Angela of Troy

by SJB Gilmour

  ‘And that’s why you hunt Angus’ associates?’

  McConnell rose and began pacing angrily. Sparks of uncontrolled rage and power flickered up and down his body.

  ‘Angus sought to kill all werewolves,’ he grated. ‘He nearly killed the one who saved me. I intervened. He fired an arrow that carried a demonic curse at the werewolf. I pushed her aside and it struck me in the shoulder. The spells unravelled and he was killed. As he died, the demon within him fled his dying body and possessed the nearest warm body: mine.’

  He looked at me with eyes so grey and intense that I caught my breath. ‘Yes,’ he replied finally. ‘Had I your skill, I’d have resurrected him a thousand times over, just so I could kill him again and again.’ He snorted in self-loathing. ‘But I’m no necromancer. So, yes. I swore to hunt down and destroy any and all who associated with Angus. Any who had contact with him may have been infected with his evil beliefs.’

  It seemed too far-fetched for me. My expression betrayed my thoughts.

  ‘Any attempt to harm a Silver Shroud is returned to the attacker,’ he explained, pointing at the bandages he’d placed on my chest. ‘You shot me with a silver-tipped arrow. The same damage was returned to you.’

  ‘But you survived! I’ve been here in agony, plagued by nightmares!’ I littered my protest with curses no civilised text need contain.

  He snorted again. ‘The pain, I understand. Typical for silver poisoning. The nightmares? You brought those onto yourself, necromancer. As for me… I heal quickly.’ There was more to his story. I was sure of it.

  ‘Well? So you became an indestructible immortal. Why this need for vengeance?’

  McConnell took a long time before answering. He sat with his hands covering his face from all light. When he removed them, his eyes were red.

  ‘I was not alone when the attack took place. I was with my wife.’

  Understanding dawned on me. I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of the guilt he must be carrying.

  ‘Angus was torn apart by the demon within him. It possessed me then I became a monster. She… My wife Firenza…’ He looked up and away to the stars in the Vendor night sky. Then he turned back, his voice flat and emotionless. ‘Possessed as I was, I attacked her and fed on her flesh while the demon within me consumed her soul. She would never even have the chance to cross the river Acheron to Hades’ kingdom.’

  Weakened as I was, I was in no state to continue the conversation. I leaned over and retched. Throwing up with a chest wound is excruciating. The effort left me wheezing.

  ‘You’re still not well enough for this,’ McConnell told me, once more cleaning me up. He gave me more of a sweet, salty brew to drink then wiped my face again. He was about to pick me up once more to carry me away again to where the moonlight was shining stronger when he stopped, his face alarmed.

  ‘What is it?’ I gasped. Instinctively, I reached for my sword but found it, like my other weapons, was gone.

  McConnell swore, changing into his great silver and black wolf shape. ‘A dragon!’ he growled.

  He then barked a single-worded spell at me. A shimmering orb surrounded me. I had heard of such spells before, but I’d never seen one activated. For McConnell to erect a containment orb so quickly was an elegant display of power even I did not possess.

  I don’t know if it was the excitement or the drink McConnell had given me, but once more, dizziness overtook me. I collapsed back on the rock, unable to do more than watch a huge male emerald dragon swoop down on one of the rocks surrounding the clearing.

  The dragon was both outraged that we, a werewolf and a human, dared trespass in The Ranges, and gleeful at having found what it thought to be easy prey. In its rage and hunger, it was terrifying.

  McConnell backed away from the dragon, making sure he kept himself directly between the massive reptile and myself. Oddly enough, his hackles were not raised and his tone was not aggressive when he answered.

  ‘Please,’ he tried to reason with the dragon. ‘Surely you know of the curse of The Silver Shroud?’ Though his words were the growls of a wolf, they were as easy to comprehend as the language my mother taught me.

  ‘Bah!’ scoffed the dragon, snorting smoke and fire. ‘Superstition!’

  ‘It’s true. Attack me and your blow will be returned to you. Don’t be a fool.’

  The dragon snorted again, obviously not believing a word. Then he blew a huge ball of fire at the black and silver werewolf before him. I could not see what happened to McConnell. All I saw was the fire surrounding the orb protecting me. It bounced off the enchanted barrier, leaving me perfectly unharmed. When the blast subsided, I saw I was the only one the flames did not injure.

  McConnell was still crouched between myself and the dragon, but his coat was burned away almost completely. Oddly, I observed just how muscular the great wolf was without his fur.

  The dragon however, was more than singed. His once-beautiful green scales were blackened and cracked, as if he too had been engulfed in a ball of fire.

  Enraged beyond the dragon’s ability to reason, he drew back his head for a moment then lunged at McConnell, catching him from the mid-section down. What followed was a most gruesome display of gore.

  The dragon let go of McConnell instantly, dropping the werewolf to the rocky ground. McConnell yelped once then fell, only a few stringy pieces of sinew holding his front half to his rear. His spine was obviously snapped through and his organs and blood spilled out onto the ground around him. It was then, finally, that his will dissipated and he let the containment orb vanish.

  What happened to McConnell was horrid, but nowhere near so as what then happened to the dragon. With a scream of horror and pain, the dragon fell back, sliced through completely. His upper torso went one way, the lower another. Tonnes of boiling entrails spilled out between them. The dragon gasped a few times then died.

  I was shocked, both by the ferocity of what had just happened and the amazing bravery McConnell had shown. Even though I was weak and terribly unsteady, I dragged myself down off the rock and crawled over to the stricken werewolf.

  He was breathing ragged, shallow breaths. I went to touch him, but he opened his eyes and whined.

  ‘Don’t, Amazon.’ His voice was weak certainly, but I had expected him to be far too injured to talk at all.

  That was when I saw the next most incredible thing I had ever witnessed. His bleeding stopped and his wounds began to heal all by themselves. His entrails seemed to have a life of their own and they snaked back into the cavity of his body like hot, sticky tentacles of some bizarre sea-creature. Next, the gaping wound that all but severed his front half from his rear closed itself and healed. Finally, his hair grew back. Within the space of only a few minutes, the terribly wounded wolf I’d crawled on my hands and knees to watch die, was healed and well again.

  Even on my knees, I was swaying. Though obviously still in great pain, McConnell changed back into his human form.

  ‘I can’t keep you here any longer, Amazon. Emeralds never travel alone.’

  With that, he hauled me to my feet, wrapping my good arm over his shoulder. With his free hand, he produced a small burning nonagram in the rubble on the ground. The portal he had just created was as strong as any I had seen and I knew before even entering it, that it led somewhere no regular sorcerer should ever be able to go without express permission, especially no male sorcerer. This portal led to Lentekhi. We vanished through the portal just as furious roars announced the arrival of more dragons.

  As soon as we arrived at the Amazon base, I was whisked away to the infirmary and medicated into a blissful, dreamless slumber. When I awoke (some days afterwards, I learned later), I found McConnell asleep beside my cot.

  ‘He’s not taken food nor drink since he arrived, Lieutenant,’ a crusty old nurse told me. She made a clicking sound of disapproval and nodded at the snoring wolf. ‘Carried you through that portal, injured as he was and then refused to leave, he did. Sent the brass into fits.�
� Then she looked contrite. ‘Begging your pardon, Ma’am. No offense meant.’

  I took none. This aged nurse was a veteran. I may have outranked her, but she had centuries more experience than even the current Queen, Penelope.

  As I swung my legs down off the cot, McConnell gave a start and woke. He looked up at me and shook his great head, making his ears flap. I found the action quite disarming. His grey eyes gleamed happily and he grinned in that feral, toothy way only wolves can.

  He padded up to me and sniffed me a few times. Satisfied I was truly recovering, he sat back and scratched behind one ear with a hind paw.

  ‘About time you woke up, Amazon,’ he remarked dryly. ‘You snore enough to wake the dead. Makes it hard for a wolf to get a moment’s rest.’

  The nurse watched this exchange for a moment then shook her head. ‘Her Majesty ordered she be informed the moment you woke,’ she told me. Then with a nod to the werewolf and a quick salute to me, she strode from the room with more vigour than one would expect from a woman so old.

  ‘Your queen will be here soon, so I haven’t much time,’ McConnell growled, suddenly very serious. ‘I stayed only to make sure you recovered. Now I can see you’re on the mend, I’ll leave you to it.’ He turned and began the draw in his will to create a smaller, wolf-sized portal without bothering to create a protective nonagram to secure it.

  ‘Not so fast, werewolf,’ I snapped at him. I rose from my cot and began to get dressed. He didn’t seem concerned by my nudity but I had no desire to face him without at least a pair of breeches on.

  ‘I was given orders to stop you,’ I told him.

  He paused and turned to regard me with just the faintest hint of a smile. ‘Does that mean you’ll try to stop me again?’

  ‘Even if I end up as dead as that dragon.’

  He glared at me. ‘I have no wish to kill you.’

  ‘Orders are orders,’ I shot back. Then I felt curious. ‘Why didn’t you just let me die?’

  He sat on his haunches and made a short, angry whine. Then he gave himself a bit of a shake and yawned.

  ‘Call it a moment of weakness.’

  My expression alone was enough to tell him I didn’t believe that for a moment. He furrowed his brow and sniffed, saying nothing.

  ‘You saved my life once, werewolf, but that won’t be enough to stop me. One way or another, you and I will become adversaries.’

  ‘And there’s no way I can convince you to let the matter be?’

  Angered, my stubborn streak showed itself. ‘Even if I were released from my orders, which I have no power over. You have nothing to offer me.’

  He had the impudence to grin. ‘Not even the containment orb you were muttering about in your sleep? I’ll make you a deal,’ he offered. ‘You tell me just who set you onto my tail, and I’ll drop my hunt.’ His eyes narrowed and his voice lowered to a determined growl.

  ‘Why do you want to know? Even if I did know, you know as well as I do that I wouldn’t tell you.’

  The door swung open and Queen Penelope strode in, flanked by two Anthropophagi warriors. These heavily-tattooed soldiers belonged to the deadliest of all the Amazon tribes. Still, if they or the queen herself fazed McConnell, he didn’t show it.

  ‘I can, Silver Shroud,’ Penelope barked. ‘You can forget about trying to whine answers out of my people.’

  McConnell grinned and wagged his tail. ‘Very well then. Who gave the order to hire you? Lentekhi wouldn’t lend their blades to just anyone.’

  ‘Your Majesty!’ One of the Anthropophagi snapped at him, incensed at his casual manner.

  This only served to make him grin even more. His eyes sparkled with mischief. He stood and approached the queen, though he was careful not to get too close. Then he stopped grinning. Both he and my queen faced each other for a long moment, neither willing to give an inch.

  Finally, McConnell wagged his tail again. ‘Very well, I’ll give you my word. You know as well as I, that the word of a werewolf is not lightly given.’

  Then my queen’s eyes lit up slyly. ‘It’ll take more than just a vow, Silver Shroud. You have a spell of protection. Give it to my necromancer here so she can give it to the rest of my troops.’

  He bowed his head in agreement. ‘In that case, Your Majesty, I think we have a deal.’ He nodded at one of Penelope’s guards. ‘I’ll need some parchment.’

  The parchment was produced along with a quill and ink. McConnell changed form into his human self then set to writing down the spell and the instructions for the command phrase. This gave me time to dress myself fully once more and fall in before my queen as my rank required.

  When McConnell was done, he handed it to me. ‘From a spellweaver to a necromancer,’ he said formally. ‘Be sure you practice the Magaeic phrasing a few times before you activate it. You wouldn’t want to turn yourself into a cabbage now, would you?’

  I took the scroll and tucked it into my belt with a frown. I was probably the most well-versed in Magaeic in the whole base. The language of enchantments always seemed to be the best way to make a spell work properly, and nobody knew why. It was rumoured that spellweavers like McConnell claimed to be, could somehow tap into their own power at some fundamental level and translate that power into words, thus creating new spells.

  He turned to Penelope. ‘And now the second part of the bargain,’ he began with another slight bow. He put his right hand to his chest. ‘I, Benjamin McConnell, spellweaver and Silver Shroud, swear to you, Amazon Queen, to abandon my quest for vengeance against the associates of the sorcerer known as Angus.’

  Penelope didn’t change expression. ‘And?’ she demanded.

  McConnell raised one eyebrow. ‘You want an allegiance? You can forget it.’ Then he grinned. ‘But I will vow not to harm,’ and he gave me a sly glance then turned back to Penelope, ‘or allow to be harmed by their own actions against me, any Amazon under your command. That good enough for you?’

  Penelope considered this for a long moment then nodded in return. She turned to me, her face set. I snapped to attention. Eyes front, belly in, chest out.

  ‘Drop the case, soldier,’ she told me firmly. ‘Go back to The Guild and tell Marzdane I’ve called you off. Tell him The Guild better think twice before sending an Amazon on a suicide mission again.’

  My face betrayed no emotion other than the immediate and absolute obedience of a soldier given an order. I saluted smartly.

  McConnell wasn’t so stone-faced. ‘It was Marzdane?’ His face clouded over. If he’d been handsome before, he appeared even more so in a temper. He glanced at me and then looked back to Penelope. She nodded.

  ‘It was he who called for Lentekhi to help,’ Penelope told him.

  McConnell looked puzzled. ‘You’re sure it wasn’t Rufus?’

  Penelope shook her head. ‘That Golden Mane would never willingly set anyone against a werewolf. Marzdane called for The Guild to vote. As chairman, Rufus had no choice but obey the will of The Guild. If you’re looking for someone to blame, blame Marzdane.’

  Then she nodded at me and strode towards the door. Before she left, she turned and looked over her shoulder at McConnell.

  ‘Silver Shroud, you were allowed to remain here because of the service you did returning this Captain to her base. That courtesy will expire within the hour.’

  McConnell bowed again to the Amazon queen. ‘Just a few more words with your officer here, Your Majesty. Then I’ll leave.’

  Penelope’s use of the word “Captain” was not lost on me. I was due a promotion anyway, but being due one and actually receiving one are two different things. Once McConnell and I were alone in the room again, I regarded him curiously.

  His face had gone from clouded to furious. He swore, pacing the room. The more he paced, the angrier he became. Sparks flickered up and down his body – a clear sign of a powerful sorcerer on the verge of losing his temper. But, he didn’t so much lose his temper as he did harness it. He held out his hand and let several flick
ering sparks of power boil into a crackling ball of lightning which he then hurled at an unoffending chair.

  ‘Are you done?’ I asked him. If he had really wanted lessons on how to throw a temper tantrum, he could always have asked my mother. ‘Why are you so upset? You got what you wanted.’

  After a few more profanities, he calmed down enough to at least be civil. He looked at me as if I were the class dullard.

  ‘I did,’ he grated, ‘but I can’t do anything about it. I can’t just go and kill Marzdane now, can I?’

  I hadn’t expected that. Of course he could kill Marzdane. I might have been smitten with the man, but I knew if McConnell wanted to, he could find and kill Marzdane more easily than he had just about any of his other victims. Marzdane wasn’t hiding from anyone, and I knew now that McConnell was at least a match for Marzdane in power.

  ‘Why not?’

  His look spoke volumes. I blushed. What had I said in my delirium?

  ‘So you won’t kill Marzdane because of how I feel about him?’ This strict, odd form of moral code surprised me.

  ‘Nobody kills the intended mate of a werewolf unless they have a death-wish,’ he replied. ‘And we do not kill the intended mate of our colleagues. Besides, I’ve given your queen my word not to harm any under her command. I’m free to annoy you, but not cause you any lasting distress.’

  Then he sighed and rubbed his face with his hands a few times. His anger faded away and he seemed more relaxed than I had seen him before.

  ‘We’ll meet again, Angela of Troy,’ he said then with a wink. Then he changed form into his wolf shape and leaped into the air, creating a portal just in front of his nose. It disappeared just after the tip of his tail vanished through it.

  Once I was given the clearance to leave the infirmary by the nurse, I did as my queen bade me and returned to Conundrum. The Guild was satisfied that McConnell was no longer on a killing spree and dismissed the matter.

  Marzdane continued to woo me, though he had a harder time of it than he’d have had a fortnight earlier. Where once all I saw was him, even after he and I were wed, I still remembered the strong face and stronger honour of Benjamin McConnell, spellweaver and Silver Shroud werewolf.