The Wolf of War

by Punished Venom Muddy


Chapter 8 - Northern Raiders

Caramel's eyes slowly cracked open, letting the soft orange glow of the sunrise wash over her smiling muzzle as the sweet morning melodies of the birds began to sing through the air. Determined to start the day off strong, the young mare rose from her bed and headed downstairs.
Caramel hummed a tune as she prepared breakfast, the birds seeming to join in her jovial song. Not long after she had taken the oatmeal off of the stove, Caramel heard Sunrise's hoofsteps descending the stairs.

"Good morning, Baba" Caramel greeted as the old stallion took a seat at the table.

"Have you seen our guest yet?" Sunrise asked, rubbing a hoof over his eyes.

"I was just about to bring him some breakfast" Caramel replied, setting a bowl of the warm paste before Sunrise.

"I'm sure he'll appreciate it," Sunrise said before starting on his own meal.
"Bring him to the forge when you're done, we've got plenty to do. Even with an extra body around to help"

Caramel nodded her head and gave Sunrise a kiss on the cheek before leaving for the storehouse, a warm bowl of oats propped between her wings.

"Mister Vvulf?" Caramel called out as she pushed open the storehouse doors, sunlight spilling in behind her to illuminate the armored man sitting in the center of the dirt floor.

Vvulf rose and stood, turning to face the peppy mare. His seething steel visage glaring at Caramel as the young mare set the bowl of food down on a nearby crate.

"I brought you something to eat before we start today" Caramel smiled, her voice wavering slightly as her eyes locked with the facade's. Her gaze quickly switching to the far-less intimidating dirt below.
"I wasn't sure what you ate, so I hope you don't mind oats"

"I..." Vvulf started, but paused, taking a moment to look over at the still-steaming food.
"Thank you" He finished, taking the bowl.

"You're welcome" Caramel beamed, watching with utmost fascination as Vvulf lifted his helmet enough to take a spoonful of the steaming oats.
"Wouldn't it be, I don't know, easier to eat without the helmet on? And aren't you uncomfortable in all that damaged armor? Why don't you take them off?" Caramel asked.

"Tradition" Vvulf replied simply as he finished the meal, lowering his helmet closed again, sealing himself behind the snarling beast again.
"I was told there was work to be done"

"Always" Caramel giggled, turning to leave the storehouse.
"Come on, Baba's already at the forge"


Vvulf knelt down and filled the bucket he had been given, part of him resented this errand boy's task, but simultaneously, he did owe at least this small gratitude to Sunrise and Caramel. With the bucket filled with the chilled water, Vvulf stood and began the short trek back from the creek, to the forge.
As Vvulf walked, something caught his attention. The distant sound of alarm bells crying out on the wind, the smell of fires, and the near-silent cries of the nearby village his hosts called home.

Vvulf quickened his stroll to a dead sprint, rushing through the forest the way he had came just an hour prior. As he entered back into the clearing of Sunrise and Caramel's property, Vvulf saw the culprits behind the commotion.
Yaks, donned in layered plates of lamelar shingles were ransacking the area, orders being bellowed in a deep and throaty foreign tongue.
Just as Vvulf witnessed the transgressors, so to did they notice him. A yak with a long black-haired plume pointed a cloven hoof at Vvulf before barking orders in the same strange dialect, several more of the armored raiders moving in on Vvulf, lowering their horned helmets to charge.

Vvulf reacted without hesitation, sidestepping the first charging yak, bringing the bucket down on the bovine's head with enough force to shatter the wood and drop the attacker. Vvulf's armored boot finishing the job with a forceful stomp, crushing the fallen yak's helmet and the skull within.
The next yak let out a warcry at seeing the event unfold before them, but Vvulf silenced the noise with a knee to the jaw as he dashed forward, towards his attackers. Blood and shards of teeth left the yak's mouth, followed by a pained scream before they were grabbed by the horn and belt, turning them broadside to act as a meat-shield. A choked gurgle escaping the raider as they were unintentionally impaled by their charging ally.

Vvulf grabbed the small dagger on the belt he was grasping, unsheathing the blade and slamming it into the exposed neck of the impaling yak.
Before Vvulf could retrieve the weapon from between yak vertebrae, another of the armored bovines collided with his side, sending him sliding back. The yak continued to charge, pushing Vvulf back towards the wall of the storehouse. With a sudden and violent jerk of the yak's horns, Vvulf twisted his attacker's neck, eliciting a rapid series of pops and crunches before letting the yak fall to the frozen dirt below.

As, what Vvulf assumed to be the leader, bellowed more orders to his units, Vvulf grabbed ahold of the woodcutting axe leaning against the storehouse. His steel-clad grip tightening around the simple wooden handle of the humble tool, feeling the heft of the head. It didn't compare to his own. But it would do.

Vvulf's charged the raiders again, meeting their advance with his own. The first yak caught the axe's head to the face, cleaving the top of their head off. The scalped yak's body didn't even have time to hit the ground before another joined it, Vvulf continuing the momentum from the first swing into the side of the adjacent yak. Even the slightly-dulled edge of the axe made quick work of the yak's armor with Vvulf's force behind it. Lamelar plates split, spraying a crimson splash out across the frosted earth below, the blood soaking into the dirt and snow.

A cry of pain from Sunrise in the forge stole Vvulf's attention, distracting him just long enough for a yak to collide with him, a horn piecing the man's damaged armor and stabbing into his side. Vvulf let out a grunt of pain before bringing the butt of the axe's handle down on the yak's horn, snapping the bone in two, removing the horn from his side and slamming it upwards, straight through the yak's muzzle.

Vvulf rolled behind the forge's wooden wall, several arrows lodging into the structure before bursting, spreading flames along the surface. While the archers readied another volley of arrows, Vvulf made his advance, his blistering speed allowing him to close the distance with the ranged units before they could loose their second volley.
The axe made quick work of one of the archers, Vvulf bringing the blade down in the center of the yak's back, cleaving into the raised shoulders of the bovine.

Vvulf left the axe embedded deep in the meat of the archer, snatching up the dropped shortbow and firing the still-nocked arrow at the central archer's quiver. The effect was immediate, the collection of arrows all catching at once on the yak's side. The explosion blowing the yak's side out, spraying chunks of meat and viscera into the line of archers, the bloody-red mist blinding them for an instant. But an instant was all Vvulf needed to cleave through the remaining archers like a whirlwind of death. Meat, bones, nor lamelar scales were any resistance to the brutal blows Vvulf delivered to the archers, the old woodcutter's axe staining the earth and himself crimson with his charge.

The yaks' leader remained determined, ordering the remaining troops to charge Vvulf before drawing a curved sword at his side, gripping the blade in his muzzle and charging Vvulf as they let out a collective warcry. Vvulf responded with his own bloodthirsty roar, charging to meet the raiders.

Vvulf swung his axe low at the nearest yak, cutting clean through both front legs and leaving a bloody trail as they slid on the ground. The next yak received a full-force blow to the center of their face from the axe, splitting the helmet and head of the bovine with one blow.
Several raiders halted and fled as they witnessed Vvulf pry the axe from the gory hole that had once been their comrade's face, leaving only a few yaks following their leader's order to charge.

Vvulf finished off the brave souls that remained with ruthless efficiency, decapitating two yaks with a mighty cleave and finishing their leader with a blow to the side, followed by another to the collar. With the threat of the raiders gone for now, Vvulf turned his attention back to the forge currently ablaze.


Before Vvulf could approach the burning building, Caramel and Sunrise exited, the old stallion leaning heavily on the young mare to walk.

"I see you cleaned up the rest of that lot" Sunrise said eyeing the bloody axe in Vvulf's grip, letting out a pained groan as Caramel set him down.

"Are you alright?" Vvulf asked, dropping the axe and moving to Sunrise as Caramel took off into the clouds above.

"Nothing I won't survive" Sunrise replied, holding a hoof against his bloody side.

"And your forge?" Vvulf asked as both he and Sunrise looked on at the building inferno.

"It'll survive too" Sunrise sighed as Caramel reappeared from the cloud cover, pushing a pouring storm cloud over the forge, letting the rain extinguish the flames.

"I see" Vvulf replied, staring on with Sunrise at the forge as Caramel touched down beside them.

"Mister Vvulf! Are you alright?" Caramel asked, looking up at the armored man.

"Yes" Vvulf responded, looking down at the soot-covered young mare.
"And yourself?"

"Just a little singed" Caramel replied, brushing some of the soot out of her mane with a hoof.

"Caramel, be a dear for Baba and fetch the herbalist. I think our savior and myself could use some of her medicines" Sunrise instructed, Caramel responding with a nod before taking off into the air again.

Sunrise watched her disapper over the treeline before he shakily rose to his hooves, Vvulf giving no protest when Sunrise used his armored leg to steady himself.

"Help me to the forge Vvulf, I have something to give you" Sunrise instructed, allowing the armored man to simply lift and carry him to the charred building.

Once the pair reached the entrance, Sunrise reached a hoof up to his eye-patch, lifting the covering and pulling a small key from the hole where his eye would have been.

"I've been holding on to this, a memento of sorts, collecting dust" Sunrise began, moving over to the far wall and inserting the key into an almost unnoticeable hole near the bottom.
"But I think someone such as yourself would get more use out of it than that"

As Sunrise finished talking, a quiet click sounded out, the hidden panel he had activated jutted out from the rest of the wall, but only just slightly. Wasting no more time, the old stallion opened the compartment, retrieving an object wrapped with a white-scaled hide.

"Here" Sunrise offered, holding out the object to Vvulf. Without saying a word, Vvulf took the old stallion's gift, slowly unwrapping the tough hide covering. What Vvulf saw beneath caused a smirk to cross the man's lips behind his stoic facade.

The item held within the hide was an axe, not just an ordinary tool, or a common weapon, but a master crafted piece of art. Beauty and death forged into one singular piece that captured Vvulf's full attention as he studied every inch of the piece.
The dark wooden handle reinforced with intricate weavings of metal, that wound itself all the way up and along the head of the axe. The runes carved into the head of the axe pulsed with enough magical energy that Vvulf could feel its hum in his chest, a low, steady thrumming of ancient power.

"Where did you come across something like this?" Vvulf asked, genuinely curious as he continued to inspect the item.

"The same place that I met Caramel's mother. It was hers before it was mine" Sunrise replied, the flash of some deep pain showing behind his amber eye for just an instant.
"Consider it yours now"

"Is there anything I can give you in return?" Vvulf asked, understanding the sentimental value behind the item.

"No" Sunrise responded, holding up a hoof to silence any objection Vvulf may have had.
"I have spoken"

With nothing more to say, Vvulf simply nodded, finally grabbing ahold of the axe's handle without the scaled wrapping. In an instant the runes on the axe illuminated, glowing a soft blue, causing a wave of frost to form over the blade's edge.

"It seems it likes you" Sunrise said, closing the compartment before replacing the key into the void of his eye socket.
"Its name was Frigor, but you can call it whatever you like. Or nothing at all"

"Frigor" Vvulf repeated, the energy thrumming beneath his armored grasp intensifying as the name was uttered.