Chapter 26: Wolves and Jackals (Part 1)

"Close in! Close in! Don't scatter!" The Count shouted loudly. Compared to reminders and orders, these few shouts were more like venting under fear, a bit redundant.

After all, those who could follow him had good martial arts, including clerics—they could also gallop on horses and swing hammers at the same time.

When there was no war, the opportunities for knights to kill time and polish their skills, besides tournaments, were hunting, although there was no big difference between the two. The prey in hunting was wild beasts, and the prey in tournaments was knights like themselves—however, tournaments were not many, but hunting was one of the things knights often did. Before entertaining Count Etienne, the castle steward of the Holy Cross Fortress had urged knights to go hunting more often.

Because of this, when everyone heard the long, shrill, blood-boiling howl, the first reaction was to return to their partners quickly.

Count Etienne and his knights made no mistake. They did not enter the dense forest, although the darkness was so quiet and warm, they knew it was just the devil's trap.

They only rested in the bushes at the edge of the pine forest. Even if a knight suggested looking for hazel grouse and rabbits, several people showed unusual caution. Every step they took, these experienced hunters would look back at the flickering firelight, carefully judging whether they had gone too far.

They had some gains—they dug out a squirrel's nest, which contained many plump pine cones, hazelnuts, hairy chestnuts, and shriveled fruits that couldn't be identified; the knight's footsteps startled a rabbit, which ran out wildly, hit his calf, and successfully made itself faint while hitting the knight crooked.

There was also an attendant who picked up a few feathers of a brown fish owl on a spider web that flickered with faint light. He looked up and observed the movement above carefully. He soon heard the chirping unique to this kind of bird—brown fish owls either breed in June or in December. If they encountered birds breeding in December... he soon found the bird's nest. The bird's nest was not far from the ground. He climbed up, grabbed the bird that was hatching eggs, twisted its neck, stuffed it into his coat, and went down the tree with a nest of bird eggs.

The companion of the brown fish owl, I don't know if it was a female or a male, screamed and circled in horror above the humans. It might not know that it had just avenged its family—between the cobalt blue sky and the silhouette-like black pine forest, what kind of attention did a dancing bird attract?

About two or three leagues away from Count Etienne's party, a pack of gray wolves was resting. The bird's unusual movement caught the attention of the alpha wolf. It raised its head, stared at where the movement occurred, its long mouth opened, and its eyes narrowed—the wolf's sense of smell was limited to within half a league. Theoretically, it shouldn't smell anything, but as a leader with rich experience, a wild animal's unique intuition was forcing it to act.

It stood up, howled low, and urged the second citizen in the pack, that is, those young and strong adult wolves, to stand up—they were the "pathfinders" in the pack, responsible for finding the traces of prey before hunting. They stood up, a bit at a loss at first, because there was no smell of deer or wild boar in the air, but under the constant urging of the alpha wolf, they still ran out.

When the light became dimmer and the wind became stronger, a pathfinding adult wolf came back first. It found nothing, followed by the second, the third. They circled around the alpha wolf, expressing their dissatisfaction, but the alpha wolf just waited firmly and patiently. Finally, an adult wolf came back, and it brought good news.

The alpha wolf let out a long howl, the pack woke up, adult wolves in front, aging wolves in the back, followed by sub-adults and small wolves, and the alpha wolf followed closely. It walked while occasionally raising its head, sniffing the smell in the air. Small snowflakes fell on its black nose, and before they could settle, they were melted by the hot breath.

This weather of snow, cloudy, and sunny brought great trouble to humans, but for wolves, it was a rare gain—there were webs between their toes, full of hair, and their claws were slightly blunt, which allowed them to stand firmly and not fall whether they encountered ice surfaces with almost no friction, greasy swamps, or thick moss.

The meat pads on the bottom of the wolf's feet were full of special blood vessels, which could regulate temperature independently of the rest of the body, so they wouldn't be easily frostbitten; they also had an innate "cloak," and the thick and dense fur could almost isolate the sharp cold wind and snow, and rain.

Except for the first few howls used for urging and gathering, the alpha wolf didn't make a sound again. Twenty or thirty wolves walked quietly and orderly in the dense forest and by the river. Except for startling some rabbits or birds, they didn't bring any trouble—the bear was still sleeping in its nest, the wild boar woke up but just waited for the pack to pass, and perhaps there were deer and leopards watching them, but no one wanted to provoke such a tricky enemy.

They walked about two leagues, and could already smell the smell of blood and feces. The adult wolves were obviously restless. Winter was here, it was snowing, meaning the pack's food was no longer so sufficient. They were looking forward to a hearty battle, using the prey's flesh and blood to fill their empty intestines, so that they could survive until spring.

The alpha wolf stopped, and there were irritable or uneasy woo-woo sounds in the pack—separated from them by a nearly dried-up stream, a pack of jackals suddenly drilled out from the depths of the forest. Wolves were the natural enemies of jackals. They killed and devoured each other, especially the cubs of both. The alpha wolf's line of sight collided with the alpha jackal. The leader with gray fur faced the leader with reddish-brown fur.

They should have started a battle. The pack was huge, but there was also a rare large group here, with a total number exceeding forty.

A moment later, the alpha jackal lowered its head. The alpha wolf hesitated for a while, turned around, and led the pack to continue moving forward. These jackals were also looking for food—they just walked forward tacitly across a stream. The smell in the air became thicker and clearer, human, horse, fire, and those pungent spices, wine...

——————

The attendant responsible for vigilance let out a sharp shout, "Who is it?"

Count Etienne and his knights, attendants, and the guide who finally recovered a bit of sanity, or rather, was awakened by the smell of meat soup, immediately jumped up and held their weapons in their hands.

A few breaths ago, they were full of food and drink, and heard the guide say that they might be north of Antioch now. He was very familiar with this place and knew where the nearest village was. If they rested for this night, he would take them there, follow their wishes, go to see the steward or cleric there, and have a good rest before setting off.

If they didn't want to, and wanted to return to Yafa, it was not a problem. He knew several ships, and there was always a captain willing to take the guests of the Lord of the Holy Land.

He said so, Count Etienne and others finally felt relieved. The Count allowed the guide to sit beside him, and even let him eat and drink like a knight, and gave him a bottle of wine—at this time, this bottle of wine was about the same as gold. The guide enjoyed it respectfully but comfortably, and the smug look on his face made people feel disgusted when they saw it.

They didn't know what the guide was thinking. Although Count Etienne also promised that as long as he could take them to a Christian city, he would give him ten silver coins—God bless, if it were usually, he would have knelt down to kiss the Count's boots for these ten silver coins, but he now had a bulging one hundred gold coins in his waist bag, as long as he took these people to Mleh's territory...

Of course, if it was just driving wild beasts into the net, it wouldn't be worth the four hundred gold coins later. He also had to find a way to contact the traitor of the knight order, the shameful coward, the lowly thief—the Armenian Prince Mleh, to ensure that these people fell into his hands, suffered all kinds of torture, and suffered all kinds of hardships.

But after he woke up, he had roughly looked at the situation around him, and was pleasantly surprised to find that this was a pine forest he was quite familiar with. He even saw the secret marks he made that only he could understand and others couldn't find—this was not elsewhere, it was Mleh's territory, which meant that his work had been completed by one-fifth, just waiting for him to call a Turk.

So when the attendant responsible for vigilance shouted, compared to the nervous crowd, the guide was ecstatic. After the ecstasy, he was a bit uneasy. He worried that if those Turks were unwilling to let him see Prince Mleh, what should he say? Should he directly break the identity of these Christians? That would be equal to handing over the biggest bargaining chip.

Should he say nothing? He was also worried that those barbaric and ignorant wild beasts would cut his throat with a knife, making him unable to say a word again, and his gold coins would all belong to these robbers.

But in just a split second, he didn't know whether he should expect to see wild beasts standing on two legs, or hunters falling on four claws...

What came was a wolf pack.

In the dark night, these eyes reflecting the firelight were like white tridacna and white fluorite embedded on a black lacquer board.

They didn't give humans too much reaction time. After a howl like a long horn, a huge gray wolf jumped into the circle of light. It was like a strong calf, with a body length of about a spear, and a shoulder height exceeding the knight's thigh.

The attendant facing it let out a fearful scream. He shouldn't have been so fast, so easily exposing his cowardice, although this was not his fault—but the giant wolf that had originally placed its line of sight on the horses immediately turned its head. It bared its long mouth, as if showing a ferocious smile—Etienne only had time to let out a shout, and the attendant had already been knocked down by the giant wolf.

This attendant was the illegitimate son of Count Etienne's brother. Count Etienne didn't have time to consider too much, so he rushed up, held the dagger tightly, and stabbed it into the gray wolf's shoulder. When the gray wolf twisted its body and wanted to bite him, he had already nimbly jumped over its spine, using his elbows and knees to press tightly against its ribs.

A knight on the side also ran over and hit the gray wolf's head with a short axe. This blow made that huge head fall to one side. The gray wolf let out a cry-like wail. The Count could clearly feel that the body under him was softening rapidly.

He stood up, pulled his nephew up, and in that short period of time, the battle between humans and the wolf pack had completely broken out.

Wolves were not creatures that liked to fight alone. They were the devil's army, good at deception and sneak attacks. They even knew how to lure the enemy. Chasing, intercepting, and dividing were their specialties—they divided into several teams, one team to tear the horses, three teams to deal with the most dangerous enemies, that is, knights and their attendants...

And there was another team, they were the real hunters.

Their target was exactly the old, weak, sick, and disabled in this team. The weak were of course those young attendants and servants, and the disabled... of course, it was the guide whose head was still buzzing from time to time.

This branch of the wolf pack was not in a hurry to kill these people—it was not easy to kill a person.

They took turns attacking, bypassing the waving sticks and swords, grabbing their feet, tearing their clothes, and constantly baring their teeth to threaten them. Once they lost their reason and balance due to fear and suddenly fell, the members who had been prepared for a long time would rush out from the darkness, bite their hands, feet, or shoulders and drag them into the depths of the pine forest. In such a chaotic situation, as long as they were dragged out ten or twenty feet, the people still fighting with the wolf pack could no longer take care of them.

The guide was the second to fall. Although he didn't have a father who was the Count of Champagne, considering that he still needed him to lead the way later, a knight hurriedly ran over, waved a burning pine branch to burn away the wolf that was biting his shoulder, and grabbed the guide's hood, wanting to pull him back to where there was firelight...

More sharp claws stretched out, hooking the guide's clothes and flesh. He screamed in pain, and the knight couldn't help but feel a chill, and couldn't help but shout: "Devil!" Wasn't it? He had always found it strange. He had lived in this world for more than thirty years, but he had never seen a large wolf pack of more than fifty.

The one that grabbed the guide was originally just two young wolves that were obviously

The wolves and the jackals have formed an alliance and are hunting them together!

If a man sees a single wolf, unless he is already too old to move or too young to know any better, a wolf is absolutely no match for a man. A wolf only has one mouth to bite with, but a man has two hands; he can throw the wolf to its death, crush it, or strangle it...

But here, it is a pack of wolves. If it were only a pack of wolves, they might still have a chance of winning, and in that case, the wolves would instead become their food and clothing. But now, in addition to the dozen or so wolves, they also have to deal with jackals, whose numbers are definitely no lower than the former—jackals are smaller than wolves and usually can only hunt rabbits, chickens, some birds, or even insects, but sometimes numbers can compensate for strength!

(End of chapter)