The Red Rider

by Billy Wong

  He crossed his arms over his chest. "So you're wise now?"

  "As wise as someone who's survived hunting werewolves for ten years must be!" Tonya replied for her.

  "I'd expect that requires as much crazy as it does wisdom."

  Red punched his arm. "So Tonya, how long do you plan on staying with us, anyway? I mean, you can't mean to spend your life doing this."

  "Do you?"

  "I can see myself stopping at some point... maybe after we find a cure. Don't know what else I'd do then, though. Perhaps I could continue in a similar line of work, only instead of killing the werewolves I find, I'd heal them... In any case, I've been doing this for almost half my life, so it's obviously a long term thing for me. But you, it seems like you're here mainly because you thought it would be fun to follow me around for a while. So I was just wondering if you've given any thought to the future yet."

  Tonya waved dismissively and grinned. "You sound so serious, no need for that! I'm enjoying this, traveling around, having adventures, working to help people. If I ever get tired of it, sooner or later, I won't hesitate to say. But for now, let's just enjoy our time together."

  "As long as you won't regret it." Though she was still young and believed in what she was doing, Red knew some would feel she'd wasted much of her youth, and didn't want Tonya to wind up thinking the same of herself.

  "Of course not! So, that guy really couldn't take the cold, huh?"

  She smiled. "He is from a warmer place than we're used to." Then she hugged herself. "But even for us, it gets colder with each passing day as we go north. I just hope we'll continue to be able to handle it."

  #

  They finally reached the first of the ruins, the one to the east and south of the other two. It was a gargantuan dome much broader than it was tall, made seemingly from one solid piece of gray rock though Red didn't understand how. Maybe it'd been carved out of a hill, Tonya mused, but how did they keep it all so uniformly smooth? Magic was the only answer Red could think of.

  The door was huge, big enough for two warofs to pass through side by side with room to spare. Though not locked, the great stone slab proved heavy enough to tax Herbert and Red's muscles just to push it ajar; Tonya tried to help, but couldn't contribute much. After opening it, they stared down the incredibly long and wide hallway revealed before them, full of countless doors and forks, odd metal tubing the likes of which they'd never seen running along its sides.

  "So, uh, how are we going to keep track of where we've been?" Tonya asked.

  Herbert bit his lip. "Somebody'll have to draw a map. I guess we can try starting around the beginning and work our way further in."

  "You do the map," said Red. "You are the most educated."

  He nodded, and they entered the structure. They walked through room after ancient room, most in utilitarian square or rectangular shapes, empty except for the husks of broken machines that littered them. There were transparent pods made of what looked like glass only much stronger, with metal bases; tall metal boxes that knocking revealed to be semi-hollow, and likely housed delicate parts of unknown use; darkened windows upon walls and shorter boxes through which one could see nothing; and panels full of buttons and slots on or near all these things.

  "Wow," Tonya breathed, "I wish one of us could draw. This is really something."

  Despite the abundance of novel artifacts, there appeared to be no relevant information remaining in this place. Maybe the paper it'd been written on had rotted away, or maybe it was stored inside the machines they had no way to retrieve it from.

  "This seems to have been a waste of time, if an interesting one," Herbert commented when he'd nearly finished the map. Then they heard a growling from the last corner they hadn't explored yet, and turned to see a warof emerge from behind a wall, drool slavering from its massive jaws.

  Herbert reached for his crossbow, but Red said, "No. Let's save those bolts for if we have to fight more then one."

  The creature charged and they met it, Herbert standing toe to toe with it using his sword and shield, Red darting and dancing all around it with slashing knives. Tonya jabbed at it with her pike but looked scared to commit to an attack, the beast being much larger than the wolves she was used to facing. After a decent struggle, it went down, though Herbert suffered a clawed forearm and Tonya despite her caution had been hurled into a wall by a paw swipe.

  "You okay, Herbert?" Red asked while he clutched his arm.

  "It's nothing," he said, grimacing.

  "Tonya?"

  Sitting against a wall, she prodded at her side and winced. "Think I might've cracked a rib, but luckily my armor seems to have saved me any cuts."

  "Are you alright, can you still fight if we go on to the next one?"

  "I'm fine." She grinned. "You two have a lot of scars. This is my first time really getting injured with you, so I'll look at it as my chance to prove I can hang."

  "Much respect," Red said, and helped the girl up. They wouldn't get to explore the second ruin that day though, because as they left the first the sky was already turning dark. Even if it hadn't been, she'd have proposed letting her hurt companions rest; but since they might have declined out of pride, she was glad for the timing.

  They went to bed as usual these days, Tonya nestled warmly between the others. The girl faced away from Red for once, her damaged side discouraging her from sleeping on it. Just after midnight, Red was woken from her light sleep by Tonya nudging her. "What's wrong?" she asked, only to realize her friend was still sound asleep, only moving slightly because something else pushed her. She looked over Tonya to Herbert and her eyes bulged as she saw him on his back with his hands raised like claws, writhing and jerking with spasms. He let out an agonized scream, and finally Tonya awakened.

  "What's he doing?" she asked groggily, too sleepy to feel even the fear she should have yet.

  Watching Herbert convulse, veins bulging from his thick neck, then his jaw elongate, Red found herself unable to force more than a whisper from her lips. Her heart pounding in rare terror and bewilderment, she muttered, "They say the first transformation is the most painful. He's turning into a werewolf."

  Chapter 10

  Red stood and backed off from Herbert, having no idea what to do. Tonya too scooted away from him, and asked, "What?! I thought you would only change if you were bitten!"

  "I-I don't know! That's what I always believed, and I've been clawed plenty of times without treatment and didn't turn. Unless..." Her heart sank. "Maybe these warofs can infect someone with their claws, too."

  "But you were clawed by one too, and nothing happened to you."

  She shook her head. "That's because I ate silver, after finding a cut I thought might be from glancing contact with a tooth. I don't know if it was, but I'm damn lucky I took the precaution."

  "So what are we going to do now?" Tonya asked. Then she gazed towards her spear, and Red knew what she considered.

  "No, don't!" She grabbed the spear and hurled it far away. "We're not just going to kill him that easily."

  "Then what are we going to do?" Herbert had almost completed his transformation, only his incomplete coat of fur less than fully werewolf-like at this point, and once he recovered from the ordeal his first instinct would likely be to pounce on them.

  Red looked around for large rocks and found none, then thought of his shield. "Knock him out," she breathed, and grabbed up the metal bowl.

  Herbert had finished changing now, and stood to snarl at Tonya. He started forward only for Red to leap on his back from behind and bring his own shield down hard on his head. He stumbled, and another blow dropped him to a knee. The wolf shook himself vigorously, throwing her off him. But when he turned on her, she threw the shield like a discus into his throat. He staggered back choking, and she hoped she hadn't hit him hard enough with the silver rim to crush his windpipe. Thankfully, he seemed to be recovering. She ran at him, jumped and grabbed his snout to pull it down into her rising knee. The impact snapped his
lower jaw in two, and she landed on her feet while he swayed. Red spun to his side, grabbed him by the waist to lift his over four hundred pound bulk. Flipping him upside down in midair, she dropped him so that the back of his head came down right onto her knee. She heard a loud crack and he rolled into the snow, unconscious. That broken skull would likely kill a human, but since her knee wasn't made of silver, he'd heal.

  "The Red Rider!" Tonya said. "You're so amazing."

  "Not really. I kind of took inspiration from Leviatha at the end there."

  "So now what do we do with him?"

  She rubbed her knee—using it that roughly against thick werewolf bone did hurt. "Tie him up with ropes for now, though I don't know if they'll hold him." She rolled him to his belly and bound his arms and legs together behind his back, then took a look at their map. "The nearest town's about twenty-five miles away. So I'd suggest you go buy the heaviest chains you can and come right back here, and I'll watch over him in the meantime."

  "Me go alone? There might be bandits about, or more wolves."

  "The alternative is, I go and you watch over him."

  "Red, this is crazy!" Tonya said, gesturing wildly with her hands. "I know you're looking for a cure, but we have no idea how long it'll be before we find one, if we ever do. It's too dangerous to keep him around like this, when he's no longer the man we knew."

  "He just turned and you already want to dispose of him like he isn't your friend, but some rabid animal to put down? No, that's not how I do things. I'll give him every chance I can."

  Tonya hung her head. "You're right we shouldn't give up on a friend that quickly. I guess I just stopped seeing him as Herbert and thought of him as nothing more than a wolf, until you reminded me. All right, I'll go like you asked."

  "Come back soon, please?" She patted the unconscious Herbert. "It would be bad if he gets free a few times and we run out of rope."

  #

  Tonya hurried across the tundra, thinking she could make it back before the next nightfall if she hustled. Her rib hurt when she breathed never mind walked, but she told herself that Red had kept going after being impaled and thus she had a lot of catching up to do. Thinking about it, she marveled that her friend had been able to act with such force as quickly as she had against Herbert, when she was the one who wanted so badly to save him. But then, the life she'd lived no doubt forced her to learn how to make quick decisions. The town surrounded by a loose wall of pointed sticks came into view. Relieved she had finally made it halfway through her task, she entered and was struck by how big most of the men were. Of course, they'd been the same way in the first northern town she visited, but then she'd had Red and Herbert around to make her feel safe. Now she really noticed it, and couldn't help feeling intimidated. Even several women she saw towered over her, and she was glad not to be coming here as an enemy.

  "So, um, where can I buy some chains?" she asked a huge dark-bearded man heading towards the gate she had just come through.

  He pointed. "Olaf's store down there by the stable should have what you need. Say, are you all right? You look rather pale."

  "I'm not from around here, so the cold affects me a little more." Her injury might also have something to do with it, but she didn't mention it knowing she couldn't afford the wasted time in the event he insisted on taking her to a healer.

  "I can see that. So what brings you all the way up here, are you alone?"

  "I'm with friends," she said, not liking where this was going.

  "And what do you and your friends seek?"

  She hesitated. "We're just looking around..."

  His eyes took on a disapproving cast. "You want to poke around in those ruins, don't you? It's dangerous over there, you know."

  Tonya sighed. "I know."

  "Really? As young as you are, I don't think you do."

  "One of my friends is older." The one that was now a werewolf... but then, she didn't know what else to say, nor how to break off this conversation she really wanted to.

  Fortunately, he did it for her. "Young fools, old fools, you're all the same," he said, striding past her. "Better be careful lest you get eaten by whatever you find down there!"

  "We didn't get eaten," she muttered under her breath, though she feared if they didn't find a cure, Herbert's fate would prove even worse than that. She worried too over what would happen if any of the locals found out about him. A sudden pang made her grab her ribs while she headed for the store, but she gritted her teeth and continued on. "So," she asked the rotund but also brawny middle-aged man who greeted her inside, "what are the heaviest chains you have?"

  Some minutes later and with a few coins less, she left town with the coils of massive-linked chain looped over a shoulder. It was easier to carry them like this than in a sack or something, even if she had to be careful to avoid aggravating her bad rib. She made it to where Red waited shortly before nightfall, her legs sore as hell and her side a throbbing mass of pain. She wished she could get a long rest after this, though she knew it probably wouldn't be possible.

  "So how many times have you had to knock him out again?" she asked, trying to sound casual.

  Red looked up from a growling, squirming—but now human-looking—Herbert. "Only a few. Even as a wolf, he was able to learn not to try and break free with me watching him. Good thing you're back, though. Would've started getting hard to stay awake soon."

  Tonya wrestled the chains off herself. "Thinking you'll have to knock him out once more to get the ropes off and these on him."

  She rendered Herbert limp with an axe kick to the back of his head, cut the ropes and hauled him into a sitting position. "Hold him like this," she told Tonya. "We can't very well chain all his limbs together if we're going to take him along with us."

  "I could have gotten us a cart."

  "Horses hate werewolves."

  "We could've dragged it."

  Red shrugged. "Too late now. He can just walk behind us. Seems intelligent enough he won't resist when it'd just make things worse for him."

  "Are we going to continue on to the other ruins?"

  Red caught the anxiety in her eyes and hesitated, but put a hand on her shoulder and said, "We kind of have to, don't we? We came up here to find a cure, and now we need one more than ever. Otherwise, we'll have to face the difficulties of dragging a werewolf back home, not to mention keeping him there."

  Tonya understood the logic of that, but... "It's only going to be the two of us now, without his help. Won't that make exploring the rest of the ruins even more dangerous?"

  She gave a weak nod of acknowledgment. "Yeah. But we still do have those extra weapons, including his now that he won't be needing them." She knelt over Herbert's pack to root around in it. "I'll take the bombs, and his bastard sword. You want the crossbow?"

  "Sure, fine." Red gave the big bow to her, making her feel surprise at its weight with its large magazine capable of holding half a dozen bolts, and she pondered just how in over her head she was.

  #

  At least they were able to get some sleep that night, as Red trusted the multiple loops of chain she used to restrain Herbert against a tree to hold him. He made some noise despite her tying his jaws shut, but she and Tonya were tired enough to ignore it and drift off into slumber. The next morning, they dragged him after them while they sought the next closest ancient structure. Binding him to another tree, Red felt a rush of guilt.

  "I'm so sorry this is happening to you," she said. "I promise I'll find a way to change you back."

  "Grrr..." came his response.

  "Maybe if you tried petting him or something, it'll make him feel warmer towards you," Tonya suggested.

  Red felt uneasy touching a werewolf, but looking at the big man's face remembered their friendship. She gently patted his head, and while his angry noises grew louder at first, they soon lessened once he realized she wasn't going to hurt him. "I know you can't understand me," she breathed, touching his cheeks, "but I really love you. Not like that,
" she added for Tonya's benefit. "You've been so good to me, helping me, staying with me all this time even though it must be so hard for you at times... I'll never give up on you, you hear me? Dammit, you really can't... let me show you how I feel about you, then." She leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss.

  His growls stopped completely and he blinked at her in silence, making her wonder if she reached the human inside him. "Nice touch," Tonya said, and walked up to pet him cautiously too. Red almost wanted to release him to test if he wouldn't attack or flee, but decided against it. The women left him to resume their mission.

  The ruin looked the same as the last, and without Herbert to aid them opening the great door really pushed the women's bodies to the limit. They entered after Tonya took a needed breather. Like the first ruin, they found it empty except for the lone warof they encountered in the gargantuan circular chamber at the center, like a meeting room or amphitheater with the sides higher than the middle.

  "Save your bolts!" Red warned Tonya when she spotted her aiming the crossbow.

  "But I'm hurt," she replied, panting exaggeratedly to make her point.

  "Right, but you might get more hurt if you end up not having enough ranged weaponry when you really need it!" Without waiting to see if the girl would listen, she rushed the warof. Hopefully, her body being in the way would discourage Tonya from shooting. She jumped over the beast's sweeping paw, stabbed it in the cheek and was slapped away. Rolling up, she watched a silver streak fly through the air to slam into her foe's chest. "No!" she snapped. "Tonya, I told you not to waste them!"

  "But..."

  She ran over to grab the bow from her companion's hands, making her pout. The warof's feet slapped against the floor closer and closer behind her. She spun with a thought of throwing the bow into its face, but not wanting to damage it slid it gently across the ground away from them instead. She intercepted a paw by stabbing through it with her knife, then the creature bit down on her shoulder. Red shrieked as the powerful jaws nearly crushed her bones and plunged a blade repeatedly into the warof's neck, but it wasn't going down fast enough.