Werewolves of Kregen

by Alan Burt Akers

  “You know of the love Csitra had for Phu-Si-Yantong? Yes. Ling-Li-Lwingling came along and turned his head. Deb-Lu has apprized you of these facts. If Csitra does truly imagine herself to be infatuated with you, Dray — and pardon me for putting it quite like that — she is a woman who will adhere rigidly to her own obsession.”

  “I suppose I ought to feel thankful.”

  “Oh, indeed, yes.” The wizard’s metallic voice held no levity. “If this is the handiwork of Phunik, Deb-Lu and I can handle him and his powers. It will take many seasons before he approaches anywhere near our combined kharrna.”

  “And Csitra?”

  “We felt her assisting Yantong when we blew him away in the Quern of Gramarye. She has power. I think even with her uhu she cannot master us.”

  “Then,” I said, and I spoke with more acerbity than I intended, “Then by the disgusting diseased left eyeball of Makki Grodno! Why do you not stop them?”

  “I will reply to your perfectly reasonable question when I have consulted further with Deb-Lu.”

  The rebuke was merited.

  I nodded perfunctorily, and Khe-Hi took himself off.

  I, Dray Prescot, Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, did not wish to turn into a veritable ogre. But, by Krun, these diabolical occult events were forcing me down that ugly path.

  Mind you, as I went off to find Seg and Nath and have a wet and discuss plans for the forthcoming offensive, I reflected that there’d been something distinctly odd about Khe-Hi during this conversation. Now, just when was that? I found Seg and Nath in the mess tent, and I snatched up a glass at random, my mind working back on that conversation.

  “Hai, Dray! You look as though you’ve lost a zorca and found a calsany.”

  “Something like that,” I said, and then I had it.

  The Wizard of Loh had looked decidedly shifty when he’d talked of Ling-Li-Lwingling, the Witch of Loh I’d met in Jikaida City in the center of Havilfar.

  Now, why was that?

  Nath resumed the conversation my entrance had interrupted. Strangely enough, this concerned Khe-Hi.

  “We do not know the locus of infection, Khe-Hi was telling me. It might be anything. If a victim can be kissed by dudinter very soon afterwards, there is a chance he may be cured.”

  “It is safe?”

  “Not at all. The transformation, I was told by those who witnessed it in Nugos, was exceedingly swift.”

  I said, “But he had been a werewolf before — for how long we do not know.”

  “The devil of it is,” said Seg, “there could be a dozen of the dratted things prowling about out there right now.”

  That thought could unsettle anyone, could waft an icy draft of unease down any spine

  We deliberately pushed those unwelcome thoughts aside and got down to serious planning. Seg, Turko, Nath, Kapt Erndor — any one of them alone could have planned out the forthcoming actions. I was not needed. As the emperor, it could be said, my place was at the center, at the fulcrum, in Vondium.

  By Zair! I wasn’t going anywhere near Vondium while my every footstep was dogged by these blasphemous werewolves, these ghastly visitations from malignant sorcerers. Not a chance, by Krun!

  By chance I was aware of some work done on this Earth in connection with werewolves and the disease of lycanthropy. The myths and legends insisted that silver was the metal to dispose of the weremonsters. A test had been made of Nugos, a simple thing, when a dudinter ring had been slipped on his finger. He had not appeared disconcerted.

  So we did not have that handy way of detecting the gancharks amongst us in human form. Mind you, any intelligent bloke who knows he’s going to turn into a werewolf come full moon can always smear shellac or some similar coating onto his hands to pick up the silver candlestick.

  We were all mightily heartened when Tom Tomor sent a regiment of Valkan Archers to join us, and two crack regiments of Pachaks from Zamra. Our strength grew slowly. As ever, we were short of saddle animals. Now if what I considered the unlikely schemes of my kregoinye comrade, Pompino the Iarvin, came to fruition, he ought to be sailing back to Vondium in his fine new galleon. He’d gone faring forth to Pandahem to bring hersanys, heavy, six-legged, chalk-white-haired beasts, from Seg and Milsi’s kingdom of Croxdrin. I wondered if he’d run into any of the werewerstings up there that Seg had mentioned.

  Incidentally, I confess that although I had the comfort of Makki Grodno, I did miss the Divine Lady of Belschutz...

  Well, all that rascally crew had sailed with Pompino. When he sailed back, if he ever did, and he had managed to procure saddle animals, no doubt shamelessly using the specialist merchant in saddle animals, Obolya Metromin, he would be mightily welcomed. Pompino, I fancied, would be pretty sharp with Obolya, calling himself the Zorcanim. Also, if I knew my Khibil comrade Pompino, he’d earn his nickname of the Iarvin by letting it be known that he was a personal friend of Jak Leemsjid, who just happened to be a personal friend of the King and Queen of Croxdrin.

  These thoughts made me break in to ask Seg how his friends from Croxdrin fared in Vallia, to which he replied that the two pygmies, Diomb and Bamba, had been taken off by Milsi, and that the rest of his cutthroat bunch were either organizing themselves or being organized into the regiment I’d told him he ought to raise.

  “They’ll come in handy, Seg, when Balkan comes along. News is scant out of that hyr kovnate. I hope it all goes smoothly when the time comes.”

  Even as I spoke I knew that, this being Kregen, it would not go smoothly...

  Letters came in and went out. I heard from Drak who said that Dayra had been through like a windstorm. His sister, he said, was desirous of visiting his other sister, Lela, out in Havilfar. This astonished me.

  Still no reasonable results were obtained with the werewolf business and we were, on that problem, as Seg said, like a pickpocket with no fingers.

  We were pushing Layco Jhansi’s forces back. In more than one conversation on the eve of battle it was suggested that after the coming victory we should push on to the town he had made his provincial capital, Vendalume.

  “We catch the rast there, string him up, and the rest will fall into line,” promised Turko. He had no need to swell his chest and bulge his muscles, as so many Khamorros did. He was grown in stature in quite unphysical ways, was Turko, in these latter days.

  “Your spy network is working better now,” I said.

  We stood watching the twin suns set, Zim and Genodras flooding down their mingled light upon the stricken field where the medics worked devotedly. The battle had been arduous, for we’d caught a sizable Jhansi force, and destroyed them. That was the Battle of Farnrien’s Edge. The new regiments had fought magnificently, lost few casualties, and now our lines resounded with victory celebrations. “I could wish I had a certain barrel of a fellow to spy for us—”

  “Naghan Raerdu?” Turko laughed. “Aye, I remember him, and the way he cried hot tears when he laughed.”

  “An acute, brilliant and invaluable man, Turko.”

  “Well, we’ve done pretty well. And the news from Inch is good.”

  “Yes. I rather thought — and I’ll let you and Inch sort it out — that we could split Vennar down the middle. Half to you, half to Inch.”

  “That is not only fair, it is generous to both—”

  “You’ll both have to agree—”

  “Of course. I see no problem at all, by Morro the Muscle! With Inch on my western borders I’ll sleep well.”

  How quickly Turko had picked up the affectations of nobility, of thinking like a kov!

  The uproar from the lines continued. We’d left the main camp a few miles to the rear with the tents and impedimenta and the camp followers. We’d rest up and then march back. The twin suns sank and the Maiden with the Many Smiles, already aloft, poured down her fuzzy pink radiance upon the land. As we stood drinking in the cool night air shadows moved out across the plain beyond the battlefield.

  “What—?” said Turko.


  Nath na Kochwold cantered across astride a zorca. He pointed out.

  “The lurfings of the plain try to scavenge the dead—” He stopped himself and raised in the stirrups. He stared.

  “Well?” snapped Turko.

  “I think — by Vox! It is so! Many and many of them—”

  I was jumping up onto a varter, climbing to balance on the ballista. I looked out across that moon-drenched landscape. Rosy light flooded down and the shadows lay long and undulating. And in that wash of fuzzy pink radiance there was no mistaking the nature of those hideous forms that leaped along in a baying pack.

  Howling, a monstrous pack of them, their gray backs like a tidal rip, the werewolves poured past in a torrent, hell-bent on our undefended camp and all the camp-followers there.

  Chapter nineteen

  Howling under the Moons

  There was nothing else to do but race like a madman for the zorca lines and fling myself across the first animal I laid hands on. She was a fine chestnut and she quieted instantly as I grasped her mane. Bareback, head low, feet tucked in, I roared off after that blasphemous rout.

  Nath rode with me. Magically, Seg and Turko were there. Others joined us. Volodu was blowing his lungs out, shrilling the alarm over the entire camp.

  In a straggling bunch, heads low, we raced after that streaming howling pack of werewolves.

  Every man jack of us, I was sure, wore among the usual Kregan arsenal of weaponry a dudinter blade.

  Nothing was going to outrun a zorca, on four, six or eight feet, or on two. Among the bunch of riders following me were men and women riding sleeths, two-legged dinosaurs, swarths, four-legged dinosaurs, totrixes, six-legged lumbering saddle animals of great stubbornness, zorcas with their four nimble feet and single upflung spiral horn, and there were even a few souls aboard nikvoves.

  Roaring with the fury to get at the gancharks, we raced across that mysterious moon-drenched landscape.

  If that howling pack of unholy beasts got in among our camp... There were women there, men who were representative of the gentle races of Kregen who wouldn’t know which was the naughty end of a spear or a sword. They could all be destroyed, their throats ripped out, their guts torn and ripped bleeding from them... No. Oh, no. I couldn’t allow that.

  As the fleet zorca, a beautiful animal, bounded beneath me, I wondered anew over the problem of just how these werewolves kept making their appearance — and, always in my vicinity.

  This was the malefic work of Csitra and her uhu, Phunik. Well, our two Wizards of Loh were hard at work trying to prevent this diabolical interference in the affairs of Vallia. Csitra might have taken a fancy to me; Phunik hated me, hated us all, both for the destruction of his father and for the wrecking of his insane ambitions to dominate all of Paz. If Phunik went the same road as his father Yantong, we were in for another period of great distress, another horrendous Time of Troubles.

  As that howling tide of gray horrors leaped on it seemed likely that the Battle of Farnrien’s Edge would be followed by the Massacre of Farnrien’s Edge.

  The women and camp followers, the servants and batmen, the grooms and cooks, would stand no chance at all when that ravening horde leaped upon them.

  There are races on the bizarre world of Kregen who are not warriors, do not produce fighting men and women. The Relts, gentle-cousins of the Rapas; Xaffers, mysterious and distant; Dunders with their flat heads; ahlnims who are a race who produce mystics and wise men, all these and many more go about their daily lives while the world’s stage resounds with the deeds of Chuliks and Khibils, with Rapas and Fristles. These people, then, were more than deserving of every effort to save them.

  Fleetly the zorca galloped. She proved her quality on that night when the werewolves swarmed to attack the camp. Other zorcas stayed with us in the van. We were able to head the howling pack, to bear inwards, and then to ride alongside. Seg, legs clamped, was shooting already.

  I used the ganjid-smeared dudinter blade. It was like slapping at a river in torrential flood. Grimly along the backtrail the corpses dotted the plain. We rode on, swords rising and falling, and the rout lessened.

  At the last a few gancharks turned on us in a desperation that, I judged, came from their own natures and not the occult power impelling them. These we dispatched. Only a scant three or four ran off, howling mournfully.

  Seg shafted two, and a bunch of the lads rode after the others.

  Our camp was in a frightful commotion; but men rode off to reassure the people. A deed had been done this night. Then began the grisly business of collecting the corpses. Well, there were men there I did not know, and others I did. This screeching pack of werewolves had been composed of men from many regiments. Some of them had blood on their lips; we suspected there was yet further horror to be discovered.

  “There’s just one good thing to come out of this night’s work.” Seg stood with me watching as the corpses were brought in. All of us bore faces like death masks.

  “Oh?”

  “Aye, my old dom. I’ve been expecting trouble among the troops. Mutiny. A lot of regiments were growing restive serving alongside the guard.”

  This I had suspected and dreaded.

  Turko — wearing a dudinter sword — said, “Then whoever is doing these unholy things miscalculated tonight.”

  “We’re all in this mess together, the guard, the regiments from Vondium, those of yours, Turko, those from Valka. If we fall apart now...”

  “This fight has given us a real edge.” Seg’s fey blue eyes in the torchlight drove at me like twin lightning bolts, a stupid fancy; but exactly conveying the sensation. “Farnrien’s Edge has given us an edge over Jhansi. I vote for an immediate forward movement of our whole force.”

  Our general growl of agreement was interrupted by the noisy arrival of a gang of soldiers dragging along two poor wights covered in mud and blood, their uniforms in tatters. When order was restored we understood that these two unfortunates had been discovered by the party who’d ridden after the escaping werewolves. The story was the same as that of Nugos the Unwary.

  “You know what must be done.” I spoke in that cold and hateful voice. By Zair! I was not a happy man in those dismal days. I took myself off and let other folk get on with the nasty business.

  Passing a campfire I saw two of the Jikai Vuvushis clasping each other, sobbing their hearts out. I felt this was no business of mine. Whatever it was that was causing their distress — well, perhaps a quiet word with Marion...

  She told me that, in the nature of things, liaisons had grown up between her girls and the men of their choice; strong affections — love, even — and that marriages were in prospect.

  “But?”

  “But, majister, many of the men they chose have been slain, some in battle, some turned into werewolves, some as victims of werewolves. I find it distressing—”

  “Why have you not reported this before?”

  “It is a feminine matter. I did not wish to burden you with unnecessary problems, seeing the many you already have.”

  She was quite right, of course. My Delia would have very quickly put me in order on that one. I bid Marion good night and went off to my tent.

  A considerable quantity of bodies stood about my tent.

  I sighed.

  Each one of these fine lads and fair lassies was there personally to interpose their bodies between me and the enemy. Even if, as could easily be the case, the enemy was a horrendous ganchark. The thought that any one of those superb people could turn into a werewolf and rend the person nearby filled me with a hollow, aching passionate anger that was completely useless.

  The habit of addressing a superior with “jis” for a man and “jes” for a woman was, as you know, increasing, paralleling the words “sir” and “madam” on Earth. These folk would call me majister if they were formal, majis if they knew me a little better. By the Black Chunkrah! My fine guard corps was being eroded, eaten away, destroyed by this occult and evil menace of
the werewolves. It occurred to me that an expedition into the Snarly Hills of South Pandahem and a quick extermination of the horrors within the Maze of the Coup Blag might be an option I could not afford to ignore...

  Just as I was about to flop down onto the spread furs, absolutely fagged out, a girl glided into the inner compartment of the tent. She was a Jikai Vuvushi I was more accustomed to see wearing her war harness, girded with steel weapons. Tonight she was half-dressed in a flowing rose-colored gown and bearing even more lethal weapons, not of steel. She carried a small hip-harp of eight strings and a pressel.

  “May I sing to you, majis, for a short time before you sleep?”

  I was too damned tired to argue.

  “Very well, Floring. I am afraid I shall be a poor audience.”

  So Floring Mecrilli, a Jikai Vuvushi, a Sister of the Sword, struck the strings of her harp and played. She had a fine voice. I haven’t the foggiest idea what she played and sang. The whole incident was unusual.

  Presently she put her harp upon the rugs and, with a movement undulating and voluptuous, crossed to me and sank upon her knees. Her hair fell forward half-obscuring her face. Her dress was loose.

  “If there is anything else I might do—”

  “No, and I thank you, Floring. Now just let me sleep.”

  “If that is your command.” She pouted. At once I felt alarm. “At least, for the love I bear thee, let me kiss you on the lips—”

  I sat up, moved back and in a voice that might have blown out the gate of a fortress, said, “That is not for you, Floring Mecrilli. Now leave this tent — now!”

  She flinched back. Her breast heaved with the suddenness of released passion. The single eye I could see past her downfall of hair looked glazed and staring. She licked her lips.

  “Please, my love—”

  I jumped up, grabbed her by the shoulders, spun her about and carted her off to the tent flap.

  There I placed her on her feet. I did not wish to shame her before her comrades.

  “Now go out, Floring, and I shall forget this. If not, you are a soldier and are subject to the mazingle and strict regulations for all soldiers of Vallia.”