“I’m confused. Did it cause the king to die? "
“No, ” Swift Talker said. “Garou rage killed the king. The act of king-slaying shaped it, gave die unbound spirit a new form. ” “I don’t get it. It’s a Talon. It’s supposed to be a monster or something, at least according to the legends. ”
“The Talons are our monsters, ” Crying Bird said. “They are given life by the Wyrm, but the form they take and the powers they wield are shaped by Garou fear. In every age, every time a Talon is freed, it takes the form that freed it. In all ages, this has been the form of betrayal and distrust. The power of murder. ” “That doesn't make sense. The one that’s free now, it killed Garou this time, the Uktena banetenders. They didn’t kill each other to release it. ”
Crying Bird shook his head. “It has been free since the king-slaying you witnessed. The Uktena only captured its heart. Its tendrils have always touched the descendants of those who participated in that slaying. ”
“So it’s been affecting Garou all this time? Since when? When was the king-slaying V’
“Before the Pangaian Moot. Before the Litany. It is the Heartsplinter, the wound that will not heal, the scar that tears apart siblings. It festers in all Garou hearts, hidden by rage. It cannot cause hate, but it empowers it, turning petty disputes into vendettas. ’’
Evan felt his legs weakening with the enormity of the revelation. “I can't fight this. Nobody can. ”
“You are the Healer of the Past. You must set things aright. You must atone for your ancestor’s wrongs. ”
“How?! How do you fight bodiless mist? ”
“Strike at the heart. ”
Evan moaned in anguish. He turned to address the apparitions but they were gone. The Penumbral snowscape, now empty of pine trees, stretched to the featureless horizon in all directions. A green mist roiled in the distance, hovering, waiting for him to leave.
Mari thundered across the tundra, ignoring the increasing pain of growing fatigue in her limbs. In the far distance, she saw the tiny speck of the fomor, moving quickly away from her. Judging from the sheer amount of humans it had mustered, Mari figured that the Pentex base must be nearby. She had to catch the fomor before it could gather reinforcements.
The Silver River Pack followed behind her, lagging by fifty yards, with Storm-Eye in the lead. The wolf-born Garou was more used to running for long periods than the others but even she felt exhaustion setting in; Mari could tell by her and the others’ occasional faltering steps. She didn’t allow herself to speculate on what would happen if they were attacked in force before they could recover.
Far ahead, the fast-moving figure came to a stop. Mari felt a thrill rush through her nerves as she put on more speed. With her enhanced wolf eyes, she could see it flailing its limbs, thrashing at something. The snowmobile. It had broken down or run out of gas. The fomor turned to look at the chasing Garou and then broke and ran, hurrying in the same direction as before, but now on two feet.
It was only a matter of time. Where before the fomor had slowly gained speed and distance from them, now they gained on him, much faster this time. The wolves’ four legs and physique, designed for the chase, easily outdid the fomor's two legs. What’s move, his wounds were beginning to tell on him; he soon slowed, huffing and puffing.
Then the horizon lit up. A huge fireball erupted from the earth, gusting into the air, its heat sending forth a hot wave of air that even Julia, the straggler of the group, could feel on her fur.
The force of the blast knocked the fomor over. Mari blinked and kept running.
The massive cloud of flame and smoke billowed outward, darkening the sky. Mari sniffed the air. Burning oil. The base must be ahead; it was probably an oil refinery. Something had just caused it to explode.
She was maybe two hundred yards away from the fomor. He staggered up and ran again, dropping from sight. Mari realized that the ground ahead fell sharply downwards, creating a valley that she hadn’t seen from afar. She kept running and closed the distance in seconds.
She skidded on the edge of the incline and slowed just enough to judge the landscape before committing to it. Then she slid down the slope, following the fomor’s footprints.
Ahead, spread out across what looked like a mile-long crater, a number of aluminum sheds belched smoke from their interiors, all their windows and doors broken out. A giant skeletal tower in the center of the crater seemed to melt before Mari’s very eyes, the raging fire bursting up beneath it from a hole in the ground.
But that wasn’t the most shocking view. The snow was black with soot; here and there, wherever the soot had not yet settled, blood covered over the floor of the crater. Human bodies—more Pentex employees—lay strewn about, slashed to pieces by some massive clawed hand. Mari could see even with a bare glance that the five-clawed hand that made those wounds was bigger than any Garou she’d ever seen.
The fomor stood at the edge of the base, less than twenty yards from Mari, trembling with shock or rage— Mari couldn’t tell which from behind. It clearly had not expected this.
Mari shifted into battle form and halted a few yards away, bringing both her hands up and pointing her claws at the fomor. Her initial intention for the chase—to stop him before he could alert his base—was no longer relevant, but she certainly didn’t intend to let him live.
The fomor turned and hissed at her, stepping forward to fight. She snarled and let her claws fly. They shot from her fingers like wasps and swooped at the startled fomor, angling toward his soft sides, where his carapace was weak. They tore into his flesh, embedding themselves deep.
The fomor gasped, surprised and indignant, and fell dead. His body kicked up a cloud of blood and ashes as it hit the ground.
The Silver River Pack trotted over to Mari, looking around, sniffing for any live enemies. Mari wriggled her bloody fingers as new claws began to grow. The process itched a little, but that was a small trade-off for such a powerful boon from the wasp spirits.
“What the hell happened here? ” Julia said.
“Something attacked them, ” Mari said. “Something big. ”
“Where! " Storm-Eye said, sniffing deeply. “Can’t find. ”
“I don’t hear or smell anything, either, ” Mari said. “But I’ve got a theory. Come on, grab on to me. ”
The Silver River Pack immediately understood her intentions and each of them reached out to grasp an arm or tuft of hair. Mari pulled them all with her across the Gauntlet, into the spirit world.
The landscape was the same scene of carnage but instead of dead humans, the ephemeral remains of banes smeared the blackened ground. The fire still burned, for the sheds and tower had presences in the Umbra.
“That’s not right, ” Julia said. “It’s not easy getting new buildings to show up in the Umbra. It usually takes Pattern Spiders to do that. ”
"I don’t see any sign of Weaver work, ” John North Wind’s Son said.
“But a lot of Wyrm, ” Cries Havoc said. “All over. That’s not natural fire. ”
The fire glowed green in the Umbra. It was weaker than in the material world, but still guttered in a giant crater.
“Balefire, ” Carlita spat.
“Don’t get any closer, ” Mari said. “It’s poisonous. ” “And radioactive, " Julia added. “Highly mutagenic. The sooner we leave, the better. We’re in no shape to shut that down. We need spirits for that. ”
“All right, let’s skin the perimeter, " Mari said. “Maybe we’ll find some clues to our mysterious benefactor. ”
They nodded and followed her as she walked around the complex in a wide circle. They could see that the buildings radiated out from the central tower. Pipes from the tower went into each shed, some of which were clearly barracks while others looked administrative or lab-oriented. The compound looked like an oil operation, but something else was clearly going on here.
“They’re mining Balefire, "Julia said. “Drawing it from that pit in the Umbra and transferring it to th
e material world through some sort of technology. ”
“What the hell for? " Carlita said.
“To create fomori, I suppose. Maybe some special banes, too. Look at these bodies. ” Julia kicked one of the bane corpses with a clawed toe. “They usually dissolve, reforming in a Hellhole somewhere. Not these ones. They’re truly dead. ”
“They look like some sort of wasp-bird hybrid, " Cries Havoc said.
“Shh! ” Mari said, holding up her hand for them all to be silent. They quieted and listened with her, straining their ears to hear. Mari pointed away from the complex toward the edge of the crater. “Over here. Breathing. Some sort of animal. It’s faint, though. ”
She walked cautiously in the direction toward which she had pointed, motioning for the Silver River Pack to fan out behind her in both directions. Cries Havoc and John went to the left while Carlita and Storm-Eye went to the right. Julia stayed with Mari.
Mari stopped and pointed at a trail of blood mixed with the fallen soot. It led up an incline, over the lip of the crater. She followed and slowly raised her head above the lip, eyes searching for signs of movement. The trail of blood curved around a large embankment. The breathing sound was louder now, coming from behind the embankment.
Mari led the Silver River Pack up over the edge and they spread out across the snow, approaching the embankment from two directions. Mari, Julia and Carlita took the right, while the others went left.
As she came to the edge, Mari crept around it slowly, trying not to startle whatever lurked there. She stopped, shocked at what she saw, and raised her hand for the others to halt. Then she stepped cautiously forward.
A giant, prehistoric-sized bear lay against the embankment, its body shredded by a thousand tiny cuts, blood slowly pooling from the wounds. Its breathing was like a huge bellows, although a deep rattle betrayed that the beast was dying.
Its eyes weakly opened as Mari approached, and then closed again. It seemed to collect its strength and then rose up, sitting and leaning against the embankment, its eyes open once more. It was clearly female.
As the bear settled herself, Julia sucked in a startled breath. Sitting, the bear's head still rose above their battle forms by a foot or two.
“Step near, wolf-children, " the hear said.
Storm-Eye stepped forward, unhesitating, reverently. She bowed to the bear, who smiled and gave a faint nod in return.
Mari cocked her head, confused. She looked to the rest of the Silver River Pack, but they each shrugged. They didn't know who the bear was, but Storm-Eye seemed to know.
"I have only a few breaths left of all my years, ” the bear said. "I wounded the Heartsplinter. It cannot strike directly, but it will poison your people’s hearts against one another. As it strikes at your hearts, so must you strike at its. "
The bear wheezed horribly and closed her eyes again, withstanding a wave of pain in her lungs. She breathed deeply a few times and then opened her eyes again. She scanned the Garou and settled on Mari, staring intently at her, as if readying a challenge.
“When I am gone, take one of my teeth. Make a string of my sinew, and hang the tooth from it. Follow where it points and make your stand there. " She coughed up a gout of blood, which spilled across her chest. “No time. No time. Reach into my fur, below my ear. ”
Mari stepped forward, carefully. The hear did not move, waiting. Mari reached behind the ear she had indicated, her left one, and ran her fingers through it. The fur was thick and deep, but she felt something hard tangled within it, like a nut.
“Yes, " the bear said. “That is it. Cut it free from my fur. I have carried it all my years. When all is over, you must bury it in the earth, in the place to which my tooth guides you. ”
Mari nodded and yanked at the fur, severing it with her claws. It took a moment, but the hard shell came free. Mari held it up, rolling it in her palm, and then placed it in her pocket.
The bear growled loudly, her eyes searing into Mari’s. “Do not forget! Nothing else matters. " She winced and caught her breath, then looked at each of them. “Step forward. I must... cleanse you of the Talon’s taint. ”
Cries Havoc looked nervously at Mari, but she nodded at him. He stepped forward and the bear licked her massive, coarse tongue across his face. He stumbled back, looking disoriented. He shook his head and glanced at the others, smiling, nodding to them.
One by one, they each stepped forward, Mari also, and let the bear lick her tongue across their faces, like baby cubs being cleaned by their mother.
When she was finished, the bear let out a low moan and her head slumped. Her eyes slowly c closed and her throat let out a chilling rattle. Her breathing halted and she moved no more.
Storm-Eye howled with grief. She formed her anguish into the ritual Howl of Departing, an honor to lost heroes. The others joined in. They didn’t know whom they eulogized, but they had all been moved by the bear’s majesty and grace, and Storm-Eye was clearly distraught.
Once the howl died down to echoes across the snow, they all looked at Storm-Eye, waiting.
The wolf loped forward and rubbed her snout against the bear’s paw, as if seeking to be stroked. She turned to look at her packmates and Mari.
“We have lost her. Most Ancient of Bears. Oldest of Gaia’s children. Last of those to see the Dawn. ”
John North Wind’s Son let out a cry of anguish. He shut his eyes, holding back sudden tears, clenching his fists. "I heard the legends. I didn't know... I didn't think they were true. ”
Mari slowly nodded, remembering. “I’ve heard that, too. The oldest of the Gurahl werebears. She’s supposedly a thousand years old. "
Storm-Eye growled. “Older. Oldest of all. ”
John nodded. “She hibernates through many centuries, long enough that people think she’s gone for good. Then she shows up again for a short time, before sleeping again. It’s been so long, I thought... I didn’t expect to encounter her. Not like this. ”
“We’ve got to bury her, " Mari said. “Away from this place. ”
Mari walked over to the large body and bowed before it. “May your spirit find its way to the Great Cave of your people, who have long awaited your coming. ” She stood silently, praying for the Most Ancient’s spirit.
Then Mari stepped forward and wrapped her arm underneath the bear’s right shoulder. “All right, she’s going to be heavy. I’m going to need you all to join in here. I think our combined strength can manage it. "
The Silver River Pack gathered around. Each chose a portion of the body to grasp for lifting. Mari counted to three and they heaved. Even with their full might they had trouble raising the huge bulk. Nonetheless, they managed it. Mari motioned out across the tundra, away from the Pentex base, and they began to march, carrying their sacred burden.
After half an hour, once the smoke plume could no longer be seen, Mari called a halt. They carefully lowered the body and each dropped to the ground, muscles relaxing, breathing in deep.
“She’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen! ” Cries Havoc said.
“No, ” Carlita said. “There’s a lot bigger. But none of them are working on our side. ”
“Okay, ” Mari said, catching her breath. “Let’s take five. Then we shift her back to the material world with us. We’ll dig a grave there. ”
“Would she really want a grave T Julia said, looking at Storm-Eye.
“Yes, ” John said, answering before Storm-Eye could. “The Gurahl are very ritualistic. It is said that they taught humans their first religion—bear worship. The most ancient human graves are associated with bear rites. For all we know, she’s the one who taught our human ancestors to know their ancestor spirits. ”
Storm-Eye grunted and shook her head. “No human ancestors. ”
“Your Garou blood has some human legacy, " Cries Havoc said, “whether you want it or not. ”
Storm-Eye grunted again and turned away from the conversation.
After a few more minutes of silent rest, Mari
signaled that she was ready. They gathered around the body again and this time followed Mari across the Gauntlet, back to the material world, clinging to the Most Ancient as they did.
They scanned around them. Blank tundra lay in all directions.
“It won’t be easy finding our way back, ” Mari said.
John snorted. “You’ve got to be kidding me. City slickers. ”
Mari smiled. “Ah, yes, we have a Wendigo with us. I’m sure you can find your way around in a featureless snowscape, but we can’t. ”
“Then just follow me. When we’re done here, that is. " John looked at the Most Ancient’s body with sorrow.
Storm-Eye clawed at the dirt. It was hard-packed, tough to dig into. “Long time for dig. ”
"Maybe we should look for rocks, ” Julia said. “Build a cairn. ”
“Yes, ” John said. “That would be traditional for this place. ”
They split up and circled around, seeking rocks underneath the snow. Mari stayed with the body, guarding it in case any creature appeared seeking to despoil it. She undertook her duty, the last request of the Most Ancient.
Mari opened the bear’s jaws and reached in. She tugged with all her might and finally loosened a tooth. She pocketed it and went down to the legs. Slowly, carefully, and with respect, she began cutting out a long, leathery sinew. It was as strong as steel cable but as flexible and thin as a thread. She tied it around the tooth and hung it around her neck.
After a while, the rest returned with armfuls of rocks and began piling them around the bear. Their Garou strength allowed them to haul large pieces of shale; after an hour, the massive body was completely covered in rocks, a small mountain on an otherwise empty plain.
They stood, heads bowed, each praying silently.
Mari looked at John, who nodded and shifted into wolf form. He ran off across the tundra. Mari shifted into wolf shape to follow, as did the rest of the Silver River Pack.
They ran as fast as they could, searching for their fellow Garou, hoping that nothing more had occurred in their absence.
World of Darkness - [Time of Judgment 02] - The Last Battle Page 17