01-11-2010, 10:05 PM
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 He smiled at her and nodded slowly. He was glad she was willing to assist him. It still seemed a little unreal: where had this woman come from? It seemed odd that she should arrive just as they made their departure. Ordained, perhaps? Some people might say that his spirit had guided this into happening, but that seemed a laughable notion to the alpha. If spirits could guide events from the grave...well, there were a lot of dead people, and a lot of killers would find themselves in the grave much sooner than they usually did. Obviously...he would have plenty of wolves attacking him from beyond if that were the case...even if he wasn't particularly vicious as warring wolves went, as the leader of a successful warpack, he would have his share of curses, he was certain. "Sounds fair to me," he began gently, unsure of whether the answers would bring any peace for her, or for him. "The earliest event we know of that relates to his death was the arrival of four wolves at our pack, the Snow-capped Pine. They seemed friendly enough, joined us for a drink...seemed to be the fighting sort, like us: people who had to compete for their lands and their way of life. Not common everywhere, of course, but when you get lots of wolves together it becomes more common...the Pine's got about fifty members, which it needs to defend its lands, and which in turn makes standing and fighting necessary, since fifty people can't easily pick up and move." His voice had taken an explanatory tone as he diverged toward a tangent...Skoll had always described Souls' wolves as being somewhat tame in their attitudes towards violence, which explained why the violent few had such a heyday there, not meeting much in the way of resistance. He didn't know how much Tayui would already know, or how barbaric they'd look if he didn't take the time to paint a more complimentary picture of his home. Better safe than sorry, though...somehow, her bearing made him want to win her respect, he felt like it was worth earning. "Anyway, they didn't look to unusual. All of them were pretty big, like you'd expect of fighters, even the smallest was a bit over seven-and-a-half feet, though they ranged a lot in age, the youngest being two or three and the oldest being eight or nine. Anyway, they introduced themselves as Varn an' Muaru an' Soro an' Asmodai, and we sat down with them and drank...we'd looted some booze from the city earlier in the day. I guess the youngest one wasn't used to drinking, because he loosened up pretty fast, ended up spillin' that they were after a guy named Skoll. The older ones tensed up right quick, and we knew something was up. Being leader I got up and had at them first, but the dozen or so Pine wolves at the fire weren't far behind. Well, these four fought like you wouldn't believe. It was like we had four of Skoll right there fighting us at once. I killed the oldest one, and the biggest one got dragged down by our numbers. The two young ones retreated, and managed to kill a few of my subordinates as they went. Never thought I'd regret my size...you know, I can't move around so fast, I had no hope of catching up to them." He shook his head. That was the first real puzzle piece he had regarding this whole thing. "Sent my beta with a host of warriors to chase, but the bastards barred the pass where he'd have followed, and the pursuit was called off. We couldn't get there in time, and could only hope that 'old gold' could handle himself. Next I heard of it, Aivyr was saying something about 'trade secrets' and that Skoll had gotten himself killed by the one called Asmodai. Best I can figure, and I suppose it makes sense, Skoll fought the same way they did and they didn't like it. Not sure if the killers would have spilled where they came from, but I thought someone from Skoll's pack might know more about just how the actual fighting went down here. Someone who knows better than a friend of a friend of a friend, heh..." it wasn't that he didn't trust Aivyr, or Lubomir, but he didn't know Aivyr as well as he should, and he'd never even seen Lubomir. Hearing it straight from someone who was there, though...well, he didn't know if Tayui qualified, but he'd like to hear it from someone who was here when it happened, even if she wasn't watching the fight itself. |