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How did we pass them without knowing they were behind us? I took a sniff of the air again, and now that they were so close to us, they smelled the same way, like they were still distant, and it was that smell of the earth after a short rain. I watched them as they circled around us, and caged us in. There was no escaping, and I wondered how good they were at fighting.
I had assumed they wouldn’t be hospitable, so I was ready for a fight if they brought one. I stood with my legs apart and eyedthem one after the other. They were of different ages and sex. The youngest of them was about ten, and I could see he was yet to ascend. He still smelled like a child, and he had a sorry look on his face. He must have been the one that stepped on the twig that made that noise, and he was the only one with a discernible heartbeat, and even at that, it was barely audible, and I had to focus to hear it. The others could as well just be dead people. It didn’t seem like they were breathing at all. They had slowed their heartbeat down to a ridiculous rate. They were very adept at hiding and camouflaging.
But that might not be the only thing they were good at. They had kept themselves a secret this long, which had to mean one other thing. They were good at killing. Killing to keep their existence a secret.
We were quiet for a long time and watching each other skeptically, looking for who would attack first. Luke had his hand up and told me to stand down.
“Let’s talk to them,” he said.
“I am all for that, but they don’t look like they want to talk.”
My eyes settled on the eldest among them. He had to be at least seventy years old, by the winkle on his face, but he still had an agile stance, and he was very focused. Luke walked towards him, assuming he was the leader.
“Can we talk?” Luke asked.
“You can,” the man beside the eldest talked. He was about thirty years younger. “But maybe not here. We don’t take kindly to visitors. You have to leave now, or you die. Your choice.”
“We are here to talk about the moon stone,” Luke said, ignoring all the man said earlier and moving closer to him.
Two of them stepped in his way and growled. It was a deep and reverberating one that shook through the forest, and a couple of growls came back in return.
It wasn’t just these here that were protecting whatever they were protecting. There were others we couldn’t see. That was the purpose of the growl. If we pushed them further, they would fight us, and we would lose. The message was simple.
Luke held up his hand again and stepped back, showing them he had no intention of getting violent.
“We found you using this?” Luke said, holding up the map and his half of the pendant. “We need to talk to the leader. We need to talk to him about the moon stone.”
“If we had what you are looking for, why would we give it to you? You are a stranger.”
“Are you the leader?” Luke asked.
“I am leading now.”
“The leader of the tribe. We would rather talk to him, not you,” Hayley said. “This is serious. There are werewolves behind us, hunting us down. You do not want them to catch up to us here.”
“We have our ways. We will be fine. You do need to leave, though. You are not welcome here.”
Luke sighed and stamped his feet on the ground.
“I am sorry, but we cannot do that.”
The man looked at Luke, surprised, and then at me. I just shrugged at him. Left to me, we’d have fought our way in. Luke’s pseudo-diplomatic move was just the right one we needed. The man sighed and then turned to speak to someone behind him. The boy nodded and ran into the vines behind the forest. He ran through it so easily. It was like he had just disappeared through it.
“The leader will talk to you then,” the man said.
“Thank you,” Luke said.
“Do not thank me. You’ve been given a chance to leave unharmed, but you didn’t take it. When the leader returns, and he doesn’t want you, we’ll have to kill you.”
The werewolves surrounding them stepped closer, making sure we understood what their alpha had just said. I nodded and looked at Luke, who was rather confident that we were not going to fight here.
The werewolves were still groaning slightly, and their focus on us was so intent it made a chill run through me.
I had expected them to be dressed in leaves, but they were dressed in just shorts, with their bodies coated in mud and leaves, which was how they had camouflaged easily with the environment. They were all barefooted, making for lighter walking and even quieter. They will move as though they were air and make no noise with their bare feet.
Soon, the boy returned, and he was with an older man. He looked almost seventy too but was very agile. The duo stopped in front of Luke and me and the new man, who was their leader, cocked his head to look at the two of us.
“You asked for me,” he said.
