9 Friendly talk in the rain

We rushed into the water with a number of splashes. I soon found out that my backpack floated on its own so I pushed my roll of reed to one of the yuzzem who struggled with swimming and I stuck with my backpack.

Soon I found out that it is impossible for us to cross on the other side because it was way too far even though yuzzem turned out to be good swimmers we had too few rolls floating items to keep us on the surface of the lake.

"Back!!! Swim back into shallow water. We won't make it this way." I shouted.

"But there are the wolves. They will slaughter us if we return." cried one of the yuzzem.

"We won't come on dry land completely. We will be in the place shallow enough for us just to stand. This way they will have to go into the water and will be slowed down by it." I answered as I was changing my direction. Rest of yuzzem did not resist since they had to swallow their pride and admit that we wouldn't have made it.

On our way back we changed course to a place where we would be hidden behind the plants and I was carefully watching the reed because it was not only blocking the view of wolves but our too.

We stopped when I had water to my waist and we were still about 10 meters from the dry land so if wolves charged, we would have enough time to react. It was slightly raining so my hopes for fast coverage of our trail were meaningless.

From the start o while encounter I didn't have a chance to thoroughly inspect the wolves so I did not know what was according to the report strange about them so I was very vigilant.

While we were waiting for wolves to either find us or give up and f*ck off I gave the order to try to continue building the boat from the things we currently had.

They couldn't do much but they were trying. Materials we managed to grab were sufficient enough to build a very small boat but something better than nothing.

While they were working I wanted to rest because I was really exhausted but if I had done this, I would let my guard down and that would put the whole group in danger and I knew it so I took out my machete instead and continued looking for the enemy.

Finally, they showed up. But not in front of us but on the place from which we rushed into the water.

Because of our position, I could see an only head poking out from the free space we have made.

At the first look from this distance, I thought it is just head of a normal brown wolf but then I realized how big it is I got a goose bump.

It was actually three times the size of a normal wolf and it was in meter and a half above the ground.

It sniffed and then angrily howled. But as it howled another head emerged. This one was gray with a big scar over half of its face. If I could guess the emotions from its face I would say it was annoyed. It looked on the previous creature and slapped it with its clawed hand and howling was interrupted with a squeak.

The gray creature stepped into the water and in a matter of seconds transformed into a naked human.

I was dumbfounded. "Werewolf during the day? That is impossible, according to legends they are supposed to transform only during a full moon. Oh wait, that are legends of my world, this one is apparently different. But still, a werewolf transforming as he wishes??"

My train of thoughts was stopped the moment when he turned and looked on us.

He was gray hared and had the same scar on his face as when he was transformed. His eyes were also gray. He was quite muscular but I would guess he was over 40 years old. Obviously seasoned war veteran.

"Here you are!" he said and smiled. But the smile didn't reach his eyes. He coldly stared on us while smiling.

At that moment we could hear fast movements of other werewolves behind the reed.

"What do you want?" I asked nervously and raised my machete. Yuzzem warriors followed my example and unsheathed their claws.

"Ho, ho, ho. Don't be hasty. I have no ill intentions. I'm just following orders." said the guy.

"How are we supposed to believe you when you are trying to surround us?" I replied.

"We are at war. We cannot let our guards down. If you are a friend to our cause nothing will happen to you." he said and started to slowly approach.

I knew I couldn't let him too close because he could then transform back into his wolf form and swiftly attack and we would lose our advantage.

"Tell us what you want then. I have a good hearing so you don't have to get yourself too wet." I tried to stop him.

"Ok then. I guess you are the leader so I will speak to you." the man stated.

" A day ago we received information about a sudden increase in numbers of undead scouts in this area. We are one of the teams send here to investigate it the and occasionally kill some ghouls. When he pronounced the word "ghouls" we could hear angry snarls from the werewolves hidden behind the reed.

Till now light drizzle which was falling from above was tolerable but now it started to rain densely. The man looked up and like we weren't there stated. "Let's get this over with so we can get some cover. I hate being in the rain." Then he looked in my eyes and continued explaining,

" We have found out that undead are looking for somebody. They have already found his trail and are trying to follow it but it seems that this someone is trying to hide his trail so they were unable to follow him. Only thanks to those ghouls we have found his trail too and because we are better than the undead we found that person. That somebody is in your group or it is your whole group who they are looking for. We are here to know why. Why are they trying to find you and possibly kill you?"

"I honestly don't know. We know that one day there were almost none ghouls and another there were hundreds of them. My guess is that maybe they are interested in my companions due to their skeletons because they have exceptionally durable bones and if they somehow use them as parts of some big abomination that would make it extremely durable," I tried to explain following logic of what I knew.

"They cannot possibly know that I'm newborn god and I won't tell anyone." I was thinking.

My answer didn't satisfy him. He looked at me the way " Do I look like mentally retarded?" then he sighed and said, " Ok since you aren't going to tell me the truth I'm obliged to get the answers from you the hard way."

Lightning hit a tree nearby. It was very loud, everyone else twitched but he did not move a muscle.

He started to approach and I could hear other werewolves going trying to go through the reed.

They suddenly froze, all we could hear was rain and occasional thunder. The man turned to the way he came.

"Ghouls, they must have followed our trail instead of yours," he uttered with a tone full of hatred. "Stay here or I will find all of you and you will wish that you were never born."

Then he transformed into a werewolf, loudly howled and disappeared into the rain. I could hear other werewolves leaving too.

I took the initiative. "All of you start working on boats. They are gone for now. Go and get as much reed as you can so we can build enough boats. Go!!" This order finally snapped yuzzem out of the daze and they went to work.

As we worked, raining got worse. Also more and more thunders echoed closer. We were in the middle of the storm.

We cut the reed as fast as we could and soon the shore was cleaned and we had enough material for all of us.

As we were moving everything to the water I heard distanced sounds of fighting. Angry growls were accompanied by unnatural screeches.

One time lightning illuminated the whole area. I froze on spot full of horror. I have seen hundreds of ghouls pouring out of the valley from which we came and about 20 werewolves holding them back, slashing left and right.

"Guys speed up!!" I shouted with trembling voice. "Almost done" I heard behind me.

I turned around and moved closer to the boats which were almost done. Then I put my backpack on one of them and then slowly returned to the front line with a machete ready in my hand.

It was horrible. I stood in water which was to my waist, it was dark and rainy and all the time I could hear distanced sounds of battle. If I wasn't god myself and didn't have all other gods as enemies, I would now pray for the werewolves so they could hold the ghouls off a little longer.

"Done" I heard from yuzzems. I rushed to the boats and boarded the one on which I left my backpack. Then I had to wait for others to board ships and we were ready to go.

I was scared to my bones and paddled as fast as I could with my hands. The shore disappeared into the rain but I could still occasionally see it when the lightning struck in the right place.

Our voyage took about an hour. During that time I calmed down and exchanged in paddling with others so we could save our strength.

As we got closer to our destination I noticed an interesting thing. The water and the air too got much warmer. Almost like we were in the jungle. I asked others if they feel it too because I thought I was hallucinating from stress but they noticed it too.

Finally, we saw the isles. We happily paddled to the shore and exhausted fell on the ground.

"Please someone pulls the boats out of the water. We don't want to lose them." I said. Some o yuzzem went to fulfill the order and I was resting on my back, watching the trees and letting water droplets fall on my face.

Once I got enough strength I got up and looked around. My previous guess for a swampy place was right. I could describe this place as a forest without any low vegetation, only with high trees with pools of dirty water scattered around and muddy ground.

"What a lovely pale we are going to live in." I sarcastically stated.

"Ok everyone, use the boats upside down and use them as a shelter. We are going to stay at night there and tomorrow we will look for a place to settle down. If there is a kind soul please keep a watch and then woke someone to replace you." I shouted.