He paused, letting his words linger in the airy cavern. Uncertain murmurs swept around the room, then died down as Sergius ordered the various packs to begin discussing amongst themselves for the next hour, after which he would request each of the leaders to present their ideas.
And so the hall broke out in discussion. I looked to Victoria, whose eyes were still fixed on my uncle, and wondered what she was thinking. She and her family had more experience with these men than we did.
“If only I could get help from The Shade.” She sighed. “I’m sure I would be able to persuade my people to help you guys in some way.”
I scowled inwardly. I believed that many of these wolves would be too proud to accept Victoria and her people’s help in fighting for our country, even if they were offered it.
But that would not stop me from accepting it. If we could get help from The Shade, I could splinter from these wolves, who were as good as strangers to me anyway, and forge ahead in a separate attack with Victoria’s people.
I thought back to the one gate that we knew still existed—the gate situated within the hunters’ compound. After my escape, I was sure that they would have doubled down on security. Even roaming within the perimeter of their base would be risking our lives, let alone attempting to actually climb down into it and reach the portal. And then, even if we managed to leap through it, there was the matter of what we might meet with on the other side. What if there were more hunters and mutants roaming that jungle now? It was so close to their base. There were simply too many things that could go wrong with that plan. I could not entertain it. If it was only my own life on the line, I might’ve risked it. But not with Victoria.
The two of us passed the next hour in mostly silence as I lost myself in my own thoughts. Then Sergius called for the chieftains to step into the center one by one and pose their suggestions to the assembly.
Weldon came first. His suggestion was fire. Hurling a storm of burning arrows over their fence, burning the entire wood down where the hunters were located, if need be. I grimaced. Fire had been one of the first methods that had occurred to me when I first started pondering this issue. But I was not na?ve enough to think that it would be as simple as Weldon made out. Not after my brief venture into hunter territory.
They were surrounded by fire-breathing creatures, and hence were also equipped with the means to put out fires. They would be fools if they weren’t. The moment they detected the fire starting, they would use their technology to put it out. We would also be utterly stupid to think that we could creep up on them unawares. They had guards—and mutants—roaming the facility. And by now, for all we know, they could have installed more “alarms”, as Victoria had called those magical devices.
Despite all the obstacles I foresaw, there was much nodding and murmuring of agreement to the idea of fire. I bit down on my lip, resisting the urge to point out the many obstacles in the plan. Right now was not the time to discuss detailed strategy anyway. That would come later, once the wolves had agreed on the general way forward.
The next leader who stepped forward—of the Kaelin clan—suggested an all-out, physical attack. All of us would gather and launch into the base at once, swarming their compound and buildings and flooding them. In some ways, this was a savvier idea than relying on fire. If all of us launched at once, we would not be as easily put out as fire. However, this idea would result in a staggering number of casualties. I had seen those mutants they kept with my own eyes. A werewolf was simply no match for one. How could even the strongest wolf be a threat, when the mutants could fly and breathe fire? The only thing a werewolf could do in the face of such a creature was run.
Next came the Cuthral leader’s suggestion. His I found to be the most interesting so far, though I could not quite see how it would ever work. He suggested that we contrive a way to bait a large number of hunters away, rendering the base more empty and vulnerable to an attack. I was not the only one who found this idea interesting, but when asked, the Cuthral leader could not provide any details regarding how we would do it. He said that we would need to discuss it further amongst ourselves.
The suggestions that followed his were mostly repeats of the first three, and those that weren’t went gradually downhill in quality, until it got to the point where some ideas became so far-fetched that I wondered whether some chiefs were putting forward ideas simply to be contrary to the others.