Very overdue update, but here it finally is! 🥰
Tell me your thoughts everyone and anything else you would like to see! Happy Holidays everyone, be safe and enjoy the winter season!🎊🎉🎄🔮🕎
————————————————————————
It is with great reluctance that I pull away from the tapestry. The lulling call of a whoop-er-will echoing past bookshelves and ancient walls. I turn back, walking in silence, bare toes and heels slithering along the stone and carpeted floor. Not even in a place that I know holds only I and other Marked, will the teachings and instincts to stay soundless and hidden ever be forgotten by my mind and body. I find the others hovering around Amira, small hands clutching a large leather tube.
The girls flocking around the long table at the northernmost end of the room where, as I approach, Amira pulls out a large roll of parchment with grace and delicacy. Placing it out upon the table, allowing the parchment to roll out in an expanse of illuminated artistry some fifteen feet long and five feet wide.
Well done, Lupus Venator. I sign, approaching the others now spread out on either side of the table. Gazing down at this map that outlines all the borders of wolf kingdoms, human territories, inhospitable lands, and ancient landmarks of the Northern Continent. A land that once thrived but is now left in ruins, cut off from the desert riddled waste of the Southern Continent, and the other rumored lands to the east across treacherous waters filled with nightmarish sea monsters and flesh eating sirens.
Here, on this grand and detailed map of tanned animal hide, parchment, silk and ink, shows to our hungry eyes a world of dangers beyond the safety of our forest and the Old Mountain. To the far north, islands of floating ice and land covered in layers of snow and frost. A wild tundra of wandering bear shifters that reign over their domain of eternal winter. Snow storms and blizzards called up by their allies the White Witches, powering this barrier of cold only blocked by the stretching wall of towering behemoths of rock. The brothers and sisters of the Old Mountain. Our barrier against the North.
South of the mountain range keeping the witches and bears from our homes, is the fertile forests and planes the werewolves of this continent claim for themselves. Any free humans dwell within the shadows of the mountains, forced to gaze from a distance the bounty of rich fields of wheat and barely. The animals grown fat on healthy green grass, not the spindly goats and wild pigs crunching on roots, insects, and scrub. Here in the domain of the werewolves, their cities and towns number in the hundreds. Packs ranging from small fiefdoms to the grand castles like that of Alpha Evander.
His reach, his power, extends down the eastern coast of the continent, stopping shy of the endless sands of inhospitable desert lands to the south and the carved snake like form of the Long River Rune to the west. The wolves across the river, hold no order as the kingdoms of the East. They are nomadic hordes of beasts. Fighting each other, stealing from each other. All for the glory of victory and the taste of blood on their lips.
By number, the Western Packs number over forty. Their armies ranging in the thousands each. The Eastern Packs number a mere fifteen. Their territories carved up within the domain of Alpha Evander. One that I have mistaken for a minor king. But now that I am looking at this map, something in my stomach sinks further and further down. My fellow Marked see it to, now we all look closer at the proof of what our people thought is again woefully wrong. For our eyes now see the names of cities listed on the side of the map, with additional names and titles.
The fifteen packs reside under the leadership of their king. Alpha Evander Petrosus. The other fourteen packs are led by lesser Alphas, titled as dukes. Then there are small packs within the main fifteen. Up most of sixty packs in total. Their alphas titled as governors of the regions and provinces within the reach of the Eastern Packs. Each name colored a different ink hue, denoted known alliances and allegiances. The three largest of these Packs being the Royal Silverine Pack of the Silver City, the Wild Sands Pack of the Red Fortress, and the Amber Pack of the Golden Conclave. 500,000 thousand soldiers in each of their domains alone. This map was a godssend and a curse.
YOU ARE READING
Forest of Lies
WerewolfA thousand years past, the world was run by humankind. But it changed, when countries became embroiled in a war that gave the werewolves the opportunity, to recreate the earth in their own image. Now humans are the lowest on the food chain, little m...
