prologue
Uruk. My home. I had not seen these sixty foot defensible walls in almost six months, not since myself and five others had left through the east gate. We had been sent by our Alpha to advise the royal pack. Looking around from atop my horse 'Lugal' I took in the dense forestry, the open fields and farmsteads that surrounded the inner city. The night sky held the lingering scent of this evenings dinner and oncoming rain.
Coming under the last bridge that connected a farmers home to his fields we all took a sigh of relief. these roads back to our home were not the best of friends to us wolves at nightfall, not with the current state of affairs at least. Bandits and Rouges had been spotted coming out of the forest and attacking livestock these past few weeks, as of now no one had been harmed but that could change at any time. "Namzu, how are we going to tell our Alpha about this?" one of my companions asked finally. We had been dreading this the entire ride home.
The reason we had started our journey home three days ago was because the King had been killed. Whilst we had only been there as advisors to the King and Queens royal guard at first, it had soon become apparent that we would have to do more then just advise. So we did. with permission from our Alpha and our king we had taken on some guard duties of our own.
six days ago the King had attended a meeting with an Alpha of a common pack. Just your normal run of the mill meeting about god knows what, I didn't really pay attention to the politics of things, we had been to six of these meetings before, we was not expecting the pack we were visiting to attack. we had gotten complacent.
By the end of the skirmish the King, half of his guards and the pack were dead, we had been the only ones left standing. The seven of us had initially split off, three were to go up to the king and the rest, we would go out to help the royal guards. "I have no doubt that word has not already traveled to our Alpha of the Kings demise." I finally replied just as we reached the east gate.
As the gate opened the seven of us all got down off our horses to walk them into the stables. After hitching our steeds in the stables we made our way through the city passing market stalls and houses made out of weathered stone, it was only ten years back that these buildings had been made out of wood and straw, our civilization had taken massive strides in advancement since then. Where once stood wood and straw now stood stone, the arena that stood smack bang in the middle of Uruk now had stone arches that adorned carvings of wolves and humans living side by side, fighting for one another and living in harmony.
I split off from the group as we reached the packhouse taking the stairs to the Alphas office. As I had been in charge of the group it was me who would take the full brunt of whatever punishment our Alpha had in mind. The walls of the packhouse were adorned with carvings of war, peace and of course the Alphas bloodline, many times I had wondered how long it had taken to carve all this into the stone but today I just focused on where i was going.
A feeling of dread crept up my spine as I approached the door that sperated me and my impending punishment. This was a monumental fuck up in the eyes of our Alpha, what would the punishment be this time? Every bone in my body was telling me to turn around and high tail it out of the city, to go hide in the wastelands to the south.
Before I could act on the feeling however the doors opened and Alpha was standing right there with a smile on his face, his blue eyes however held a look of fury. "Namzu my boy, come on in." He said, his voice laced with anger. Bowing my head I followed him into the office and stood waiting for him to begin. The Alpha was a big brute of a man even for our standards, he stood at six foot two inches, his brown hair traveled down his back in waves. "Take a seat, tell me what happened." He commanded.
Taking a seat I began explaining what had happened from the moment we had left the Royal palace that day to the moment we found the king dead. "We had not been expecting the pack to turn around and attack us, there was no signs of a rebellion." I stated firmly as I finished my explanation. For a long time I sat there waiting for him to respond when he banged his fist on the desk that separated us sending the papers atop of it flying. "You did not suspect them to be planning an attack?" He seethed angrily. "You grew complacent, you failed in your mission to protect the most important person in our culture! without our King how do think we as a species will fare?" He continued on.
After a while of ranting and raving the Alpha sat back down in his chair. "You leave me no choice, our pack is held to higher standards then other packs, we are the ones who are called upon to protect the kingdom in times of war and the seven of you have not only disgraced yourselves but have put a stain on the reputation of the Sumerian pack." The Alpha stated with controlled anger as he placed a vial containing a orange liquid on his desk. "you know what this is yes?" He asked.
Looking between the vial and my Alpha and back again I nodded. "Yes my Alpha, this was created by the first of our pack to put us into a deep sleep, it was used to prolong our lives but is now used as a punishment since it was decreed that we can no longer prolong our lives to stay in power." I replied calmly, I had expected to be punished but had not expected this. This punishment was worse then death, in death you got to watch over your loved ones and watch as your culture thrived. With this however, you were put to sleep for centuries, encased in a tomb deep under the city, only to awake to find everything you once knew had changed, the people you loved long dead and forgotten.
My alpha smirked pushing the vial towards me. "That is exactly right, this certain dose however has been altered, so whilst your body shall be asleep for centuries, your mind will be awake, The seven of you will be placed under Uruk until you wake and whoever is Alpha at that time will then decide what to do with you from there." He stated, he almost sounded happy at the prospect of seven of his warriors being put to sleep for centuries, Alphas of days past had only used this punishment if everything else had failed. "Now, Drink up young warrior." He commanded darkly.
