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Sorry it's a day late. More plot. More development. More magical fantasy violence. Good times. Gooooood times. Let me know how I'm doing, and with that, take it away, Wolf-dude.

Chapter 6: Conspiracy of One

"MOVE IT! GET YOUR ARSE OUT OF HERE!"

Seth Black's voice blasted at the wolf soldier, the grunt stumbling back to his feet and hustling away from the smoldering wreckage. He let out a panicked yelp as an arrow zipped by his ear before lodging itself into the neck of a Senkhari soldier behind him, the flames infecting the city of Golemsh like a flesh-eating disease reflecting off the coyote's white armor and turning it a reddish hue. Cyrus Fox nocked and fired another arrow that came close to grazing Seth before finding its intended mark, another enemy just beyond him, causing the well-armored fox to comment that the muscular wolf owed him one before barking at the newly-rescued soldier, "What the hell are you waiting for?! You heard the male, get back to your detachment!" Cyrus shook his head in frustration and began walking towards his comrade, at which point Seth calmly but firmly uttered the word, "Duck."

Confused, but conditioned by this point to not question the leader mid-battle, Cyrus dropped to a crouch, just in time for a sword to spin end-over-end over his head and skewer an opposing soldier through a kink in his armor. "Consider us even," Seth declared, walking behind Cyrus and recovering his weapon as the fox got back to his feet. "Fair enough," the fox sighed, "Shall we make our way back across Hell's forgotten pisshole and rejoin the others? Also, where'd you learn to be so reckless with your sword?" The wolf playfully punched Cyrus' spaulder, "I could've only learned to be _that_reckless with my weapon from the best." Cyrus drew another arrow from his quiver and readied it on his bow in case a particularly ambitious Senkhari soldier tried to ambush them from the rubble and replied, "Oi. I think you've got the wrong idea about me, mate." "Nonsense," Seth shook his head, keeping his twin swords in a tense stance in front of him, "All you do is get your shafts stuck in whoever's askin' for it." "Yeah and I've only got one lassie consistently asking for it, and she's the sweetest bullseye I've ever seen. Come off it, male, you sound like Richard," the fox argued, subtly picking up his pace across the battlefield. "Och, jokes," Seth informed him, ignoring Cyrus' questionable relationship logic, "Speaking of Richard, I wonder how he's doing managing the other two and that motley fuck-up of a unit." "Can't assume it's going very well," Cyrus lamented, "unless Richard learned how to light fire on fire. On second thought, that likely wouldn't be the most ridiculous thing that happened today."

After a couple more minutes of banter-filled traveling, Seth and Cyrus linked back up with Richard, Alistair, and Harry, as well as a very heterogeneous mixture of foxes and wolves, including some Legion soldiers. "'S 'bout time you fuckers showed up," Harry growled, "have a fun time skippin' 'round holdin' paws over there?" "I'm pretty sure we just rescued half of the Timbrian Army, Harry. Down, boy," Cyrus came back dryly. "And we've stopped more than that of the Senkhari one," Alistair almost whined before Richard stepped in, "Look, Seth, it's been rough. If I hadn't figured out how to draw on the power of the fire around us, this might've turned out differently." As the sword-and-shield-armed wolf opened his maw from under his helmet to speak more, a strong wind blew through the relatively open area in the city ruins where the foxes and wolves were standing. Out from a cloud of smoke and ash stepped a swarm of shirtless Senkhari males, all carrying a blade in each paw and sporting blue paint drawn in vaguely-tribal-looking patterns all over their bodies. Following the initial force, a leader emerged behind them, a big black jackal with similar body paint, but wearing a sleeveless set of spiked armor over his torso and wielding a nasty-looking halberd. The jackal spoke in an accent reminiscent of something from Eastern Europe, "It is time now to clean the stench of Timbrian blood from our lands. Face the power of The Children of Akralos!"

The Timbrian soldiers readied their weapons and prepared to fight, once again stuck in a situation that had become essentially an average Saturday evening for the males of the King's Regiment, now informally referred to as The Legion. Just another overpowered enemy in a hellish environment, isolated and with little support. Seth Black growled before he and his teammates led the Timbrian charge into the jaws of the dangerous unknown.

...

What? What did you do last weekend?

*****

Of course, you're probably more than a little confused right now. "When did The Legion guys actually get to Golemsh? What IS Golemsh? You only mentioned it as background, you dolt of a narrator. And while we're at it, they're going by The Legion now? And who the actual fuck are 'The Children of Akralos'? They sound like a rejected cult idea from the God of War series. You know, I think you might suck at this," you tersely wonder aloud through your computer, breaking infinite rules of time and space to reach my thoughts. Well, first, calm down. I got this. Do you feel it? 'Cus I feel it. Anyway, I just wanted to show you how bad of a clusterfuck the scenario my little protagonists wound up in was so you can truly appreciate the buildup that's about to happen. Also I wanted to see how much I could make Homer, Virgil, and Milton turn in their graves by butchering an in medias res opening. Very much so in case you're wondering, still feeling the aftershocks.

So, before the Bad News Canines set off to rampage through a city that sounds like it's populated by Geodudes and Gravelers, Seth, our fearless leader and fountain of romantic angst, was feeling uncharacteristically chipper. To find out why, we'll take a short trip across the channel and slightly backwards through time to a couple weeks before in Timbria, just outside of Vulpinum. You know, like the only place you've really seen in the country besides like two seconds in Wolfwind and Greenwater. Predictably, we temporarily rejoin our (read: my) favorite female of Timbria, greeting the new day with a yawn and a groan.

Lydia Black, as she had started referring to herself out of some sort of obstinate defiance, despite her unchanged marital status, woke, as had become usual, to an empty bed, the fur on the back of some of her fingers still damp from the previous night's loneliness. She rolled out of the bed and stoically pulled on her shabby clothing, lamenting all the disadvantages of having her husband gone, because if staring down death before giving it a powerful kick in the balls had become an average Saturday for Seth, moody self-pity had become an average Monday for Lydia. She trudged out into the main room of the house and was immediately greeted by Seamus, who commented that she looked even less happy to be alive than usual before reminding her that the town crier was going to give the report he had received from the army in the center of the village that day. The girl instantly straightened herself up and made her way to the door, temporarily ignoring any work she might've had for the day, because she had priorities, man. Before she took off like a racehorse on crack towards the village square, Seamus calmly told her, "Lord, child, Seth will be fine. Lad's almost as har'headed as ye. He'll be back." Lydia responded with a curt, "I know," before motoring harder than Sister Christian out of the forge.

As the morning sun continued to rise above the horizon, Lydia joined the crowd of people all jostling to get in closer to hear what the smallish wolf standing atop an unimpressive wooden scaffold had to say. When it came down to it, the herald didn't have much interesting to say that you don't already know, because you've been closer to the action in Senkhar just by reading about Seth and company's sicknasty finishing moves than anyone in that group of people would ever be. Kishath had fallen, brief explanation to the masses of the significance of that, the surrounding area had been pacified, and one little tidbit about how a Senkhari division had been taken prisoner by "a daring group of five foxes". Okay, so maybe the people supplying the reports were a little biased, which was a dangerous thing, really, since the wolf masses would have reacted quite differently to hearing that the team that captured the division was actually 60% gray-furred. But hey, it wouldn't be propaganda if it was honest, and inspiration was something the King of Timbria liked to keep to a minimum.

Much like the end of every other "war report" came the most unpleasant part: a list of names, slowly and clearly read. You should know the way Timbria works well enough by now to understand that these were not the soldiers that had won pizza parties for when they would inevitably come back to their homes; it was a list of casualties from the Southeastern Vulpinum area. Lydia folded her paws and pleaded with the heavens to not hear Seth's name come up, and also similarly to the end of every other war report, the name "Seth Black" was absent, allowing Lydia to let out a sigh of relief as the crowd began to dissipate. "Andrew Lightfoot" was also a name that wasn't read (this is still a little before the wolves and token foxes went spelunking), and the happiness that led from this revelation caused Vanessa to ambush Lydia, throwing her arms around her shoulders and squeezing her dramatically. "They're safe! Andy and Sethy are safe! I only wish they could come home a little sooner," the normally bitchy fox exclaimed, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, prompting Lydia to respond coldly, "If you really cared about my husband you wouldn't call him 'Sethy'."

By this point, a lot of the young males around Lydia and Vanessa's village had been called into service, and the distinct lack of popularity Vanessa had experienced (since there weren't any boys left to be popular with) had mellowed her out, and by comparison to her antebellum self, she had become downright amiable towards Lydia. Lydia called a fair amount of shenanigans on this, however, and only tentatively began speaking with the irksome wolf more often, though she did admit to herself sometimes that having someone to talk to could be nice.

"You know I care," Vanessa said, refusing to relinquish her grip on the other wolfess, "even if I am giving up on him. It would be awful if after all this heartache he came home and I just took him from you." See, now right there, that's why Lydia was questioning it. In her mind, she had some kind of retort like "bitch, you couldn't take him from me if we were both unconscious and I was tied to a tree", but before she could put those into marginally nicer words, the town crier got her attention. "Excuse me miss," the diminutive wolf spoke, "are you Lydia Greyclaw?" "I'm Lydia Black," the wolf said agitatedly, possibly more at Vanessa's incessant clinging than the "mistaken" name, "why do you want to know?" "I have this letter addressed to a 'Lydia Greyclaw' that's come from Senkhar," the herald explained. Lydia used all her strength to unceremoniously fling Vanessa off of her before correcting herself, "Well, Greyclaw's my maiden name, it's for me can I PLEASE see that?" A look of terror flashed across the small male's face before he handed the thing to her and peaced out, which the firmly-constructed girl didn't even register. She tore open the seal holding the parchment together, and as Vanessa once again determined which way was up, the attention-loving wolf peeked over her shoulder.

"My dearest Lydia," the soon to be Mrs. Black read aloud, "I write you to let you know that all is well..." A full flight squadron of butterflies soared through her belly as she read Seth's letter, her fingers running over the dried ink on the page, the closest she had been to touching her fiancée in what felt like ages. He mentioned how he and Richard had at first been under the command of Lightfoot, but they had been separated and had formed their own group. He mentioned that he couldn't say more, but said that the last time he saw Lightfoot he was safe (again, pre-Khreegh) and assured her that "not all foxes are bad after all". For the first time in Vanessa's recent memory, she saw Lydia legitimately smile as she read all the not-bad-news that Seth had to say. Not long after that, she witnessed Lydia's dark gray fur shine more red than a communist rally as she continued reading over her pseudo-romantic rival's shoulder. Lydia quickly folded up the paper and held it against her chest, Vanessa whining behind her, "Hey! You can't just stop it for me there! I want to know what came after, 'and I long for the noise you make when I kiss your-'! Come on, Lydia, what's he kissin'?"

"THAT'S NOT FOR YOU," the flushed wolfess blurted out, before mumbling that she had to run home for something. "Yea, I might have to do that too," Vanessa said sultrily, before calling out, "dun forget t' talk to me sometime soon! I get bored around here." Of course, Vanessa's words stuck with Lydia less than what your teacher told you about the _Odyssey_in your ninth-grade English class as she cruised on back to the forge. Practically giddy with excitement, and still a little embarrassed that Vanessa had read Seth's sexy talk, she scrambled around anvils and gesticulated to get Seamus' attention. The big, meaty wolf set down his hammer and asked why she was hopping around like a little idiot, to which Lydia hastily replied, "Seth wrote! Do we have paper and ink? I need to write back!"

Seamus was clearly taken aback by this news, and answered, "Y-yeah, same place as always. You know where to find it. Can I see the letter?" Lydia blazed red through her fur once again, gulped, then stammered out that it was meant only for her and dashed inside. From just inside the house, she could make out the sound of Seamus whacking himself in the face with his paw and shouting, "Oi Lydia? When you write your mate would you mind tellin' 'im to leave ou' how bad he wants to pork ye? Jus' so his parents have somethin' t' look at, too." Flying into her and Seth's room, Lydia began pouring out onto paper everything she could think of, and before long she had a comprehensive letter of her own to send back to her lover overseas. Now all she had to do was find some way of getting it there...

*****

Alright now, hop in your Deloreans, folks, because we're going back to the future. Specifically, the morning after the Khreegh bullshit, and we'll start off in Susan's room at the inn, because honestly an important plot point is revealed there and not with Seth and Richard. Or with Harry and Petra for that matter, unless you count continued sweet, forbidden interracial love as a major plot development. Which you shouldn't.

Anyway, Cyrus lazily opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of the room for a few seconds, still groggy from crashing harder than Robert Kubica at the Canadian Grand Prix (man, if anyone gets that reference I will literally love you forever), before rolling his head to the side and finding zero curvy wolves in the bed next to him, a significant decrease of one from when he had fallen asleep. The fox shot up into a seated position and called out Susan's name, and was relieved and slightly embarrassed when he found her sitting on a stool a few feet away from the bed brushing her hair. The sudden shout had made the wolf jump out of her chair and fumble her brush, letting the object fall to the floor, and she appeared to agitatedly pick up the brush and put it on a table before she growled back, "I'm right here! Will ye calm the fuck down?"

She sashayed over to the fox, her dress swaying with the movement of her hips as she knelt on the bed in front of him and grabbed his muzzle with a paw, chiding, "Damn foxes, always so needy." She forcefully kissed him before releasing his snout and slipping her arms over his shoulders, "Anyway, I thought you'd never wake up. I brought you some food and water. Don't want you to die on me." Cyrus mumbled a surprised "thank you" before returning the wolf's affections with interest, keeping his lips pressed firmly on hers while grabbing and groping just about everywhere until she pushed herself off of him, saying, "No. Take care of yourself first. If you passed out on top of me it would just be awkward for everyone. Dun worry, you can still 'ave wolfess for dessert."

Cyrus sighed and reluctantly relinquished the girl, grabbing the plate off a bedside table. Realizing how depleted he had become after taking the first bite, the fox wolfed down the food he was presented with, and twitched at the inexplicable feeling of someone using pathetic word choice to describe his actions. He set the plate back on the table, and reclined once again on the bed before noticing the dress that had previously been draped over Susan lying in a heap on the floor. He rolled his head to the side again, and in glorious contrast to what he had seen a few minutes earlier, there was indeed exactly one curvy wolf lying next to him, eyeing him like a voracious predator staring down her prey. Cyrus let out a low whistle and asked, "Right. Where were we again?" Susan grinned fiendishly and sank her teeth into the fur of the fox's neck, and before he could get out another witty comment, pounced on him and got down to business herself.

Some moaning, a little gasping, a fair share of creaking, and a time jump later, we rejoin the satisfied couple, with Cyrus catching his breath in a daze while Susan continued to barrage his face, neck, and chest with kisses. "You're too good at that," the fox muttered, still gazing dreamily into space. "You're not so bad yourself," the wolfess laughed, plastering him with another few embraces before settling down and cuddling beside him.

Of course, once again, you're calling bullshit on a previous statement I made. I said sweet, forbidden interracial love wasn't a major new plot point, and all I've given you is Cyrus and Susan and their sweet, forbidden interracial love. While this may be adorable, it's hardly worth dropping a thousand words on just for shits and giggles, and I promised you plot development, dammit. So of course, there's more to this. Cyrus, take the mic, my man.

"Susan," the fox spoke, regaining his breath, if not his hydration, "you know I care about you right?" "I- yes," the wolf said hesitantly, "where is this going?" The fox took a deep breath, then stroked the side of her muzzle and looked her in the eye when he told her definitively, "I'm going to kill Bloodcoat." See? Plot! This is why patience is a virtue, my fellow furballs. Susan stared at her lover in uncomprehending shock, before snapping, "What, because of what happened to me?! God fuckin' dammit, Cyrus, don't throw your life away doin' somethin' stupid because you got attached to a whore!" Cyrus steamed on the inside, his hatred of the vulpine general clearly brewing to a tipping point, as Susan gripped the sides of his head and ordered him, "Cyrus? Cyrus, listen to me! If you truly feel like you say about me than you won't try something so incredibly stupid! Please! I'm not that important!" Her voice was forceful, yet intensely pleading at the same time, and Cyrus replied with dead-set single-mindedness, "When you told me what he did to you, the others, your family... It was personal, and on some level, I was very angry and I wanted to get rid of him. But yesterday, what Seth and I and the others did... It was cleaning up Bloodcoat's mess. I snatched a report to see what he had done from under Noblefur's nose after he told us who was behind it. Without saying too much about what we faced, two thousand two hundred and forty-seven Timbrian wolves were killed over the span over a couple of weeks, all for a hill that no one needed to take, against an enemy that no one needed to fight. Over two thousand males, Susan, and just in this one instance. How many brothers, sons, fathers, husbands and lovers' lives has this despicable piece of shit ruined, in addition to all the females they leave behind, that he takes advantage of himself? How many wolves have lied in a bed just like this one, whispering sweet nothings to their mate, how many have hugged their parents goodbye for the last time just so Maximillian Bloodcoat can play God with their lives and throw them away like the bones from his dinner? The personal feelings I have for you are real, and so is what I feel for the rest of Timbria. Not just the foxes. Not just the wolves. All of it. The whole fucking thing. And because of that, Bloodcoat's life is forfeit. I will ram that shit-stain on canine-kind's head on a pike and mount it atop Vulpinum Castle if it's the last fucking thing I do. And mark my words, to you more than anyone else, that's a goddamn promise."

I'll let that monologue sink in for a few seconds, as Cyrus drops the mic that I just handed to him.

Susan sobbed uncontrollably into the fur of Cyrus' neck, which you might correctly guess is not how she wanted to spend her afterglow. Cyrus brushed his lips against the top of her head and said, much more softly than before, "And one day, when it's all over, I'll find some way to bring you back to Timbria and make you the richest and happiest wolf on the planet." In a voice muffled by tears and fox fur, the wolf uttered, "Stop making promises you can't keep." "My dear, darling Susan, if I couldn't keep them then they wouldn't be promises. My friends and I do seem to have a certain propensity to achieve the impossible," Cyrus reassured her, running a paw through her hair, "speaking of which, I should inform Seth of my plan. If I have his support this will be much easier." "Don't even think about goin' anywhere yet," Susan opposed him, giving a tuft of fur on his chest a vice grip, "You can't drop all that on me and then just leave me here alone. Stay with me." Cyrus lamented that he couldn't find a way to say no to her, and acquiesced, pulling the covers over the two of them and settling for an intense snuggling session.

While the two of them get their cuddle on, a brief exposition regarding Susan, our token wolfess-for-hire of some significance, since some of the comments Cyrus made in his "Bloodcoat must die" speech almost certainly made no sense to you: if you noticed, I never mentioned Susan's last name before now. At one point, Susan's family surname was a typical lupine one; if you wanted to know the specifics, it was Silverwood. During the Eastern War, which we have discussed before as one of the many testaments to Timbrian stupidity, Susan's father, Gregory Silverwood, was killed in action. Once again, you've seen this movie before, and you know how this goes down. Same thing happened to Lydia's family, as well as countless others. However, the Greyclaws had the fortune of a village of supportive people, and one little studly motherfucker in particular, to help them out when things got rough. The Silverwoods' village was in much more dire straits though, and an apparent saving grace came when a noble fox by the name of Maximillian Bloodcoat offered Susan, her mother, and her older sister roles as servants at the Bloodcoat residence. Having heard that servant life in other houses, like, for example, a certain Fox family, was less than ideal, but not the worst thing ever, the girls took the offer and moved into Vulpinum immediately.

Fair warning, y'all, this is where it gets ugly.

Of course, in families like the Fox or Redfur, as Cyrus has previously recounted, generally the foxes did not touch the wolves. Unless they were Cyrus, in which case they touched all the wolves. But Cyrus was also a "wolfess seducer", remember, and the females that actually slept with him leapt into his bed through their own accord. Maximillian Bloodcoat was not a wolfess seducer. Rather, he was a wolfess abuser. Already mated to a comically-racist vixen, Bloodcoat sought out war widows and their daughters to bring under his employ, and then promptly hit the bait-and-switch and used them as sex slaves. While they did still have to take care of household duties like the servants of other families, Bloodcoat servants also had to turn tricks for the pitiful compensation of "free" for anyone who Bloodcoat let into his home for some "exotic fun" that day. If the girls opposed, they were beaten. If a fox picked out a girl and the girl wasn't having it, the cynical part of you can guess what happened. And in some cases, it was even worse. You see, daughters were fair game for Bloodcoat as well as widows (Susan is about Cyrus' age. You can do that unpleasant math if you want), and after being forced to added humiliation like having to take the Bloodcoat name with the rest of her family, Susan's sister split and ran away. She was never found, but after her mother tried to fight back against Bloodcoat for taking out her daughter's abuse on her, she was framed for attempted murder of a noble, and was hanged. A traumatized teenage Susan was then forced by Bloodcoat into a life of military prostitution since being related to the other "problems" might have been bad for business. Did I mention Mrs. Bloodcoat was okay with all of this because the wolves were a "lesser species"? It was fucked up. It was really fucked up.

So. I apologize if Bloodcoat is already appearing to be a caricature of a villain, but in this world, just like the real one, there are some people that are just inconsolably evil, and he's one of those people. Also remember that he's not at the top of the fox food chain; he's simply hard to get at because of the system. And that's why Cyrus wanted to stick it to the man by sticking a spear through his face, which is a sentiment that I can get behind 100%. As another clarifying point, through some corrupt Timbrian legal tomfoolery, once the war with Senkhar began, Bloodcoat had Susan formally exiled from the country under penalty of death, which was why Cyrus bringing her back seemed like such a long shot, and why she immediately assumed that their "relationship", with heavy air quotes, because, well, you know, was destined to fail from the very first time Cyrus kissed her without being visibly dripping with lust. She was just enjoying the little bit of love she could get before reality came crashing down again. Note that her and Cyrus also opened up to each other over time before this, with Susan telling him about her abusive past and Cyrus telling her about his issue with Matilda. They left out the "love" part, since it appeared that Susan didn't want to hear it, though. (See the end of the last chapter)

And with that hellish exposition out of the way, let's get back to something more fun and lighthearted, like murder, because I'm sure there's some furry horror story or soap opera you could find if you really wanted to be depressed or appalled, and that's not entirely what you're here at the "fourth-wall sledgehammer store" for. After combining their powers of cuteness to make one big ball of fluff for a while, Cyrus walked downstairs, with Susan in tow because why not, and together they found Seth, Richard, and Alistair at their usual tavern table crowding around a piece of parchment in Seth's paws. Cyrus audibly got the group's attention, and the three of them looked up at the approaching pair.

"'Ey," Alistair said with a raised eyebrow, "You Cyrus' girlfriend?" Susan blushed and shook her head, causing the little fox to press on, "Then why're you holdin' paws? And don't say you're not because I can see you. And you just squeezed him tight-" "ALISTAIR," Cyrus interrupted suddenly, then more quietly, "Now's not the time, kit." Cyrus took a quick glance around the room, absent-mindedly stroking the back of Susan's paw with his thumb (what, did you think Alistair was making shit up?) before asking where Harry was. Richard shrugged, and Seth suggested, "Haven't seen 'im. Prolly balls deep in Petra though, if you want the most likely answer." The wolf looked up from his paper to look over Susan, who had just taken a seat next to Cyrus, and observed, "Nice necklace. Manage to get all the dust and bug off it, then, Cyrus?" "Told you," Alistair mumbled vaguely in Seth's direction, as Cyrus fumbled with his words, trying to spit something out, "H-how?" "God, Cyrus, everyone saw you," Richard groaned, "and we knew where it was going, too." Richard looked at Susan and advised, "For the future, most prostitutes don't nuzzle their clients while they're being giddily carried up the stairs," citing a previous occurrence while neglecting to mention that Cyrus had pretty much already explicitly told the group that he kept going back to her for something way more personal than a good lay, "I don't think you need to really try to hide anything anymore."

Susan covered her face with one paw before placing the other on top of the table, where it was quickly and openly covered by one of Cyrus', confirming what literally everyone who gave half of a nanofuck about them already knew. "Well, now that this is awkward enough," Cyrus sighed, lacing his fingers in the space between Susan's, "what're you reading, there, Seth?" The toned wolf grinned, "Letter from my mate. No fuckin' clue how she got it here, but hearing from Lydia's got me the happiest I've been since I had to leave home." "I'll bite," Cyrus said, fixing a stray strand of his blonde hair, "What's the news from Timbria?" "She didn't have much to say about the state of the kingdom," Richard began before Seth could even open his mouth, "but she does have a lot to say about what she's going to do to Seth when he gets home." Seth openly beamed, clearly delighted that Lydia returned the "mood" of his letter, and Richard put his head on the table and moaned, "Reminding me that I am now by far the loneliest one out of all of us." Susan chimed in, in a valiant if ill-advised attempt to help, "If you want some company, I know Francine likes the shy, innocent type." "Not the kind of companionship I'm looking for," Richard tried to play off politely, followed shortly by Alistair looking over at him incredulously and pointing at Cyrus and Susan. "Those are long odds, pup," Richard responded, shaking his head, "what are the chances that would work for two of us?" "Shite, Richard, it couldn't hurt to try," Cyrus said, before smirking, "at the very least you get your first kiss before you return home a war hero."

Richard stared down Cyrus, desperately hoping the next magical power he would unlock would be laser vision or insta-kill or something, and the fox gathered himself and began the sales pitch that he had started with Susan, "Gentlemales: I have a proposition." Seth set down Lydia's steamy letter and told Cyrus that he was listening, and Alistair told him to go on. Well, clearly Cyrus wasn't going to not go on, so he explained, "I think a lot of our problems, not just ours personally, but the country's, could be solved if we got rid of somebody." Seth looked at Cyrus blankly and asked, "Right. So are you planning on killing the king, or Harry, or what? Awfully suspicious that you asked where he was..." "Be serious, Seth," the fox urged, "who made all of our lives hell yesterday?" Richard raised an eyebrow, "A bunch of fuckin' bugs?" Alistair looked even more skeptical, "Bloodcoat?"

"Exactly," Cyrus said, "to Alistair I mean. Think of the bigger picture, Richard. He's ruined too many lives to go on living himself. I say we get rid of him." "Ah," Alistair observed, channeling his inner Goofy from Kingdom Hearts in his ability to call out plot developments that other characters somehow missed, disregarding how that does not FIT GOOFY'S CHARACTER AT ALL WHAT THE FUCK. Sorry. I get passionate about digitized Disney animals. Anyway, the little fox continued, placing an adolescent sneer on the word in italics, "That explains why your girlfriend's here." Seth's eyes widened as everything clicked for him, the little lightbulb over his head blinking so hard it gave a fox at the other side of the room a seizure, and he expressed in some nicer combination of words his disbelief that Cyrus' beef with Bloodcoat was probably mostly over Susan, then chucked logic at the fox like a pissed off member of the Manning family, "So this letter I got here? Its biggest effect is causing me to want to get this war over with and get home faster. You know what won't accomplish that? Treason. And how are you even planning to get to Bloodcoat? We've never seen him. Hell, do you even know what he looks like?"

Cyrus nodded to the female next to him, pointing out the she did, and added that he wanted to get the war over with too so that he could go after his personal vendetta. "That doesn't change how stupid of an idea this is," Richard opposed, his head still resting on the table, "I'm happy for ye both, really, but huntin' down a general is suicide, an' I'm sick of being here. I dun want to die here, too." "I told you this was ridiculous," Susan muttered in the vague direction of Cyrus, who sighed, "Fine. Maybe now's not the time. But sometime soon, I still want to kill this guy, for reasons beyond one gorgeous wolfess. Will you help me when that time comes?" Alistair immediately jumped in and agreed, eager to continue helping Cyrus despite being a Great White Snark towards his actions earlier. Seth and Richard looked at each other dubiously and gave the fox a whopping "maybe", still not sure if the risk came close to equaling the potential reward.

So that all seemed to fizzle out quicker than that disappointing sparkler you lit last New Year's, and this has likely raised some questions, too, namely why I even bothered mentioning Cyrus' well-intentioned, but kind of idiotic plot to make Bloodcoat bleed his own blood. While Cyrus did (at least temporarily) concede that the best way to avenge Susan's and, well all of lupine-kind's I guess misfortunes wasn't going to be subterfuge while at war in a foreign land, the fact that he brought it up less than clandestinely led to some even more misfortunate consequences for lupine-kind. Over the next two or three days, the Timbrian army set up its battleplan for the attack on Golemsh, which could now be a two-pronged attack thanks to the recent "liberation" of Houshmar, and in classic Timbrian strategic thought, that immediately signified a city getting completely fucked from two sides instead of just one, at which point I'll allow you to insert your own innuendo to finish the joke.

Now those same few days were pretty much uneventful for our morally-vague heroes; Seth, Richard, and Alistair hung out and trained some; Cyrus spent his time alternating between snuggling and nuzzling Susan and railing Susan; and Harry had just not been present most of the time, occasionally stopping by to check in, but otherwise content to chill with his coyote love affair. So we'll take a brief time jump and arrive at the slums outside of Kishath, where there were four less-than-happy canines walking towards Petra Tavala's very humble abode. Before you get the wrong idea, they weren't mad at Harry. They were- ah, you'll see. Let's just say the Timbrian bureaucracy was fucking phenomenal.

Seth knocked on the side of the shanty, since there wasn't a door, but rather just a sheet hanging over the entrance, and after a few seconds Harry's bulky head emerged from inside, the sound of him fixing his pants audible from the outside. "We're going to Golemsh," Seth said curtly, "we'll explain on the way to get our gear from back in Kishath." Harry told the others that he'd be out quickly, and went inside, gathered his clothes, and gave Petra a lengthy embrace goodbye before rejoining his group, asking what was going on. Richard jammed a thumb in Cyrus' direction, "This one had the grand idea of telling us all how he wanted to off Bloodcoat in the tavern. Rumors somehow caught up to the generals that somebody in the Regiment was out to kill him, and all of us have been pulled to a secondary attack force." Harry was still confused, "I get why that's bad fer me, but isn't that good for ye all? Dun ye not like fightin'?"

Seth explained, as I will paraphrase, that easily the strongest weapon in the Timbrian arsenal, as we have seen multiple times now, is The King's Regiment, or the Legion, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. You know, the impressive ones. The goal of people like Seth and Richard, along with many others in the unit, was to get the war over quickly and painlessly, or as much of both of those qualities as were reasonably possible considering the profane levels of ineptitude that still permeated the Timbrian hegemony, and sending a bunch of wolf units, many of them raw thanks to poor executive decisions in places like Houshmar, even with fox ranged cover, into the city alone would be a catastrophe. The logical option would be to send The Legion in first, since they had more skill AND morale than anybody else around, with the regulars coming in as support, but the paranoia caused somewhat directly and somewhat indirectly by Cyrus' lovesick vengeance scheme had caused that strategy to flip. Even with the tactical advantage gained by opening up two passages into the city, if the Regiment was sent in, it would almost certainly be cleaning up a gargantuan mess. Of course, this was something the intelligent ones knew; the wolves and foxes in the Regiment, sane generals like Noblefur... It was a stupid idea, almost politically motivated, but it was now the plan of attack. The only thing they didn't realize was just how right they were going to be.

*****

We now rejoin our protagonists where we left them at the start of the chapter, about to face off against The Children of Akralos. To get to this point, the invasion of Golemsh had become a shitshow and a half. In order to account for the lack of support they would be getting from The Legion, the Timbrian army overcompensated to an extent matching just about any man's purchase of an F-350 outside of the construction industry, with somehow an even worse impact: you see, Golemsh, kind of like The Devil's Chamber Pot, was situated in a bowl formed by hills surrounding it, with three major entrances. The main highway opened north towards Kishath and south towards the capital, Peshakni, and there was a side opening near Houshmar, and as previously stated, Timbria would be attacking the two to the north. The way they did this was by accumulating as much artillery and magic as they could and deeming the preservation of civilian life and property as overrated, creating a massive firestorm through several areas of the city. While this did initially cause a fair amount of confusion for the Senkhari defenders (why attempt to capture a city if you're going to burn it down?), it also strengthened their resolve, with the added bonus of addling the Timbrian infantry who went in afterwards. Funny thing about smoke and fire: it works both ways, and the hellish environment caused by a city-wide hotbox effect of a spreading fire created degrees of chaos and lack of communication on both sides, and this effect was much worse on the Timbrians, who had, as previously stated, less experience and morale.

Predictably, things started going down the drain faster than the weed of a paranoid guy who just heard a suspicious knock on his door, and for a long time, The Legion was helpless to stop the bleeding. Eventually, however, things got bad enough to the point where they were released from their holding area, where they were being continuously observed for any signs of dissent, and essentially sent on a rescue mission to salvage what they could of the operation. The Legion's entrance, even with only about a hundred or two hundred males, immediately changed the flow of combat, and Seth's group had linked up with three other five-male teams to regroup Timbrian forces throughout one of the city's most culturally-important neighborhoods (well, before the Timbrian generals decided "fuck that" and lit it on fire like a 12 year old pyromaniac anyway), and the result of that was their current force, easily the most sizable one they had fought with since the Battle of Kishath on day 1. They had sent many of the wolves and foxes they had rescued to assemble away from the continuously shifting frontline, but about 150 wolves and 40 or 50 foxes had stayed up with the 20 Legion members to form a barrier between the Senkhari Army, who still had the momentum in the battle, and the recovering Timbrian peloton.

And even with all that strength, Seth still bit his lip under his helmet, knowing that his group was facing long odds against the presumably magically-adept force and a recently arrived company of Senkhari Army reinforcements that had stepped up to meet them. Now, none of the Timbrians had a single fleeting idea of what the "Children of Akralos" were, but several of The Legion's teams had encountered Senkhari battlemages by that point, much as how Seth and co. had to deal with Khaled Mith at the troop encampment. The general consensus among the males was that the mages were by far the biggest pain in the ass Senkhar could throw at them, and because of this assessment, Seth's first orders upon seeing the cult-ish-people entering the battle were something like "just let us handle them."

"Richard," the lead wolf yelled hastily, "D'you think you can overpower this wind?" Forster shrugged and shot back, "How should I know? I don't know how any of this magic works. I'll give it my best shot, though." "Good enough," Seth sighed, "Where are my other mages?" Four other Legion members got the wolf's attention: Cedric Mourningstone, a skilled fox healer; Tancred Brown, a neophyte wolf fire-mage; Galen Shore, a similarly novice lightning wielder (once again, wolves were prevented from practicing magic with the new exception of The Legion, and a lot of the elites had discovered their special move combinations after Richard did); and Jasper Russet, a fox who had perfected this really nifty technique of manipulating the air around his two serrated falchion-esque swords so that it sliced his target along with the weapons' blades.

Pointing to two other previously unmentioned Regiment members, Seth commanded, "Mourningstone, Brown, Bardsley, Downfur, Wood: you lot stay back and help the grunts with the Senkhari soldiers. All you other Legion lads, you're with us. Let's get rid of these painted guys and get the hell out of here." Harry was beyond miffed at getting cut from the starting lineup to fight the level boss, and he angrily stepped up to Seth and yelled, "Ay, what're you doin' leavin' me back here, huh? We watch each other's backs. That's how it works." "I know," Seth said declaratively, "and you'll be watching our backs against the regular soldiers. Look, you're not a good match against magic users, but you can stop an army of paw-to-paw fighters by yourself. Keep the Timbrian regulars alive and be my leader in the back line."

Seeing a wave of Senkhari personnel closing in on them, Cyrus added, "Harry, this isn't the time. Seth made me retreat last mission and it made me furious, but sometimes we have to trust each other." "Ugh, fine," Harry grunted, preparing to face the oncoming force, "but if I finish off this division before you fuckers are done, I join in, got me?" Seth and Cyrus nodded before leading the other thirteen Legion members through the middle of the horde, with Richard, Jasper, and a couple other good close combat guys (yeah, I know. Cyrus isn't good at close combat, but his little bromance with Seth was keeping him at the front) joining to spearhead the strike. Alistair took the initiative and found two other nimble foxes, Uriah Vyrmion and Leofric Admarchiam, and the three of them bounced around the advancing shining column like a trio of coked up Warner Bros Tasmanian devils, ensuring that there was no flank to be exploited for the leading soldiers. After little more than a minute, the Legion squad broke through the back of the main Senkhari force, executing their objective of getting past the grunts and confronting the Akralos to perfection, sustaining no casualties in the process.

A quick look behind him allowed Seth to see glistening Senkhari bodies, in various states of dismemberment, flying into the air, a sure sign of Harry's handiwork. The wolf smiled inwardly before turning back to face the fanatical enemies, the dual-wielding canines ominously moving closer to The Legion while their leader remained out of the battle area, apparently reciting some sort of incantation. Seth ordered his team and Galen Shore to form up around him, then directed Russet to lead the other group of ten however he pleased. The two groups would line up back to back, dividing the Children of Akralos attack in half, and Seth justified the mismatched numbers of team members by pointing out that his group had substantially more magical power. Subconsciously, there was also probably some sort of ego high that Seth was riding on, too. Near spotless mission record, gem of the wiser generals in command, was recently reminded that his loving, doting mate couldn't stop thinking about him... Seth was starting to wander into the dangerous territory of thinking he may have had the whole "war" thing down.

However questionable his inner thoughts had become, Seth's strategy initially worked well enough. The Akralos cultists were able to use moderately skilled air magic, creating gusts that served like something similar to a Force Push or Pull. Though they frustrated the living hell out of Cyrus, since literally none of his arrows were hitting anything, they were more of a distraction or a nuisance for everyone else, with the worst outcome being getting knocked down and aided by a nearby comrade. While Richard struggled with figuring out a solution to the cultists smothering his flames with their rapid, omnipresent air blasts, Galen had no such issue in finding use for his magic power, simply directing his electricity through the air currents like a magical conductor, zapping the jackals and coyotes and allowing Alistair to slip between opponents and easily dispatch them, casually thanking the wolf for the assists along the way. Galen nodded in return, unaware of the important progress he had just made into proving the superiority of Dark Side powers over neutral ones, and especially Light Side ones, which apparently don't even get you screen-time.

Elsewhere, Seth was starting to get into a rhythm, flowing through his flourishes and finishes so smoothly that he probably should have gotten a combo multiplier by this point. The accomplished wolf took a step back, calmly parrying a sword strike and skewering a painted jackal on his own weapon while asking Cyrus, "Hey Fox, what's your count?"

The archer growled lowly, then pulled an arrow out of his quiver before grabbing a fennec Child of Akralos, stabbing him through the forehead with the arrow, and grumbling, "One." "Come ON, Cyrus," Seth urged, "How's that gonna help me get home?" The fox shouldered his bow, equipped his knives and mentioned, "I guess I should take a page from the kit's book then," before doing his best to cover Seth with a style he was unaccustomed to. As the fox and wolf continued fending off the windy assault, they, as well as their opponents, were suddenly distracted by an explosion of bright light, even in a background covered in about the same amount of fire that results when I get handed the aux cord. A glance towards the source revealed a brief, brilliant flame, followed by a charred canine skeleton falling to the ground in a heap.

"Oh," Richard said, staring at his aftermath, "That worked." "No shit," Alistair squeaked, "What did you do?" "I channeled the surrounding fire from all the angles I could and focused them on one target. That's how I can get past the air defense," Richard explained, still audibly a little in shock from his own strength. Of course, he wasn't the only one in shock, and the Children of Akralos began to realize that they were messing with a rather powerful fellow, and the group nearest Seth's took a few steps back. Not that this helped them at all, considering a big gray mass swept through, cleaving a couple helpless cultists like a particularly mushy birthday cake. Seth stood and looked on confusedly for a second, then looked back at their previous position. The city street was a sea of carnage, but judging from the emotions put forth by the Timbrian troops, even just having the five guys Seth kept with them was enough to edge the tide of battle in their favor. The giant blue force field that Mourningstone was projecting probably didn't hurt either, which would make sense considering that force fields are there to prevent people from getting hurt and- yeah, you know what? Let's just move on. Harry ran up to the new front and whacked some people, and that combined with the similarly fluid whacking Jasper had been conducting on the other side of the plaza led the Children of Akralos to retreat to their leader.

"Hell of a light show, Richard," Harry lauded, "Bet ya couldn't do it again, though." The Timbrian King's Regiment let a sigh of relief flow out of them, thinking the battle was all but won, at least in their area. Of course, this was all because they had apparently learned nothing from their prior engagements, since "learning from your mistakes" was likely a common allergy in Timbria, even among the more "enlightened" males. First, as previously mentioned, even The Legion's own doctrine stated something akin to, "Senkhari mages are assholes. Get rid of the mages. Don't waste time underestimating the mages, just fucking murk them." While they had admittedly murked many, many lower-class mages, they straight up ignored the Heavy sitting at the back of the fight just kinda doing his thing. Even if he was literally just making a sandwich back there, I've played enough video games in my relatively short existence to know that that can still be hazardous.

Second, Seth got complacent at Houshmar. This wasn't really very well known to anybody in the present scenario except for his team, but that complacency (along with fatigue and other factors, naturally) significantly contributed to a solid third of their raiding party winding up in boxes, because they didn't think that maybe the Khreegh would fire their last ditch weapons in their, y'know, last ditch effort. But as I said, evidently not a lot of this stuck. Once again, some of that was the result of the stress of battle, but there was also that whole "growing ego" thing with Seth, too, as well as his ever-present desire to go the fuck home hastening his decision-making, especially outside of the adrenaline rush of active combat.

With all that explained, of course you know what's coming. The battle wasn't over yet. Shock. Awe. What a narrative masterpiece. (...yeah, this is why I work for free.)

The Head Jackal in Charge of the Children of Akralos soon attracted the attention of The Legion (the regular troops held back, heeding Seth's suggestion of just not even trying to deal with the mages), calling out to them in his knockoff-Russian accent, "Well, you seemed to handle my males very efficiently. The ones that passed their initiation are now allowed to leave." The blue-painted canines scrambled away, and out of the smoke, a relatively small contingent of red-painted ones emerged, which is strange considering you'd think the red guys would be the first to go. Anyway, it began dawning on the group that maybe, once again, their enemies weren't as incompetent as the country whose name had practically become synonymous with incompetence in this universe, and the leader continued, "I am Gregor Khenatem, servant of the Children of Akralos. Face our power!"

He punctuated his statement with a flash of wind that took the form of a scythe and careened towards the group. In the blink of an eye, Galen Shore transitioned from having a head to not having one, unfortunately disproving all of his earlier Dark Side research, and as Gregor threw another shot, Jasper Russet decided to make his own bold move and jump in front of it, slicing the wind in two with his own sword magic. His teammate Uriah asked him incredulously, "Did you just cut air?" Jasper grunted, "Guess so. Take out the red ones, I'll keep the big guy occupied." Before the others could get very far, however, Gregor sent two bolts at once, and Jasper could only stop one. Luckily for his pride, and likely someone else's life, Richard adapted the "extra crispy" technique he'd just discovered for burning away all the wind energy in a split-second. Seth opened his mouth to tell the other wolf to stay and help Jasper, but Richard cut him off with a quick "I know" before he could get it out, moving to the magical fox's position to more easily coordinate their defenses.

While Richard and Jasper were doing their best to keep Gregor contained, the other Regiment soldiers had their paws full with the red cultists, who were ostensibly those that had already been "initiated" but weren't at a level like Gregor's. In addition to the standard-issue wind control stuff, these guys had something similar to Jasper's blade magic, though each of the enemies wielded a two-pawed sword, like a squad of Harry Lites. If I had to guess, their taste would have been less than great, but they _would_be less filling than a regular Harry. If you're under the age of 17 or 18, you probably won't get that one, but I'm trying to have a little fun beer. Fun here. Your narrator's struggling.

Strangely enough, Cyrus in particular was delighted with the addition of the new powers, because that meant that the enemies weren't completely dependent on spamming the wind manipulation stuff that was basically a cheat code against his abilities. Though he still didn't have his usual free rein to snipe enemies like a double tap Mark Wahlberg, he was able to pick his shots well enough to take out at least an occasional distracted enemy. With his somewhat restored ability to provide assistance, Cyrus took over for the now fallen Galen as Alistair's point guard, covering the little fox as he threw one of his daggers into an enemy's chest, then in one fluid movement, grabbed it out of the falling body and used it to slit another throat, continuing to spin in the process and stab yet another cultist with his off-paw. Seth swooped in and finished off the third guy before speaking breathlessly, "Nice work, pup. Where's Harry?"

Cyrus and Alistair answered that they didn't know, and all three of them looked towards Richard and Jasper, who had pressed pretty close to Gregor by this point. Gregor spoke to the approaching mages, taunting them, "Ha! Even if you kill me, you will not have stopped the Children, and you will not have stopped Senkhar! You are nothing, you are just-"

For some reason, Gregor took a few steps back in panic. Maybe it was because flames were literally emanating from the eyeholes of Richard's helmet, which in all fairness would cause just about anyone to freak out. The painted jackal trembled and stuttered, "V-Va'Shimeq... Stay away! Leave this place!" Before Richard could ask what the hell he was talking about, a massive block of lupine muscle ran through and lopped Gregor in two at the waist. "Don't let your guard down," Harry chided the dying opponent as the rest of lackeys began fleeing the scene. Seth elected to let the remnants flee so that the Timbrian forces could recuperate as Richard's eyes extinguished themselves and the wolf knelt next to the jackal, who was gasping his last breaths, and asked, "Who, what is Vuh, Vah...?" Gregor painfully jammed a finger into the armor covering Richard's chest and growled, "Va'Shimeq. You. Find Anya." Shortly following this, a stream of blood poured out of Gregor's mouth, and with a cough and a sputter, he passed, his head contacting the ground with a solid thud.

Richard closed Gregor's eyes with his gloved paw and sighed, "You couldn't wait another minute, Harry? Who's Anya? Why do I need to find her? And who am I? This makes no sense." "Sorry, Richard," Harry apologized, "But look, lad, your eyes were on fire. I didn't know if you were still in control. I'll ask Petra about all the fancy words when we get back to Kishath." Richard shook his head, "My eyes were what?" "He's right, kit," Jasper added, "They were burnin' bright. I didn't tell you because I was too afraid to say anything." The fox stowed his swords and looked around, before addressing the regrouping Legion, "This is a bloody mess. How many?" "Only three of ours," Uriah Vyrmion answered, "but regulars on both sides? Who knows. It's distressing enough that a bunch of painted freaks can take down Legion soldiers like that." "Hey! It's sticking! Cyrus, it's sticking," Alistair reminded the older fox enthusiastically, referring to the "Legion" moniker. Cyrus considered asking the kit how he could be thinking of that in a time like this, but then thought better of it and nodded, putting an encouraging paw on his shoulder.

Seth helped Richard to his feet, and as Golemsh continued to crumble all around them, he spoke, "This definitely could have gone better, but I think we did well considering how fucked our command is. Let's pull out the rest of these forces and get the hell out of the city, yeah?" The others quickly agreed, and The Legion gathered all the other troops they could find and started working their way out of the hellscape.

As they left, however, numerous questions and issues still wormed their way into the minds of the soldiers. Would destroying Golemsh be worth the consequences in the long run? Hell, before that even, what exactly would the Senkhari reaction be in the next few days? Furthermore, despite a turn in momentum towards the end of the battle, Golemsh probably ended as a stalemate due to its disastrous opening, and even if Senkhar considered the city lost, it was the last major obstacle between the Timbrian Army and the long highway that lead directly to the capital, Peshakni. Where would the war go from here, and could it be sustained for much longer? And don't even get me started on all the questions flying through Richard's head. The poor wolf had no idea what was going on, and was starting to enter something of a personality crisis, feeling like he had somehow subconsciously become a completely different person after setting foot in the Senkhari desert.

One thing is for sure though: the pressure in Senkhar was building to a tipping point, and very soon, one side would have to crack. The mere thought of journeying down the road to Peshakni conjured images of a dramatic climax to the war, and more specifically one that would end in rivers of blood for both sides. Of course, I already know who wins, but for the beginning of The Second Timbria-Senkhar War's *cough* EPIC *cough* climax, you'll have to tune in next time. Same dog time, same dog channel.