Daylight slipped through the gaps in the vines that covered most of the cave entrance.
Golden streaks cut across the silence of the stone room.
The damp air, which usually felt calm, was now filled with the sharp scent of the herbal mixtures Valerie had been drying for months.
In the middle of the room, the thin layer of dust on the ground had already been cleared of sharp pebbles.
Valerie knelt there with both knees pressed straight into the cold earth.
She held a tree branch that had been sharpened at the tip with a small knife.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the two large men in front of her, demanding a clear answer.
“Now draw your territory map here, Caleb,” Valerie said, tapping the tip of the branch against the dusty ground a few times to get the wolf man’s attention.
“I’m not some cartographer who draws on dirty ground, Valerie,” Caleb refused, folding his arms over his broad chest.
He was trying to hold onto what was left of his prince pride, even though his clothes already looked rough and worn.
“Just draw what I told you to draw if you really want to take back your stolen throne!” Valerie pushed back without a trace of fear.
She grabbed Caleb’s large wrist and forced the branch into the prince’s strong fingers.
“Lord Caleb, your memory of the western border route is surely much more detailed than mine, which is already starting to blur,” Vane cut in from the corner of the cave.
He tried to make his bandage wrapped body more comfortable on the pile of dry straw.
Caleb stared at the branch in his hand awkwardly for a few seconds before finally letting out a resigned breath.
He knelt beside the human girl.
Slowly, his large fingers began to scratch the wood tip across the dirt.
Line after line curled into shape under the control of his practiced hand.
The map revealed a topographic structure of a foreign land Valerie had never seen in any geography book from her own world.
The werewolf prince drew a vast territory surrounded by steep mountain ranges on the north side and a giant river slicing through the middle of the land.
“This is the Forbidden Forest, where the ancient portal connecting our worlds is located,” Caleb explained while carving a deep circle in the lower right corner of the dirt map.
“And where exactly is the nearest enemy fortress to that portal?” Valerie asked.
She leaned closer to the map until a few strands of her long hair, scented like the forest, brushed softly against Caleb’s strong arm.
“Oakhaven Fortress stands right at the northern edge of this forest, guarded by around three hundred trained wolf soldiers under Jarek’s direct command,” Caleb said.
He quickly pulled his body back a little because the distance between them felt too close.
Then he carved a small square symbol with an X over it.
“Is there another route that won’t pass through the fortress’s main patrol area, Captain Vane?” Valerie asked the loyal soldier, who had been watching the two of them closely the whole time.
“There is an ancient path usually used only by our clan’s wild hunters, a narrow gap between giant stone cliffs that we call the Hope Rift,” Vane answered in his rough voice, still sounding a little weak from his deep injuries.
“Draw that gap here, Caleb,” Valerie instructed.
She tapped Caleb’s right shoulder pretty hard with her palm to show the location she meant.
“Could you not just grab me like that when I’m being serious?
You startled me!” Caleb grumbled in annoyance.
He immediately turned his face away, which had gone faintly red, toward the fake cliff wall above the dirt so he could hide how awkward he felt.
Valerie bit back a laugh when she saw the furry wolf ears hidden between Caleb’s dark hair suddenly stand up and twitch uneasily because of his embarrassment.
Feeling a little bad for teasing the prince too much, she quickly focused her eyes back on the details of the dirt sketch beneath them.
Valerie’s mind, which had always been used to analyzing complicated patterns at school, was now working twice as fast to build a battle plan.
She understood very clearly that launching a frontal attack with their current strength would be a ridiculous act, nothing short of mass suicide.
“Our main strategy is guerrilla warfare.
We’ll use the thick Forbidden Forest as both cover and a deadly trap for them,” Valerie explained while drawing thick lines around the forest area on the dirt map.
“Guerrilla warfare?
What kind of weird term is that?
Our people always fight face to face on open ground with courage to prove who is strongest!” Caleb argued.
He frowned deeply, as if he thought sneaking around like that was a cowardly move unfit for a noble clan.
“And your ancient brave fighting style failed completely against Lyca’s black magic trickery on the night of the palace coup!” Valerie reminded him in a very cold voice.
She looked straight into Caleb’s golden eyes, which dimmed at once when they heard that bitter truth he could not deny.
“This human girl is completely right, my lord.
If we force ourselves into open battle at the border, our tiny numbers will be wiped out within minutes by the enemy’s main force,” Vane agreed with a heavy sigh.
His hands clenched tight as he remembered how his comrades had been slaughtered right in front of him.
“So what exact plan is in that little head of yours for beating them in the forest, Valerie?” Caleb asked.
He finally gave in and chose to look at the girl with deep curiosity.
“We’ll lure small units from Oakhaven Fortress deeper into the Forbidden Forest bit by bit,” Valerie whispered, smiling with a mysterious look.
She tapped the tip of the branch right in the middle of the sketch of wild trees.
“They would never be stupid enough to enter a magically scented forest without a very urgent reason,” Caleb doubted the plan, because he knew very well how alert Jarek’s fortress captains were.
“They’ll run in there immediately if they hear that the First Prince, the one on the run, is hiding in the forest, half dead and helpless!” Valerie shot back with a wink full of carefully built tactical ideas.
“You want to use me as live bait to lure those wild dogs in?” Caleb asked to make sure.
His eyes widened when he realized just how reckless the human girl’s thoughts were, the same girl he had always seen as fragile.
“Exactly!
Because there won’t be any bait more tempting for those traitors than the head of their future king himself,” Valerie said firmly, without even a hint of doubt in her clear eyes.
“That is an incredibly brave tactic, but how are we supposed to disable them quickly if their sharp sense of smell can still track our hiding place in the forest?” Vane cut into the conversation.
He was bringing up the most crucial point, the one thing that had always been the werewolf race’s main weapon when hunting prey.
“This is where the basic science from my world will play the most important role in turning things around, Captain Vane,” Valerie answered with a proud tone that made the two men from another world look at each other in total confusion because of the strange term they had just heard.
Valerie reached into the pocket of her worn outer clothing.
She pulled out several dark purple dried flowers that smelled intensely sweet, along with a fist sized yellow sulfur stone she had found near the western river a few days earlier.
She placed both natural materials carefully beside their dirt map, letting the two werewolves stare at the simple objects with furrowed brows.
“What kind of dried plant is this?
The smell is so strong it makes my nose itch!” Caleb complained.
He leaned his face away a little and covered his nose with the back of his left hand.
“This is dried wolf root flower mixed with pure sulfur powder from the western side of the river,” Valerie explained while deliberately bringing the sulfur chunk closer to Caleb just to tease his sensitive sense of smell.
“That smell is insanely sharp and could make a werewolf’s nose feel like it’s burning even from a short distance, my lord,” Vane confirmed after trying to sniff the cave air from far away with a very uncomfortable expression.
“If we burn this special herbal mix and sulfur at a few strategic points in the forest, lined up with the night wind, the thick smoke will spread fast through the trees,” Valerie explained her chemical plan while making small circular marks around the forest entry on the dirt map.
“That smoke will completely mess up the enemy troops’ sharp sense of smell,” Caleb concluded.
His eyes started to shine as he began to realize the terrifying power of this simple tactic.
“Not just mess it up!
This thick sulfur smoke will make their sensitive noses suffer acute irritation for the next few hours, making them lose direction, get dizzy, and lose their balance in the darkness of the forest!” Valerie added with a satisfied smile spreading across her lips.
“When they lose their way and split into smaller groups because they panic, that’s the perfect time for you two to launch a fast ambush from the shadows of the trees,” Valerie said, pointing the tip of the branch at the crossing marks that represented their trap positions in the forest.
“What if the wind suddenly changes in the middle of the battle and that poisonous smoke turns back and hits us instead?” Caleb asked, probing carefully.
He was trying to find the weak point in the plan so they would not end up trapped by their own weapon.
“Based on the map you drew earlier, the Forbidden Forest is surrounded by steep mountain ranges on the north side, right?” Valerie asked back calmly.
Caleb nodded slowly, his brow furrowed in confusion at the direction of her question.
“In my world, there’s a very stable natural law about how air moves.
At dawn, the cold mountain peaks push mountain air so it always blows steadily toward the warmer lower valley.
As long as the laws of physics in your world still follow the same rules of nature, the dawn wind will never betray us and will actually push the smoke straight toward them,” Valerie assured him, her eyes calm but filled with absolute confidence that could not be shaken.
“You really are a tactical witch sent from another world to save us, Valerie,” Vane praised sincerely.
His respect for the human girl had now grown beyond the limits of race.
“I’m just a normal girl who doesn’t want to see her friend die stupidly in his own world after everything we’ve gone through together,” Valerie replied while gently tapping the back of Caleb’s hand, which was still gripping the branch over the dirt.
“Who are you calling friend?!
I’m a pure Alpha leader, talkative human!” Caleb snorted with pride.
He deliberately put on a stern face and a sharp tone even though his hand never once pulled away from Valerie’s warm fingers.
“You’re still a very stubborn and troublesome patient in my eyes, Your Highness Caleb,” Valerie teased, letting out a bright laugh that instantly melted the tension inside the cold stone cave.
“And you’re the most stubborn girl I’ve ever met in two different dimensions, Valerie,” Caleb answered, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.
A genuine smile, one he almost never showed anyone since the night his brother betrayed him, formed on his face.
“How many sulfur smoke mixtures can you prepare in these two days before the ancient portal opens again, Valerie?” Vane asked.
He was trying to pull both young people back to the urgent logistics they needed to prepare.
“If our sulfur and dried flowers are enough, I can make around fifteen to twenty smoke pouches, which is a perfect amount to disrupt the main border points,” Valerie answered plainly.
She shifted her gaze from Vane to Caleb, her eyes shining with a mischievous and playful glint.
“But that number is only possible if someone helps me.
I need your physical strength to grind this sulfur stone into a very fine powder, because my weak human hands will take way too long if I have to crush it myself,” Valerie asked while holding out a heavy stone pestle in front of Caleb with a sweet, tempting smile.
“Wowww, nice!!
A prince from the pure wolf clan has now been demoted to sulfur grinder labor in a remote cave!” Caleb muttered dryly, though his hand immediately grabbed the stone pestle without hesitation.
He started working obediently without arguing much anymore.
Caleb began swinging the stone pestle in a steady and powerful rhythm.
He crushed the yellow sulfur chunks into fine grains inside the stone container Valerie had prepared.
Meanwhile, Valerie stood up from her kneeling position to stretch her sore muscles after hours of talking on the cave floor.
She walked slowly toward the corner of the cave filled with piles of dried plants, ready to start mixing her secret formula that would become the key to their victory the next day.
The daylight slowly shifted toward the west.
That movement left long shadows dancing across the strong stone walls of the cave as time kept moving on.
From the dark corner of the room, Captain Vane could only watch the backs of the two young people working together in perfect sync, a faint smile appearing on his scarred face.
The great hope that had gone out on the night of the bloody massacre at the palace was slowly burning bright again.
That hope was not being lit by the sharp edge of a sword, but by the extraordinary tactical intelligence shown by an ordinary human girl with a heart of gold standing in front of them.