The Hunt

            Keil stretched and groaned after dropping the last load of wood next to the forge. Pulling his arms across his chest one after the other his muscles tingled and burned. He dunked a ladle in the water bucket hanging from one of the thick support beams throughout the forge and gulped.  The water was warm and stale but it felt like a crystal spring after a long day stoking a fire and pounding metal with his father.  They had started the fires before sunrise and it was now dusk.

         Horses needed shoes and four plows needed work.  With the planting season in full swing farmers all over the lake country were snapping tools on the stones and shale hidden in the dark lake country soil.

         A sharp hunger pang answered the water as it hit his stomach and he noticed a plume of gray white smoke rose from the chimney. If his nose hadn't been so full of smoke and soot the smell of stag stew his mother and sister were cooking would reach him. His mouth watered.

         Walking through one last time he found a lone shoe resting on the second anvil, his anvil.  There'd be hell to pay if it was there in the morning they started up again.  Waylon had been the Smithy in Albion, possibly the best in the lake country since before he was born and he insisted that a sloppy forge led to sloppy work.  Rule number one was tidiness. Keil could not remember how he'd managed to leave it out like that. They'd been so busy the last month that there were a lot of things he'd missed, not to mention the call ups. 

         Early spring was the yearly call up.  When every male of age was given the chance to serve in the regeants forces.  Keil was arguably the fastest, one of the strongest, and best shot in all of the lake country. A season never passed where there was not a new award adorning his bunk in the families small cabin. And never did a stag pass within reach of his bow without ending up on his mother, Shayla's table.

         All winter the debate raged, his father served a tour, and was decorated.  Why should he be any different.  Waylon argued there was no time, the family needed him at home at the forge.  That was bunk, four years is the commitment.  Four years is a life time his father would argue. 

         On the day of the call up his father had forbade it, and his mother had cried.  At the door of the cabin he stood, duffel on one shoulder, bow and quiver on the other.  The stand off was unlike any ever seen in the Smither home. It ended with Keil backing down, like he always did. There is just no arguing with Waylon Smither, he is so calm and cool that he just...Argh!  Thinking of it still made Keil boil.  Three of his closest friends had gone, Ried, Terr, and Glenn all accepted and were now off doing God knows what. They weren't stoking a fire all day; That was damn sure. 

         The rest of the barn looked good and he was undoing the knot of his heavy leather apron when a low vibration tickled his ear. Hanging the apron on its nail the vibration turned to a rumbling in the woods.  Stepping out the wide double doors he could hear a heavy rustling and snapping. Something big, a stag.  He gave it another second.  Bigger than a stag. Dashing back inside he retrieved his bow and a quiver of arrows from the doorway. He slung the quiver over his shoulder and was knocking an arrow when he felt more than saw three huge bodies shoot past the door heading into the village.  He was barely out of the barn when he saw a giant brown thing crash through the door to his cabin.  It happened so fast it stunned him, a monster just shattered the door to his families home. His mother and little sister were screaming but it registered, distant. He didn't realize he was moving until he noticed the fletching of an arrow at his cheek.  He was in the doorway and staring down the shaft of an arrow as his father roared and crashed into a wall under the massive battering of a thick fur covered and claw armored limb.  There was a piercing yowl that snapped him back to the moment.  Another arrow was knocked, the first lodged deep between the beast’s shoulder blades.  He met its eyes just as it reared up to charge him.
TWING!

         The second arrow entered it’s gaping jaws and punched through the back of its head. With a choking gurgle it collapsed in spasm on the splinters of their dining table.

         Keil's mother and sister were screaming and his father was groaning and moving very slowly. There was blood staining the back and shoulder of his tunic.  But Keil's ears were ringing and there was something else...
         There were three of them!

         Stumbling over the wreckage outside hysterical screaming, yelling, pleading, raged through the village.  He charged toward a cacophony of destruction coming from the tavern.

Halfway down the path he found Master Tambey on his back staring wide eyed at the darkening sky.  His bowels were showing. Ten lengths to the tavern three men flew out the window adjacent to the door. A raging roar pierced his ear and inside wood splintered. 

         He entered quickly and broke to the right, his bowstring taught, arrow ready for flight.  A lamp had broken and started a fire on the other side of the room.  He thought he noticed a torso sticking out from under the wreckage on the floor.  Somewhere he heard pleading,

         "No..."

         The beast had master Brauer cornered, it followed him, playfully swatting at him as it walked along the bar.  He shot as soon as he saw it and chided himself for being hasty.  A rushed shot is a wasted shot, Waylon always said.  The arrow protruded from the beasts belly. It turned and ripped it from its side.  With a berserk shake of its head the reddened arrow flew across the tavern and the beast leapt at him. Keil dove out of the way before being skewered by glistening black claws.  He hit  the floor of the tavern hard and rolled over something soft that grunted beneath him. He was on his feet when he looked down to see Talmadge, a farmer from up north.  The older man spewed frothy blood and reached for him begging.  A massive paw drove his head to the floorboards with a wet crunch and Keil was face to face with the monster. 

         Monster was the only description to do it justice.  Similar to a wolf but on all fours it stood almost as tall as a man. It's jaws were like pincers lined in  glistening needle-like teeth. Covered in brown fur two tall pointed ears stood on top of its head.  It’s eyes,  ebony orbs so black they froze his blood. 

         It paused and it seemed the thing was savoring what it had done to Talmadge.  Was it amused...his bow was gone and his arrows were strewn about everywhere.  His hands floundered blindly behind him for anything he  may use as a weapon. Grasping something wooden almost the width of his arm, Keil grinned and hefted an oak table leg.  A splintered peg protruded from it about two inches. 

         The beast growled and swiped at him. Leaping back, a banister caught him at his waist. There was no where to go.  The beast took a playful step forward, pawing at him.  He swung with everything he had catching it in the shoulder.  The beast yowled and barked but barley acknowledged the blow.  Knowing he was cornered Keil fought a desperate panic rising within him.  The beast reared up on its hind legs, paws wide, jaws gaping and collapsed on him like a wall of fur and teeth.

         Keil awoke to the tangy twinge of iron in his mouth, his lips sticky.  He didn't know what had happened but he felt sticky fur on his chest.  Jumping and thrashing he tried to free himself from the heavy musky blanket of fur crushing him.  There was some yelling in the distance he couldn't understand. Terror drove him like a wild animal kicking and tearing at the heavy corpse until finally he was able to worm his way out from under it.  Once free he scrambled backward until he banged into the heavy timber wall of the tavern. The impact must have shaken something loose for at that moment he realized it was dead.  He stared at dulling black eyes and a massive red tongue lolling out of it’s mouth.  Keil’s head dropped between his knees and he vomited all over himself.

         The world swirled like a dark storm as he sat there spinning. He couldn’t fight when he suddenly felt himself heaved upward.  His toes dragged along the floor as he was carried off. 

POP!
         Light off the fire flickered and hot tendrils of air licked his cheeks. It reminded him of the time Lynn Helm and Brenna Scotts caught he and Anna Granger on the raft in old pond.  He'd flushed then too.  Eyes cracked and blurry fire mites performed for him. Another pop, there must be some pine in the hearth.  Wait...he rolled over, the bear-skin rug was warm beneath him...

         Leaping from the floor he skipped and fumbled until collapsing on the floor.  His heart pounded so hard it hurt.  Shadows danced along the walls as he tried to get his bearings.  Muffled voices came from below. He noted a small, neatly made bed in the corner, wash basin and dresser and decided he must be in a room at the inn.  Someone must have brought him up there after the attack from those things.  It sounded like an argument was going on downstairs.

         Rising from the floor he noted with a grimace his bodies complaints.  His legs felt as if he'd just finished a back to back of the Spring event.  The trials never punished him this badly.  His forehead felt tight and his hand brushed against a flaky, cracked scab covering gash in his scalp.  He found stitches under his blood caked brown hair. More exploring revealed another set across his ribs, almost fifty in all. His left hand was dressed as well, it was tender to the touched but it still worked.

         Slowly, like an old decrepit man he inched his way down the two flights of stairs, at the bottom the railing ended in a jagged splinter six steps from the bottom.  The light hurt his eyes and he put a dressed hand up to shield them. There were maybe twenty people crowding a wide oak bar.  The arguing abruptly ceased, hushed whispers snaked through the air but most simply stared at him.

         From behind the bar stepped Mrs. Darrow.  A large woman wrapped in a soot blacked dress she gently checked his wounds.

         "Didn't 'xpect ta see you so soon Keil, ya alright?" she asked her hand feeling his forehead.

         "A bit sore mam," he answered, "Where are my folks?"

         The plump woman's eyes went wide and she shot a nervous look back toward the bar.  Out of the crowd came O’Hare, his father’s cousin.  Keil had never seen him without a beaming wild grin shooting out from his thick red beard until now.

         "Come with me son," he said taking him by the shoulder.

         There were at least a dozen pyres poised for remembrance on the hill at the end of the village.  Many wept and prayed at the feet of the deceased.  O’Hare said nothing as they walked through the village. Even when Keil faltered at the foot of the hill O’Hare remained silent; only his grip on Keil's shoulder gently pushed him on.  He stood silent, head bowed in front of three waist high pyres.  Numbness set in seeing the three shrouds. They were tightly wrapped so he could not see what had truly happened.  His father and mother lay to either side of Nina. Glistening white cloth connected the three bodies.  All he could do was stare at them his mind detached it coldly replayed his last memory of them. His father had been hurt, but he lived last he saw him. His mother and Nina stood amongst the rubble, not a scratch on them. How?

         "You killed the creature that attacked your father though from what we can figure as you were fighting in the tavern, a third returned to your home. That's where we found them."

         They were just preparing for supper?

         "Did you get the beast that did this?" Keil growled.

         O’Hare sighed and kicked at a rock, "It escaped us," he replied hoarsely.

         "What were they?" Keil asked.

         "Don't know, never seen anything like it."  The older man's voice faltered.

         "How many did they kill?"

         O’Hare coughed clearing his throat, "The twelve here, three more are still missing, Bennet, Fiino, and the Bruche girl."

         Keil nodded slowly burning eyes locked on the three funeral pyres.  Slowly, he stood over each one starting with Nina then moving to his mother and finally to his father. He kissed them softly on the forehead then stepped back. Eyes flowing like twin rivers he could barely breathed.  After along moment he stepped forward and took up an unlit torch and flint from the base of his fathers pyre.

         At  the center of the three pyres he knelt. He lit the torch and bowed his head.  It wasn't until the dressing on his left hand began smoldering did he finally stand and step to Nina's pyre.  Gently the flames caressed the kindling until it ignited. He lit his fathers last, laying the torch at his feet.

         "Find your way safely home and be welcome back to the source from which we come."  A long moment of silence followed. He turned to retreat from the heat of the three engulfed pyres and saw O’Hare standing stoically as he watched three gray-white plumes commingle and the disappeared into the night.

         "I leave at dawn," Keil said softly.

         Keil did not wait for the older man to object.  By the next morning Keil had searched the forge and house, collecting his bow, all the arrows two quivers would hold and two small well balanced hatchets he'd forged himself for throwing contests. He had put a new edge on his fathers old tarnished sword from his days as a guardsmen.  Wearing a new, heavy tunic and leather riding pants he saddled his horse, Terrin, the horse broke free during the attack and was led back by Marin Freeman.  There was no point in sleeping but he did take some food once his pack was together. As he ate alone in a corner of the Inn's common room he could feel eyes surrounding them.  Murmurs and mumbling circled him like a swarm of gnats. He finished, stew and bread and felt his wounds. The swelling on his head felt smaller but his ribs and legs were still sore. There was no further bleeding, nor did his head still feel as if he were swimming. Stiff and sore he was still leaving at dawn.  As he rose to leave O’Hare, a man named Fynn and his younger son Lemn stepped toward him.

         The three of them wore brown and green woods gear similar to his, Lemn and Fynn sported tarnished guardsmen swords and O’Hare also had his guardsmen sword lashed to his hip.

         "The three of us ride with you boy, an there'll be no discussin it." O’Hare stated plainly. 

         Keil simply nodded. He'd not considered others joining him.  Nor did it matter to him much,

"I will kill it," he said flatly and left them for the door.  Before exiting he stopped and looked to Mrs. Darrow, who stared at him blankly, as if looking upon a ghost,
"Thank you for all you've done mam." he said quietly before stepping out into the growing dawn.

         The tracks were not difficult to find.  At least one, maybe two had retreated along the same path they'd attacked from.  Into the woods between his fathers forge and the house.  The three brown flashes returned to him.  He'd thought they were deer. The gaping slathering maw stared him down again, its sharp intelligent eyes amused by him. He growled quietly and concentrated on the tracks.

          Huge and distinct, much like dogs they followed a straight path for the lake, and Welbourne.  For most of the day the tracks led them in more or less a straight line through rough country between Albion and the rest of the lake country. Ravines of dark, glistening shale, bloated creeks, and rolling green brown hills. New leaves of spring just coming into their own.  Toward midday the tracks turned east at the rocky bottom of a deep ravine and lead them to the rough pebble beach of Lake Sena.  Lake Sena, a sprawling mile wide lake stretched the length of the lake country. Longest of five major lakes, early mappers dubbed them the five fingers.  Sena was the forefinger of the five.  The tracks showed they'd stopped for water where a fat spring creek met the lake. The disturbances in the smooth stones followed the lake toward Welbourne.

         "We should water the horses and grab a bite, eh," O’Hare said as they came to the water.

         It looks cold, Keil thought. Leading his horse to the shore, a soft rolling tide splashed at the round rocks of the beach.  Around them several large rocks the size of a pig occasionally poked above the gentle tide.  He looked north up the lake while the others grabbed bread and cheese from their saddlebags.  He wasn't very hungry, or patient. Each moment that passed those beasts got that much farther away. He blinked as Lemn nudged his arm and offered him some bread.  With a reluctant smile, he accepted. 

         "You think we'll find'em?" he asked while chewing.

         "Don't know," admitted Keil. Lemn pursed his lips. He looked nervous Keil thought. Not that he could blame him. The idea of those things, finding them out here in the wild was something he'd not considered.  They should make Welbourne by midday tomorrow.  He wished they'd find these things.  A den, a lair, something.  Find them and kill them; but he found himself doubting that would happen, They'd have found anyplace like that by now; wouldn't they?

         Lemn looked lost in thought as they ate in silence. O’Hare was stoic as always, his back to the tracks as though just another day on the hunt. Fynn sat beside him on a large piece of driftwood eyeing the tracks ahead. Brow furrowed he chewed vigorously as if in a hurry. His body was tense forward like he would spring from the log any second and tear off up the trail without them.

         "Your father’s pretty serious," Keil said. 

         "He won't rest until he gets those things,"  Lemn said, he could barely be talked out of waiting till morning to start the hunt. He's not taking what happened to uncle Talmadge very well." Lemn replied solemnly, almost regretfully. "I just hope he keeps his wits about him."

         Once they'd eaten the four gathered their mounts and set off down the shore. The tracks faded a bit on the rocky shore, but the disturbances of the three together were visible enough.  The day they traveled along the shore line. The sun was dipping under the high bluffs on the  far shore when O’Hare called for them to make camp.  They set up beneath the wide canopy of a willow tree, up the bank away from the lake.

         Keil and Lemn gathered wood and quickly had a small cook fire boiling a pot of beans to compliment their of bread and cheese.  Throughout the night they took watch in shifts. Each in turn they stood watch, Keil second behind Lemn. Once relieved by Fynn he quickly found a spot next to the glowing coals of the fire and fell to sleep.

         A hazy blur muddled the edges of his vision.  He was in the forest, tall pines stood in endless rows and needles crunched under foot.  The sharp sent filled and tickled his senses.  There was movement around him but it did not cause alarm.  Ahead someone waved him on. A man, all in black, he couldn't make out the face but he knew it was a man by the long strides and width of his shoulders as he turned from him and began walking.  Waving him on he ran, or galloped, What? He was running on all fours, a wolf. Comfortable in the form and thrilled by the speed he ran alongside a pack. Other wolves in a tight group around him all chase the man in black.  He lead them through the forest. Keil galloped through brush and over fallen logs faster than he'd ever moved before. Faster and faster the pack ran, all the while the man simply walked ahead of them. The man walked, though as fast as the pack ran, leaves and branches blurring, flashing past them; they could not catch him.  Suddenly the man stopped.  Keil crouched on his haunches at the man’s feet.

They were on a hill overlooking a small village.  New smells tingled his senses.  Ahead the night gave way to lamps glowing yellow-orange above hard-packed brown streets.  The stale smell of ale and the sharp smells of cheese and meats assaulted his nostrils like invisible knives on the wind.  Laughing  and yelling carried from the village to his ears up on a high hill.  Then suddenly  there was something else, something sweeter he couldn't name it.  All other smells he could put a name to but this new sensation; sweet and musty.  He couldn’t identify it.  The man looked down at him, though there was no face he felt he was grinning. Keil's stomach growled, an ache demanded he feed; that he find the source of that scent.  His mouth frothed. He yearned for it.  Again the man waved him on but he did not follow.  He watched from his perch atop the hill. 

         There was screaming in the village now and the pack scattered. That smell was all around him, he could almost see the individual scents veering off in different directions.  Raging roars and sharp barks blended with terrorized screams making him dizzy. He zeroed in on the nearest scent trail and followed it. In a shattering crash through a large window, a woman, long brown hair tied in a blue bow atop her head screamed. Pale skin, almost like bread dough, soft and smooth, she wore an apron over a low cut dress which showing a generous amount of cleavage on a slender, lithe frame. Her screams ended abruptly as hot juices washed his tongue and maw in the succulent sweet tastes he craved. 

         Keil’s eyes flashed opened and sun hit them like a hammer to the temple. Her screams echoed in his mind, was gasping for breath. 

         "No!" he rasped, his throat dry as the driftwood they'd put on the fire. Looking around he calmed when he saw the fire and the lake and where he was.  Just a dream.

         There was some mumbling near the lake;  it sounded heated.  Over his shoulder he saw O’Hare staring at him blankly while Fynn jabbed his finger down toward the shore as if to drive a point to the center of the earth. Did he say Warg?

          Lemn was rolling his bedding.  He seemed reluctant to look him in the eye.  When he spoke he didn't look at him period.

         "You were dreaming," he said quickly. Then moved toward his horse, saddlebags slung over his shoulder.

         The ride up the lake shore was quiet and Keil could swear there were eyes on him.  Self consciously he kept his eyes on the trail. He couldn't shake an itchy feeling he was the center of attention.

         About midday, sun high over the they noticed a thick black column of smoke to the north. The thick black smoke struck upward into the sky like a sinister tower.

         "Welbourne," O’Hare muttered. 

         It was dusk when they reached Welbourne. Keil was sore and his horse held its head low.  The path had led them into the woods to the west of the village. At the top of a hill where the tree-line offered a striking point to the heart of the village it veered sharply.

         Through the greenery the four men led their horses into a square.  Wisps of smoke and the sharp stench of fire filled their nostrils and burned their eyes.  In the center of the square was a fountain in the image of the water bearer. Its cherubic face blackened by soot a steady flow of water streamed from a flange it held in its pudgy hands to a pool, muddy and cloudy. On the other side of the square stood the charred framework of three buildings.  The center looked to be an inn and the two to either side could have been the town hall or maybe a mercantile.  Keil and the others walked slowly toward the dozen or so villagers milling around.  As they passed the fountain Keil saw a long row of white shrouded forms of varying sizes; men, women, and children.  A soot covered figure walked among them, then made Keil flinch as the man used a hatchet Keil to chop through the neck of what appeared to be a small child.
          
         "What the hell?" he blurted out. The man with the hatchet raised his red and watering eyes, they were dull, empty.

         "Leave it be Keil," said O'Hare.

          Several of them were looking hands on swords.

         O'Hare approached a large man in front of the burned out inn, "What happened here?"

         "Wargs," he spat. "three monstrous beasts attacked us las' night just after dark. Tore through our town meetin' like the dark one incarnate." the man's voice quivered. 

         Keil felt Fynn staring at him. When he looked to the older man, his eyes burned. 

         "There was nothin we could do. They're all claw and fang, they tore our people apart."

         "Were they stopped?" O'Hare asked.

         The big man could only shake his head.

         "Which way did they flee?"

         He looked up at O'Hare, "Who cares." he looked over the four of them, "They're monsters straight out a hell."

         "Yes," O'Hare said, "but in what direction did they flee?"

         The big man kicked at the debris at his feet and flicked a thumb up the main street, north, "Straight outta town near as we can tell. If yer chasin them yer outta yer mind."

         O'Hare ignored the man. His face was sad as he thanked him, "I'm sorry for your loss," he said quietly. 

         Turning his horse North the others followed.  The villagers quickly formed to question the big man as they left.

         Looking for any sign of the tracks in the well beaten street Keil’s eyes drifted to the row of bodies covered in white. His stomach dropped as he passed the body of a brown haired girl.  Her face was pale and peaceful in death. A crimson stain covered the white cloth at her neck. He knew her throat had been ripped out. He didn't realize he'd stopped until the man with the hatchet croaked,

         "Ya alright, boy."

         Keil was shaking, couldn't breath, couldn't tear his eyes away from the peaceful face. The face from his dream. Her beautiful features contorted in a curdling scream.

         "No," Keil whispered. Looking at the man he immediately keyed in on a dark figure over the man's shoulder. The darkness seemed a hole, a vacuum. He couldn't see his face but he knew the dark man was leering at him. 

         "Keil!" O'Hare shouted his iron hands wrapping around his bicep.  Snapping to he noticed the man with the hatchet watching him.

         "It's for her own good, lad." he said, nodding to the red-brown stained hatchet.  "Otherwise she would return as one of the cursed." His voice was a barely controlled croak. The man had been at his grisly task all day.

         Keil was startled, he nodded, "Of course," Looking over the man's shoulder again there was nothing but a sapling growing in a small yard between two buildings. "I'm sorry," he told the man and turned away. The others followed, Fynn mumbled to O'Hare,

         An hour before the sun set they stopped for camp.  They were near a swollen creek at the base of a steep incline that led to high bluffs above the lake. Once camp was set Keil and Lemn went scrounging for firewood. Lemn had long finished and was helping his father Fynn with rations when O'Hare noticed Keil missing.
         Following the narrow path along the stream he broke through the woodline to see the younger man perched on a boulder staring out across the lake.  The horizon a mix of orange, red, and violet.  Keil didn't move as he approached. O'Hare noted the teens vacant stare across the water. 

         "What you saw in the village today bothers you doesn’t?" 
         Keil sniffed hard and nodded.

         "They said Wargs did it. That we are chasing Wargs, shape-shifters. If they attacked our village is that what happened to my family.  We're their..." Keil choked back something deep within him before continuing, "were their heads cutoff."
         O'Hare kicked a loose stone, orange and gray and black into the small tide lapping at the rocks. After a long moment he said solemnly, "I was the one ta do-it. Theirs and my own, Annie, and others.  That task fell to me."

         Keil's  eyes shot O'Hare.

There was another question in those eyes, O'Hare could see it. Just ask boy.  The boy’s eyes dashed away.  He traced an ancient crack with his finger.
         "I saw them," he said.

         O'Hare didn't understand, "Saw who?" 

         "I saw them, the Wargs." he said quietly.  "They were in my dream. They were at the village. I saw...I ran with them in the woods and there was a man. He wore black, and hid his face, but I knew it was a man. He led us, the pack.  Lead us through the woods to the edge of the village then..." Keil's voice was a quivering whisper. The rest wouldn't come out. He could see her face, hear her scream cut off  as he tore her throat out. He felt sick.  "I saw them, the girl at the village. I saw her die." Taking his eyes from the boulder, he stopped tracing a crack with his finger and looked up. "I think I killed her. I think I'm one of the cursed, O'Hare." he whispered then looked back at the water.

         O'Hare stared grimly at the shoreline. To hear a boy he'd known since birth say so rationally, so cold, he was one of the cursed. Strangely, O'Hare couldn't bring himself to be surprised.  He was the one to pull the monster off him. Covered in blood that had run over him like a fountain.  It had been a miracle he survived at all, much less to arise from the bed unscathed.  O'Hare hated himself the minute he saw him on the stairs at the inn. He'd hoped for his own sake the boy would die. He'd known then what needed to be done yet he stopped Fynn and the others. The boy was touched by the beast. Shared blood with the beast. He closed his eyes and could see their faces, the whole crowd.  He was squeezing the pommel of his sword. 

         "What am I to do?"

         The simple question snapped him back. In the growing darkness the two men stared at each other.  Finally O'Hare opened his mouth to speak...

         A piercing yowl broke the silent lapping of the lakeshore and the night turned electric. The cry had come from the forest further back toward Welbourne.  Slowly, other cries and howls joined the first until four distinct voices broke the night. Keil and O'Hare sprinted for camp and before they'd even made it to the tree-line curses and crashing echoed from within. 

         "They're on us Keil!" O'Hare yelled, dashing into the wood.

         Keil ran on the heels of the older man.  The icy, cool numbness came over him as it did two nights ago. Like an invisible suit of armor, the numb detachment signaled he was ready for battle.

         They were running toward the fight when Keil's legs suddenly gave out  he crashed into a small stand of ferns.  His shoulder dug a furrow out of the soft forest floor and Keil cursed. trying to rise a sharp jolt of pain like a pick ax driven through his gut put him back to the dirt. Curling into a ball he tried to scream but no sound came.  His insides twisted and churned as if his belly full of snakes. Flipping onto his stomach he vomited violently and lay curled up unable to move. His head was pounding as strange sounds of buzzing, the yelling of O'Hare, Fynn, and Lemn pounded in his head.

         Through the buzzing and the pain in his gut a soft deep voice cut through. "It hurts?" the voice asked.

         The voice was foreign and yet he knew it. Through blurry eyes a black phantom stared at him through a faceless khowl.

         "There is always pain at first. Your body has yet to accept itself. Your mind has yet to grasp its new abilities." the figure seemed to kneel before him, "it will get easier with time."

         "No," Keil croaked meekly, voice quivering through the pain.

         "No? There's nothing to dispute. You are what you are. Your one of us now. You belong to the pack."

         The pain was still there and his senses buzzed.  New and sharp smells assaulted his nose but he now had a degree of control. Keil felt...different, new.  Light.

         "It's getting easier now." the black figure commented through his faceless hood. "But there is still pain,  hunger."

         Keil could swear the man was smiling in that blackness.

         "Tonight you feed with us."

         A sharp curse cracked through the forest. A vicious roar responded. Keil looked toward camp, and the bluffs beyond.

         "They fight though we both know they are no match for us."

         Keil issued a deep rumbling growl, his strength growing.  The faces of his father, mother, little sister, appeared to him in the dark stranger’s hood. They pleaded with him, cried out for him. 

         He sprang for the man and the dark figure dissipated like a mist. A rotten decaying smell swirled around him.  Sounds of thrashing, grunts, yelps, and a roar called to him.  The greens and browns of the forest blurred as he dashed toward he fight.

         As O'Hare reached the camp he realized Keil was not with him. The realization cooled him and his mind sprang with possibilities.  The horses were gone, and the provisions lay strewn around the small clearing as if it were hit by a tornado.  Fynn and Lemn were gone, a quick curse pointed him toward the bluffs.

         A trail of broken brush, and torn forest floor lead him on  as he ran, heart pumping, chest heaving. The trail angled toward a large slab of granite jutting out of the brown wall of trees and dirt.  A glistening crimson patch smeared the gray stone. 

         Sounds of the fighting had softened. O'Hare realized there were no sounds of the forest to speak of as he cautiously angled around the boulder. Lemn stared at him, the boy's eyes locked in horrid surprise. His head rested on his chest at a grotesque angle, held to his shoulders by a thin strip of flesh.  O'Hare paused a moment and noted the blood dripping from the boys old knotched sword. He'd made a showing of himself.  O'Hare then darted up the steep incline, his moccasin clad feet slipping in places on the soft earth. Toward the top of the rise a lanky, brown beast with a head the size of an ox was draped across a perilously leaning ash. It’s snout red, the thick coarse fur covering its chest was matted and slick from where Lemn had struck it through the heart. 

         O'Hare left the animal where it lay and found himself on a rocky outcropping.  Small boulders rose from high brown grass like the humps of giant turtles.  A barking growl and yip alerted him to a large boulder toward the edge.  Sword raised he crept and cut an angle around the rock. Fynn reached for him,  his words trapped in a red froth gushing from his chin.  A Warg had its snout buried in his gut.

         With a roar that would rival even the most evil beast O'Hare charged and was on the monster before it could move.  It turned, shreds of flesh hanging from its chin. It’s lips curled in a grotesque snarl as O'Hare sliced through the beast’s broad neck. Blood erupted from the monster and it spasmd, powerful legs knocking O'Hare from his feet, his sword twisting and flailing out over the bluff toward the rocks below. 

         The Warg quivered at his feet, O'Hare gasped for breath. When he was sure it was dead he went to his long time friend, who was perched against the boulder. O'Hare bent over him looking over what remained. 

         Shaking his head slowly he dropped to the grass next to his friend. Exhausted, his whole body trembled. Keil was still out there.  Gathering his strength he rolled to his left when the brush in front of his face exploded. Black fur trimmed in green eyes and white fangs shot toward him. Flinching he fell to his back and the massive beast over shot him. The size of a cow with the sharp ears, and long snout  of a wolf. Black as onyx, it’s fur shimmered as it turned toward him.  His sword was gone, he reached for the dagger he kept at his waist; also gone.  Scrambling backward he hit a broad tree trunk.  The beast was closing slowly. Too slowly, as if it wanted to savor the kill. O'Hare let out a roar of his own,

         "Come on ya bastard!" he waved his arms.

         The beast roared back at him,. Hot noxious breath blew over him like wind from a fire.  He wanted to cower, cringe, so he wouldn’t see what was coming. But a rage deep within him refused. Instead he leaned forward and spit what he could scrounge from a dry mouth right across the beasts snout.

         "Ha!" 

Keil sailed across the forest floor following the scent of battle. It lay out in front of him, like he could almost see it; sickly, iron tang of blood and the salt of sweat and fear.
         He shot past the camp like a lightning bolt and was up the hill flying over the slick ground and rocks. At a bulbous gray boulder he caught Lemn's scent, he was dead. Just as quickly he leaped over the limp form of the Warg that had taken him. Its musk trailed him like smoke when he broke through the trees onto the outcropping.

         There he caught sight of O'Hare, on his back close to the drop off. A  black monster the size of an ox loomed over him  a massive paw raised to slash him to pieces.

         O'Hare was staring into those great green eyes when they suddenly bulged out in surprise.  The Warg’s long body buckled as a brown cannonball took it broadside.

         The monster shrieked and tried to lash out at the massive brown missile but its slashing claws met only open air as it drifted over the cliff. Flailing like a cat falling from a roof the black form spun slowly four legs spasming until crunching against the boulders below. O'Hare watched for a long moment lost. Then a low, Wuff! Drew his attention to a huge Warg resting on its haunches next to him. 

         Afraid to make a move and to worn out to care, he slowly shifted to where the two of them were eye to eye. It snuffed toward the cliff then looked back at him. A glistening black ear dropped from its mouth. A self-satisfied rumbled echoed from the beast. O'Hare’s jaw dropped.

         The Warg shook its head, jowls flapping and stood, the shaking worked its way down the long, lean body. It’s thick coarse pelt swayed like a wheatfield before harvest.  Beast and man shared a long look; an instant later the beast was gone, leaving only swirling brown leaves left in its wake.