by SM Reine
They looked at the book, knowing there was information in there they needed, but both powerless to do anything about it.
“We could bring it with us,” said Aein. “We could try and find someone who can read.”
Finn shook his head. “We are walking into a battlefield. We will need both our hands to keep alive.”
She knew he spoke the truth.
“Perhaps you can go through the pages and see if there are any more drawings,” offered Finn.
She began to flip. There seemed to be instructions on how to cut various meats. There were drawings of vegetables and herbs that she recognized, items common to the kitchen. And then something gave her pause. She pointed. “Those berries,” she said.
Finn looked closer. “Blueberries? We eat them frequently at court.”
Aein shook her head. “There were berries in the swamp. They looked like blueberries, but they weren’t.”
“And?” he asked, not following her stream of thought.
“I ate them,” she replied. “I ate them, and even though I touched the mushrooms, I did not change. Lars.” Her breath caught in her chest, realizing what had happened that night when the sentry was killed outside their camp ring. “He wouldn’t eat them, he said they might be poisonous. But he was playing around and touched the mushrooms. He smelled them. He tasted one. It happened hours before the other guards were killed by some… creature. Lars was roaming the swamp when I found him the next morning. What if… what if that was when it started?”
“Oh my gods,” said Finn.
“But the berries,” Aein pressed on. “They stopped me from transforming. They protected me.”
A light began to shine in Finn’s eyes, a light that seemed to have been extinguished upon the moment that he discovered his true nature. “You mean,” he said, “there might be a cure?”
Aein cautioned. “But the berries were late in their season. This was months ago. Even then, so many of the birds had eaten them. I don’t know if there will be anymore.”
“If there aren’t any,” he said, “we will just wait in the swamp until they grow again. We will bring a whole harvest back to the people. We will save them!”
Chapter Fourteen
“We just need to keep them from killing each other until I can get back,” said Aein.
“Killing each other or leaving the stronghold,” added Finn.
They stole through the dark hallways, listening for any sign of survivors. Thus far, anyone who still lived was successfully hiding, which was probably the reason why they were still alive.
“If only we could separate them,” said Aein. “If we could somehow explain to each side to lock themselves away before they transformed.”
Finn raised an eyebrow as he mulled over Aein’s words. “That is not such a bad idea.”
“But how?” asked Aein. She motioned to the stretch ahead of them. Doors were ripped from their hinges. The glass from the windows lay shattered on the floor. The tall, iron candelabras which usually lit the way lay knocked over on their side. Benches and furniture were smashed apart. And then there were the broken and mangled bodies which served as warning to anyone who might venture out.
“I assume this keep has a dungeon?” he asked.
Aein nodded.
“Well, that sounds like as good a place as any to store people away.”
Aein disagreed. “And how do you propose we get a gaggle of scared people through the stronghold and past a pack of rabid werewolves without getting them all killed?”
“You’ll figure it out,” he shrugged, flashing her a smile. He walked over to one of the doors. “I learned this from you,” he said. He rapped gently three times. He paused and then rapped three more times before moving on to the next door.
Aein looked over her shoulder, her hands gripping her sword as she scanned the hallway. They walked half the length of the stronghold, knocking on every closed door, before they finally heard a response.
“Is someone there?” a muffled voice shouted from the other side of the door.
“We have come to rescue you,” said Finn.
“It is a trick!” someone shouted. “They’ll turn as soon as you open it!”
There was the sound of a scramble, of something heavy being thrown. The voices became angry, but were hushed so that Aein and Finn could not hear exactly what was being said. There was a scuffle, a thud, and then the door opened a crack.
A crowd of people peered out at them. “Thank gods!” a woman wept as she opened the door wider. Desperate hands reached out and pulled Aein and Finn in. “We thought we had been abandoned!”
“There is a curse!” said an older male servant, clutching at Aein’s tunic.
The same woman pulled on Finn’s injured arm and cried, “It is true! Every day, for one minute at sunrise and sunset, I see those I love, but... but they are wolves!”
Aein could see he was ready to pass out from the pain, and she gently guided the woman away.
“Why do they run from us?” asked a balding advisor.
The voices piled on, one on top of the other as the entire room explained at once the horrors they had endured.
Finn raised his hands to silence them. “Please! Please! We are aware of the situation! We are here to help you.”
“How?” spat a rotund man. “How do you propose to do that?”
“I have found a cure,” explained Aein, her arm still around the woman’s shoulders. “I just need you to stay alive long enough for me to bring it to you.”
“And how do you suggest we keep alive while you soldiers go off, merrily as can be, and leave us to fend for ourselves?” said the man. He motioned to the twenty other people in the room. “In this stronghold of hundreds, there are just a few of us left.”
“I know,” said Aein. “I know! You must believe me… I know this is hard to hear, but you have been struck by the same curse, too. Yes, at sunset, those you love turn into wolves. But every morning at the dawn, you all transform into beasts, too, and you kill your most beloved. I need you to not just save yourselves, but to stop killing the wolves.”
Gasps and disbelieving cries filled the room.
“What she says is true,” said Finn. “I have been struck by this curse, too.”
In one motion, the room shrank back from the two of them. Aein tried to restore order in the panic.
“He is no danger! He will not transform until the dawn! Just like you! What I need you to do is…” She tried to come up with the eloquence to explain her idea. “What I need you to do is lock yourselves in the cells in the dungeon.”
“What?” blustered the man again. “You mean to make us sitting ducks? Nothing but caged chickens for those beasts to snack on whenever they please?”
“Please,” said Aein, “listen to me. We will put you in the cell tonight with the keys. When you transform, you will be locked inside. I will stay awake to tell the others, the ones who transform with the sunset of our plan. I will stay and make sure they do not harm you. Once we have everyone separated, you can walk the castle safely during the times you are in human form. And then you only have to return to your cells before the sunrise and everyone will be safe.”
“This is the most ridiculous idea I have ever heard! You should be out there killing those beasts!”
“I just need your cooperation until I can return—”
Another woman pushed forward. Her face was wrinkled and her hair was gray. She pointed her finger at Aein. “You say you know of a cure?”
Aein nodded. “There are some berries in the swamp—”
“That’s a two week ride away!” said the man, causing another uproar.
“I have made it in a week,” said Aein. “On a fast horse with little to carry, I can get there and get back swiftly. But I must have your help.”
“I say we listen to the warrior,” the woman said. “She’s stayed alive long enough.”
“But what about those creatures?” asked the rotund man.
“Those creatures are your loved ones,” reminded Finn. “Every one that we kill is someone you care about that can never be brought back again.”
There was a murmur that ran through the group.
“We must discuss this,” the older woman said, turning away from Finn and Aein. The twenty people huddled together in hushed, but animated conversation.
At any other time, thought Aein, she would have just commanded them to go. She would have wielded the power of the warrior to make them do what she wanted them to do. But those days were done. She needed their cooperation.
Finally, the woman turned back. “We’ll do it. But you must lock this soldier you say is infected in with us. We’ll not have him running around if this is all some joke. He is our hostage and if you play us for fools, his life is forfeit.”
Aein looked at Finn, thinking she was going to have to convince him to go along, but he readily accepted their offer. “No one is safe with me on the loose,” he said. “I gladly join you.”
The old woman nodded. “Very well. Lead us down to the dungeon. Put us wherever you would have us.”
Aein cracked open the door and looked down the hallway. It appeared to be deserted. She did not understand why the wolves had not attacked yet. There had been only one in the kitchen and the few sounds that they heard in the halls. Had they all escaped while in human form? She shivered thinking about what might be waiting for her as she went into the swamps to retrieve the berries.
She edged her way along the wall, motioning for the people to follow her. Down into the bowels of the stronghold they went, the feet of twenty people trying to be quiet on the echoing flagstones. Aein had never realized how much the sound carried until experiencing the silence of the usually humming fortress. She took the lead as Finn brought up the rear.
There was a noise ahead of her. She held up her hand, indicating everyone should stop. That was all the warning they had as a pack of five wolves came running around the corner at them.
In an instant, the hallway was thrown into chaos. Screams pierced the air. Aein and Finn fought off the beasts as best they could, trying to buy time for the people they had sworn they would protect.
They got to the stairwell and managed to shut the door behind them. The door took a beating as the beasts kept throwing themselves against the wood.
“Hurry!” Finn shouted, waving at the crew to move. Screaming, they tore into the dungeon. She found an empty barred room.
“Where are the keys?” she shouted at Finn.
Instantly the entire room was looking for the ring. The body of a dead jailor lay beside the table. Aein pushed him over and looked on his belt. There they were! Her fingers fumbled with the man’s buckle.
“Hurry, woman!” the older man yelled at her.
Her hands were so slick from blood and sweat, they couldn’t grab the leather. The sound of the werewolves was coming down the hall. They would be here any minute.
She finally got the ring off. Shaking, she put the key in the lock, turned it, and heard the click as it released. She swung the door open and everyone climbed inside. Finn was the last one in, and made it just as the first werewolf leapt into the room. The monster sprang at the jail door and it closed beneath the force of his body with a loud clang. Though he swiped at them with his paws, all twenty-two people were able to push themselves against the back wall of the cell, safe from harm.
“We made it,” said Finn, shock and disbelief in his voice. A cheer rang out from the people around them. Finn grabbed Aein in a fierce hug and planted a kiss upon her forehead. “We made it!”
She was so exhausted and his arms felt so good. “We made it,” she repeated back as she leaned against him. Her knees buckled, suddenly unable to continue on. “We made it…”
Finn took her weight and lowered her to the floor. “Sleep,” he said. “We’re safe. These bars are too strong for any beast to break. Sleep and I will wake you at sunrise.”
He rested her head against his shoulder, and she did not fight. She was asleep by her second blink, feeling safe for the first time since the entire nightmare began.
Chapter Fifteen
She awoke to someone shaking her gently.
“Aein,” he whispered in her ear.
She snuggled closer, pressing her full body against him and sighing happily. “Mmm…”
“Aein, it is almost the dawn.”
Her eyes flew open, at once remembering where she was and what was going on. She lifted her head. She and Finn had somehow, in the middle of the night, slid completely onto the floor and she had commandeered his chest as a pillow.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he said, with a twinkle in his eyes.
For a moment, for just a split second between being asleep and awake, she thought that the world was a different place. She thought that the man whose embrace she rested in was a lover, not a brother-in-arms. She had just a few blessed seconds where the world had not been turned atop its head.
But the roar of a wolf brought reality crashing down around her.
She stood and brushed off her clothes. The werewolves were circling the outside of the cell like they were the ones in the cage. They batted their paws through the openings. They clamped their fangs onto the bars. But the cell held.
“So you say that we will turn into creatures like them,” said the rotund man.
Aein nodded. “Yes. In just a few minutes.” She looked around. “Where are the keys to the cell?”
Finn scanned the cell. “You had them.”
She shook her head and then looked through the bars. There they were. Sitting in the middle of the floor.
“Oh gods,” she said, looking back at the people in the cell with them. “Oh gods! The keys are outside the cell! I left them in the lock and they fell out!”
She looked back over. The werewolves were beginning to change. They were writhing upon the floor in agony. Their fur was falling off. Their true faces began to emerge once again.
“Peitrav!” shouted one of the women from behind the bars.
“Mother?” he asked, slowly coming to his human self and realizing where he was. “What are you doing inside the prison?”
At once, all of the people who recognized their loved ones in the pack swarmed against the cages of the door. Touching each other’s hands. Pressing against one another for that one blessed minute where time overlapped.
Aein shouted, “I need the keys!” She kept pointing but no one would listen to her. “Give me the keys!”
And then suddenly the minute was done and the sun was coming over the horizon. The people around her recoiled back as the inner torment began working its way through them.
“What is going on?” asked Pietrav.
“I need the keys!” shouted Aein desperately. “I have to get out! Give me the keys!”
The boy looked around and made a grab for them, but they were accidentally kicked away by another man who was scanning the floor for the very thing Aein needed.
“The keys! PLEASE! For the love of the gods! Hurry!”
Pietrav dived for the key ring and picked it up. “Which one?” he asked, showing her the heavy ring.
“Just try! Just keep trying!” said Aein, looking over her shoulder at the people who had been her allies and were now moments away from turning on her. She looked at Finn, at her dear, sweet Finn, as his eyes began to change from blue to yellow, as his teeth began to elongate, as the soul inside no longer recognized her as anything other than food for his insatiable hunger.
“HURRY!” Aein shouted again, pushing against the bars of the cell as if she somehow could fit through them.
There was a growl behind her and she knew it was too late. She turned, ready to meet her fate when the lock clicked and the door swung open. She raced outside, just as the first wolf finished its transformation. She slammed the door shut behind herself.
Her hands shook as the wolves inside went wild, throwing themselves against the bars as if they might be able to rip them from their
joints.
“What is going on?” said a woman striding into the room.
Aein turned and almost wept with gladness. The tall, dark princess was as lovely as she had been on her wedding day. She did not show signs of a single injury. She did not show an indication time had even passed. “Princess Gisla! You’re alive!”
“Of course I’m alive!” she said. She looked at the cage full of beasts and gave a low whistle. “How did you get all of them in there?”
Aein put her hand on the princess’s arm. Gisla recoiled and looked at her in disgust, as if she could not believe someone of Aein’s status would dare to touch her.
Aein stopped her. “Finn is in there,” said Aein.
Princess Gisla stepped closer, scanning the rabid faces of the werewolves for the one face she knew. “Finn?” she whispered.
Aein felt the strangest twinge of jealousy at the way Gisla looked for Finn, the way this betrothed princess sought him out like he meant something more than a soldier should to his liege. Aein pushed the feelings down, reminding herself that once she thought Lord Arnkell looked at her that way, too. She was wrong about people. “I convinced them to lock themselves away when the transformation took place so that you all might be free. But in return, you must lock yourselves away, because with the dark of twilight, you, too, will be so transformed. I just need time.”
“Time for what?”
“I believe I have found a cure.”
“A cure?” asked Princess Gisla, turning away from the cell.
“I found it in a book in the kitchen… only…” Aein stopped, realizing how ridiculous it all sounded.
“Only?”
“I cannot read the writing. I can only see the pictures. I tasted these berries and I have not transformed. I believe that they are responsible for keeping me safe.”
Gisla folded her arms. “Where is this kitchen?”
Aein nodded her head towards the steps. “That direction.”
Gisla began walking off.
“Where are you going?” Aein asked.
“To read this book of yours.”
Aein felt so stupid. Of course Gisla would be able to read. Aein trotted after her. “It was the mushroom dish that was served at your wedding. That is what caused all of this.”
