Stronger Together chapter 155

Max decided he should ride on my head, and since he could literally  bite through godsteel I decided not to argue the point. The little tiger  cub was exceptionally soft and cute but his claws and fangs seemed to  be much harder than any material I had seen before, godsteel included.  He was very pleased with his new perch and was constantly purring as we  walked. Despite the colorless ambiance and the frightening atmosphere it  was pretty much impossible to be afraid with a purring tiger kitten  laying on your head.

The rest of the walk to the clearing  was incredibly relaxing actually, which seemed odd so I asked Harry  about it. My mentor just smiled "Max is a baby White Tiger. In terms of  quality his energy is substantially higher tier than most things. Think  of it like material. If you throw a pound of cotton at someone's head  it'll just bounce off without doing damage. If you throw a pound of cast  iron at someones head they're gonna have a bad time. The kid may only  be a pound, but he's a pound of iron. The rest of these things are a  hundred pounds of tissue paper. They can sense how dense his power is so  they won't mess with him. If he wasn't strong how could he take a bite  out of that freakish arm of yours?"

We finally made it to  the edge of the tree line and found the clearing. Unsurprisingly there  were wolves in the clearing, but they weren't all wolves. Aside from  wolf beasts there were humans and combinations of the two. The clearing  was huge a wide expanse of rocky ground where the grass had long since  died from constant trampling. In the center there was a huge bonfire  around which people and animals danced. Seeing actual dancing wolves was  weird but kind of cool. Around that group was a circle of large stones  that people could sit or lie down on.

One stone seemed to  be much larger than the others and the man sitting on it gave an  impression of extreme danger. He was pretty good looking, with dark  olive skin and long curly black hair. His chest was bare and his legs  were covered in a pair of ragged pants that looked to be made from wolf  fur. His citrine eyes were glowing with primal intensity as he glared  down on the festivities. The large rock was just a rock but something  about his bearing made it seem like a throne, like he was the kind of  this place, lord of all he surveyed.

Some of the wolves  would leap up as they danced, snapping at the edges of the rock with  their jaws. Like they would be snapping at his feet if they hung off,  but the man paid it no mind, ignoring them completely as he stared deep  into the flames. A primal beat of drums was being pounded into the  clearing so hard I could feel the shaking earth beneath our feet. I  watched entranced as the wolves and people danced and the drums shook  the ground, getting sucked into it. The flames flickered in time with  the rhythm of the beat and seemed to animate the shadows of the dancers,  adding legions of weirdly twisting shapes to the dance.

The  music built and built and then suddenly, it stopped. Every single form,  human wold, hybrid, and even shadow froze stock still. All somehow  turned to face us and eyes fixed on us with primal hunger and intensity.  The large man on the rock with the golden eyes glanced up from the  flames, his glare focused on us now, and his rumbling growl of a voice  boomed out, thickly accented with what I suspected from context was a  greek accent. "Prey!" He wasn't designating us as such, he was just  issuing a greeting. He said prey like someone else would say "Hey, you!"  He cocked his head in a distinctly wolfish manner "Why do you intrude  upon our wild places?"

His voice was so forceful and  brutal it took a second for me to recognize that it wasn't actually some  sort of sonic attack. I had to process the assault before I could  actually understand the words and respond. I cleared my throat before I  spoke, my words sounding weak and faint after the tidal wave of  primordial sound that had issued from the big mans throat. "Ahem. I am  Cameron. We were hoping to seek your wisdom in an urgent matter." I had  to use every ounce of my godsteel given control to keep my voice from  shaking and prevent me from pissing myself with fear as the combined  hunger and bloodlust of a hundred or so apex predators washed over me.

The  big man looked nonplussed. "Wisdom? We have no wisdom here. Nor any  need for it. This is not a place of wisdom. This is a place of rage and  hate and fear and battle. We sometimes make room for the cunning, but  this is not where one would come to find the wise." His booming voice  was coated with suppressed laughter, and even his amusement felt like it  wanted to rip my throat out. This man was something very old and scary.  This was a being that stood on the same order of power as the twins.  Both of them. Put together.

It wasn't that he was stronger  than they were, though he was. It was the sheer might of his presence.  The twins were overbearing but they also moderated that impression. Not  out of care or kindness but subconsciously. They were half wolf but they  were civilized. Emperors and rulers. This man was not civilized. This  man was a different sort of king, a king of the forest, and his  dominance came from tooth and claw not crown and scepter. But still he  was a king, it was undeniable. This being was a ruler here, and despite  the snapping of errant wolves his position remained absolutely  untouchable. It wasn't hard to figure out who he was. Lycaon, the first  werewolf, king of Arcadia.

Once  again I found myself stunned into silence by that barbarous aura, it was  like he was beating me over the head with a club made of words. Oddly  though, while I was getting myself together to respond I felt the  purring on top of my head rumble into a growl and the aura snapped off  like a light switch. I glanced up at Max in surprise, apparently his  aura was denser than Lycaon's because it seemed to be protecting me from  the wolf king. I physically shook my head to clear it, resulting in an  annoyed yowl from my new cat friend, but finally I was able to form a  proper sentence to respond to the king. Oddly it felt like when he  started talking about the wildness and brutality of this place the aura  had actually gotten stronger.

I  locked eyes with him, which from what I knew of wolves was either a  very good or very bad idea and spoke with as much authority as I could  manage "Fine, your cunning then. We come to ask about a prophecy we've  heard tales of, of a wolf king born recently. If anyone would know who  delivered a prophecy like that it would be you, so have you heard  anything? If you need compensation we could maybe give you a bit of our  wisdom since you don't have any." There was a series of growls and jeers  from around us but it wasn't angry, more a crowd exclaiming after a  good burn. Not that it was that good, but I suspect being willing to  deliver even a half hearted burn to the king won me brownie points.

Lycaon,  unlike Remus and Romulus, did not see my challenge to his authority as  an insult, but rather as proof of my guts. He seemed to respect me more  for the attempting and he burst into raucous laughter at the statement.  It still sounded wild and brutal, but less predatory, like the baying of  wolves far off in the night when you know civilization will keep them  from your gate. Lycaon made a gesture and a goblet appeared in one hand.  Well, I say goblet, but it was mostly just an upside down skull on a  stem with the eye sockets stopped up with rubies. He took a long  deliberate pull, keeping eye contact with me as he drank.

It  reminded me of an episode of Brooklyn Nine Nine where Terry had shown  Amy a way to dominate an audience by pouring a glass of water slowly and  keeping eye contact. The show had been right, it really was captivating  as hell. Not a single being made a peep as the wolf king drank. When he  finished whatever the stuff was he tossed the skull goblet over his  shoulder and it vanished into thin air before falling a foot. He burped  loudly and laughed again "I like you boy. You have spine. Of course, I  might still decide to rip it out so I can see for myself, but for now  your backbone is amusing where it is. I don't concern myself with mortal  affairs, but the wild things here may know of such a prophecy."

He  turned his head casually to look out over his subjects "Brothers and  sisters! This child seeks news of a prophecy. The heralding of a wolf  cub who will bring great change. If any among you knows of this vision  they should speak up. What say you?" That crushing force was back in his  voice, but it wasn't aimed at me and it wasn't predatory this time  either. This time it was just raw dominance. I could feel phantom jaws  locked around my throat, ready to tear it from my neck in an instant if I  made the wrong move and it wasn't even directed at me. The wolves,  humans, hybrids, and even the shadows prostrated themselves before the  voice of the great king.

A  large dark skinned man with a wolf head on a human body crawled  forward. He kept his head lowered as he growled out in a voice like  crashing boulders "Great king. I know the vision of which you speak. It  is not a new prophecy, but rather an ancient text. The prophecy of  Wepwawet. The wolf god was an ancestor of mine, and he foretold the  coming of the child. However such a prophecy is obscure and connecting  it to one child so many eons later is unusual to say the least." He was  right, and that was bad. Because unusual interference said outsiders to  me, possibly Nemesis. The twins getting brain jacked by an outsider cult  leader was the last thing I needed.

Lycoan  turned his head to me "Your question was answered boy. We haven given  you our knowledge and shared with you our cunning." That was great, but I  wasn't sure what the hell to even do with the info they gave me. Either  way I figured I should say thank you for the help. I opened my mouth to  say just that but he cut me off by continuing "Since we have shared out  knowledge we will naturally take you up on your earlier offer to share  your wisdom." His grin was positively vulpine, not fitting for a wolf  king at all. I had a bad feeling about this.

He  stood finally turning to his subjects and looming over them like a god  of wolves. "Hear me brothers and sisters! Our young friend has offered  to share with us his wisdom and let it never be said the court of wolves  does not keep an open mind to new opportunities. Naturally the only  wisdom we care about would be the wisdom of battle. The boy will show  his wisdom in this area the only way that truly matters." He turned that  vicious grin on me again "In a battle to the death." Yup, I had been  afraid he was going to say that.