The occupants of the bus were on high alert when Wolfe came through the underbrush and walked up to the side of the vehicle. Nobody was in the driver's seat, though. They were just gathered around the center of the seating area, discussing something while looking outward at the forest.
"Did something happen? You all look a little paranoid right now?" Wolfe called toward an open window.
"There was a bear, but not a bear." One of the witches tried to explain.
"Not a bear as in huge and monstrous, or not a bear as in it had feathers and a beak?" Wolfe replied.
"The second one. I'm not sure what that thing was, but it freaked everyone out, and now nobody wants to go near the windows."
Wolfe chuckled at their description of the Owlbear. They weren't particularly vicious, but they could be if you angered them. Sitting silently and waiting for the beast to go away was likely the best call.
"Does anyone know how to drive the bus? If you do, hop up front and let's get going."
They all looked at each other and then shrugged before turning back to Wolfe.
ραndαsnοvεl.cοm Of course, they didn't know how to drive the bus. Very few in a Fortress City would know how to drive any sort of vehicle except a bicycle. Wolfe likely would have remembered that earlier, but they had the soldiers with them., and the humans used this sort of vehicle all the time. If they'd had a scout or a dedicated driver with them, it would have been best, but Wolfe was fairly sure he could figure out how to make the vehicle move.
"Alright, I will drive. But I will warn you that it will be a bumpy ride because I learned to fly before I learned to drive a bus." Wolfe joked.
He climbed into the driver's seat and found that the controls were ridiculously simple. There was a single lever for forward and reverse and two pedals that had throttle and brake stamped into them. You couldn't ask for much more than clear instructions, and that only left him to get used to the steering wheel to get them moving on down the road.
The bus rumbled to life when Wolfe turned the key and slowly began to move with a solid push of the accelerator. This was no agile motorbike, and it wasn't going to do anything in a hurry.
"Well, that's us back on the road." Wolfe laughed as the bus made it back onto the road.
He wasn't nearly as much of a daredevil at the wheel as John was, much to the relief of the rest of the passengers. The ride was much smoother with Wolfe at the wheel, but they were going to take much longer to get anywhere.
That didn't matter to Wolfe, though, he could sense the other group coming toward the road that they were taking, despite having a day's head start, and sometime this evening, the two groups should meet up with each other.
It would be a tight fit, but he was sure they could cram everyone into the bus to go back to the Academy, and then they could sort out who was going where and possibly call for the plane to come and start picking up their new arrivals if they still had too many for a long journey in the bus.
"Is it just me, or is this road way too quiet." One of the witches whispered after a few hours of driving with no sign of travellers or anything else living along the road.
"Shut up, and don't jinx it. The less we see, the better. We're not back in Coven territory yet, I don't think, so there is a chance that whoever we see might want to take us back to that hellhole." One of her compatriots reprimanded her.
There was a whole lot of nothing on Wolfe's [Detect Hidden] as well. Not even small creatures were wandering most of the area, which was a very strange state for the forest, but if there had been a fight nearby or a large predator had moved in, it would make sense that the smaller animals had fled for a few days until things began to settle down.
At dinnertime, they were still in the strangely quiet zone, but the group of Witches was straight south of them and would be on the road soon.
[Ella, keep heading North toward me. I've got a bus and some more Witches to bring to the Academy. Is everything alright at your end?] Wolfe asked.
[It's all fine here, just creepy and empty. All the small creatures are gone. There aren't even bugs here. It's just weird. We're keeping an eye out for anything that might be in the forest and scaring them off, but we can't tell if it's a charm, a curse or a monster that has cleared the area.]
Ella had a good point. A Witch's repulsion ward would chase all the small creatures away, but the area on this one was incredibly large, so Wolfe began to wonder if it was a misfired curse from the attack on the Academy, which had either been pushed off course, or created to hide an army before the attack.
[Keep your eyes open in case it is a curse. If the witches who attacked the Academy are still hiding in the area or if something else stumbled into the area that they had protected, you might be under a sudden attack.]
[Got it. If we were looking to hide, this would be a great spot for it. There are no monsters around, and I am willing to bet that we can't be scryed or magically searched for here as well. But we are almost to you now, and our girls could use the break if you have the room.]
[I will keep an eye out for you. Just call if you need assistance.]
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