Chapter 8

"Elas what are we going to do! They still have Allisa!" Aywin shouted in a paniced voice as they ran through the forest. After a while when they were sure they weren't being followed they both slowed down and stopped to catch their breaths. Aywin was panicking inside at the idea of leaving Allisa behind with the prince and that wolf they had seen.

"Aywin worry about yourself that prince burnt you with his fire spell. We can't fight the prince and that wolf with just the two of us! When did he get a companion wolf? The royal family never had anything like that beast before! It would be well known if they had something like that in their kingdom owned by the royal family. Did you see what kind of wolf that was? That was a Shadow Wolf from the legends! Those are suppose to be extinct!"

"We need to report this to the general he would know what to do in this situation!"

"Are you crazy? Do you really think we should just run back to the general and tell him we failed in our duty to kill the prince?!"

"But-"

"Think about it! The general is not the soft type! If he finds out that we failed at our job he would blame us for this and we would have to pay for it with our lives! The general does not accept failure on his missions and prides himself on the fact that he doesn't fail at his duties!"

"Yea, you're right..." Aywin sighed as he thought about how bad things could get for him if the general found out they failed at their duty to kill Prince Leo. He had been panicking before, but forced himself to calm down when he realized how worse the situation could get for them. "What should we do, Elas?"

"We will continue to follow them and wait for a better chance at this. We can not go back to the general until we complete our mission, or at least get Allisa back! If he found out one of us was captured by the enemy that's even worse then failure!"

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As Vorbuk walked along the road with the archer tied to his back Leo paced along side him. His hand tapping against the archers face to wake her up. The archer groaned as she slowly wriggled in the rope and glanced around her surroundings. She tried to quickly get up, but realized she couldn't move due to the rope tightly around her.

"Let me go!" The elf shouted at Leo as she heaved a heavy breath in frustration at him.

"Nope." Leo smiled as he looked away from her and kept walking.

"Bastard!" The elf cursed at him as she glared at him. Leo wanted to laugh, but only smiled wryly. If looks could kill the hatred in her eyes towards him would have killed him instantly. The hate and rage in her eyes was clear and sharp like daggers.

"Who are you and why were you trying to kill me?" Leo asked her simply to get straight to the point. He did not like this woman in the slightest and found her attitude detestable. The less he had to communicate with her the better off he felt he would feel.

"Not Telling!" She scoffed at him.

"I clearly don't recall ever angering any elves, so who are you working for?"

"Go to hell!" She cursed at him again and tried to wriggle free again, but it was no use. She glanced sideways to the wolf that she was tied to. Her body ended up shuddering as she could hear the wolf deeply growling at her as it turned it's head. The wolf's red eye that she could see was glaring hatefully at her as if it thought she was trash that it could slaughter in a second if given the chance.

"Are you working for the Kingdom of Ethiadan?" Leo asked nonchalantly and watched her from the corner of his eye. He could see the elf woman quickly glance at him. The look on her face was enough to betray her and give away that he had gotten it right.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She stated calmly and closed her eyes for a second as if she was trying to play innocent.

"How did you guys get into the Kingdom? I thought Ethiadan was still suppose to be stuck at the border right now trying to fight their way into our Kingdom..."

"You're Kingdom is a joke! Like it was hard to get past the border army!" She scoffed. After she finished her face flushed embarrassed as she realized she had just admitted to it without noticing at first.

"Dont worry once we get to Gladstone the guards can take care of you from there." Leo chuckled and stopped talking to her.

The elf clearly did not want to speak to him any further and Leo had no interest in her any further as well. He had figured out what he wanted to know from her which was simply to verify that she was working for Ethiadan's Kingdom. He was smart enough to put together why she and the two warriors would approach him. Anyone who was from Cadirade would know he was the Crown Prince if they got a good enough look at him. He did not exactly hide his identity, after all. If he did try to hide who he was and his father, the king, found out and couldn't locate him he knew it would end bad and he would be lucky to just be locked back up in the castle for the rest of his life. Leo liked to travel the kingdom as a free man while he could so he was not going to anger the king any further than he had to.

It took them about an hour to finish their walk towards Gladstone. Upon reaching the entrance into town they handed the female archer, Allisa, over to the guards. The elf was dragged off to be interrogated and caged until her fate was to be decided. Since she was a elf working for Ethiadan's Kingdom Leo quickly assumed her judgement would fall on the penalty of death. After all, the kingdoms were currently at war with each other and she had invaded and attempted to take the crown prince's life. Her fate would be clearly sealed.

Vorbuk kept silent most of the time and just observed from the back. Leo was the only human he had met so far who even had the ability to communicate with him, so there was no reason for him to even attempt to do anything even if he wanted to. He also understood that her fate was meant to be death because of her actions without Leo telling him.

Their day had been long and rough so the rest of the day they spent in silence without talking to each other. Neither of them had a thing to say to each other, but both of them understood their situation so the wolf never left Leo's side while they were in the town that day. After fending off the attack of the elves, they both were simply too tired to care to speak. Vorbuk stayed by Leo's side to guard in case the elves returned, but strangely enough they did not feel the presence of them again that day.

Did they give up? Vorbuk wondered to himself as he watched the crown prince sleep that night. Something in him told him it would not be that simple though so he spent the night restless and pondering over how to control his wolf senses better. If he could sense danger quicker then he felt it would benefit him in the future so he spent the night trying to control his sense of hearing and smell better. Suddenly he found something in the distance that he felt familiar to.