Immortality's Touchstone

by Mark Tufo

  It kept them from being surrounded, but it also kept them from escape. Though where they would go anyway was the question. By the time I got into position to deal some damage, the werewolves had indeed taken note of us. At least a third of them peeled off from the main group to keep us engaged.

  What is so fucking important about those inhabitants that they want to keep us occupied? I thought. Unlike the Robert’s Land populace, we were trained, we were armed, we were battle hardened. We stood our ground, dropping werewolves by the score; they had too much distance to cover and we could reach out and kill them from across that expanse. And I for one was perfectly fine with putting them down in rapid succession from the safety of our distance. Some were making it dangerously near; there was going to be no avoiding close quarter combat.

  “Brace for impact!” It was Lana; her horsemen had done their best to form a defensive perimeter around Bailey’s shooters. Large reinforced spears were thrust out, held in place by a special pocket sewn in the saddle. I had my doubts that it would hold up against the charging beasts but considering that was the only thing standing between me and them I was obligated to hold out a little faith. The werewolves made contact farther down the line from me first. Wood cracked and bones splintered—it was impossible to tell whose...the werewolves’ chest plates being punctured, the men’s arms as they fought with the large poles, or the horses’ legs as they were forced to bear the full weight of a rampaging werewolf.

  Our lines were pushed back as the werewolves pressed the attack. Riders were unhorsed by sweeps of powerful arms, the job finished under the crushing bite of vicious canine jaws. The crack of so many rifles in such quick succession made it sound like we were in the world’s largest microwave, popping a giant bag of popcorn. The smell didn’t match up, though, the scent of fear and iron from blood dominated. Our lines had not broken; we’d absorbed the impact of the werewolves’ attack. If anything we’d rallied. That’s the problem with war; the more you learn how to kill things, the better you get at it. These weren’t farmers, shepherds, and merchants anymore—these were soldiers. Yes, they were scared; yes, they could die, but they would not flee and they could hand out death just as easily as they could receive it.

  Another age ago, I trusted implicitly in my ability with the M-16; I guess I still do. But there’s just something about the way killing with the edge of a blade makes it personal. When my bolt held open, I didn’t blink when I put it back in its rifle holster and withdrew my sword from its saddle scabbard. I wanted to feel the lives of those I pierced leave this world as I physically tore spirit from body one enemy at a time. Somehow their deaths meant more if I took them by blade rather than bullet. I urged my horse forward and to the right where the heaviest concentrations of werewolves were. My sword held high, a battle cry rushed forth from my lungs and vibrated past my pulled back lips. I brought the blade down and laid open the broad back of the werewolf closest to me. A deep wound flayed open, his spine glistened in the noon sun before the connection from nerve center to extremities was severed and he fell to the ground.

  I hacked, stabbed, slashed, and sliced through anything unfortunate enough to come into my range. Maybe a demon was no longer housed within me, but we’d been friends long enough that I knew how he worked. Unbeknownst to me, I had not realized that my fury had inspired a fair number of Talbotons and we were now encasing the werewolves in an iron grip of destruction. We trampled the fallen underfoot, the horses having been trained to do just that. They were every inch an instrument of war as the weapons we held. They would rear up or kick out whenever a werewolf was within range, with ruinous results. In a half an hour we had obliterated a third of Lunos’ army. There was a cheer as Lana lopped the head off of our final opponent.

  “Charge!” I’d turned my horse and was leading him into the battle before us. I got low, my sword held out in front of me. Not a half a heartbeat later I could hear the rest of the men and women following. I cannot imagine the sight we made streaking across that opening. An army victorious, a bloodthirsty horde who could not be so easily sated. Werewolves began to turn in our direction when they saw us coming. We were outnumbered and we didn’t care. A distant horn sounded, ours? Theirs? Who fucking knows. The werewolves turned to it, back to us, and then started to leave and in a hurry.

  “No you don’t you cowardly motherfuckers!” A running werewolf is easily as fast as a horse and if pressed, they can keep pace longer. I didn’t care. My goal was to chase them to the ends of the earth where maybe they would fall the fuck off. There were some werewolves that were not moving quite as spryly as the others, those that were injured in battle. Normally, killing those who are not at their peak is distasteful; I found I had no such compunction when I chopped the first of them down. I think I was pretty safe in assuming that they would think little of killing an injured human. We put down twenty or thirty this way before the main group became unobtainable. My right arm was as sore as if I’d pitched ten innings of baseball; I had more blood on me than Carrie’s stunt double, and my chest heaved like I belonged in one of those period romances my wife used to read. You know, the highbrow, bosom heaving, erotica stuff.

  “Have you had your fill?” It was Bailey.

  “Your tone has a hint of derision in it, Chair Person, but you have a very large smile on.”

  She closed her lips. “I admit it. Sitting at a table making decisions about the day to day operations of a township is not all that interesting. But I do not enjoy what we are doing here.”

  “You keep telling yourself that. There’s something primal, liberating, fuck, maybe invigorating about vanquishing one’s enemies on the field of battle.”

  “Are you well?” She changed the subject.

  “I...I honestly don’t know. I took a couple of whacks and I’m sore as hell, but I won’t know until I clean up and the adrenaline wears off.” I was about to ask about Lana and Mathieu, when I saw them approaching the survivors from Robert’s Land. I should have been preparing myself for what I saw. I mean it was only a matter of time, right? Why, then, did it feel like I’d been simultaneously throat punched and gut kicked? I could see the dark red of a hood; who it belonged to was never in question as it walked among the Robert’s Land people. She’d somehow caught wind of the impending invasion on the psychic hotline network or some shit. Azile, my Azile, had come to their aid. I’m sure bringing a fury only she could deliver. My horse seemed to want to go where I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to. I could see Azile as she bent over from time to time to help those in need, but for the most part, she was swallowed up by the people surrounding her and by Lana’s troops going over.

  “You ready for this?” Bailey asked. Her smile had turned to a crooked smirk.

  I was as nervous as a twelve-year-old at my first school dance. Was feeling a little guilty as well, like she was going to see the real reasons why I had fought so hard to recapture what I’d lost. Tracy was the loss of a heartbeat away now, would the woman before me know just how much of me she had lost? Or maybe she’d known all along that you cannot possess what is unobtainable.

  “Aren’t there more werewolves we could hunt down?”

  “You’re not getting off that easy,” she told me.

  When we got close enough, I dismounted and handed the reins off to one of the Denarthians and began to thread my way through the crowd. Theoretically, I shouldn’t have been able to tell where I was going, but like an arrow to its target, I walked. And, as if on some unspoken command, the people around us knew what was going on and acted accordingly. They created a small circular opening when I got near. I was looking at Azile’s back; she was leaning over, wiping the face of a small child. Not only had the crowd parted, it had got preternaturally quiet. Azile stood; I could see the hard set of her shoulders as she was coming to the realization that something was going on. As she began the process of turning, I moved closer. I saw a couple of things in those next few moments I had never seen from Azile, one was abject fear and the other was a
very large, distended belly.

  Her eyes rolled up and her body began to fold. I covered the final three steps and grabbed her before she collapsed to the ground. The crowd, thinking I’d done something harmful to her, quickly moved in.

  Chapter 7

  MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 7

  * * *

  THE NIGHT HAD crept in by the time she’d begun to stir. A small tent had been erected and two midwives fussed over her, all the while doing their best to usher me out of the enclosure. Finally, one of the women threatened me with a stiff wire brush, so I left, but just long enough to get cleaned up. When I came back, I told them in no unspecific terms that I would not leave again, and if they didn’t stop trying to force me out I would beat them with the flat of my sword. At some point, they left to get some sleep. I had a seat and was waiting next to Azile’s cot. I would sometimes hold her hand, other times brush her hair away from her forehead. One moment she was breathing softly, deep in sleep; the next, her eyes shone brightly as they peered up at me.

  “Are you real, Michael Talbot?”

  “For the most part.” My face stung as her hand shot out and across my cheek.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded.

  “Cabo,” was all I could think to tell her. “You got fat.”

  She laughed, we laughed, she cried, we cried. I held her as tight as I dared to.

  “So I die and you basically get knocked up as fast as you can?”

  “You were insufferable. I could not wait until you were gone so I could join e-Farmony.”

  “So that’s like Cousin Lem’s kid or something?” I laughed.

  “Cleetus, actually.” Her gaze turned almost demure; Azile the Red Witch looked vulnerable. “You know they’re yours, right?”

  “They? Are you having a litter?”

  “You really know how to make a woman feel special.”

  “I’ve traveled across the non-negotiable to be with you; I would think that would make you feel special.”

  “We both know you didn’t do it completely for me.”

  “I’m right here, right now, Azile. What more can you ask of me? I am back from a place where second chances are not granted. I have fought between Heaven and Hell.”

  “Twins, ok? I’m having twins, not a litter,” she acquiesced.

  “Do I need to do any sort of paternity testing?”

  “They’re yours, believe me. They give me heartburn when I drink water, and they cause me endless headaches. They are still all day and kick without mercy no matter what time I attempt to lay down.”

  “I have to admit there are some good correlations there. And what the hell are you doing in the middle of a war in this condition?”

  “The world needed another savior when you left.” She began to cry.

  “It’s okay. Hey...it’s okay.”

  “It’s the damned hormones. You, I’m still pissed at.”

  I had to smile at that. “How did you know they would be coming?”

  “I would like to say it was purely by chance, but we both know how naive that would be. I had gone far from my home in search of a root that eases discomfort. One of your babies has a head as hard as stone, and it is sitting heavily on my pelvis.”

  She was glaring at me as if all of this were my fault. Sure, I’d been to the party, but I didn’t drink all of the Kool-Aid by myself.

  “Werewolves. We were talking about the werewolves and how they were going to invade Robert’s Land.” I was trying to gently steer her back on course. “Root...remember the root?”

  She dialed it back. “I’d no sooner found a patch of what I was looking for when I heard their approach. It was two of them. Men, decently dressed, walking down the path. I was off to the side and was going to get back on the trail and offer them a greeting. Then, I can’t explain it. I got the feeling they were hunting, not game, but rather me. I thought perhaps I was overreacting; all of my emotions have been playing havoc on me lately.” She took a moment out of her explanation to glare again.

  “I get it, I get it, I have impregnated you with demon spawn. Wait until they are born. Then the real fun begins.” I was smiling, thinking of all the grief I had put my parents through.

  “Those two frightened me, Mike.”

  “I think I know who you’re talking about. I ran across them myself.”

  “I got down low, which is difficult for me, but not nearly as hard as getting back up. They stopped almost directly across from me, then I watched as they began to...smell the air. The one closer to me allowed just his nose to expand out so he could get a better sample of air. I think they would have found me, too, if I hadn’t done a cloaking spell. They knew I was out there; they just couldn’t find me. And if they were hunting me specifically, they showed no fear of making that encounter. They weren’t Lycan, though. Of that I’m sure.”

  “No, they weren’t. As far as I can tell Lunos is not working with any of the clans. He has struck some sort of devil’s bargain with people. His army are willing subjects.”

  “That cannot be.” Azile looked alarmed.

  “Is it so hard to believe? He offers them an opportunity to escape the difficulties and doldrums of peasant life to travel the country and experience power, and plunder whatever they encounter. How many would have willingly done so in our time? Shit, how many did? So you knew there were werewolves afoot, but you couldn’t possibly have known there was an invasion.”

  “I followed them.”

  “Wait, you followed them? The hunted became the hunter? In your condition?”

  “I am hardly a delicate flower, Talbot.”

  “Shhh, quiet, woman. I’m being macho right now.”

  “God, I’ve missed you.” She grabbed my shirt and pulled me in tight, we kissed and then leaned our foreheads against each other for a while. The contact? Very welcome. But, I pulled back when she started her story again. “I followed them for almost two days, and I swear they knew I was doing it, yet they never made a suspicious move against me.”

  “Probably figured if they couldn’t get you on their own, the plan was to get you into a war where you would be vulnerable.”

  “Is Lunos that insane? He would openly threaten me?”

  “Lunos believes himself better than every creature that inhabits this planet. Though I think I rattled his giant melon a little bit when I showed up at Talboton.”

  “He attacked there?”

  “He did, though I think it was more of a test. If he could have taken the fort with minimal casualties he would have. He’d not been expecting the resistance he’d encountered, or me, for that matter, and he left nearly as quickly as he’d come.”

  “Denarth?”

  “Them he completely avoided. He made a beeline for Robert’s Land. It makes sense in terms of accessibility and defenses.”

  “Partly, when I came across the whole of them, it didn’t take much to reason out where they were headed. I wanted to get close, but...” she pointed to her belly, “this prevented any sort of stealth.”

  “Maybe you should have laid off the bonbons.”

  “You’re making me regret this reunion already.”

  “Probably a record you lasted this long.”

  “Anyway, Michael, if you would let me continue.”

  “The floor is yours, the whole bed is yours, hell, the rack of lamb outside is yours...”

  She pressed her finger against my lips. “Shhhh. Don’t make me wish I had got together with the pots and pans merchant out of Fort Lufkin. I knew these werewolves were different; they looked well fed, well rested, and in good spirits. No one was guarding them; they weren’t locked up, and they were mostly in human form. Those that weren’t seemed to be much more concerned with what was out there waiting for them than what was going on with the camp. I had thought perhaps an enchantment...though I could detect nothing. I didn’t see Lunos, and there was nothing more I could do there. That was when I went to Robert’s Land to warn them.”

  “How’d that go?�
�

  “Not everyone is as abrasive as you, Michael. Though I do not think they would have listened to me in any case, had numerous inhabitants not already had very recent sightings.”

  “I’ve got to think they must have also heard things about the other towns in battle, right?”

  “They’d heard; they just chose to ignore it or believe the tales to be exaggerated. Nobody wants to think that war can be brought to their doorstep. Robert’s Land’s isolation has led to a fair amount of their prosperity.”

  “Yeah, they basically welcomed me with open arms the last time I was here.”

  “I think that had more to do with the guest than the host.”

  “I can see grazing constantly at the all-you-can-eat buffet has made you funny.”

  “I can’t imagine that Tracy put up with this when she was pregnant.”

  “I waited until she couldn’t catch me and I made sure to sleep in a different room every night. I was told you had Oggie, but I haven’t seen him.” I was concerned, but she didn’t look overly worried, and that put me at ease.

  “This attack was not just about gaining a victory at all costs. Lunos was looking for something or someone when he came here. Hundreds of werewolves strode into town like that was the most normal thing in the world.”

  “Are you shitting me? He just walked in like they were on parade or something? I thought you said you warned them?”

  “I did! I don’t know what you think I could have accomplished, though. There’s not much in the way of weaponry here. We did the next best thing: we evacuated. By the time Lunos arrived most of the town was gone.”

  “That prick sheriff stay behind?”

  “Blane? He is far from a prick. Have you really had a run in with the only authority figure within a thousand square miles?”