by Jim Galford
“I…I can’t let them just…,” Estin said, trying to convince himself. To his surprise, Feanne flipped Arella onto her back, using a move Raeln had taught her. “I’m just in the way again, aren’t I?”
“We pick strange women,” Turess confessed, shaking his head and patting Estin’s shoulder. “We are not warriors, Estin. Know place and let her fight this. I learn this long ago and it let me conquer nation after nation. Was good arrangement. Women much stronger than men some ways. Just need to find the way and surrender.”
Feanne swung her claws across Arella’s face, taking off a chuck of fur and flesh, but Arella laughed and shook off the deep wounds, which closed as Estin watched. She got back to her feet and punched Feanne with enough force that Feanne tumbled back, sending a spray of snow in all directions. When Feanne came back to her knees, Estin could see blood on her muzzle, shirt, and the white fur along her neck.
“I can’t just stand here,” Estin said, trying to determine what he could do that would not end up with Feanne attacking him for embarrassing her.
“We are doing other important thing. We are waiting for him to try to intervene and we stop him,” Turess explained, pointing at Rishad. “Will take both of us to stop him. Maybe more. If not else, is good excuse to watch woman-fight.”
A pair of loud growls made Estin look back at the women, both smeared with blood and circling again. Unfortunately, Feanne already showed signs of weakening, trying to keep her distance from Arella and favoring one leg. With Arella healing faster than Feanne could hurt her, something had to change and quickly.
As if hearing his concerns, Feanne let out a roar and flung her arms out to her sides. As she did, her claws and hands grew monstrously, and her muscles visibly tensed with fresh strength even through her clothing. Now magic was in play, and hopefully that would be enough for Feanne to at least walk away from the fight in one piece.
Feanne swept her hand across her body as Arella charged. As she did, the snow between herself and Arella flew up, creating a blinding snowstorm. When it cleared, Estin saw Arella hit the ground in another spray of blood. Feanne stepped over her.
A chorus of howls from within the city drew Estin and Turess’s attention.
Even Rishad, leaning against the side of the gate, looked around nervously. He walked quickly out of the city and toward them. “Call this off!” Rishad yelled as he hurried over. “Get them to stop or this will turn into a massacre.”
“You think I can make her stop?” Estin asked, genuinely confused.
“I can’t make the high priestess stop either,” he replied, looking genuinely afraid. “We are all in a lot of danger if we don’t find a way to stop this. The other priests are on their way. I cannot control them any more than I can control Arella.”
“Then call this off and talk about going north with the priests,” Estin insisted, but Rishad shook his head.
“I have no say in this, wildling. Arella is the high priestess. My title is meaningless to her followers. Her interpretation of Kerrelin’s teachings is absolute. So long as she rules the pack, they will not leave these walls.”
“Pack?” Estin asked, looking back at the city as another set of howls echoed off the walls. Above, the archers were moving to make themselves less visible from the ground. “They’re all werewolves?”
“Most, not all. Enough that they can kill all of us…myself included. Why do you think I surrendered to them?”
“I thought that was a matter of faith.”
Rishad laughed nervously. “It’s easier to be obediently faithful after having a few dozen werewolves tear your body to pieces each time you regenerate for days on end. You’re lucky—you will only die once. Dorralt found my misery amusing and let it continue.”
“Do you think we can hold them off while these two sort things out?”
Rishad turned to the gates as no less than thirty werewolves appeared, on all fours. They slowed at the gates, assessing the situation outside, where Feanne and Arella continued to trade blows. The group stopped completely as Feanne was knocked to the ground again, bleeding from dozens of wounds.
“I hold back wolves while women fight,” Turess said, stopping only to give Rishad an evaluating look. “Maybe you learn something Dorralt did not bother teaching. He always was sloppy.”
With Rishad scowling at Estin’s side, Turess quickly walked to stand between the large pack of wolves and the two women fighting outside the gate. All eyes from the group went to Turess, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. For the first time since Estin had met him, Turess appeared entirely calm. He tucked his hands into his robes and watched the wolves, almost daring them to attack.
“Why are we doing this?” Rishad asked, sounding tired. He shook his head sadly. “I need Dorralt dead as much as you do if I ever want my freedom back. Is there any chance you can talk Feanne into standing down, so I can talk to Arella? We can find a way to help everyone if they would stop trying to rip each other apart.”
Estin shook his head, as Arella slammed Feanne into the ground again. “No. Feanne won’t stop until one of them is dead. Can you talk Arella down?”
“There’s blood drawn already and the pack is watching. She cannot allow herself to stop. If she did, the pack would not respect her.”
“Trust me, I understand. Feanne was a wildling pack-leader.”
Sighing, Rishad nodded. “This will not end well, Estin. If they both live through this, I swear to you that I will argue your case to her. As much as it pains me to be standing here being civil with your kind, even I can see this is foolish. You’ve stood up to things that you should run from. I respect that.”
“And I understand what you’re going through—something inside you that you can’t control. It’s terrifying and humiliating to have it dominate you and override your thoughts. On’esquin put me through something similar.”
“Perhaps we are more alike than I had thought,” Rishad admitted, smirking. “Don’t expect me to say that near anyone else.”
Barking and yipping, the werewolves ran for Arella and Feanne, who were both on their feet again, though Feanne looked ready to fall at any moment. Turess remained perfectly still, standing in their way. They would reach him in seconds.
“Call this off, if you can,” Estin begged, unfastening the clasp on his swords. “I can’t let them kill Feanne.”
Rishad looked to be as nervous about the situation as Estin, though he shook his head helplessly.
Seeing nothing else he could do, Estin walked toward the battle, but stopped when Turess held up a hand toward him.
Turess pointed at one werewolf after another, his face tense with concentration. One by one, the werewolves he pointed at collapsed midstride and transformed back to their human shape. Within seconds, a dozen naked men and woman lay curled up in the snow, shivering and looking around in confusion. Atop the wall, horrified archers stared at the fallen priests.
The remaining few werewolves that escaped Turess’s initial spell nearly reached him, but crashed into an invisible barrier inches from him, as he raised a palm toward them. Soon all of the werewolves stood at the edge of the barrier, trying to find a way around it.
“I can’t stop this,” Rishad admitted, sounding distraught. “I don’t want to see Arella or Turess die for something this stupid. I’ll try to calm Arella if you will try with Feanne. With luck, we will both live through this. Turess can keep the others off us.”
Estin took off running toward Arella and Feanne. Rishad raced past Estin with a speed only one of the undead Turessians could manage, running to intercept Arella, who had pinned Feanne to the ground and bared her teeth.
Leaping, Rishad crashed into Arella’s side and knocked her over a second before Estin reached Feanne, who was struggling to stand. Blood covered her face and arms, much of it her own, and she stared at Estin with a dazed expression. Snarling weakly, she lunged at him, likely not even aware who she was attacking anymore.
“Feanne, stop!” Estin told her,
grabbing her arms and holding her in a hug to calm her down. “She’ll kill you.”
Nearby, Rishad and Arella were trading blows, with Arella shouting something at him about being a pack-leader. Estin ignored them, having heard the same ranting from Feanne more times than he could count. It was Rishad’s turn to take a beating over the rules of a pack.
“I…I won’t give up,” Feanne said, barely keeping her legs steady enough to stand. From what Estin could tell, he was providing most of the strength to keep them both upright. “She tried to kill you…”
“Feanne, there are thirty werewolves over there, ready to tear you apart.”
She looked toward the city, her body tensing in surprise when she saw the pack tearing into the magical wall Turess held in place. From what Estin could see, the entire wall was shuddering and becoming more visible with each impact, though Turess remained outwardly calm.
“Don’t die for this. I’m fine.”
“This is not about you anymore,” she countered, shouldering him off. She very nearly fell over without his arms on her. “They’re wolves. They will never understand until their leader agrees to help us. I have to make her help us, or this trip is a waste. Heal me if you are able.”
Estin stepped in front of Feanne, stopping her from rushing at Arella and Rishad, who were conversing rather than fighting. Putting a hand to her collar, he poured into her what little magic he could manage without getting ill, easing much of the strain he could see in her eyes.
“You aren’t part of their pack. The whole pack will tear you apart. You know that, Feanne. You can’t challenge their pack-leader like this. Let it go!”
“You’re right,” Feanne whispered, her hands quickly shrinking down to normal size with a crackling of bones shifting. “I would need to challenge the pack, not just the leader.”
“Right…wait…what?”
Feanne stumbled away from Estin toward where Turess was straining to maintain the wall against the fifteen wolves that clawed at it. Before Estin could stop her, Feanne howled, drawing the attention of every werewolf instantly, silencing everything else outside the city.
With the barrier collapsing and the wolves running right over Turess to come after Feanne, Arella snarled behind Estin, warning him that she was coming again.
“Feanne, no!”
Feanne dropped to her knees and began her own transformation. Violent shifts under her flesh tore at her clothing. Her bones realigned and grew, increasing her size in random spots until she lay huddled with her face to the ground, though still as tall as Estin standing.
“Oh hells,” Estin sighed. He ran, trying to get out of the way as Feanne rose to her feet, letting loose another loud cry of challenge to the other lycanthropes, who had slowed and appeared less certain of themselves.
At her full height as a were-fox, Feanne stood almost ten feet tall, full of rippling muscle and anger. Despite her eyes still being blue after the change, Estin could see the bright green glow of magic from them. She raised her head to the sky to howl again, but that cry was cut short as Arella crashed into her hard enough that Estin fell when the ground shook. As soon as he came down, Estin flattened out as the rest of the werewolves ran right over top of him, trying to aid their high priestess. Heavy paws dug into his back but kept going, leaving him to curl into a ball to avoid further trampling.
For her part, Feanne was holding her own, fighting with a ferocity Estin had only seen a few times, even when she had shape-changed. She spun and kicked, clawed and bit, turning and moving as fast as she could with group of werewolves and their pack-leader trying to get a hold on her. She towered over all of them, using her size and strength to toss one or more werewolves aside at a time, stepping on those that had fallen to keep them down while she fought.
On the far side of the fight, Estin could see Rishad sitting up, his arm cocked at an odd angle. As he watched, Rishad’s arm snapped back to its normal position and he looked at the ongoing fight with the same frustrated and scared expression Estin probably had on his face.
Estin managed to find Turess lying in the snow with one hand on his side. Blood in the snow around him told of a deep wound, but Estin had to hope he could tend to his own injuries.
A shrieking cry startled Estin, and he ducked as a shadow passed overhead. Peeking, he stared as a werewolf crashed into the wall of Jnodin, scattering the archers who had been watching from the battlements. The wolf fell from the wall to the ground and struggled to stand before falling again. Its wounds might heal, but it would take time to recover enough to fight again.
When Estin looked back at Feanne, he saw she was actually using one of the werewolves like a club to bash its companions, knocking them aside and scattering them when they tried to overwhelm her. Behind her, one of the wolves tried to attack her back, but Feanne kicked out and raked the werewolf, tearing open his chest and stomach with her claws. Even those deadly wounds looked to be healing as the werewolf dragged itself out of the fight and collapsed into the snow nearby, trying to hold its intestines in.
“This is insane,” Rishad said, stumbling and nearly falling as he came to stand near Estin.
A moment later, Turess headed their way, the white underrobe he wore stained red on his left side. “This is beyond me.”
Estin groaned and got to his feet, then ducked again as another wolf was thrown against the city walls, cracking the stones with its impact. Before he made it more than a few steps, he saw one of the werewolves—Arella, he had to assume by her fur coloring—began snarling and taking swings at the other wolves, driving them away from Feanne. Soon only the two females remained in a blood-spattered section of the plains, panting and glaring at each other.
“They have this under control,” Estin said, stopping before he got too close the battlefield. The wounded and battered werewolves backed out of combat until they were standing near Estin and the others, watching. “We need to stay out of this or they’ll kill us first.”
The werewolf and were-fox circled slowly, their remaining wounds closing as they moved. Neither looked quite ready to yield, but Estin wondered if there would ever come a point where the two were so exhausted that they would be willing to. For a long time, they seemed content with watching each other.
Howling and cries from the north drew the attention of everyone, including the werewolves. From the snow-covered hills, a horde of dire wolves, more werewolves, a group of smaller animals, and even a towering bearlike creature came running straight toward the two females, who were still circling.
All around him, the werewolves backed away from the group of animals and other creatures that more than tripled their numbers. The approaching group stopped, maintaining a comparable distance from Feanne and Arella to that of the werewolf priests. Rather than watching the two combatants, the animals and newly arrived lycanthropes watched Arella’s fellow priests challengingly.
Estin had seen enough battles in his short life that he recognized reinforcements when he saw them. Arella might have a pack of werewolves, but Feanne had somehow brought a massive group of monstrous creatures from somewhere in the Turessian wilderness. Whoever or whatever they were, they were ready to fight the priests to keep them from Feanne.
Turning one way and then the other, Arella surveyed the groups around her. Letting her hands drop to her sides, she looked back to Feanne and growled again, hesitantly backing away. Arella looked around one more time, stared at Rishad for several long seconds, then focused her attention to Estin. Baring her teeth one more time, she shifted her paws, adjusting her weight as though debating whether to stay or run. She dropped to her knees as she returned her attention to Feanne. Slowly, Arella lowered her head to the snow in a humble bow.
Snarling, Feanne loomed over Arella, eyeing her foe with unadulterated hatred, clearly trying to decide whether to strike. She looked past Arella toward Estin, watching him for a long time before relaxing her stance. Feanne then raised her muzzle to the sky and howled again, this time joined by all of the nonpr
iest werewolves, the dire wolves, several bears, white foxes, and other animals Estin could not even identify. There were easily a hundred creatures out there, with still more coming, and all of them joined Feanne’s cry, their howls echoing across the whole of the northern border.
“Welcome to Jnodin,” Rishad told Estin, walking past him toward the open gates, where the two werewolves who had hit the wall were shifting back to their human shape.
*
An hour later, Estin stood over Feanne, tying off a bandage on her arm where one of her wounds had not healed fully before she changed back. Across the temple, Arella was being similarly tended to by Rishad, who had wrapped a chunk of ice in a cloth and held it to an ugly bruise across her neck and shoulder. Both women were wrapped in blankets, since their clothing had been destroyed, and once they had returned to their normal shapes, they shivered uncontrollably in the cold weather. Estin knew it to be a side effect of exhaustion from the changes, at least in Feanne’s case. Neither woman appeared willing to admit their own weaknesses.
“Do we do this again when you have caught your breath?” Feanne asked, sounding more than a little angry yet. She pushed Estin’s hand away from her arm. “Keep your pups out of my way, and I’ll leave mine in the woods.”
“No, I think I am done challenging you.” Arella winced as she tried to adjust how she was sitting. Almost as an afterthought, she lifted the edge of her blanket and eyed a nearly black bruise that covered much of her lower leg. “Does your regeneration ever fully heal you?”
“Never,” Feanne admitted, rubbing her knee. “I always return to normal with bruises or cuts that require more mundane healing.”
“And here I thought that was just us,” Arella said, shooing Rishad away. “When were you planning to tell us what you are?”
“It was not and should remain none of your business. Walking into a city should not require that I strip naked and howl to announce myself. If that is how your priests are expected to behave, I am happy that I was raised in the wilds.”