Chapter 4: Howling in the Deep Woods

“I went over to the mage district to hang out.” Jace answered Grid’s question while tearing off another slice of bread.

The small building where his own rented house was located was on his heels, and if if Grid called him out for a night of drinking, then he certainly couldn’t say yes.

In fact, he didn’t want to agree to anything right now, and he didn’t want to talk to Grid, he just wanted to rush into his little shitty house and get some quick sleep, after all this torture he felt like he could go to sleep in seconds at any moment if he didn’t lie down.

Grid glanced him up and down and muttered in a low voice, “The mage district? Look at you like you’ve been drained, if you didn’t know better you’d think you’d taken a trip to the old town.”

Jace took a few bites of the baguette in his hand and pushed it against Grid’s chest, chanting, “I’m not you, come on, what do you want from me?”

Grid glanced at the workers lying on either side of him and whispered, “Of course there’s work.”

“Can’t do it, can’t do it.” Jace waved his hand and said, “I can’t do anything else today.”

“A trip to the Western Springs Fortress tomorrow, 1 silver coin plus 30 copper for a round trip, you say you’ll do it, right? Don’t have to drive yourself, take a carriage and you can take a nap on the way.”

“Escorting grain?”

“It’s military rations, from Moon Creek Town, to be sent to Lakeside Town, it’s needed by the expeditionary army of the Watchtower Fortress …… The situation over at the Dark Gate seems to be complicated, and it’s going to be a fight. But we only need to escort this trip to Shining Gold Town, with the soldiers don’t need to worry about safety.”

“What if an orc sneaks in? You don’t even want to die for a silver coin?”

“Where are the orcs over at the Western Springs Fortress? Leave them for the next trip to worry about!” The Dwarf walked up the steps and said, “The orcs are all from over the Red Ridge Mountains, and the security in the Western Wilderness and Moonbrook is better than on our side, my old man. Plus with the soldiers for company, this is money for nothing!”

“That’s not bad.”

Jace let out a disarming laugh, and with that one silver coin, the rent was properly earned.

At noon the next day, the two men signed in to report and join the caravan to Fortress Western Springs.

Just as Grid had said, nothing had been encountered on the way here, be it wolves, fishmen, dog-heads, or orcs, nothing, and the Aerwyn Forest was peaceful and calm.

However, the food, which was supposed to arrive at the fort at roughly 3:00 p.m., dragged on for hours.

In the evening, the red sunlight poured through the trees onto the tops of the tents stationed next to the Western Springs Fortress, making the barracks along the riverbank look like they were set out, freshly baked, like pudding cakes.

The wagons finally arrived, and the quartermaster talked to the soldiers, who seemed to be having some trouble over at Sentinel Ridge.

There was no time to wait, the hired guards and soldiers were donning their armor and bringing their weapons, it was late and they had to leave as soon as possible.

Escorting the caravan were six heavily armed soldiers, armed with longswords and Storm Lion emblem shields, and wearing intimidating full-blown Blue Spike nose-guard helmets that just looked expensive as hell.

If another twenty or so armed militia recruited like Jace and Grider followed, I’m afraid that no stragglers in their right mind would dare to come to a hard fight over a few wagons of grain.

Except that the cars coming back didn’t carry any cargo, and the soldiers had to walk back, and everyone was in a bit of a slack mood.

A few of the recruits on their first escort mission talked about the gray wolves and wild bears in the forest, about how the beasts were hungry and might go crazy and attack the convoy, and how Jace had confronted a few wolves while hauling wood in the East Valley lumberyards, but hadn’t been involved in any real battles.

Listening to them and casting his eyes towards that forest was also a bit hairy.

His mind had been so filled with the agonizing curse he had experienced in the basement of the slaughtered lamb that he hadn’t even given much thought to what the name “Western Springs Fortress” meant.

At that moment, a lone wolf howled from deep in the forest, and the quartermaster in charge of the food shipment blew a loud whistle to alert everyone that they were ready to go.

The wolf’s howl suddenly brought back memories of Jace from over a decade ago.

Isn’t this …… the jackal infested Western Springs Fortress?

The Jackal is a humanoid monster that lives extensively within the Stormwind Kingdom, and many young people can’t tell the difference between a jackal and a dog-headed man.

If the dog-heads were a group of badass thieves, the jackals were a group of bloodthirsty bandits, and the two were simply not comparable in terms of size, fighting strength and ferocity.

Several jackal tribes had once joined forces, and there had also been a war-level conflict with the Stormwind Kingdom.

Although, they were eventually unable to fight against the human regular army and fled in defeat, nearly extinct in the Aelwyn Forest, dispersed into the surrounding mountains and wilderness, but after a few decades of recovery, these barbaric and violent semi-intelligent races are back again, infiltrating into the Aelwyn Forest from all directions across the river and bridges.

At this time, Western Springs Fortress was still in a period of reconstruction after the Orc Wars, but after a decade or so had become an outpost against the Riverclaw clans living in the wild west.

Jace jogged a few steps to catch up to one of the Stormwind guards and asked, “Have the grain carts been attacked by jackals before?”

The guard sidled his head and said, “Jackals? When the Orc tribe attacked the western wilderness a few years ago, they took out one of the leaders of their Riverclaw tribe, and now the Riverclaw tribe is without a leader and can’t organize to harass us at all. Of course, don’t go near the Riverclaw alone yourself, it’s still dangerous.”

Doesn’t the River Claw tribe have a chief?

Jace nodded and slowly made his way back to his spot, looking at the fading shade of the trees, something didn’t feel right.

If the River Claw tribe has no chief, when did Hogg show up?

This jackal leader, who has terrorized countless Alliance newcomers in the World of Warcraft, has repelled Stormwind’s manhunt time and time again.

Now was he born, and if so, how old was he, and had he reached adulthood?

A cool breeze swept through, a rare moment of coolness on a hot summer day, and Grid let out a hiss of comfort, scratching his neck.

The wind was far away blowing through the trees, the leaves rustled and the air was a little humid.

Jace thought that he thought he heard the sound of metal scraping against metal, was it a jackal?

Unlike the rhythmic footsteps of soldiers in armor, the murmurs were noisy and impatient, as if they were chasing something, but when the wind passed, all was quiet again with it.

The after-effects of the curse of pain, including ringing in the ears and a feeling of revulsion still lingered somewhat even after the night, and Jace didn’t dare just jump to the conclusion that there were any enemies around.

Moreover, the jackals hadn’t attacked humans much since the war, so it couldn’t be that they were killed while they were taking part in the operation, could it be such a coincidence?

Just as he took a deep breath to try and push back the urge to vomit, he suddenly heard a “thud!” from the other side of the carriage. .

Something knocked on the wagon.

“What’s wrong?” The quartermaster at the front looked back.

Whoosh ……

Knock!

Whoosh …… poof!

“Ah!”

Whoosh ……

“Holy light on …… It’s orc crossbows! Orcs attack!” Shouts rang out everywhere from the front and back.

“Orcs?!” Grid grasped his lumbering axe with both hands, looked back and forth, and asked, “Where are the orcs? I thought there were no orcs here?”

“Ha! La-la-la-la-la!”

“Ah-la-la-la-la-la!”

“Woah da da da da!”

Monstrous howls exploded from everywhere in the dark jungle as a single twisting black shadow rolled crookedly out from behind trees, bushes, boulders and under railings.

A militiaman was holding his neck, which had been shot by a crossbow, and fleeing, when suddenly he was met by a dark figure holding a machete and slicing his head off, and his body surprisingly ran a few steps before collapsing.

“Bastards, it’s not even orcs, it’s jackals!” Grid muttered in Dwarven as he leaned against the wagon, turned and climbed up, standing over the grain sacks with his axe raised and yelled, “Come at me all, you half-witted dingoes!”

The jackals seemed to understand the common language, and when they heard the dwarves suddenly cursing so much, three or four of them all shouted and gathered this way.

They wore ragged armor that they didn’t know how to make, and held all kinds of weapons that they snatched from the hands of orcs and humans, their battle method was messy but absolutely crazy, they didn’t have any scruples at all, except for those few Storm City Guards who were still two or three pairs supporting each other to fight, most of the militia were dispersed in a flash.

A jackal climbed onto the grain wagon and slid off the wagon shivering on the spot from an axe strike to the head by Grid, however the dwarf failed to grab his own axe, allowing it to embed itself in the jackal’s skull and fall off the wagon with it.

At the same time, the other jackal climbed up with a small hammer in his hand and smashed it hard, and was directly grabbed by the dwarf’s wrist with his bare hands, and the two of them just fought hard with brute force.

The berserk jackal fought against the dwarf, who was a little shorter than him, and even froze, Grid shouted wildly, completely failing to see that an even shorter jackal had already climbed onto the grain wagon behind him with a cleaver in his hand.

“Behind you, Grid!” Jace circled around and stabbed his sword into the small jackal’s waist, the latter wailed and tried to keep crawling on his hands and knees to avoid Jace’s attack, the blow to his waist surprisingly didn’t interfere with his speed much.

Jace slashed again, only hitting the leg paw of the small jackalope, who didn’t stand still and was kicked off the cart into the muddy water again by the dwarf.

By now the rain was pouring down, and Jace arm wiped away his hair that was plastered to his forehead and eyes as he walked over and aimed his sword at the little jackal’s chest.

“If I don’t kill you you’re going to kill me ……,” he murmured, then thrust his sword in hard.

The jackal who had been stabbed in the center of the mouth with a sword suddenly leapt up like a rabid dog, coughing violently and running wildly in the direction of the river, startling Jace, who hadn’t expected to be so cranky after being stabbed in the chest.

“Jace, come on, get my axe back, I can’t get him anymore!”

Seeing that Grid was still in the car and the tall jackal arm wrestling, Jace no longer cared about other things, ran to the side of the jackal who just fell off the car and was split in the head, stepped on the neck and pulled out the axe with all his might, and this time, “click”, the jackal’s head was broken.

“Take that!”

Jace tossed the axe onto the car, and without even looking Grid caught it in the air and smashed it into the jackal’s eye socket with the handle.

The jackal wailed and scrabbled as he took two steps back and fell off the bus, and with a yell Grid leapt off after him, and after a flurry of movement of blood and metal, there was no sound from that side.

Jace gripped his sword, trying to see if there was anything else on this side that needed help, and before he could look around for more than a few moments, a Stormwind noseguard helmet protruding with his head came flying over without warning and smashed into the wheel in front of him, splattering him with blood spots all over his face.

What’s going on?

Looking over in the direction where the head flew over, in the rain screen, a shadow of huge size stepped on a headless corpse, holding an exaggerated iron axe was smashing hard one at a time at a Storm City guard, who’s helmet was already full of blood, and I’m afraid that he couldn’t hold it up any longer.

Jace didn’t think much of it and just threw his sword, the somewhat curved and broken sword spun around and smashed right into the creature’s massive to exaggerated orc shoulder armor bouncing off and plunging into the dirt.

The giant jackal turned his head, his image gradually becoming clearer.

His look was hardly menacing, demented at best, but the intimidation of his size was not something that could be counteracted by a retard-like stare.

Jace felt his heart pounding on the verge of crashing out of his chest, the unpleasant sensations from the previous agonizing curse swept away.

Just then, the jackal sneered and muttered “Hogg.”