On Leave

Well, this is a sequel to Valkyrien. It be the intellectual property of me. Jared G. Juckiewicz
And well, I wish to warn you of Graphic Violence, Bad Language, and Gorm being a cold, hard, vicious bastard. Much like Illuss and Vixen.

Well, it turned out that our success in that kidnapping op bought us all some leave. Now, we be fairly close, and so it was that we decided to take our leaves together. Of course that gave us the problem of where to go. Vixen and I wanted Scandinavia. Elf favoured northern Scotland, possibly Orkney or the Islands. Vaul fancied somewhere where he could look at modern mining, Wales perhaps, or Virginia. As for Iluss, he wished to go home to Wallachia for a bit. And of course, Lir didn't care so long as it was on the coast. Putting all this together, the sensible thing would probably have been the Northwest Coast of Canada. It'd have the cold, norse climate to suit Vixen and I, the thick forests that would keep Elf happy. There was some mining up that way, and many caves, which would please Vaul. Right on the pacific coast would cheer Lir up, and Illuss would just have to suffer.
Anyway, taking all that into account, just how we wound up spending our months leave on a deserted island somewhere in the south pacific is a mystery. The place has been abandoned since World War II, when it used first by the Americans and then by the Japanese as a military base. So, we have an airstrip, a harbour, a little yacht, a bunker complex, and all the other assorted military installations that one finds in such a place, entrenchments, pillboxes, tanktraps, old supply caches (mostly empty or rotted away), all that sort of thing. So, naturally, we landed. We flew commercial to Manila, and then took a connecting flight out to a little island in the middle of nowhere. And then we got our boat, and sailed (well, motored mostly) out to the island we were holidaying on. Illuss didn't like that bit. He spent the entire boat-trip in a hastily prepared box, filled with earth, with runes of warding carved on the side, or painted with blood. We drew the yacht, a neat little 25 meter job into the protected harbour, past the decaying sea walls. We had to be careful, cause tank traps had been placed alongst all the other beaches to prevent landings, and we could, as we approached see where naval guns had once been emplaced warding the harbour.
So we put in to the harbour, and we laid anchor. We tied the yacht up to the old mooring posts, and made to disembark. Each us of us vaulted off the ship amidships, covering the meter or so between the side of the ship and the dock with ease, despite our heavy duffels. Then we headed into the shore complex of bunkers to find sleeping space. Now, each of us favoured a different form of bivouac. Lir bedded down in the harbour itself, claiming an old ammo-room to store his gear. Elf did similar, but instead found a tree to string up a flet in. Twas easily done, she had in her gear a number of camo nets that she strung up to give her a floor and walls and a ceiling. Her duffel was lashed to a stout limb, a hammock was set up, and a knotted rope was lowered for those of us who couldn't go up the side of a tree like it was a ladder. Of course, Vixen and I would have no issue, as claws are rather useful for that sort of thing, but Lir and Vaul and Illuss would have had difficulty. Illuss himself found an old command center, deep underground, which he hung with some faux tapestries, and put a few comforts (like a folding table and chairs, with posh looking covers) in. Vaul stashed himself in an old ammo dump, with naught but a bedroll on the floor and a lamp.
Meanwhile, Vixen and I found ourselves another such chamber. We piled a duffel's worth of old blankets in the middle of the floor, to make us a nest. Or, more accurately. And if there was any issue with a Red Fox denning with a Timber Wolf, well, we never noticed. Anyway, after everyone was settled, it was time to begin enjoying ourselves. Fortuneatly, we be easily amused. You ever played Hide-and-go-seek with someone who can locate you by your beating heart, or someone who could put an arrow through your chest at a hundred yards by the sound of your breathing? Howsabout a person who sees in the infrared, or locates his position in relation to others by minute changes in air pressure? Or one who has all the sense of the Wolf or the Fox? It adds a whole new depth to the game, believe me. When hiding from Elf or Illuss you seek background noise, and when hiding from Lir you want an area where pressure differentials are constantly changing. Waterfalls or streams are good places. They work well when hiding from Vaul as well, the water dropping your heat signature. Sea Caves. We like sea caves. Lirs good at those. As for hiding from Vixen and I, well, you need to start by making us loose your scent. Climbing trees or using streams are good for that.
Well, we spent that day playing that, not stopping till well into the night, and then we returned to camp to settle down to sleep. We feasted before bed (if the word is applicable) on MRE's (Illuss had blood packs). And we slept. The next dawn found us all gamboling about in our own preferred manner. Illuss was sleeping late. Vaul was fishing. Lir was swimming. Elf lost herself in the treetop canopy, and Vixen and I went hunting. For the next week, we spent our time in similar pursuits, never pressing to deep into the wilderness. I don't know how they managed to evade us that whole time. Perhaps they just camped further into the island than we had pushed.
So it was, that whilst Illuss, Vixen and I were on a late night hike, exploring into the hills at the center of the island, we heard the crack of a rifle. A lead slug slammed into a tree not far from Vixen's head. Now, whoever was doing the shooting had just made a few, major, errors. First, They had shot at Vixen. That was garaunteed to set me off, and would definitely annoy both Illuss and Vixen. Second, they had missed, which meant they were facing three foes as opposed to two. And finally, they had attacked the three of us when we were not accompanied by any of the others. See, the Elves and Dwarves had always been, if not outright protectors and allies of Humanity, at least neutral. As for the Atlanteans, they were once human, and still held no grudge against their former kin. Vampires, Werewolves, and Kitsune, on the other hand, had never looked at humans as anything other than prey. I once asked if people realised why so many of the non-humans wound up in military careers, and thats basically the answer. Those like the Elves and the Dwarves see it as a way to protect their weaker cousins. We of the redder kindreds on the other hand do so as it be about the only way we can enjoy the... privileges we used to.
So here we were, taking cover, Vixen and I shifting to were-forms. More rifles cracked, hot lead filled the air. We sniffed, picking out targets by their scent, and then we moved. Running low to the ground, we cut out of the thick growth into a clearing topped by a rise. There at the top, half a dozen men, Japanese by the look of them, aiming rifles down at us. They were wearing what remained of uniforms that had gone out of style not long after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wielding old rifles. Well, we rocketed up that rise with unnatural speed. Unsurprising really, seeing as we be unnatural beasts. Not a round hit home before we reached the top, but by that time, their officer had drawn his sword. Bad move. The three blows that connected with him sent him flying a dozen feet, to land a broken wreck. As for his men, well, Vixen felled two, pouncing on one, claws shredding his chest as she lept away to tear the throat out of another. Meanwhile, Illuss smote on upsides the head, dropping him unconcious, before siezing the throat of another with his fangs, his eyes showing a terrible joy. I wasn't concerned. My prey was before me, and I stalked up to him, giving him time to reload his rifle, savouring the fear in his eyes. As he raised it to his shoulder, I leapt, slamming him to the ground. And then my jaws descended as I began to feed.
The taste of the flesh, and the hot blood spraying, the crunching of bone, all of it brought back memories of better times. Next to me, Vixen too, tore and rended the corpses, devouring the flesh, whilst Illuss drained both his foes, and then those of ours who hadn't bled dry. No mere Human can know the pleasure of the vicious kill we of the Red Kindreds hold so dear. The power and the fury is almost a drug, and these days, is one we can partake of but rarely. Dawn found us returning to our camp, a furious and terrible euphoria plain on our faces. Our clothes, what was left of them, and our hides, were matted with blood and gore, except, strangely, within a few inches of our mouths and muzzles. Or perhaps not so strangely, as I licked my lips, trying to catch a taste of the sweet, coppery blood on the edge of my tongue. We had left the bodies, and their possessions where they had fallen, what was left of them. A pile of broken and cracked bone and scraps of torn flesh and skin, soon to be picked clean by the carrion eaters, rifles and blades left to rust. All bar the leaders Katana. That Illuss had laid claim to, and he was welcome to it. The blade was fine, and well cared for, the hilt of carved ivory, wrapped with brown thread for a better grip. As for the scabbard, once it was cleaned up, it would be a pleasant sky blue, rather than the dirty reddish brown it was now.
Well, we faced recriminations from our companions, but we all knew their hearts weren't in it. Had they been there, the only difference would have been cleaner kills, and like as not we'd have gifted the dead to the earth. After the brief, stilted lectures which we promptly ignored and forgot, well, we kind of had to go and investigate. Unfortuneatly, being on leave, we lacked weapons. Oh well, we didn't really need them. Illuss had his fangs and a katana, Vixen and I our claws. It took Vaul ten minutes to find a suitable Shillelagh, hacking a branch off a tree with a bush knife. Elf rummaged in her luggage and drew forth an oddly shaped piece of leather, that turned out to be a simple sling. A few minutes by a stream, and she had as much ammo as she could easily carry. As for Lir, well, he bore the bush knife.
We headed first for our killing field, and there, those who desired to armed themselves. Vaul, Lir, and Elf each took a rifle. Illuss, Vixen, and I declined. We began to trail the scent. In the rapidly rising sun, the thermal trace of the footprints was invisible, and they had moved with shocking stealth. On the other hand, their scent was strong enough that a pair of Were-things could follow their trail without effort. Sadly, we found only an empty camp. It seemed there had been but the six of them, abandoned and forgotten when the war ended. Their Radio had broken, and so they had no way of knowing the war was over. We had been the first visitors in decades, and so, recognising us as not Japanese, they thought to follow their orders to hold the island. Even mistaken, such dedication, and determination were things even, or perhaps especially, the red kindreds can respect.
So we granted them honour. Ignoring our companions protestations, we assembled their remains, and carried them to their camp. Piling the remains in their homes, we raised their camp as a pyre to send them on their way, accompanied by the howls and roars we use to signify respect and honour for the dead. It wasn't long after that we had to return to the world. But it had been one of the best leaves I'd had. It had been like it was in the old days, the slaying of the foes, the blood and slaughter, and the honouring of those, regardless of allegiance, who held to their oaths to the end. Needless to say, there were more lectures when we told our superiors what had happened to us on leave, but we ignored those too...