The Iron Wolves

by Andy Remic

  Captain Horsell, of Drakerath’s City Watch, stared at the mound of paperwork forlornly as the door to the watch-house burst open and screams echoed through to his office and the cells beyond. Horsell groaned, rubbing his already weary eyes. It was going to be one of those nights.

  He heaved himself up and walked swiftly through to the counter, where Jarred was nobly trying to calm the woman. She was dressed like one of the many prostitutes who worked the Lower Quarter of the city, down by the river where the tanners, fish markets, cheese factories and fighting pits tended to operate their slightly noisome trade. She wore brightly coloured silks and a yellow scarf, but on this night it, and her face, were sprinkled by a delicate tracing of blood.

  Jarred had moved round the counter and had the woman held by both upper arms in a gentle but firm grip, and was trying to talk her down from her fast, impenetrable babble.

  “Madam,” said Horsell, “you need to calm down.” For some reason, his deep, resonant tones brought a sudden hush to the watch-house front desk. He moved closer to her, and Jarred released her, taking a step back in deference.

  “Did she tell you anything?” asked Horsell.

  “All I got was ‘wild animal’. He gave Horsell a sideways glance, for they’d already had two reports of some kind of huge dog, or maybe wolf, loose in the city. Eaten one lady’s poodle, apparently. Scared some children. Savaged a drunk down by the rice warehouses. It was midweek. It should have been a quiet night…

  “OK, calm down, lady. First, can you tell me your name?”

  She gave him a suddenly shifty look, for the Watch were not renowned for their leniency when whores strayed from their designated areas. He waved away her look. “Just so I know who I’m speaking to.”

  “Galina, sir.”

  “And is that blood on your scarf, Galina?”

  “It is, Captain Horsell. Well the thing is, I was out walking the streets with Jade, we were standing under a streetlamp, stamping our feet for ’t’as grown terribly cold now winter is coming fast, and this carriage pulls up. He was a right portly gentleman, and balding, with a face like a pig’s anus, but his carriage was sleek and black, the two horses in good health…” she took a deep breath, and her eyes grew haunted, “and we hears this growling sound, like a big dog, and it leapt and brought down the two horses in one bound, crushing them, snapping with long fangs, like, and it was rightly terrible. It turned on the carriage, biting at the wood, and we ran, and we heard the portly gentleman’s screams and the thing came after us…” She paused, gulping, as Jarred placed a wooden tankard of water before her. She took it thankfully, draining it in one.

  “What happened next?”

  “It came down Groper’s Alley, and I am ashamed to say I ran from Jade, cutting right and heading here, like. I shouted for her to follow. But she didn’t. I heard some screams. They must have been her. Oh please, Captain Horsell, please go and look for her. Take your sword!”

  “You say this wolf brought down two horses in one leap? No wolf can do that.”

  “It was not a wolf, sir.” Her words were soft, her chest rising and falling fast in her panic above a tight corset the colour of blood.

  “What was it?”

  “It… it was like a dog, but big as a lion. But, twisted. Its head was twisted to one side. It bit a horse’s head clean off!”

  Horsell took Jarred to one side. “Have you smelt her breath?”

  “Gin?”

  “Aye, I reckon. And too much of it by the sound of her. But that is blood on her scarf, so we’d better check it out. Have Darka and Lantriack checked in?”

  “No, sir. They’re due.”

  “This is what we’ll do. You stay here, I’ll head down Groper’s Alley and try and retrace this woman’s footsteps…”

  Boots pounded the cobbles outside and Lantriack spun into the watch-house. He looked dishevelled, panicked, and that was not like Lantriack. Lantriack was the calm professional who could both talk any enraged drunk down, and had the natural presence to command respect when he decided to crack heads with his Peacemaker. Lantriack did not panic easily, and yet here he was – red in the face, eyes wild, lips wet, breath coming fast.

  “Captain Horsell! You’d better come quick. There’s been some murders!”

  “Some murders?”

  “Women.” Lantriack gulped. “Seven women!”

  Horsell rounded on Jarred. “Stay here. With her. Don’t let her leave.” He grabbed his Peacemaker, stared at it for a moment, tossed it aside and grabbed his short sword. This was not a night to be half-prepared.

  Reena’s Palace was just down Fisherman Black’s Lane, across from the Fish Hex Market. It wasn’t, as the name suggested, a palace at all, but rather a narrow two storey house wedged between a spice shop and an open-fronted food pit which sold slabs of roasted pig for two copper pieces.

  Captain Horsell was panting as he arrived, and a light falling of a snow was frosting the cobbles in white. Darka was standing in the doorway, eyes wide, stamping his feet to ward off the cold, and behind him was a young pretty girl of no more than sixteen years; obviously a “lady in training”.

  “Upstairs,” said Darka, grimly, and his face told the tale.

  Horsell stooped to speak to the girl. “You called this in?”

  She nodded, mute with terror.

  Horsell took the stairs three at a time, long legs eating the ascent, left hand holding his scabbard tight against his trews to stop it slapping. He stopped on the landing, a sudden movement as if he’d hit a portcullis.

  The first woman lay a few feet from the stairs. Her hands were stretched out towards Horsell, as if in pleading; as if she’d been crawling to escape when… whatever it was had bitten off both her legs. Thick puddles of blood, gore, stray ligaments and tendons and wispy straggles of torn skin led like a trail in a V from the woman’s body trunk. Horsell met her glassy eyes, and looked away.

  Carefully, he stepped over her remains, but could not avoid the blood. It was everywhere. Horsell had been in several battles, and witnessed various murder scenes; but this was something else. Like somebody had tipped buckets of blood over the floor. It was obscene. And unavoidable… he left bloody footprints on his way to the main room of the brothel, and stood in the doorway for a moment, shaking, eyes wide, before stepping to one side and throwing up his supper.

  Lantriack came in, stepping over the first body.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “Yes. Yes.” Their eyes met. “By the Holy Mother, what in hell’s teeth did this?”

  “I truly do not know,” said Lantriack. He stood alongside Horsell, and together they once more surveyed the scene. There were six bodies – or so they would discover the following day, after the pieces were laid out on sheets in the street and crudely put back together again. Here, though, and now, they were strewn around the room. No single body was intact. Legs, arms, hands, feet, heads, teeth, hair, all were mingled with buckets of blood, with torn clothing, with shoes and jewellery that glittered under the oozing crimson. As Horsell’s gaze moved slowly around the room, looking for clues, looking for any clue, he saw a finger here still wearing a ruby ring, a section of face there (which appeared to be smiling but in reality was probably screaming), there, an unrecognisable lump of meat, there a…

  “What is that?” said Horsell.

  “It’s a breast, sir.”

  “We need to find who did this, Lantriack.” Their eyes met. “And kill him.”

  “Or it, sir.”

  “You think a wild animal did this?”

  “I used to live on a farm when I was a lad, sir. We kept horses, cattle and also chickens. One winter’s night, a fox broke into the chicken pen; thirty it slaughtered, in a frenzy of killing madness. It couldn’t possibly eat that much, but it murdered every chicken in that hut. This… this scene kind of reminds me of that. A wild animal gone crazy with bloodlust.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s powerful. To pull a woman apart like that…”

>   “What shall we do, sir?”

  “Emergency call out to all guards. And send messages to General Caltor at the garrison barracks. We might need their help. And, I expect, we should inform King Yoon.”

  Lantriack met Horsell’s eye for a moment. “That won’t do any good, sir,” he said, his words quiet and neutral. “In fact, in might do a lot of bad.”

  “And yet we must,” said Horsell. “Go on. Get on to Caltor first; he can summon more men than I.”

  Lantriack saluted and back-tracked down the stairs, boots thudding. Horsell looked around the room at the dismembered corpses, then up and out of the small panes of glass at the window. Outside, snow had started to fall heavy.

  “Winter’s coming,” he muttered, and he meant it in more ways than one.

  THE PRINCE

  Prince Zastarte lifted the glass of ruby wine and smiled from that handsome, round face framed by long black curls and topped by an expensive felt hat containing a bright red feather. “A toast to you all, my dears! To such fabulous hosts!”

  There came a gentle round of applause from the family members of the Wellton Estate and their friends, and servants circulated with silver trays bearing crystal glasses of finest port, brandy and the ruby wine which still glistened on Zastarte’s lips.

  In the corner, under the glittering lights of a chandelier, Ember, youngest daughter of the Wellton family, struck up a lively piece on the glossy black grand piano, and Zastarte was just about to approach the young lady, face made up to look more than her enticingly sweet sixteen years, when Ember’s mother stepped before him, her hand lifted and clutching a lace kerchief.

  “You may ask me to dance, Prince, if you wish,” she said, smiling to show slightly over-large yellow teeth.

  “But why, of course!” exclaimed Zastarte, beaming a gallant smile, and began whirling Lady Wellton giggling around the large dance floor, her ample bosom bouncing, his feet jigging to the tinkling upbeat piano number, her laughter cackling out like a strangled hyena. Zastarte’s curls bounced in rhythm as his hand found her waist and squeezed just that little bit inappropriately through the lace and fanciful crochet-work of the tight white bodice she wore.

  They danced around the room to four piano pieces, as Lord Wellton gradually drank himself into a state and retired to the library with seven other men of good-breeding and tweed for a smoke and a brandy.

  Sweating now, Zastarte excused himself from the dance, leaving Lady Wellton red in the face, hand on her bosom, and headed off down a cool corridor towards the gentleman’s room, hand on the hilt of his rapier to stop it flapping against his legs.

  Zastarte passed a full length mirror amidst the acres of dark oak panelling and he stopped for a moment to admire himself, as he always did. Tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, long of leg and upright and stiff, he was every inch the soldier, every inch the prince, every inch the hero. Oh how he had regaled all present with his tales of zig-zagging the point of his weapon to remove the surprised eyebrows from a mud-orc at Desekra Fortress; how he had reprimanded a drunken brigand in the street, his sword licking out to cut the buffoon’s waistband leaving his trousers around his ankles making everybody in the fish market laugh and point; and how his many previous infamous parties had led to (at his last count!), twenty-five pregnancies, seventeen divorces, three murders and one dancing dog. The dog wore red ribbons, danced on its hind legs, and made everybody roar with laughter.

  Zastarte looked himself up and down. Tailoring of the finest quality, imported fine-weave cotton from Zakora, a silk blouse from Zalazar, Junglan lace ruffs at wrist and throat, with a thick Vagan top-coat of jet black wool, and of course, bright red Drakerath three-quarter length pantaloons tucked into bright white socks and glossy black Drakerath court shoes with golden buckles. He chuckled. Some fashion statements would never change. He really did look the part.

  Zastarte looked into the reflection of his eyes, iron grey and piercing, set in a strong, lightly tanned face, square jaw, rugged hero looks, no scars (oh how he had protected his face in the days of battle!). He was every inch the dashing, well-matured fellow, noble and honourable, with impeccable history and a grand noble heritage. Had he mentioned he was noble? He was damned noble, with extra lashings of honour.

  He tugged his coat a little, then moved to the gentleman’s room where he took his generously proportioned cock in one hand and pissed through the wooden hole in the floor as he hummed the piano tune played by Emba Wellton. He pictured her, with her tiny white features and hair in pretty blonde sausages. What a delightful child! At sixteen, soon she would have the suitors queuing to bring the gifts and desire of courtship. Grumpy old Lord Wellton would have a riot on his hands, that was for sure!

  Zastarte chuckled, stowing his manhood away, then washed his hands and, taking a powder brush from its bowl, applied a light brushing of white across his cheeks. Then he stepped from the chamber and closed the heavy oak door behind him, with a click.

  A hand grabbed his wrist, dragging him round the corner, and Lady Wellton pushed him hard against the wall. His head thudded the panelling.

  “Lady Wellton!” he proclaimed, feigning shock.

  “Oooh, you animal,” she said, hands rubbing up and down his arms and chest. She clutched at him eagerly, like a virgin on her wedding night.

  “But… but what about Lord Wellton? This is an exceedingly compromising position you place us in!”

  “Fuck me,” she hissed, grabbing his coat hard and pulling him down into a kiss. His lips found hers and she kissed him with the passion of a middle-aged divorcee after a decade of celibacy; she grabbed his hand, forcing it between her legs, panting; and he found she was exceedingly wet.

  “Fuck me! No! Here! Now! Just FUCK ME!” she breathed, eyes wild, and now it was Zastarte’s turn to push Lady Wellton against the opposite wall, unzipping his bright red pantaloons and producing his engorged cock for her eyes to feast upon.

  “Ooh,” she said, again, licking her lips. “Can I touch it?”

  “Touch it, taste it, ride it, it’s time we got to business,” panted Zastarte, dragging up Lady Wellton’s skirts. He thrust inside her without foreplay, after all, time was of the essence, and she groaned and bit his shoulder, and her breasts wobbled against his chest, and over her shoulder Zastarte’s eyes gleamed and he grinned as he gave her what she wanted, hard and fast.

  “Delightful evening, old chap!” said Lord Wellton, puffing on a cigar as Prince Zastarte stepped onto the stone steps at the front of Wellton Hall in a stretched circle of glowing orange lamplight. “Shame we don’t have more civilised company like you, hey?” He swayed a little, seriously the worse for wear after at least ten port and brandies.

  A servant had brought Zastarte’s carriage around, and the four horses snorted in the cold night air, one pawing the loose stones of the driveway. Most of the guests had already left, and Zastarte gave a salute to his driver.

  He shook Wellton’s hand vigorously, coughing a little on cigar smoke. “It’s been a mighty fine evening, old chap,” he beamed. “Very robust. Very energetic. I’ve found myself invigorated by the delightful company of your delightful family!”

  “Good lad, good lad,” beamed Wellton as Zastarte stepped briskly to one side to take Lady Wellton gently by the arms, and deliver a petite kiss to her cheek.

  “And Lady Wellton, it’s been a pleasure.”

  “No, no, the pleasure was all mine,” she beamed, showing those slightly over-large yellow teeth.

  “No, I insist, rarely have I enjoyed myself so thoroughly at an engagement! I find myself swollen with delight! Wet at the lips! I feel like an over-excited schoolboy who’s had all the sweets from the jar. Thank you so much for your wonderful hospitality. I’ve come into your life as a stranger, and leave the richer person.”

  “You shall have to come again,” said Lady Wellton, giving a little curtsy.

  “Indeed, I should love to come inside your home many, many times!” Glancing over Lady Wellton’s shoul
der, he caught sight of Ember Wellton being fussed by servants and then heading for the stairs and, no doubt, bed beyond.

  “Well, Zastarte,” said Wellton, punching him on the shoulder. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  “I shan’t. And if you can convey my goodnight wishes to your fabulous daughters, and that very sweet little morsel, Ember. What a delightful pianist! Talented and skilled.”

  “She gets her strong, agile fingers from her mother,” grinned Lady Wellton.

  “I am sure she does. I am sure she does. Good night! Farewell!”

  The room was a cool, dark place. Bare candles flickered in little alcoves in the grey stonework, and it had the feeling of a cellar, or dungeon, although it was dry and did not suffer damp. The floor was made of uneven stone flags, worn in places from centuries of boots and work. Along one wall there were several old, rusted iron chains. Occasionally, a gentle draught made iron links clink against the stonework, a subtle accompaniment to the heavy silence of this deep underground place.

  At first, there was darkness.

  Then light came to her, and it was the tender yellow light of hazy flickering candles. She blinked lazily, and yawned, and wondered where she was, what was happening, and why her surroundings had changed so drastically. Her mind tried to leap-frog facts and she could not focus, could not concentrate, could not comprehend. Where was her thick white duvet and plumped up pillows? Where was the frame of the dark oak four-poster bed? Where was the drifting gauze of the curtains that surrounded her little palace of sleep?

  She realised she was on her back, and this was strange for she never slept on her back. Indeed, she was more the sort of person who snuggled deep under the covers and cocooned herself against the ice and the cold, against the dark and the savage real world. But here she was, arms and legs stretched apart…

  She tried to turn over, but was restricted. Her mouth tasted fuzzy and metallic; like copper or blood. She worked her lips and tongue, and tried to move again. Something rattled. Something metal.