by Stead, Nick
In reality, the crawl space can’t have been that far – perhaps only a hundred metres, if that. But it felt to stretch on forever with the continued discomfort I was being made to suffer, and my heart hammered harder and faster in my chest with each new sound coming from beyond that small patch of dim light.
The confidence I’d felt in my natural territory was a distant dream. Doubt gnawed at me the closer I drew to my unknown adversary. I had no way of knowing how far David wanted me to get or how long he wanted me to suffer for before orchestrating some cruel and brutal death. It could very well be the final fight I was unwittingly approaching, pitted against an opponent so great that my death was almost certain. If it was that thing whose presence dominated the entire dungeon, it would explain why the stench had grown so strong once I’d entered the crawl space. And given the instinctive fear it induced, I had to assume it outclassed most other creatures of the night considerably.
Whatever it was up ahead, that thing or otherwise, I could tell it was big. It was something larger than my wolf form, at any rate.
Dread dug its claws into my heart. My resolve was beginning to fail me, the pain, weariness and fear wearing me down with every step. I wanted nothing more than to leave this place full of torment and curl up somewhere safe, where I could sleep long and deeply, blissfully unaware of all the threats that faced me in this cursed life. Only the thought of Amy’s fading heartbeat kept me moving towards the new danger. I had to push on, for her sake if not my own.
Finally that square of dull light was within reach. Still wary, I crossed the last few paces and stuck my snout through the opening in the wall, trying to determine what I was up against. But my eyes hadn’t fully adjusted and I could only make out the shadowy bulk of something waiting on the opposite side. There was nothing for it; I’d have to venture into the room and face this latest challenge.
So I took my first pain free step since falling through the trapdoor. My paw wept more tears of blood, as though in relief at the respite granted to it.
Fresh pain shot through my damaged nerves, almost as if they were cheering to finally be free of the spikes. The throbbing soon became more persistent and I imagined my body craving the transformation on some cellular level. But it would have to wait.
My vision cleared and I looked across to find my opponent was of the natural world after all. If we’d been in a natural setting, that terror I inspired in living creatures might even have driven him to submit and flee before me, without the need for a fight. I would have let him escape the encounter too, since he was neither the prey the curse caused me to crave nor the natural choice of prey for a true wolf. But we were far from his woodland home and there was nowhere to run in this man-made arena, where we’d been brought together purely for the cruel amusement of men who delighted in our suffering. That left him only one option: as far as he was concerned, he must fight for survival.
A mortal wolf would have stood no chance. To a werewolf it should have been an easy win but, in my current state, I knew my victory was far from guaranteed. Blood still flowed from the holes in my paws, and if I was about to sustain further injuries in this coming battle of tooth and claw, there was every chance I could faint from blood loss again.
Whether David truly intended me to die here was debatable – there was a chance he might intervene and spare me from death again. Or he might have grown bored with this game and deemed me to have suffered enough. Either way, I had to assume the worst. To rely on him saving me could well be the deciding factor in whether I met my demise. I was going to have to dig deep to find what strength my body had left, and fight as well as I could, if I wanted to ensure my survival. Just as my opponent was bound to do.
I couldn’t even try communicating to him that I had no desire for the fight we were being forced into, or that I would leave him be if he would keep out of the way while I searched for the door to freedom. Such things might have been possible in those romanticised stories humans are so fond of, where animals can talk to each other as if they’re people. But in reality, the communication barriers between species are just as difficult as those between human languages. He couldn’t understand me, and I couldn’t understand him. And there was nothing we could do to change that.
My opponent reared up on his back legs, one of the most impressive heavy weights of the animal kingdom. In my weakened state, I might as well have been a mortal wolf, facing a battle where my rival had all the advantages when it came to size and strength. I was possibly more agile, but the ever growing toll on my body had already begun to slow me, so I probably didn’t even have speed on my side. Then the grizzly bear charged, and the fight began.
Fifteen hundred pounds of pure muscle ran straight for me. I had time to take in his huge fangs and wild eyes, the whites showing with the terror he felt at facing an unnatural thing like me. In other circumstances, I might have sympathised. But there was no way out of this battle, regardless of whether either of us really wanted a part in it or not, and there would be no escaping the room until one of us emerged victorious. I had to ensure that was me, for Amy’s sake. And even if the bear did come out on top, I doubted the Slayers would keep him alive once they had no further use for him, whereas my continued existence would at least have some meaning, if there was even the slightest chance of escaping the dungeon with my sister and my allies.
I stood my ground and readied myself for the inevitable clash. He charged at a much greater speed than I’d realised bears were capable of, an impressive force with enough weight behind him to crush me on impact. A true wolf might have baulked and fled before the larger predator but, even in my weakened state, I found the nerve to stand firm in the face of certain death. Only when the grizzly was upon me did I dodge to the side, succeeding in evading his initial attack. But my movements were slow enough that it was a close call, the fur ruffling on my side from the rush of air as he passed by.
The bear skidded as he turned, running at me again but slower this time, cautious of putting his vulnerable flank near my jaws. He knew he needed to face me head on so that he could make use of his greater size and strength. The one thing I had going for me was my agility. I willed him to keep charging and tire himself out, but it wasn’t going to be that easy.
My opponent was almost on me a second time and I went to dodge again, but he was ready for it and he moved with me. Jaws even more impressive than my own bore down on my head. That maw closed with bone crunching power, more than capable of crushing my skull. I just managed to duck, and his muzzle snapped shut on thin air.
I retaliated with a swift bite to his right foreleg. Maybe if I could keep nipping him and drawing blood, I might eventually wear him down enough to move in for the kill. As long as I didn’t reach that point first. Time was not on my side, my wounded paws leaking yet more blood with the harsh movements the damaged tissue was being put through. I needed to find a way to overpower the grizzly sooner rather than later, or I was going to be the one to succumb to blood loss and exhaustion – something I couldn’t allow.
I’d dealt no more than a flesh wound and the bear roared his displeasure at the sensation of nerves sparking with air. Rearing up again, he lashed out with his great paws and caught me a glancing blow on my side. A yelp of pain tore from my throat, turning to a snarl of defiance. More blood welled up from five vicious gashes across my ribs.
The bear crashed back down to all fours, but I evaded the crushing power and darted forward to sink my fangs into his other foreleg. There came another rush of air as he swiped at me. I was already darting out of reach and escaped further injury that time.
I feinted towards his foreleg again, counting on my opponent to snap at me in another attempt to crunch down on my skull. He didn’t disappint, and I ducked under him, grabbing hold of his throat and clamping down with all the power I could muster in my smaller, lupine muzzle.
I shook my head from side to side in an attempt to sever his jugular, but his fur was so thick and his body so padded with blubber that, for the first ti
me since becoming a werewolf, my fangs failed me. Despair rose up. The natural weapons I’d come to revel in felt inadequate against his larger teeth and claws, not to mention his sheer bulk. I was ridiculously outmatched and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
Vicious black hooks ripped through muscle and sinew as if I were made of no more than paper, ripping my teeth from his flesh. I’d held on for too long, the bear rearing up again and catching me a devastating blow on my shoulder, and I fell to the floor with another high pitched yelp. My foreleg collapsed under me, the shoulder joint no longer able to take my weight. And yet more blood splashed across the ground in a wave of hot crimson.
My plight was becoming ever more desperate. I’d done little more than anger the bear, the blood flow from his wounds already beginning to slow and clot together, while my own wept profusely. I could feel my life force pumping from my torn flesh, my vision starting to blur and the sensation of light headedness creeping over me. But still I struggled back up onto my three good legs, trying to focus on my rival through the dizziness.
Then my opponent followed through with another mighty blow to my skull. I was too slow to dodge, his huge paw connecting with my head and sending me crashing to the floor, somehow still conscious but dazed and close to falling into blackness. Blood was running down my face now as well.
My wounds throbbed more persistently and muscles ached, my body screaming no more. It was all over. The blurred form of the bear towered over me, the last thing I was going to see through half closed eyes, my lids drooping lower with every second. My exhausted body had finally reached its limits. Time to admit defeat and succumb to the weakness of my flesh.
I was about to slip into the beckoning darkness, when an image came to me, a reminder of what was at stake. Amy’s frail body replaced the blurred image of the bear, lying as I’d last seen her in the coffin, on the point of death. The mental picture occupied my vision, almost as if I’d fallen into another reality. But the meaning was clear. My will to fight had all but died out so my subconscious was offering me a way back, and it was all I needed. I couldn’t give up; I had to win, for Amy’s sake.
Somewhere on the edge of consciousness came the sensation of the bear’s hot breath brushing across the top of my head. Even if I was willing to continue fighting, was it already too late? I was at the bear’s mercy, and he could easily finish me off with another swipe of his paws or a crushing bite.
I expected to feel his fangs sink into my skull, but the seconds ticked by with no further attacks from my opponent. That puzzled me but I didn’t dwell on it, instead focusing my sluggish brain on more pressing matters, like survival. There was only one way I was getting up and back into the fight – I had to call on the power of the transformation again, and just hope the temporary boost it granted me would be enough. Or perhaps it was more instinct than conscious thought. Either way, my form began to revert to a more humanoid shape, finally severing the flow of blood as veins and arteries fused back together and ripped flesh stretched back into a seamless whole.
My thoughts cleared somewhat and the feeling of lightheadedness receded. The room came back into focus as I opened my eyes once more, summoning my rage to grant me whatever strength my body had left. I knew I needed to retain my natural lupine weapons if I was going to overcome the bear this time, and that after this second chance, there wouldn’t be a third – I just didn’t have the energy left to transform again without feeding first. So I let my body settle into its hybrid wolf-man form. It was enough of a change to heal the worst of the damage, and the aches and pains ebbed into mere background noise.
Firmly back in reality, it was to find the bear had withdrawn, back to the other end of the room where he stood, seemingly uncertain. I didn’t know if I’d been spared because he’d thought me already dead (after all, the advice I’d always heard as a human was to play dead and I’d come across it in so many different places that I assumed there had to be some truth to it) or if it had been the onset of my partial transformation making him wary. Or maybe it was a bit of both.
The thought of David’s smug face was all it took to set my anger blazing, and I rose to my now humanoid back legs, a fallen warrior returning for vengeance. The bear’s uneasiness looked to increase at that. Not only had I seemingly returned from the dead and changed into something more unnatural, but I probably looked bigger on two legs instead of four, and even more intimidating. Now he was the one who was reluctant to fight.
Using the bear’s fear and uneasiness against him, it was my turn to charge. My feet pounded across the stone to the music of his rapidly beating heart, hammering much louder and faster than when we’d first clashed. It was all the summons the hungry predator in me needed, granting me another boost of speed and strength as I bounded back into the fight. The bear stood his ground, much as I’d done when he’d first charged me. But he had no intention of trying to evade my assault and as I drew nearer he reared up onto his hind legs again, mouth open and lips pulled back to bare his fangs in a clear display of aggression. He might be in the grip of terror, but he was letting me know he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
Undeterred by the bear’s sheer size, I pounced on him as though he were any other prey. Without my full strength behind it, he was too big and heavy to be bowled over by the impact, but I clung to his broad shoulders and sank my fangs back into his throat, trying to work the shallow wounds I’d already created and dig deeper to those tubes pumping his life force up to his brain. Still his main blood vessels alluded me and I was forced to let go before he could swat me away again, like I was no more than some overgrown, annoying bug.
This all happened in seconds. The bear was slow to react in comparison and I was able to drop back to the ground and move out of reach of those huge paws, and the devastating weapons he wielded with every swipe. I started to circle him, looking for another opening, but the bear moved with me. He towered over my smaller frame, even with me on two legs instead of four, making any kind of wrestling match out of the question.
I remembered seeing bears fight on nature documentaries and I knew they often grappled on their rear legs, but I was too short to attempt to subdue him with that kind of brute force. And even though I was at the perfect height to go straight for the organs in his abdomen, I felt it was too risky to move within reach of his claws. Not when it would take more than a quick swipe to break through all that blubber and the wall of stomach muscle to reach something vital.
So I continued our dance, darting in and out of range to nip and scratch, until he made the mistake of falling back onto all fours, growing bold enough to charge at me again. I was able to dodge to the side and leap onto his back, managing to sink my claws in just deep enough to hold on. The bear wasn’t happy to have me in a place he couldn’t easily reach and he tried to buck me off. I held firm, worrying the back of his neck now in an attempt to reach his spine.
My mouth was full of that thick pelt, my fangs struggling to find purchase in his flesh, when suddenly my opponent reared up again. The next thing I knew, pain was flooding through me as he slammed us backwards, into the wall, showing an intelligence most humans probably wouldn’t have credited him with. Thankfully my body survived in one piece, with nothing more than bruising from the impact. But my claws slipped from the handholds they’d gouged at the back of his shoulders, my hands too paw-like to grip bunches of his hair. Try as I might to hold on with my legs and my jaws, I was starting to slide off.
My rival crashed back down onto all fours and despite my best efforts, I couldn’t keep my position on his back, falling to one side. My maw was still locked round his flesh but I wasn’t able to keep savaging it once I’d slipped round. I was forced to let go before he managed to deliver me another blow.
Inwardly I cursed my body’s weakness. Even with the boost I’d been granted, I still wasn’t at full strength, or I was sure I’d have finished him off easily by then. Already I could feel the exhaustion beginning to creep back in.
&nbs
p; I fell on my side, the bear turning to lunge at me just as I was getting back to my feet. I evaded him again and decided there was nothing for it, diving between his paws and sinking claws and fangs into his belly. My muscles were already beginning to protest but I ignored them and focused on the anger burning within, counting on its need for violence. My mouth was filled with more fur but I worked myself into a frenzy, savaging the thick layer protecting my opponent’s abdomen until I was rewarded with patches of pink tissue and strips of bloody fur hanging down.
A chunk of muscle came free in a warm rush of bloody ecstasy, before I was forced to move away, gulping down my prize and immediately craving more. Now my opponent’s body gushed crimson streams, running across the stone to form ever growing pools.
I could almost feel him becoming more desperate as he charged me again, but this time I dodged and lunged at his side, trying to slam him hard enough to cause some internal injuries. I wasn’t confident I had enough strength left in me to do any significant damage or I might have thought on to try that particular move sooner, but I was rewarded with a bellow of pain. The hole I’d opened up in his abdomen seemed to be deeper than I’d realised, something important just beginning to poke through as I pulled back and prepared for another assault. I wasn’t sure if the impact of my body had been enough to dislodge it or whether he’d done that to himself when running, but either way I suddenly had something more to work with.
It seemed my rival was finally starting to feel the strain as badly as I was, his tongue lolling out as his breath came in pants. Threads of bloody saliva hung from his great maw and dripped to the ground, spattering the already wet stone. And yet, he still wouldn’t give up.
He charged again, though his movements were becoming clumsier, and it was growing harder to keep our footing on the slick stone. In his desperation, my opponent was being less careful, perhaps knowing that things were very wrong, but the instinct to survive still burning too strongly to acknowledge he was mortally wounded. Without the immediate attention of a vet, I didn’t think he would last more than a few hours, even if he could still muster the strength to emerge victorious. If only we hadn’t been trapped in that chamber, he would surely have backed off in the face of such damage he’d endured. But since retreat still wasn’t an option, the bitter struggle would rage on till one of us ended it, and so he ran at me, probably as eager to finish it and lick his wounds as I’d been from the start.
