Lone wolf: chapter 2

2

The wolves ran as hard as they could without committing themselves to death, because their news was urgent. Their
eyes had long since been adapted to the darkness of the night, so they easily dodged random trees and other debris.They had
found a fast pace that they could easily hold for hours, but they were only required to run for a short time. Twenty minutes
after they had left the town, they crossed their pack boundry. They had only ten minutes left to move the pack toward safety.

Running to the pack's central meeting field, Trey let out a long howl. The eerie call rung throughout the forest,
singing mournfully through the trees anouncing that there was some dire emergency.Trey's howl was cought by other
members of the pack nearby, and was answered by everyone that was in the pack. Soon, there was an entire chorus of howls
erupting in the forest. It broke off suddenly at once.

In under three minutes, everyone had arrived and was shifting to their bipedal counterparts as they came. There were
shapes huddled in a large circle, morphing shape and getting larger by the minute. Anyone that had walked in at that moment
would have panicked from the sight of the half human figures aparently snarling and growling together. Trey had already been in his human form for a short while and others were doing the same so that they could converse more easily and clearly.

A large male sepped forward, half done with the shift. " why did you call us here ,Trey?!" The anger in his eyes was
reflected in his smooth and threatening voice. " You called us from a big hunt, we were about to take down some big elk."

Trey delayed answering until he had everyone's full attention. When he thought that everyone was listening, he
began. " Kaeara went to the village earlier tonight, because she was told that there was a town meeting tonight. This meeting
was about the "dangerous animals in the woods". I followed her. They called in some experts, and they will be at the village in
a few minutes. They wouldn't come this late unles they were planning on doing something. The pack will have to burn or
destroy all pictures of their human forms, and leave as soon as possible."

After his speech there was complete and total silence. Then, a young pup began to cry. The pup's mother hugged
him close and argued. " But we can't move, we worked so hard to be able to live here like this. We don't even know if they
know what we are!"

There were many shouts of agreement from the pack, until Antel stepped forward. Antel was the Alpha male of this
pack. The only reason that he had let Trey speak was because he was his son, and trusted him. He knew that Trey wouldn't do
all this unless he had a good reason to be afraid. "Trey, why do you think that we have any reason to fear for ourselves?" His
calm hard voice had brought Trey to a more reasonable level.

Trey thought back to the village, analyzing everything thouroughly. When he found what he was searching for, his
heart went ice cold. "Wolf's bane. I smelled Wolf's bane just before we left."
There were loud gasps and cries from the crowd. The stench of fear swirled around in a powerful miasma, nearly dripping onto
the ground. Wolf's bane did not grow in the Americas, it was only native to small areas of Europe. If Wolf's bane was here, it
could only mean one thing: Hunters.

The Hunters were the only creatues that werewolves feared. Hunters were fearsome human warriors that were trained
from birth to track down and kill werewolves. They were the monsters in the closet that scared young werewolf pups into
behaving.The "tradition" began in the early Middle Ages when rabies had no cure, and was on the rise. Rabid werewolves
killed and were killed in the millions before the 1800's. After this time, werewolves were becoming more and more rare, esisting
only in small groups and solitaries spread sparsly over the entire world. With the decline of the werewolves, hunters also
became quite rare. They were still the only masters in their trade, but they were dying out.

Both groups knew that the other was still out there, and prepared for the inevitable dying of one of their kinds. The
Offspring of Luna, the werewolves, forbid themselves from attacking humans to keep their scent better hidden. The hunters
bid their time, passing themselves off as bounty hunters as the old died and the new young became few and far between.
Over time, werewolves dwindled to under a half dozen groups totaling about eight or nine hundred, though there were still
many millions of hidden lone werewolves throughout the world. The pack at Lupine had lost contact from the others one by
one, over the last seventy five years. They suspected that they were the last living pack of werewolves on the planet.

Moans and cries of despair still circulated through the pack when Antel spoke again. " We must move as fast as
possible. No packing. We will need to burn our houses and the forest to try and keep them off our tails." His tone left no room
for discussion. Everyone scrambled to their houses to begin the blaze. Tall flames burned high over the trees when the last
returned to the group. Antel once again took the stage. " The pack will split up into small family units, and meet at the
mountain at sunrise. May we all live to see the Goddess shine another night."