The Wolf Folk Series: Prince Tosco

Tosco stood ramrod straight and said, "Papa, let me lead this war party, you have done enough and must rest. We need you, Papa. Jeremiah agreed and Tosco went below to pick a Warrior Leader and warriors. The competition was fierce and he finally had to resort to a lottery. Tecito's younger brother, Mako, won the lottery for Warrior Leader. Tosco shuddered when Mako stepped forward, the young warrior was seven feet tall and would have made a raging gorilla step back in fear! Tosco told Mako to choose two hundred and fifty Warriors and get the ready to go ashore!

Mako drew up his Warriors, still in their human, on the pier and bowed low as Lord Tosco approached. Tosco looked the Warrior Force over and said, "My fellow Warriors, we go to rescue our brethren who have been lost to us all since the Great Migration. We did not know what happened to them or where they had gone; now it is time to bring them home."

The Warriors all drew their swords and waved them over their heads, shouting, "Wolves of the Blood of MET, we come for thee, be thou ready to join with us, thy brothers!"

Tosco looked down and spotted little Luca trying to hide among the Warriors. He scooped him up and whispered in the little Princeling's ear, "Meld with me and you can watch all that takes place through mine eyes, but you must not endanger yourself, you must live to become the Alpha of your folk, they AND we need you!" Luca put his hands into Tosco's hands and they established meld easily.

Tosco resolved to speak with his father as soon as they got back, this youngster was far too powerful for his age! There was no precedent for such a young wolf, still in his milk teeth, to be able to initiate a meld, let alone with such power

They all made change, leaving their clothing behind in a pile and their swords slipping easily inside their glamor.

As soon as it was dark, the Warrior Forced slipped off the Queen of the Seas and headed for Lingwei Po.

They ran fast and hard, Warrior Leader Mako setting the pace. Tosco had no problems keeping up with the huge wolf, he was equally as large. Some of the warriors following them, however, were struggling. They would rather die than fail either their Warrior Leader or their Lord Alpha Tosco!

They approached the old monastery and Tosco sent out a mind-call, seeking Prince Tan Poc.

A weary and frail call came back, "You are here, thank The Great Lord of Wolves, I cannot last much longer and, should I die, they will start on my people. YOU MUST HURRY!"

Tosco replied, "Young Prince where are you in this maze of buildings?"

Tan Poc came back, "I am being held on the upper floor of the green building with a turret on the top. There are guards only on the ground floor as they have me chained to the floor."

Tosco let their Wolf Warriors hear that last, and the wall they were crouched beneath, started to glow red in their anger.

Mako and Tosco leaped to the roof of the adjacent building and made their way over a low wall to the building that the young prince had designated. Their warriors oozed over the wall, practically on their leaders' hind paws!

They crawled through the open door and found Prince Tan Poc laying in his own filth, with a chain and collar around his neck. The boy looked to be still in his late teens and he had blood encrusted wounds all over his body.

Tosco held the boy in his arms as Mako sliced through the collar and chains as if they were warm butter, his claws glowing orange from cutting the steel chain.

As soon as Tosco had the boy, half the warriors swarmed down the stairs and went on a killing spree that would leave a half thousand Chinese soldiers dead in less than three minutes! Soundlessly and totally, there was not another living soul left in the entire building but for the Young Prince and his rescuers!

They found food and water and got Tan Poc to partake. When he was a bit refreshed, Maka asked him, "Where are your folk, we must rescue them also."

The Prince showed them a door at the end of the hallway and said, "That door leads to the stairway to the dungeons beneath us."

Hardly were the words out of his mouth when two large wolves crashed the door down and Wolf Warriors poured down the staircase to the dungeons below.

They could hear metal crashing and guards whimpering before their cries became gurgles as they drowned in their own blood. Warriors came back up the stairs leading, carrying and helping wolf folk in all stages of brutal torture.

Tosco was mentally transmitting all he saw back to little Luca. Unknown to Tosco, Luca was sharing what he saw with Lord Jeremiah!

By the time the rescue force got back to the ship with the Young Prince, Tan Poc, and his folk, it was extremely fortunate that Jeremiah did not have access to any large nuclear bombs; otherwise, Hainan Island would have been a radioactive pool of seawater off the coast of mainland China!

They bedded down the Prince and his folk and the ship made preparations to get underway, Jeremiah wanted nothing to do with the Chinese Government and, he vowed to terminate all contracts any of their businesses had with any entity in China!

As soon as everyone was back on board, the Queen of the Seas took in her mooring lines and the huge liner headed for the open sea.

They would sail down through the South China Sea into the Java Sea and out through the Sunda Straits. Their objective was Perth, Australia, where they had contracted with an outfitter to lead several tours into the Australian Outback

Little would their guides realize how dangerous the people were they were guiding around that barren wasteland of sand and rocks.

There would be some, however, who would recognize them for who they were, the Aborigine Shamans, a group known for their own secrets and closed mouths!

By the time they had tied up to the North Mole in Freemantle, the good food and plentiful rest had restored most of the folk they had snatched away from the Chinese Government.

They were scheduled to spend a month in Freemantle, and every Wolf was given sufficient money to enjoy their stay there.

The younglings were escorted to the several zoos and parks and Tosco saw to it that Prince Tan Poc got the rest he needed as well as the intellectual stimulation he wanted.

They discovered Tan Poc was very intelligent and, Tosco was pretty sure the young wolf Princeling had inherited a number of the Ancient Powers. He was particularly interested when he watched while Tan Poc saved one of his own wolf folk from a vicious attack by a huge shark while they were bathing in the ocean surf.

A youngling was screaming in fright as the shark came right through the surf and was ready to chomp down on the youngster. Suddenly, the whole shark exploded in a shower of blood and parts.

Tan Poc looked all around, fearing he might have exposed them all to reprisals by the government.

A tall, dignified Aborigine man was standing nearby and he walked over to the trembling young man. "Young Prince of the Wolf Kind, do not fear. We do not punish those who save others nor do we discriminate against those whom we hold dear to our hearts. Be glad, Young Prince that you have been saved by others of your kind and they take you into their hearts and their homes."

Ton Poc stood open-mouthed as the man walked away. He sent out a frantic mind-call to his protector, Lord Jeremiah, and Jeremiah came running.

When Jeremiah learned of the encounter, only by his wolf senses did he locate the Aborigine man.

The man looked at Jeremiah and smiled, "I understand your worry, Wolf Lord, but you have no need to fear me or any of my folk. We have known of your kind since the beginning of time, even before your folk fled to the Americas. That you have returned to reclaim your lost people does you great credit and you stand tall in our eyes."

The man disappeared into the crowd again and Jeremiah could detect no trace of him, it was as if the man had stepped off the planet!

The tour company arrived at the pier side of the ship the next day with forty busses to take those who had signed up, on a safari out into the outback wilderness for a week.

They were three nights out on their tour, when a tall Aborigine man appeared out of the bush as they were eating their supper. It was the man they had last seen back in Freemantle.

The man stepped up to Jeremiah, "Welcome to my land, Lord of Wolves, I am called Jameson in your tongue and that will suffice for now. My folk were once companions of your ancestors and we still revere the wolf folk. Come with me Wolf Lord and let me show you my world. Your companions may rest here, they will not be harmed."

Jameson led Jeremiah to a huge rock that loomed up out of the desert floor. It had many caves around its base and Jeremiah was led into one of them. Jameson gave Jeremiah a cool drink and he took one himself, before invited Jeremiah to sit beside him.

Jameson's droning voice seemed to conjure images that passed before Jeremiah's eyes, of peoples and events that occurred long ago. He saw himself back in Russia and then in China, he heard Jameson's voice tell him that he had found all the wolf folk who remained alive in Europe and Asia, there were none left behind

He showed Jeremiah his own lifeline and that he would live yet many hundreds of years and that he would be the first King of the Wolves. His heir, Tosco, would succeed him and bring the Wolf Folk into the modern age as full members of society and would stand as an equal with other leaders of the world.

A kaleidoscope of scenes passed before his eyes, scenes of a war-torn planet, a resurrection of despoiled lands, a coming together of the humans and the wolf kind and, finally, scenes of great peace and progress of Human Kind and Wolf Kind, working hand in hand to produce a new, a better world for them all

When it was all over, Jameson gently shook Jeremiah's shoulder to waken him and said, "Wolf Lord, it is time to return to your own kind, they are becoming worried about you."

Jeremiah shook his head and replied, "Why are they concerned, we have only been here for a few hours?" Jameson chuckled and replied, "No my Lord of the Wolves, you have been here for three days. Come, I must return you to your folk before they do something foolish."

Jameson led Jeremiah out of the cave and away from the strange rock that was as large as a whole mountain and they walked together, each in silence, as they returned to the campsite where he had left his folk and the buses.

When Jeremiah stepped from the surrounding bushes, he was alone, Jameson was nowhere to be seen

 Luca was the first to spot Jeremiah, and his mental shriek was heard, even in Charlotte, where Franklin had been called in because Jeremiah had gone missing!

Tosco came running and grabbed Jeremiah, crying and clutching at his father to assure himself that he was real. Tecito had come from the ship, bringing a thousand Wolf Warriors in preparation to search for their missing leader.

Both Tosco and Tecito insisted on holding Jeremiah's hands, fearing he might again disappear. Jeremiah finally convinced his sons that he was not harmed and was perfectly fine, if a little hungry.

Almost as if by magic, a plate was thrust into his hands and he was urged to sit down and partake in the meal.

As he was eating, Jeremiah thought about what he had seen and he heard, almost as a whisper, in the back of his mind, he heard, "Remember, it will take both of your sons as well as Young Luca to bring peace to our world, you must not fail, otherwise all is lost. Young Luca is the key and your sons are the lock upon which the doorway to the future of our world is to be unlocked. To fail is to seal our doom!"

As he ate, his hunger increased as if he had not eaten in several days

Tosco insisted they all go back to the ship immediately and, there, they found all of the Wolf Folk on the pier beside the ship, each wanted to see for him or herself that the Lord High Wolf had truly been returned to them.

Old Alexandrovich stood at the gangway and stared into Jeremiah's eyes; shaking as if he feared what he might see. Jeremiah felt as if the elderly wolf was boring holes into his head before he proclaimed, "He is whole and unharmed, our Lord Wolf has been returned to us."

Jeremiah stepped up onto the gangway and faced the crowd, "Wolf-Folk, I am not harmed, nor am I damaged in any way. I have been shown the path we must trod with our brothers, the Human Folk. To do otherwise will spell the doom for us all. Our world grows weary and for us to survive, we all must work together, Wolf and Human to make a future for us all."

They all returned on board and Jeremiah sat up most of the night telling Tosco and Tecito what had happened to him. Luca was curled up in his lap and, when Jeremiah had finally finished his story, Luca opened one eye and said, "Grandpapa, lets return to our home in your land and help our people thrive, for, if they do poorly, then the whole world will follow them into poverty. We must start with ourselves before we can sell it to the Human Folk!"

Jeremiah stood and yawned before saying, "If this is what we must do, then let us get started now. Tosco, lets go home."

Was it all a dream or did it really happen? If Jeremiah is to gain the cooperation of the humans, he will have to start with the American President and work his way through the nations of the world. Will "politics as usual" defeat his efforts or shall the world's people decide to live? Look for the next Wolf Folk Series Story, "Rebuilding a World"