by Billy Wong
Trent put an arm around her shoulders and sipped at the wineskin in his other hand. "It's not good for anyone to grow old alone."
"I'm young. I still have plenty of time to think about it. What about you? You're not that young and I don't see a woman with you."
"I try. Things just haven't worked out yet. So what happened to set you on this mission of vengeance, anyway? I've heard that your grandmother was killed—sorry—but a lot of people lose family members and don't become werewolf hunters. And how did you survive?"
"I survived by bashing the wolf's brains out with a silver candlestick after I found it munching on my grandma's guts. I was small, so that was the first time I learned how vicious I could be. My village was... very old-fashioned, and believed me to be tainted even though I didn't get bit. I did get clawed up a little. So even though my mother begged and pleaded for it not to happen, my father cast me out. My mother decided to go with me, only to fall ill and die soon after. So, it's become everything to me to make these monsters pay for what they did to me and my family."
He tried to wipe tears from her face, but she brushed his hand away. She wasn't ready to let him touch her yet. "So you're an only child?"
"No, I have a sister. But my mom figured I wouldn't be able to take care of myself, so she went with me and left her with him. She shouldn't have, though..."
"What about your father? Do you blame him?"
"I did. But not anymore. Why blame him, if he didn't know any better? My village's beliefs were idiotic—don't know if they're still that way now—but they didn't want to kill anyone. The beasts are the ones who murder and should be made to pay."
"It's a tall task, one young girl against an entire race."
She sighed. "I'll do as much as I can."
The next day started out much the same, the group trudging up a dusty path towards the reddish-brown mountains that loomed in the distance. Red hoped it would get better when they reached the town just within the valley, but knowing it was a mining town made that hope faint at best. As they walked, however, she became lost in conversation with the men and forgot the bleakness of the surroundings. Though they spoke of mundane things, extended talk even about the mundane had become unfamiliar to her and she now found herself engaged. She sparred with Harry when they made camp, impressed him and seemed to put a respect into him she hoped would carry over to other women. When he asked Benson to join in, he declined citing his old age. Harry tried to get Trent to test her skills next.
"My big sword against her little knives? That would hardly be a fair fight," he replied, but she figured he wanted to be chivalrous.
"I've thought about it," she said to him later that night, "and I think maybe I could try settling down." When he blinked in surprise, she clarified, "I mean, not with you—you're probably too old for me, even if I think you're a fine man. But maybe I could stay in that mining town or some other town after finding this one last wolf, and see if I can meet somebody who'll take me for the odd looking creature I am? Like you say, it's not good for anyone to grow old alone."
"I'm sure you'd find someone. The bravery you have, I bet a lot of cowardly men would love in a wife they want to protect them."
They laughed over that. She wondered what it would be like to adjust to "normal" life, and if she even could. Though she wasn't far into her twenties, she'd been doing this nonstop for nearly ten years. She would at least need to hold a job if she settled down, unless she had a child. That seemed like a full-time job enough.
The next evening, feeling especially tired since she had spent most of the previous night up thinking, she decided to retire early. "Good night, little badger," Harry said as she ambled heavily to her tent.
"Goodnight, Harry," she returned, and curled the bedroll around her. Despite how weary she felt, she couldn't sleep at first, and began to dread the prospect of getting up the next day. The men's continued chatter didn't help, but she wouldn't impose on them for her sake. She heard them go silent, and though wanting to feel relief, the suddenness of it unnerved her. Then she heard a high-pitched scream, far higher than any of her companions would make in anything but abject terror.
She ran outside to see a bipedal wolf on top of Harry, tearing out his throat. Two others hounded Trent, growling and snapping at him while he tried to ward them off with wide sword swings. Where was Benson? There, moving backwards towards the edge of camp, shooting arrows into a wolf that merely ignored them as it advanced on him. As his back approached a clump of brush, a fifth werewolf leaped out of it onto his back, bearing him down. His screams of terror joined Harry's gurgles, a ghastly chorus in the night.
Red sprang into action. Knowing Harry couldn't be saved, she saved herself the danger of leaving one more opponent at her back by plunging a knife into his killer's spine as she passed. She spun to build momentum and hurled a dagger across the clearing through the face of the wolf that had pounced on Benson, saving him for the time being. Leaving him to fend for himself and hopefully hold off the single wolf left near him, she turned to help Trent.
"Damn you're good!" he breathed. Emboldened by her success, he took a step forward and hacked a great gash into one lycanthrope's chest.
"Don't praise me yet! Save that for when we come out of this alive!" The other werewolf turned to her and lunged. She jumped aside and sliced its arm, felt the vein pounding in her neck. Her body always reacted that way to wolves, even when her rational mind judged the situation to be not too stacked against her. It howled and spun to face her again with slashing claws. Red hissed as they laid open her raised forearm. She slit one of its wrists in a blistering exchange of swipes, darted forward when it grabbed its wound to press a knife into its throat. She stepped and ripped sideways, loosing a spray of blood that darkened the earth. It continued to flail wildly with its paws, so she kicked it to the ground to die there rather than risk a final attack in its death throes. Turning, she saw Trent slash his wolf again. It staggered back. She lunged, burying a blade in its temple. As she pulled it out and the monster slumped down, she met Trent's eyes and let herself return his smile.
A wolf bit him from behind, tearing his neck to turn his shirt red. Benson's wolf. She saw the older man lying dead where she'd left him, the bow he had drawn to defend himself after losing his spear broken. She shrieked in hopeless rage and hooked her fingers into the werewolf's nostrils. Yanking up, she forced its jaws open. She pulled it off Trent and stabbed up through the roof of its mouth; then, though it was already dead, laid open its throat with a cry of sorrow and hate.
She turned back to Trent. He lay on his back still alive, clutching his neck. But she knew it was over. She'd come to think of the men as friends, when she didn't have friends, and fantasies of a future where they remained so flashed through her head. She could almost see them a few years older, living still in the mining town, celebrating together along with her husband whose face she could not yet picture. But Trent's comrades were already dead, and the blood continued to spurt between his fingers. Red knelt and held his hand until his eyes fixed, then closed them.
"Sorry," she said with a sniff. "My fault, perhaps."
She stood, sparing a look for Benson to make sure he was dead. His whole face had been torn off. So much for friends. Maybe it was her destiny to always walk alone. She felt bad, but knew she'd get over it quicker than she even wanted. She'd learned long ago not to get too attached to anyone who treaded close to the same roads as her, and doubted she would be too scared even facing her own death. She'd steeled herself enough times to be permanently steeled.
Red dug graves for the unfortunate sellswords and buried them, thinking all the while. The werewolves had reverted, becoming three men and two women, but she didn't bother with them. Had these wolves come upon them at random, or did someone or something intentionally set them on her? If the latter, that bespoke a more intelligent sire than she'd encountered before. No matter. She would kill it, for she was the Red Rider, and her path red with the blood of werewolves—and s
ometimes, though it didn't please her, men.
