by T. C. Rypel
The wolves spread out cautiously, bewildered at this threat posed by one who should be their brother. Reacting to the clear menace, they sprang as a body.
Simon’s arcing blow crashed against the skull of the first. He whirled with animal grace and gutted the second wolf as its powerful jaws sheared off a ragged chunk of his ruff. The third took him in full charge and knocked him off balance as their jaws clashed. Both their snouts were punctured in a clacking, biting frenzy of grinding canine teeth.
But Simon possessed keen intelligence, superior strength and size, and human dexterity. He locked his taloned hands about the wolf in a viselike grip. He bent and squeezed and pressed against the terrified animal’s frantic resistance until its back snapped with the sickly sound of rotten kindling.
Simon pushed up unsteadily. His old escape wounds bled anew. Recovering his broadsword, he turned slowly to face the new intruder, whose hated scent was unmistakable.
Serge Farouche loomed at the head of the alley, massive corded shoulders rolling in expectation as he spread his hairy arms wide. He worked his thick, dark fingers eagerly, displaying razor-sharp, horned claws.
“So…brother.”
Simon tossed his broadsword from hand to hand, the specter of doubt rushing out at him from unseemly crevices of his mind. He cursed his lack of preparedness, knowing Serge’s power as well as his own weakened state. It was not enhanced by the lingering traces of the half-bottle of claret he’d downed. All at once he heard the mocking laughter of the awakening spirit within him, already celebrating the triumph of its brutish kin. Prematurely…
Stupid monster, Simon thought by way of a rare, direct spiritual communication with the creature. Do you not understand what this means? They’re sending you to your grave, along with me. What they can’t control, they must destroy…
He felt the energumen recoil in despair to hear it, and in that instant he tore into Serge Farouche with whirling steel.
The dark monstrosity made no move to evade him. And when Simon delivered the crushing sword cut, he found to his dismay that he was unable to finish. He struck Serge a glancing blow that so astonished him that he looked to his weapon to see whether it had somehow been ensorceled, turned to a harmless illusion while his attention was split.
Then he remembered. He’d been forced to drink the potion of Farouche blood. Grimmolech had robbed him of the power to deal out vengeance by dint of his fell sorcery.
Despair.
Simon snarled and ran past the leering Serge. Charging out of the alley, he encountered a ringing cordon of sweating faces and begrimed armament, both on horseback and afoot. Serge’s band blocked his panicked flight, standing their ground out of sheer terror of their master.
Pistols and crossbows poised for the kill.
“Stay your hands,” Serge commanded. “This one is mine alone.”
The black werewolf strode to an oil-lamp post at the front of a millinery shop and leveled it with two fierce shoulder blows. The lamp crashed down, and a flaming oil slick ignited on the cobblestones. Now Serge stalked Simon with the huge post at port arms.
Simon cast about him for some alternative weapon, calculating some ploy by which he might combat Serge, defeat the sorcery which denied him any hope of victory. Something non-threatening—? Simon’s mind whirled in near-panic.
They were near the marketplace and the pens provided for animals put up for sale. Simon allowed Serge to back him toward the pens, then turned and loped toward them, the mercenaries clattering over the paving stones to string out their mounted line and contain his flight.
Simon ripped a long wooden post from one of the pens.
Serge howled in canine glee at the challenge and came on at the run. The rail and lamp post clashed with a tremendous, splintering impact that echoed along the strife-torn street. Embattled citizens of Lamorisse now took note of the eerie battle being contested at the market stalls.
They clashed again and again, their ponderous blows effecting little damage. Simon was able to deflect Serge’s attacks, but he apprehended the shape-shifter’s intent: He would wear Simon down, humiliate him with a display of superior power. And then squash him ignominiously. It was inevitable.
Already the rail was beginning to shatter from the heavy blows of the lamp post.
Suddenly—the hissing of bowshot—two pistols barking from covered positions—
Three of Serge’s men fell, and half the remaining troop split from the others to take on the Wunderknechten rebels who’d come to Simon’s aid.
Simon took heart, sensed a turning. He could not deliver Serge a killing blow, but he could strike him, hurt him. He’d seen that much. And now he changed his approach, switching from eroding defensive posture to all-out attack. He spread his hands farther apart along the post to gain leverage and control, then launched into a series of whirling circular blows he’d seen Gonji teach and employ many times—arcing, uppercutting, alternating lines of attack while always completing his circles, one blow ever melding into the next.
Now Serge growled in animal fury as he was forced to give ground, deflecting blows, sometimes failing, such that his furred arms and sinewy hands took punishing ripostes from the splintering wooden rail.
Serge was nearly backed to the alley where they’d begun, the mercenaries lowering their weapons to watch in awe, when Simon took him by surprise.
The golden Beast leaned back, as if declining further combat, dropping the post into the low guard that invited attack—another ken-jutsu technique taught by Gonji.
Serge roared and raised the lamp post for a mighty strike. Simon anticipated him, twisting the wooden rail up under the rising lamp post and stunning Serge with a hard lunge that struck him full in the chest. His breath whuffed out of him with an animal growl, and Serge staggered backward.
Simon tripped him with a ground-scraping circular blow—and then bounded off into the alley. He heard the pursuit behind him, gladdened to catch the scent of horses and men in advance of Serge’s own; he’d obviously hurt the monster enough to slow him.
He sprinted left at a crossing lane—a dead end. He stopped, caught his breath, and then ran full speed for the stone wall at the dead end. With a great leap and scramble of taloned hands and feet, Simon clawed up the twelve-foot barricade in a shower of loose rocks and stone-dust. Up and over—to land near a huddled party of freedom-fighting rebels, who turned weapons on him.
“Get out of here!” he rasped at them as he bounded over their heads, evoking outcries of shock. One or two fired errant shots before realizing who he was.
Simon kept sprinting, nearing the eastern limits of Lamorisse, taking stock of his wounds as he departed with long, loping strides, never pausing even so much as to gnash his teeth in bitterness over the dishonor and frustration he felt.
Jacques Moreau, in the bell tower of the church, watched him flee, the last hope of Lamorisse apparently leaving with him. His own resolve now cemented, Moreau turned to retrieve Guy from the church storm cellar.
The cries issuing from several points in the town froze him.
“The children!”
“Mon Dieu—my children!”
* * * *
The fighting men of Lamorisse had served their purpose, and now Serge Farouche revealed his own. While the Wunderknechten fought for territory and honor and self-preservation, the wolves began to burst through windows and shutters throughout the city and drag the town’s horrified children from their beds and hiding places.
The great canine jaws that could crush the neck of a full-grown stag now caught up the children with nefarious skill. Utilizing the soft-bite learned at play during their days in the litter, they firmly but gently controlled the children’s flailings as they carried them off.
For they were needed unharmed. Whole.
So diabolically had
Lamorisse been manipulated that there were few available to save the children.
* * * *
Marie Ault, wife of Wyatt, the tanner and ex-mercenary, knelt with her two children in the parlor. They prayed for the deliverance of all the fathers of Lamorisse.
The devil-eyed intruders threw themselves against the barred shutters repeatedly until they gave way. So swiftly did the three wolves gain entry that the children’s first startled outcries had hardly died away in Marie’s ears before the beasts were inside in an explosion of kindling.
She gathered the shrilling boy and girl close to her and went for a fireplace iron, for the gun Wyatt had left her was half-a-room away on a tabletop that might as well have been in Paris.
Marie bellowed in rage to see her little girl dragged away by the leg, wailing and vainly grabbing at handholds. A second snarling beast crouched before Marie to hold her at bay. But she grabbed the iron and charged it, cursing and flailing. The startled wolf scrabbled back for a far corner. The third wolf turned its attention from her son to Marie just as the little girl had reached the window in the jaws of the first.
Marie snapped up the pistol in a wavering grip.
Which one? Which one?
She blurted an oath and shot the creature at the window. The lead ball crashed into the wolf’s side in a spurt of blood. The creature fell slack at the sill, kicking and howling, letting loose her screaming daughter.
The other two wolves leapt at Marie.
She still clutched the iron. A wolf howled in pain as she jabbed it hard in the rib cage. But the other beast’s jaws caught her about the throat.
The door burst open. A shot rang out, a wolf yelping in death agony. The last predator released Marie Ault and spun about to snarl at Yvonne Dusseault, framed in the doorway with smoking pistol.
“Come on,” she grated breathily at the threatening wolf. “Come on, you hairy bastard!”
It shot into the air. Yvonne drew her dirk and slashed in the same motion, her rage imparting furious energy to her stroke. The wolf slammed against Yvonne and the doorjamb at once, knocking her down. The predator’s yowling cries trailed off into the night as it limped away, streaming blood.
Yvonne moaned as she entered the house. She drew the terrified children close to her, shielding them from the wretched sight of what had befallen their mother.
* * * *
The rebel warriors of Lamorisse watched the troop of Farouche Clan minions and its accompanying wolf pack storm off to the north, leaving death and misery in their wake. Vengeful cries and wails of mourning wafted into the night sky from all points of the town. The people cast about in shock and confusion, some at the limits of emotion, some listlessly attending to the dead and injured. In their thwarted fury, they began to fight amongst themselves.
Recriminations were directed at Jacques Moreau, for he had been singled out as the cause of the horror in his stubborn defiance of the provincial lords, as leader of the local Wunderknechten. Those who had resisted joining that arcane movement inspired by Gonji were particularly aroused against Moreau, for their children were well represented among the twenty-seven young ones who had been spirited off by the evilly directed wolves.
As Moreau was hemmed-in and threatened by a knot of angry citizens, Wyatt Ault surged into their midst and crashed his fists into the faces of two of the outraged men, at the last drawing his sword and daring the others to test his hand.
The controversy was stilled, the people slowly dispersing to deal with their private tragedies.
“Merci, mon ami,” Jacques said quietly, laying a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder.
But Wyatt twisted away from him. Unable to control his feelings any longer, Wyatt began sobbing piteously between rancorous words:
“Leave me alone, Moreau. I don’t want your thanks. What in God’s name did we do to deserve this?” Cocking his arm, Wyatt Ault threw his sword through a shop window in a shower of crashing glass.
“Where is God’s so-called mercy?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Why did they take our children? Why the children?”
The great hue and cry rose amidst the carnage and misery of Lamorisse. The citizens began to gravitate toward the town square, the leaders gathering at Chabot’s Inn.
“Because they’re evil, that’s why,” an old woman declared. “And what greater evil is there than that done to little ones?”
Henri Chabot had his wounds bound even as he opened his stores of food and drink to any who entered the auberge. Gabrielle hurried about, helping with the injured who were brought in from the streets. The square had been the scene of the main conflict.
Praised for her valiant effort in the fray, Gaby shrugged it off airily, though pleased with the attention. “Hell, anyone can fire a gun. It just makes me sick to see the blood squirt out of people’s bodies and the—Christ, Vatour, what happened to you?!” She hurried to attend on a groaning man who was carried through the front door, his arm and leg both badly rent and bloodied.
“All right, then it’s confirmed?” Jacques Moreau was asking the messenger again. “The garrison’s gone—all of them?”
“Oui—men lying everywhere—mon Dieu, it’s gruesome to see.”
“So they set us up good,” Darcy Lavelle said. “The Farouche will blame us. They’ll have a million witnesses.”
“So do we!”
“Of course, but they are the lords of the province. Who do you think Paris will believe?”
“Well, I say we stop this now and appeal to the king,” an irate man with a scalp wound argued. “Let the aristocrats fight this out. They can’t prove any individuals among us had anything to do with this. And what about the children who were kidnapped? What are they going to say, that we kidnapped our own children to implicate the Farouche?”
“Non,” Darcy said, kicking over a chair, “we fight this thing out ourselves, whatever the outcome. We dig in here and get ready for the next siege. Look how many we killed out there. You’ve all seen the proof of our worth in battle.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Lavelle—you have no kids of your own—”
“All right, stop this now,” Moreau ordered, standing on a table in their midst. “You’re all free to do as you will. As for me, I’m off to alert the towns and villages to the south that rebellion has been forced on us. Those of you who remain here do so under martial law. Darcy is in command. If you can’t see your way through another round of fighting, then get out now. Take your children and flee until this madness is over.”
“How do we get them back, you—!”
“Where? Where do we take them? We don’t all have relatives in the south as you do, Moreau.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. Simon Sardonis has said that we must prepare the province for war, and I believe he’s right. There may be more help coming from—”
“And what about him? This beast-man Simon? He had Serge Farouche at bay, and then he ran like a whimpering dog! I saw the whole thing—”
“He was overmatched,” Yvonne Dusseault broke in sharply as she laved her own facial wound. “Serge Farouche is almost twice as big when they…” She couldn’t finish, nor could anyone else, rational words failing them when it came to discussing the lycanthropes. The fear and disorientation attendant on seeing such creatures of lore fighting in the flesh still seemed like a nightmare from which they might presently be jolted.
“A pox on all these monsters,” someone hurled up in conclusion.
“Where can we hide our children, Moreau, those who are still safe?”
More arguing broke out over the need to seek the little ones who’d been abducted.
Jacques’s head hung with the burden of command. At last he called out over the frantic bickering: “I don’t know. I’m just not sure yet what we can do. We
need help, that’s certain. Those of you whose children are safe, keep them that way, however you must. My own will be on the road with me, and you already know how safe that is. I will wait for dawn and then ride southward. Seeking aid, alerting other towns. That’s the only advice I can offer, for now. Ride off on a similar course, seeking help and safe distance…or remain, dig in defensively…and face what comes.”
“Well, that’s a real comfort, magistrate…”
* * * *
At dawn, Jacques Moreau departed Lamorisse with Guy in tow, but his intended flight for safe harbor was complicated by the presence of Yvonne and two other Wunderknechten, who had argued incontestably that the magistrate should not travel alone with his son, especially on so vital a mission of military preparedness.
They traveled the main roads throughout the day, keeping to the plains and skirting the foreboding forest domain of Belial Farouche as much as possible—for they had no knowledge of the satyr’s death at the hands of Wilfred Gundersen’s band. Moreau alerted two villages of the events in Lamorisse and the imminent danger. His party gained the outskirts of a third town just as darkness began to fall.
Jacques Moreau was seized by a growing sense of panic. He had no idea how he would shake his escort, nor did he care to deal with his guilt-ridden thoughts or the need to face his fears. Guy’s safety was all that mattered. Or so he had told himself.
That was why his plan, now complicated by the presence of his unbidden companions, had been to flee France altogether, leaving all grim responsibility behind.
Young Guy seemed tight-lipped and tense, looking to his father repeatedly for a sign of comfort Jacques was unable to tender.
As Moreau’s mounted band swung wide of a murky stand of pine, intending to gain the village before night blanketed the territory, their spines turned to ice and their horses panicked as they were strafed from above by a squalling flight of gargoyles, who launched bolts from their small crossbows while in full swoop.
