by Heath Pfaff
Now it was quiet again.
Linna was leaning on her spear. “We should head towards the mountain and see what is to be seen. Hopefully this won’t take long. I’m exhausted. I want to get back to sleep.”
Zark gave a snort and shook his head. “They’re not going to let us sleep after this. We’ll be sent off to weapon training as soon as we’re done here. They hate to see us rested.”
“Let’s just make sure we survive this first. We can worry about what happens after that when we get to it.” I noted. “We have to kill a giant wolf now, and I’m not particularly pleased about the idea.” I’d been thinking about it, and Zark’s words stuck in my mind. This was going to change this town. A part of me knew it wasn’t real, that this was just a momentary glimpse into a world that might already be long dead, but that didn’t change my ability to look at the situation as if it were real. Killing this thing would take away the protection the people had depended on for a long time. For us it was just a challenge, an order given by those who were in charge, but for these desperate people we were altering the courses of the rest of their lives. Well, we would have been. I wondered if I was even supposed to be thinking about such things, or if I was really just here to kill.
We’d begun to walk as I continued along this line of thought. “Do you suppose whatever is happening could be undone? Maybe this infection the wolf has is curable? That would be better for everyone involved.”
“Maybe, but we were told to hunt the wolf, not save it.” Linna answered with a shrug. “I don’t know as we have the time or the resources to do anything above and beyond that. They seem generally content to send us out to achieve a single goal and come back. I think part of these challenges is accepting difficult orders and doing them, no matter how hard it is.”
“What if they give us orders that are wrong?” I pressed, honestly interested in hearing what the others thought of that problem. “What if they don’t know everything about a situation, or what if their orders are dangerous for us and without good cause?”
“Lillin, the Wardens are just like soldiers.” Zarkov added his own thoughts. “We have to do what we’re told to do. It’s the Iron Law. Right now our instructors give us orders, but eventually our orders will be mandates of the King himself. We can’t pick and choose which of his orders to follow. Besides, he has a much larger view of the world than we do. Maybe we can’t see everything he can. He’ll need us to do what he tells us to do.”
Linna was nodding. “We follow the King’s orders, but we have plenty of freedom beneath that. We decide how we follow his orders. It takes a lot of thought and improvisation. I think that’s why our orders are generally simple. They have a goal, but we have to find our way to the goal. This time our goal is to hunt the wolf. We’re not here to heal it, or to try to help these people really. It just so happens that our goal aligns with theirs.”
Their replies were exactly what we’d been taught in school. I was certain the Warden’s would be happy their training was taking so well, but I wasn’t nearly as satisfied. I wanted to be a Warden, but I wanted it so I could change what they were. I wanted it so things like what happened to Ori would never happen again, and that meant I had to change the way things worked. I couldn’t just accept my orders and go on. That was the path down which nothing got better.
“I don’t think following orders blindly is ever a good idea. Sometimes there will be orders that ask you to do terrible things, and I think if you’re not willing to question that, then things will get worse and worse. Some victories aren't worth what is necessary to give up in order to achieve them.” I said firmly, and I was remembering Ori. I wanted to tell them about Ori, about the golems, to make them see what I had seen. I couldn’t, of course.
“You have to be careful with those kinds of thoughts, Lil.” Zark’s voice was quiet and he shot me a concerned frown. “You can’t step too far out of line and expect to keep going forward here. Maybe it’ll be different when we’re full Wardens, but right now those kinds of thoughts will just get you in trouble.”
“Yeah, and we really don’t know much about the world. We’re young. The people giving the orders we follow have been around much longer, and they know more. There are good reasons why they tell us to do what we do.” Linna put in, smiling at me in a comforting way. Neither of them really knew, or could think of a reason to question what we were doing. I didn’t think there was any good way to convince them
I gave a shrug of defeat and let it go. We had work to do now, things that couldn’t be put off while we debated the nature of following orders. The opposite side of town, the one facing the mountains, was a mess. The houses here were badly damaged, doors hanging off hinges, dried blood dragged across the thresholds, and signs of violence spattered about. It was clear the beast was attacking the nearest houses to the road.
Even as we began to walk through them a howl sounded from the woods not far from where we stood. It was loud, echoing through the valley around us, and seeming to cause the night to go completely still. We exchanged knowing looks. It was coming and we didn’t have much time to prepare.
“This is too large for a snare, and we don’t have rope.” Zarkov pointed out.
“It’s a large beast, and that means it will have a lot of mass. We should try and get it to impale itself on Linna’s spear. That’s really the ideal weapon to take down something like this.” I suggested.
Linna was nodding her agreement. “If I can run my spear through its chest, it’ll die. There is no doubting that. If you two can get it to charge we can take care of this quickly. I don’t see any point in stalking the creature. It’s coming here anyway. I’ll take up position behind one of these houses, and you two can lure it to move and show off any tricks it has. I’ll watch, and when the time presents itself I’ll give a sharp whistle call and spring our trap.”
Zarkov groaned. “Just don’t take too long. I don’t want to be chased by a wolf all night. It sounds exhausting, and I’d prefer not to go home with any massive tooth marks in my body.”
Linna grinned at him. “Scars are charming, Zark. You should be excited at the prospect of a few new ones. What doesn't kill you just makes you more handsome.”
I felt a slight surge of jealousy at that comment, but I pushed it down. It was foolish to get jealous over some general banter and play, and it wasn’t like Zarkov and I were actually in a relationship. “Well, I must be the most handsome one here then.” I noted dryly. “That would explain why all the girls are lining up to date me.”
Linna laughed. “Yes, I know I can hardly resist you. This entire time I can’t get it out of my head how badly I’d like to . . . “
The howl sounded again, much closer, and our moment of levity ended. Linna’s expression firmed, and the moment of merriment fled to the wind as we took up positions. I stood on one side of the road and Zarkov stood on the other. Linna vanished behind a nearby home. We held our places and waited. It turned out that we didn’t need to wait long.
The beast came stalking down the center of the road making no effort to hide itself. The size was alarming. I’d seen wolves before, though only in captivity, but this one dwarfed any I’d ever encountered. It was larger than a pack mule, as we’d been told, and every inch of it rippled with muscle. It had white fur, or fur that had once been white, but now it was a dingy gray color, and as it drew nearer I could see black things wiggling and writhing through its once pristine coat. They looked like snakes, but as I watched them they dug into the beast’s hide, burrowing through its flesh as though nested within the poor thing. It was infested, a bit like the Fel Clerics but to a much greater degree. It’s eyes were tarnished gold.
It stopped just as it was about to enter the town, lifting its nose to the air and taking in the scents before it. Those tarnished eyes immediately snapped to Zarkov, and then to me, and a low, deep growl rumbled through the air. I had my weapon in hand, and my body was coiled, ready to move. We had to determine this creature’s capabilities. L
inna would need to see it move before she attacked because she’d only get one good run with her spear.
It snarled, sharp canine teeth exposed, one of the dark worm creatures crawling from it’s mouth just to dive back into its cheek. It was unnerving to witness, but I tried to remain calm. The wolf charged. The burst of speed was sudden and explosive. It went right for Zark, darting across the ground with a lethal burst of speed. He dashed and rolled from its path and it tumbled past as it tried to stop the forward momentum it had created, rolling across the ground in a cloud of dust and a shower of dirt.
Zarkov was back on his feet and moving into a stronger position as I snuck up behind the beast and spun my staff with all the speed I could muster, delivering a staggering blow to the back leg of the wolf-thing. I’d expected it to fracture at the hit, and I did hear a snap, but to my horror a mass of the black snake-worm things erupted from the struck skin and bound the torn flesh back, knotting into the damaged area like cords of muscle around bone.
It rounded on me, jaws extending as it snapped forward, trying to get a hold of me. I jumped back, swinging my staff defensively and slapping it hard in the side of the head. The blow should have stopped the creature in its tracks, but it kept coming forward. I turned and ran as the beast came clambering after.
One of the advantages of having a staff weapon was that it offered a mobility that other weapons didn’t allow for. I used that to my advantage in that moment. As I ran I planted the end of the staff and used my forward momentum to lift and fling myself with the flexibility of the pole. I sailed through the air and landed atop a nearby roof, rolling and coming back to my feet quickly as the wolf behind me growled and snapped at the roofline.
I wasn’t certain that I was safe where I was. The wolf was huge and it might have been capable of following me up onto the roof. I heard Zark give a roar and then saw him charge the wolf’s flank. His weapon flashed as he struck again and again, and this certainly got the wolf-god’s attention. It spun back around, snapping at him as he took off running the other way.
The wolf was on him quickly, changing direction and darting down on him as though it intended to end him without a moment of hesitation. I heard a signal whistle from off to one side and realized that Linna was ready for us now. The roof beneath me passed in a blur as I raced to the end and used my staff to jump across the street to another building. It was a long fling, but I had experience with such movements at that point. I landed smoothly and had gained ground on the wolf and Zark. I leapt down from this rooftop and brought the staff down on the center of the creature’s back as I sailed past.
While I was close to its body I saw one of the terrible, black snake-like things reach for me and just avoided contact with it as I dove aside and turned back in the direction of Linna’s signal. I had no desire to be touched by whatever parasite had infested the poor creature. That seemed dangerous. If those things could take down that massive wolf, I didn’t want to know what they would do if they got themselves inside of me.
I hit the ground running, charging in the direction I’d heard Linna signal from, and the wolf was after me quickly. It had to entirely change directions to get to me, but it did so fast. Having a monster breathing down my neck was great inspiration to run as hard as I ever had before. I gave myself fully to running away and just as I rounded the house in front of me, Linna was suddenly there, charging the opposite way. We passed within inches of one another.
I heard her groan as she fell to the ground and brought her spear up directly in the charging wolf’s path, planting the blunt end. It was too late for our god-creature to stop itself. I barely had time to break my own momentum and turn. The wolf fell on the spear with a roar of rage, imbedding the weapon nearly three quarters of the way into its chest as Linna rolled out and away, looking quite unhappy that she’d lost her weapon.
The wolf roared and snapped at the air, trying to get its jaws on the end of the spear, but it couldn’t manage it. It should have just dropped dead. There was no way that spear hadn’t struck both it’s lungs and heart as it went through, and the blade was large and double sided.
The wolf turned and growled, snarling at us as it circled in the street, black blood dripping from the new wound as those terrible snake-like things writhed around the hole in its body. I realized that it wasn’t going to die. We’d hurt it, but it wasn’t ready to stop yet. I prepared myself for an attack, but instead it turned and began to run back up the path towards the mountain, limping heavily on one side, probably because of the angle of the spear in its chest.
Zarkov approached, looking after it. “Did you miss?” He asked, having not been close enough to see Linna’s attack.
“Of course not.” She laughed. “I don’t miss.”
“It’s true. She hit exactly where she should have. That spear is straight through the creature’s heart and lungs, but it’s still going.” I added.
“Well we can’t just let it go. We’ll have to track it.” Zarkov didn’t sound pleased as he looked up the road after where it had gone.
“It might bleed out. We might have already hurt it enough to end this. We’ll just follow after and make sure it’s down.” Linna sounded hopeful. “There is no way it can survive those injuries for long. I don’t care how many worms it is full of.”
“Keep your distance from those things.” I warned the others. “I got close to one while I was turning the wolf away from Zark that last time and it reached for me. I think they’re definitely key to whatever happened to the creature. I don’t want to become like that wolf.”
“They remind me of the worms in the Tortured.” Zarkov noted, disgust on his face. “Only these ones don’t seem to kill you, they just get inside and take over. The thing smells dead already.” I’d had the same thought myself, though it seemed like there was more to it than the worms just taking over. In some way it reminded me a bit of the dark liquid beneath the school. The worms, to me, felt as though they had a malevolent and unified purpose, though that might have been my imagination filling in details that weren’t present. It was the human mind’s natural instinct to personify things, especially where patterns could be found.
We followed after the trail left by the beast, and it wasn’t hard to do. It was dripping black ichor and there was a trail of writhing snake creatures in its wake, though they seemed to be weakening and dying. We followed that trail for nearly an hour before we reached an old iron fence surrounding an offshoot of the main road. Beyond the fence the woods grew denser, as though this was some kind of preserve, an untouched place in the woods. There was a wooden sign to one side, but it had been knocked over recently. The sign read “Heart Shrine.” The trail of black ichor lead inside.
“It’s in here. We need to be cautious.” Linna said.
I took my staff weapon and separated the two halves, passing one to her. She took it and gave me a nod and a small, tense smile. It was best that we were all armed in some way. We knew what to do. The enemy was large. We would strike it where openings lay, distract it from our companions when it became too intent on a single target, and keep attacking until it was finished. This was standard tactics, even if the enemy was a bit beyond our normal scope.
The stench in the air here was putrid and foul. Moving further into the sanctuary only served to make the smell stronger. A little up from the gate we found a body. Linna approached it cautiously, and I saw her expression turn grim as she made the same realization I had just made. It was a child. It was mauled, laying face down on the ground, unmoving. The skin was ashen and cracked, dried blood and pus filling the cracks. Flies swarmed about it heavily. I’d never seen a corpse that quite looked like that before, but there was no doubt in my mind that it was a corpse.
“Poor child.” Linna said, her voice agonized.
I had to agree. Against that wolf the little one had never even had a chance. We began to walk by, and then the corpse began to move. Immediately we all jumped to alert. It didn't make a sound other than the tussling of it
’s body against the ground as it staggered to its feet. The child must have been eleven or twelve years old when it died, judging by the size, but now it was distended and misshapen. It turned to us with milky yellow eyes streaked with black. It reminded me a bit of a Warden’s eyes, but the black that was subtle in some Warden’s eyes was heavily streaked in this horror’s face. It lunged forward, surprisingly fast as it dashed towards Zarkov, the person who’d been nearest.
Zark danced backwards and out of the way, shooting us a confused look. He had his weapon in hand and could have easily struck his attacker, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to hit a child, I realized, as he dove away from another attack. Linna too stood frozen, half of my weapon hanging uselessly in her hand.
“It’s not a child!” I barked loudly. “You have to put it down.”
Zarkov looked at me, but danced aside again. “I . . . I can’t!” He said. “It still . . . she’s just a little girl.”
I opened my mouth to yell at Zarkov, but then Linna charged forward. Her movement was fast and decisive. She struck the thing in the head hard, once, twice, and a third time before it’s skull collapsed and it convulsed roughly and fell to the ground, twitching at a slowing rate until it laid still. She’d gotten over her initial hesitance quickly. There were none of those worms in this body. What, then, was causing it to move? I knew we likely wouldn’t get an answer to that. We never really found answers.
