The Huntsman and His Wolves

[follow_the_wolf]

Stories of the Huntsman and his Wolves were traded over the fires in the camps at the edges of Roman territory. Those whispers twisted with each telling, changed in the inflections and origin of its speaker. The Roman Empire spanned continents and pulled its soldiers from every territory, but no matter the language of those who shared the story, every tribe had a word for 'wolf.'

Some said they were outlaws who had been brought under the heel of the Emperor and had agreed to follow his orders in exchange for the sparing of their lives. Some said they were soldiers who had moved too smoothly through battle and been hand chosen by their commander to join his elite unit. Still others claimed they were shapeshifters who changed shape with the moon and so only struck enemy forces on those three nights of every month that the moon was at its fullest. There were whispers that each Wolf stood towering tall and lean under daylight, and became monstrous creatures under the fall of night. Most shocking of all, there were even whispers that there were women among their number who fought alongside the men as equals.

All agreed that the Wolves wore heavy mantles of thick fur across their shoulders, the long cloaks that fell behind them the color of the forest at night. They moved like ghosts through the forests they struck from, attacked only at night and fought with sword and bow and what could only be imagined as strange knives by the wounds left on the dead they left in their wake.

The Huntsman stepped at the forefront of his Wolves then, as dusk fell heavy among the trees, and looked over his shoulder to inspect those who ranged behind him, readying themselves for the strike ahead. He lifted his chin and spoke to the nearest of his Wolves, "You prepared?"

[AU and open to any who might like some leather and fur clad warriors in the Northern reaches of the Empire. Obviously any who are already shapeshifters could remain so, but others (such as the Huntsman himself) are purely human warriors]

Comments

[tooktheblack]

"You have good aim, as always." Jon could be appreciative of the talents of others and there was no denying that the Huntsman was brilliant with his now and his arrows always found their marks. Jon's arrows found theirs too, no doubt, but he had nothing approaching the mastery of his commander and had to defer to his superior skill in this particular matter.

"Clean kills, all of them."

[follow_the_wolf]

The younger man's praise did not fall flat as much as strike the Huntsman as strange, although he could not understand why that was. It was not for any deception he could read in that voice, or that he was unsure of his own capabilities, but the for fact that anyone might remark on it as being anything other than of use to themselves.

He stilled a moment, then gave a stiff nod. "If it must be done, it should be done clean." It felt as if he were supposed to offer something in reply, and while there was a strangeness in quiet speech there had not been in the draw of his bowstring back or in the cut of his sword, he did want to do what was right. Even so small a thing as offering a deserved piece of praise. "You did well."

[tooktheblack]

"I aim to do well in whatever I endeavor," Jon said. The praise warmed him, though, and it felt good to have skill recognized instead of taken for granted. The Huntsman was a good commander in that regard.

"What are my orders now?"

[follow_the_wolf]

Whether the other felt the sense of companionship or not, the connection the Huntsman felt then like the electric static before a lightning storm, he did not know. It did not, he thought, matter in the longview of things or change anything of his position as the younger man's commander beyond that they belonged then to the same pack. The other was hardly out of his teens, if he was at all, but carried a sharpness to him that spoke of a hunger for approval long held back from him. Or, if not of a need for approval, of the need to be seen as an equal, of a man of worth.

"Take your wolf and take up a patrol," he told him, "We will clear the camp of the supplies we might have use of or information Rome might want, but we need to be sure that we have missed no scout, no errant soldier."

[tooktheblack]

Jon smirked a little. He preferred ranging to almost anything else and patrol sounded like a perfect way to be alone with his thoughts.

"Consider it done. I'll report back as soon as possible."

[follow_the_wolf]

Command had fallen only to the Huntsman when the last of their commanders had gone too far, had turned against Caesar or at the very least the ideals of Rome too far to have been forgiven. She had been executed for her rails against the Empire, but had truly been removed from her post for her excesses in battle, the blood lust that had ruled her after too long at the Wolves' head.

Reluctant as he had been to take command, the Huntsman sought only to do his duty and assure that his fellow Wolves were taken care of. That their tasks were tailored to their abilities and their temperaments. Command had him holding back from patrolling himself, but he understood the shift of the younger man's eyes out toward the horizon well enough to recognize that he and his wolf were best allowed loose to do the task he would rather have taken himself.

"Keep both eyes open," he instructed, though his words were not spoken without care of the younger man's well-being. He did not reach out again to pat the other on the shoulder, but did give him a considered nod before he dismissed him in turning back to all else that had to be done.