It's early morning and the sun hasn't even come out, but somehow I've managed to drag myself out of bed, headed to the camps to look for Huskar.

I manage to find him pretty quickly alongside the rest of the hunters, already strapping on some leather armours over their rough clothes.

"Hey, Mars!" Huskar calls out as he waves me over, getting everyone's attention.

"I'm surprised you actually made it, most cubs your age don't have the willpower to be getting out of bed this early". He says, roughly patting my shoulder as the others walk over.

"So this is the cub that messed with the chief, huh?",  "Hah, heard the chief didn't stop drinking all night after that one", "Glad to have you with us cub, hope you can keep up!" a few of the others speak up, all just as roughly patting me on the back.

 

After a brief exchange of introductions, Huskar tells them to go back to checking on their equipment and leads me inside a particularly intimidating tent; Twice as wide as any other, surrounded by wooden spikes with a warg standing guard by the entrance.

 

The inside of the tent is filled with racks of weapons and leather armour, and although they looked relatively basic, they could probably outfit about 50 or so wargs with all this.

 

"well you've already got your own sword there, so let's get you some armour fitted then."

Huskar says, walking over to one of the racks of leather and pulling off a set for me to use. There's one pauldron for the primary shoulder, a pair of vambraces for the wrists, and a large thick leather collar to protect the neck. He shows me how to put it all on and makes sure it's properly secured before we walk back out to the others.

 

 

When everyone's set we gather up and head out of the campsite at a jog to warm up, then it becomes a run, then we're sprinting as we move through the long grass.

Huskar comes up beside me as we're running.

"Mars! Do you remember to run on fours?" He asks.

"Not at all", I quickly respond.

"Great, just try not to land on your face or shoulders if you fall!" He says, suddenly pushing me forward.

"Wait wha-", I don't even get to respond before I tip over.

[But why!?]

 

I lose all sense of balance as I topple forward. my mind is telling me to pull my arms up to protect my face, but my instincts quickly takes over, throwing my hands down in front to meet the earth. I feel my claws come out and dig in as I spring right back up, pulling my back legs under me and doing the same with them. My mind soon catches up, taking over and getting me into a rhythm. 

"Hah I knew it! Even if you forget, your body never will!" Huskar's shouting through the wind ad he laughs to himself.

[Oh I'll kill him.]

 

Seeing me get into my stride the rest of the group quickly follows suit, throwing themselves forward to their fours as we race off to the tree line.

 

 

The group's a lot more organised than I'd thought they'd be, stalking unseen through the trees as they hunt, directing prey towards one another, and more often than not just slowly surrounding them completely. They're a lot like real wolves this way.

They make sure to get me in there too, as they demonstrate their techniques, often getting me to finish the kills as Huskar shows me how to use my sword.

 

By the end of it we'd managed to catch about five large birds, a strange cross between a chicken and a cassowary.

I help carry one back to the hunting tent and return the armour before another hunter shows me to a bloody table at the other end. I worry for a moment before he tells me to put the bird I'm carrying on to the table, and briefly teaches how to butcher it. I do mess up a few cuts but I get the hang of it; They even give me a few cuts to keep for myself which I happily take.

 

When I leave the tent Hati is already waiting outside, chatting with Huskar as they laugh.

She catches me walking out and waves me over.

"Hey Mars! Huskar here was just telling me how you learned to run on four, huh? I didn't think you'd pull that off so quickly, you did well." she chuckles, rubbing my head

"Yeah, it was quite the surprise to me to.", I say, staring daggers at Huskar.

He just rubs the back of his neck and laughs awkwardly, trying to act innocent.

 

I pass Hati the cuts meat I'd just gotten and ask her if she could cook something from them, making sure to let her know I won't be back until later before I walk off; Headed to the edge of the camp to practice what Huskar had shown me.

 

 

 

 

 *   *   *

 

"Now what? We've already come to the border."

"We can't follow them through beastman territory, we should be turning back!"

 

"Not yet!" I bark at my companions

"That hunter assured us that these two were genuine high-pelts, describing them both as having the best coats he'd ever seen, you know how much money we stand to make if his story checks out!?"

 

They both perk up a bit at that, easily tempted by the promise of gold.

"Look, how about we just go a little bit further, these tracks aren't that old and we could probably catch up with them before they get too far"

"Fine" they consent, but we're turning back at the first sign of trouble".

 

We walk for another couple days, carefully keeping an eye out for any beastmen when we spot some smoke in the distance.

"With only that many fires, must be a small clan, right? Do you think the two stopped here?"

"Well I'll try to take a look" I say, pulling out a telescope."

 

I get a much better look at the camp like this but there's not much to see other than tents. I'm looking around for a while before my eye's drawn to some subtle glints at the edge of the camp, it's a young beastman swinging around a small sword.

"Well shit there he is. That hunter really wasn't lying, the pelt on that thing looks top quality."

"well yeah but it's a bit late now."

"Maybe, but at least we'll still be able to tell one of the lords about the camp. They're always paying for good raiding targets, but I'm sure they'll be all the more interested in the two high pelts staying there."

"That's assuming we can make it out of here without being spotted, yeah."

"shut up and mark the map."

 

And with that the party changes direction, headed east for the border forts.