Son of hell: Blood of wolves

by Michaela Burdová

  "Tell me!" she cried out. "Is there anyone who would like to challenge me? Is there anyone who rejects my authority?"

  Everyone, even the Predators, bowed their heads as proof of their loyalty. Aragen smiled. She had done it. Everything was now hers. Her goals and dreams were beginning to come true.

  She stepped out of the flames and looked at her wolves with tenderness. "Tonight we’ll all feed on real meat. I promise you."

  That night, they all got ready for the big hunt. It would be the first time in several centuries that the pack would be permitted to visit human dwellings. In the recent past, it was only the leader and the Predators that went on the hunts and they always only brought back dead prey. Aragen was determined to change everything. She wanted her pack to feed on and taste live flesh and to experience the euphoria of it!

  The whole pack was noticeably anxious. Disagreements surfaced. The Predators were against such a move, but the Young were enthusiastic. Aragen walked backwards and forwards across her cabin talking to Drel. She planned to move at dawn after returning from the hunt. She did not want to stay in this place any longer than was necessary.

  A woman suddenly burst in. Aragen knew her well. It was Keinah, Amitha’s mother.

  "Can’t you knock?" Aragen faced her down before she could say anything. Keinah frowned.

  "I heard that you want to move in the morning."

  “That’s right.”

  "You can’t do that! Don’t you know? Your sister is lost and we haven’t found her yet!"

  Aragen sighed. She stood in front of Keinah and folded her arms. "And you won’t find her. I killed her."

  Keinah flinched. Her breath faltered. "You what?"

  "She betrayed me. I couldn’t tolerate her existence any longer. I just couldn’t."

  The woman clutched her heart, then stumbled and collapsed to her knees. "No ... my baby ..."

  Aragen came to her and compassionately put her hand on her head. "You're going to hate me, but in the end, you’ll accept this fact if you wish to stay in our pack."

  Keinah violently shook off her hand, jumped to her feet, and dashed for Aragen´s neck. Aragen was quicker. She reached out and slapped Keinah in the face before Keinah could even touch her. The force of the impact knocked the woman to the ground, where she rolled onto her side and crashed into a wall. Keinah looked up at Aragen. Aragen saw that the corner of Keinah´s lip was split, that her face was ablaze, and that much to her satisfaction, Keinah´s anger had turned to sheer terror.

  "You cannot touch me," Aragen announced calmly. "None of you can. Now get lost."

  When Keinah had staggered out, Drel approached Aragen with awe in her face. “You really did it? You killed the arrogant fool?"

  Aragen smiled, but then another unwelcome visitor stepped in. It was Wenir.

  As soon as Aragen saw his face, she immediately realized that he had been listening behind the door all along. He looked completely devastated, ashen with shock and as if he might collapse at any moment.

  "So now you know," she said simply. "Come inside." The door slammed shut behind him by itself. Wenir almost jumped from fright.

  "It's because of me," he whispered. "She died because of me ..."

  "Yes," replied Aragen, taking gratification from his agony. "Actually, you killed her, Wenir. You should not have rejected me."

  "I loved her. I loved her so much …”

  "She's dead, do you understand? She is gone!" Aragen came to him and looked straight into his eyes. "Would you like to kill me? I’m sure you’d love to, I can feel it! But you can’t, Wenir! I'm your master now. From this moment on, you are devoted to me! If you resist me, believe me, I will torture you. I will not allow you to follow your beloved Amitha, no, but I will torture you, do you understand? You're mine now."

  "I will never love you, Aragen," he growled at her. "You have ruined me. I loved you ...”

  Aragen laughed. "I don’t care!We are creatures from Hell. We are unable to love!Only desire, belonging, and family ... keep us together! Not love!You're pathetic, Wenir, a wimp, but I want you to be a strong darkwolf, a powerful killer. Do you understand me?You will serve me, or I'll poke one of your pretty little eyes out and feed it to your father!After all, you don’t need both, do you?"She smiled and patted his cheek.Wenir trembled at the thought.

  "What are you waiting for? Go. Now!"

  Wenir turned slowly and staggered to the door, his feet refusing to do his bidding. For Aragen it was still not enough.

  "Oh, I almost forgot. Do you want to know to whom Amitha directed her last words before I ripped her heart out and threw it over the cliff? To you, my dear. She called out to you, she begged you to save her. She pleaded for her life. Wenir, she didn’t want to die, but nobody does do they?"

  He grabbed the beam above the door to support himself as his body wretched. He burst into desperate, uncontrollable tears, his shoulders shaking violently as he did so. He finally mustered the strength and stumbled out of the door. When he did, Aragen leaned with her back against the wall and found that she was shaking too, the pain and gratification she felt slowly merging inside her.

  "Drel, I loved my sister," she said, more to herself than anyone else. "I too, believed in love, but it's a fallacy."

  "It doesn’t matter. Everyone will look up to you, My Lady," Drel whispered. "Everybody will follow you. In the end, you will find happiness. With you, we have a chance to change the world!"

  Aragen looked at her. "Or destroy it."

  Part II

  Brotherhood

  Chapter 1

  Spectre of the Night

  Rejected by people

  Driven into a hole

  Stunned by beauty

  In obsession a lone soul

  They chased him like quarry. With each movement the silver arrowhead penetrated deeper into his flesh. They had managed to hit him between the shoulder blades and twice in the flank. Due to his injuries he could no longer shape-shift. He heard excited voices behind him, the pounding of their feet, and their cries. They were trying to provoke him to come out of his hiding place. He watched as their torches flashed through the darkness of the forest. Ordinary farmers like them would never have plucked up the courage to hunt a werewolf were it not for the hunter.

  There were always exceptions to the rule. People did exist that were trained from early childhood to hunt werewolves. They dedicated their entire lives to it, but despite all the training, courage, and experience, even a hunter is still only human. Neran knew that but he never gave it much thought. He was a thousand times more capable than the best hunter in all of Velwetia. Today had been different. Today, the hunter had managed to raise the alarm in the village. The people were ready. They had become accustomed to living in fear of the darkwolves who sneaked across the countryside every day leaving corpses in their wake. They had been prepared, their silver arrows at the ready. Even though the arrows could not kill a darkwolf, it could kill Neran, for he was not one of them.

  He waded through the thorny thickets with his torn, sweaty shirt glued to his chest. The thick darkness absorbed all the light and the night air carried with it the aftertaste of something sinister. In contrast to humans, Neran had good night vision.

  He paused for a moment, leaning his shoulder against a tree, fervently inhaling the air and the smells it carried with it. The hunters were close. If he did not come up with a plan soon, they would surely capture him. He grabbed one of the arrows that had penetrated his flank and pulled hard. As he did so, he bit down on his lip in order not to scream out and give himself away. As the arrow tore through his flesh he could feel the silver burning it, as it did his palm. He immediately dropped it and repeated the process with the second arrow. He was just about to start on the third one lodged between his shoulder blades when someone shouted out close to his hideout. Startled, he left the arrow inside and ran.

  He and his brother had made a terrible mistake when they went into the local tavern and ordered a beer. The Kingdom of
Erinol was well known for its fanatical obsession for eradicating all werewolves. Neran had just nipped to the toilet when a suspicious man entered the tavern. A few minutes later, Neran witnessed the hunter surprise his brother Gerrat, paralyzing him with a silver chain. Neran decided to wait and see if an opportunity would present itself whereby he could free his brother when the people least expected it. There was none. The hunter had come prepared. The whole village was there waiting patiently, expectantly, for Neran to come and save him.

  Thus began the chase.

  Neran felt the wounds on his flank slowly heal. Although he was still weak, he had been able to get a small head start. He stopped momentarily in some undergrowth to catch his breath and think. He frantically wondered what to do next - how to shake off his pursuers while saving his brother. He wanted to tear them all to shreds and bathe in their blood. That would have given him strength and lifted his spirits.

  But he was surrounded. If he could stay hidden for a while his strength would return and he could finish them off. That is if they didn´t search the whole forest.

  Then he saw her.

  Farther down, a path dissected the deep forest and in the middle of it stood a naked girl.

  Neran stared at her with wide eyes. Even in the darkness he could see how beautiful she was. It seemed as if the night itself had spawned her and as if night walks were her nature. Yet Neran could not understand what such a fragile creature could be doing alone in the middle of the forest at night. In these hard times, when people were being massacred by darkwolves, no mortal in their right mind would leave the safety of their home after dark, let alone naked.

  There was something fascinating about her. A voice inside Neran´s head said to run to her and fall at her feet, yet he remained frozen to the spot, paralyzed. Instead he stood spellbound as the girl headed towards him.

  He wanted to shout to her and tell her to flee. The lights from the torches got closer and closer. Neran saw two men in ferns nearby. They held crossbows with silver arrows in their hands. The hunter had obviously armed them because they would never have acquired such weapons themselves.

  The girl spotted them but showed no fear. Instead, she came directly to Neran. She had unusually penetrating eyes. They were so pale green that they almost seemed white with irises enclosed by dark blue circles. Her ebony hair fell across her breasts down to her waist.

  She stared at Neran’s face with an eager expression. Finally, she reached out and gently touched his cheeks. Her touch was pleasant and felt like glowing embers. Neran almost couldn´t help himself and wanted to howl with delight, but managed to restrain himself.

  Voices broke the tension: "Over there! I can see him!"

  The girl jerked her head round, her pupils widened, and Neran had the distinct impression she sniffed the air.

  In the next instant, she threw herself forward.

  Neran watched as she raced between the trees. She was so fast that it was like only a split second before that she had been touching his face, and now she stood by the hunters. Her curvaceous body arched and while still in motion transformed into a monster as huge as a horse with elongated limbs and a torso more like that of a human.

  The deadly claws of the giant black wolf found their first victim. He saw how bloodsquirted from the villager’s torn throat. Neran sniffed the air as the smell of fresh blood floated on it.

  The scene was interrupted by the click of crossbows. A hail of silver arrows flew through the air. They hit their target, penetrating the werewolf´s flank, just like they had his. The werewolf did not even flinch and continued the carnage by jumping onto the next prey. Fast, wild, and accurate.

  The werewolf threw the man into the grass, his horrified screams echoing through the deep forest. Then there was silence, only the sound of slurping could be heard. The werewolf had bitten through the man´s neck. More arrows pierced the air. Neran saw them hit the werewolf in the chest. The werewolf took no notice, rushed towards the position from where they had been fired and instantly killed two more men. One of them was completely torn apart in the ensuing frenzy.

  The hunter then appeared, attacking the beast with his silver-coated sword. The werewolf simply knocked him down with a single blow of its paw. The werewolf then thrashed to threads the two remaining villagers who were trying to flee from the scene. No one was spared.

  Neran knew that he was looking at the work of a darkwolf.

  The black wolf looked proudly at their handiwork and turned to face Neran. He looked straight into the wolf´s fiery eyes and knew this werewolf was different, stronger than all the others.

  For a moment or two Neran hoped that the werewolf would shape-shift back into the gorgeous girl he had seen earlier. Nothing happened. The darkwolf turned and in a flash disappeared into the arms of the night.

  Neran woke up from his trance, one that he felt he´d been in for the entirety of the events that had unfolded before him. Now he could finally pull the arrow from his back. His painful groan turned into an angry growl as the arrow broke the surface. He furiously jabbed the silver arrow into a tree. When he had calmed down, he realized how quiet and tranquil the forest was all of a sudden, even though its soil was soaked in blood.

  He slowly walked around the mutilated corpses. It had been all their fault. Neran did not want to kill anyone. He had just wanted to enjoy his cold beer in peace and quiet. Those crazy hunters he thought, they simply weren´t satisfied with the fact that they had practically exterminated an entire race of werewolves. As far as Neran knew, he and his brother were the last survivors.

  Then there were the darkwolves. Until tonight, Neran had never met or seen one. According to rumours, darkwolves were also werewolves, but very different. They were stronger, wilder, and almost impossible to kill. There was only one way, known only to werewolves. Even then, it was believed that dark forces controlled by their leader protected them. Neran remembered that he had heard of her name several times. Aragen.

  Suddenly, he felt the intoxication again. Aragen ... Could it be that the girl he had seen was her? Why would she have saved him? Darkwolves had a reputation for spreading only death around them, life-saving was not in their nature. In his thoughts Neran reminded himself that he was not human but a werewolf, that they had a common ancestry and shared the same blood.

  He stopped over the hunter, picked up the sword, raised it, and with one swipe cleanly cut off his head. The blood had not clotted yet. He grabbed the head by the hair and set off towards the village.

  Benila was a small village. Who would have thought that an outbreak of such hatred and bloodshed would erupt here? Gerrat was tied with silver chains to a wooden stake in the middle of the main square. Four men with pitchforks guarded him. They had silver necklaces and crosses on their necks to protect them. Lights burned in the houses, as people waited with curiosity for the hunters to return with their prey.

  Instead, the prey returned with the hunter’s head, dangling it in the air above him. As soon as the guards saw Neran approach they took to their heels. That day, twelve men, twelve husbands, fathers and brothers had perished in the forest. It was enough to make the village never undertake such insanity in the future again.

  Neran impaled the head on the stake his brother was tied to. Gerrat was already quite weak. The silver chains had quickly sucked the life force out of him. With that in mind Neran did not like the idea that he would have to remove the silver chains from his brother´s neck.

  Gerrat opened his eyes as soon as he smelled his brother. With an effort he raised his head and his eyebrows. "How in the hell did you do that?"

  Neran grinned. "Excuse me? You doubted me?"

  "They pierced you with silver arrows."

  "If you look up a bit more, you will see the noggin of a hunter nicely impaled on the pole."

  "Did you kill him?"

  "Sure, brother."

  "You're kidding."

  “All right, somebody helped me a little bit."

  "Who would help you?
"

  "You would never guess," Neran grinned.

  Gerrat coughed.

  "All right brother, thanks for the chat. Now get me out of here. I´d like to breathe freely again."

  "I'm going for it," Neran replied, but he was reluctant to touch the silver. Beneath it he could see his brother´s sizzling flesh. He made a quick decision. He ran to the nearest house and kicked down the door. A deafening scream broke out as a mother and her daughters began running around the room. Neran jumped inside, grabbed the plump father by his shirt, and dragged him out of the house and across to the village square.

  "Please, please, no!" the man begged. "I have a family, children, please, I'll do anything!"

  "Shut up fatso, I don´t want to kill you," Neran snapped and pushed him in front of his brother. "If you don´t want trouble, take off his chains."

  The man hesitated, his round forehead soaked with sweat.

  "Do it!"

  The little man immediately went to work. The chains were pretty heavy and he struggled. It seemed to take forever. Neran glanced continually and furtively towards the forest as if he half expected the divinely beautiful nude Goddess to come walking out and shape-shift into a black wolf.

  His thoughts were disturbed by Gerrats ached cough. Neran quickly lifted him to his feet. His shoulders and chest were sticky with blood from where the silver had burned into his skin. Neran knew that it would heal soon, that was the advantage of being a Son of Hell.

  The fat man immediately took to his heels when Neran was not paying attention. Neran let him go, he didn´t need him anyway. He propped up his brother and together they left the forsaken place.

  "So what happened?" Gerrat wheezed on the way through the fields.

  "Female darkwolf, brother," Neran replied. "She appeared out of nowhere. I'll bet it was the one that people are talking about."

  "And she saved you, right?"

  "She thrashed them all to pieces in no time at all. They pierced her with silver but she didn’t peep."