The Fighters

City of Wolves

I watched the sun rise slowly, it's orange glow burning my face. It seemed as if the entire woods changed with the light. The trees seemed to light up and come to life. You could hear the animals stirring out of their slumber. The twigs breaking as they walked from place to place. It was so different from the quiet, creepy place it had been last night.

Needing clothes and rations, I walked on in search of a town. And luckily for me a little town lay at the end of the forest. The whole place looked like it was out of a history book. The buildings looked old and close to just toppling over. Judging from the piles of rubble and dust in certain places, some buildings had already collapsed.

Slowly walking through the city, I noticed the board reading "Welcome to Jogyun, city of wolves."
City of wolves? Were there no humans around here. Lifting my nose up I caught only the scent of wolves, there seemed to be no humans.
I skipped to a little café on the side of the road, happy that I'd managed to end up in a werewolf town.

The café was deserted, only an old women behind the counter writing something in a diary.
As I came near the counter, the woman looked at me in confusion.
"Your not from these parts,are you?" She asked me, her voice thick with an unknown accent.

"Uh no, I'm just visiting," I replied giving her a small smile.

"Visiting? Why would you visit Jogyun?" She asked surprised.

"Just," I replied curtly.
I had to sit down and check dad's world map and figure out exactly where Jogyun was.

"Okay then, what can I get you?" She asked me a little more warmly. She'd obviously felt my discomfort at being questioned.

"A coffee and some bread rolls," I answered.

After paying for the food, I went and sat down towards the back of the shop. Grabbing dad's huge world map from my bag, I opened it up and started to search for Jogyun.
It couldn't be that far from my pack because I'd only run for a day and I'm pretty sure my untrained wolf couldn't have made it more than a few miles. Tracing my route from my old pack. I couldn't find Jogyun, but there was something else written in gold. And judging by it's longitudes and latitudes I was close to it.

I moved closer to the map, gently straightening the creases, I realized that I couldn't understand the writing. The letters were faded and in cursive and it was definitely not English.
As I was puzzling over the mystery language, I didn't hear the old women come hobbling towards me.

Unfortunately for me, I was my normal clumsy self, and lifted my head right at the moment she tried to set down my tray.
The tray toppled over the table. Hot coffee spilling everywhere, as the bread rolls rolled around.

"I'm so sorry," I said to the old women expecting her to be angry at me. Instead I saw her wiping the edge of the map, clearing it of any crumbs or coffee.

"It's fine, dear." she answered as she straightened out my map and looking at it confused.
"This map," she asked me "Where did you get it from?"

"It belongs to my dad." I answered coming closer to her.

"It can't be," she told me gently tracing the outlines of the map. "These maps, they aren't given to normal citizens,"

"They aren't?" I asked even more confused.

"What are they teaching you in school nowadays, kid?" she asked me gesturing to the bottom of the map, "It says "Fighter" , these are the special maps the fighters have."
So, she knew the language.

"Wait Fighters? As in The Fighters?" I asked stunned.

The Fighters were the most noble, well-trained warriors out there. They were like the protectors of all supernatural creatures. The Fighters were only elected every century. They were immortal demons. If werewolves had royals, these 10 would have been them.