Wolflox (a Deadlox Fanfiction)

Chapter 39

Deadlox’s POV

Deadlox was sitting silently on the floor of a cave, him and his friends surrounded by an angry wolf pack. While Cinder munched happily at a dead bat, Jasmine watched in horror, and Nikki was engaging in somewhat friendly conversation with one of their captors.

Hailey, however, was nowhere to be found.

Deadlox assumed she had slipped away when the pack members weren’t looking, and was going to search for help. Or, she had been summoned to see the Alpha already and was going to either get them killed or freed. He just hoped they would live.

I got us into this mess, he thought sadly. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.

I used to lead an army. Why can’t I even control four mere wolves now? What could’ve happened that made me change?

Whimpering softly, he laid his head on his paws. His breath stirred up clouds of coal dust and other miniscule bits of rubble, sending them rolling across the dimly lit stone floor.

The time he spent in the cave felt like an eternity. He had no concept of time without the sun or moon, so he had no idea if he had been waiting for minutes or hours. But al last, Hailey returned.

“Deadlox,” she said from the opening of another branch of the cave, accompanied by the Beta who had captured them. “The Alpha wants to see you.”

“Only me?” He whispered, rising to his feet.

“Yes,” she said. “He wants to speak with you alone.”

Deadlox began to walk over to the pair of wolves. Hailey started to slink past him, muttering a “be careful” into his ear as they passed. He gave a quick nod, before following the Beta into the dark passageway.

For a while, there was nothing but the click click of their claws on the stone, and a few ambient cave noises spookily echoing around the twists and turns of the cavern. Bats squeaked here and there, which was comforting, but Deadlox couldn’t help but fear that they would become the pack’s next meal.

“When you reach the fork in the passages, take the left one,” the Beta said. “This is as far as I will go for now.”

Deadlox nodded, and the large wolf turned around and began to pad back towards the place where his friends were gathered.

Suddenly feeling vulnerable and weak, alone in an unfamiliar cave, Deadlox tucked his tail between his legs and defensively shuffled along.

Eventually he reached a place where two separate paths diverged off off the larger one. Following the Beta’s orders, he took the left one, only to find it plunged even deeper into the earth. The Void fog swallowed him as his elevation continued to drop, until he was sure he was at bedrock. But it was so dark, he had no idea.

Soon the path leveled out and took him on a straight path towards what appeared to be a light. The walls were hung with various artifacts, like a tanned piece of hide that looked to have come from a horse and a few sets of bones that had been stacked into artistic little piles. Light came from the ceiling, and when Deadlox looked up, he saw it came from redstone ore that had been lit up by who knows what.

As he approached the light, the temperature rose until he was sweating in his thick wolf pelt. His tongue fell out of his mouth and he began to pant instinctively, until at last he came to what appeared to be a staircase made of stone slabs.

Slabs… he thought. How did they get these? Surely, wolves can’t craft…

He shook the thought from his mind as he gathered up the courage to ascend. As he reached the top, he had to squint at the brilliant source of light, but when his eyes adjusted, his jaw fell open in awe.