SWNOVELS Chapter Assessment - part 1
Her body is spent from no sleep, aching from being hung by her arms for the last nineteen hours, but Tyra has been working hard on the healing.
She gets to the river that runs close to the edge of the pack land, before going any further, shifting into her skin side, she hides the tracker, the area is well known for its cave system, so she’s hoping hiding it there, will lead anyone using it, to a reasonable dead end.
All pups are banned from the cave system, it’s easy to get lost in there, and it’s so damp scent trails get washed away; however, her father taught her to not only navigate this cave system, but in all the ones nearby, she feels comfortable in.
The river is deep, fast flowing, white foam forming around the rocks, kicking up debris and silt, all of which help hide her footsteps, it’s a good job this is the end of December and not June, any silt dislodged will be hidden by the tumbling water, but it doesn’t matter, her heart is light as she re-enters the water, for the first time since she came back, she has a taste of freedom again, however brief.
The cool waters soothe her limbs as she moves through it, staying in wolf form aids healing; the water isn’t yet the treacherous waters in Spring, people think Autumn is the most dangerous time, but in Spring when the snow melts it would be easy to be dragged downstream, but still the river’s rough waters feed her energy rather than draining it, she revels in being one with the force of nature.
If she were in human form, she’d be grinning, with no member of the pack around to see her relaxed and happy she could express her emotions.
She continues forward until she can hear the thundering waterfall, calling out its warning telling people the cliffs are close.
Taking the river has masked her scent, it’s in the air but dissipating quickly, but nothing to follow on the ground, the last scent she left was when she circled the entrance to the underground cave system near to where the tracker is hidden.
Shifting into human form she tightens the clips on her pack, before spraying the human scent bottle into her hands, running it all over her hands and body, while it looks like perfume, it holds a scent-masking liquid, although her legs and feet are untreated, still in the water, the scent left will be heavily reduced.
Jumping she catches the branch of an overhanging tree, pulling herself up, her shoulders not yet fully healed, complain but after months of intense training, her body responds automatically to her demands.
Realistically, they are still not as sore as they should be, Tyra has been doing a sterling job repairing the damage from yesterday, she jumps between trees until she is in the one closest to the cliff.
Balancing carefully on the branch she reached out getting a handhold on the rock face, she scaled the cliff, to get to a small cave about thirty-six feet up (twelve meters), moving to the back of the cave, she took off her pack, hiding her dummy weapons and the uniform she has to wear for phase two, she shifts back to her wolf, curling into a tight ball, sleep takes her.
As the last of the sunset's warm orange glow leaves the sky, she wakes, rested, body fully repaired, shaking out her fur drives any sleep away, creeping towards the edge of the cave she sniffs the air, the smell of winter is in the air, with little to no cloud, the moon will be bright, a good night to run in, not so great for hiding and hunting, but best of all, no smell of any wolves close.
Shifting, she puts on her cloak, it’s dark and adds to the camouflage, but it’s been adapted to have pockets and additional clips with strings which means it can, depending on what’s in the pockets, be pulled into a ball for when she shifts into her wolf.
She was taught to sew, not to make clothes, but to deal with any medical emergency when she was on her own, but one skill has two uses.... learning through trial and error to adapt items to work for her when she was living alone, she’s carried the skill on.
Taking the thin rope she packed, she sorts through the stones in the cave, finding similar weighted ones and tying them carefully in the moonlit, she makes three bolas before slipping them into pockets in the cloak.
Putting on the pack and spraying the scent mask again, she climbs carefully down the cliff before shifting and loping off into the night away from the pack land.
Tonight, she ran thirty easy miles in wolf form far enough away that it’s unlikely they’ll travel this far out into no-mans-land, but a higher risk of rogues, plus logic says people stay close to borders so going further out is safer.
Rogues don’t worry her, she searches for half an hour before, finding a suitable den for her to stay in, dumping her pack, she heads out to hunt and eat in her wolf form.
For thirty hours, Toni revels in the peace of being alone, giving her an internal calmness that has been missing since she came back, spending almost all her time in wolf form, she feels herself inwardly relaxed and smiling at the squirrels darting away from her, giving them a half-hearted chase, almost feeling like a puppy, but like all good things, it doesn’t last.
It takes her less than six hours at a nice steady trot, to get back, but it’s a pace she can keep up for days without tiring, and it still gives her time to pick up the dummy weapons and be ready for stage two, the invading force, without rushing or being on edge, calmness is key.
If she could have lived like that permanently, she’d be happy, it’s not feasible but a girl can still dream, but the last two days have left her recharged and relaxed.
Hunting, sleeping and running freely in no-mans-land, with no one to control her actions, was heaven.
She wasn’t sure how well Robert and Michael would do, but she’d go into the next phase well-fed, rested and in top form.
Too many fail to realise the true potential of their wolf because they don’t let it out enough or keep it tightly controlled, calling on it only in times of need.
Living a balanced life means your wolf is far stronger, something her father drilled into her as a young child.
Picking up the tracker, there were clear tracks that the location had been visited by one guard group, but the cave system is so extensive, that not finding her was a real possibility, plus caves distort signals.
Smelling the ground, she could tell it was Delta Cole, he was always the one that crossed her path almost every time she came back from hunting, walking with her back to the pack house, leering at her, he creeped her out.
She’s almost one hundred per cent sure he’s been tasked with trying to gain her affection or getting her to submit to him so that he can be her chosen one, Toni’s job is to show he’s not, he’s cruel, using bullying to get his way, traits the Alpha liked and she detests.
The irony is, that she has to play the part of a cruel, distant punisher in this pack, all the traits she hates, but it’s not who Toni is deep down, acting that way makes her feel sick, managing to build a wall in her head that keeps that part of her locked away, to assuage the guilt she feels.
But then she has rules to guide her and this one, she works on when she can.
‘Rule number Two – Cultivate your reputation, let it be worse than who you are, in doing so, you will never have to be as cruel as your reputation and fewer people will choose to challenge you, for fear your reputation is real’
Although she’s sure that isn’t who she is, no matter her reputation, who she actually is, isn’t clear either.
The only time she was free to be herself was when she was living alone and that life was all about surviving, for the year she lived in Deadfalls she guesses it was mostly her, but even there, she wasn’t able to be the kind of kid she saw in families, just too busy pretending to be a weak pack wolf.
Her time with James though, on their mini-adventures had been fun, when they snuck out at nights or days off, happy, laughing.
Those memories support her now, there may be just a year of them, well a little longer with James as she befriended him as a ‘rogue’ to start, but that’s what she focuses on when the images of the life she’s being forced into, come to her.
Tyra huffs at her loudly, Toni’s thoughts are invading hers, and it makes Toni smile it’s her simple way of telling her to concentrate, but she’s right, they are close to the border and they need to focus on the assessment.
After the start of this assessment, Cole showed his hand in trying to control her and forcing her to take the ‘punishment’ naked, he’s clearly in with the Alpha and the fact that it’s always him that is assigned to her but never when she’s fighting, means the Alpha is singling him out, she’s known that for a while.
Instead, she had watched him fighting to assess his style, she needed to be confident she could beat him.
As her watch buzzes to signal its midday, she crosses over the pack line in human form and runs quietly bow at the ready, to her first planned area to defend, she’s so sure that the tracker is being used, then she knows Delta Cole will eventually turn up and he’s her first target, take him out of the game, piss him off.
Lying quietly, it takes less than 10 minutes after she’s in place for Cole and his sidekick Eric to turn up with a hand-held device that they are referring to, behind him are the remaining nineteen warriors in his squad.
Drawing out four arrows, fake silver-tipped ones, she stills herself, firing in quick succession, her wrist monitor and theirs register the kills of Cole, Eric and their two closest cronies, the look on Cole’s face is perfect, he’s furious and Toni cannot help but grin, not that anyone can see her hidden in the scrub.
The remaining seventeen stream for the path, using trees for cover, there is only one path up or down, all they have to do is stop her as she heads back down, which is why they foolishly didn’t leave anyone at the bottom, but it will take ten minutes of hard running for them to reach her hiding point and she won’t be there.
Creeping forward, she heads for the jump-off point, down a cliff, out of sight of everyone, rappelling down and taking the rope with her, she crushes her tracker.
“Oops,” she whispers smiling “How clumsy!”
Twenty minutes later she’s making her way through the forest, searching for her next target, rapid gunfire echoes in the silence of the forest, she moves quickly, but silently toward the sound.
Robert is being overpowered there are six ‘dead’, four restraining him about to cuff him and three in reserve around him, ready to jump in, a total of seven warriors still standing, plus Delta George.
She can’t see the other seven, but for now, she focuses on those visible.
Pulling herself into a tree, she moves quickly to be above Delta George, she hooks her legs around the lowest branch, letting gravity swing her around like a pendulum, grabbing his head in one smooth action, she runs the dummy knife across his neck cover, the kill registered.
Releasing her legs and tucking low, landing in a crouched position she throws three daggers well to the right of the targets, three deaths registered, Robert grabs the gun again and shoots the remaining four as they close the distance towards her.
They nod to each other.
“The others are dead”
Robert winks and they move away in different directions back into the shadows, eight kills to her she thinks, two Deltas and six warriors.
Seventeen warriors from Cole’s group are loose and leaderless, and potentially the squad of Royal Guards that’s a substantial force still to evade, but they have to find her first and she’s small, light and good in trees!
Staying nimble and quiet, she starts moving towards the pack house, on the lookout for signs of the Royal pack members, and importantly Delta Alek.
Cutting the leadership is tactically strong, but she knows the Royal pack guards are going to be the harder ones to take on, specifically their Delta, but she’s made her list, and unlike the human story of Santa, doesn’t need to check it twice.
Getting closer to the pack house, she’s still not yet found evidence of the Royal pack or Delta Alek but can see glimpses of the bells from her perch in the trees if she were controlling a squad that didn’t know the land, it would be sensible to hold them closer, wait for the prey to come to them, set the trap, she has the scent of the Royal pack so she knows they are close, but not clearly able to determine the precise direction, guessing they are spread out.
Climbing higher until she can see a clear path through the branches, she fires off one of the ‘normal’ arrows, letting it fly high and to the left, it lands in trees about two hundred and ten feet away (seventy meters) but sends birds flying, the noise of their warning calls echo in the forest.
Eyes immediately on the forest below, she sees movement slow and measured by people trained to be stealthy, she remains hidden head lowered to avoid anyone seeing her eyes, the biggest giveaway of a camouflaged person.
One Royal guard passes too close and looks up, clearly the scent masking perfume is wearing off, or had Delta Alek explained about her tree habit, but he does the briefest double take as he sees her, she uses it to her advantage, dropping down, slamming her hand over his mouth using one of the remaining daggers drawing it over his throat before plunging it quickly into what should be his heart, the hits registered.
Clamping her hand on his mouth for ten long seconds, no faked death noises needed, she moves off, deeper into the woods, it won’t take long for them to find him or her trail.
Heading to the stream, she applies a little extra scent masking spray after kicking up the mud to make it look like she’s entered the water, she gets back into the trees just as she hears the guard group coming, at the stream they split into groups five go upstream and five down, but still no Delta and the remaining nine warriors.
Holding her position hyper-aware that she saw only half the Royal pack warriors, she readies herself to move.
Shots ring out to the rear of her, a good time to move, although she still needs to find Delta Alek, just as she’s about to jump down he steps out from hiding, had she done so, it would have been into him and his nine waiting warriors, game over for sure, she’s talented, but not that good and without being able to shift she knows she would struggle to outrun them.
The Delta signals for them to spread out towards the noise he’s moving with them, middle of the group, she gets off two arrows, one silver-tipped and one wolfsbane, to be sure of the kill, but both hit him with enough accuracy to register him as dead from either, firing two more, she picks off his trailing warriors, before turning and racing back towards the Town, finally launching herself into the tree’s once more.
Moving between the trees she makes her way higher into one of the taller trees, knowing the Royal pack is hunting her now, their Delta had been ‘killed’ and she heard the soft movements and calls, coordinating their approach.
From the position in the tree tops, she can see the bells hanging from the bar set up, balancing and drawing out a normal arrow, she fires hitting the Green bell, hearing it clang loudly in the quiet of the forest, the leadership turn.
Jumping to a nearby tree and swinging by the branches as if they were a trapeze, she lets herself drop through branches between trees before hitting the floor and sprinting to the bells, one of the warriors hard on her heels, she feints left, getting there before she can be challenged, after all, she grins inwardly, the terms were to ring the bell, not ring it by hand.