Seeing that Glo was listening closely, Yu Lin Bloodhawk continued, "Actually, if you train them well, they're far more useful than other battle pets. The most basic uses are sentry duty and patrols. It's hard to sneak in and launch an attack anywhere guarded by a squad of war wolves. They can also track, search and rescue, hunt down fugitives, and so on. How should I put it? Anything second-line troops can do, they can handle. They're especially good against spies-the best beasts for the job. Once you narrow down the general area, your target probably isn't getting away. Can two legs outrun four?"
"If that's the case, why are you giving us a hundred war bears?" Glo asked.
"Don't want them? Then you're not getting them! I don't have enough myself," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said. "I'll give you another hundred dire wolves instead."
"No substitutions!" Glo said.
"So you do know they aren't interchangeable!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk rolled his eyes at him.
"If your dragonhawk base weren't so important, do you think I'd willingly give you a hundred bears? They're the backbone of a frontline force, and they're damned hard to find. What did you expect? I'm worried you might slip up and let someone discover the base, then have an enemy launch a massive surprise attack without caring about casualties. Your dire wolves wouldn't hold them off, so I'm giving you war bears as your main fighting force. Even if they can't win, they can buy time for the dragonhawk riders to get airborne. Then there's no telling who'll end up dead. War bears fight best in a space about seven or eight meters wide. If the only way into your dragonhawk base is a passage dozens or even a hundred meters long and seven or eight meters wide, station a few dozen war bears there, and you've got a killing wall. Nobody could force their way through without leaving corpses all over the ground. If someone tries slipping through alone, the war wolves can play with him. And if that still doesn't work, don't you have rangers? A few arrows, and he'd have a hard time staying alive."
"When will you give us those war wolves and war bears?" Glo asked, his eyes shining.
"The war bears will take a little longer. They're too hard to find. My own troops only have a hundred. The dire wolves are right there; you can take them whenever you want." Yu Lin Bloodhawk frowned. "But what good will taking them early do you? Do you have Soul Trinkets? Besides, my troops haven't even seen results yet. What's your rush? You sound more confident than I am."
"You're right. We're very confident. We don't have any Soul Trinkets yet, but our air force has enough materials to ask Falthrien Academy to make a few dozen for us," Glo said with a smile.
"What?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk jumped to his feet. "A few dozen? You can make a few dozen more?"
Glo gave him a strange look. "What's wrong? Yes, a few dozen. It's hardly difficult for an army corps to scrape together materials for a few dozen magical accessories, is it?"
"Fuck those bastards in the Military Department! Why did they only give me thirty? My unit reports directly to them!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk snapped.
"Heh! Heh! Heh!" Glo laughed. "That was because none of the army corps would give way, all right? If they hadn't wanted to see what the unit would look like once it was formed as soon as possible, you wouldn't have gotten nearly that many."
Yu Lin Bloodhawk slumped back into his seat and said fiercely, "Once your people finish their training, don't even think about taking a single one back with them. Those are all mine!"
"Nobody intends to take back what we've given you," Glo said. "At least our air force won't."
"The next time anyone brings up battle pets, it'll be one trinket for every fifty beasts. Anyone who doesn't have one can get to the back of the line. And I want gold, too. Damn it, I've been working myself to death searching all over the world. I'll make them do the capturing and wear themselves out instead. To think I nearly got killed by pirates for this." Yu Lin Bloodhawk vented his frustration.
"Those pirates were hunting you?" Glo asked in surprise.
"What do you think? They chased me for three days and nights without letting up, and even dared follow me right to my doorstep. They've got some damn nerve," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said angrily. "I was wondering why I'd been so jumpy these past few days!"
"What audacity." Glo's expression turned cold. "Daring to hunt down a baron of Quel'Thalas? I'd say their time is up."
While the two were talking, the dragonhawk rider named Maladai came in, tossing his golden hair. He looked so effortlessly dashing that Yu Lin Bloodhawk was consumed with envy and inwardly cursed the show-off.
"Did it sink? Or did they surrender?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk asked urgently.
"With six hundred battle pets at stake, how could we let it sink?" Maladai said.
"None of our people got hurt, did they?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk asked anxiously.
He would feel guilty if any high elves were killed or injured because of him. Honestly, he would rather have blown the ship up and sunk it than have high elves die over it. A few injuries, though, he could accept.
"Everyone's fine. How could anyone die over a little thing like that?" Maladai said casually.
"They surrendered that easily?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk found it hard to believe.
"They were just a bunch of pirates, not regular troops. How much grit could they have? A few bombs killed a bunch of them, and they quieted right down," Maladai said lightly.
"How did you fight them? Tell me!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk asked, delighted and curious.
"It was simple. We flew over and told them to surrender. A few of them fired guns at first. We climbed higher and stayed up there, so they started jeering. Once most of the pirates had come up from belowdecks, we warned them a few more times." A scornful expression crossed Maladai's face. "They thought there was nothing we could do. When we saw enough people gathered on deck, a squad of dragonhawks flew over and dropped fifteen or twenty Small Explosive Bombs. Once a bunch of them were blown up, things got quiet. The lucky survivors were so terrified they scrambled belowdecks. We warned them again: surrender, or we'd drop Incendiary Bombs and roast them all like pigs. Then someone started raising a white flag. After that, we just had the ones who surrendered lower the lifeboats and leave the warship. That was it."
"Nobody hid aboard the ship and refused to surrender?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk didn't think it could have been that easy.
"Of course they did. Quite a few, actually!" Maladai said.
"Then how did you find them?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk asked, puzzled.
"We used the ley line to cast Humanoid Detection!" Maladai said. "Speaking of Humanoid Detection, you had something to do with that. I heard you mentioned it to Corps Commander Alleria, didn't you?"
"Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk genuinely didn't understand how he was involved.
"If everyone else has it, how could the high elves not? That little lass Sylvanas gave them such a sarcastic dressing-down that the research fanatics at Falthrien Academy had nowhere to hide their faces. So they started researching these strange spells day and night. They haven't finished working out all the detection spells yet, but they can make them work using the ley line and a few tools." Maladai smiled. "Seems they're somewhat useful. Better than those pointless things like Magic Brooms, anyway."
"They developed it that quickly?" Besides being astonished, Yu Lin Bloodhawk couldn't help admiring that little lass Sylvanas.
She had supposedly gone to ask for their help with research, yet instead she had marched over and mocked them-and somehow still gotten the job done. Was this the power of a queen's
presence? He felt that even a hundred of him couldn't do what she had done, so he could only chalk it up to her queenly presence.
"They've developed it, but it isn't perfected yet. Right now, it only works inside the Ley Line Shield. Outside it, they're helpless. The mages aren't very happy with it either," Maladai said.
"Oh. Then what did you do about the ones belowdecks?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk asked.
"Even when rats hide in a hole, there's still an entrance, right? Besides, those ships had plenty of gunports. The dragonhawks flew over and tossed a few Small Explosive Bombs through the openings, and hardly anyone could walk out in one piece. Then we sent someone back to tell people to sail the ship home, and that was that." Maladai looked as though he was questioning Yu Lin Bloodhawk's intelligence.
"You didn't board the ship to check? What if someone waited for our people to come aboard, then set off the gunpowder and blew up the ship, taking everyone down with him?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk asked.
"Five knights went down and killed the few who resisted," Maladai said, feeling that Yu Lin Bloodhawk's question was foolish. "They were just pirates, not regular soldiers. They didn't have the resolve to fight to the death."
"Oh, good thing nobody was hurt!" Only then did Yu Lin Bloodhawk relax. He asked about the damage to the ship and was pleased to hear it was minor. Learning that it was a new ship made him even more curious. Could they have been a bunch of clueless pirates just starting out?
Once Yu Lin Bloodhawk finished his questions, Maladai said, "Our battle pet deal hasn't changed, has it?"
"Your lieutenant colonel said he didn't want the war bears anymore. I was delighted, so I gave you six hundred dire wolves instead," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.
"Don't listen to his nonsense," Lieutenant Colonel Glo said. "We're getting every last one of those hundred war bears."
"You'll have to wait a while longer for the war bears," Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.
"I can wait!" Lieutenant Colonel Glo said. "I'll go get the dire wolves tomorrow."
"That soon?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk asked in surprise. "There's no need, is there? They won't run away if you leave them there!" He actually wanted to keep them there a few more days, which would probably mean fewer murlocs.
"You seem reluctant to let them go," Lieutenant Colonel Glo said.
"I'm thinking of you!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk said. "Look, five hundred is a lot, and they eat even more. Right? That's another expense."
Maladai eyed him suspiciously. "Why do I get the feeling you're not being very sincere?"
"Am I not?" Yu Lin Bloodhawk touched his face.
The five human rogues who had come with him wanted to laugh.
"You're not!" Lieutenant Colonel Glo rose to his feet. "I'll have people bring them all back to the base right now."
"Hey! Colonel, don't rush, don't rush! The ship!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk called.
"Wait for it yourself. When it gets here, sail it away!" Lieutenant Colonel Glo said.
"And if the Military Department asks..." Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.
Lieutenant Colonel Glo took out a sheet of paper, stamped it, and handed it to Maladai. "Write it up for him. I'm going to arrange for people to take all the wolves away. I don't quite trust him."
Watching Lieutenant Colonel Glo hurry off, Yu Lin Bloodhawk muttered in bewilderment, "What's the rush? Would it kill him to leave them there a few more days? I haven't even seen them yet."
Maladai glanced up at him, then immediately lowered his head and wrote rapidly. Once he finished, he shoved the paper into Yu Lin Bloodhawk's arms and said, "A good businessman doesn't go back on his word!"
"I wasn't planning to!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk said.
"Doesn't matter! Stamp this copy first." Maladai picked up another, unstamped sheet from the table.
"You're questioning my integrity, which shines like gold!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk grumbled as he took out his personal seal and stamped it.
Maladai breathed a sigh of relief. After putting the paper away, he said, "Remember, there are still a hundred bears."
Veins bulged on Yu Lin Bloodhawk's forehead. "Am I really that untrustworthy?"
"Of course I trust you! Give me another hundred bears, and I'll trust you even more," Maladai said.
"You... fine. I'm not talking to you now." Yu Lin Bloodhawk rolled his eyes in anger.
"You need to remember..." Maladai hadn't finished speaking.
"I remember! A hundred bears..." Yu Lin Bloodhawk roared.
Hearing that, Maladai turned his head and said, "Those human prisoners are yours!" Then he hurried away.
"I don't want prisoners..." Yu Lin Bloodhawk shouted.
Unfortunately, Maladai walked off without looking back.
Before you continue