Werekynd - Beasts of the Tanglewild

by MacNiven, Robbie

  “The Miremarsh to the city’s south is said to have expanded again,” Novo said.

  “It’s been expanding for decades,” Captain Merat said.

  “Not like this. The last citizens we have on record say things were entering the city through the ruined southern bastion just as they were leaving. Apparently no one who tried to flee south through the marshes has been heard from, and no messages have come from Fallhaven to the south of the Miremere.”

  “Things,” Catil said, repeating Novo’s earlier description of Bilbalo's invaders.

  “The Miremancers,” Merat said quietly. Previously the pavilion would have rung with laughter at the mention of the mythical swamp sorcerers. Not today. The faces grew even more drawn, the expressions all the grimmer.

  “I am moving this army south, orders effective immediately,” Novo said. “We are going to Bilbalo. Our objectives are to redirect any refugees to safe gathering points, assist those still in the city, tend to the wounded, locate and Duke and ensure the safety of his person and his court and, lastly, to banish whatever scum-spawned filth has attacked our ancient capital. Are there any questions?”

  Of course there were questions. Captain Merat was the first to utter the word.

  “The werekynd?” he said.

  “The werekynd are no longer my concern. My last orders were to safeguard Bilbalo against them, but Bilbalo has already fallen to something else. We’re going to take it back.”

  “Objection,” snapped a voice. A young teenage girl shoved herself roughly through the assembly of armoured men.

  “Not now, Red,” Novo said, his tone dangerous.

  “You disgust me, Novo,” Red sneered, banging her fists down on the general’s camp table. “And the rest of you, acting like a pack of whipped welps! Giving him martial authority! We’re here to fight the werekynd, to kill the werekynd! Those are our orders!”

  “I know you’ve not ventured back to the city for many years, Ellen,” Novo said, struggling to retain some semblance of patient debate. “But Bilbalo is home for the rest of us. Wives, family, children, we’ve left them behind to come here and protect them. Now we learn the enemy has snuck in through the back door. There is no hope of us staying here whilst they remain in danger.”

  “Where was such talk when my brother was kidnapped?” Red shouted, the fire of her anger like a physical force pushing Novo back in his chair. “Where? Where? None of you cared that some little boy had been taken by the man-beasts! Do you know what it’s like, Novo? Watching your parents fade away because they blamed themselves? Living with the nightmares of places you wouldn’t dare tread in your darkest, most desperate hour? Is it any wonder I hate them so, for wrecking my family and ruining my childhood?”

  “What happened to your family in Crow Valley was a tradgedy,” Novo said, keeping his voice level. “But if you don’t stand down I will have you removed from this tent, and if you continue to flaunt your disobedience where my orders are concerned, I’ll have you beheaded. Is that clear?”

  Furious silence descended between the two, their faces barely a foot apart. Only Murat had the courage to break it.

  “Even if we do disengage and march south, how do we know the Great Pack won’t simply follow us and attack our rearguard?”

  “We’re not simply going to ‘march south,’ Novo said, no longer deigning to look at Red. “Sound the stand to, and array the cohorts. We’re going to meet the werekynd.”

  “You don’t think they’ll attack?” Cantil said.

  “Actually, I was rather hoping they would join us.”

  A Saga Ended

  Ulthric’s axe split Saarl’s skull apart.

  A lifetime of violence ran the odds up against any creature, man or man-beast. Saarl had killed beyond counting, and it was perhaps inevitable that one day he too would make a fatal mistake.

  It finally came as he was choking Vega to death. His entire being was focussed on the werekynd rival, every ounce of his strength dedicated to forcing the life from the leader of the Great Pack. And in his single-minded determination, Saarl had forgotten one very important thing.

  No formal challenge had been issued. Anyone was free to intervene, and as Saarl crushed Vega's throat, Ulthric did just that.

  There was a sickening crunch as the Pup buried his weapon his Saarl’s head, splitting his skull in half. The old longtooth dropped instantly and without a sound. Death, Ulthric had long ago learned, was most often sudden and quite without theatricalities. As Saarl’s brain-matted corpse lolled off Vega the big werekynd took a shuddering breath, panting and shaking. He’d almost lost consciousness, and as Ulthric’s shadow loomed over him even he couldn’t find the strength to resist any longer. He’d already shifted back, and now he tensed for the strike of Ulthric’s axe.

  Instead he found an extended paw reaching for him.

  “Perhaps the human was right, Vega,” Ulthric said. “We are werekin, all of us. It is time we acted like it.”

  Vega said nothing, looking up at Ulthric. His passions were at war within him, his old self yearning to be set loose on the impudent pup, to rip him apart and vent the adrenaline brought on by his near-death at the claws of Saarl. But no werekynd, even one so bluff and brutal as Vega, could ignore a life saved.

  “My pack won’t follow you, Ultheric Wereborn,” he growled.

  “I don’t ask that they do,” the Pup replied. “The human’s words ring true, Vega, and he paid for them with his life. There is a greater foe set against us now. The differences between us can wait. They have to wait.”

  Vega stayed still for a moment more before finally accepting Ulthric’s help. He pulled himself back up onto his feet, massaging his gashed, bruised neck.

  “You truly believe we should help the humans, after all they have done? You don’t think this is a trap?”

  Ulthric’s reply was interrupted by a shout from one of Vega’s scouts, who’d arrived panting back in the encampment.

  “The human army is on the move,” he reported. “And headed this way. In battle array.” Vega shot a venomous glance at Ulthric.

  “A trap after all, pup. Stand aside, whilst real werekynd fight.”

  “We don’t know for sure that they come here to fight,” Ulthric said, though even he spoke with sudden uncertainty. Vega scoffed.

  “Retrieve my armour,” he ordered one of his werekin, and to the rest, “weapons. We finish this today!”

  A storm of howls greeted the pack leader’s words. Ulthric glanced at Venneck. The seer shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

  The Great Pack moved off south. Slaughter beckoned.

  * * *

  The army of General Novo assembled itself on the rocky plains just south of the werekynd camp. The rain was still beating down, and the thunder added a grim caedance to the spectacle of the Great Pack assembling to face them, its ragged groupings of warriors a sharp contrast to the serried ranks of the humans.

  “As we planned it,” Vega growled to his subordinate pack leaders. “I will lead the centre and attack immediately. Kvarik, take your kin far to the west and outflank them. Strike from behind. Hgorr, you do the same to the east. Keep a watchful eye, and await my signal.”

  “They want to parle,” Ulthric said, nodding towards the dark, rain-drench cohorts of the human battle line.

  “What?” Vega snarled, turning on Ulthric. Following his gesture, he spotted what the Pup had already seen – a dozen riders were approached from the human’s ranks, a white flag hanging limp above them. Vega scowled.

  “More trickery. I’m ordering the attack.”

  “Let me speak to them,” Ulthric said. The sense of purpose he’d felt when the human envoy had been delivering his message had been quashed by the news that the Protectorate army was drawing up to attack, yet here was one final slender piece of hope – the silver thread woven through the rope of fate, beckoning him on. The war could be ended today, and he was the only one who still thought it could be done so without bloodshed. A milita
ry victory for either side now would be meaningless.

  “We’ve nothing to lose,” he pressed.

  “A trap,” Vega repeated stubbornly. “They’re still within range of their crossbows and powder-weapons. If we go to speak with them we’ll be shot down.”

  “Their powder will be soaked through,” Ulthric said. “And look at their numbers. There are scarce more in number than us. This battle is already won, what harm can a few more words do us?”

  “All the more reason to finish them now,” Vega growled, but Ulthric could sense his words were finding purchase. Saarl’s appearance and Ulthric’s intervention had thrown the big werekynd like never before, and now his life-debth to Ulthric was weighing heavily on his mind, twisting his conscience and throwing up doubts where doubts had never existed before. He was werekynd through and through, and the man-beasts took blood debts very seriously indeed.

  “We’ll go,” he finally agreed. “Both of us. I won’t trust you to speak on our kin’s behalf, Ulthric Wereborn. Bring your human pets too. If nothing else we can use them as hostages.”

  “Can my seer come?”

  “I care not.”

  The human delegation had paused in the middle of no-man’s land. Ulthric, Vega, Venneck, Roddick and Thomas went to meet them.

  One way or another, the war would end today.

  A Saga Begun

  Lorenzo had woken from a nightmare, and found himself in another.

  While he’d slept, his city had fallen in blood and thunder. For a while he’d wandered the Keep’s corridors in a daze, unable to believe or fully understand the sights of carnage he was witnessing. Some rooms, like his own bedchamber, now possessed no far wall, only a gaping chasam looking out onto a city beset by a storm and collapsing about itsself. The maelstrom was centred out on the Miremere, lashing both the marshland and Bilbalo’s tumbling stones.

  And it was more than just rain, wind and lightening. Even as he watched the Duke could see a dark smear washing over the southern bastion’s remnants, flooding into the city. At the same time Bilbalo’s overburderend sewers finally burst, filth and scum pouring out onto the streets around the Keep and bubbling up through the rubble and the wreckage.

  The Miremere had come.

  “Sire!” a voice called. It was Captain Sandaz, Gabrielle’s replacement and the new commander of Lorezon’s personal guard. “Sire, we must get you away from here!”

  Lorezon ignored him, his eyes still fixed on the southern bastion. There was more than just the muck of the marshlands flooding over the breach and into the city. There were things accompanying it. Distant, shambling shapes, clothed in muck, perhaps formed from it. Thousands of them, Lorenzo realised, filling the breach, spreading out into the streets, their ranks still packing the Miremere beyond the fallen remains of the Wall. At last Lorenzo understood.

  Bilbalo was under attack.

  “Bring out the guard,” he ordered, turning to Sandaz. A rush of coughs assailed his throat, but be fought them down. The Captain stared at him, fearing that the sight of Bilbalo’s destruction had broken his ruler’s sanity.

  “Is the barracks still standing?” the Duke demanded, grabbing Sandaz by the shoulders.

  “In part,” the Captain said. “We don’t know how many men –”

  “Call them out,” Lorenzo repeated. “Barricade the doors and deploy them on the south side of the Keep. Shore up the breach.”

  Death and overcome the walls and was within the city. Lorenzo would fight it with every flicker of life left in his body.

  * * *

  Man and man-beast stared at one another across a distance of a dozen yards.

  Novo saw three werekynd, big, scarred brutes with weapons at their hips and the carriage of killers. Stranger was the presence of two humans standing alongside them, one decked out like the man-beasts – lanky and feral-looking. The other appeared even more out of place, ragged, dishevelled and wide-eyed with perpetual fear.

  Ulthric met the human’s eyes one by one, trying to gauge the purpose of the impromptu truce. The general at their front looked old and tired, hunched over in his saddle, his black cloak dripping and heavy in the rain. His subordinates seemed equally haggard. The battle, if there was one, would be swift indeed.

  “You speak our tongue?” the general asked. Thomas translated, and Ulthtic nodded, after the human manner. Clearly disconcerted by the sight of a human speaking were-tongue, the general pressed on.

  “My name is Augusta Novo,” he said. “And I am here to seek a truce between my people and the werekynd of the Tanglewild.”

  Ulthric felt Vega tense beside him. It was as the big werekynd had feared, and as Ulthric had hoped. Maybe, just this once, Vega wouldn't do anything rash.

  “On whose authority do you seek this truce?” Ulthric said before the leader of the Great Pack had a chance to speak.

  “On my own, under the statute of martial law,” Novo said.

  “Not your Duke’s?” Ulthric said, taken aback. He’d never heard of human officers acting on their own initiative before. Perhaps this one was different?

  “He is in no position to give orders,” Novo said. “Something terrible has befallen our city of Bilbalo, terrible even by your standards. We can no longer fight you, and we’ve no stomach for it even if we could.”

  “Would you spare us?” Vega said. It was Ulthric’s turn to tense, yet the measured words he heard the bluff werekynd speak amazed even him.

  “Would you spare us, if our positions were reversed?”

  The question obviously made the man called Novo uncomfortable. He shifted in his saddle, the rain making a pattering noise as it bounced from the plate mail worn by the human leaders.

  “I thought not,” Vega said, when no reply was forthcoming. “You view us as nothing more than animals, you think to cull us and, when we become too much to handle, you can trick us with fine words. Well maybe you’re right. Maybe we are just animals, beasts. If so, killing all of you won’t be a problem.”

  The sound of hooves beating through the muck disturbed Novo before he could answer. A rider was spurring towards the small gathering, galloping from the silent, dripping ranks of the Protectorate army. She rode low in the saddle, a red cape snapping behind her, the cowl raised. The werekynd reached for their weapons, but the rider pulled up before them, sawing on the reigns.

  She stared at Thomas.

  “Ellen,” Novo snapped. The girl looked no older than her mid teens, still a pup by the human standards, but the way she rode and her stance, even in the saddle, was of one with a confidence well beyond her years. Her eyes now, dark like Thomas’s, were wide with horror.

  Thomas had heard the name Novo had addressed the newcomer by. He stared back at her.

  “Ellen?” he breathed.

  “They said there were two humans with the man-beast delegation,” Red said, her unblinking gaze still fixed on her older brother. “It cannot be.”

  “You’re with them?” Thomas said, equally shocked to find his sister in an opposing army. “Ellen?”

  Red looked set to say more, then, so sudden it caused a reflexive snarl in Vega, she yanked her reigns and turned her horse away.

  “Wait!” Thomas shouted, but Red was riding off, galloping hell-for-leather away into the rain, away from both armies. Thomas ran a few paces and stopped, arm half raised, his long-lost sister’s name on his lips.

  “You’re her brother, the one she’s been searching for?” Novo asked, looking Thomas up and down. The dripping, half-naked boy nodded. Novo said nothing, returning his attention to the werekynd.

  “I can take it by Ferdano’s absence that the Beast caught up with him?”

  “Saarl is dead,” Vega replied. “As is your envoy. His flesh strengthens the pack.”

  “Did you pause to even listen to his message?”

  “We did.”

  “Then you’ll know the importance of what is happening. The warnings Ferdano gave his life to tell you were not idle. Even now Bilbal
o lies in ruin, and the decay of the Miremere spreads across the Protectorate. It will reach the Edgewood of even your beloved forest one day.”

  “What’s left of it,” Vega countered.

  “Better something than nothing. If the Miremancers aren’t stopped at Bilbalo, they will turn on what remains of the Tanglewild next.”

  “If you were in my place, human,” Vega growled, “you would hesitate at these things you propose. You would likely refuse them. Are these the mewlings of a beaten enemy? The last efforts to cheat defeat? They sound like it to my ears. How can you expect us, sworn enemies this past decade, and well beyond that, to lay down our arms and retract our claws in an instant, with your blood-scent in our nostrils?”