by Tracy Falbe
“I hope Valentino survived that,” Thal said. He surveyed the steep and rugged slope ahead of him. Snow draped the landscape in soft folds of white. They were on the eastern side of the tower now.
“Nothing looks the same with the snow,” Mileko said.
“Pistol will remember. Go on. Find our trail,” Thal said, and his dog bounded eagerly up the slope. He paused to probe the snowy crevices with his nose at regular intervals as the men made the ascent behind him. They struggled precariously on the slick snow and steep terrain but finally attained the narrow band of ground along the foundation.
“Give me some room,” Mileko said as he shifted the rope off of his shoulder. He loosened the coils and started spinning the hook. His first toss failed. It made an unreasonably loud clang against the cold stones, but the noise coincided with more gunfire on the opposite of the tower. The singing werewolves raised their voices again to taunt their quarry holed up in the fortress.
Mileko prepared to throw the hook again. Sarputeen whispered to Thal, “He’ll get it. He practiced at Vlkbohveza for years.”
A little impressed, Thal said, “Is there any building that can keep him out?”
“Let’s hope not,” Sarputeen said with a gambler’s chagrin.
The hook hissed through the air and arced over the wall. Mileko pulled it tight and yanked it several times to confirm the quality of his hold. He wished that he had taken this route on his first visit to the tower. Acting in secret had always suited him.
He started climbing. His black cloak flapped in the wind. Thal and Sarputeen stood under him anxiously. Thal drew a pistol and watched the wall.
Once Mileko was over, Thal started up. Pistol scratched at the unyielding stone and whined.
“You’ll have to wait out here,” Thal said. His dog’s head drooped with resignation.
Sarputeen watched his son go over the top. He slid his staff across his back through his belt and spit on his hands. He grabbed the coarse rope and flexed his muscles. He managed the assent swiftly.
He tossed an arm over the wall but then looked over his shoulder. The snow storm had left the sky exceptionally clear, and the full moon shone brilliantly.
Thal helped his father onto the walkway. More gunfire boomed in the background. A slight tremor nibbled their feet as the tower took a blast from close range.
“Ah, Valentino has managed a shot,” Thal said.
The men wasted no more time on words. They trotted with weapons ready. Mileko took the lead for he had some knowledge of the building’s layout. As they had anticipated, no men manned this side of the tower that faced the empty plateau to the east. They hurried inside the first door that they came to. An arched hallway led to the western open air walkway above the gate yard. Here clustered the remaining men-at-arms. The gunners worked frantically under Tekax’s directions, but his two canons were ill suited to targets at such close range. Tekax had designed them for long distance shots. Other men armed with muskets fired at Valentino’s position from the wall above the draw bridge. Janfelter stood among them, aiming and firing. Valentino and his valiant crew dashed in and out of cover to reload canons while the Condottiere and two lads returned musket fire.
Thal, Sarputeen, and Mileko took in this scene in the space of a few heartbeats. Sarputeen’s eyes settled on Tekax. The wizened figure in his dark robes gesticulated with a gleaming cane. Mileko had warned him of its properties.
Thal studied his father’s rival as well. At this distance, he could not get a sense of the man’s malice or ingenuity. He could discern no immediate clue as to why this man would send assassins against him.
He switched from viewing the inscrutable old man to watching Janfelter. This rare moment of observation granted him a chance to judge the state of the fext.
The dangerous warrior looked much worn by his cruel adventures. Thal took hope at the creature’s dilapidated condition and accepted that the thing could be killed. He had eyed many a wounded animal in his time, and he could see that this one would not weather another assault.
“I’ll handle Janfelter and the gate. You disarm those canons,” Thal said and pointed toward Tekax and his gunners.
“Come, Mileko,” Sarputeen said. “I believe you still need to thank Tekax for his previous hospitality.”
Sarputeen yanked off his brown robe and cast the garment into the wind. It sailed into the gate yard like a gliding eagle. He removed his fraudulent crucifix and dropped it by his feet. He adjusted his wolf skin across his shoulders and strode forth in a sleeveless tunic and leggings. Multiple knives were sheathed at his belt, and he had a furious grip on his staff.
Striding toward the guns, Sarputeen watched Tekax see the flying robe and look around for its source. He watched him stiffen with shock and shout something to his men.
The four canoneers put down their tools and powder and reached for their sidearms. Sarputeen and Mileko assaulted the little group with graceful viciousness. Sarputeen brained two men with his staff before they even took a swipe at him. Mileko held a knife in each hand and dodged the first sword stroke against him. With a dancer’s ease, he stepped inside the man’s reach and slashed him across the liver. Shoving him back to bleed out, Mileko stopped a blow from the fourth man with his other knife. He whirled quickly to use the attacker’s momentum against him, and plunged a knife into the back of his neck as he fell.
Tekax had not lingered to observe his men’s brief stand in his defense. He skittered across the battlement. His malice crackled along his enchanted cane. He reached a door and disappeared inside.
Sarputeen jumped over the canon and raced toward the door with such speed he slammed against it. A bar from the other side held it firmly. He heaved his shoulder against the door again, but the oak and iron creaked laughingly at his mighty effort.
Mileko caught up to him. “I think I know another way,” he said.
A pistol shot cracked across the gate yard, and they rushed to the edge to check on Thal. They saw Janfelter stumbling back from him but also two men jumping on Thal’s back and forcing him down on his face.
“We must help him,” Sarputeen said and raced around the battlements.
Janfelter shook off the sting of the gunshot wound and picked up his musket. Two men wrestled frantically with Thal as the fext approached with his bayonet poised.
Thal heaved off one man and rolled away from the strike of the bayonet. Janfelter yelled with frustration and lifted the weapon. Thal yanked the man still clinging stubbornly to his arm across his body and rolled toward Janfelter as the bayonet descended. Janfelter stabbed the man-at-arms, and Thal scrambled to his feet. He lunged at Janfelter and clubbed him across his blistered face with a pistol.
The blow sent the fext reeling just as Mileko and Sarputeen arrived. Sarputeen killed the last man-at-arms, and Mileko ran toward a ladder that went down to the gate house. “I’ll get the gate!” he cried.
Thal drew his second pistol and blasted Janfelter down to his knees. Sarputeen circled the fext. He squinted at the revolting sight. He had never been so close to a living creature animated by spells of such darkness. An ethereal reek of corruption hung around the former man’s spirit like a poisonous fume.
Thal slid his discharged pistols into his belt and brought out his falchion. Janfelter was dragging himself away. Dark blood dribbled on the paving stones, but he gained speed as his enchanted body knit his flesh back together. The fext raised his blade to block Thal’s attack. His artful sword skills gave him an advantage against the werewolf, and he sliced Thal’s finger and forced him to relent. Janfelter got to his feet and staggered toward the edge of the inner wall.
Sarputeen advanced on him. “Your master flees from the sight of me. Surrender and I’ll try to undo the curse upon your body,” he said.
For a tiny moment, Janfelter seemed to acknowledge the offer of mercy, but his character could never accept it. He believed in the supremacy of Tekax and would not betray his master, especially not to this animal.
/> Janfelter charged the father and son, and forced his way past them with fast and fearsome sword strokes that the men had to dodge or die. He ran down steps into the gate yard.
A great groaning of liberated chains erupted from the gate house, and the drawbridge descended. The wooden platform slammed heavily against the rocky ledge, and the werewolves yipped with approval. With the cessation of gunfire from the tower, they had gathered close, and they ran across the bridge before it even stopped vibrating from its descent. Valentino drew a sword and rallied his four fellows to the fight. They charged the castle. Their astonishment to have gained entry to the fortress drove aside their fear.
Sarputeen flung aside his clothes and chanted his spell of transformation. He bounded down the stairs in pursuit of Janfelter. Thal ran after him and was soon surrounded by his pack in the yard. Altea’s sleek golden head brushed against his cut hand and she licked away the blood.
“Follow my Father!” Thal shouted.
Sarputeen caught up to Janfelter in an interior hallway. He tackled him with his thick head and powerful shoulders. The blow slammed the fext into a stone wall and he dropped his sword. Sarputeen dragged him by his ankle into the yard. His great fangs indented the thick boot leather that prevented the noxious blood from seeping into his mouth.
The werewolves bounded on the fext in a furious mass. They snarled with gruesome triumph and tore at his clothes but avoided breaking his skin.
“Hold him firm!” Thal commanded. He raised his falchion and looked down on Janfelter’s exposed head. The fext made eye contact with him. No plea for mercy passed his narrow lips. He regarded the raised blade with dull acceptance.
Thal studied the ravaged face. His pallid skin seemed born of the grave but impervious to rot. In this final moment, Thal saw beyond this horror and realized an unexpected kinship with Janfelter. They were both the magical creations of others. Thal wondered fearfully if this course could lead to anything but destruction.
He brought down his sword. It sank deeply into the neck and the curved tip of the falchion sparked against the stones. Because the falchion was not a tool for beheading a prisoner, Thal had to raise it again and chop at the stubborn vertebrae. Janfelter’s eyes stayed open. Thal saw agony, but terror was curiously absent. Perhaps the fext believed that he would arise from this gruesome beheading. Thal heaved down on the blade and sliced through the final layer of muscle and skin.
He dropped his bloody and notched falchion and picked up the head with his hands. The eyes still pierced him with impotent hatred. The lips moved, but the throat could draw no breath to make words. The silent nightmarish cursing revolted Thal. He rushed to a brazier burning in the yard. He flung the head into the fire. His werewolves gathered around to observe the roasting of the enchanted head. Altea pressed close to Thal but she did not watch the horrific fire. Thal bent down and put his face against her thick fur, and let its softness soothe his haunted feelings.
His dog arrived after running around the tower and crossing the bridge. His loyal companion sat on his feet.
Valentino made the sign of the cross, and his men cowered behind him. The weathered ancient walls of the tower and the execution of the possessed man made them cling together like a litter of kittens, their previous differences in birth forgotten.
Mileko stopped next to Valentino. He wiped blood from his sword and watched the scene apprehensively. “I fear there’s more to be done,” he said.
“Such devilry,” Valentino whispered and ran his eyes up the weathered walls of the fortress.
Mileko circled the group that watched Janfelter’s head blacken and crackle. He approached Janfelter’s headless body. The limbs twitched and the fingers clawed the cobblestones.
Sarputeen watched over the convulsing body. When he was convinced that life would not abandon the body, he advanced on it again. He scratched at the armor on the torso until Mileko understood that Sarputeen wanted him to take it off. Mileko acted quickly. He tried to avoid looking directly at the soggy neck stump as the body flopped beneath his hands.
Once the armor was off, Sarputeen tore Janfelter’s garments from his chest and abdomen. He exposed a pale and muscular torso with a beet red organ and pale umbilical cord stapled onto it. With his claws he tore the organ away. Staples popped and a terrible smell burst forth like a spray of mushroom spores. Sarputeen wrinkled his snout and retreated.
Mileko pried away the half disconnected placenta with the tip of his sword. The body finally ceased its mindless movements.
The odor of delayed decomposition strengthened rapidly, and the body became instantly putrid. Thal and the others returned from the fire and observed the body. He had to put the back of his hand over his nose and retreat.
A cavernous silence descended on the tower. The silence of cowering servants. The silence of the wounded pretending to be dead. Thal had not even known that such a silence was possible, but in that quiet, he could sense the hostile presence of the enemy. A deep malice emanated from the building. He looked at the doors to the hall that his father had dragged Janfelter from. Somewhere in that stony bulk was a force that would always oppose him and never honor him.
His father sensed it too and came close to Thal, who put a hand upon Sarputeen’s shaggy white shoulder.
“This looks like it goes to the main reception hall,” Thal said. Candle light in the distance illuminated the edge of the corridor.
Sarputeen looked at Mileko, who advised, “This hall was obviously made as a defensive position. Let us go in by the stables and hunt him from a different direction.”
A dip of Sarputeen’s head showed his agreement with the suggestion.
“I will shift,” Thal said.
He went to where his sword lay on the ground near Janfelter’s defeated body and starting taking off his clothing. His haste produced an untidy pile of belongings that Pistol took up watch over.
Thal chanted his spell and welcomed the wrenching bliss of the transformation. With Altea and his father at his side and his pack behind him, he felt complete. This empowering union validated his existence. He had a place in the world and a purpose.
Mileko took them into the stronghold. They prowled the empty halls cautiously. The werewolves caught the scent of various people. They heard their hearts hammering with fear, but no one attacked because they were servants hiding for their lives. Sarputeen focused on a single scent. Once he filled his nostrils with it, old memories flared as if only days and not decades had passed. He judged that Tekax had changed. A diet filled with powerful medicines was keeping a decrepit body in motion. It was time for the sick to die.
Sarputeen entered the main hall. The scent was strong. He and Thal tread cautiously. Ottoman banners and wolf skins hung on the walls. Rows of candle stands dripped and flickered, and a circle of incense pots in the center of the hall belched pungent smoke. Floor tiles created a confusingly inconsistent mosaic pattern
Mileko and the other werewolves entered, followed by Valentino and his men. Thal signaled for them to spread out around the edges of the room, and then he advanced with Sarputeen. They scanned the floor before each step and looked for signs of attack from above. Curtains covered most of the galleries.
“Sarputeen!” The aged voice boomed unnaturally. The great voice sent a tremor through the cold stone hulk of the tower.
From the smoky center of the hall, Tekax emerged. He stood swathed in odoriferous heavy smoke as if he were barely flesh
The circle of werewolves pressed closer and sniffed skeptically. Sarputeen advanced into the smoke. The curling fume parted for his white body, and swishes of his tail sent the smoke outward. Tekax faded away.
“An illusion,” Mileko whispered. His mind tried to guess what mechanism could have produced this trick. He looked to the ceiling and galleries.
A flutter of a heavy curtain caught Mileko’s eyes. He pointed upward. “There!” he hissed. “Let me take you to the stairs.”
He dashed from the room. Thal followed, certa
in that his jaws would soon grasp the man who had caused so much trouble and innocent death. Everyone followed, except for Sarputeen who kept sniffing the place where Tekax had been. He peered about suspiciously. The evil intent of Tekax lingered over the place like he had urinated in the spot.
He worried suddenly that Tekax could be leading the others down a path to destruction. He exited the circle of incense burners, and a group of hidden traps burst from the paving stones. They had been cunningly concealed, and one pair of sharp metal jaws caught Sarputeen’s right hind leg.
The physical restraint halted him before his powerful mind processed the pain. He yanked stupidly on his limb before looking back to witness the calamity.
Panic pounded on his discipline. He was a great and powerful creature, willing to confront grim foes, but the simple contraption stymied him with its fierce grip. Despite his shock, he wondered what had triggered the trap. He knew that he had not stepped on any switch. He had checked carefully for such things when advancing into the room. He suspected that Tekax had rigged some unseen internal control through the stonework that he worked from above.
Although the excruciating pain of penetrated flesh and pierced bone assaulted him, only a single whimper passed Sarputeen’s black lips before he mastered himself. The pain bullied his consciousness toward a cliff of unthinking despair. He resisted the doom. He was Sarputeen, a worker of great magic, and he accepted that he had prepared his whole life for this great challenge.
He slumped on the floor and twisted feebly against the trap holding his leg. He took some deep breaths to gather his strength for what would come next.
Altea came back to him. She had been the last to leave his side, and the sharp horror of her maker’s suffering had tugged on her heart. She fretted at his wound and swung her head between his mangled leg and face. Sympathy flooded her eyes, and she whined with alarm.
Sarputeen placed a front paw on her muzzle to silence her. He did not want Thal to turn back. The final moments of the hunt were upon him, and he needed to reach Tekax. Sarputeen let go of his magic and lay naked with his blood-stained fur across him. His athletic male leg looked like a rotten branch inside the metal jaws. Altea tried to lick the blood away.
