| Chapter 4 Throughout the cat warriors' victorious day of battle, some small skirmishes broke out on seperate occasions, most of which resulted in small cat warrior victories. Everywhere there was death; bodies of wolfmen were piled high, some cat warriors lay dead around the trees, and the entire kingdom reeked of decomposing flesh. As some of the cat warriors dragged bodies of their enemies from the wet forest floor to its edge at the beach, the women became concerned for Adria. Of the 700 women who participated, only 13 died, as opposed to the 23 of 800 or so men who fought. The wolfmen were horribly slaughtered, suffering well over 750 deaths, almost half of their force. But the women were more concerned for their glorious leader. "Where is our leader?" they all cried, searching the forest, amidst piles of dead soldiers. The fog was still very thick and hard to see through. Jast led the troop of cat women through the forest, and were even joined by Caleb and Dar and dozens of other men. Caleb ran up to Jast. "Where is Adria?" he asked, direly concerned. "Was she captured, or did she keep fighting?" "I don't know," Jast said. "I only wish for her to be safe." "This fog is too thick," Caleb said. "I cannot see too far in front of me." "That is not going to stop me!" Jast shouted, causing everyone to stop walking. "I'm going to find Adria, fog or not." Caleb walked further with the other women and men. He looked all about him -- to either side of him, behind him, above him. As the party walked, Caleb saw above him a form in the trees, very still and quiet. "Wait, stop walking," he said to everyone, pointing upward. "What's that up there?" What Caleb pointed at was a being in the trees, somehow suspended between two large trees, somewhat high up from the ground. As Caleb and others stared, a single drop of blood fell from the sky and fell straight into his left eye, causing him to back away, wincing. "I'm going to climb up that tree," he said. "I'm going to see what this is all about." Caleb began his ascent, his large sword strapped to his back. He climbed high, then began a steady walk on a thick branch. As he neared the form he saw, he began to notice a hand, then an arm. "What the--" he muttered, crawling forward. Suddenly, the arm and hand became a body, a dead body -- the body of Adria. "ADRIA!!!" Caleb's bloodcurdling scream startled everyone down below on the forest floor. "Jast, help me!" he cried. Jast quickly scampered up the other tree, climbing on the opposite branch so she was facing Caleb, who had a horrified look on his face. Adria had been killed and her body nailed to the branches with large, rusty spikes. Her body was riddled with dozens of cuts and slices; she bled from the chest, abdomen, neck, legs, groin, nose, and mouth. Her armor of leather and metal plates had been shredded by stabs wounds, and her nether was bare and dripping with wolfman seed and her own fluids. Adria's body was still slightly warm; it seemed as though she had been murdered only a few hours earlier. Jast laid her head on the branch she was sitting and cried loudly, as Caleb tried to comfort her. "We will have our revenge for this, I guarantee it," Caleb assured her. "Regain yourself and help me move Adria down." Jast, full of fury, ripped the large spikes from Adria's mangled wrists, as Caleb held Adria's arms. He then hoisted Adria's body, all dripping with blood and semen, and carried it down the tree with him. All the cat warrior women cried, falling to their knees. The men, even Dar, were outraged. Dar climbed atop a large rock. "This is an insult!" he roared. "I won't stand for it, and neither shall you!!" "Here, here!" all the cat warriors cried at once. "I concede the point that I had my doubts about Adria fighting," Dar continued, "but I did not have any doubts that those vile wolfmen would do such a thing! They will all die for this -- all of them! We're going back to battle tomorrow, and we will crush them all!" That sad day the cat warriors buried their casualties in a glorious funeral, almost impossible to celebrate for lives and not lives lost. They sealed Adria's broken body in a great, beautifully-decorated coffin, still dressed in her mangled armor, with a cloth around her waist to hide her raped nether. The cat warriors were still ardent for their great loss, largely in spite of the fact that they had slaughtered hundreds of wolfmen in the battle. Dar loudly proclaimed at the burial that all wolfmen would pay with their lives, and their families as well. Chapter 4, part 2 |