Harvey was exhausted after several days of travel, his convoy had just set up camp and he entered his newly erected tent. Once inside he greeted Captain Reginald with a military salute and asked. “ Do you know if we are getting close? After all, we haven't seen any civilization in over a week “

  Reginald removed his gloves and went over to a chest in the corner of the tent before replying. “Aye, we should be entering the territory of the wood elves in a couple of days. We should expect a guard force to show up to escort us around as soon as we enter their lands. I'm amazed we were permitted to enter their lands.”

  Harvey rubbed his hands in satisfaction and replied. “The kingdom sure went all out on this one. I don't know what they paid for this permission, but as a botanist, I couldn't turn down the chance to study plants this far north.”

  Reginald took out two cups and filled both from a brown bottle from the chest, he held a full cup towards Harvey and said. “I don't know anything about plants, but it has to be important enough to have the crown deploy a guard force to keep you safe.”

  Harvey accepted the cup. Shrugged, and tasted the content before replying. “I never expected the crown would take such interest in my work, but the new royal advisor was oddly invested in me to sample as many unusual plants from the northern forest as possible. He went on and on about all the possible applications of certain plants, some were even completely foreign to me, and I’ve studied plants my entire life.”

  Reginald emptied his cup in one single motion, wiped his mouth, and said. “The new royal advisor eh? From what I've heard, the king is founding several of his projects, and from what I’ve heard there are some ludicrous projects going on too. I heard from a lad I used to work with in the capital, that he got stationed inside a cave to guard workers digging up dirt there, apparently, the royal advisor claimed cave dirt held special properties. So the king blindly took his word for it and they sent men to start digging.“

  Harvey raised one eyebrow and asked. “ Cave dirt? Are you sure you heard that right? That sounds odd. Unless cave dirt is magically fertile I really don't see what they want with it.”

  Reginald filled his cup again before replying. ”I’m just telling you what I've heard. I really hope for our kingdom’s sake that this advisor isn't taking advantage of our good king. And that this plant endeavor isn't a fool's errand like the cave dirt thing is.”

  Harvey shook his head, and said.” No, no. Don’t worry about that. There are incredible possibilities in my work, there are so many secrets held within plants. Everything from making medicine to finding new and exciting spices. I can’t promise results in this journey but the potential is clearly there. As long as we can move into the elves' territory without being attacked by them, I expect to find several plants that don't grow further south. I just hope the translator is up for the task of conversing with these elves.”

  The two men kept drinking and conversing while the camp around them turned into a lively gathering of soldiers off the clock. With food in their bowls and wine in their cups, their spirits rose and cheerful songs of war and victory could be heard through the night.

  Several hours went by and Harvey was startled by a sudden scream from the camp, he looked toward Reginald, who must have heard the same thing as him. Before any of the men could say anything, several new screams followed the first and the sounds of the cheerful camp erupted into a terror-filled battleground.

  “What is going on?” Harvey asked, his face drained of color.

  “How should I know?” Reginald retorted back while fumbling to get his armor back on.

  With his armor back on, Reginald went to the tent opening and looked carefully outside. There were loud voices that kept yelling “ The demons are attacking.”

  Reginald closed the tent flap, took a few steps inside, and turned a terrified expression to Harvey and stammered. “It… It is the demon foxes.”

  “What? Actual demon foxes? B…But they are extinct, aren't they? Harvey asked with terror in his eyes.

  “They should be extinct, but I was just witness to a fur-covered woman rip apart several men effortlessly. What else could possibly do such a thing? Over half my men are lying dead and scattered around the camp. You need to get away from here as fast as your feet can carry you, run south, and tell anyone what happened here tonight. The kingdom needs to know that they still are out there. Now run, I will do my best to hold off the demon as long as I can.” Reginald said with resignation and fear in his voice.

  Reginald saluted and turned towards the exit, but then the tent opened and a white-haired demon fox stepped inside, and her red eyes took in their presence. The figure gave them a terrifying smile and held her hand up in a gesture none of them expected.

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  Reginald stepped forward and lunged his sword toward the demon, but she sidestepped the sword, then grabbed Reginald by his throat and held him up with a single hand. Reginald croaked “Run” mere seconds before his throat was impaled and his corpse fell to the floor.

  Harvey froze at the sight of the guard captain’s corpse hitting the floor. He couldn't take his eyes off the terrifying figure of the demon fox, her eyes were faintly glowing, and it felt like those eyes could pierce a man’s soul and turn any bravery into mush in mere moments. Those monsters weren't supposed to exist, they were supposed to be something you only heard about in stories to scare children to behave, not something real you could meet face to face.

  Harvey took a step back, but his knees gave out and he fell backward on his butt. He started muttering a prayer, but then the demon fox picked Reginald’s sword up from the floor and slowly made her way toward Harvey. She grinned at him as the sword was raised, and swung towards his head.

  _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  I knelt and checked if the human still had a pulse. I feared I might have hit him too hard, I had to knock him out cold, but these humans seemed so fragile that I had to check if he still lived. I quickly found his pulse and I let my breath out in relief. Good, he still lives. Now I have to come up with a good enough reason to keep him alive.

  Still holding on to the sword I made my way outside, hoping to find more humans alive. I quickly spotted Arissa about to pounce on her latest victim. In a panic, I shouted to her. “ Wait. Don't kill him yet Arissa! “

  Arissa gave me a confused look, and I started running towards the man in front of her. His back was turned away from me, so I easily slammed the blunt side of the sword over his head with a clank and he fell face-first into the ground.

  I pointed at Arissa and with as much authority as I could muster in my voice said. “ Don't kill him, I have a genius plan, but we need to keep a few humans alive to make it work.”

  Arissa just looked at me like I was a complete lunatic and asked in a questioning tone. “ Why? What can you possibly use a live human for? I thought we weren't supposed to play around too much with our food, You usually say something like. Don't let our prey suffer needlessly, and please end their misery.”

  “ I will tell you later. Just don’t kill him, you won’t regret it, I promise.” I said in a rush while making my way towards Naleighya, who was still fighting the last two humans I could spot.

  As I arrived, Naleighya had just impaled one of the men on her claw-extended paw. She pulled her paw back, and the guy fell backward with a huge hole in his chest. Before giving her the chance to end the last guy, I bashed the blunt side of the sword into the back of the man’s head, making him fall just as easily as the first two.

  I stepped in front of the unconscious human and held my paw up for her to stop. I took a few breaths and said. “ Don't kill this one. We have better uses for them alive.”

  Naleighya seemed confused by my words and in an uncertain tone asked. “ For what possible reason can we have any use for living humans? They will die as soon as we start eating them,”

  I nodded at her words and replied. “Yeah I know, but when they are alive, we can make them walk by themselves, and to make it easier on us, we can use them as pack animals and make them carry our kills. We can always just kill them whenever we get back to our village. Why shouldn't we exploit their labor if we can?”

  “ They won't take orders from us, we can't even communicate with them properly,” Naleighya said in a stern voice.

  “Leave that part to me, I'm sure I can make them do my bidding,” I replied in a smug voice.

  “Very well, I will give you the opportunity to make it happen,” Naleighya answered with annoyance in her tone.

  “Arissa. Nalcor! come here.” Naleighya yelled out loudly. Both foxes showed up within seconds, both covered in blood and gore from their ears to their knees.

  Naleighya clapped her paws together in approval before saying. “ Great job. We managed to take them all down without suffering a single injury. You can claim three Humans each, the rest we need to share with the tribe. You should be proud of this hunt, we took down some of the most difficult prey we could come over, and the rest of our tribe will cheer us on when they see our bounty. Also, Lunaria had one of her weird Ideas, and I'm willing to give her the chance. Could you tell us about your plan? “

  Everyone turned their attention to me, and I felt put on the spot. I laughed nervously and scratched the back of my head as I said. “ Well, the idea was only that we could avoid killing a few, and use them as pack animals. Making them walk back while carrying a few corpses for us. I'm positive that I can threaten them to do my bidding.”

  Nalcor looked offended at my suggestion and replied. Nonsense, we shouldn't let our prey live any longer than necessary, we should just kill them and be done with it.”

  Naleighya held her paw up to stop Nalcor’s tirade and spoke in her motherly tone. “ Don't be like that Nalcor. Let's see what Lunaria can achieve if we give her the opportunity. I will even claim the human she clubbed over the head here.”

  I bowed to Naleighya and replied. “ Thank you for the chance, I won't let you down.”

  With that, I ran toward the wagon and started looking through barrels and crates until I found a crate containing several ropes. I took the ropes out and tied ropes around the hands and necks of the three remaining living humans. I carried them all to the middle of the camp while hearing the sounds of the others eating with enthusiasm.

  The scent of blood and the sounds of flesh tearing awoke the hunger within and I had to endure demanding screams at me to start eating from my hunger. But I held strong and focused on my task. Offhandedly I asked. “ Arissa, do you want to claim the last living human? You could save him until we get home.”

  Arissa lifted her head up from the human she was currently devouring, blood running from her mouth. She wiped herself and looked up at me before answering. “ I guess I could. But don't try to cheat me out of my meal.”

  “Don't worry. When we were pups, didn't I always hide away my own food so I could share it with you? I won't start screwing with your food now. Trust me a little, will you?” I said beamingly. Incredibly happy for the chance to keep several humans alive.

  With the unconscious humans tied up, I went around the camp and tried to find useful items I could bring back with me. To my surprise, I found several stacks of paper, ink, and quills. I also found several knives that could prove useful, an iron kettle, and lots of dried and preserved meat I could use to feed to the humans. I stuffed it all into a large backpack I found together with other small trinkets I believed could be useful down the road. I was overjoyed over all the loot I could bring home, and with that done, I claimed my two corpses and sat down to eat my fill.