The First Legendary Beast Master novel Chapter 266

Chapter 266 Shadows In The Snow

?With Karl, Hawk, and the sword all adding heat to the cave, it warmed up quickly, and they were able to comfortably hang the hammocks using Rae's web to attach them to the walls.

There would be no sleeping on the cold floor for his group, and they could get away with a minimal watch, as there were artillery battalion patrols ten metres outside their door.

As they finished dinner, Karl noticed that the patrols were lingering outside the entrance to the cave, which was located about a metre above ground level, and four metres above the cavern that they were in.

The stone walls of the cavern were already warm, not frozen by the suddenly frigid air outside, but with the flames they were using for heat, Karl suspected that the guards were lingering where the warm air was venting before moving on with their patrols.

It had to be torture to keep walking by while the group was roasting meat and cooking up a stew, but the majority of the scent would go up the air vent in the chamber and be filtered through the trees instead of flowing out the main entrance to torture the patrols.

Rae took the entire night watch, ostensibly because she was sleeping most of the afternoon after they arrived at the base. In reality, it was mostly because she enjoyed watching everyone gently sway in her web hammocks.

The hammocks were comfortable, and with the flaming blade set against one wall, the room was luxuriously warm all night until Rae fell asleep as Lotus started breakfast to the accompaniment of the sound of artillery fire.

As promised, they had started the bombardment of the Frost Giants promptly at dawn, so Karl turned up his radio to listen to the morning broadcasts.

They had a scout team in the mountains, looking down at the valley with high-powered binoculars, and they could see the majority of the region well enough to target the shells. They had also determined that the number of Frost Giants had grown again overnight, but mostly on the weaker side of the spectrum, trainees at the Awakened and Ascended Rank, not their Commanders.

That was a relief to the artillery, as their shells didn't do much to the Commander Rank Frost Giants, they had to call in the Elites, or wait for them to engage in melee combat with the Holy Magic enhanced soldiers to be able to kill them without relying on large amounts of luck.

"Are we going to go out and scout?" Dana asked as they packed up after breakfast.

"Not yet. The Giants are building some sort of defensive structure right now, and the artillery is going wild on them. Even if we wanted to go out, there isn't anything that we could do except dodge shells." Karl explained.

Then he unplugged the earbuds from his radio and turned up the volume, so everyone could hear what was going on with the messages.

For the next few hours, it was the same pattern of radio transmissions as the main line. Just target, fire, target, fire. Then when it was almost time for lunch, and Tessa was about to unpack their cooking gear again, the reports slowly began to change.

The Frost Giants were no longer coming out of their bunkers, they were hiding behind stone, snow and barriers, with a blinding snowstorm raging all around them to hide troop movements. That wouldn't stop the bombardment, but it would make it impossible to tell if the enemy was building their strength for an offensive.

"Once we finish lunch, I am taking us to the far side of the valley to check the mountain passes and the next valley for Frost Giants. That's still within the range we agreed to work, and it's pretty obvious that they're up to something if they're keeping a Blizzard active along the entire north end of the valley." Karl informed the others.

"We're not leaving them to their fate, are we?" Tessa asked cautiously.

She was a priestess of the Red Dragon, The God of War, and anything deemed cowardly in battle was anathema to her faith.

"No, we will actually be closer to the enemy lines when things do go sideways, but I want to be coming in from a flank that I know is clear, and not crossing no-man's land with a bunch of terrified infantrymen in a snowstorm."

With lunch finished, and their gear packed, Karl headed to the camp after stuffing bits of moss in his ears as earplugs against the noise of the artillery.

He stopped at the supply tent and got a notepad and pen so he didn't have to remove his own from his pack, then wrote a mission description for the Battalion Commander to read.