tiger with horns, he knew how she moved so fast. He had to come to a sliding stop to keep from running into them.

"Bjorn!" Tanisha and Joha yelled.

Tanisha hopped off of Joha's back as they both surrounded him looking out for any attackers. When they didn't see any Tanisha all but tackled Bjorn in a hug. She was shaking and her emotions were too all over the place for Bjorn to read. They stayed in a locked embrace for an unknown amount of time before Tanisha calmed down enough to finally speak.

"Big Man, are you okay?" Tanisha asked as she looked him over for injuries.

Bjorn could feel Tanisha's anger rise once she found the missing scales that hadn't fully grown in from the many arrows that he pulled out. She was especially furious once she felt the missing scales on his heads. Her magic spiked as her aura started to absorb the ambient mana around them to further empower her.

Bjorn took the time to write furiously on the ground the few words he knew to explain quickly. Due to his limited vocabulary he didn't know the word for werewolf or skinwalker so he improvised. Tanisha summoned an orb of water that shined a light only they would be able to see.

"Wolf men hunted me to a druid base covered in fleshwalk-man they created. All battle monsters at base?" Tanisha read Bjorn's writing out loud.

"Did you run into werewolves, skinwalkers, monsters and druids?" Joha asked.

Bjorn nodded his confirmation and circled the word base. It took fifteen minutes of questions, nods and poorly put together sentences before they could more or less understand what Bjorn was trying to tell them. He was able to lay out the events and even the location of the base because of the massive forest fire he started which was slowly crawling towards it thanks to the direction of the wind.

"Druids are making skinwalkers and there are at least seventeen werewolves out there fighting them." Tanisha said. "What do we do? I could care less about the werewolves. No, that is a lie, I want to kill every one of them for what they were trying to do, but we have to save the wendigo and put the skinwalkers out of their misery."

"We go back to town and tell the guards," Joha said. "We came out here for Bjorn and we got him. We go out there and we will be caught in the middle of a three way battle against unknown odds and numbers. For all we know those druids have a battalion just out of sight. If the werewolves survive they'll come to us."

"Are you sure?" Tanisha asked.

"Positive. We still have those other two and I am sure at the very least they will want them back." Joha said.

"We aren't giving them back." Tanisha said darkly as her gaze shifted to the remnants of battle that slowly healed across her familiar's body. "They tried to kill me and Bjorn. Oh and Sabec set this up by the way. He is in town somewhere and we are going to find him and cut the head off the whole thing."

"Sabec survived," Joha asked with a puzzled expression.

"Yes, I was going to tell you at the inn but then I felt the bond weaken." Tanisha said. "We are going to kill him."