by SJB Gilmour
‘I owe The Silver Shroud a debt of gratitude,’ Felix told her. ‘He is the one who helped me become the werewolf I am today. Why does he do that?’
‘Do what?’ Sarah asked.
Felix made a confused whining sound. ‘Help those he doesn’t know?’
Sarah remembered how Uncle Benjamin had taken in Angela, Melanie and herself. ‘He just takes in strays,’ she told him. ‘It’s what he does.’
Felix grinned. ‘He is a legend,’ he told her. ‘I would love to hunt with him one day.’
Sarah realised that to her knowledge, only her Aunt Roberta, Uncle Robert and she herself had any contact with Uncle Benjamin. She hadn’t considered herself that enviable before. The more she thought about it, the more surprised she became. After all, there were a great many Browns and Blacks and lots of Greys, Reds and Whites. There were only a few Silver Shrouds and only one Golden Mane.
‘And I suppose running with a Golden Mane isn’t good enough for you?’ she joked.
Felix gave a startled whine and for a moment looked very confused. Then he realised she was making fun of herself.
‘You may not feel like it, Sarah Kopernik,’ he told her, suddenly quite serious, ‘but you are important. You yourself are already becoming a legend also.’
‘Me?’
Felix grinned and wagged his tail. ‘You’ve fought demons and dragons, freed Siouxanne and battled trolls. You’ve even defied Mautallius and Marzdane. And,’ he stressed, ‘you’ve saved Jasper from joining the spirits of this place. I have never seen so many werewolves all prepared to hunt for anyone before. That is an anomaly. Statistically, such things do not happen.’ He gazed up at the sky for a long moment. ‘I am still learning and it will be a long time before I can see all of your fate, Sarah Kopernik, but I can tell you this. Some amazing things are coming your way.’ He seemed puzzled for a moment. ‘Strange,’ he mused. ‘I did not see you saving Jasper’s life, and that was truly extraordinary. Either I am missing something, or your saving of my First is insignificant compared to what else is in store.’
‘I saved his life,’ Sarah repeated a little defensively. ‘And the rest of them volunteered to help. I didn’t ask them. Maybe they just needed the right person to come along and suggest they fight Mautallius.’
‘No,’ he disagreed. ‘That mage has been around for a long time. Only now that you have come are the packs prepared to fight. You’re the key.’
An idea occurred to Sarah. ‘If you’re a seer, can you tell if I am the one to call this Werenmesse thing?’
Felix whined, a little embarrassed. ‘That is another thing I cannot see, Golden Mane,’ he confessed. The legend is aeons old. Who first foresaw it, no-one knows, but still whispers of it persist.’ He shook his head and made his ears flap. ‘Trust me,’ he told her, ‘if I had any sight regarding it at all, I would tell you.’ He cocked his head and listened to his pack calling him. ‘I must go now,’ he said, nuzzling her. ‘Be well!’ And then he turned and began to lope away. Suddenly he stopped so quickly that his rump skidded in the loam. He spun around, his hackles raised.
‘Traitor!’ he growled.
‘What?’ asked Sarah.
Felix whined and pawed at his face. ‘A vision has just come to me,’ he told her. ‘There is a traitor in your midst! I don’t know who it is. He’s not part of your Pack, but he’s close to you, Golden Mane. You must be careful!’ He whined and nudged her once more then he bounded off into the trees.
Sarah sat down and whined, cocking her head to one side. A traitor? Who? Worried, she began grooming herself and cleaning away all the blood from the kill. Soon, she was clean again and felt strangely calmer, though the idea that someone was going to betray them still worried her.
‘Well done,’ Jozefa complimented her. The ghostly werewolf padded into the clearing. ‘Rufus was right.’
Sarah gave a startled yelp and rushed to greet her mother’s ghost.
‘Right about what? Where is he?’ she asked after the two had exchanged the customary sniffs and nuzzles.
‘Oh, he’s probably gone off to be by himself now,’ Jozefa replied calmly. ‘He’s so old now. ‘I doubt we’ll see much more of him. It won’t be long before he’s just another voice, indistinguishable from all the rest.’ She grinned at Sarah. ‘You made me proud. You had made no bonds of allegiance with any other werewolf until tonight. Now your cause is much stronger.’ She sat down and smiled.
‘I couldn’t just watch a werewolf die,’ Sarah stated flatly. Then she whined. ‘I guess Rufus knew that’s how I’d react. How did he know I was coming?’ Then she realised that Wolfenavald probably knew far more than it let on, even to her. ‘Never mind,’ she grumbled. Then her thoughts drifted to Felix.
‘Felix warned me of a traitor.’
‘Keep an eye on that one,’ Jozefa encouraged. ‘He has more talent than I thought, but don’t worry too much about his vision. None of your pack would betray you, so whoever it is can’t be that important.’ Sarah’s ghostly mother smiled the way only a mother can to her daughter. Then she disappeared.
Sarah remained alone. She knew that what had just happened would have a great many consequences in the werewolf world. Felix’s words rang in her ears. Legend! She had never thought of herself as terribly important, and even with all the things she and Melanie had been through, she could not help feeling as though she was merely a bystander and not so important.
‘That is not correct, Sarah Kopernik,’ the trees of Wolfenvald told her then. ‘This world has waited a long time for you to come. You have more importance than you realise.’
Am I the one? She asked the trees.
‘That is yet to be decided, Golden Mane. Werenmesse will happen in it’s own time at the paws of the one who deems herself suitable.’
Sarah felt a surge of triumph. So it’ll be a she then?
As if embarrassed, the trees said no more.
The morning sunshine was becoming brighter and the air was filled with the sounds of the forest as it greeted the new day. Birds chirped and insects buzzed. Other werewolves howled in the distance and Sarah knew that by now, every wolf in Wolfenvald was aware that she had hunted with pack Jasper. As much as she wanted to stay in that forest, she knew it was time to leave.
She created a small, wolf-sized portal to the dusty Ottispuschenshuffen Brothers’ shop. When she stepped out of the portal, she knew that something had gone terribly wrong in the old shop. The place was a mess. The counter had been completely destroyed and splinters of wood lay scattered everywhere. The old postcards that had lined the wall were scorched and burned and the tiny souvenir figures had all been blown to bits. Pieces of ladders and elevators were everywhere.
Several dozen bodies and pieces of bodies of Guild Guards lay dead on the floor. There was no sign of whomever they had been fighting, however. Sarah dashed about, sniffing for any sign of her best friend. Then she found something that made her blood run cold.
There, in the middle of the floor was a distressingly large puddle of blood. Melanie’s blood.
Sarah sat down on her haunches and thought for a long moment. She felt absolutely miserable. Her best friend was missing, and quite obviously hurt. Her family were also missing and it was all her fault. Rufus had told her not to go off alone. She whined pitifully and crouched low and rested her muzzle on her paws in misery. Unable to sit still, she rose and began pacing back and forth. All this was her fault, she thought to herself. Now her friend was hurt and she had no way of finding her!
Several moments later, a portal appeared in the middle of the ransacked shop. Sarah leaped to her feet, wagging her tail joyfully. It had to be Uncle Benjamin or Aunt Roberta and Uncle Robert, she thought.
Sarah opened her mouth to bark once more, and then clamped it shut with a startled snap. She growled in surprise as a large dark-skinned man in a black caftan emerged from the portal.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded with surprise.
The man smiled coldly. His white teeth
were bright but his eyes were dark and menacing.
‘I am N’butu,’ he rumbled. Then he surveyed the ruined shop with one raised eyebrow. ‘We meet at last, Golden Mane.’
‘What do you want?’
N’butu laughed. ‘I know I don’t want to fight you just yet, little wolf,’ he told her in his deep voice. ‘No doubt that will change in time. Where is your shadow, little wolf? Where is Hazelwood?’
Sarah thought furiously for a moment, making very sure her mental barrier was as firm as she could make it.
‘None of your business,’ she snarled.
‘So?’ N’butu drawled. ‘You don’t know either.’ He buffed his nails on his robe. ‘Never mind, we’ll find her.’ He stood still and stared at Sarah calmly. ‘You are a fine little beastie, aren’t you?’ he murmured. ‘Come here,’ he instructed, pointing at a spot on the floor near his feet.
The commanding power of his words was incredible. The last time Sarah had felt such an urge to obey was when she had come face to face with James’ eucalyptus horribillus. The lure of that horrible plant’s charm was nothing compared to N’butu’s power. This time, Sarah was much, much stronger than she had been a year ago. She braced herself and glared at the huge sorcerer.
‘I’m not a dog!’ she snarled furiously.
‘Hmm, you are strong, aren’t you?’ N’butu murmured, impressed. ‘It’s been quite a time since a werewolf has been able to resist—’
The next surge of his power was even stronger. Sarah bared her fangs and set herself firmly on the ground.
Surprised at Sarah’s ability to resist him, the wicked Master of Fauna concentrated even harder. Again, Sarah held firm. For several minutes, the two glared at each other, locked in a battle of wills. As hard as N’butu pulled at Sarah to obey him, Sarah managed to stand firm. The strength of Wolfenvald filled her.
Then Sarah saw it. It was so simple! N’butu was throwing everything he had into the struggle but Sarah still had a seemingly endless supply of power to draw upon. N’butu was tiring. All Sarah had to do was keep fighting and not give up. She did not want N’butu to give up quite yet either. She stepped forward just an inch. Sensing he might be starting to get the upper hand, N’butu redoubled his efforts. Sweat poured down his ebony brow and his breaths were short and ragged. Sarah snarled again and stepped back again. N’butu’s eyes opened wide in horror.
‘That’s enough of this,’ Sarah growled. She took a deep breath and barked ‘Nie!’ the Magaeic word for ‘no.’
N’butu’s willpower faltered. The huge man staggered backwards against the wall of the shop. Desperately, he tried one last attack. For a large man, N’butu moved incredibly fast. He threw a sizzling bolt of energy directly at Sarah.
As nimble as she was, Sarah wasn’t fast enough to dodge the blast completely. The blast caught her on her left flank and she was sent sprawling along the blood-soaked floor. Then it was her turn. She bounced to her feet. Had she not been in the middle of a fight, she would have noticed that her coat was not burned in the slightest by the lightning bolt. It hadn’t hurt her at all. All N’butu had done was to make her very bad mood, much, much worse, and that was not the wisest or safest thing he could have done.
She did not use sorcery. Instead, she launched herself, snarling at N’butu. He danced aside and tried to wave her off but it was no use. In moments, Sarah’s deadly fangs were clasped around the sorcerer’s throat. He screamed once before his air was cut off. Sarah had her jaws around his neck and her paws planted firmly on his chest. She wrenched herself to one side and tore N’butu’s head from his body.
She landed beside the body, still growling and with N’butu’s head still in her mouth. She looked at the portal the sorcerer had used to get to the shop. It was still open. Now in an uncontrollable rage, Sarah leaped into the portal, which immediately closed after her.
Benjamin, Robert and Roberta stood facing a large Brown and an even larger Black. The Black Coat grinned and wagged his tail.
‘The Golden Mane was here,’ Mannix told them in his cultured Scottish accent.
‘In fact, we were surprised that you didn’t show up yourselves,’ Fergus added. He too wagged his tail and nudged fellow Brown Coats Robert and Roberta playfully. ‘But then you two would be late to your own funerals.’
‘Where did she go?’ Benjamin snarled. He was not in the mood for games.
Fergus laughed a short bark. ‘Rufus was right,’ he observed. ‘You are a grumpy bugger, Silver Shroud.’
‘Never mind that,’ Aunt Roberta chided the Brown Coat. ‘This is serious. We have to find Sarah and Melanie.’
Fergus gave a startled whine. ‘Kopernik was here for a while,’ he replied. ‘We found the other one’s scent near evidence of another portal. She didn’t stay long.’
‘Well, last time she was here, Jasper did want to eat her,’ Robert quipped.
Fergus shuddered. ‘Who would want to eat a smelly human?’ he asked with a disgusted look. ‘Give me a nice fat rabbit any day.’
‘Jasper was an old wolf then,’ Mannix reminded him. ‘His mind might have been slipping. I doubt he’d have such a strange appetite now.’ He somehow managed to imply that Fergus too was getting old.
Benjamin looked at the two werewolves quizzically.
Mannix quickly told The Silver Shroud what Sarah had done.
Benjamin swore and began pacing as though he was in a small cage.
‘Where did the portal go?’ he demanded. When no werewolf spoke, he cast the thought out to the trees. Where? He demanded.
‘The Golden Mane followed the human to Neroland,’ the trees replied.
Benjamin looked around. ‘The only place in Neroland she’s been to was Gnumphlatia Manor. Why would she go there?’
‘She’s also been to the Ottispuschenshuffen Brothers shop,’ Aunt Roberta replied.
Benjamin grinned. ‘She’s not as dumb as people keep saying,’ he growled.
‘I’ve never doubted it,’ Aunt Roberta commented huffily. ‘But I’d like to know why she would have gone to the Ottispuschenshuffens.’
‘There’s one way to find out.’ Benjamin changed form. He quickly drew a nonagram on the ground with a long stick.
Mannix, Fergus and Aunt Roberta and Uncle Robert all assumed their own human forms. Mannix was a tall, thin man with severely receding hairline and a very shiny forehead. He wore a tartan kilt with matching robe and an elaborate sporran. Fergus was almost the complete opposite. He was short, much older, and more than a little overweight. His round face was ruddy and his brown hair was so tightly curly it looked very much like a sponge. He wore overalls, boots and a labourer’s cap.
Robert supplied them with Angela’s stones and the five humans then joined hands around the nonagram. They arrived in the Ottispuschenshuffen shop just in time to see Sarah’s tail disappear into a portal that promptly vanished.
‘There she goes,’ Fergus observed, ‘again.’
Benjamin swore furiously. Thunder rumbled from somewhere outside the shop and the air around him shimmered and sparked.
‘We’re getting closer,’ Aunt Roberta said, trying to sound cheerful.
Robert was peering at the headless corpse on the floor. He immediately resumed his Brown Coat werewolf form and sniffed the oozing body. ‘By the time we find her, she probably won’t need us,’ he sniffed. ‘She took this thing’s head off in one bite.’
The other werewolves also changed back. Mannix sat on his haunches and growled.
‘I don’t like this,’ he told them all. ‘My pack should be with us.’
Fergus wagged his tail in agreement. ‘If you three will wait here,’ he told them, I’ll be back in a few minutes with my mob.’
Mannix looked at the Brown Coat and allowed his tail the slightest of wags.
‘Bring mine too,’ the Black Coat said. ‘I want to have a look around.’
Fergus grinned. His human form was hardly athletic, but his werewolf body was lithe and nimble. He leaped into the
air gracefully. A small portal appeared in front of his nose and he disappeared through it.
The four remaining wolves began sniffing about the shop.
‘More dead goblins,’ Aunt Roberta reported. ‘Guntex must be having a very bad day. Though these ones weren’t killed by sorcery. There was some sort of fight. They used weapons.’
Then Robert gave a furious roar. The air around him shimmered and cracked, far more dangerously that it had even around Benjamin in his worst temper. The whole shop shook with a mighty boom of thunder and the windows exploded outwards sending a huge spray of glass shards out into Neroland.
The others near him backed away in surprise. Uncle Robert was usually very playful and happy. It was very unlike him to raise his voice, even when he was excited or very, very angry. This enraged outburst was most out of character. The furious werewolf pawed at a puddle of blood on the floor.
‘It’s Mel’s,’ he snarled when the startled others joined him.
Aunt Roberta gave a startled whine and nuzzled her mate to calm him. It didn’t work very well. Robert danced aside, snarling and growling. Foam flecked his chops and his eyes went from gentle brown to furious red.
Fergus reappeared in human form, followed by sixteen more humans. Nine were women, the other seven were men, and they all resumed their werewolf forms as soon as they entered the shop. Now Mannix and his Pack made nine Black Coats and Fergus and his pack made nine Browns. Combined with Robert, Roberta and Benjamin, there were now twenty-one werewolves. They looked on curiously at Robert who was still frightfully angry.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Fergus asked, nodded at Robert who was pacing and growling.
Roberta quickly told them what they had discovered.
Angus, Second Brown to Fergus, sniffed at the headless corpse of N’butu.
‘I recognise this thing’s scent,’ he snarled. ‘It was called N’butu. It was a Master of Fauna.’
‘Makes sense,’ Mannix observed in a coldly analytical tone. ‘They’ve tried everything else.’
‘I don’t suppose you’d care to explain that?’ Roberta snarled. She too was beginning to lose her temper as well. Her mate was furious, and wolves always respond in support of their mates.