Chapter 17

Hartland

Fat, wet flakes of snow drifted down. Sometimes gathering and swirling into white curtains. The three rangers and their wolf guide traveled through the mountain terrain, when the snow swept down in dense flurries, the wolf that was chase was often no more than a gray shape ahead of them. He weaved in and out of the trees so well that if his companions had not been rangers they would have lost him.

The low clouds were broken in places letting shafts of sunlight shine through, the landscape was a colorless empty expanse of white. That told the three rangers that there new home was going to be very cold.

A little while later the four were met by a sloping mountain meadow buried beneath a white winder blanket. Chase seen to be on high alert, his eyes moved from one tree line to the next and his ears were ever pricked forward.

Chase had warned them that shifters were a fearful race and rarely let themselves be seen by any one that was not a shifter too. Halt and the others knew that they must be close, for Chase then let out a soft howl that seemed to carry down the meadow and out into the valley beyond the travelers.

"We are here. Change into your animal forms now because if they see you only as human, they will strike and you will be killed" said Chase

Halt, Will and Gilan did what he asked and then started to walk down into the valley with Tug, Abelard and Blaze following close behind.

They were soon met by two wolves. One a snow white with red eyes, the other a pure black with blue eyes. They ran up to Chase and started to rub themselves all over him and try to mount him and all kinds of things to get Chase to start the same things with them too.

"Kipp, Hersh please stop" Chase said, then when they did he continued "Halt" the large brown wolf nodded to the two new wolves, "Will" the smaller brown wolf nodded "and Gilan" the lion nodded. The two wolves nodded to the three new comers.

"Sorry about that, we have not seen Chase in a very long time" said the white wolf that was Kipp and the black wolf nodded.

"That's fine" said Gilan coming up to the two new wolves. The wolves just looked at him and Gilan said "have you finished staring?".

"Right, sorry... its just you don't see many lions here, not large ones like you anyway. Oh are any of you mated or anything?" said Hersh, looking at the small brown wolf. He eyed him up and down already he could feel his body reacting to this wolf's smell, only to have the bigger brown wolf rumble a deep growl at him.

"Hersh stay away from Will, he is Halt's mate. Remember the last time you made that mistake, I believe you were healing for weeks after. Something tells me if you went after Will, you would be dead the next day" said Chase as he continued to lead the group down into the valley.

"Right sorry, I'll pass that on to the other single wolves"said Hersh, his head and tail down, submissive. Kipp laughed at this, he sure did not have the problem that Hersh did, for he had a mate.

"Chase do you want to put them up in newling house. It is empty at the moment and I am sure that they would like to be closer to you until they understand the people here"said Kipp readying his body to run ahead.

"Yes that would be good, and see if you can round up the elders, before you ask these three have skills that I believe could help us in defeating the monster" said Chase.

The group watched as Kipp and Hersh gave a small bow and a short yip before taking off into the trees beyond. As the group made their way out of the snow ridden mountain meadow and into the valley bellow.

Will watched as the valley gave into the village. The houses were simple wooden ones with a stone base to lift them off the ground and thatched roofs but the village was not as big as Will thought it would be.

Gilan asked about the two wolves that Chase had called his brothers, he had thought that he had said he had only a sister and Chase had responded that it is true that he only had a sister but all wolves considered other wolves family.

"This is newling house, it is yours until you have your own built" said Chase as he stopped in front of a large house. They all changed back into their human forms, the three horses were put into the stable a long side the house and then the three rangers took in their new home.

The house like all the others was wood and stone but inside was like their cottage back in Araluen. It had four bedrooms, a stone fireplace with soft chairs in front of it. The rooms were of a nice size and the beds large enough for more than two people to lay on them.

Will sank into one of those soft chairs, he had not sat in one since he was in his old home back at redmont. Will knew that he should go and sleep in one of those beds, for he was sure that Halt would want to cuddle up to him or maybe even make love but right now this chair felt great. It was so soft that he was soon in a deep sleep. It was not until much later that he heard something.

At first he did not know what it was, it sounded fuzzy as if it was coming from far away but it was becoming clearer all the time until he heard.

"Come to me"

And that was the last thing he heard before darkness claimed him.

An: I wonder who said that? more soon.