“Ye,” the owner said. “They are all gone.”
Kai nodded, his heart sinking in disappointment. He should never have come here. He knew that disappointment and pain awaited him, yet he had still allowed himself to hope. He walked outside the pub and stood there for a minute, enjoying the sunlight. It was best for him if he just buried his memories and moved on.
He turned around to leave the village when his keen eyes spotted something in the distance. A couple of wagons seemed to be passing by, surrounded by a bunch of guards. Kai slowly made his way closer, suspicions arising in his heart. Why were there so many wagons filled with weapons being led into a small, peaceful village like this? And why were werebear shifter guards surrounding it?
He snuck slowly through the trees making his way toward the wagons. The number of weapons on the wagons was surprising and quite worrying. Not only were there many weapons, but most of them were also rather dangerous and made with the metal of Alor. Kai frowned. He didn’t know of any instance where Jake agreed to sell the metal to the Rain bear clan or even any humans.
“Hurry up, will you?” one of the guards whispered. “We need to get these weapons to headquarters before tonight!”
“Shush!” the other guards whispered. “Keep your voice down. We have to be careful. That tracker is still roaming around. We have to make sure he doesn’t find out about our plan!”
Kai didn’t know what was going on, but his intense distrust of the bear clan led him to conclude that something very wrong was going on. He needed to report everything to Jake instantly.
Kai was so lost in trying to hear the guards and his own thoughts that he didn’t hear the sounds behind him. By the time he heard the footsteps, it was too late. His tracker senses were blaring the alarm but there was little he could do. The perfectly aimed club hit him in the back of his head and he fell to the ground before blacking out.
Chapter 2
“They have the entire area surrounded. All the paths out of the valley are blocked and guarded,” Brian, the leader, said. “Our numbers have increased ever since the soldiers and residents of the Genova village agreed to join us. This gives me hope that we will soon be able to defeat these bear shifters who are slowly taking over all our land!”
Lilly looked at him with a fierce look in her eyes. Her hand clenched around the gun she carried on her side as the villagers around her erupted in cheers.
Brian held up his hand, gesturing the villagers to become silent.
“For far too long, the Rain clan has been treating us humans as if we were filth. For far too long, we have withstood the torture and pain they have inflicted on us. They stole our land! They killed our families and the people we loved. They drove us out of our homes and massacred anyone who resisted! They used their powers as a werebear to attack innocent women and children and take them as slaves! Well, no more! No more will we stand around, accepting our fate! We will fight to the end for our rights, our lands, and our people!”
Lilly roared and cheered with the rest of the people, feeling excitement bubbling through her. “Death to werebears!” the crowd chanted. “Death to the murderer and thieves!”
“Lilly.” A voice whispered behind her and she turned around to see Conner. “We need you in the conference room. There is some new information.”
Lilly nodded and followed him toward the small shack that they called the conference room. She entered to find that most of the members of the council were already there.
“Lilly,” Helen, the vice leader, said. “I read through your report of the mission yesterday. You said you took five scouts with you and that all five of them witnessed the weapons being snuck in through wagons?”
“Yes,” Lilly said, coming to stand near the table which had a huge map spread across it. “They must be planning something big; otherwise, why would they need so many?"
"We can discuss that later," Brian said, entering the shack. “Right now, we have business to attend to. One of our spies brought us new information that might be crucial for us all.”
He turned to look at Helen, who immediately took charge of the meeting. “Apparently, the Rain clan has taken captive a bear tracker from another clan. From what we could find, it seems as if the Rain clan asked another clan for help to hunt down Carlos. We all know him as the bear hunter. He was instrumental to our cause, and we deeply mourn his loss.”
“Carlos is gone?” Saira, his lover, gasped.
“I am sorry, Saira,” Helen whispered. “They got him this morning.”
Saira bit her lip, trying to suppress the tears that flooded her eyes. Lilly felt a twinge of pain along with a feeling of admiration for how brave Saira was being.
“We will go after him,” Brian said. “We are getting a team ready to make an attempt. I already have my best spies gathering information about where he is being kept. Once we know, I will personally make a team and try my best to get him out of there.”
Saira nodded her thanks and Helen cleared her throat. “There is another matter. The tracker. Apparently, he has been taken captive by the Rain clan and is being held in one of their dungeons. It’s made with one of their special steels, the impossibly strong kind.”
“The question is, do we get him out?” Brian asked, looking around the council.
“You said he hunted Carlos down and handed him to the Rain clan,” Saira said. “Why would we rescue him?”
“Because the Rain clan took him captive,” Lilly replied. “They either had some sort of disagreement, or they were never on the first side in the first place. Either way, we can try and rescue him and bring him here. If we feel he is too dangerous, we can simply keep him here as our prisoner.”
“Aye,” Bradley said. “And, if he is their enemy, then we can ask him to join us. Maybe he will even inform his clan and then we will have a whole army on our side.”
The other council members mumbled in agreement as Brian and Helen exchanged looks.
