Prince Wolf

by A. Katie Rose

  A Khalidian soldier rushed in with a sharp hand-held axe. He raised it high, his lips skinned back from white teeth in a grimace of effort. Unlike the Tongu, he reveled in his lust for blood, the torment, the grief he and his brothers brought. His eyes danced with the pleasure he felt in causing this innocent creature great pain.

  Chuckling, he slashed downward.

  The axe plunged through her foreleg and buried itself in the loose soil.

  Her left front leg, snapped off above her knee, lay twitching in the dust, still tied to its peg.

  Her wail, her scream, ripped through my already shattered heart.

  “Gods, gods,” I howled, my own voice of agony matching hers.

  “She suffers so you might rush in to save her. And thus you will be trapped.”

  Darius’s words struck me like the Tongu’s club, my senses reeling.

  Of course.

  To capture the world’s largest wolf, they needed the right bait. This was a child, a young wolfling hardly old enough to fend for herself. A young she-wolf, inexperienced, naïve, foolish, fell right into their plots. They’d bring her such agonizing pain that I’d rush in, in a wild attempt to save her. Their trap sprung, I’d lose my freedom and the wolves their hope. This child would then die in agony, her use forgotten, and they’d drag me to Brutal’s feet, chained at last.

  “You must save her.”

  “How?” I cried. “Even if I took her from them, she’ll die. She’s lost too much blood.”

  “She is strong, her heart is great. She can live for many hours or even days, lingering in this horror. End her agony.”

  I sank back. “What?”

  “You have magic. Put an end to her suffering.”

  “Kill her?”

  “Yes.”

  The spit in my mouth dried to dust. “I don’t know how.”

  “You know how. Do it. Quickly.”

  Gods protect me, I thought. Gods protect us both.

  The Khalidians and the Tongu noticed me at last. Their yells, cheers and cries fell silent one by one. Tongu assassins gripped their cudgels, their bows. Several soldiers filled their hands with a huge net, similar to what Brutal created to snare Bar. The hounds remained chained, but their growls filled the new silence as they caught my scent. Their eyes glowed silver discs in the light of the leaping flames.

  They must cross many rods to reach me. I ignored them for a space and pondered hard and furiously. My size and reputation created a certain degree of caution in them. Rush me too soon and they risked my escaping the baited trap. I might run instead of save her. With luck, I earned a few precious moments.

  Taking Ja’Teel’s attempt to murder Corwyn as an example, I sent my thought out toward the young she-wolf. That effort only brought her suffering toward me in even sharper relief. It wasn’t enough, and sent my belly into an alarming twist.

  Coiling my thoughts, my will, down inside myself, I sent it outwards, as though I hurled a stone hard and far. High, fast, I cast myself, hurtling through the darkness, under the light of the stars. Toward the young wolf, I slammed my will, my mind, my consciousness.

  I crashed like bouncing boulder into her mind.

  We collided.

  Instantly, I encountered her mindless panic, her agony. Her pain swamped me in a swift deluge, as though someone had thrown a pot of offal over my head. The scent of blood and madness, the power of her intense suffering, her helplessness, claimed me as they claimed her. I suffered along with her. Her pain was my pain. Her panic my panic. Her helplessness swamped me. Her frantic need to escape all but overwhelmed me, almost forcing me out. My scream coincided with hers.

  I reached out with my will. Whether the knowledge came from Rygel’s vast education or from some basic instinct of my own, I’ll never know. I sought for, and found, the trigger within her brain that blocked all input. As I had blocked out both the wolves voices and Darius from my head, I wedged a solid barrier between her nerve endings and the agony from without. As a flooded river no longer flows over the waterfall, I clogged the influx of horror and pain.

  Her breathing slowed, the loud pounding of her heart beat to a softer rhythm. She relaxed, no longer suffering. The inner wolf looked at me – and panicked.

  Her mind skittered like a frightened fawn, trying to escape. “What? Who?”

  “Dear one,” I said, trying to soothe, to comfort. “I’m here to help.”

  “Get out, get out, get out of my mind –“

  “Easy little sister, my blood, relax. I’m the good guy.”

  “I don’t understand, what is this, who are –“

  She suddenly stilled as though catching a familiar scent. I felt her fears grow quieter, her terror washed away on a flood of recognition. “I know you. I know you. You’re The Chosen One.”

  “I am, dear one.”

  “You will save me?”

  I froze, unable to answer. I could not. Guilt, shame, horror closed over my mind. I came to kill her, not save her.

  As we shared one mind, she knew my thoughts. Yet her spirits lifted like a feather on a light summer breeze.

  “You will save me. You will set me free.”

  “I can free you only by –“ I choked off the rest. I dared not speak, though she easily read my mind, my heart, my torment.

  Her inner voice surged over my grief like a tide. “I have no wish to live in a world this cruel. Release me, Chosen One. Let me go.”

  “I am so sorry. I brought this upon you. Forgive me. Please.”

  “Be strong, Child of Darius. Kill me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You must.”

  Darius’s voice intruded, almost loud inside the stillness of the young she-wolf’s mind. “Do what you know is right.”

  Gods, I thought. This is wrong.

  “Steal their victory. Be a wolf. You are her pack leader and will save her.”

  “I can’t murder her!”

  “End her pain, my son. My Chosen One. Her Chosen One.”

  “Forgive me,” I cried.

  That sweet child laughed, free of pain and despair, her soul surging toward the light that is the end of all things. Her spirit rose, dancing, longing to be free. “I will. I do.”

  My magic, like my hand, closed over her living, beating heart.

  I wept, tearless, my soul swamped with grief. “May we meet again, sweet girl.”

  She spoke with her own voice, high, firm, articulate. “I love you, Chosen One. I forgive you.”

  As my fist once crushed a hanap of silver and gems, I closed my strong hand around her heart. Like an overripe fruit, her heart burst, a shattered vessel of blood and life. It ceased its healthy, life-sustaining beat, and collapsed upon itself, blood spurting in all directions deep inside her chest.

  Her mind, her body, lived on for a few more moments.

  “Thank you, Chosen One.”

  “I –“

  “Avenge me.”

  “I can’t, I –“

  “Avenge me, black wolf. Will you do it, my savior?”

  I shut my fangs, and hardened my heart.

  “I will, little girl.”

  “Swear to me.”

  My heart stiffened, craving the need to deny that impossibility, yet knowing I must do as she asked. “I so swear, spirit of the wind who speaks from afar. You will be avenged, or I will die.”

  “Than –“

  As I was still with her, in her, I felt her body die. Her soul rose, free of all her earthly constraints, rushed ever upward and onward. Toward that light that shone so bright, her guide onto her next journey.

  Did I see her fangs gleaming in the starlight, grinning a lupine grin? Did she linger a moment, dancing upon the air, to laugh down at me? Did she fly now as free as a winging hawk, her bonds to this earth broken now forever?

  I hoped so.

  She vanished.

  In the dust, her mutilated body sank into the dust and collapsed, a mere husk of the free spirit who had once inhabited it.

/>   I blinked owlishly, slowly returning to myself. Part of me still floated above the earth, dancing with the free soul of the wolf I’d just murdered. I could hear, but I couldn’t see.

  “He’s just standing there.”

  “The King wants him alive, so no funny stuff. Get that bloody net ready, dammit.”

  “It’s gonna take a miracle and a half to catch that one healthy and unharmed. You sure of this?”

  A hissing Tongu voice dampened the others. “Take him and take him alive. Understand?”

  The voice lowered, as though speaking into a waiting ear. “I don’t much like these filthy assassins. Maybe the King made a mistake in trusted them.”

  “Mistake or no, we’ll be crucified if we fail.”

  Another voice spoke louder, an order. “You fellows with the clubs, circle behind him. Clip him upside his head. He’ll be easy to catch if he’s out cold.”

  I blinked.

  Four or five Tongu assassins sidestepped carefully to my flanks, their dark, glittering eyes on me. They held their clubs ready, slowly closing in. Four troopers held wide the net, more than a dozen arrayed behind and to either side. Still more soldiers and Tongu rushed in from their camp, the corpse of the young wolf forgotten, discarded like so much rubbish.

  That innocent child, I thought, my rage growing. I saw what they’d done, through her mind. They’d drugged a piece of raw meat and set their trap. Hungry, too young and inexperienced to be wary, she attacked the bait. They took her when the sleeping drugs overcame her.

  “Avenge me,” she whispered.

  My fury doubled.

  “If they want me,” I growled. “They can come and take me.”

  “Don’t –“ Darius began.

  He spoke too late.

  I changed into my human form. I whipped my sword from its sheath.

  “C’mon, boys,” I snarled, my voice hoarse with restrained fury. “Let’s dance.”

  The royals paused in sudden shock to find me human, armed and really, really pissed. They met the eyes of the Bloody Wolf, the champion of Khalid, the killer of killers. My lip curled in a feral grin as my sensitive nose caught the acrid odor of piss. Ah. The boyish soldier, no more than sixteen, standing to my far right wet himself.

  The net’s forward motion halted. The Tongu recoiled, lowering their cudgels, blinking in confusion when the dumb beast they stalked suddenly stood on two feet and spoke. They backed away, as though rethinking their resolve to take me alive.

  In the distance, their hounds, straining against their tethers, howled and cried and lunged, hoping to break free. Those not committed to battle threw more wood on the conflagrations. The stone-ringed fires leapt high, casting a wide, yellow-orange light.

  “How many tough-guys did it take to tie down and torture a half-grown cub?” I snarled, my human voice mingled with my wolf growl. “Care to take on a wolf just a wee bigger?”

  My daemon lunged upward, struggling, straining to be free. That crazy daemon, my inner rage, my protector, my friend, rose once more to defend me. He’d been with me since my first days of slavery after my rape at the hands of my fellow slaves. I fought in the arena without him, for I never let my rage control me. Never before had I released him from his prison. Never before did I dare allow him his freedom. For whom would he harm? The people I loved?

  The only one I loved within range of his deadly fangs was already dead. The choice was easy.

  I set him free.

  Through my daemon’s slitted eyes, I marked my enemies. His voice roared upward from my lungs into a half-howling, half-screaming challenge. With his fury thrumming through my muscles, I spun my sword and charged.

  The brave Khalidians dropped their net. Well-trained, they yanked swords from sheaths and fell into the battle formation of a well-disciplined unit. The pimple-faced sixteen year old soldier hesitated. Before he could draw half-way, my steel slashed his head from his neck. It bounced across his neighbor’s boots, rolled and came to rest nose first against a cavalry spur. His arching spurt of blood splashed his brothers in a fine red fountain as his body first slumped, then toppled to the ground.

  Those hardened soldiers stared, aghast, at the boy’s head at their feet. Their discipline wavered, then crumbled. Naked fear stole many a man’s heart, and the entire unit recoiled for a nanosecond. I almost heard their thoughts – what the –?

  Take out the weakest for shock value, I half-thought. Then take out the leader. I singled him out, the soldier with the trappings of a lieutenant and the voice ordering the Tongu to hit me with their clubs. Spinning my sword, its sharp war-cry mingled with mine, I leaped into his personal space before he could blink. My blade sliced him across his unarmored chest from shoulder to thigh. He shrieked like a girl as his entrails bulged amid his torn purple and gold uniform. My backstroke caught him across the bridge of his nose. He went down, choking to death on his own blood.

  Despite their panic, Brutal’s soldiers attacked as a unit. Though their orders were to take me alive, I reckoned they wanted to save their skins first and foremost. A saber hacked from the darkness toward my head. Quicker than the blade, I shifted shape. The hissing steel passed over my wolf’s head, missing by a foot, and cut across his brother soldier’s eyes. That poor fool screamed, blinded, dropped his sword and stumbled away. No need to slay the helpless. Ignoring him, I lunged forward, snarling.

  My fangs slashed the soldier’s thigh, cutting deep into his femoral artery as he tried in vain to kick me away. Apparently, he’d forgotten what his sword was supposed to do, for it drooped from his lax hand. Seizing his wrist, I twisted my head sharply right and neatly flipped the madly screaming, bleeding royal into the oncoming charge of another. Both went down. Trying to charge in, a third trooper tripped and fell, cursing.

  I pounced. My jaws closed on the trooper’s pale, panicked face and I crunched once. His instantly dead weight prevented the second to rise from the entanglements of the first man currently bleeding to death.

  Realizing their close-quarter tactics failed utterly, the second-in-command screamed an order. “Circle him, dammit! Take him down!”

  I lunged upward, shifting, my sword in my hand. He took one swift glance at me before my blade gutted him from his belly to his throat. Kicking him free of my steel, I swung around and ducked in the same instant. The blade that passed harmlessly over my head left the soldier ridiculously wide open. Where did these boys learn to fight? I sank mine into his chest, twisted once, and yanked it free to slash downward across the next foolishly charging purple and gold’s face and neck. Two more charged in from my left, hoping to catch me on their blades before I could turn.

  I went wolf. I met their charge with my own. They thought they attacked a man. Instead they found a set of fangs longer than their hands and jaws deadly enough to snap the spine of a bull. Like the pimple-faced lad, they hesitated, frightened, and checked their rush.

  I didn’t check mine. With a paw on each man’s chest, I brought both down, flat on their backs. One tried to stab me. His blade hissed through my fur and sliced a thin cut across my ribs. I paid him in full with my fangs buried in his throat. The second, shrieking, also tried to fight. My claws raked deep gouges across his neck, opening his carotid. His hands forgot me as he screamed and tried, vainly, to shut the wide gash in his neck. I leaped from their dead and dying bodies, gore dripping from my jaws.

  I might have found satisfaction in the sight of their corpses, but my daemon hadn’t had enough blood yet.

  Not by a long shot.

  He was just getting warmed up.

  I changed forms, wiping blood from my face with my arm, my lip curled as the Khalidians regrouped, pointing at me. No, wait, they pointed beyond me.

  I spun about, finding four Tongu assassins aiming to strike me from my unprotected rear. I kicked the closest club from the Tongu hand that held it, sending it skyward. My sword cut through his hissing throat, my returning swing catching a second across the top of his head. His brains spilled down
his neck in a grey-white soupy mess as he toppled down to the dirt.

  I caught the club I kicked with my left hand as it fell back toward earth. With my sword in my right and a cudgel in my left I set to work. My combined wolf speed and instincts coupled with my gladiator’s experience made for one hellacious killing machine. With my daemon setting the pace, I set to work with hot vengeance in my heart. I killed shamelessly, joyfully. I danced, spinning on my feet, my sword singing to death’s own chorus.

  I broke a squint-eyed, tattooed Tongu face with the club at the same instant I slew the fourth assassin with a roundhouse swing of my sword to his midsection. His weapon dropped to fall to the earth with a small thud as he staggered about, trying to prevent his entrails from spilling from his gut. Ignoring him, I whipped my club and my body around to crash it into the side of a Khalidian soldier’s head. His skull crunched on impact; his death instantaneous.

  Two soldiers rushed forward from either flank, blades poised to kill, aiming to catch me between them. I ducked and spun in the same movement, my sword swinging high, my club swinging low. My sword cut across the soldier’s throat, almost taking off his head. What was left of his neck was not enough to hold his head up; its weight dropped his face to his shoulder. He fell in a wild fountain of spraying purple heart’s blood. My club caught the other brave lad across his genitals. The bones of his hips and pelvis shattered along with his manhood. He fell, shrieking, to the ground, much like the young she-wolf had shrieked in her torment.

  More soldiers and Tongu foolishly rushed to fill in the gaps, attacking me with courage and training, but with few brains. I leaped and spun, my blood-stained blade striking heads from necks, hands from arms, legs from hips. My club, splashed with red and clotted with bits of bone and hair, smashed through bones, broke faces, shattered skulls upon impact. From a dim distance, I heard a voice shout, “Retreat! Retreat!”

  Suddenly, I stood alone amid a pile of both dead and dying. Blood seeped into the stony earth. Loud wails and low-voiced moans filled the darkness where the flame-light danced. The full moon rose over the battlefield and shone her pale illumination upon the dead, the dying and the hopefully soon-to-be-dead. I knew they weren’t finished with me, oh, no – should I escape, these men faced an execution that made this romp look like a stroll in the park.