Wolfe and Ella were subjected to a very long round of tearful “thank you” greetings once the healing was finished after what was supposed to be a short stopover, but which only ended without a celebratory feast because Wolfe explained that they had to go find the mundane army’s airstrip in the mountains.
Thanks to the local scouts talking to neighbouring villages scouts, they said that they had the exact location marked on a stolen army topographical map, and Wolfe saw that he could take a River Valley all the way from here to five kilometres away from his destination.
The waters would be solidly frozen over at this time of year, and the bikes were light, so they could run straight up it in a way that the army units with their tanks and heavy trucks couldn’t.
They would just have to watch for traps when they got close since it wasn’t in any village’s patrol range. The mountain had a lot of lingering magic in it, and nobody wanted to risk digging into it to find out what kind, so it was left as an uninhabited area.
According to the scouts’ reports, even the mundane army hadn’t done that. There was a ruined temple on the North Face, and they had simply set up in its shelter to make it harder to see their jets instead of digging an actual base into the mountain to protect their assets.
Unlike the roar of the gasoline-powered version, these electric dirt bikes were meant for infiltration and were nearly as quiet as the pedal-assisted electric bicycles Wolfe was used to.
Ella trailed a dozen meters behind him, doing her best to stay in his tracks to make it look like just one traveller had passed this way until, finally, the River turned away from their route to follow the low ground into another valley. That was their signal to leave it behind and start looking for the airport and its sentries.
“According to the map, this point is five kilometres from the target, but it’s all through thick trees until we get to the mountain. We can leave the bikes hidden here in the reeds and come back for them later.” Wolfe suggested.
“In that case, I have the perfect spell. It will change our tracks through the snow to look like we went straight down the River. There won’t be any reason for them to look here, and we can sneak up on the camp.” Ella whispered.
Wolfe nodded, and they ditched the bikes, then headed back into the trees before Ella cleared their tracks and extended fresh tire tracks as far as the eye could see.
“Hopefully, that works. The traces of magic should fade right away and leave behind nothing more than the regular tire tracks.”
As they advanced, the signs of human occupation became more and more clear. Dead monsters, mostly small ones like squirrels and rabbits, boot prints, signs of struggle and the scent of human blood mixed in with the surroundings.
All of it was at least a week old, and the only tracks left were on the sheltered side of the trees. The rest had blown over until they got into the thicker forested areas.
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But there were still no signs of patrols sentries, not even with [Detect Hidden] at maximum sensitivity. If he had even found a few cameras in the trees, Wolfe would have been assured that their target really was here, but it felt like they had already been defeated.
So, for another hour, they walked in careful silence until the distant sound of cursing and gunfire echoed through the woods.
“Damn it, not Phyllis. I hate this place, and I hate command for sending us here, and I hope I never see a rabbit again in my life.” A mournful voice shouted in the distance.
Wolfe and Ella cautiously approached the source of the shouting while someone tried to calm the distraught man. He had just gone silent when the screaming started again from further away.
“There’s more of them. Fuck, get inside the vehicles until they leave.” Someone yelled, making Wolfe laugh.
From fifty yards away, he saw a small white creature with blood in its fur turn to look at him, and he could have sworn that it smiled before hopping away with a uniform-clad arm in its jaws.
He gave a quick round of condolences to Phyllis, who had died to the carnivorous rabbit monsters, and then signalled for Ella to follow him forward.
“I will aim for the troop vehicles. You go for the planes.” He whispered.
With all the screaming, they would never hear the rifles with the suppressors attached, and it looked like the army’s situation was getting worse, even without their intervention.
More monsters were coming out of the forest, drawn by the noise and blood, while the humans were fighting a running retreat.
Wolfe put everything he could into the gravity enhancement on his rifle and targeted the vehicles closest to the retreating force.
A mighty explosion tore it apart from the inside, throwing dozens of soldiers to the ground, and the monsters charged.
Those who were able to run left the fallen behind, but Wolfe detonated another troop carrier, then a third, leaving them wailing in panic as the bloodthirsty beasts that called these mountains home closed in on them and picked off the wounded soldiers one at a time.
Ella began targeting the planes closest to the runway, fifty meters from the retreating soldiers and well away from the incoming swarm of monsters. The planes crumbled without much resistance, and Wolfe saw multiple small vortexes flicker into existence and then fade as their anti-magic munitions burned.
The weapons weren’t close enough together to start a chain reaction, but it was clear that the planes were loaded to hunt witches.
The last two troop carriers threw their doors open at the same time, and the occupants ran for the temple. It was unmistakable that they were being targeted, but the thick metal doors of the temple offered some sense of safety from the chaos.
It was never meant to be, though. Between them and the door stood a whole family of badgers, over a meter tall and six-eyed, looking far more vicious than anything Wolfe had ever seen.