From Book 16
As their businesses began to revive, so also did the Clan Wonju's cash flow. The clan could again hold their heads up in pride, rather than the shame they felt and the loss of "face". With the return of their pride also came the concern about their "cousins" trapped in the north. HanDoi and his brother HanRho closely questioned the boy, Sonju, and tried to get a picture of what had happened to his folk. The child had only a hazy memory of what had happened that terrible night, and their questioning always left the boy hysterical afterwards. Finally, Jeremiah said, "ENOUGH. We must go there, the child must not endure more questions!" He and Jonal began to plan a way to find out what had happened to Songju's folk.
Chapter 1 - A TRIP INTO FORBIDDEN ZONES
After much discussion, it was decided that Jeremiah could not be risked by traveling into the forbidden north. Tosco would lead and Jonal would protect the party with 100 of his Warriors. They planned to infiltrate at night as wolves, HanRho would accompany them as he had a fair idea as to the location of Clan Sogwang-Sa's home.
There were three teen wolves among them who had escaped the raid on Clan Sogwang-Sa and had been found hiding in the forest; they insisted on being included in the rescue attempt across the border.
They had run in the middle of the night and had the return route burned into their memory, the oldest, WanLi, said, "Lord Master of Ced, allow me to lead the War Party, I would take us around the Mountain of the Temple. It is longer, but none would expect us that far north." He showed them on the map and Jonal agreed it was the safer route.
WanLi continued, "The child, SongJu, is the grandson of our High Wolf, he must be kept safe at all costs. We said nothing, please forgive us, Master of Ced, we had to be sure that you would not hurt us further."
Jeremiah replied, "Warrior WanLi, you are forgiven, please remember that I am not your Master, only the Leader of your Family. I name thee War Leader of Clan Sogwang-Sa, thou art a wise and faithful Wolf!"
They began to gather supplies for their trip, along with items they felt would be needed by any survivors.
Four days later, Jonal and Tosco felt they were ready to depart, Jeremiah hugged his son, Tosco and told him to be careful. Tosco knelt before his father, "My Lord and My Father, you gave me life and a family when you pulled me from that jungle, now it is my turn to give another a chance as I have been given. I could not rest while others were in harm's way, I swear by the Great Wolf of our ancestors that I will guard those whom I lead with mine own life, those who have done this terrible thing to our folk shall pay a heavy price, our cousins of the Sogwang-Sa shall be brought to you and their tormentors shall feed the soil with their blood and souls."
As the sun sank into darkness, the war party brought forth their wolves, their knives and weapons slung around their necks as they trotted off with Peter in the lead.
They slipped across the border unseen in the darkness and proceeded toward the Mountain of the Temple, many miles distant. The land of the north was sparsely populated and not a single shack had a light on after dark.
There were a few military patrols, but they were easy to evade and they pushed deep into the barren lands of North Korea. Two nights they slept in the forest, before they came to the Mountain of the Temple. They skirted around the flank of the mountain and WanLi told them they were nearing the ancestral lands of his folk.
They stopped for the night near an abandoned woodcutter's shack, Tosco cast his powerful mind around sensing for any lurking danger. His eyes went blood red and, with a terrible snarl, he raced to the shack and tore the door from its hinges.
He returned in his human, carrying two crying and bloody children. That they were wolves was easy to discern, whether they were boys or girls would have to wait until the dried blood and filth had been washed from their bodies.
They were twins, ChoLai and ChoFan and they had escaped from the slave-holding pens at Sondak. They were both 13 years old and, due to their hardships, their wolves were beginning to emerge.
ChoFan shivered and was very frightened as he did not know what was happening to him. With WanLi as a translator, Tosco sat with the boy and guided him through emergence that very night.
Once ChoFan's wolf had emerged, Tosco could converse with him wolf mind to wolf mind, even after one or both of them had recalled their human, they would still be able to communicate mind to mind now. ChoLai followed her brother that same night.
The young wolf was eager to tell what had happened to himself and his sister, it was all Jonal could do to keep Tosco from declaring war on the entire North Korean Army right there!
The warriors from Wongju looked on in fright as Tosco's huge wolf glared out the door, his eyes glowing bright red and his fangs dripping saliva on the floor beneath a wolf that topped the scales at greater than 850 pounds! He was, quite possibly, the largest of their kind to have ever lived!
His anger forced his hair to standup down his back and, had it been possible, sparks would have been shooting from his eyes! After he had barely calmed enough to speak, he growled, "They shall pay for this abomination, IN BLOOD!"
They spent the next two days "casing the joint".
The Sogwang-Sa wolves were imprisoned at a police camp not far from where they were hiding. Jonal stationed wolves all around the police camp, watching their every move. Supplies were brought in every second day and someone pretty important came once a week in a big, shiny black automobile. They would leave and not come back until the next week.
There were 54 people in the detention yard, they could detect that all were wolves. Tosco was their best distance speaker and he contacted the senior wolf prisoner in the prison, GanFui.
GanFui was delighted when he learned that his niece and nephew, ChoLai and ChoFan were alive and cared for. He sent, "Lord Tosco, keep them safe, they are all that is left of our High Family. ChoFan is our High Wolf now."
Tosco sent back, "I am not a Lord, it is my Papa who is Lord."
GanFui sent, "No Lord Tosco, your Papa is High Lord Wolf, you are his son, therefor you are Lord Also!"
The next day, Jonal, Tosco and ChoFan sat down to decide what and how to rescue the wolves held at the Police Camp. While they were discussing the problem, ChoLai asked, "Why not follow the fancy car into the gate, all it would take is a couple of wild wolves to panic the soldiers. They turn off the electricity here at night, so there would be no radio report until the next day and we would all be gone by then."
Tosco replied, "What about those whose wolf has not yet emerged?"
ChoFan thought for a few moments and said, "Lord Tosco, which is better, to die while fleeing to freedom or to be beaten to death in a prison camp. We can carry those who cannot yet change, if we do not, they surely will die very soon."
There was no denying the truth of the youth's words, they had to try and soon.
Tosco contacted his Papa and Jeremiah agreed with ChoFan, they decided they would attempt the prison break the very next night.
ChoFan and ChoLai had been delighted to learn that their older brother's children had survived, but they told Tosco that their older brother had been disowned by their father, The High Wolf, for disobedience that endangered the Clan and led to its discovery by the Northern Empire of Evil.
The remaining clan members would never accept the child, SonJu, as their High Wolf, the bitterness ran too deep. However, they would never harm the child nor shun him from the clan for what his father had done.
Chapter 2 - SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN
The night finally came when all thought they were ready, everyone called forth their wolves, except for little ChoLai, who had not yet been able to call her wolf forth. Two teen wolves volunteered to remain with her and make sure she was safe.
Tosco led, with ChoFan running at his side. They set an easy pace that ate up the miles to the police camp, they arrived well before midnight.
The power was already off, not a single light shone anywhere in the area. Tosco ordered the warriors to surround the compound and they were not to let a single person escape alive.
Jonal stayed with the two leaders to help them and make sure no harm came to either of them. There was no way he could face Jeremiah if something happened to Tosco and he could see that feelings were developing between Tosco and ChoFan. Wolves had no "hang-up" about male/male couples, as long as their love for each other was true and lasting.
Two warriors lifted the gate posts out of the ground and they silently cleared the gate wreckage from the entrance to the compound.
Wolves sensed out those buildings that held captives and those that held soldiers, Tosco and ChoFan went directly to the camp commander's hut and, at Jonal's signal, the two charged into the hut while the warriors invaded the barracks.
The camp commander awoke as two wolves, one as huge as a jeep and the other only slightly smaller, standing on either side of his cot. Both sets of eyes were glowing ruby red and his arms were being wetted with wolf drool.
That the wolves were speaking to him only intensified his fear, he tried to curl up into a ball and pull his thin blanket over his head. The blanket was snatched away and each wolf clamped onto his arms and dragged him off his cot and out to the courtyard.
He began jabbering in fear as he saw his police soldiers being methodically torn apart by the many wolves in the courtyard, and their parts tossed onto a pile of bloody body parts of those who had already been disposed of.
The two wolves held the commander as the prisoners were brought from their cells, he feared what would happen when these wolves reached the furthest back cells.
He was right to fear. Worse, he had participated in the torture and had enjoyed every minute of it!
That is where the invading wolves discovered the children who had been used for sport by the soldiers and the camp leader. The soldiers guarding those children were torn apart. Their arms and legs were torn from their still living bodies in livid rage.
The enormous wolf, who gripped commander's right arm in a bone crushing grip, spoke to him! He would never remember what was said, when the wolf shattered his arm, the commander passed out and did not awaken until dawn, his body thrown on top of a pile of dismembered bodies that had once been his troops.
The Prison Commander was the only survivor of the attack and was hopelessly, utterly mad. No matter that he told his superiors what actually had taken place, he was not believed and lived out his days tied to a bed in a place for the hopelessly insane.
The invading wolves carried abused children cradled in their arms as they made their way back to their hiding place in the deep forest. The forest rang with the howls of wolf beasts for nights afterward as they screamed out their anger and anguish.
Rumors of supernatural creatures from the fiery pits of hell spread, even disciplined soldiers could not be forced to go into those woods!
Of course, the leaders blamed the decadent dupes of the West, who lived in the south, for all that took place. In this, they were partially correct! All those who eked out a living in those wood, either fled or they were found high up in a tree, tied by the heels and drained of blood!
It took three weeks for the wolves to bring the survivors of the prison back to Clan Wonju, they had rescued 90 brutalized children and 20 adults who were also horribly mistreated. None had died, but some of the adults would never recover from their ordeal. They would be cared for by their cousins of Wonju for the remainder of their long lives.
The children found new families, many with those who had come from America to rescue them. Years of propaganda had taken its toll, it would be weeks before those children felt safe, even with their new Papas, but they knew that was their only hope to survive, if they remained in Korea, they would always fear the Red Stars would come and take them away.
Clan Wonju took all the older wolves who wished to remain in Korea and made them a subclan, appointing ChoFan as subclan Alpha Wolf.
Despite all that Tosco and Peter could do for their folk, some of their own Warriors would carry emotional scars for the remainder of their long lives, nightmares, and tears were common. When they screamed out their mental anguish, they were heard a continent away!
As soon as his SubClan was settled, ChoFan begged release from His Lord of Ced and nominated his cousin SongJu.
As he knelt before Jeremiah, he said, "Great Lord of Ced, I beg thee the hand of Thy Son, Prince Tosco; that we might live together for all our days."
Jeremiah looked at Tosco and saw he was crying and his wolf was phasing in and out. He took Tosco's hand and gently asked, "My son, is this what you want, also?"
Tosco could only nod his head in yes and Jeremiah took both teens in his arms and hugged them tightly. The Lord of Ced announced, "My sons, Tosco Jeremiah Tate and ChoFan Jeremiah Tate, Princes of the Family Ced, shall accompany us as we return to our home!"
The End (not quite, there will be more after a brief interlude)
This ends our story of Jeremiah Franklin Tate but, the saga will continue as his son Prince Alpha Tosco Jeremiah Tate assumes leadership of the Southeastern Clan of Wolves and Jeremiah becomes the leader of the Wolves of the Western World. He will begin the recolonization of Europe, a land their ancestors left more than 10,000 years earlier. There has been no word from the European Wolves since the year 1050 AD.