The Wolves Of War

by Greg Curtis

  So now he knew three important things about life among the fae. Good manners were essential. Law breaking would not be tolerated. And there was no privacy. Not for outsiders anyway. Wynde Par was no place for him to live in. Neither as a morph nor as a thief.

  “He is an angry man. And maybe a dangerous one,” Careyn continued.

  She would know that, he thought sourly. In the same way that the people of Perna Sil had known that a human morph was camped out just beyond their town, the people of Ader Aver knew that an injured morph lived in the mountains overlooking their town. They watched, they took note and they paid attention to what people did. He wondered if Endorian Long was aware of that as he hid in his cave. Briagh felt sure he would know it by now, even if he had been doing his best to remain hidden. He'd been there ten years.

  But despite the morph being described as both angry and dangerous, Briagh felt no great fear of the man. He understood him, in a way. The man just wanted to be left alone. To be safe. Briagh could understand that. He wanted the same. He would want it even more if he had been somehow deprived of his gift and left vulnerable.

  “I'll be fine.”

  He didn't actually know that. But according to all the reports Endorian had harmed no one. He just lived alone and occasionally shouted and waved his fist at people who came too close. Of course, no one had tried approaching him for some time.

  With those words Briagh dismounted, infinitely grateful to be able to get off the horse, and walked over to the Captain who was still busy studying his map and the terrain ahead.

  He carefully avoided Father Argen, who had been trying to talk him into all sorts of stupid things ever since they had set off. The priest actually liked this land. He liked the people. And he thought it was a good thing for Briagh to be here. He said it would be good for him to learn a little obedience to the law and respect for others. To stop hiding. The man had no understanding of who he was. Of what it was to be a morph. And he genuinely believed that Briagh would choose to give back all the coin he'd stolen. Whatever world the priest lived in, Briagh was certain it wasn't the one he called home.

  “Captain Hillaren?”

  “It should be just over those small hills and in the cliffs beyond.” The Captain pointed in the general area just off to the side of the road. “Half a league maybe. The cave has a hooked roof and there are some apple trees in front of it.”

  There wasn't a lot of warmth in the Captain's tone. But at least there wasn't any anger . Briagh was still sure his attitude was coloured by the Princess and the way she had incapacitated them all. He wasn't happy about that. And he wasn't happy that Briagh had been the one to save him either. The Captain had pride and it had been injured that day. Still, as long as he didn't hold it against him.

  “Cave. Hooked roof. That way. Got it. I don't know how long this'll take.”

  With that Briagh turned and headed off in the direction he'd been given, wondering just what he was getting himself into. And if he should try to run. He still wanted to. But they had his coin. If he was to have any hope of getting his gold back, he had to do this. Besides, it was only an introduction! How hard could that be? Maybe the man would not even want to speak to him. And even if he did, there was nothing to stop Briagh from telling him the truth about the fae's plans.

  Still, Briagh was hopeful it wouldn't be dangerous. According to everything he'd been told, the morph – Endorian Long – wasn't dangerous. Just angry and bitter – as perhaps he had a right to be. He didn't like visitors. He didn't come into the nearby town. He didn't trade. Instead he hunted, foraged and trapped and kept fairly much to himself, hiding away in a cave.

  There was some evidence, or stories at least, that he'd done a little pilfering. That he’d helped himself to items from a few wagons that had camped for the night by the road. Ransacked abandoned shacks. But no real proof of anything. The fae only knew that things had gone missing and had assumed it was him. In any event there was no evidence of anything important enough to be worthy of his being locked away.

  As to what he looked like, all Briagh had been told were stories. That he looked like a troll. A monster. A man-wolf. Something completely different. No one really seemed to have a coherent picture of him. But then he gathered that those who wandered through the region and saw him, only saw him from a distance or at night. So he had little to go on.

  His real problem though was how the man would react to him. Would he would even speak with him? Because Lord Daelyn had made it perfectly clear through the guards that he expected results. His initial refusal to help had been unacceptable to the Lord, and so his expectations of Briagh – make that demands – had gone up. Briagh was worried that he might still end up spending some time in the labour camps even if this went well.

  It wasn't right but it was the way the fae were. Absolute obedience to the law. If a guard told you to do something, you did it. If a lord asked for your help, you gave it. There could be no thought of refusal. Not even for a second. So his refusal had cost him. He had to remember that. For as long as he was stuck in Wynde Par he had to remember that. These people might not lynch him, but they might make his life very unpleasant.

  The sooner he was gone from this land, the better.

  At least the cave was easy to find. As he crested the small hill Briagh spotted it immediately. It was just down the other side of the gently sloping grassy hill, across a small creek, and a few hundred yards across some tussock land until he reached the promised cliff. Though really it wasn't much of a cliff given that there was no mountain behind it. Instead he saw a hill that had been exposed by years of rain and wind until the bare stone showed through.

  Briagh made his way down the hill and across to the cave, until he was standing maybe twenty paces in front of it. At that point he stopped, realising that he didn't want to simply go barging into a dark cave or someone's home as it apparently was. So instead he stood there for a moment, trying to peer into the darkness, before taking a breath.

  “Endorian Long!”

  Briagh yelled from outside the cave, hoping that it was actually the right one. But the fae had got everything else right so far – which spoke volumes about just how much they liked to spy on people. Or on strangers at least. He had been stupid coming to this land. And even more stupid in thinking that he could just live here in peace and that no one would bother him. When it became apparent he wasn’t going to get a response he tried again.

  “What?” A man's voice came out of the cave, strangely muffled by the stone walls, making Briagh jump. He didn’t sound friendly.

  “My name is Briagh. I'm a morph like you. And I have a message for you.”

  Briagh decided that there was no point in trying to share polite banter. The man didn't sound like he was in the mood for civility. And truthfully he didn't know why they thought he would have any better luck with Long than anyone else. Morphs weren't some secret society of brothers and sisters against the world. They were strangers to each other as much as to anyone else. The most he would expect of another morph was that he wouldn't automatically try and lynch him.

  “Go away!” The man inside the cave didn't sound particularly enthusiastic about either a message or the prospect of seeing another morph. He didn't even sound surprised that Briagh knew his name.

  “I will, but first I have to talk to you.”

  “Go away!” The man shouted again.

  “I just want to talk.” Briagh shouted at the cave. “All you have to do is listen for a bit. Then as I say I'll go. And it is important. For you too.”

  A short silence followed, before he finally got a response.

  “How?”

  That was progress Briagh thought, though the man still didn't sound particularly convinced or even interested. He sounded angry.

  “There's a priest, down on the road below. He says he can help. And he needs help. He sent me to make the introductions.” It was stupid Briagh thought, yelling at a cave. He felt stupid doing it. And as the long silences cont
inued after each bout of yelling he felt more so. But still, he waited patiently.

  “Help?”

  “I don't know exactly. But he knows your name. He knows how this happened to you. If nothing else, you need to know how he knows what he knows. And he has influence with Lord Daelyn – that was how they forced me to come and speak with you. Now can you please come out and let me not have to yell at a damned cave. It hurts the throat.”

  Another silence followed, and then Briagh saw a figure appearing in the gloom of the cave. A strange figure that walked with a very peculiar gait. The man-animal hybrid slowly grew larger as he walked out into the light.

  “By the gods!” Briagh was shocked when he finally set eyes on Endorian. More than shocked. He didn't quite know whether to believe what his eyes were showing him. Because it was so very wrong. Yet it matched perfectly with what Father Argen had been telling him.

  Endorian was stuck between forms. But not just between two. He had been caught between all of the forms he had. And nothing was right with him. In form he was mostly human, though his knees bent backwards as they would in a wolf, while he himself was hunched forward. He had small claws on the ends of his fingers and toes, while his mouth was filled with fangs. But he didn't have a snout at least. His fur was a mixture of shaggy grey wolf like fur on his chest and arms, and the shorter neater fur of a hind covered his legs and face. Feathers graced his shoulders, looking completely incongruous. But not as incongruous as the wings on his back which were too big to conceal and too small to get him off the ground.

  He was also big. Tall and powerful. Briagh was on the slightly taller side, but Endorian dwarfed him. He made him feel like a midget. And Endorian hadn't even straightened up to his full height. Briagh suspected that he couldn't.

  “Damn you! Damn you all to the underworlds! Just go away! Leave me alone!” Endorian yelled at him, obviously angered by Briagh's outburst and no doubt also by the way he was staring at him. He might even have heard Briagh's exclamation.

  “I'm sorry! I'll go. But first I have to give you a message.” He noticed that Endorian's voice was muffled just as it had been when he was hidden in his cave. It wasn't something to do with the stone walls of the cavern after all. It was something to do with his half-morphed throat.

  “I don't want a message! Go!” Endorian really screamed the last at him, though the sound was far from human. Like his body it was a mixture.

  “You might want this one.” And he realised the man actually might. The Father had said as much, but Briagh hadn't listened to him. Suddenly he had to think that Father Argen could be right.

  “I haven't hurt anyone! And I won't! Now go!”

  “Hurt anyone?” It took Briagh a moment to understand. “You're not in trouble. No one wants to bother you. But as I said there's a priest below who wants your help.”

  “A priest? My help?” The man laughed crazily. “I can't help anyone. I can't even help myself.”

  “Actually Father Argen says he may be able to help you. That he knows how you became trapped like this. And that in helping the priest you may be helping yourself. But you should also know that whatever he’s proposing will be dangerous and there are no guarantees.”

  “And how would a priest know any of that?”

  “I don't know! He's annoyingly clever, and he seems to know a lot. He knew I was a morph like you. He hunted me down somehow.”

  “You're really a morph?”

  “Panther and wolfhound.” Briagh answered the question he knew would be on the tip of Endorian's tongue. He knew it because they would have been the questions on the tip of his tongue should he have met another morph. “I was also a thief – a cat burglar – and making a good living until Abysynth fell.”

  “Abysynth fell?” For the first time, there was something other than pain and frustration in Endorian's voice. There was curiosity. Possibly concern. He was listening in any case. Briagh wondered if he had family in the city.

  “Alright, long story in a few short words. You and the royal family did an experiment with some poxy ancient artefact from the Arcanium. It went horribly wrong. For everyone. The king and his sons were driven somewhat mad. The queen was worse. She gained a magical ability to control the beasts even as she lost her mind. But she believed she was a wolf and so the only animals she could control were other wolves. In time she became the wolf mother, a monster with a pack of wolves preying on the city. Two months ago she went to war with the city, and most of it was destroyed. King Harold was killed.”

  “Now Abylon has no king and no sane heirs. His sons have no wits remaining to them. And the kingdom looks set to fall into anarchy.”

  “Father Argen believes that if he can use the ancient device and fix what was done, you can use it again. You can be restored to your old form and the princes can regain their minds. Abylon can have a new king and things can return to how they were.”

  “Use it again?! Does he think I used it?!” Long stared at him as if he thought Briagh was crazed himself. “And that I was involved in an ‘experiment’!”

  Briagh shrugged. “I don't know. I'm only telling you what he told me. But he is priest of the Great Sage, and they don't lie a lot.” Of course, he realised as he saw the disbelief on Endorian's face, they could be wrong. At least he thought it was disbelief. It could be horror.

  “It was no experiment. It was a trap! It was that damned, decrepit technologist. Master Barachalla. He had me and my family locked up in the dungeons. He threatened to have me executed if I didn't do what he demanded. He stole my blood and injected it into some glowing orb. Then he had me marched out with manacles through my wrists and stood me in a chamber, where he did whatever it was he had planned.”

  “And when he had finished I was like this. Soldiers were shooting at me and at each other. They were even stabbing each other. It was a bloodbath. I had to rip myself free of the manacles and run. I jumped out of a second story window, bleeding from bullet wounds that I couldn't heal, and fled the city while everyone was hunting me.”

  “I couldn't go back. I couldn't rescue my family. I don't know what became of them. If they were killed or released. For all I know they could still be locked up in the royal dungeons.”

  “If he wants to fix this nightmare, it's not me he needs. It's that decrepit technologist. Tell your priest that.”

  “I will.” And he would, especially given that this version was nothing like the story the priest had told him. It also sounded so much more like the truth. “But I think it would be better if you told him yourself.”

  “I don't leave my home!” Long's eyes widened in shock. “Besides, there are soldiers?”

  “There are soldiers. Rangers. But they haven't harmed me save to lock me up. And you've been here ten years? I don’t suppose they’ve come after you in all that time have they?” Briagh thought that was a telling point. Telling enough that the man clamped his mouth shut.

  “But what say I bring the priest here? Just Father Argen. Then you two can talk. At the very least he can make some enquiries about your family.”

  That he guessed would be the one thing that the morph would actually want to hear about. It was probably the only thing that would convince him to listen to Father Argen. And after the two had spoken, he thought, a promise to find out what happened to his family might be what it would take to convince Long to do as the priest wanted. Briagh knew that had it been him, he would have given anything to be able to return to his family. To know they were well instead of dead. It was about family. It was always about family.

  His suggestion was greeted with another, lengthy silence. But silence was good Briagh thought. It meant that Endorian Long was at least thinking things over. And maybe it meant that he would succeed in his task and be released from his sentence? But as the silence dragged on, he had to wonder if maybe it actually meant that the morph was wondering if he was either crazed or lying. It was a very long time before the morph cleared his throat.

  “You trust him?” />
  “Trust him?!” Briagh looked up in surprise. He was shocked by the very idea. “He's a normal! Of course I don't trust him! We're morphs. We have no friends. No one to trust. All we have is ourselves.”

  “Still, he seems peaceful and more or less harmless. And he seems to know a lot. Too much perhaps.”

  “Besides, what choice do you have? To spend the rest of your life like this? Never knowing the fate of your loved ones? And what choice do I have? Five years hard labour for being attacked by a barbarous princess? He may be able to help. You to regain your form. Me to regain my freedom.”

  And that was really the most powerful argument he had. For both of them. They were both in their own ways, trapped. They needed to be free. And neither of them could free themselves.

  “And if I say no?”

  “I don't know.” Briagh had to be honest. “The fae locked me up because that crazy Princess attacked me and the rangers. They said I brought danger to their land. Maybe they would have let me go free if I hadn't refused Lord Daelyn's request for me to speak with you. I don’t know. But what I do know is that the moment I refused, I was sentenced to five years in the labour camps unless I spoke with you. The fae expect to be obeyed. They demand it.”