The End

by Straiya

An expanded ending for certain anti-heroic wolf written so all could behold the tale of what happened during the final fleeting hours after his betrayal in all its tragicomic splendour.

This was originally supposed to be the first chapter of a much larger multi-chapter fare that I currently have in the works but as my ideas moved on I found myself curiously reluctant to relegate something into which I poured so much of my time and effort to the endless nihility of my 'unused drafts' folder. Ergo A few hours and some tinkering later and here it is for all to enjoy as one-shot.

For those so inclined feel free to press on but know that I hold no responsibility for any feels that may be given unto thee.

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The End

"Why aren't we firing?"

The air was filled the sounds of battle. The cries of soldiers as they charged forward to meet the enemy, the clash of swords and the anguished howls of those who fell to the small band of Kung Fu warriors who pushed inexorably forward, unperturbed by the waves of brave wolf soldiers. The wolves' commander stood aboard the flagship watching helplessly as wave after wave of his men were cut down right before his eyes. All good soldiers willing to fight and to die for their pack being sent to slaughter like defenceless pups sent straight into the jaws of a rampaging tiger. The sight of it left him numb, but what else was there to do?

Breathless from the guilt and impending dread that sat heavily in his gut he turned to his master and gave the only reply he could.

"They've taken out our gunners sir!" he cried. "Their getting close!"

It was the worst possible situation he could imagine and by the look in Lord Shen's eyes the Wolf Boss could see that he too knew how desperate the situation had become.

"Fire! F-Fire at them!" he ordered, a panicked madness burning behind his pinprick pupils.

Turning back to the battle the wolf looked upon his brothers, clamouring over the barricade of wrecked ships that blocked the inlet and his fleet's progress into the open waters of the harbour. He knew well that with only a single blast from the weapon he could easily clear away both the barricade and the approaching enemy but to do so would certainly kill dozens if not hundreds of his own soldiers.

"B-but sir we'll kill our own," he called back, desperately clinging to the hope that he'd misheard Lord Shen's instructions.

Alas the order came again exactly as before yet now thick with the clear treble of panic, and to even the surprise of the wolf himself, actual fear, "I said fire at them, FIRE!"

At those words the wolf's mind ground to a halt. There was no honouring these orders. There was no sense in them. No commander worth his pelt would command such a thing.

With a steely gaze of determination, the wolf turned to face his superior whose eyes he could see were no longer that of the inspirational idealist he had once called his friend but that of a madman so hell-bent on a cause he himself probably no longer understood and gave the only response his honour would allow.

"No."

At once Shen's eye's flared with a fury that was as terrifying as it was insane, but the Wolf Boss stood his ground unafraid of the consequences of his defiance. These were his wolves, his soldiers. Many of them had families, and although there was no doubt they knew the risks, they all still trusted their boss to do all he could to bring them back in one piece and he would sooner die than betray their trust in his leadership. No matter what Lord Shen thought of the situation, there had to be another way and he knew it.

Unfortunately his master did not seem to share his sentiments, giving nary the briefest flinch of warning before he sent a hail of knives hurtling toward the unwary canine. Faster than he could blink the wolf suddenly found himself reeling from the impact as the blades plunged into his armour. Staggering backward with a grunt of pain, he felt his back knock against the wooden railing of the deck and he was sent tumbling straight over side.

With a loud splash the wolf hit the surface. Apart from the sudden roar of the water in his ears and the unpleasant liquid chill of the water seeping in under his armour the he perceived very little of what happened next. Just one blinding flash accompanied by a horrendous, deafening boom, like the thunder clap of a nearby lightning strike. The next thing he knew he was floating on his back barely conscious and unable to hear anything above the ringing in his ears. Numerous points of sharp, stabbing pain down his lower left side made it clear that his armour had not been enough to stop the blades and beneath it he could feel a peculiar liquid warmth beginning to spread from the wounds, permeating the air with the rusty metallic odour of his own blood.

There was no telling how long he lay there in a daze, only dimly aware of the world around him lacking neither the strength nor the will to open his good eye and dare to look upon the aftermath of Shen's betrayal. When finally something did happen it took him several seconds to recognise the sudden feeling of pressure from a single muscular arm wrapping itself about his shoulder and his keen canine nostrils were flooded the warm familiar aroma of wet-dog as he felt himself being pulled through water. From there an undeterminable amount of time passed by before he felt himself being roughly and painfully hauled out of the water, with a great degree of difficulty it seemed, by a single pair of paws. At least that was the impression he got now that the ringing in his ears had subsided sufficiently enough for him to hear the distant, muffled cursing of a deep growly voice close by his ears.

Barely a minute later he was on his back again, this time on the cold, hard stone of the waterside pathway. At once the stricken wolf could smell the ominous combination of cannon powder and charred fur hanging thickly in the air. All around him he could hear the clanking of metal and the clacking sound of claws against stone accompanied by the barks of commanders trying to bring some kind of order among the confused and panicked foot-soldiers. Almost immediately he heard the paws start moving swiftly over the cobblestone toward him and his nostrils were assaulted by a vast bouquet of different scents that despite a certain individual quality were all distinctly canine in source.

"Holy crap it's the boss!" he heard someone exclaim. "Geez what the hell happened to 'em?"

"Dunno, but he doesn't look too good," another similarly growly but somewhat younger sounding voice answered. "I thought he was dead but when I got a good look at 'em the stubborn old dog was still breathing so I hauled his butt up here as quick as I could. I wish there was somethin' more I could do but I'm a soldier not a healer."

"And what, you're just gonna stand there and hope he magically gets better on his own? If you can't do somethin' go find someone who can, now!" the first voice barked.

"Uh, sure thing sir!" the other voice replied quickly followed by the sound of clacking footsteps moving swiftly away into the distance.

After this the Boss heard a soft shuffling noise somewhere close to his right ear and he soon became aware of a single leather bound paw taking a gentle hold of the left side of his face while another began to pat somewhat roughly against the other side of his head.

"Hey Boss you in there? C'mon ya hairy old mongrel, beauty sleeps over, the pack's in trouble and there's no way I'm lettin' you sleep this one out!"

At once the stricken wolf forced his one good eyelid to open and slowly carefully swivelled his head just enough to grant him a decent view of what turned out to be one of his pack members kneeling over him. Although the concern was clear in his voice the scratched and dented battle mask obscuring his features left only his low, wilting ears to betray his true emotions.

The Wolf Boss knew right away that he recognised the other wolf's smell and from the fact that he was wearing two spiked shoulder pads he could tell it was one of his captains.

"Dammit, all these years and you wet-eared mutts still don't get it do you?" The Boss grumbled weakly with a small toothy grin. "You know I like to sleep-in on weekends."

Compelled by his natural instinct to take charge along with a good hefty dose of his trademark bloody mindedness the Boss tried to force himself up onto his feet. To his credit he did manage to haul himself upright for just a few fleeting seconds before the sudden excruciating pain and exhaustion it brought forced him straight down onto his back with a heavy thud.

"Whoa take it easy there boss, the last thing ya' need is to go digging those blades any deeper. Here let me help ya'," the wolf captain remarked as he wrapped an arm around the Boss's shoulder to help move him over to some nearby fishing crates and propped him up in a relatively comfortable position. "Just hold tight here Boss, I've already sent one of the guys out to find some help and he should be back any second now. If ya' want something done just give the word and I'll make it happen."

The Wolf Boss sighed, what could be worse than having to suffer the humiliation of having his pack see him sitting here on his ass, crippled and helpless like this? After all his years of unquestioning loyalty surely the least that damn peacock could have done was grant him a swift and merciful blade to the throat. That was an insult he could scarcely understand let alone bring himself to ever forgive, but what hurt far more than that or any kind physical pain was knowing that in the moment of reckoning his best friend, the one person in whom he had placed all his trust along with the lives of himself and his men, had betrayed them all without a second thought just to save his own damn skin.

"How many made it out?" he managed to ask, his voice still hoarse from the effort trying to stand.

"Honestly, I'm trying my best not to think about that sir," the captain answered solemnly. "All those ships and soldiers crammed together in nice straight line down a narrow inlet. You do the math if you want, it's damn good thing I don't know how."

"Hey look at it this way, every wolf down there had just as much chance of surviving as you did and you're still standing here in one piece," the Boss said managing a small, hopefully reassuring smile.

"Wouldn't count on it," the other wolf remarked gruffly. "Lucky for me there was about fifty of my own men standing between me and the weapon when it happened. All I can remember is a bright light and a helluva bang then the next thing I know I'm floating down the river surrounded by a thousand pieces of crispy fried dog."

Immediately the Wolf Boss felt a sickening ball of guilt begin to weigh heavily in the pit of his stomach, somewhat ashamed of the fact that all he could bring himself to say was a simple worthless, "Dammit."

Much to his surprise he noticed the captain let out a small chuckle before opening his mouth to answer, but before he could say anything both their attentions were drawn quickly and suddenly toward the dock where a sudden almighty bang erupted as the shimmering expanse of the harbour was bathed in the bright red glow of cannon fire. A spectacle followed mere seconds later by several more similar explosions of colour and sound as what sounded curiously like a full volley of Shen's fireballs were sent hurtling noisily toward some unknown target.

"Sounds like one hell of a party," The Wolf Boss said unable to peel his eyes away from the colourful spectacle unfolding just out of view beyond a final line of buildings. "What do ya' think their firing at?"

"No idea, but I'm gonna find out," the captain answered before jumping to his feet and racing over on all fours up to the edge of the bank while dodging in between a number of his brethren who looked on with a similar air of shocked bemusement. When he came back his eyes were wide with a mixture of excitement and apprehension as he reported, "The fleet just opened fire on something in the harbour. Couldn't really see much from here but it must be pretty big 'cause their throwing everything they've got at it."

In return the Boss managed to muster the strength to treat his pack mate to a great, toothy grin of wicked satisfaction as began to imagine the look on Shen's watching as all his grand plans came crashing down around him before they'd even begun. It didn't take long however, before an even louder crash of what sounded like splintering wood accompanied by a flash of bright yellow wiped the smile from his face near instantaneously and he called to the captain with an urgent tremor in his voice, "What about the others? What's happening to the fleet?"

Once again the captain leapt forward to hurry over to the riverbank but this time he was stopped short by another smaller, younger wolf heading in the opposite direction and after watching the two give a short but very animated exchange both dogs hurried over back over the boss's side.

"You're not gonna believe this boss," the captain said quickly before turning to face the other soldier and ordering with a stern tone. "Alright pup tell the boss what ya' told me."

"Uh well," the other wolf began nervously. "I-I don't know how it happened sir but the fleet's being torn apart."

"What! How!" the Boss exclaimed perhaps a little too forcefully as it caused a sudden jolt of pain to stab into his side making him cringe and growl.

"I'm sorry to say it sir but that's what I saw. That's what we all saw. Guess those Kung Fu warriors had bit more up their sleeves than we thought."

"Dammit!" the Wolf Boss growled furiously, ignorant of the pain such an outburst caused him. "Alright pup, you listen to me. I want you to head straight over to the foundry right now, don't let anything or anyone try to stop you, just get there as fast as you can and when you do tell 'em to drop everything and get the heck out of the city while they still can!"

"Yes sir," the soldier answered turning to head away but just as he put his first step forward he was stopped by a yell.

"Wait!" the Boss called out to the young wolf, and as the soldier turned to face him with a perplexed look the Wolf Boss began the excruciating process of reaching over to work at the straps of his right shoulder pad.

After several seconds of gritting his teeth and cursing from the strain of such a seemingly minute action he managed to work it free and panting shallow ragged breaths he held it out in his paw. On it the Red-Eye of Lord Shen shimmered a brilliant dark red the same way it had done for the better part of the last thirty years as a symbol of the Wolf Boss' singular devotion to his master's cause.

"Here take this with you. Show it to Jun and tell him what I told you; he'll know what to do from there," he said through gritted teeth, with just the smallest hint of a smile curling at the edges of his muzzle as he watched the youngster take the symbol in his paws with a look of surprise and awe.

"Don't worry boss I won't let you down, I promise," the young wolf replied giving a deep reverent bow to his master before sprinting away into the night with the Red-Eye clutched tightly in his paw.

Just as the young soldier disappeared from sight an almighty blast of deafening noise tore through the air and shook the ground as the entire harbour was suddenly lit up in a brilliant flash of yellow-white light. A light that shone for several incredible, blinding seconds before fading and giving way to a sudden deathly silence that fell quickly over the harbour.

With a deep breath the Wolf Boss looked slowly over to the captain who returned his grim gaze with a look of solemn resignation.

"I guess this is it," the captain remarked giving a defeated sigh as he reached up to pull away his battle-mask and let it fall to the with loud metallic clatter at his feet. "'Least it was fun while it lasted huh?"

The Wolf Boss said nothing in reply and instead looked away to cast his gaze around at all the surviving wolves who stood about the harbour as they all slowly began to snap out of their collective trance and returned to helping their fallen brethren with a renewed sense of urgency. It really didn't seem fair that after all his people had been through; all the pain and the hunger, the daily struggle for mere survival in the harsh, unforgiving wilderness for more than three decades, that this was how it was to end.

Shen had promised them a future and in return they had given him their all in pursuit of what they had hoped to be something brighter than slowly wasting away as an overlooked and unappreciated relic of a bygone era. Instead all he had brought the pack of proud canine warriors was nothing but misery and dishonour, and as their ancestors looked down on them in silent judgement the Boss couldn't help but feel a cold chill run through his body just thinking about what would happen when the time came, as it surely would soon, for him to answer to them.

"Boss, boss!"

The sudden exclamation snapped the old wolf out of his trance and with a groggy sigh he forced his heavy eyelid open to look over to the captain who once again stared back at him with a face of grave concern that was even more evident now without that bug-eyed mask obscuring his features.

"Calm down ya' stupid mutt I'm still here," the Wolf Boss murmured weakly, watching the other a wolf breath a deep sigh of relief.

"Sorry boss it's just-"

"Hey, save your pity for someone who gives a damn," the Boss grumbled irritably. "You wanna do something for me, go round up anyone who can stand on his own four paws and see if ya' can't join up with the rest of pack."

"But what about the ones who can't, we can't just leave them here?" The other wolf asked while casting a glance over toward the bank where their less injured pack-mates were still busily scouring the wreckage.

Although he knew there was no other choice the thought did little to assuage the terrible taste left in his mouth by what he said next and the shocked frown of the captain gave him as he spoke certainly didn't make it any easier.

"There's nothing we can do for 'em now. If they live, they live and if not it's your job to make sure damn sure the pack can live on to honour their memory."

For several moments the two canines stared at each other in solemn silence, the Wolf Boss deciding to show a strangely uncharacteristic amount of patience by giving his comrade a few seconds to let it all sink in. Unsurprisingly it wasn't long until the hapless mutt finally decided to open his yap and ask the inevitably question that now seemed all there was left to answer.

"What about you, boss?" he asked earnestly. "If they find you here it's a safe bet they'll kill you, and I don't think that panda's gonna wanna make it quick an' painless either."

"If the panda wants his payback so bad he can have it," the old wolf answered before giving a grunt of pain as he tried to straighten himself up into a proper sitting position against hard wooden surface of the crates behind him. Now feeling that he'd let this drag out long enough already he made sure to interrupt before the other wolf could say anything more, "And if ya' wanna say something else you can save it for the afterlife, but I'll warn you now I'm gonna beat the dead out of all of you if this pack's not victory marching its way across half of China by the time you get there."

The captain let out a small laugh before bringing his fist to his chest in a final salute to his master, "You might be hard-ass to the end, but you're still a hell of a dog. It was an honour to fight by your side boss."

"If you're lookin' for kiss goodbye your outta luck mutt. Now get the hell outta here before I decide to drag you all by your tails and hurl you over the walls myself," the Boss growled.

At that the captain cracked a wide grin and spun around to set about gathering the few wolves who could still walk. After several seconds of clamouring around under sternly barked orders the Wolf Boss looked on with a heavy feeling of loss pulling a painful knot in his chest as the last of his men proceeded to leap up onto the rooftops and move quickly away out of sight, leaving him lying alone on the bank.

By now it was clear enough that although the pain alone made it impossible for him to manage any more than the smallest, simplest movements Shen's blades weren't about to kill him anytime soon. All he could do now was sit and stare downstream toward the harbour where what sounded curiously like fireworks had begun to crack and fizzle loudly against the warm golden glow of the rising sun. For a moment he even contemplated whether or not it would be worth the agony of dragging himself out of the shadows just so he could see what had become of Shen and the remainder of his wolves. In the end however he decided it was something he was better off not knowing, which was probably just as well because before long a rapidly building yammer announced the arrival of hundreds of excited locals.

For several moments the old wolf simply sat still and looked on as a small crowd of rabbits, sheep and all manner of other grass munchers begun to filter in from the seaside to gawp at the wreckage and gasp with mawkish surprise at the large number of dead and injured wolves that littered the scene. It was hard to tell if they were more delighted or sickened by the sight of it, but watching them do so was infuriating either way and he was hard pressed to keep his mouth shut until finally the moment arrived when small band of Kung Fu warriors wandered onto the scene to relish the spoils of their victory. Naturally the panda was among them and as the small band drew closer it was to him that the Wolf Boss addressed the words with which he decided to break his silence.

"Dammit, what the heck's it gonna take to kill you?" The old wolf asked in a low gravelly tone.

At once every eye in the vicinity was turned to focus on the lone, one-eyed wolf sitting in the shadows, propped up against a small stack of crates several feet from the bank of the river. Amusingly he noticed several bystanders take several nervous steps backward from him as a collective gasp of surprise emanated from the crowd. Only the Kung Fu warriors alone stood their ground and met the wolf's stare with deep stony glares of sheer hatred, all except the panda who with a look more akin to dumbstruck confusion was the first to speak with a simple exclamation.

"You?"

"Me," the Wolf Boss replied with a grin.

"What are you doing all the way over here?" the panda asked with a distinctly curious tone. "Aren't you and Shen, like, buddies or something."

"Lord Shen was my master, it was my duty to look after him and that's all I ever tried to do." the wolf answered weakly. "We had a pretty good thing going until you came along and screwed everything up. Take a look around tubby. A lot of good soldiers died coz of you. Good men, with friends and families; there all gone coz you just didn't have the decency to be good little panda and just die."

"Hey man, that wasn't me. Shen's the one who fired the weapon," the panda exclaimed defensively.

"Which wouldn't have happened if you hadn't shown up and turned everything to crap!" the Wolf Boss cried out. "Lord Shen was the only one who ever cared about us. About what we did, how hard we worked to keep those snooty old birds safe and they still turned on us the first chance they got. We gave up everything for them and they threw us out on our tails. Lord Shen never gave up on us."

"He was willing to sacrifice dozens of your men without a second thought, just to save his own skin. That doesn't sound to me like he cared very much about you at you all," This time it was the tiger who spoke however in her case it was with a distinctly serious tone.

The Wolf Boss immediately opened his mouth to yell a reply, only to come swiftly to the realisation that he couldn't really think of anything to say to that and instead found himself closing his muzzle with a deep growl of frustration as he treated the tigress to a dark, murderous glare.

"We're wasting our time here Po," The tigress said after a long period of silence. "There's very little we can do for him even if we wanted to. I suggest we try to round up the others before they get away, at least then they can be made to answer for the suffering they have brought upon these people."

Just as she finished the wolf noticed the tiger's eyes suddenly narrow as they fell on something of particular interest, drawing everyone's attention to two new figures approaching from further up the bank.

One was a small, female goat of somewhat advanced age slowly hobbling forward on her walking stick that the Wolf Boss would have readily ignored were it not that he recognised her immediately as the old magic lady that Lord Shen had seemed so particularly fond of. The other was a single young wolf who plodded slowly along beside her, his eyes darting nervously around beneath his mask as the two of them made their way over through the crowd.

"I found a healer for ya' boss," the young wolf said as the two of them drew level with the small band of Kung Fu warriors who stood in a semi circle around his injured master, and with a nervous glance around at them all he proceeded to ask, "Uh, you guys aren't beat us up are you?"

"Way to take a stand there wet-tail," the older wolf remarked irritably before shifting his gaze toward the old goat who he realised with some amusement was now standing eye-level with him for what had to be the first time in more than forty years.

"My goodness, the years have not been kind to you at all have they?" the Soothsayer remarked with an insufferable smirk.

"Cram it ya' old goat," The Wolf Boss replied with an angry growl.

Annoyingly this seemed only to amuse the Soothsayer stared back with a smile and a mischievous glimmer in her bespectacled eyes, "Age is nothing to fear or to hide for it brings great wisdom and many great fortunes to those who choose to embrace it. Only those who fight it are made to suffer the ravages it can bring."

"That so huh? Well how about you come a little closer and I'll show you the kind of ravages a pissed off wolf can bring to old goat who won't shut her mouth," the old wolf said darkly.

"Or perhaps you should take a moment to calm yourself and understand that I am here to help you, but only if you are willing, for once in your life, to swallow that foolish pride of yours and stop trying to pick a fight," The Soothsayer replied before turning to face the Kung Fu warriors to whom she addressed with renewed seriousness. "There is still much to do and many who still need your help. I will take care of him as best I can but his injuries are quite serious and I cannot make any promises. If you have anything more to say I it would be best you say it now and then be on your way."

At first it seemed that the Kung Fu warriors were content to leave things as they were and go but as the others all turned to walk away the Wolf Boss noticed the young panda remained still and instead looked him straight in the eye to ask the one question that on reflection the wolf was only surprised the kid hadn't thought to ask earlier.

"That night, you know, when Shen and you guys attacked the village," he began with a curious but at the same time apprehensive tone. "D-do you think… could anyone else have made it out?"

The wolf's eye immediately narrowed as he treated Po to malicious smirk, "You got lucky. One of these day's your luck's gonna run out, and when it does it's a safe bet you'll wish you'd burned with the rest. Personally, I'm just sorry I won't be there to see it."

"Well that was nice," another one of the warriors, this time with a deep male voice, remarked from seemingly out of nowhere as the rest of the Kung Fu warriors began to turn away and head off into the city.

The wolf watched in silent amusement as Po let out a small dejected sight and made to follow them, pausing only momentarily to take one last look back toward the Wolf Boss who chose to give a parting gesture of his own in which the middle digit of his right paw featured quite prominently. Presumably choosing to take the higher path the panda seemed to ignore it and continued out of sight, leaving the stricken wolf lying at the water's edge surrounded by a small crowd of chattering gawker's none of whom seemed willing to dare coming any closer while the wolf still drew breath.

"Geez boss couldn't ya' at least give the guy a little hope?"

The Wolf Boss looked to the young wolf soldier standing next to him with a single eyebrow raised in mild annoyance and disbelief that one of his own men could possibly be so ignorant, or even worse sympathetic to the circumstances surrounding that one fat bear who barely an hour ago had just got redecorating the waterway with the blood and broken teeth of his brethren.

"What?" the young wolf asked confusedly.

"We burned the buildings so they couldn't hide, burned down the forest so they couldn't run and after that we did more than fifty sweeps of the ashes but Lord Shen still wasn't happy until I sent out a bunch of scouts to the other villages just to prove none of the bears made it out somehow. None of 'em found anything," the Wolf answered in a low growl. "I don't know how he did, but that is one seriously lucky panda."

"Well I still think ya' coulda' cut the guy some slack seein' as he didn't finish you off when he had the chance," the other wolf said to which the Wolf Boss could do little but gape and shake his head with a confused frown.

To his left he heard the soothsayer give a small chuckle, "Such words of mercy from the mouth of a beast of war? And one of such youth might I say."

"Uh, thanks?" the youngster replied throwing what the Wolf Boss presumed to be a confused look toward the old wolf himself, although the helmet made it hard to tell. Needless to say at this point he was in no mood for any of this weird old goat's ravings and made a point of speaking over her the moment she opened her mouth to say something.

"Don't get her started or we'll never get out of here. Just come over here and help me up. I've already tried to do it myself once; it didn't go so well." At once the young soldier dashed to his side and as Wolf Boss raised his left arm the youngster obediently kneeled down to let him wrap it around his shoulders for support. "Okay pup, you ready?" He asked to which the other wolf gave a quick nod and with his help the Wolf Boss was finally able to struggle slowly and shakily onto his hind legs while treating everyone within earshot to several growled repetitions of some of his favourite curse words.

"You would do well to cleanse that foul tongue of yours," the Soothsayer remarked.

To that Wolf Boss could reply only with a breathy chuckle, "Make me goat. It didn't work for my wife, and it's damn sure not gonna work for you."

"In that case I pity the poor beast," the Soothsayer replied aloofly. "Your breath is something of legends, and not any of the good ones."

At once the old wolf heard a strange muffled snirk as the young soldier beneath him began to chuckle and then immediate tried in vain to stifle it with his free paw. Fortunately for him the Wolf Boss was altogether far too weak and woozy to attempt something as strenuous as quick clip across the ears and so was forced to settle with a short and simple, "Shut-it, pup."

Moving his gaze away from the youngster he noticed the Soothsayer had begun to make her way upstream along the cobblestone walkway that ran adjacent to the waterway, pausing only momentarily to gesture for the wolves to follow her. Where they were going exactly was anyone's guess but for the weary old wolf as long it meant he got these damn knives out of him sooner rather than later she could have been leading them both into prison for all he cared. With that in mind he still couldn't help feeling just a little relieved when, after stumbling slowly for what felt like an age and a half through the winding shadows of the backstreets, the trio finally came to a halt just outside a small wooden door, not unlike the many similar doors that lined the both sides of the narrow alley.

"This it huh?" the Wolf Boss remarked.

"It would certainly seem to be yes," the Soothsayer responded before hobbling up to the door and standing passively in front of it, leaning idly on her small knobbly walking stick and making no attempt whatsoever to make their presence known to whoever was inside.

For several minutes the trio waited in relative silence save for ragged panting and occasional grunt of pain from the badly wearying wolf boss before the youngest member finally seemed to lose patience and grumbled impatiently in the Soothsayer's direction.

"Hey lady, can we hurry this up, the old guys gettin' pretty heavy," he said before making sure to add a quick revenge mitigating, "No offence boss."

"That is the problem with young people, they have no patience," the soothsayer replied while still very pointedly doing nothing.

"Hey I got plenty of patience as long as I know what the heck it is I'm waiting for," said the youngster.

"We have arrived a little earlier than I planned and so we must first wait for the opportune moment to arrive," the Soothsayer answered.

"Any idea when that's gonna be?" the young soldier asked..

"Quite soon," she said. "In the meantime I suggest you save your breath and try to prepare yourself. The task ahead is not an easy one."

"Imagine my surprise," the Wolf Boss grumbled sarcastically. A remark that was followed somewhat inauspiciously by a grunt of pain and a growl as the younger wolf suddenly shuffled beneath his right arm, inadvertently causing him to put pressure on his injured left side.

"Sorry boss," the youngster said quickly and quite needlessly as the Wolf Boss was in no way interested in chastising the pup. After all that had happened he was willing to concede the fact that the youngster had already gone above and beyond the call of duty already, and was therefore deserving of more than the usual amount of patience.

With that in mind the Wolf Boss smiled and proceeded to give the young soldier a reassuring pat on the side with his right arm, which was the most he could do while the same arm was still draped over the young wolf's shoulders.

At that moment a sudden knocking sound brought his attention back to the Soothsayer who proceeded to rap on the door with her walking several times before taking a step back and saying with a smile, "Our moment has arrived."

Sure enough within seconds the door began to slowly creak open until a single pair of walnut brown eyes stared out from the small opening, looking first toward the old Soothsayer standing directly in front on the threshold then to the two wolves at which point a high feminine voice spoke in an shaking, anxious tone, "I'm sorry but whatever you're looking for I can promise you we don't have it. If you're after more metal I think the Wu's down the road might have some. They live three doors down from here, why don't you check with them?"

"Please calm yourself, I promise we are not here to rob you. We wish only to ask a small favour," the old goat responded in a gentle cooing voice.

"If you need medicine you should go to the shop out front, we don't keep anything in the house except our personal belongings of which we have few and I'm pretty sure they're not very valuable," the voice answered.

With a grunt of annoyance the younger wolf spoke up, "Look lady what part of 'we aren't here to rob you' don't you understand. The boss is hurt and the goat said someone here could help us out."

"I'm sorry but we just make medicines here. There haven't been any healers in the family since my husband's father," she replied.

"What good fortune it is then that medicine is what we need, and you may be pleased to know we do intend to pay," said the Soothsayer. "But I'm afraid we will be needing slightly more than that. As I'm sure you can see my companion here is hurt quite badly and while I have experience enough to treat his immediate injuries he will need somewhere discreet and safe to recover. I am certain your husband's father would have told you that one of the most sacred beliefs of his profession is that all are equally deserving of compassion and so it is his sworn duty to do all that we can for them no matter who they or what they have done. I know it may not be easy to accept but if you truly wish to honour his spirit, you will help me to save the life of this wolf."

As she finished the Wolf Boss heard a long sigh come from behind the door and a second later it swung open to reveal a middle aged doe with light beige fur wearing a long blue tunic and standing in a narrow wooden hallway just inside.

"When you say it like that you sound just like my husband," she said before giving a small bow and gesturing for them to come in.

"Your husband must be a very caring gentleman, is he at home?" the Soothsayer said with a smile as she stepped inside followed closely by the two wolves who were forced to slide uncomfortably sideways through the narrow doorway.

"Not at the moment, no. There was some kind of accident or something down at the harbour so he went to go help out there. It sounded pretty serious so he probably won't be back for a while," she replied and at that point the Wolf Boss turned to face her only to notice her eyes snap immediately to the three shafts of blood-stained metal jutting out from the left side of his armour. She immediately began to stammer, eyes wide with fear, "Oh my goodness! Did that happen at the harbour? You were there weren't you? What happened? My husband's not in danger is he?"

"I promise your husband is in little danger," the Soothsayer responded quickly. "If you'd like we will be happy to tell you more about it later but there are far more urgent matters to deal with right now."

"Oh, of course, please follow me," the deer said and once again gestured for the trio to follow. "For my family's sake I hope you're right about him, I don't know what we'd do without a father for the children."

"I'm sure you would find a way," said the Soothsayer.

"You're very kind, but I must admit I doubt that very much," the deer replied. "I'm far too busy looking after the house and the children to work. Our eldest does help me quite a lot but I could never ask her to go to work and risk her chances of finding a good and noble man like my husband."

"You have a daughter? Is she pretty?" the young wolf suddenly joined in with a curious eagerness to his voice.

"I suppose, but why would that matter to you?" the deer asked.

"Oh, ah… no reason," the youngster replied quickly and it was all the Wolf Boss could do just to restrain himself to a scoff of disgust.

Fortunately for them all it was only seconds later that the deer stopped outside a doorway and said, "Okay this is the guestroom. It isn't furnished at the moment but I hope you will find it acceptable for the time being."

Obligingly the wolves followed the Soothsayer inside, squeezing themselves through narrow doorway and into a small square room. As the deer had said the room was indeed bare of furnishing or comforts of any kind but it was still pretty apparent to Wolf Boss that this family had done pretty well for themselves. At first he was pleasantly surprised to notice that the floor was not dirt but just like the hallway outside it consisted of hardwood planks that had been polished to a mirror sheen. On the far wall were not one but two windows with paper shutters decorated with colourful pictures and a symbol he presumed to be the family crest overlooking a raised stone platform.

"You from the North huh?" the old wolf remarked as he looked around the room and made sure to take in a good deep sniff which apart from the obvious smells of deer, goat and wet dog turned up a whole host of fascinating aromas some of which were surprisingly alien to him.

"I'm not but my husband is. This is his family's house, I live here as part of marriage but they are the ones who built it. How could you tell?" the deer asked.

"That," he answered, using his muzzle to gesture toward the large slab of grey stone against the wall. "I saw a couple of 'em while my pack was… erm… visiting a couple of villages in the North. I think some guy said they used it to keep the place warm in winter, don't know why you'd need one down here though."

The deer responded with a delighted smile. "I always thought it was strange thing to have but I never questioned its purpose. I just thought it was nice clean place to sit."

"Dibs!" The youngster yelled but as the Wolf Boss looked toward him with a threatening frown he hastened to add with ears lowered submissively, "Uh 'course that's only if you don't want it boss."

"Damn straight," the old wolf said with a small grin of satisfaction. Sure he'd done a lot to earn his gratitude but like it or not the pup still had to respect the golden rule: the big-dog gets the best seat in the house, no matter what.

Suddenly a brisk knocking sound called his attention to Soothsayer who was standing in the middle of the room with an impatient look on her face, "Sorry to interrupt but I'm afraid luxury is going to have to wait." She then turned to face the deer with a gentle smile. "I'm sorry to have to ask this of you but if you would be so kind as to fetch us some sheets it would be greatly appreciated. Anything will do really as long as it is wide and at least an half an inch thick. Also I feel it is only fair to warn you not to get anything that you ever plan on using again."

"Um okay," the deer replied hesitantly and as she took a quick glance around the room it was pretty obvious to the old wolf that her mind was already busy envisioning the kind of mess they were going to create. Once she was done she began to turning to leave but stopped short of the doorway and turned to make an offer of her own, "My daughter is working the shop right now but if you need any medicine I can ask her to bring it here for you while I get the sheets."

The Soothsayer was the first to open her mouth but before she could say anything the Wolf Boss made sure to speak before the old goat was able to begin what would surely be a grocery list of herbs and medicines.

"Just tell her to get some bandages and lots of booze," the old wolf replied.

Naturally the doe seemed somewhat confused by the wolf's request but nevertheless she gave a small bow and remarked, "I… will see what we have." Before hurrying out the door and leaving the three of them alone in the room.

Having had more than enough of the intermittent stabs of pain from being forced upright by the strong but obviously tiring youngster, the Wolf Boss was now more eager than ever to just take his paw to the flame and get it over with. Right now he had no time for pointless fuss and no matter what the old goat had to say about it he knew well that what he'd asked for was all he needed but from the way she was frowning at him it seemed the old goat wasn't likely to spare him. Unfortunately for the old fortune teller for once this old wolf was one step ahead.

"Relax ya' old goat the booze isn't for drinking," the Wolf Boss explained. "I don't know how it works but it's one of the first things dad taught me. It hurts like hell, but if you clean a wound with booze instead of water you're a heck of a lot less likely to get sick. You just gotta make sure to use the strong stuff not that sissy rice wine crap. That stuff's about as good for cleaning wounds as it is for drinking."

As he spoke the wolf watched the Soothsayer's frown quickly give way to an amused smile and once he finished she remarked with a shake of her head, "Is there anything in this world you dogs can't solve with just an idea and a liberal application of alcohol."

"If there is I don't wanna know about it," the Wolf Boss replied with a silly grin.

"Oh Li," the Soothsayer began her eyes now seeming glimmer with tears of nostalgia. "I must admit we all did come to miss you. The palace grounds always seemed so empty after you left, without the sights and sounds of your people training in the yards and carrying out their duties around the court. I still remember the way you young ones used to drive the gardeners half-mad by stomping all over the grass and digging up the flower beds for reasons I still cannot fathom."

"They smelled like candy," the old wolf suddenly blurted out as he too found himself a little lost in the memory before quickly realising what he'd said and then trying in vain to think of something manly to say to compensate.

With a small chuckle the Soothsayer continued, "After so many generations of loyal service that night came as quite a shock to all of us."

"Hey we did that under Lord Shen's orders," The Wolf Boss growled defensively.

"Orders you knew full well he had no authority to give," the Soothsayer replied with a stern tone.

"Alright you listen here ya' old goat-" the Wolf Boss began angrily before a loud bark brought his attention to the younger wolf who he noticed was pointing indicatively toward the door where the doe from earlier now stood eyeing them nervously. In her hooves she was carrying a large roll of faded yellow fabric.

"Please excuse me, I don't mean to intrude but I've brought the sheets you asked for," she began in a quiet nervous tone.

The Soothsayer immediately seemed to calm herself as she stepped aside and point with her walking stick toward a point on the floor that looked roughly to be the centre of the room, "Thank you very much. Now if you don't mind could place just about here that would be greatly appreciated."

Obligingly deer the stepped slowly over to where the Soothsayer was pointing and proceeded to unfurl the sheet into a rather large square of faded yellow fabric. From what the old wolf could see it appeared to be relatively thick, a little more so than the Soothsayer had requested, but the so far she showed no indication of displeasure about it.

Once the doe was finished laying out the mat she made quickly for the safety of the doorway from where she promptly informed them that her daughter was on her way with the bandages and other items before giving one last bow dashing out of sight.

The Wolf Boss then looked to the Soothsayer who he noticed was now staring expectantly at him and it didn't exactly take a genius to guess what she was waiting for. Looking to the younger wolf he made a small gesture with his muzzle and with a brief nod of understanding the youngster carried him over to the mat where he then slowly, carefully and with plenty of very colourful language from both of them helped the old wolf to lie down on his back.

"Phew," the youngster exclaimed happily and the Wolf Boss watched in amusement as the pup flexed his arms with a sigh of relief.

"Hey don't get too comfortable just yet," the Wolf Boss said.

"Indeed you still have a lot of work to do you yet young one," the Soothsayer said with a strangely devious smile that made the Wolf Boss both anxious and suspicious; two emotions he really didn't want to be feeling at this particular point in time.

"Huh! C'mon gimme a break lady, I just hauled his heavy old ass all this way. My shoulder's killin' me," the youngster complained with a typical adolescent whine.

"Any more crap like that and that shoulder's not the only thing that's gonna be killing you!" the old wolf growled angrily, sending a murderous glare in the direction of the young soldier who immediately shrunk away with a wince.

"In that case I strongly suggest waiting until after he is done removing those knives. If you are still intent on taking his life by then at least you will have something sharp to speed things up," said the Soothsayer before she suddenly began making her way toward the door.

"Hey where do you think you're going?" the Wolf Boss asked in a deep angry growl that quite nicely covered up the nervous anxiety that immediately began churning in his gut the moment the goat made her first step.

"I'm going to make some tea," the Soothsayer replied nonchalantly without breaking a single dawdling stride. "What is decades of study and medical experience to a soldier like yourself? Our little chat earlier was more than enough to convince me of your ability to handle this yourself so I guess I should just get out of your way and let you get on with things. "

"Bu-hey… th-that's' not what I… aw c'mon don't be like that!"

The old wolf found himself stammering helplessly in fear and anger as the old Soothsayer proceeded to stroll through straight out of the room and out of sight leaving him and the young soldier alone to stare at one another in confusion.

"So, uh, what do we do now boss?" the youngster asked, a curious wilt to his ears acting as the only clue to the confusion he must have felt behind that expressionless metal mask.

For a few seconds the Wolf Boss remained silent, staring in impotent fury toward the empty doorway. In his head he almost couldn't believe what had just happened. He'd known that Soothsayer almost as long as he'd known Lord Shen, and yet now, at the one moment he actually needed her, the old goat had decided to do a runner and left his life in the paws of this well-meaning but obviously completely clueless pup. Well fine, if she wanted to play hardball than he was game. He'd already survived losing an eye and two teeth to some fat bear with a rake, after that what was a couple of butterknives?

"You can start by taking that helmet off. You don't need it anymore and I wanna know you can see what you're doing," the Wolf Boss finally responded, affecting a gruff commanding tone toward the young soldier as he untied the straps on his gloves and dropped them on the next to the mat. "You might wanna take your gloves off too while you're at it."

"But sir-" the young wolf began but the Wolf Boss was simply not in the mood for an argument. As far as he was concerned this whole thing had dragged on long enough. He wanted these damn things out, and he wanted them out now.

"What? Afraid to get your pretty little paws dirty? Take 'em off!" the old wolf commanded.

The youngster obeyed him at once immediately did as he was asked, first by un-strapping his gloves and pulling them away to reveal the dark grey fur of the paws beneath. After letting the thick leather gloves fall to the floor with a dull thump, he then went to work at the straps on his helmet which he also promptly dropped to ground. Now with his big furry head in full view the Wolf Boss could see that this was indeed a very young wolf whose whiskers were all long, straight and shiny, and his fur was sleek, dark grey except for a small amount of white around his chops.

He certainly wasn't a pup, but he wasn't far from it either and to be honest it gave the Wolf Boss some very troubling thoughts about the recent battle that he had to work hard to quell. Thankfully at that point a welcome distraction then entered the room in the form of a young fawn carrying several rolls of white cloth under one arm while on the other balancing a tray laden with two shiny ceramic bottles.

"I was told to bring these here," the young fawn began in soft, shy voice as her wide, brown eyes shifted back and forth between the two wolves with a timid stare.

The Wolf Boss looked on in a amusement as his young companion immediately seemed to perk up with his ears thrust eagerly skyward and his muzzle split into wide, goofy grin while his tail suddenly began to swish manically side to side behind him sending a breezy gust of air toward the old wolf's face.

"Hey there," the young soldier said happily as he took a step forward toward the fawn who promptly stepped nervously backward into the hallway. Seeing this the young wolf stopped mid-stride and gave the fawn a confused look, "What's so scary? I'm just sayin hello."

"I'm sorry I just…" the young deer began in a small timid voice before suddenly falling silent and stepping back into the room with her head bowed low and eyes cast downward.

As she approached the Wolf Boss now found himself able to make out the distinctive sweet but sharp odour of liquor wafting over from the two bottles on the tray. Only it didn't just smell like any old booze. This was a powerful tingling odour that seemed to smoulder warmly right at the back of his nose with a sweet, fruity bouquet lingering invitingly around the edges. To be honest it smelled pretty expensive, but even more importantly it smelled pretty strong too and that was all he needed know.

"Just put it down there somewhere," the Wolf Boss said nodding to his left as the fawn came to a stop nearby.

Obligingly she quickly placed the items down, turned and made quickly for the door but before she could leave the Wolf Boss made sure to call after her with one last request.

"Hey, could ya' grab some needle and thread while you're out there, we've got a bit of sewing to do."

As she got to the doorway the fawn turned around and gave a small bow before stepping quickly out into the hallway where she promptly disappeared without so much as a peep.

"Sewing?" he heard the young wolf ask.

"Don't worry about it," the Wolf Boss replied gruffly as began working at the length of rope he wore coiled about his waist mostly for utility purposes because if there was one thing thirty years in the wilderness had taught him it was that no matter what the situation you could never have enough rope. "Just get over here and help me out. Getting this crap off is a two dog job but I guess one and half's gonna half to do."

"Sure thing boss," the youngster replied, dashing quickly to his master's side before kneeling down to help. "So uh, what's first?"

"The first thing you can do is get this rope off me and then we can get down to business," the old wolf replied a she reached over to start the seemingly easy task. In the end however, it was only after two particularly painful attempts at pulling it up and over the knives that the Wolf Boss lost all patience with the youngster and suggested rather loudly that maybe pulling down around his hind paws might be easier.

Once that part was over, and after taking a few seconds to get his breath back after having treated the young idiot to a loud and colourful earful, the he began to instruct him further. "Alright pup now the bottom part has to come off first before the top so go ahead and pop the clip there, it's the big round thing." He pointed to the large round metal part at the front of his belt which the young wolf was able to take care of relatively quickly and with a small metallic click he could feel the leather restraint come loose. "Good, okay now just grab the belt and pull down it should all just slide right off in one piece."

The young wolf gave a small snigger as he proceeded to do as he was asked, prompting a very annoyed, "What's so funny pup?"

"Uh nothin' boss," the youngster replied with an idiotic smile on his face. "It's just that a couple days ago some of the guys in my camp were talkin', and we were wonderin' if anyone in the pack had the stones to try to pants you. A couple guys even put their paws up to try."

"Were you one of 'em?" the Wolf Boss asked with a smile, admittedly finding himself quite amused by the thought of such a thing.

"Hell no. Do I look suicidal to you?" the youngster replied quickly as he placed the boss's lower armour on the ground beside him.

At that the Wold Boss couldn't really help himself, "Bet you must feel real proud of yourself right now huh?"

"Yeah kinda," the youngster replied.

"And I bet you can't wait to tell your grandkids about the time you got to sneak a peek at the boss's mighty weapon?" the Wolf Boss continued with a smirk as he watched the youngster's gaze snap upward to look him in the eye with ears pressed flat against the top of his head.

"Hey, I wasn't lookin' at nothin'," the young wolf stammered quickly in reply.

"What's the matter pup, haven't you ever had a bath before?" the old wolf said with his smirk broadening childishly as he watched the poor pup squirm with embarrassment.

"'Course I have, it's just that, well, you're the boss. It's weird." The young wolf answered.

"Well you'd better learn to suck it up, coz it's about to get a lot weirder," the Wolf Boss said while making his level best to return to something at least resembling a serious tone. "But first I want you to tear off six or seven strips from the bandages over there, long enough to reach your elbow from the tip of your paw and then roll them up as neat as you can."

"Sure thing boss," the younger wolf replied and quickly moved over to where the girl had put the bandages to get to work unrolling them to approximately the right length then using his teeth to them into strips.

Throughout the process the Wolf Boss just lay back and stared at the ceiling as he tried his level best to concentrate on something other than the pain in his side. After a few minutes a small satisfied noise from the youngster told him that the job was done and when he looked over the old wolf was pleased to see a neat pile of seven rolled up strips of cloth sitting by his side where the his young compatriot knelt and stared expectantly toward him.

"So what's next boss?" he asked.

"Next I need you to pop open one of those bottles over there and pour some of that booze on one side of each of those rolls you made. You don't need to soak 'em, just use enough to make them damp," the older Wolf replied before adding with a smile. "That smells like good stuff so try not to use too much okay? We still want a little left over for after."

The youngster gave a small chuckle as he reached over to grab up one of the bottle, "I thought you told that goat lady we weren't gonna drink it."

"Funny, that doesn't sound like me," the Wolf Boss said with a meaningful grin toward the young soldier just as he popped the seal on the bottle and a pleasant, tingling aroma of fine liquor flooded both the room and their nostrils.

Again the young wolf gave a small laugh as he grabbed up one of the rolls and poured on a small amount of the near pale yellow liquid that came out, "No offence boss, but up close you're not half as scary as everyone seems to think you are."

"Hey, it's all about respect. As long as you follow your orders and play fair with the other pups then you got nothing to worry about from me." The old wolf replied with an air of gruff indifference. "On the other paw, if some rowdy mutt wants to start trouble then you can be damn sure I'm gonna show 'em their place. It's my job to keep this pack together and if that means having to crack a few skulls then that's what I've gotta do."

"Guess that makes sense," the youngster said thoughtfully as he continued to dampen the remaining bandages.

Hearing that the Wolf Boss gave a small nod of satisfaction, at least that seemed to have gotten the message across efficiently enough. Of course what he had failed to mention, and not entirely by accident either, was the fact that although there had indeed been times when he had been faced with challenges that required him to use physical force, he had always found the idea distasteful. In truth he would rather never have to raise a paw against any member of his own pack, and the few times he had done so, no matter what the reason or how justified it had been, he had always regretted it. However, legend was legend, and far be it from him to want to ruin the magic.

"You done?" the Wolf Boss asked as he watched the youngster place the bottle down after having use it to dampen the final roll of cloth, and when the other wolf responded with a nod he continued.

"Okay now comes the fun part pup. Go ahead and grab one of the knives. When you're ready I want you to pull it out, nice and slow, and try to keep it as straight as you can. Ya' got that pup?"

"One at a time; straight and slow," the young wolf replied with an obedient nod as he reached over to take hold of the lowest and nearest blade which was currently sunk about halfway into the far upper left of the Wolf Boss's waist.

As he grit his teeth in anticipation of what was to come old wolf could clearly see a twitch of hesitation in the young soldier's eyes before he began to pull on the blade. Immediately the Wolf Boss's gave a short grunt of pain as his face contorted into a toothy grimace while the knife was slowly and carefully pulled from his flesh. Fortunately for him it was only a few seconds before he felt it pull away completely and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief as the pain began to ebb.

"No time to screw around… d-do the next one," he ordered in a deep, breathless rasp while shooting a small gaze in the direction of the soldier who quickly placed the blade on the ground and reached over to take hold of the next blade.

Once again the Wolf Boss grimaced and clenched his fists as tight as he could as the second knife was pulled away with one last painful protest, leaving just the third and last blade jutting out alone from it position embedded in the lower left of his chest. Of all three this would have been the blade that killed him were it not for whatever feat of sheer dumb luck had seen it embedded in his ribs and not his heart.

Not that any of this made the process of removing it any easier on him. Shen had done a pretty good job of getting it in there, and the Wolf Boss could do nothing but clench his teeth and bear the pain of having the youngster work the damn thing free of the bone. When finally the blade did come free with a nasty wet cracking sound there was no stifling the pathetically loud whine that escaped the old wolf's chops, echoing around the room and down the hall as the poor canine was momentarily stricken by blinding pain.

After letting his head fall back onto the mat with a dull thud the Wolf Boss lay weak and breathlessly panting for several seconds as he gave himself and the poor pup a moment to recover from the ordeal. Even though the knives were gone, the pain was somehow even worse now than it was with them there and the renewed gushing of warm liquid coursing through his fur along with the metallic tang of fresh blood permeating the room served as an unpleasant reminder that the worst may well be over, but more was yet to come.

"Sorry, that last one was kind of a doozy huh?" he heard the young soldier ask and the old wolf turned his head to see the pup kneeling over him. "You feelin' alright?"

"Just dandy," the Wolf Boss replied in a weak, breathy voice. "Albright pup, now we gotta be quick. You see this top part here?"

"Uh, okay boss," the young wolf answered, and after taking one quick look at the lamellar leather cuirass that that was all that remained of the Wolf Boss's armour, he continued with, "I'm guessin' this thing just slides over the top or somethin' like that?"

"You know that's probably the smartest thing I've heard outta your mouth all day," the Wolf Boss answered while shuffling as carefully as he could into the best position for the other wolf to pull the armour off. "Now what're you waiting for?"

For once the youngster was quick to respond and almost the moment the old wolf had managed to get his arms into an at least passably straight position the young soldier wasted no time in grabbing hold of the collar and pulling it up over the boss's head.

"Holy crap this thing's heavy," the youngster exclaimed in a high, strained voice and the Boss' watched with much amusement as the pup struggled to drag the near hundred pound leather garment over to the side of the room where he proceeded to let it fall with a loud thud next to the rest of his master's armour.

"Nah, you're just weak," the Wolf Boss said with a small chuckle. "Just get over here and help me get the rest of this off so we can get this over with."

Personally he didn't even want to know what his underclothes must look like right now; just the overpowering stench of both old and fresh blood and the uncomfortable feeling of wet fabric against his fur was enough to tell him it couldn't have been a pretty picture. As if that wasn't enough the way the youngster's eyes snapped wide open with shock as they fell on him again told him everything.

"Ah, geez boss," the youngster exclaimed as he approached slowly and the Wolf Boss lay still, watching the soldier's eyes darting back and forth over his body.

"Yeah, yeah it aint pretty I'm sure," he remarked gruffly. "Just pull it off and get rid of it before it starts to stink too bad okay."

"Sure thing boss," the youngster replied before quickly getting to work tearing away the old wolf's last remaining item of clothing and placing the mushy, red and brown shreds of the formerly light, grey fabric into a pile next to him.

Once he was more or less done the Wolf Boss heard the youngster give a small sarcastic remark about how many seasons it was going to take for the old wolf to shed all the bloody fur out of his coat, but he was barely listening to him. At the moment something else had caught his attention. Just as the young wolf was finishing up the fawn had returned, and was now once again standing in the doorway only this time those big brown eyes of her's were now transfixed on the bloody, naked old wolf lying in the middle of the room, staring straight back at her with the brow of his one good eye raised expectantly as he waited for the inventible screaming and fits of panic that were sure to ensue.

Only rather surprisingly none of this seemed to eventuate. All the young fawn did was stand there staring at back at him in a look of silent shock, and that in itself would have been quite amusing were it not for the fact that she was carrying a few things that, while lacking any immediate use, he would soon need.

"Oh hey there," he heard the youngster pipe up happily as he too noticed the young fawn. "Don't worry we weren't doin' anythin' funny. I was just helpin' the boss out… uh helpin' him get the knives out I mean."

"Just get over here and give me the stuff!" the Wolf Boss growled over the youngster's idiotic, self-conscious stammering.

Seeming to snap back into reality the young fawn gave a small squeal of fright before dashing over to the wolf and quickly placing by side a small bunch of needles and a roll of plain white thread, most likely hemp by the smell of it. As she moved to get up her eyes remained fixated on the large patches of bloodied fur on the Wolf Boss body and for the first time since she returned he heard the young fawn speak in her usual gentle, soft-spoken voice, "Is it bad?"

"Well it hurts if that what you mean?" the Wolf replied impatiently.

"I can get you something to help with the pain if you want," said the fawn.

"That would be terrific," the old wolf answered with a surly glare as he started slowly and carefully pulling himself up into a passable sitting position, "And while you're at it see if you can't find that old goat, I wanna have a little word with her."

All that came next was a single frightened bow from the fawn and without another word she was up and out the door.

Looking back to the youngster the Wolf Boss made sure to point out the pile of booze dampened cloth as went on to give his next round of instructions. "Well don't just stand there, hurry up and stick a couple of those on each stab; use the rest of the roll to tie it on good and tight to stop the bleeding."

"Right, sure," the young soldier replied quickly and got to work as quick as he could, wasting no time in grabbing up one of the booze sodden bandage rolls.

During the intervening few seconds the Wolf Boss tried his best to prepare himself for what was sure to be an gruelling experience but nothing he could do could have prepared him for the incredible burning agony that threatened to overcome him the moment the youngster placed the first dampened roll onto one of the wounds.

"Argh dammit!" he exclaimed through tightly gritted teeth with his one good eye clamped tightly shut and his brow furrowed in pain. "You're never as ready as you think are, huh?"

Again he heard the youngster give a small chuckle, "Wouldn't know boss. The worst I've ever had was a bit of slash back from the smelter in the foundry about a month ago. Went right through my gloves and burned the some of the fur off the back of my left paw. All they did was bandage it up and told me to get back to work. I never got anything like this."

"Did ya' paw heal up alright?" the old wolf asked, trying his best to sound sympathetic despite his growls of pain.

"I guess," the young wolf replied. "Hurt pretty bad for a couple of days after though. Take a look for yourself if ya' want." At that point he stopped what he was doing for a couple of seconds to lift his left paw into the Wolf Boss's sight. From there he could see a light spattering of hairless scar tissue that ran horizontally across the back of the youngsters paw, leading to a single large and nasty, raw pink burn mark that was spread across the curve between his thumb and his pointer.

"Ouch," the Wolf boss remarked with a wince that was partly sympathetic but mostly an expression of his own renewed pain as the young wolf returned to the task at paw.

"That's what I thought, but the captain told me to suck it up and keep working," the youngster said, and with an eerily satisfied smirk he continued in a bitterly hateful voice. "I'm glad he's dead."

"How do you know?" the Wolf Boss asked, trying as best he could to contain the sudden burst of livid outrage that began coursing through him at the young wolf's spiteful words.

"I was the one who got to drag him out and throw what was left of his hairy old butt on the pile," the youngster replied with a spiteful glint in his eyes. "Happiest moment of my life."

"Hey you listen to me you rotten little mongrel," the Wolf Boss spat in a fit of anger. "He might have been a bitter old bastard, but you can bet he had his reasons. The last thirty years weren't easy on any of us, some more than others; something I wouldn't expect a stupid little pup like you to understand. It's your duty to respect this pack and everyone in it, doesn't matter if they look funny, talk funny or smell like a dead ox they are your pack, and your pack is your family like it or not. So if I ever hear you start sayin' stuff like about anyone in the pack again don't be surprised when I come over and smash your face around the other side of your head. Understand!"

He watched in satisfaction as the young wolf cast his gaze apologetically downward and nodded slowly in agreement. In the following seconds a cold silence fell over the small room as the Wolf Boss let his head droop forward wearily and breathed a deep sigh. In his heart he knew it fixed nothing to be so hard on the poor pup when he was doing his level best to help. Disloyalty to the pack may have been a major sore spot of his, but it was plain enough to see that the youngster had good reason to dislike his commander, and to be perfectly honest showing such callous disregard for the well-being of a fellow packmate as his captain had done was feat of disrespect far worse than anything the young wolf could ever have said. Still the Wolf Boss wasn't about to apologise for having shared a lesson worth learning anyway, but in the interest of fairness he felt it was only right that he be the one to pour the first pail on this burning bridge.

"What's your name pup?" he asked in as calm and gentle a tone as could manage while the alcohol had almost half his body burning with the fire of thousand suns.

"Cheng," the youngster replied flatly. "Why do ya' wanna know?"

"Meh, I like Pup better," the Wolf Boss responded with a smile.

Lifting his head slightly to look at the young wolf who had started busily wrapping the first bandage around the old wolf's waist, he was happy to see a small smile curling at the edges of the youngster's muzzle.

"That's the same thing the rest of the guys thought," he replied. "I guess it made sense since I'm the youngest. Same reason the rest of the group were always lookin' out for me even when I told 'em not too. I mean I went through the same training they all did but for some reason they all got in there heads that I was too young to look after myself. When the smelter got me the captain wanted me to go straight back to work but Patches and Snow covered for me so I didn't have to do anything until my paw got better. Lin was on my case about weapon checks, always makin' me do the damn things twice even though half the time he was standing right there watching me do it the first time. Heck the only reason I'm still alive is coz Bear pushed me into the water just before the weapon went off."

The Wolf Boss couldn't help but chuckle at that, "Trust me, it's the same for all the new guys. You pups always think you're gonna be the biggest, baddest dog in the pack, so it's up to the older guys to make sure you don't get yourselves killed doing something stupid before you get the chance to learn a thing or two about the real world."

"Gee thanks for the pep-talk boss," the youngster replied in a gruff tone that belied the shine of rapidly welling tears around the bottom edges of his eyes which he was quick to wipe away with the back of one of his paws. "I was only in the group for about three months. Guess that means I still got a long way to go yet huh?"

"I dunno, you seem alright to me," the Boss said with small shrug. "Did any of the other guys make it out?"

"I hope so," the young wolf answered with a pathetic sniffle. "Those guys were real good to me."

"Well for what it's worth I hope so too," the Wolf Boss said while making sure to send an understanding smile in the in the pup's direction and proceeded to sit in silence as he allowed the youngster time to finish his work.

By the end of it despite young soldier's inexperience, the Wolf Boss could plainly see that the he had done a pretty decent job on the bandages and despite the burning of the liquor doing its work the old wolf was able to lie back down on the mat with some sense of comfort.

With a small sigh of relief he turned his head to look face the young wolf who had done so much for him, and to whom he owed both his gratitude and life, "You know, I think you're just about done there anyway so why don't ya' just go ahead and take a couple mouthfuls and tell me what you think. You've earned it."

"Thanks boss," the youngster remarked as he threw down the bloody piece of soggy bandage and stood up to stretch. Unsurprisingly he was quick to grab up the as yet unopened bottle and wrench out the stopper with admirable gusto, but what did surprise the Wolf Boss was the way the other wolf then nudged the remaining bottle his way saying, "Hey, whaddya' say boss? To one hell of a day?"

The old wolf responded with a weak but enthusiastic chuckle as he struggled back into sitting position before grabbing up the bottle and bringing it to his muzzle as replied with, "I'll drink to that."

A few minutes and several mouthfuls later a timid young voice in the doorway announced the return of the young fawn.

"Hey good lookin'," the young wolf greeted happily with ears up and both arms outstretched in the young deer's direction. "Come in an' join the party."

Despite the fact that they'd hardly been drinking long enough to be more than mildly buzzed, the Wolf Boss was content to let the youngster have his fun and resisted the near overpowering urge to shoot him down with cold sarcasm. Instead he chose to merely to send a small shrug in the direction of the fawn, who at this point seemed more confused than terrified.

For once he could see a small smile begin to form on the young fawns face as she replied in her usual soft spoken manner, "I'm sorry but I'm forbidden to drink. My mom says that good women shouldn't drink liquor because it poisons the mind and corrupts the soul, and only a woman of sound mind and body can expect good fortune in marriage."

Perhaps it was the first sign that the booze was starting to set in but at that the old wolf couldn't help giving out a deep hearty laugh.

"Makes ya' wonder what my wife did to end up with me then huh?" he remarked before taking a deep mouthful from the bottle he held his paw.

Although she said nothing in reply the wolf was all but certain that his keen canine ears caught sound of small quiet giggle escaping the fawn's mouth as she walked over to show them what she had brought. It was at that point he noticed the small fabric pouch she was holding in her right hoof.

"What's in the bag?" he asked giving a small nod toward it.

"I did find some medicine for you, but my mother has forbidden me from giving you any more than we already have," the young deer replied as she knelt down by the old wolf's side. "I still managed to get you something from the back room but not much. Some of the medicines we sell are pretty valuable and my mom is very good at spotting thieves, but I think I got away with it."

As she spoke the fawn used her hoof to pull at the string binding the top of the pouch and proceeded to tip it against her other hoof onto which a small number of pellets rolled out of the top. Looking at them, their colours seemed to range between various shades of green to brown, and after reflexively tilting his head forward to sniff them; the Wolf Boss was unsurprised that they all smelled strongly of dried leaves with only minor variations in overall odour composition. That was what most of these medicines tended to smell like, or at least the herbal ones any way.

"I'm sorry, but all the stronger creams and ointments were locked away and none of the ones I could find would be any good for your particular injuries." She continued with an apologetic bow of her head. "All I could get are these; they should help with the pain but they also contain a mixture of fortifying agents to help prevent fever and stimulate healing."

Although it was quite clear from the tone in her voice that the deer wasn't quite done talking yet, the Wolf Boss was growing impatient and thanks to the booze he had no reservations about showing it.

"Whatever, just give 'em here," he said gruffly as he proceeded to snatch them from the young fawn's hoof and hurled them into his mouth without a second thought before washing them down with another mouthful of booze.

For a few seconds the fawn just seemed to sit and stare at him in shock. Not that the Wolf Boss was inclined to let that worry him given previous experience with this girl seemed to indicate that that was pretty much her default reaction to any event more substantial than a light breeze.

Given one look at the way his young companion had been behaving without the alcohol to numb what little inhibitions the young wolf seemed to possess, the Wolf Boss couldn't help but contemplate quite fondly the kind of reaction he could expect when the poor girl suddenly found herself on the receiving end of the drunken advances of some randy teenage wolf. Given the way thing were going, there was a strong possibility that he would experience it first hand, and to be honest he couldn't think of a better way than that to top off what was fast shaping up to be the worst day of his life.

Some unknown amount of time later the Wolf Boss awoke slowly, taking a long deep sniff of stale, dusty air as he groggily opened his eye to look around. The first thing he noticed even before his vision had begun to fall into focus was that there was now some a thin sheet of cloth draped over him, covering everything from his midsection to the paws on his hind legs. Although he had no recollection whatsoever as to how it got there the same could be said of himself at this point in time seeing as he couldn't even remember having fallen asleep in the first place, so for the moment he was happy enough just to lie unquestioningly beneath it and stare bleary eyed up at the orange glow of the late afternoon sun reflecting off the lacquered wood ceiling.

A few feet away a small snuffling sound accompanied by the rustling of fur told him that he was not alone and the familiar, liquor tinged, scent of the young wolf, who he had decided to call Pup, was still in the room with him. A pretty damning sign that his oh so amusing attempts to woo the young fawn into bed hadn't worked out as well as he had hoped. Surprisingly the Wolf Boss found himself feeling a little bad for the youngster; wolf or deer, either way a nice bit of tail would've been just the thing to take the edge off being having his friends, packmates and very nearly himself blown into a hundred crispy chunks scattered all over the harbour. Then again at least this way they wouldn't wind up being sold out to the city guard some irate parents.

After taking a second to rub the sleep from his eyes while giving a long whining yawn, the old wolf pulled himself slowly upright, grunting slightly as the effort brought with it a painful reminder of the morning's events. It was pretty obvious that medicine or no medicine he still had a long way to go recovery wise and as much as hated to admit it to himself, he was no young pup and any lingering difficulties that remained would be burden he was just going to have to live with. Still as much has that sucked to think about, at least they were scars he could bare with pride as opposed to the usual old dog things like bad backs, bad knees and the leaking a hundred weird and wonderful fluids from every possible orifice, all of which he'd been lucky enough to evade so far.

Throwing the sheet away to one side he proceeded to pull his still naked, furry body upright onto his feet and began plodding groggily toward the door. Although fate had been kind enough to spare him the massive throbbing headache that would normally be expected following such enthusiastic drinking, booze or not all fluid had to go somewhere and that somewhere was south where a new lingering feeling told him it was time to water the lilies.

Fortunately it took only a minute of two of stumbling sleepily through the hallways before lucky enough to bump into one of the family members who, after getting over initial shock of finding a great hairy dog wandering the halls of the family home, was kind enough to direct the old wolf to the courtyard. From there it wasn't hard for him to follow his nose the rest of the way.

Heading back into the house the Wolf Boss was treated to a somewhat unpleasant surprise in the form a very familiar old goat standing passively in the hallway to his right just as he limped inside. Judging from the smile on her face he presumed she must have been pleased about something, and he knew from experience that was good cause to be nervous.

"Good afternoon Li," she greeted with a calm placid tone. "It's good to see you walking around already."

"When nature calls ya' don't exactly have a choice," the Wolf Boss replied.

"Indeed," the Soothsayer said and following a brief downward flicker of her eyes her smile broadened as she continued with a small chuckle. "You know I'm sure these people would be happy to offer you something to wear."

Instead of dignifying the old goat with a reply the Wolf Boss merely rolled his eye with a grumble and turned to walk away back to his room. Annoyingly however, the old goat didn't seem to get the hint as a dull wooden thud from her cane against the wooden floor behind him told him that she was following him.

"So tell me Li, what exactly do you plan to do with yourself now?" he heard her ask, and again he chose to ignore her not that that seemed to do anything to dissuade the old goat as she continued a few seconds later with, "Very well if you do not wish to talk then at least do yourself a favour and listen to me."

The Wolf Boss stopped and turned to face her, "If that's what it takes to make you leave me alone, than go ahead. Ya' got one minute, but I'm warning you now, you take one second more and I'm gonna grab you by your horns and throw you out the nearest window, understand?"

The Soothsayer nodded calmly and gave friendly smile as she spoke, "When a warrior finds himself alone in this world, when his enemies are everywhere and there is nowhere left to turn, he should return to where it all began for it is there alone that the warmest of welcomes awaits him."

"That it?" the Wolf Boss asked with a distinctly unimpressed frown.

"For the time being," the Soothsayer replied. "I suppose you will be going to sulk in your room now?"

The old wolf gave a small growl, "Hey I'm not a pup you know, I don't sulk."

"No, you sit alone in the darkness, brooding and muttering to yourself like a mad person, which is so much nicer," the Soothsayer remarked. "To think there once was a time when we would all be more surprised if you didn't immediately speak every single thought that crossed your mind. If I recall it annoyed young Shen to no end, but I believe on some level he found it quite endearing. He used to complain to me about it all the time, and yet whenever I chose to ask him why he kept you around he became curiously silent. Something I still do not understand to this day."

"If you're looking for an answer from me, you're outta luck," the Wolf Boss said. "And by the way your minute's up so you go five seconds to beat it before I start redecorating the hallway with your face."

Much to his annoyance instead of doing the logical thing and just hobbling out of sight as fast as her creaky on legs would carry her, the Soothsayer just stood her ground and continued to stare up at him with a smile. For several seconds he continued to glare at her with a steadily deepening frown. In all honesty that was pretty much all he could do. It wasn't like he was actually going to floor an old lady just for talking to him, how cowardly would that look? What the heck would it prove? More to the point, what could he possible gain?

With that last thought the wolf snarled angrily in frustration as he turned and started stomping away. To where is exactly didn't really matter right now, as long as it was away from her. As he turned the corner however he was brought swiftly to a halt by a small frightened squeal from a familiar young fawn.

"Ah geeze!" the old wolf exclaimed as he took a quick step back from the terrified looking girl, whose small, slender body he'd just come within less than a foot of trampling into a bloody pulp.

"I-I'm sorry I sir, I didn't mean to… t-to…" the girl stammered before fear started to choke the rest of her words before they could come.

The Wolf Boss took a second to look at the terrified creature as she stared back at him with, wide frightened eyes. To be honest it was kind of flattering to know that even after copping several knives to the gut he could still scare the living hell out of any grass-muncher who crossed his path. In this case however, the warm swell of satisfaction was restrained somewhat by the knowledge that said grass-muncher was a young girl who seemed to possess all the backbone of a jellyfish.

"Calm down kid, I'm not gonna hurt you," the old wolf said, although for all the good it did he might as well have not bothered since the girl just continued to stand in silent, frozen fear with her eyes fixed unblinkingly on his face. Seeing this he tried again, "It's okay to talk to me if you want to, I don't bite… you know, unless you give me a reason."

This time he noticed the girls throat move a little as she swallowed anxiously before finally opening her mouth to speak in her usual quiet, soft-spoken tone, "My father sent me to tell you that dinner is nearly ready and that you can feel free to join the rest of us in dining room if you wish. If you don't want to that's alright, one of my brother's can bring some food to your room if that's what you'd prefer."

"Uh," the wolf was a little taken aback by such an unexpected show of hospitality, continuing to stand and stare as his ears drooped sheepishly to the side of his head.

"Thankyou so much for your kind offer, of course we would love to join you," the Wolf Boss heard another even more familiar voice speak in answer from just behind him and looking over his right shoulder, the only shoulder he really could look over, he was understandably less than pleased to see the Soothsayer stepping around the corner. "Apologies in advance if we are a little late, but as you can see quite plainly before you my friend will need to find something a bit more appropriate to wear first."

At once the old wolf noticed the fawn's eyes seeming to widen even further as her eye's drifted very slowly south where they stopped for a few moments during which the poor girl breathed a deep gasp before they snapped back up to his face.

"It's okay to be impressed," the Wolf Boss remarked with a silly grin on his face as stared back.

"Uh okay, I-I-I will t-tell my… uh… f-fa-family to um, you know, g-get ready a-and, ah, stuff," the young girl stammered as she spun around and began hurrying away down the corridor with a strangely stiff, uneasy quality to her walk.

"How strange," the Soothsayer remarked calmly as the two of them watched the fawn go.

"Tell me about it," the old wolf said. "She didn't even say thankyou."

"I wasn't talking about her," the Soothsayer replied. "I merely meant I can't help but feel that there was something awfully familiar about what just happened. What I find strange is that I can't seem to remember exactly what that is."

"Yeah well when you do just do me favour and keep it to yourself," the Wolf Boss said while taking a step forward to continue on his way.

"No promises," he heard the Soothsayer remark cheerfully from behind him along with another comment that did nothing to improve the old wolf's mood in the slightest. "By the way Li, it might interest you to know that the guest room is actually back this way. You would do well to remember that in future whenever you feel like storming off in a huff like that."

With a sudden swelling of frustration that almost saw the Wolf Boss attempt to punch a brand new window into the side of the hallway, he turned around and stomped angrily back toward the Soothsayer who he could see was looking at him with a look of insufferable smugness about her.

As he passed by he made sure to vent his frustration with a single, growled threat, "One laugh outta you, and dinner won't be the only thing on the menu."

When he got back to the room the first thing the old wolf did was walk over to where Pup was still lying spread out on the big stone thing with his tongue dangling out over the side where a small patch of drool was collecting at the base. Looking at him the Wolf Boss' couldn't help laughing; the scene was so perfect it almost seemed a shame to ruin it. Then again he wasn't about to let the young wolf starve after all he'd done to help, so he made a point of giving the youngster a rough but gentle smack across the chops.

At once Pup awoke with a frightened yelp.

"Dinner time Pup. Get up or don't eat," the Wolf Boss said with a small chuckle as he began making his way over to the side of the room, where his armour lay in a small, messy pile.

"Huh? Food? Awesome!" the young wolf exclaimed happily, leaping quickly to his feet with big happy grin. "Is that nice deer chick gonna be there?"

"Well since we're eating with her family, probably," the old wolf grunted in reply as he worked to pull his bottom armour free from the rest of the mess. "And before you start whining, the dinner-date wasn't my idea. You can thank the old goat for that one."

"Guess I gotta meet the parents sometime huh?" Pup remarked before adding with a wink. "Though normally I'd rather wait until after, if ya' know what I mean."

"Pretty sure I know exactly what you mean," the Wolf Boss said. "And I'm warning you now, if you make so much as one crack like that while where there…"

"You'll do some nasty crap do me, yeah I get it," the youngster said, and was extremely lucky for the fact that the old wolf was too busy buckling his armour around his waist to walk over and backhand the idiot for interrupting him. Not that the Wolf Boss was particularly angry about it, it was just a useful habit he'd gotten into over the years and one that he had no intention of breaking any time soon.

Just as the two wolves were heading toward the door sharp but distant clanging sound caused the Wolf Boss to stop and raise his head with his ears pricked up to the maximum extent that their unusually floppy structure allowed. In the small silence that followed the continued hushed metallic clanking sound allowed him to zero in on the source, and with a confused grumble he turned around and quickly made his way over to the window where the sounds were coming from.

"Uh, no offence boss, but the heck are you doin'?" he heard Pup ask from behind him.

In response the old wolf merely raised his paw and gestured for silence while he slowly and carefully pulled himself up onto the stone platform, taking care not to put too much pressure on his still badly aching right side. Once he was in front of the window he knelt down to press an ear against the paper window dressing where his keen sense of hearing allowed him to make out the clear sound of voices in the street below. Only it wasn't the typical dull, murmur of the city crowd. These voices were loud, clear and alone, even more importantly sounded like they being spoken with urgency and purpose.

"Way to go Ru, I bet everyone in the house heard that."

"Who'd have thought a spear could be so loud."

"It is when you drop it in an alleyway."

"Well I didn't' know that."

"That's cause you don't know anything! Now shut-up and hold your position. We gotta be ready the second the signal goes out."

Curious but not altogether alarmed by what he was hearing the wolf pulled away and tilted his head thoughtfully for a moment before taking the claw of his right index digit and using it to poke a small hole in the paper covering. That done he then pressed his head against the window again only this time placing his good right eye in front of the hole so he could see out into the street.

Outside he could see that the window looked out into the alley way behind the house from somewhere just above head height. Immediately to his right he could just make out the back half of someone who appeared to be wearing some sort uniform. A uniform he recognised immediately as that he'd seen being donned by the numerous city guardsmen his men had easily overpowered and imprisoned just a few short weeks ago.

Although the figure was the only one in his eye line, the Wolf Boss could tell from the voices alone that there had to be at least three or four people out there, and for all he knew they could all be armed to teeth. Of course this begged the rather obvious question of what the hell they were doing out there, and to answer it the old wolf proceeded to once again press an ear against the window.

"Look, I don't care if your hoof is cramping up we can't move until we get the signal… look just give your weapon to Ling and see if you can stretch it out."

"Thanks sir, my hoof's really killing me. Those wolves had me locked up tighter than a-"

"Yeah we get it, and just so you know I got the same thing, but you don't hear me complaining."

"Okay all of you just be quiet, if we miss the signal because the lot of you can't silence yourselves for five minutes then it will be you who will be answering to the council about why we just sat here and let some child-murdering beast break loose on the city."

"Yes but they also said he was injured so I really don't see why we have wait out here in the first place."

"We're not taking any risks with this one. We have to be here in case anything goes wrong and if it does than it is our duty to be ready to move in straight away. We are bringing that old dog in dead or alive, and if he's still breathing and the council learned anything from this, they'll have him executed before sunrise. No exile this time."

The Wolf Boss let out a long, brooding growl as he leant back away from the window.

"What is it boss?" he heard Pup ask in a quiet, anxious voice.

He turned to face the youngster with a glare of murderous fury, "Looks like you're little girlfriend's family just sold us out."

The young wolf seemed understandably surprised, "Huh? How do ya' know that?"

"Coz there's a bunch of soldiers right outside blabber mouthing about how their buddies are waiting down the hall to bag me for the council," the Wolf Boss answered matter-of-factly. "Family dinner my hairy ass." After jumping down, immediately regretting his haste when the pain found him limping quickly toward the rest of his armour he looked over to Pup who was still standing dumbfounded in the middle of the room. "Well don't just stand there, get you're gear on and help me. If they wanna come after me fine, but there's no way I'm gonna lie down and make it easy for 'em."

Seeming to snap back to his senses, the young wolf wasted no time in doing as he was ordered by suiting up for battle and then moving over to help his master do the same. After having to drop his pants again for the second time that day, and with the help of his younger companion, the old wolf was able to heave his armour back over his body and strap everything in place with only a moderate amount of pain and incoherent cursing. With that done he headed straight for the doorway, gesturing for Pup to follow him, when less than two steps forward found him face to face with a certain familiar fawn who gave them both a confused look before she asked, "I don't mean to be rude, but what are you doing?"

"I think the real question here is what the hell is going on here?" the wolf replied angrily, taking several steps toward the girl until he was well within grabbing distance. "And why is there a bunch of guards outside waiting to put poke a few new holes in me?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand," the fawn whimpered as she shrunk back in fear.

The Wolf Boss snarled at her, "Don't give me that crap! I saw them out there talking. I heard everything I needed to know that you two-faced meat-bags sold us out!"

He could see that there were tears starting to well up in the corners of her, wide terrified eyes but frankly at this point he really couldn't care less. With another growl he reached forward and took the girl by the neck, pulling her effortlessly upward off the ground with one paw. Fastening his claws tightly around her throat he drew her forward while tilting his own head downward until her eyes were barely half an inch away from the one he had left with which he stared straight into hers with a deep, murderous glare.

"If crying worked on me there'd be a heck of lot of pandas still walking around right now," the Wolf Boss asked in a deep, gravelly voice. "Tell me kid, how many pandas do you see around here?" After that he waited for all of two seconds before giving the fawn a hefty shake, "Well! How many! "

"N-none," the girl answered, her voice trembling and he could see that she was on the verge of tears.

"Your damn right there isn't, and if you don't wanna join 'em then you better get talkin'," the wolf said. "Where's the nearest way outta here?"

"I-it's just left down the hall around the first corner, first door on the right. It leads to the alley out the back," the fawn answered in a pathetic high pitched whine as tears began streaming down her face. "P-please let me go, I swear didn't know anything about this. I only wanted to help"

Ignoring her whimpering pleas for her life, the Wolf Boss looked away from the fawn and back to Pup who was standing well back from him staring fixedly at the scene before him through the slits in his helmet. Although it was hard to tell with his face obscured, something about his stiff, uneasy body language told the Wolf Boss that his young companion wasn't entirely comfortable with what was happening.

"C'mon we gotta get outta here," the old wolf said, as he unceremoniously let the fawn fall to the ground.

"Ya' know boss, for a moment there a thought you were gonna kill her," he heard Pup remark nervously as he walked over.

Looking back to him the old wolf gave a grunt of annoyance, "Do I look stupid to you?"

It was obvious from the clueless look about him that the young wolf didn't seem to know what to think of that and the Wolf Boss wasn't in the mood to explain it. In the end he decided to let his actions speak for him when he reached down and grabbed the fawn up off the floor, wrapping his right arm tightly around her neck to hold her to his side with a quietly muttered, "Sorry about this kiddo."

Once that charming little exercise was over with the old wolf wasted no time leading Pup in stepping out into the hallway and heading straight for the first corner on his left, whereupon rounding it he was pleased to see that there was indeed a door.

Coming to a halt just beside it he turned to the younger wolf and said in quick serious tone, "Alright now if this door leads where I think it does then things could get real ugly, real fast unless you stick close to me and do exactly what I tell you, understand?" The young wolf gave a single brisk nod in answer, and seeing this the Wolf Boss turned back to the door, grabbed the handle and taking a deep breath thrust the door open while remarking, "Here goes nothing."

Charging out into the dimly lit alleyway a loudly shouted "What the…" brought the old wolf's attention a small number of very confused looking bores in guard uniforms who were all wielding a variety of suspiciously familiar looking weapons that glimmered menacingly in the deep, orange glow of the setting sun.

"It's him!' one of them shouted.

"Orders sir?" another asked.

The Wolf noticed a single gazelle standing tall above the group of pigs step forward in front of the rest with a single hoof raised to signal his men to hold their ground. His eyes seemed to dart between the three new comers before fixating on the whimpering bundle of fur clutched tightly in the Wolf Boss's arm and it was at that point that he finally opened his mouth.

"What's going on?" the gazelle asked. "Who is she?"

"What, this?" the wolf answered giving a nod toward the fawn who he could feel was now shaking with fear. "This is the reason why you're gonna let us go."

The gazelle seemed understand taken aback and took a few silent moment to respond, "You know I can't do that. "

That was not the answer the Wolf Boss had been looking for and to demonstrate his dissatisfaction he reached over with his free paw to grab hold of the side of the girl's face. With a threatening snarl he shouted, "Can't or won't?"

"It doesn't matter, either way ends up the same!" the gazelle shouted taking a step forward. "Just let the girl go."

"And if I don't? What are you gonna do? Kill me?" the Wolf Boss growled. "You're already gonna do that anyway, the only difference this makes is you're the ones who have to tell her daddy how his precious little girl got a broken neck."

"You wouldn't," the commander said with glare.

The Wolf Boss couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, tightening his grip around the fawn's head as he exclaimed, "You might wanna take another look at who you're talking to and think real hard about that one pal."

He watched as the gazelle shook his head, his brow furrowed in concentration and disbelief, "Shen is dead and your army is broken. There's nothing left for you here or anywhere out there. Even if I did let you go what could you possibly stand to gain from this?"

"I think the real question is what have I got to lose?" the Wolf Boss growled. "This girl's daddy sold us out. I got every reason to snap her like twig except that as long as she's still breathing you guys have one good reason to let us go. You can talk as big as you want but the point is I know you're not gonna do anything. So how about you just shut-up, put all the pointy crap on the ground and face the wall."

For several seconds a deathly silence fell between them as the treated the gazelle to his very best 'just see if I was kidding' glare. Fortunately for him it wasn't long until the gazelle finally gave a deep, angry sigh before calling back to his men.

"Alright you heard the dog, drop your weapons and line up on the wall. I don't want any arguments now, just do it," and with a steely glare of his own the gazelle looked back to the wolf as to spoke through gritted teeth, "Mark my words dog, your day will come."

"Yeah, whatever, just hurry up, we haven't got all night" the Wolf Boss said with a small smirk as he watched the company of guardsman slowly, grudgingly disarm themselves and walk over to face the wall in a nice, neat line of pigs.

Once he was satisfied with what he saw, the old wolf loosened his grip on the fawn and used his muzzle to gesture back to Pup as the two of them started to back away down the alleyway. For a minute or two the Wolf Boss kept his eye fixed on the company of guards until a sufficient amount of distance had been put between them that he felt safe ducking to the side and leading Pup down one of the thin side passages.

"Phew that had to be the tensest minute of life," he heard the young wolf remark in a low whisper behind him. "I think I forgot to breathe for a couple seconds."

"Well it's a good thing you remembered eventually coz this is hard enough without having to haul around two whiny idiots," the old wolf remarked back to him, taking a brief glance around to see if things were all clear before letting himself fall back against the wall with a soft thud. His wounded left side was now throbbing with agony after that little sprint and it was the most he could do just to stay upright as he leant against the cold masonry to get his breath back. "Geez this kids not making it easy."

"Yeah, about that," he heard pup continue between rapid pants for air. "What the heck are we gonna do about her?"

"I dunno," the old wolf replied with a shrug. "Probably keep her around for a little while until we're free and clear, then let find her own way home from there."

"So ya' weren't actually gonna kill her?" Pup asked.

"No," the Wolf answered briskly.

"Then what the hell were ya' gonna do if they didn't do what ya' told 'em?"

At that the Wolf Boss gave a small chuckle, "I dunno, throw her at 'em and run."

"Damn, now I kinda wished they hadn't played along," the young wolf remarked with a laugh.

"I damn sure don't," the older wolf replied before closing his eye and leaning his head back against the wall. He waited a few seconds more to get his breath back before pulling himself back upright with a groan, giving a quick nod to his left as he said, "Alright let's get going."

After several minutes of leading the way through the winding back alleys trying in vain to pretend that he had even the vaguest idea of where they were going, the Wolf Boss was understandably pleased to finally see the glow of daylight shining at the end of one of the many, many slim passageways that passed by.

With a gesture of his free paw he signalled for Pup to wait, as the old wolf slowly and cautiously limped down the narrow alleyway. His right paw was clasped tightly around the fawn's mouth to keep her quiet, and he kept his nose held high as he sniffed for even the slightest hint of any untrustworthy scents. Fortunately nothing untoward seemed to eventuate as they continued toward the light, until he stopped just a few feet away from the end with ears held as high as he could manage. Again all appeared fine and he flicked his head to signal for Pup to join him, only to then turn his head to see that the young wolf was already racing down the alleyway toward him.

"We got company boss," he exclaimed anxiously in a hushed but urgent voice, and swivelling his ears to get a good angle the Wolf Boss did indeed hear the scratching and thudding of footsteps echoing down the passage.

"They didn't see you did they?" the old Wolf growled angrily at the youngster.

"I don't think so, but when I took a peak at 'em they were commin' this way," Pup answered with his ears drooping nervously. "What're we gonna do boss?"

The Wolf Boss remained silent as he took a few moments to think. From the sound of it they were still pretty far away, so there was every chance that if the two of them held still long enough the guards would simply walk right on by. Of course that did rely on the admittedly slim chance that none of them would actually bother to look down into the brightly lit alleyway and see the two wolves hiding at the end. Come to think of it, that was probably not a good idea. So then what else was there? The only other option was to blindly step out onto the street with a hostage wrapped in his arm and take his chances in the open. Still not a very attractive proposition but from the looks of things, it was pretty much going to be the end result either way the only difference being whether or not they did so with a bunch of heavily armed guardsmen in hot pursuit.

"Well crap," the old Wolf exclaimed frustratedly, before looking to Pup. "C'mon Pup, it's now or never."

"Whatever you say boss," the youngster replied, and with that the two wolves plus one very scared and confused young fawn stepped out onto the street and into the warm orange glow of the dying afternoon…

…right into the middle of two linear formations of heavily armed boar guards who stood prepared for battle, with their spears pointed directly toward the two shocked and confused canines.

"Oh come on!' the Wolf Boss snarled in livid exasperation as he stared around at the impossibly well placed trap. "How the hell did this happen!"

"Easy, some of us just have friends in high places. Too bad you aint one of 'em." The Wolf Boss turned swiftly to face the source of the voice that had answered, only to find himself staring in silent fury toward a single particularly smug looking boar who he recognised as one of the lesser known members of the City Council. As one of the first to surrender it seemed nothing short of cruel joke that he was the one responsible for this, if indeed he was responsible as utterly unthinkable as that was.

Before he had time to think on it the sound of boots and the clanking of metal brought the old wolf's attention to the much more familiar group of guards now making their way up the alley way behind him.

"Uh boss, ya' gonna throw her or what?" he heard Pup ask anxiously, and although it was impossible to tell whether he was joking or not, it didn't exactly take a genius to see that the poor girl wasn't going to be much use to him now.

The Wolf Boss breathed a deep sigh of resignation as he finally released his grip on the fawn and gave her a gentle push to usher her away from him with solemnly worded, "Go on kid, get outta here."

When the clearly badly shaken deer refused to move after several seconds the Wolf Boss stood aside, making no effort to stop the two guards who broke formation to cautiously approach from the side and lead the girl to safety.

"Alright fine, you win. The girl's safe and you bagged yourself the big bad wolf," the old wolf growled angrily in the direction of the boar's leader. "You must feel real proud huh?"

"Not yet we don't," the boar remarked with grin as gave a signal and his men immediately began to close in around the two wolves. "You've had this commin' a long time wolfie, and I can't tell ya' how proud I am to give ya' what you deserve."

As the points of the spears drew closer the Wolf Boss heard a frightened whine and he glanced back to see Pup cowering pathetically behind him. Once again he felt a terrible pang of guilt in his gut knowing that this young wolf could have run off and saved himself at any point but had chosen to stand by him all through everything that had happened, and in return this was how it was going to end.

He deserved so much more than this. Any packmate did, and damn it all the least he could do was giving the pup a fair chance. That was what drove the old wolf to make one final act in reaching forward to grab hold of the nearest spear, and using his immense canine strength to hurl the poor surprised boar at the other end into a nearby house took his chance for one last bit of fun with both paws.

After knocking a few more of his attackers away with a good, heavy swing he turned his head toward Pup and shouted, "Run for it pup!" before charging headlong into the encroaching mass of enemies knowing full well it would probably be the end if him.