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Chapter 14: Welcome to my domain...

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(Age 22)

I lost 2 bronze armored snowbears to the reindeer riders who came at us in the thousands. Quite a few more were wounded. I'd narrowly avoided an arrow in my... Fang's other eye. There were dozens of delicious morsels of human following every bear as we rushed for the tree-line. We were spread out over a mile under the moon light.

I felt sick to throw away the lives of my beloved bears for any reason. The trees rushed passed us as we made it into the gloom under the thick forest canopy. The hooting of the meat-sack's war-cries turned into howls of agony as death began to fall from the branches like rain from the sky.

Small bronze tipped arrows hissed down from the tree-tops. The ambush of the patrol of Thenn cavalry, subsequent retreat, and counter-attack were acts of desperation. I had never felt this level of exhaustion. Three weeks of constant defending and running from the massive army.

No matter how many I killed, the Thenn's numbers continued to grow. They were recruiting all of the able bodied free folk they passed. I had lost Tear, 100 snarks, and a mammoth cutting the 15,000 Thenn down to 12,000 in a blood filled night of carnage.

Over the following week, I had 20,000 hot on my heels. The next week, 50,000. It seemed every warband in the north was congregating to kill me. It seemed the entire north had united to kill me.

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I saw through the eyes of a legion as my body was carried alongside Ven's inside the furs of my white bearded and wart covered wife, Vera. She rode atop the biggest bull mammoth I had. We went deeper into the forests.

I fled for My lives. I had never imagined facing such a massive army so soon. I had never imagined facing such an army alone. Dedicating my life to turning my skins into weapons of weapons had saved my life.

As trees crashed to the ground, the mammoths thundered through the forest as fast as they could go. My mind ran through every possible scenario I could think of to save me and as many of my bears and mammoths as possible. There was no way to hide the trail the herd made as it cleared the forest for passage.

The Snarks proved to be my salvation. Unfortunately, they were weak, and died by the dozen every day. All the sneakiness I could mentally muster gave rise to a very sneaky plot involving the Snarks, despite their relative fragility

Luckily, the snarks bred and grew extremely fast. I had managed to more than replace the losses I took with my great number of female breeders. Their normal tribe numbered into the hundreds, and they only had a dozen females at most. I had several hundred, and they all birthed large litters every couple of weeks. They were needed to replace the loses due to the human hunters.

The hunters followed my skins only a few miles behind now. They had to travel in packs too large for my bears to ambush them. I was beyond exhausted in mind and body. Still, I followed through with my plan.

I did my best to give no respite to the leading hunters. Everything even remotely capable of inducing harm quickly found their minds smashed like a high branch's icicle shattered to the ground. I added a few hundred mice to my herd and had them scampering miles ahead, scouting for the best route for the mammoths.

Backtracking to find another route with our persuers could prove to be lethal.

The scouting mice ahead of my herd of skins found an exceptionally large cave system. it smelled of something very strongly. A very rare scent. A scent I had not smelled in a long time.

"Father?"

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