by Mark Tufo
Some of the Lycan had fought savagely against their own kind to let that happen. Man had been its own plague against the Lycan, and some saw a better world without them. Others argued that man was the reason Lycan were so powerful and without them they would be reduced to shepherds guarding flocks of sheep and cows from wolves. A fracture that the animal could not survive began to form until one came forward and ruthlessly cut off the heads of the opposition – the rest had fallen in line.
“Xavier, our scouts are back.” Ashe, the second-in-command, said to his leader who was sitting in an old office chair looking out over the land.
Ashe did not like the fact that they were so high up in what the humans once called a skyscraper. Lycan were not meant to be up this high. The wind howled around them, the glass had been blown out ages ago. The smell of bird scat dominated the area. Xavier was inches from the precipice, his back to Ashe.
“This will all be ours,” he said, standing and turning. Ashe was tall for a Lycan, but still Xavier dwarfed him not only in height but also in breadth; it had been no wonder that he was now the Storm King. “How did the training go?” Xavier asked.
“Mostly well.”
Xavier’s eyebrow arched.
“We lost a couple of werewolves to a village to the east. One was lost, fell down an old well and was impaled. Lost a group to a small band of humans, perhaps.”
Xavier was waving the losses off they were inconsequential to him.
“Normally I would agree, but scout leader Smoke said one of the humans was different.”
“How so?” Xavier asked.
“Faster than he should have been.”
“Interesting, is Smoke up here?”
Ashe turned and walked a few paces, opening up a door that seemed to be holding on merely by force of habit.
Smoke, the Ranger, came in, even more visibly upset with the height than Ashe was.
“What excuse for failure do you have?” Xavier asked.
Smoke growled.
“Careful or I’m going to see if your arms move fast enough for flight,” Xavier said.
A look of consternation passed over Sm Kass="+0">Soke’s features. His desire to live won out over any sort of vengeance for the slight. “The werewolves were performing as necessary. We had killed and destroyed three of the men and their mounts we then tracked another six deeper into the woods. The werewolves attacked, killing one of the men. But one that was with them killed two almost in an instant, and then assisted in killing the third.”
“Did you fight?” Xavier asked.
“No.”
“So you watched as your pack was destroyed and did nothing?”
Smoke shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “My orders were to train the werewolves, not fight by their diseased sides.”
“Did you feed from their kills?” Xavier asked. Smoke’s head bowed. “I thought as much. They were good enough to eat with but not fight with?”
“Sir, one of the men was an Old Worlder,” Smoke replied, licking his maw.
Xavier moved quickly. He grabbed the smaller scout around the neck and lifted him off the ground with one powerful arm. He turned and moved towards the open window.
“DO NOT SPEAK TO ME OF OLD WORLDERS!” he raged. Smoke’s feet were dangling over a two hundred foot drop. “Ashe, what do you know of Old Worlders?” Xavier asked as he clamped harder on Smoke’s throat.
“They were vampires, my lord,” Ashe stated.
“And?” Xavier asked.
“And in the time of Flining (flining was the process of vampires proving their prowess) they would perform their rite of passage by hunting and killing Lycan,” Ashe added.
“We came to this new land, Smoke, to be rid of the bloodless ones!” Xavier screamed as he shook Smoke around like a rag doll. “They hunted us into the deepest depths of the world that they could until we were a huddled petrified mass of fur hidden in caves. It was our ancestors that found a way to hide us in plain sight disguised as the humans. We were wolves hiding in sheep’s clothing, not because we wanted to but because we had to. The bloodless ones hunted us for sport and because we were a threat to them. Competition amidst the top of the food chain is not tolerated well. Instead of fighting, we slunk off, much like you, Smoke.” Smoke never cried out as he hurtled through space, his body cracking open as he violently collided with the earth.
Xavier turned back around as if nothing had happened. “Where was he patrolling?”
“East…by the human dwelling Denarth.” Ashe replied.
“Do you believe him?” Xavier asked, sitting back down.
“He was one of our top Rangers. I have no reason to doubt his words.”
“An Old Worlder joining in the fight with humans…this could get interesting,” Xavier said. “We will be able to exact some measure of revenge on two enemies.”
Ashe wasn’t as confident. Like all other Lycan he had been brought up with a dark fear of the bloodless ones. “Will they have marshaled an army?” Ashe asked, swallowing back his fear.
Xavier laughed. “Relax, Ashe, vampires despise their own kind almost as much as they do Kch idt us. They would never unite.”
We could say the same about us and werewolves, but yet here we are, Ashe thought but he did not put it to voice.
“We may have to push our attack,” Xavier said to Ashe. “That idiot Smoke may have given our plans away. Ashe, send up a human, I’m starving.”
“Right away,” Ashe said, bowing and heading out.
A few moments later he returned pushing a small child onto the floor.
“I ask for a feast…you throw me a scarecrow.”
The girl was a huddled mass on the floor. Dirt covered her from head to toe. She was shivering from the cold.
“How have these hairless monkeys survived?” Xavier asked, stepping closer to the girl. “Rise, child.”
The girl looked wildly about and did as she was told. “Yes.” She held her chin high, but her quivering thighs and knees showed her true feelings.
“I’m sorry, my lord, we are running low on stock,” Ashe said.
“Then get some more!” Xavier replied.
“Where are you from, girl?” Xavier asked, placing his large paw under her chin. He turned her face from side to side. “You could have cleaned her up before you brought her to me.”
“Harbor’s Town, my lord,” the girl said trying her best not to cry.
“A lot of people there in Harbor’s Town?”
“Yes,” she replied meekly.
“How many?” he asked, squeezing her jaw until she squealed in pain.
“I...I don’t know, my lord. I don’t know my numbers.”
“Ashe?” Xavier asked.
“Five hundred.”
“Wonderful, that will be our test. Next moon we will descend upon Harbor’s Town and start our war against mankind in earnest. Now leave us, I do not like to eat in front of others.”
Ashe bowed and left. The cries of a girl where quickly replaced by the rending of meat as Ashe walked down the corridor. They weren’t ready, not now and possibly not ever. The werewolves would do their bidding up to a point, but they were wild beasts more likely to cause trouble than eradicate it. Ashe was not alone in his disgust about
tainting a diminishing food supply, add to that they would have to go out on multiple hunts to kill any werewolves that got away and it just didn’t make any sense.
Letting the humans repopulate was the wiser course of action and then the entire clan could cull them at their leisure. They were not overlords, they weren’t rulers and conquerors; they were predators that dragged down their prey and ate the steaming pile where it lay. To destroy man was to destroy themselves. He had doubted that Xavier would someday see the error of his ways. He could only hope he would fall in battle before he did any lasting damage.
CHAPTER 10 – Xavier’s Past
Xavier’s story isn’t unique, not the beginning anyway. Lycan, by nature, are not a nurturing race; more tha
n one mating has resulted in bloodshed and occasionally death. Litters are born on blue moons, the second full moon of a calendar month. The rarity of the event and a savage birth are what keep Lycan population low; only one can survive no matter the number born, and sometimes not even the one if he or she suffers grievous enough wounds in the battle. Sometimes siblings will ally if only to defeat a bigger brother or sister. Then, when the common enemy is defeated, they would turn on each other. What results are either the biggest Lycan or the most cunning; and in Xavier’s case…both.
It was June 1990, the night Xavier and his littermates were born. His exhausted mother crawled out of the cave and into a nearby stream to wash the stink of birth off of her. The scent could instill fierce fighting if it lingered. Many would begin to remember their birth nights and violence could erupt within the encampment. The odor of it was pervasive in the small confines of the cave. Xavier was the first to open his eyes, the pheromone triggering something primal and instinctual in him. His sister lying closest to him was the first to go as he fell over more than lunged. His placenta-covered jaws ripped into her abdomen as she squealed in pain.
The sound alerted the remaining three. Two of his brothers were able to quickly identify their biggest threat. With nothing more than a weak telepathic signal, they formed a blood bond. Xavier, realizing he was outnumbered, sought out the runt, promising to protect him if he would stand at his side. Lunos knew the lie for what it was; as the runt, he stood very little chance of emerging from the cave. He promised his allegiance only so Xavier would turn his fierce gaze away from him. When his brothers attacked, he pulled himself out of the cave much like his mother had. By the time he reached the mouth, he was standing on shaky legs trying to put as much distance between himself and the cries of pain and demise behind him as possible.
He knew he couldn’t stay. Just because he had emerged from the cave alive didn’t mean he would stay that way. Xavier would either hunt him down, or a full-grown would toss him back into the mix – or more likely - kill him on the spot for his cowardice. Lunos’ mother snapped at him as he stumbled by; she was too exhausted to pull herself from the water to terminate his existence. Without the pack, his chances of survival were about as good as they were in the cavern.
When Xavier emerged from the cave, he was covered in the gore and viscera of his dissected and digested kin. He had a glistening wound on his face and leg that would fester for a week, almost completing the job his brothers had started. There was no welcome for him as he emerged – no congratulations, no celebration – just the looks of the pack as they recognized one of their own.
Xavier picked up the scent of Lunos who had slunk away, and he would have followed if not for the fever that was already running through him and sapping his strength. He lay there for three days; a driving rain had sprung up the second night, making him shiver so hard he had nearly bitten his tongue off. It was the fourth night that he was finally able to stand, and by then, Lunos’ scent had been wiped clean. He thought about those days a lot over the years. It was a failure and a discontentment that he had never truly gotten o Srul a driver. His mother had remained quiet about the escape of one of her children, partly to protect Xavier who might be shunned from his pack, but more so for herself for whelping a traitor to their ways.
Xavier grew strong quickly; the scar on his face had been a ceaseless source of teasing by some of the older Lycan – but by his tenth year, no one mentioned it again. He had been lurking on the outskirts of the clan as they ate their latest kill waiting his turn to find some leftovers or coughed up morsel to eat when Triblos and Herrin from the previous Blue Moon’s litters located him. They detested the disfigured Xavier.
“It’s still alive,” Triblos hissed as he came in front of Xavier.
Herrin slid behind the younger pup. “Not for long, though. I can see his ribs,” he said as he nipped at Xavier’s hindquarters, catching the younger male on the hamstring.
Xavier did not yelp; he would not give them the satisfaction. The two older Lycan were slowly starving him to death, not allowing him to enter into the feeding circle even after the alphas and the rest of the pack got to eat. Not to suck marrow from an undigested bone, or even to eat the hair, the part that no one wanted (but when you were starving none of that mattered).
Xavier turned quickly, showing his canines to Herrin who jumped back. Triblos bounded in and pushed Xavier over, sending him sprawling in the dirt. Herrin pounced, his front paws landing on Xavier’s chest, forcing the air from his lungs. Xavier’s eyes were rolling into the back of his head as he struggled to stay conscious. To pass out would be disaster, Lycan detested weakness and would finish him off – it was hardwired into them. Those that could not provide for the pack were not worthy to live in it. That and the two that harassed him were low enough on the food chain that they were only a scrap or two above starving themselves. They would tear him apart and devour him before his heart would know enough to quit beating.
Triblos came closer…waiting…expectant, great swaths of drool dripping from his mouth as he watched Xavier’s eyes fluttering. “Pounce on him again,” Triblos said excitedly.
Herrin raised up high. Xavier pulled in ragged breathes of air, he sat up quickly his jaw coming into contact with the underside of Triblos neck. He latched on, Triblos yelped in rage and pain, standing quickly. Xavier bit down deeper, he was holding on with a vise-like grip. He draped his front paws over Triblos shoulders as the much bigger opponent tried to push him away. Herrin watched in horror, too shocked to react. Triblos eyes grew wide as Xavier cut off his air supply, closing the windpipe to a quarter of its normal diameter. Blood began to flow from around Xavier’s mouth as he punctured through the tough hide. His shook his head back and forth violently. Shock was beginning to set in as Triblos’ struggles became less furtive.
Triblos fell over on to his back, with Xavier still clutching his throat. Xavier almost lost his balance as he pulled a piece of Triblos’ neck away. The bigger Lycan sucked in a wet breath, and Xavier dove back in taking a bigger bite this time. He held on as Triblos bucked wildly about fighting for elusive air. When the animal finally died, Xavier began to burrow through his comparatively soft belly and to the nutrient-rich internal organs for which he was starving. Herrin moved in to share in the kill.
Xavier turned and displayed his crimson-coated teeth. “Mine, unless you want to join him,” he snarled. Herrin bounded off Sn bt si. From that point on, Xavier jumped forward in the pecking order. It was still the less desirable scraps he feasted on, but no longer did the pangs of hunger dominate his entire being. It was a year after he had taken out Triblos that Xavier had been able to get Herrin into an advantageous spot. Herrin still outweighed Xavier by at least fifty pounds but he now wanted nothing to do with the more aggressive youth.
It was a moon-less night, and Herrin had gone to the stream in an attempt to catch some fish. This was considered below a Lycan’s station, but hunger possesses its own power. Xavier had followed Herrin, always keeping the wind to his front so as not to give himself away. Xavier crept to the shore and hid under the brush as he watched Herrin wade into the water. Herrin looked about, when he was confident no one was looking, he started studying the water for signs of watery travelers.
Xavier hated him more for this, even when he was crippled with the void in his stomach he would not come to the stream for anything other than release. Herrin pounced, the second time coming up with a small fish, which he ate greedily. Xavier knew Herrin had been doing this for a while, his movements were too practiced and his success rate too great. Xavier crawled out from his cover, darkness, and the angle that he approached, keeping him concealed. Herrin kept constantly looking around for any signs that he was being watched. Xavier began to lope on the shore of the stream gaining speed, when he was certain he had enough momentum, he leapt. Herrin looked up, aware that something was not right. He noticed the smaller Lycan in flight towards him and turned to avoid the collision. Xavier was flying pa
st when he snapped down, grabbing hold of Herrin’s left ear. He ripped the large appendage clean off as he landed on the other side of the stream. Cries of pain mewled forth from Herrin’s mouth as he turned to face the threat.
“You should have just killed me,” Xavier said as he paced the side of the stream.
“I should have killed the bitch that littered you.” Herrin said, puffing his chest out in an attempt to gain size and intimidate the younger, smaller Lycan.
“What do you think the tribe will say when I tell them that you are fishing?” Xavier asked menacingly.
Herrin growled. “I will finish what Triblos should have,” Herrin said as he launched himself at Xavier. “I will feast on your bones tonight!”
Xavier ducked back under the brush, confident that Herrin would not be able to follow as quickly. He had almost misjudged Herrin’s desire to hide his secret. The larger animal came away with a significant tuft of fur from Xavier’s hindquarters, prompting him to redouble his efforts. Herrin was snapping branches as he chased after his darting prey.
“You’d better taste better than you look,” Herrin said from behind him.
Xavier was running out of traversable real estate. The thickets were doing what they do, thickening, Herrin had fallen back a few paces but was now quickly gaining as Xavier was slowing down. Xavier could feel the hot breath of Herrin on his rear quarters. He was waiting for the needle-sharp pierce of pain as he was about to be bitten. He had turned his head slightly to see how close Herrin had come, and when he turned back around, he almost impaled himself on the branch of an oak tree. He pushed off to the right, his shoulder taking the brunt as he slammed into the trunk of the tree. A loud yelp came from Herrin who had not been quick enough to realize the danger.
Herrin had also pushed off to his right, but the branch caught him underneath his left front paw and punctured deep between his third and fourth rib. A barb at the end of the branch was scraping against the lining of his left lung as he panted in pain, each breath sending the sharp wood, just a little deeper, like rubbing a pin along the outside of a balloon. When his lung finally collapsed, he sagged on the supportive branch.
