Lith and Solus stored the warg's remains inside their pocket dimension before scouting the surrounding area to search for the rest of the pack. Thanks to the beta's sacrifice, the warg had been able to quickly retreat inside their underground den.
They hadn't been expecting a mage, but a voice in the back of their heads had warned them not to stray from their haven. Even though it was hard for them to even grasp the concept of caution, the alpha had followed the advice.
With intelligence came fear. None of the monsters would hesitate to sacrifice their lives to save their kin, but with each new member of the tribe, the warg experienced more emotions.
If before life was all about feeding and breeding, now they wanted more. So much more and enough time to enjoy their achievements. They weren't willing to die in a blaze of glory, the monsters wanted to live which made them more dangerous than all of their new abilities.
Lith was slowly expanding the search area when his army communicator drew his attention.
"Where are you?" Baroness Enja asked with more than a tinge of fear in her voice.
"Taking care of your enemies. Your call might as well have given the creatures the time to escape. I told you not to bother me unless it's an emergency."
"Four watchtowers are down, we have dozens of casualties and injuries, plus the only mage for kilometers is outside the city walls. I'd say it's quite an emergency. If another attack happens in your absence, the city will fall. Come back immediately!"
Lith hung up in reply, pondering what he should do.
'Dozens of casualties? Four watchtowers? This doesn't make sense. Only two exploded before we left and we counted less than six corpses. If the attack continued even after we engaged the warg warrior, it means someone else was acting as the tribe's eyes and ears.
'We'd better get back to Maekosh. Something doesn't add up' He thought as his civilian amulet lit up.
"It's everything okay? Are you alright?" Lith asked. Kamila had never called him during her working hours just to chat.
"That's my line! We are getting reports of monster tribes popping up like mushrooms. The central command is revoking all leave until the matter is resolved."
"Are you saying the whole north is affected? Not only the Kellar region?" Lith could see from the hologram that she was pacing around what looked like a smoking area.
"Not just the north, but the whole Kingdom. Or rather, according to a friend of mine in the foreign affairs department, the same is happening to all of our neighbors. To make matters worse, some of the reports say the monsters are abnormal."
"Abnormal how?"
Kamila checked her surroundings to make sure she was still alone before answering.
"Some seem to be more powerful, others more intelligent, and a few both. The information is considered strictly confidential so as to not spread panic. At least until the central command can confirm the claims, so you heard nothing from me."
"Actually, you may hear about it from me soon. My warg case falls into the worst case scenario. I'll give you a full report as soon as I finish examining the corpse I collected."
"I don't care about a full report. When I call from my personal amulet, I'm your girlfriend, not your handler. I want to know if you are all right or not, you dummy!" Lith's lack of care for his own well being irked Kamila to no end.
"Oh, sorry. I'm perfectly fine. The warg I faced was completely different from what I expected, but overall it wasn't much. I'll call you later, Baroness I've-got-a-stick-up-my-ass is in sight." Lith put the amulet away before landing on the western wall.
Enja was waiting for him along with the soldiers. She was wearing the blue shirt and brown pants which made up the uniform of the city guard. On her sleeve, there was the insignia of a captain while an enchanted blade rested at her side.
The situation was much better than he had expected after looking at the Baroness' stern face. Aside from the destroyed watchtowers, there was no significant damage.
"Thank you so much!" Several guards offered him their hands.
"Thank the gods the attack stopped almost as soon as you left. Otherwise we would have lost a lot more men." Said a middle aged sergeant whose uniform was covered in dust and dirt.
"You saved our lives by blocking all those spells. Your powers must be unparalleled." Said a young guard who gave Lith a deep bow.
"Why did you disobey your orders?" The Baroness looked relieved to see the morale so high, yet she wanted to understand if Lith's actions had lessened or aggravated the carnage.
"The enemy wasn't in sight, there was nothing I could do by staying on the walls."
"Is that true?" She asked the guards who promptly nodded.
"It was a nightmare. An invisible enemy kept raining death on us from thin air. We were like fish in a barrel, waiting for the slaughter." Said the sergeant.
"There's no such thing as invisible enemies. Warg can use each other as relay points for their spells. It was only a matter of finding their sentry and kill it to stop the attack." It wasn't actually that simple, but spreading the news of mutated monsters in a city under winter lockdown was a recipe for disaster.
"Excellent work, Ranger Verhen. Please follow me." The Baroness made way without waiting for his reply. Lith could tell that all the angry façade and the captain dress up was for the troops.
Enja was good at bluffing, but not good enough to make him fail to notice that she had some urgent matters to discuss. The city lord would never expose herself for a small skirmish. To be where the crossfire could start again at any moment, she had to have a problem that couldn't wait.
Otherwise she would have just summoned him to her office. Enja walked down the stairs to the base of the wall, where a stagecoach was waiting for them. After a short trip, the carriage stopped in front of the city morgue.
It was a one story stone building. The ground floor was furnished as a waiting room for the relatives of the deceased and the underground floor was insulated to keep the bodies in a cold and dry environment.
Lith noticed a couple of guards were standing behind the double doors leading to the lower level. They tensed up when the entrance opened, but relaxed the moment they saw the Baroness.
The basement was neat and orderly. Metal scaffolds which held corpses covered by black blankets were placed along the walls. Most of them were empty, Lith counted a dozen bodies.
Three metal slabs occupied the center of the room, but they weren't enough to deal with the recent events. Several stretchers were lined up next to the slabs, and each one carried a body.
"The ones on the scaffolds are the victims from the city wall." The Baroness walked to the nearest one and uncovered a couple of corpses. Lith nodded, recognizing the damages an amateurish fireball could cause.
"The ones on the slabs guarded the west city gate. Please, tell me what you see." Lith's eyes sparked with interest. The attack site was far from the gate. He removed the blanket from the stretcher, revealing a butchered corpse.
Someone had tried to cover the claw wounds with first magic, but fire could never tear flesh that way and only made the marks on the bones more evident.
