The Spiked Wolf

by David Shiels

As they neared the city the trees started to become lusher and visually alluring; Claudia thought it was fantastic and everything she wanted. The trees were thicker and healthier with green and red bushy tops and were full of splendor as they radiated in the red light, yellow particles flew and twisted in the soft breeze, gently caressing her face, the grass sprouted flowers of every colour possible; Claudia’s vicinity was bombarded with a vast array of scintillating petals. She was thankful that she didn’t suffer from epilepsy or she would be shaking whilst foaming from the mouth, unable to relish the moment.

  Reinwolse raised a fist in the air; the stampeding packs immediately stopped near a large vibrant hill. He dismounted his wolf then motioned for Burrock to follow him up the hill, and the old bolf obliged.

  Claudia didn’t want to look insignificant to the beings she will soon rule; she jumped out of her trailer to follow the pair.

  A white female bolf approached Claudia through the furry crowd.

  “Excuse me but you really must leave Reinwolse and my husband to talk” Her voice was reminiscent of a woman who had been smoking for at least sixty years.

  Claudia looked strongly at the bolf.

  “Excuse me, but I will have millions of wolves tear your face off if you speak to me again”

  Claudia sauntered through the crowd not caring where her feet landed, then walked up the hill.

  At the top, Burrock and Reinwolse were close, discussing battle tactics.

  As she angrily approached them, they parted to reveal the immense city in the distance.

  The city was like something out of a fairy tale. Claudia Instantly knew she wanted all of it and her resolve to destroy these volves grew, now not just with the pleasure of the kill, but with the addition of gluttony. She walked to the edge of the hill to get a better view.

  The city was the complete opposite of the filthy one occupied by the bolves. This one was secured behind a humongous glimmering white brick wall.

  The city sprawled for what seemed like miles in every direction.

  Behind the wall were tall dark grey slim buildings, their appearance was like a dark fantasy; they raised up in a twisted spiral. The buildings tilted and bent like a witch’s hat and were embedded with many various coloured gems that shone bright in the tropical light. There were so many of them, all standing effortlessly; some grew high into the sky, while many matched the height of earth’s buildings. The city became a lighter grey as it came closer to the centre which is where Claudia spotted their target; a gargantuan spiked wolf face shaped building, slightly obscured from the buildings in front of it.

  That was where the king volf resided. He was the target. He must die.

  Reinwolse had studied the city on his quick journey here after arriving with Claudia. It had not changed much in appearance since he was banished. The city had been created on magically raised earth which gave it a perfect vantage point to see the entire area for many miles.

  He wasn’t sure he could win, but he had the skills and knowledge of the earth’s best that intellectually far surpassed the volves best. This would have to do. This is all he could do.

  Reinwolse pulled a small dark device out of his pocket, it had a bright green light emitting from the top of it, he squeezed the trigger on the side, turning the light to a dark yellow, and then held it high into the sky.

  “This is it my people, we have waited so many years for this moment” Burrock barked, his voice loud, rough and full of emotion.

  “When you hear the explosions, you charge the city and fight with everything”

  Reinwolse looked towards Claudia and smiled.

  “You best get back to the trailer before this begins and grab yourself some toys”

  Claudia returned the smile then licked her lips

  “Don’t die. I don’t want to be forced to turn to beastiality”

  Reinwolse was leaning in towards her face when he was distracted by what his peripheral vision revealed to him.

  Shades of brown swept up from the city in every direction possible, like a sand storm brewing and spreading. Spikes.

  War

  They had been noticed.

  He had spent too long on the hill. He was supposed to be the attacker, not the retaliator.

  He had wolves approach and surround the city from every direction. He felt like punching his arrogant self for not thinking they would be spotted.

  Reinwolse grabbed Claudia, releasing the device in the process, turning the light red, then ran down the hill with her.

  Explosions happened immediately; he had rigged the exterior of the city with bombs. Each explosion caused a chain reaction; it spread around the entire perimeter, leaving gaping entry holes.

  The clouds of brown spikes flew over Claudia as their velocity managed to reach for miles ahead, towards the end of the pack. She could barely see the red sky above. Many of the spikes started their descent early while many carried on their flight.

  Reinwolse mounted the great silver wolf as Claudia jumped into her trailer.

  Wolves from every direct around the city all leapt, bound, galloped and charged towards the majestic metropolis. Claudia silently prayed they did not destroy too much more of it’s gem encrusted architecture.

  The spiked rain poured down all around, large shards heavily falling. Claudia placed her face to the metal floor.

  Reinwolse commanded his wolves to fire back towards the approaching spikes, hoping to knock as many as possible out of the air.

  Mass amounts of wolves lay instantly deceased as the large spikes easily pierced their strong armoured coats, slicing their organs in half and pinning them to the ground.

  Wolves continually sacrificed themselves for Claudia and the horde of bolves that accompanied them. Reinwolse directed his wolves to save anyone who wasn’t another wolf, no matter the cost. It was just a mere dent in the millions strong, and continually growing as American’s were infected, army that was backed up miles into the forest and across the planet.

  Reinwolse was confident his armour would protect him from the onslaught but commanded the great silver wolf to shield him with his tail, which deflected each and every arrow; the beast was undamaged. He held back from his wolves firing more spikes than he deemed necessary, he held onto the belief that a vast majority of the residents were merely there out of fear, and not for the love of the king. He wanted to save anyone he could.

  The spikes eventually stopped as they arrived at the damaged walls, now full of spikes as well as massive holes.

  Reinwolse rode through the rubble of the broken wall, surrounded by hundreds of wolves. Many hench volves, hopping from wall to wall in a flash, jumped at him.

  Collision. Wolf among volf; tearing, slashing, snarling and growling. Blood sprayed across the grey walls of the city streets.

  Reinwolse dismounted and charged towards the volves with a large samurai sword. He slashed and dodged with ease. The volves no matter how hard they tried couldn’t grab him in their mouths or between their claws.

  Claudia looked at the guns strewn across the floor of her trailer, she grabbed a large, thick gun that had a red scope and a thin long barrel at the front.

  She placed the gun on her shoulder and aimed through the hole into the city. She held the trigger and a green light shot out of the gun in an almost invisible beam. A massive sphere of green electrical energy burst out of the impact area. The wolves and volves inside the sphere began reacting by clawing at their own flesh as if having a bad reaction to a shampoo. One volf stuck its claws as far into his eyes as possible, ripping his brain apart in the process. Another tore off both of his arms with his mouth then used his dismembered arms to stab himself through the stomach. They were killing themselves.

  Claudia fired more blasts into city, feeling a warm tingle pass through her arms as she watched the animals all mass suicide as painfully as possible.

  The bolves fighting outside of the city were terrified to enter in fear of being in the sights of Claudia’s power-mad phase.
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  Reinwolse looked behind him and saw the green chaos and wanted to tell Claudia to resist killing as many volves as possible. He knew that most of them would stop as soon as the king was dead, but he had no time; it was a relentless attack. The city’s population was in the hundreds of thousands and one of the volves could take down at least twenty wolves before succumbing to death.

  Around him the volves were tearing earth wolves apart with just their teeth; organs flew around the battlefield like confetti at a wedding.

  He sliced off limbs and heads with ease as he gracefully danced forward, needing to utilise all of the mastered skills his mind possessed to stay alive.

  He ran further into the city, sliding in and around side streets, using the darkness of his sleek armour to hide in the shadows. The streets were mostly bare of obstacles but each building was so close together that shadows were a plenty.

  A large white volf spotted Claudia with her toy and pounced from one of the taller building towards her as his landing destination. He rammed into her trailer sending her and the weapons sprawling in every direction possible. A small crater was left where the wolf had landed.

  Claudia’s wolves were quick to jump to her defence, even those in mid-combat. They swarmed the wolf and it’s glaring white fur was soon turned to the same colour as it’s red stripes; this left their guard down as the volves made quick work of them.

  More wolves jumped in on these feasting volves, and the cycle continued.

  A volf jumped onto a grounded Claudia and began snapping it’s jaws and ponding its paws at her body. She dodged each attack by rolling in each direction on auto-pilot. It’s attacks were delayed as it had to swat wolves off of its back occasionally. She began to time the wolves attacks and felt herself predicting the next one. She reached into her pocket and slammed a blue metallic ball into its large jaws. It bit on the ball and an arctic explosion erupted within the wolf. It’s body instantly turned to ice. It exploded; large shards of ice shot out around it.

  A large shard of ice went directly through the mouth of an attacking striped volf, exiting through its anus. The shard was visible from both entry and exit points. It stood like a statue; motionless.

  Reinwolse was making good progress towards the wolf castle. He found himself in the town square and could clearly see the large wolf head building. The place had not changed much in the past fifteen years. A volf landed behind him in the small alleyway, it’s breath was heavy and dull. Reinwolse recognised him; it was his brother.

  “Furrwarl!” Reinwolse shouted, causing the oncoming claw to halt its ascent.

  “Who are you to speak my name?” Demanded the heavily scarred volf, it’s stripes and scars almost indistinguishable

  “It’s me, your brother, Reinwolse!” Reinwolse lowered his weapon to show his sincerity.

  “Even if that was true, my brother is a traitor and deserves death” As soon as the volf finished its sentence it flung another claw towards Reinwolse. He dodged to the right of the volf then quickly stuck a small dagger through the soft skull of the beast; it was like stabbing a knife through a fresh pumpkin. The volf fell to the floor, lifeless. Reinwolse had no time to mourn and continued on through the shadows.

  Claudia had found it hard to get involved in the fight again. Constant streams of wolves were gushing past her into the city barely giving her space to move and the majority of her weapons had been scattered across the battlefield.

  She managed to collect a few and ran into the city, hoping to get herself some easy targets but felt ultimately deflated that most of her arsenal was out of reach. A few hundred wolves followed behind her, ready to blindly sacrifice themselves in a moment’s notice.

  More striped volves came to meet the fragile human plaything. Claudia hung back letting her wolves run ahead of her. She pulled a small cannon off of her back and aimed down the sights towards the group of wolves now locked in deadly battle.

  She licked her lips then pulled the thick trigger; a large volcanic looking fireball forced itself out of the head of the cannon, pausing or a few moments at the peak, and flew towards the battling crowd; a large fiery explosion erupted around the wolves but nothing immediately happened. Claudia was immediately disappointed and began the action to throw the weapon to the ground but then it happened, the wolves and volves suddenly burst into flame, their flesh melted and dripped to the floor as they jumped around in a panicked state attempting to gather enough wind to put out the inferno that was stuck to their bodies.

  Claudia’s wolves were not as alarmed by the condition, even though their flesh was almost entirely incinerated from their bodies, and the flaming wolves ran effortlessly on to the next targets; Claudia ran alongside the flaming herd feeling the rush of death fill up her euphoria. She was in the zone.

  Burrock, not sure if to be amazed or disgusted, instructed his bolves to the other side of the city. This woman did not have their safety in mind.

  The flaming wolves clashed with further approaching volves and to Claudia’s glee the fire spread contagiously amongst them; it was like every wolf was smothered in oil and the flames were attracted without any coaxing.

  Claudia looked at the chaos all around her and without having to think twice about, fired off a few more volcanic blasts. Each blast sent her back a few feet from the intense recoil.

  Flaming wolves now dominated one side of the city, from a distance it would look like one entire side was on fire was spreading as rapidly as a forest fire. The volves retreated to the epicentre of the city. Claudia let out a howling laugh; her eyes were fierce with crazed pleasure, her face a shining beacon.

  The fighting went on for some time, the city showing the devastation brought upon it by being completely covered in blood and showing dark scorch marks combined with organs and oozing bubbling flesh. Claudia imagined that the city would smell much like it does down in hell, not that she believed in all of that nonsense.

  The grand wolf head shaped palace was now completely surrounded by wolves on all sides. The city was now overtaken by Claudia and her wolves. She loved every moment of the carnage.

  Female and child volves hid in their homes cowering in small furry bundles in the corners of their once peaceful adobes, listening on as their family and friends were slaughtered, torn and burnt alive, never to return home with news of the day's events ever again.

  Many of the wolves had surrendered yet Claudia was eager to finish them off regardless, but Reinwolse had commanded his wolves to leave them alive. Claudia felt anger at this. She felt like they were her wolves and their entire purpose in life was to serve her. It was at this moment she began to feel the light feeling of regret for coming to the planet and that she may have made a mistake.

  Reinwolse stood at the foot of the many large brown stone steps leading to the entrance to the palace. This is the place where his entire life changed. This is the place where he was turned to stone and flung millions of miles away. He began to feel hot, so hot he wanted to remove his tight clothing. All the years of anger and hatred came to him all at once in a sudden burst of energy. He charged up the steps, his blood stained sword gripped with both hands. He sliced a hole through the immense wooden doors and slipped through.

  There were hundreds of volves standing outside, scared to move an inch or feel the wrath of the millions of wolves that stood around them, watching them. Claudia watched Reinwolse slip into the palace then turned her attention to the surrendered volves.

  She approached one of the nervous looking beasts, its eye dark, looking towards the ground, its charcoal striped fur swayed in the light breeze. Claudia took out a small silver handle from her pocket and held it near to the wolves head.

  She clicked a button causing a small blue laser to thrust out of the small tip of the handle; it was like an intensely focused flame. She passed the blue flame through the wolf’s left ear. It fell to the ground. A clean cut; a cut as smooth as a autumn breeze in the early morning.

  “Papa, No!” an adolescent gravelly voice
shouted.

  A young whited striped volf pup was leaning over an open window behind him, his dark eyes, shimmering with tears. The pup whilst young was almost at the size of one of the earth wolves.

  “Sherwole, be quiet and go back to your mother” Replied the one eared wolf as blood slithered down his blue face.

  Claudia smirked out of the side of her mouth, showing a few of her sparkling teeth.

  “You’ll never hear that voice again” She whispered, knowing it would be hard for him to hear it.

  She swung her arm around again, slicing the right ear off of the wolf, he let out a pained cry and shook his head around vigorously in pain as blood splattered on the wolves around him. His hearing went completely silent; the world around him suddenly became very dull. He wanted to slaughter this red haired demon. He expected she was going to kill his family anyway but he had to at least remain calm in the vain hope she doesn’t.