The Grim Legion

by Kindred Ult

  It turned him around and gave another grin before smashing its fist into his face from above. Demenn bent over in pain, but then he fell back the other way when the werewolf uppercut him in the chest again, causing several more cracks in it. Demenn would have fallen down on his back if not for another werewolf behind him shoving its claws into his back. He grunted in pain and stood bent over backwards, feeling strangely free as he lay suspended in space. The first werewolf lifted both hands over its head and brought them down on Demenn's chest even as the second one tore its claws away from his back. The result of their teamwork sent Demenn to the ground one last time. He had long since lost any kind of control over his limbs, and at this last blow he felt his broken ribs pierce into his lungs.

  Every breath Demenn took sent pain throughout his body, and each one became harder as his lungs filled with blood. He stared listlessly into the night sky as one of the werewolves walked over him and looked down. It smiled like all of the others.

  "Oh, what's this, it looks like its has fallen down. I guess we'll have to help it up then." The werewolf grabbed one of Demenn's hands and made as if to pull him up, a gesture that was futile anyway, since Demenn needed far more support than one hand, but when it lifted his arm up it snarled and kicked its shin into his taught elbow.

  As his arm bent in the wrong direction, a gasp escaped Demenn's mouth as he felt the shocking pain coming from his arm. The werewolves must have been disappointed that there was no scream, for they began to frown instead of smile. One of them stood out from the rest.

  "Bah, but we'll get no more fun from this one, just look at him, I bet he barely even knows what we're saying now. Let's just kill him before someone wonders where we are."

  Demenn saw the werewolf, as well as all of the others, but it was like seeing through a looking glass, their features were in the extremes, and blackness was creeping into the edges of his vision. Even in his stupor, however, he was still surprised when a large hand rested on the werewolf's shoulder and it froze.

  "We have been wondering where you were, but now that I know, I'm glad I decided to come." Brand's—or was it Deathbreak's?—voice split through the crowd as they turned as one to look at him.

  "Uh, Deathbreak, we were just—they tried to escape, and the other one did…" the werewolf shook visibly under Brand's grip.

  Brand looked down at him and then at Demenn. "Then why are you not chasing after the escaped one rather than beating one of the captured ones."

  "He—he was… He helped the other escape; he even killed one of ours and knocked two others out." The werewolf's eyes were wide as it tried to stumble through an explanation.

  "Be silent. I told you that these were to be brought to the King as prisoners, and that they were not to be harmed." Brand's voice was cold, and it was obvious that the werewolf assumed it was living its last moments. But Brand's features relaxed and he released the werewolf. "I see, I do not hold you accountable. Feed the vampire from our dead comrade, and then whoever wishes may take what's left of him. I will personally take the vampire back, and I want ten of you to chase after the other one." Brand was very calm and in control, he spoke with a voice that brooked no disagreement, and his orders were quickly followed.

  Demenn felt the sweetness of life returning to him, and he was thankful that he was still dazed, otherwise he knew that he would be groaning with pain at his mutilated body repairing itself. Brand stood over him and stared down at him before turning on those werewolves he had sent to chase down Varus. They were milling about, unsure if they really had to do what he had commanded.

  "Well, what are you waiting for?" Brand took a step forward, but a huge red hand on his shoulder stopped him. He turned around and Demenn shifted his head to the side to see the newcomer. It was gigantic first class werewolf: at least fifteen feet tall, with muscles like stones and blazing red fur. Demenn gasped as he realized that one of the werewolf generals was standing over him.

  "Blood." Brand acknowledged the towering werewolf with a nod of the head.

  "Deathbreak," Blood made no such nod because he was of a higher rank "I heard that one of the vampire prisoners recently escaped, and I felt like joining the chase for him." Blood's red eyes sparkled, and his fur began to stick up.

  Brand smiled. "Thank you sir, your help would be appreciated. I have delegated these ten towards chasing him. They are yours to command."

  Blood snapped his head quickly. "Many thanks, I came because the king told me to tell you that he agrees with your decision to take prisoners. He wants them taken to the holding cells."

  "I'll see to it myself." Brand wrapped his hands around Demenn and threw him over his shoulder.

  At first Demenn was shocked, too stunned to even think, but when thoughts came back into his brain, he wished he still lacked that capacity. He felt only sorrow for Varus, and remorse that he had set him free. He had hoped to save him, but now that Blood was after him, Demenn knew that Varus would die before the sun came up tonight.

  - 14 -

  Intrigue

  12

  IntrigueElsewhere, a werewolf of indiscriminate sex walked down a dark hallway. It moved silently, but boldly, as if it cared about nothing. It seemed to be in deep thought, and its steps slowed as it lost interest in moving them. To any onlookers, the werewolf would have appeared to be lost in contemplation as it completely stopped walking next to a door, and they would have probably thought nothing of the werewolf's decision to enter the room it was next to. After all, the werewolf kingdom was a free place, where none could deny any other shelter.

  Since the room was dark, an onlooker would not notice anything strange as the werewolf disappeared into the door and closed it behind it. These actions would easily deter any curious werewolf from following; it was not wise to enter into a too close space with another werewolf. A werewolf with more direct reasons for looking after this werewolf would be frustrated by the door being locked from the inside with no visible keyhole and no cracks in or under the door.

  Satisfied that its work was done satisfactorily, the werewolf walked in the darkness for a few steps and waited. Its timing had been almost perfect, however, for in a few moments light flooded the room, emanating from what looked like a fountain. The werewolf walked to the fountain and placed its hand on the water in it. The water rippled, but then it settled, and instead of the werewolf's reflection, it saw the face of a male vampire staring at it from the bottom of the fountain. The vampire spoke, and his voice created ripples on the surface of the water.

  "Oh good, it's you. I'm always afraid that someone else will answer this."

  The werewolf shook its head, and replied in a distinctly female voice. "Of course it is me, I am always here on time, now what is it you want? I may be missed if I stay too long."

  The vampire chuckled. His face was wry, as if some inside joke of his that brought him humor also made him grieve. "I was unaware that my company was so odious to you these days."

  She growled softly. "This is pointless, you know that both of us have many things to do, and each second we are away is a problem for us. Tell me what you want to know this time, and let us be on our way."

  A wisp of a smile flashed across his face. "Fine, I suppose this is more important anyway. Did you get him?"

  "Yes, we did. He was captured just hours ago. We also caught two others."

  His eyebrow lifted. "Captured? Was he not supposed to be killed?"

  "Yes!" She growled. "But the werewolf that was in charge when he was defeated let him live and took him and the other two as prisoners."

  "He let them live!?" The amazement on his face was as evident as the surprise in his voice.

  "Yes," her voice was merely exasperated. "Apparently he felt honor-bound to let your vampire live for some reason. Our idiot of a King was so taken by the idea of having vampire prisoners that he allowed them to live. I have no idea why, or even what he plans to do with them, but right now all three of them are in our dungeons."

  "Wait, wait
, three of them? I thought I told you that we sent seven." His hand came to his forehead and rubbed it. "Please tell me that the other four were killed."

  She could not keep herself from mimicking his action, letting her elbow rest on the edge of the fountain and resting her snout upon in. "No, just one was killed. Two were said to disappear before the battle began, and one was released by your vampire. Don't worry, though, because Blood is chasing him, so he should be dead soon."

  "And the other two?" He let a glimmer of hope into his tone.

  She shook her head. "No sign of them. Many werewolves were killed about five miles away from where your vampire was captured, and it is assumed that was them, but since then we have had no confrontations with them. It is as if they have disappeared again."

  She saw his fist enter her vision before he slammed it down on some unseen object. "I told you to leave none alive, and yet only one is dead, three escaped, and the one that I truly want dead is only being held captive. If even one of those three make it back here with news of where your lair is, then it could cause very serious problems for all of us."

  "I know, it's just that no one expected your vampire to be able to release another of his kind, or that one of the two that got away would be a spell caster. This all is have been information that I wouldn't have minded knowing about before you sent them here." She was feeling as annoyed as he was by now.

  "I know" he lifted his fist again, but then he composed himself and slowly lowered it. "The problem is that we knew almost nothing of the vampires Demenn chose, and he left right after choosing them, so we were only able to gather information based on their names. I do not know where he found them, but these ones have done nothing to stand out or be mentioned in our annals save when they went up in class. It's almost as if he pulled them out thin air. We assumed that they would be weak, since we knew nothing about them. No one honestly expected them to be as powerful as you say they were."

  She felt her own anger recede. It was replaced by a cold pragmatism. "Well, regardless, now I have him here, so you must take care of one of mine."

  He looked curious. "A werewolf is causing you trouble? Is it the one who let Demenn live?"

  "Yes, I have no idea who he is, he just recently joined us, but he is a first class and I fear that he could be dangerous."

  A smile spread across his face. "Sounds fun, what's his name?"

  She could not help but chuckle at his bloodlust. "It's Deathbreak. I'll tell you more next time."

  "Fine, I will count the days until our next meeting." He grinned.

  "And I will as well, even with that trite expression. She sneered back at him.

  For a moment his expression softened. He looked so sad. "Goodbye." Then his face was gone, and the fountain she stared into only rendered back her own visage until the light completely faded from the room.

  Sophella stopped running at what looked like a fork in the trail she and Niethel were running on. Niethel was having such a hard time keeping up with her that he did not know she had stopped until he had almost ran into her. She seemed to be wondering which way to go, and he was fine with her taking her time. He was exhausted, even with the rest at the safe house and the power from the lower werewolves, running for almost two straight days, half of it with Sophella in his arms, fighting, and recovering from his wounds was really taking its toll on him. He blew out air from his mouth and leaned against a tree. Once his body accepted the fact that it was no longer moving, he slid down the tree and sat at its base. He looked up at her, and marveled that she was even standing, let alone she was not even breathing hard. She showed no fatigue at all, in fact, even despite having passed out just the other night.

  "Oh come on…there's no way…you're not tired…after all that…running." He panted between breaths.

  She looked at him without moving her head, her eyes scanning him from above. "I guess I'm just in better shape than you."

  "Bull," he shifted a bit and sat straighter. "There's no way, I'm a higher class than you anyway."

  This time she did not look at him. Her gaze was fixed on the two paths. "Fine, it's a spell, it basically moves my limbs for me, but it is only useful for running, and it does not exercise the muscles at all."

  He groaned and rolled forward onto his back on the ground. "And why, pray-tell did you not pass some of that my way?"

  She smirked at him. "I figured that you needed the exercise, and I guess that I was right judging by how dead you look now."

  He wanted nothing more than to go to sleep at that moment, but he forced himself back up to his feet. He could not allow himself to fall asleep now, because he knew that he would not be able to wake before sunrise unless Sophella woke him, and he did not need another chance to look weak in front of her. Wobbling just a bit, he staggered over to where Sophella stood and waited silently next to her as he waited for her to choose which path to take, even though the choice seemed obvious to him.

  Apparently she decided, since she moved to the left one, which led south.

  "Wait, vampire territory is North-West of here." Niethel was sure she knew this, but she was taking the wrong path.

  "I know, we're not going to vampire territory." She did not stop walking down her chosen path.

  "What!" Niethel started jogging after her, ignoring his legs' protests. "But we just found out the location of the werewolves' lair. This has to get back to the patriarch as soon as possible."

  She quickened her pace into the beginning of a run. "I know."

  He growled softly and quickened his as well. "And…usually for information to get somewhere it has to be brought by people."

  "I know." Her voice was flat and she worked her way up to a full run.

  Amazingly enough, he forgot his legs in his frustration. "Gah, what do you know that I don't?"

  "We're not the only ones who escaped."

  His protests were silenced as he thought about that statement. Then in an instant he burst out in noise. "Really? Who else got away? Did Demenn? So did they somehow win after being captured?"

  She kept running. "In short: yes, Varus, no, no."

  "Um… I forgot what order my questions were in." He grinned sheepishly.

  She shifted her gaze to him and sighed. "Yes, really. Varus escaped but I do not know how. No, Demenn is still captured. No, they lost, but somehow he got away."

  "Ah, thanks…" Niethel felt like there was something he was missing. "Wait… That still doesn't explain why we're headed south? What's there that's worth going to?"

  A long silence followed his question as they ran, and Niethel had to focus on his aching legs again as he wondered if she would ever answer him.

  "Because…" Niethel snapped his attention back to her. "Because I don't think that we can win the war that will come when they learn where the werewolves are on our own."

  "What? Why?"

  She flashed a quick, wry smile. "You wouldn't know this since you're not a mage, but just as we left I felt hundreds of werewolves closing in on us, and that was only at a moment's notice. In all, the werewolves must number in the thousands."

  Niethel felt his eyes widen in disbelief. "Thousands?! Is that even possible?"

  She shook her head. "I don't know, I just don't know any more."

  "H-how many do we have?" He still was not sure he believed the werewolves had thousands of warriors.

  "About seven hundred, not counting the civilian militia."

  He felt himself shudder. "It's just like the first time…"

  "Yes, it is. Fortunately, though, with the forewarning they receive from Varus, they should be more prepared. So we should be in a better position than last time."

  "Okay… I got all of that, but why the hell are we going south?" Niethel knew there was something he was missing here.

  He saw her look down. "To try to get help from the Necromancers."

  His eyes widened. "A-what?! But I thought that the Necromancers in Darkoven made an oath long ago to not join in any of our battles."
>
  "They did." Her voice had gone flat again.

  'Why is she always like this?' he could not help thinking. "Okay…and how do you expect to change their minds?"

  She was still looking down for some reason. "I have told you that I was a Necromancer before I became a vampire, right?"

  "Yea…" He wondered where she was going with this.

  "But I never told you what rank I was, right? Well, I was our leaders daughter." She quickly shifted her eyes and looked at him to gauge his reaction.

  With all of the surprises he had been experiencing lately, this fact barely impacted him, except for one part. "Wait… Necromancers have kids?"