Werekynd - Beasts of the Tanglewild Read online

  * * *

  The human’s names were Henry, Isla, Thomas and Ellen. Apparently. They spoke little, answering only to Captain Aria. Admittedly Ulthric doubted he would speak much either if he found himself in the midst of a band of savage man-beast warriors in the middle of a war hunt. Saarl placed them at the rear of the pack and told them, via Aria, that if they didn’t keep up nobody would be stopping for them. Stony-faced, the father of the family put his daughter on his back, took his son by the hand and led his wife in the wake of the werekynd.

  They kept moving south, deeper into the valley. The night’s veil could only sustain its cover for so long, and in the darkness it was cold, slow going. Ulthric kept his thoughts focussed on the broad back of the werekynd in front of him, trying to ignore the ache of his injuries or the night chill. The adrenaline of battle would have been a welcome relief, but there was no sign of the crowmen. Were they drawing them in? Could the Seers truly have prophesised their arrival?

  They carried on through the darkness, until dawn was a silver strand picking out the craggy crest of the valley sides. Gradually the rising sun bled greyness back into the rocks and boulders and the low, sad clouds hanging heavy overhead. The darkness slunk back to its caves and fissures in the valley sides and a light drizzle began to fall, matting the pelts of the werekynd and making their armour and blades glisten.

  “We take to the slopes!” Saarl barked back through the rain. The longtooth gestured towards the western side of the valley. There a rough path, barely wide enough for full-grown werekynd to pass over in single file, wound its way torturously between the boulders and across the jagged scree slopes. It twisted and turned ever upwards as the valley’s sides rose and broadened, until it was lost in the rain.

  “Up!” Saarl shouted.

  The pack obeyed, beginning a loose-limbed scramble across rocks and talus, clawing towards the thin thread of the pathway. Aria and the humans followed with more difficulty. By the time they hauled himself, panting, onto the beaten stone of the path the pack was already assembled, stood or crouched silently in the pattering rain.

  “We rest here,” Saarl said, lowering himself onto his haunches. “Vrell, Kex, Ulthric, keep watch. The rest of you sleep. The crowmen are amassing somewhere. We’ll need all our strength if we’re to make it through to the damnable Seers.”

  “Don’t stop for us,” Aria said, struggling to hide his panting. “There’s no time to lose if the Duke’s daughter is to be saved.”

  “Don’t imagine I would ever stop for you, Aria,” Saarl said. “If you want to try traversing this pathway when it’s wet, be my guest. When the rain stops, we continue.”

  The pack began to settle itself along the path, the humans huddled in a wet, dejected group at one end of the line. Ulthric sat near them, staring north. He knew full well why Saarl had chosen him for watch duty. Asleep, he didn’t trust Vega not to try and kill him. He was safer awake.

  As the hours passed thoughts drifted in and out of focus. Most of his concentration was taken up by the wet, and the cold, and the stiffness in his tired limbs, and the aches of his bruises, and the stench of the five humans nearby. The world around him, grey, bleak, hard, damp, remained unchanging. Vega flashed through his head – the big, scarred werekynd grinning his cruel grin. He reeked of ambition, of pent-up anger, of a burning arrogance. And there was Saarl – in his own way as ferocious as Vega, and yet more controlled, his every brutal act bearing behind it some greater hint of careful calculation. In a way that made him more terrifying than Vega. In a way –

  He’d been asleep. At some point, he had no idea when, his consciousness had slipped. It returned to him in a guilty rush, brought on by the presence he suddenly felt at his side.

  He spun with a snarl, still half crouched, the stiffness in his limbs flaring into sudden, unwelcome pain. The boy leapt back, yelping in fear.

  Ulthric blinked and shook his head. The rain was still falling, albeit now little more than a miserable drizzle. The path before him remained empty. Behind him the pack still slumbered. The humans likewise were asleep, huddled in the sparse shelter of a little rocky outcrop. Except for the boy. Ulthric guessed he was perhaps six or seven seasons old, his dark hair plastered to his scalp, fat little hands clenching and unclenching nervously at his sides. He stared at Ulthric.

  “What do you want?” the werekynd snarled. How had he not sensed the boy’s approach? Was he really so exhausted?

  “I can’t sleep,” the boy said, continuing to stare. He didn’t seem afraid. Considering that he was talking to a man-beast, Ulthric was amazed. Perhaps he was mentally deficient? Or just too young? Too trusting? Ulthric opened his mouth, then closed it again. He didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m cold,” the boy said. He edged closer to Ulthric, and knelt beside him. The werekynd noticed for the first time that he was shaking.

  “I…” Ulthric began, but trailed off. The boy crossed his legs, pushing himself up against the werekynd’s flank, and closed his eyes.

  Ulthric simply sat, starting into the rain. He felt the human child’s breathing growing steadily slower, more regular. His shaking stopped. In moments, he was fast asleep.

  The young werekynd let a slow breath hiss out between his fangs. What was he supposed to do now? Didn’t the damn child realise he was meant to be a threat, a thing of fear and loathing? Or did he, perhaps, see through the savage exterior, and sense that Ulthric too was tired, and cold, and still far too young for all of this?

  Whatever the reason, it wouldn’t do his meagre standing in the pack any good.

  Eventually the rain stopped. The sun made a tentative effort at scaling its wall of solid grey clouds, flinging light onto the glistening stones and picking out the cold, vaporous mist of each pack member’s sleeping breath. They began to wake, shaking the rain from their pelts, grunting and growling as they stretched stiff limbs and rubbed wakefulness back into their eyes. The humans woke too.

  “Thomas!” shouted a voice. The boy came to with a start, instinctively pushing himself away from Ulthric. The werekynd turned to find the boy’s father striding across the path towards them. He came up short when he caught Ulthric’s eye, but paternal fury overcame his fear of the werekynd.

  “What are you doing with my son!” he shouted. Ulthric stood slowly, holding the man’s gaze. Young as he was, he still towered over the human. He bared his fangs.

  Your boy was cold.”

  “Come here, Thomas,” the man said, grabbing his son by the hand and dragging him away from Ulthric’s side. “What have I told you about these animals!”

  “You forget your place, werekynd,” Captain Aria said frostily from the father’s side. Ulthric said nothing, just let the boy go.

  “Up!” Saarl’s bellow interrupted Aria before he could say anything more. “We move! Ulthric, nothing to report?”

  “Nothing,” Ulthric said. “No sign of crowmen on the path or below us.”

  “I don’t like it,” Saarl growled. “But we’ve got to keep moving.”

  “Are you going to carry the boy on your back, Ulthric?” Vega called from further up the line, eliciting a spate of snarling laughter. “Got yourself a pet, do you?”

  Ulthric said nothing, just glowered. Rage seethed inside him, broiling, constant, but he kept it silent and still, forcing impotency upon it. To react to a jibe would be the sort of mistake only a young werekynd would make. And Ulthric was trying, with every fibre in his tired, bruised body, to prove that he was no longer young.

  “Move out!” Saarl barked. The pack stepped off, boots crunching on the pathway. They climbed up and up, twisting and turning along the rising valley sides. The bottom was now far below them, wreathed in ghostly strands of mist. Saarl had chosen their rout, and Saarl had never been wrong before. Ulthric just hoped they reached the Seers before nightfall.

  Gradually their destination became visible, swinging into sight around a jagged bend in the path. It was a cavern entrance, not a notch in the scree like t
he little cave where the humans had been rescued from, but a gaping black gulf, smashed into the rock’s face by a giant’s gauntlet. The path disappeared into it as though swallowed down some huge animal’s gullet, never to be seen again. There was no sign of movement in the shadows that shrouded the entrance.

  “The Seer’s lair!” Saarl said as they approached the yawning maw. “Kex, torches.”

  Kex pulled a half dozen staves from his pack, striking up a light on each with his flints. Saarl handed them down the line. One by one, the pack passed beneath the dripping cavern entrance, treading as lightly as they dared on the moss-encrusted stones underfoot. The shadow of the cave fell upon Ulthric, and he fought back a shiver. It was bitterly cold, and darkness swallowed them up almost instantly. Less than a dozen paces in, only the flickering illumination of their torches served to light the way.

  “This place reeks of crowmen,” Vrak growled. “Hundreds of them.”

  “What if it’s a trap?” Vega said. Saarl didn’t reply. The cavern entrance quickly narrowed, until they were pressing through a tight tunnel of damp stone and blooming fungus. Ulthric could actually smell the fear of the human family still following in their wake. He couldn’t help but pity them in a place like this. How they’d even come to be in crow valley was a mystery.

  “I said what if it’s a trap?” Vega repeated. Saarl rounded in a flash, his growl echoing down the tunnel.

  "Are you finished questioning me, pup!” he spat. Even Vega took a step back, caught off-guard by the longfang’s sudden fury. For Saarl to be overcome by his own anger was a rare thing indeed. Vega shook his head.

  Saarl said nothing more. The pack’s advance resumed, each werekynd letting out a collective breath. A challenge to the pack’s leadership now would have been disasterous.

  The tunnel began to widen once more, and light became visible ahead – not the flickering torchlight they carried with them, but daylight, watery and pallid. It drew them on, into a small, rocky chamber. Ahead lay what seemed like a second room, far larger. Its roof was partially collapsed, and it was from that jagged hole that the light shone through. Two more tunnels branched off left and right from the smaller chamber, sloping upwards.

  “Ahead,” Saarl said. “Ulthric, you remain here with the humans. The rest of you, with me.”

  “No,” Ulthric said before he could stop himself. The pack froze.

  “What did you say?” Saarl asked.

  “I…” Ulthric trailed off, suddenly unable to meet the longfang’s gaze. “I don’t want to miss the end of the hunt. If there really are as many crowmen as –”

  "Do you want to live?” Saarl interrupted, his voice now that menacing growl.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll follow my orders, pup, to the letter. You’ll stay here, with the humans. You do not follow us. Am I clear?”

  Ulthric could only nod. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Saarl turned on his heel, and led the pack into the light of the cavern.

  Within, the crowmen were waiting.

  * * *

  The pack stepped into the light, blinking. The edges of the cavern were expansive, and remained hidden in semi-darkness. Vega noted that rough ledges ran around the length of the walls, whether hacked out by mortal hand, erected by sorcery or eroded naturally it was impossible to say.

  Vega also noted the crowmen. There were well over a hundred, brutal, half-clad human savages of all ages, crouched silent and unmoving in the darkness beyond the edge of the light. None reacted to the pack’s entrance.

  “Keep going,” Saarl growled, leading the werekynd forward until they were stood at the heart of the beam streaming down from above.

  "They’ll surround us,” Vega said. “This is madness!”

  Any retort was cut short by another voice, echoing up from the back of the cavern. Vega squinted, trying to discern the wizened man that stood beyond the furthest reaches of the sunlight.

  “You come here seeking a girl, monsters. But you will find only death,” the shadow-shrouded figure said. His voice was thin and rasping, like a shard of slate dragging across a whetstone. Saarl said nothing, only stood, glaring up at the sunlight.

  “Who are you?” Vega demanded. “Show yourself!”

  “I rule this valley, monster,” came the reply. “You are trespassers here, in this sacred place.”

  “Where are the Seers?” Vega barked.

  "Dead, this past season.”

  “And the girl? Where is the Duke’s daughter?”

  “Not here,” said Captain Aria. The Duke’s envoy strode from the sunlight into the enveloping darkness, the shine of his full plate armour suddenly dulled as he left the light. “Never here, werekynd.”

  “What is this?” Vega spat, rounding on Saarl for answers. The longfang kept staring up at the patch of sorrowful grey sky above.

  “You led us here,” Vega said, a low growl rising in his throat. “This is a trap, isn’t it?”

  Saarl said nothing.

  “Look at me!” Vega roared, lunging towards the pack leader. Finally Saarl reacted. He gripped Vega’s wrist and dragged the werekynd in close.

  “There are things, Vega, which you could not possibly understand,” Saarl hissed, eyes wild with that same, violent fury which had so suddenly possessed him in the tunnel. “You do not deserve my explanation.”

  He released Vega and, in a show of ultimate distain, turned his back on him. As he spoke his anger was still audible in every slow, bitter word.

  “What will make you understand?” he said, pacing slowly backwards and forwards, hairs bristling, fists clenching and unclenching. “You’ve never had to lead. Never had to make decisions, day in, day out, knowing all the while that you were being judged. Never had to put aside your own personal hopes and ambitions for the greater good of the pack. And all the while keeping one eye over your shoulder. Waiting for the challenge.”

  He paused and spat in the dirt before continuing.

  "Do you know how many I’ve fought? How many I’ve won? I know the odds. Eventually, one day, one of you will catch me. And that’ll be the end. All for what? Years, spent leading you. Helping you all to survive, teaching you to act together, as one. And I wind up cut down by some arrogant pup who thinks pack leadership is his destiny. It’s just the way of the pack, you’d all say. Well I say different”

  “You lead us here to die,” Vega hissed. “The Duke’s daughter, the Seers, it was all invented?”

  "The Protectorates have had more than enough of your depredations, beast” Captain Aria said. He was now stood at the side of the crowman chieftain who had first addressed them. “Hiring you mercenary pack for an invented task was the best way to cull your filthy brood. Saarl’s assistance in this matter will see him spared. And rewarded.”

  “You did this…” Vega said, turning back to the longfang. “Just so you could live out the life of a coward?”

  “If our places were reversed, you’d do the same!” Saarl snapped. “But I wouldn’t expect any of you to show such foresight! That is why I’m the pack leader!”

  Vega howled and lunged.

  “Kill them,” Aria said. “Kill them all.”

  Bellowing, the crowmen charged.

  The Walls of Bilbalo

  Old Nol had sounded midday by the time Ferdano reached the meeting place. The great cannon’s flat boom echoed out over the marshland beyond the Walls, soon lost amidst the eerie silence of the tussocks and murky filth-pools. The sound made Ferdano shudder. He realised just how alone he was out here in the Miremere, beyond the Bilablo’s mighty Walls and removed from the guards and bustling crowds that inhabited the Protectorate’s third-largest civic centre. The distant boom also confirmed that he was late. And neither his master nor the things he was in this Saints-forsaken hellhole to meet would tolerate lateness.

  He’d left the southern gate as the sun had risen, a lonely figure trekking out into the marshland. The gateway hadn’t been used in centuries, not since the Miremere’s creepi
ng expansion had submerged the old cobbled road and cut off the southern access to the city. Now the rusting port remained sealed, watched over night and day by the Southrons, a specially drilled company of the city watch. Only the mark of Duke Lorenzo himself had allowed Ferdano to pass through. As he’d slipped beneath its rusting, spiked shadow he’d had the horrible premonition that he wouldn’t be returning. His fears had not been assuaged by the sight beyond the portcullis, a pastel of mist-shrouded marshland stretching out grey, bleak and flat before him. The stench of bog gasses had nearly choked him as he’d taken the first tentative steps southward.

  Thankfully after almost an hour of struggling through the bogs his destination was finally within sight. Like three bent old beggars lost in the marshes, the moss-encrusted standing stones known as the Triple Pillars loomed ahead. The vile mists which pervaded everything here seemed thickest around them, as though drawn like a cloak about the stones to ward off unwanted eyes. Ferdano certainly got the impression that he was unwanted as he approached.