Aris's plan was audacious, chilling, and reliant entirely on the patrol's adherence to protocol and their deep-seated fear of the wilderness.
"We have to make this gorge look like a battlefield where the wolves won," Aris instructed, his voice low and intense. "Lenn, gather every ounce of spilled blood you can find. Mira, you are using the medical supplies not to heal, but to mimic major trauma."
For the next ninety minutes, the five children worked with frantic, surgical precision.
Eliminating the Trail: Tova drove The Sledge deep into the heaviest thicket they could find, obscuring the wagon with brush and pine boughs. She then walked the mules back and forth across their entry tracks to mix the ground and eliminate their wheel marks.
The Scene of the Crime: Aris and Doran dragged the bodies of the two largest Crag Wolves and the mountain goat to the center of the gorge path exactly where a patrol would naturally halt.
The Illusion of Devastation: Mira, using her medical knowledge and the animals' blood, created the scene. She carefully splashed arterial blood on nearby rocks and trees, mixing it with mud to simulate the gruesome tearing of flesh. She meticulously spread fur and gore, scattering fragments of wood and torn cloth to suggest a violent, panicked defense.
The Bait: Aris ordered Doran to smash a few empty supply boxes and strew the pieces around. Then, Aris used the Westvale short sword to deeply gouge and slash the leather of the dead wolves, mimicking the frantic, large-scale slashes of poorly trained military sabers.
"We want them to see three things," Aris explained as he wiped blood from the hilt of his sword.
"One: High-value prey (wolves).Two: A high-cost battle. Three: No human survivors."
"But they'll see the wagon tracks eventually," Lenn protested, looking at the meticulous chaos they had created.
"They won't get close enough to track," Aris stated. "The sight of a fresh wolf ambush scene, combined with the official FSP log telling them this area is dangerous, will terrify them. They are soldiers, Lenn, not frontiersmen. They will prioritize survival and protocol."
Aris ordered them to hide high up on the gorge walls, concealed behind a thick curtain of ivy and rock. Doran and Aris took up positions with the pike and the sword, ready for a silent counter-ambush if the patrol decided to investigate.
They did not have long to wait.
The Patrol arrived with heavy, rhythmic steps—a confident, trained unit of twenty-two men led by a Lieutenant on horseback. They were wearing standard issue Northwatch steel and carried crossbows and longswords.
They stopped dead center in the gorge.
"Hold!" the Lieutenant barked, throwing up a hand.
The patrol immediately stiffened at the sight of the carnage. The air was thick with the scent of pine, winter cold, and the horrifying metallic tang of blood and fresh death.
The Lieutenant dismounted, his face pale.
He was an officer of the pen, not the battlefield, and the sight of the two massive, gutted wolves and the gruesome tableau shook him.
"Report!" the Lieutenant demanded.
"Looks like a feeding frenzy, sir," a scout reported, gingerly poking a discarded piece of bloody cloth with his boot. "Crag Wolves. Big ones. We're in the deep territory, sir."
"But what did they kill?" the Lieutenant whispered, his eyes scanning the surrounding rocks. "Where is the victim?"
"Judging by the carnage, sir," the scout said, pointing to the mixed human and wolf blood splatter, "it was probably a supply team.
Maybe a small hunting party from the old FSP. They fought hard, but the wolves got them."
The Lieutenant looked at the official instruction in his hand—a dated order to perform a routine survey of the FSP waypoint.
Protocol dictates: If personnel are lost to a major threat (e.g., wolves), the mission is aborted, and the main goal shifts to neutralizing the threat and reporting the danger.
"The hell with the survey," the Lieutenant muttered, his voice shaking slightly. "This area is unstable. We cannot risk the men.
Sergeant, we will take the heads of the beasts for proof and move out immediately.
We will report the loss of the FSP personnel to a Crag Wolf ambush. Double time, men! I don't want to be here when the rest of the pack returns!"
The patrol, relieved, rushed to obey. They roughly hacked the heads off the two dead wolves and quickly searched the immediate area for valuables, stealing nothing but a few scraps of non-bloody leather. They avoided touching the blood-soaked supplies, their fear overriding their greed.
Within ten minutes, the entire patrol had mounted up and galloped back the way they came, eager to escape the deadly gorge and report their findings.
They left behind their tracks, two huge wolf carcasses (minus the heads), and a handful of discarded gear including a small satchel of dried rations and a serviceable canvas waterskin.
Silence returned.
Aris counted a full five minutes before he moved. He slid down the rock face, his clothes still reeking of sewage and blood.
The others followed, their faces a mixture of relief and horror.
"They left," Doran whispered, staring at the fresh tracks of the departing patrol. "They ran from a corpse."
"They ran from a legend," Aris corrected, walking to the wolf carcasses. "Fear is a weapon, Doran. We wielded it better than their steel."
He quickly gathered the few supplies the patrol had left behind.
"We salvaged their fear," Aris stated, looking at the now-safe meat supply and the discarded gear. "This patrol will report that this sector is secure from human threats but deadly due to wildlife. They will not send another team for weeks."
Lenn, clutching the ledger, looked at Aris with a new, profound sense of awe. This was not just a survivor; this was a strategic mind at work.
"We have time," Aris announced, looking at the huge, valuable wolf carcasses. "Tova, we skin and process the wolves. Their pelts will keep us warm in the mountains. Mira, you start curing the meat. Lenn, burn the ledger—we don't need the book we need the knowledge. We are no longer running from the war. We will be using the war's chaos."
The gamble had paid off spectacularly. The chaos of the outside world, for this moment, had become their greatest defense.