The Red Rider

by Billy Wong

  "You were starting to lose."

  "The fight barely started!"

  He shrugged. "There was no one else left to fight."

  Dead werewolves were strewn all around them, many already back in human form. The casualties among Evie's team remained three, one being the young man who had kept trying to intimidate Herbert by staring a hole through him. About two dozen of Leviatha's men had fallen; Red saw one of the men she'd confronted on her first visit to the valley crying over a dead relative or friend. Putting their past differences aside, she put a hand on his shoulder and said, "I'm sorry."

  He looked up. "You... sorry for stomping on you."

  "It's okay. I have a hard head."

  Many of the surviving men from both groups ate silver, as did Herbert, Evie, and Boris. Leviatha seemed confident she had only been clawed, not bitten, and her brother and Aidan had apparently escaped being wounded at all. Red couldn't be sure none of her injuries had been caused by teeth rather than claws as she'd assumed, so she took a pinch of powdered silver from her pouch and swallowed it down with water.

  "So?" Aidan asked.

  "So what?"

  He winked. "Aren't you going to thank me?"

  "I guess. Thanks," she said none too enthusiastically. "Annoying man," Red remarked to Leviatha when she walked past.

  "It's sort of charming."

  She sighed. "Not in this situation it isn't." But she supposed she could understand him being somewhat desensitized, what with having already experienced killing his kin.

  Leviatha looked her over. "You're sliced up bad. You should wear more armor."

  "Maybe I should have this time, but I don't usually fight this many foes."

  "So he was a werewolf?" Herbert asked her with a look at the man Aidan had slain. "Why did he not fight as one, then?"

  "I guess he had skills like us which he couldn't use without hands, unlike most of his ilk."

  Everyone helped the wounded, gathered up the dead, and threw the werewolf remains into a pile to be burned. Herbert regarded Red with concern as she wrapped her many injuries. "You okay? That's a lot of bandages."

  "Of course. I may have a score of wounds, but at least none of them is half as bad as that one Leviatha gave me."

  The cleanup continued. "So what now?" Leviatha said after everything was done. "Is that it?"

  Before Red could answer, Aidan did for her. "Now we can track the werewolves that fled—yes, there were some—back to their king."

  The giantess frowned. "So this made you feel like a hero, huh pretty man. Makes you hungry for more heroics, doesn't it?"

  "That, and even if stopping my uncle was the right thing to do, people of our land have suffered for it. So I should do something to balance that out, like helping them suffer less from werewolves."

  "Timely of you to think about that now, after twelve years."

  He chuckled. "Better late than never."

  "But what makes you so sure they'll go back to his lair?"

  "I'm not sure. There's a healthy chance they will, though, to report what's happened if nothing else. You in?"

  She looked around at the weary faces of her soldiers, many of whom looked terrified despite their victory. The way butchered wolves turned back into butchered people was remarkably disturbing, even for Red. "I think most of my men aren't up for more battle. But I'll come myself. Take care of the valley for now, brother." At that, Lane nodded.

  "We're in, of course," Evie said for her group without being asked. "After all, there should be good wealth to be had at a 'king's' dwelling. Right boys?"

  "Wealth!" the hammer wielder bellowed.

  "Money!" said Chain-Whip.

  "Silver!" added the greasy-haired man who had handed her the bomb at the arena. "I mean, gold!"

  "You, Red?" Aidan asked.

  She looked at Herbert, and he nodded. "Of course. I'm the werewolf hunter here, you all are just my sidekicks." Boris laughed, and soon the others joined in. Red gazed towards the wood into which the fled werewolves' tracks led and wondered where this would take them. She felt like her destiny loomed near, and she'd soon reach it. She would keep hunting werewolves after, but imagined whatever she did might feel a little... less.

  They followed the trail into the forest and around the foot of a mountain, until they spotted the beginning of a path that led up. By then, the sky began to brighten with early morning. "I never knew there was a way up here," Leviatha muttered.

  "And this is how far from your territory?" Aidan said, wagging his finger in disapproval. "This mountain makes up part of the same range that surrounds your valley. Not very prudent of a ruler."

  "What reason did I have to check up here?" she grumbled. "All I heard is there were no people living here... which there aren't."

  "And maybe there were no werewolves either until recently," Evie said quietly. That was quite possible, but the timidness of her voice surprised Red. She looked to find her sister staring up. For all that Evie was a fearless fighter, she supposed, she'd become an accustomed city dweller and the great craggy mountain that loomed over them seemed to awe her.

  They started up the steep trail that wound around the mountainside. They were only thirteen now, Red, Herbert, Evie, Boris, Leviatha, Aidan, and Evie's other seven men, but they were thirteen strong warriors and the werewolf king's army must be severely depleted. Aidan sang songs for them, about sagas of legendary kings and great kingdoms. Red didn't miss order like he probably did, but then, how could you miss something you barely remembered?

  "Maybe you should take a break after this," Evie said to her. "You look too worn for someone so young."

  "The last month and some has been especially rough. It isn't usually this rough on me. Besides, look at yourself. Your nose is so crooked."

  Evie touched her sniffer, twisted it around as if to see whether she could get it back into proper shape. It didn't work, of course. "Fine. We can both take some time off. Before you say anything about needing to make a living... I'll cover for you."

  Red smiled. "Thanks for the gesture, but I probably won't need your money. I expect we'll find a bunch with the werewolf king, which we can split up. Leviatha did say he paid her off."

  As they continued the ascent the cool winds grew sharp, and unexpectedly, it began to rain. Maybe the drought would be over soon. Evie, Boris, and several of their associates seemed annoyed, while the others were nonplussed. Red reveled in it, though. "See, Leviatha?" she asked, spreading her arms in a sudden rush of euphoria. "This is how you should avenge yourself on the werewolves, not by using people as bait, but going after them!"

  "But we wouldn't even be here if not for my plan."

  That sobered Red up, but only for a moment. "What you did was still wrong. But now, we have a chance to make something good out of your misstep! So let's do it!"

  "You need some calming tea?" one of Evie's thuggish men asked. "I keep some for when I get the jitters—you can have, if you want."

  Red shut her mouth and kept walking. Around and around they went, higher and higher, and the world receded beneath them. They could see towns below, including Leviatha's at some points, tiny in the distance. Finally, a black tower came into view above. It stood near the peak of the mountain, but not quite there, hidden from sight of the valley against the opposite face. "You think the werewolves built that?"

  Aidan studied the weathered structure. "I doubt it. Perhaps it was the tower of a mage in centuries past, found by the wolves today and taken for their home."

  They climbed onward and approached the entrance. The wide stone double doors were open, and nothing opposed their entry. In the very lobby—perhaps the werewolves didn't use the rest of the tower, or used them for sleeping quarters—a huge stone throne had been erected. Before it stood dozens of werewolves, the remnants of the horde that sought to invade the valley, more than half now in human shape as most could not retain wolf form during the day. These carried weapons—axes, spears, and a few swords. Upon the throne sat a man in
heavy golden armor. He looked immense, maybe taller and certainly bulkier than Leviatha. Bristly hair and sideburns formed something like a mane around his head. Against his gray seat leaned a long-handled axe, its head the size of Red's torso.

  "You are their king?" she asked. She wondered if he too preferred to fight in human form. That prospect worried her possibly more than battling him as a wolf, considering the problems she'd had with a similarly huge noblewoman...

  "I am the one that will end your delusions of justice," he said, and stood. His subjects fidgeted, no doubt preparing to attack. The king hefted his axe, even the sound of the head scraping off the floor conveying its heaviness.

  Evie stepped up next to Red. "Leave him to me."

  Everybody stared. "What?!" Leviatha said. "I'm the biggest, I should match up with him."

  "You're not the biggest," Herbert pointed out.

  "The biggest who isn't fat."

  Red ignored them and asked Evie, "You? Why?"

  Her sister smiled. "Like you said, werewolves killed my grandma and mother too. I haven't done much in their names so far. So let me slay a werewolf king for them."

  "All right. I'll leave it to you, sis."

  The king screamed. His teeth lengthened and became pointy, as did his nails, and his hair and sideburns grew out to form an actual mane. Fur covered his hands, his face, and probably everything else his clothing obscured. His jaws deformed and stretched forward to form an unnatural snout. But his posture didn't change, and his hands remained the humanlike shape need to wield his axe. This was, Red realized with a start, a werewolf form she had never seen before—one that likely allowed its user to tap into their lycanthrope strength and speed while retaining human manual dexterity and movement.

  Red mumbled, "How..."

  He spoke in response, another thing she'd never heard a werewolf do outside human form. "Those born under the eclipse are the strongest of our race, of which I am one."

  "You still want him, Evie?" Red whispered.

  "Sure, I can handle it" she said, though the trace of a doubt tinged her voice. Nonetheless, she rushed him.

  The other werewolves charged, bipedal wolves alongside largely naked men and women. Taken over by their savage natures, the turned ones didn't even remember the concept of clothes in either form. The room plunged into chaos as Red and allies met them. She parried a sword, sliced its wielder's forearm, then buried her knife in his heart. Claws swiped at her head from the left. She ducked, stabbed into the attacker's belly and pulled up to slit it open. A spearhead flashed in. She hooked it with one knife, jerking it out to the side, and spun around it so that she stood practically in the naked man's embrace. Before he could react, she brought a blade up behind him and stabbed through the back of his neck.

  All around her, she heard lycanthropes in human and wolf form yelp in pain, fall with dying whimpers. But her allies were getting hurt too. Boris got clawed several times by two big werewolves, dropped them with slashes and thrusts but staggered to lean grimacing against a wall after. Leviatha fought hunched over, a broken spear in her side and an axe in her back while she hacked down opponent after opponent. Herbert cried out as lupine jaws closed on his forearm and dropped his sword. Red ran up, hamstrung the wolf from behind and stabbed down into its sternum. Eyes wide with fear over the implication of the bite despite knowing how to avert it, Herbert retrieved his sword and rejoined the battle.

  Red saw Evie's greasy-haired man cut down a nude woman, only for the werewolf king to step in from the side and punch him. His neck snapped with a loud crack, and his body went flying to flop down like a broken doll. "Evie?!" Red shouted, terror for her sister gripping her.

  "He cheated!" Evie said as she lay struggling to pull herself out from under a large cabinet. Most likely the king had hit her into it, causing it to fall on her. Cheating, not so much.

  Chain-Whip lashed at the werewolf king's face with his trademark weapon. But the king blocked with an armored forearm, which the chain coiled around. He pulled, yanking Chain-Whip through the air towards him. In a smart move, the man leveled his spear in front of him. But the spear snapped against thick chest armor, and then a headbutt smashed the warrior down in midair to lie motionless.

  Red supposed she'd have to take care of the giant herself. She swung at him with her knives, only for him to block both with the handle of his axe. He shoved her away, hurling her across the room until Herbert caught her with one arm and pushed her back towards him. She ducked his sweeping axe, rammed a knife through a seam in his armor into his flank, and split open the flesh of his chin with an uppercut with the other. He growled and a huge fist crashed down against her skull, driving her to hands and knees. His kick to the face put her on her back, coughing blood. The axe came up to end her, but she rolled just in time and the gigantic blade cracked the granite floor.

  She stood, backpedaled away from several swipes. As he started his next blow she darted in, getting past the head so that when the axe reached her, it was the haft that struck her side. It still hurt like being hit with a mace, the momentum carrying her off her feet, but she caught the handle under her arm to prevent being knocked away. The werewolf king waved his axe around as if not sure what to do, swinging her about in an effort to shake her off it. He lifted her high, whereupon she loosened her grip to slide down the pole and plunged her knife into his face.

  He roared in agony, the hilt jutting grotesquely from his cheek, but wouldn't die. He threw his axe away to get distance between himself and Red, surprising her. Though she landed on her feet, she stumbled off balance, and could do nothing to avoid the boulder fist streaking at her face. It connected with an awful crunch and she went hurtling through the air to smash against the back of the throne. She fell painfully onto one of the stone armrests, hearing bones snap inside her, before tumbling off. Red rolled back and forth in agony, hugging broken ribs, trying to ignore the shifting of her shattered cheekbone. The werewolf king stepped forward, axe back in hand, to finish her.

  She sat up, throwing her remaining long knife at his face. He slapped it aside, but she used the distraction to roll between his legs and come up behind him. Before he could turn around, she jumped on his back. She grabbed the hilt of her knife in his face and wrenched at it, making him wail in anguish and fall to one knee. Now she flipped over him, pulling her blade free. She rolled to a crouch and spun, threw the knife into his throat.

  The king gurgled and stepped back. But to Red's shock, he didn't fall. He came forward again, swinging his axe in great desperate arcs as blood dribbled from his snout. She hopped back from one that got close, the point atop the axe slicing a line of fire across her belly, and looked to Leviatha. "Leviatha, sword!"

  The big woman stood bent with three werewolves hanging from her, biting and clawing. "Right now?" She forced the tip of her sword into one wolf's mouth over her shoulder, killing it, then threw herself backward to slam another clinging to her against a pillar.

  Red hurled daggers to slow down the oncoming werewolf king, though she doubted she'd kill him with them. "Just for a second, I'll give it right back!"

  Leviatha peeled the stunned werewolf off her, threw it to the ground and crushed its skull with a stomp. "Fine!" she said after piercing its heart to keep it from healing, and tossed Red her blade. Red barely caught it, so heavy it was, and marveled that she could keep swinging it through a long battle. "You're going to kill him with that?"

  She barely blocked a slash with Leviatha's sword, the impact driving her back a few steps. "Maybe..." The werewolf king stomped after her. She put the tip of the greatsword to the ground and used it to vault high into the air, landing on top of his shoulders. As her fingers closed around the hilt of her long knife, Leviatha's sword clanged to the floor. "Maybe not!" She twisted, ripping the king's throat wide open, then jerked it out. Blood sprayed and he finally toppled, dead face warping as it smacked against the stone. Red jumped off as he fell, picked up Leviatha's sword and used it to impale the last werewolf its o
wner wrestled with. Then she handed it back.

  "You're like a little monkey, jumping around like that." Leviatha grinned. "Good show."

  Red looked around. The battle had ended, with the exception of Aidan putting the last strokes to a particularly stubborn werewolf. Chain-Whip was awake if dazed, the hammer man checking on him and fussing with his eyelids while he tried groggily to push him away. Another of Evie's men had fallen, stabbed through the back with a spear, but everyone else lived. Boris and Evie supported each other, the latter clutching her back. One by one, the bitten took to eating silver.

  "We did it," Herbert said after swallowing down his pinch, face covered with sweat. "So now what?"

  She leaned back wearily against him, no need to act strong now in her estimation. Gazing down at the corpse of the werewolf king, she felt a great compulsion sated like it'd never been at least for the time being. "After we get that money they were paying Leviatha with? My sister suggests we take a vacation."

  Chapter 6

  They found some coin in the tower, though less than Leviatha expected given the payments she'd received, and divided it among the survivors. Though not a vast fortune, it was enough to last them a while. After parting amiably with Leviatha and Aidan, Red took some time to relax and explore city life along with her sister. But Herbert grew anxious about spending too long on his butt doing nothing, and Red also quickly tired of going to parties, watching theatre shows, and looking at art. So after two weeks out of their initially planned month, they said goodbye to Evie and got back to hunting werewolves.

  Four months passed of relative calm, the work they found being to rid areas of a single werewolf or small pack. Herbert lost a lot of weight, over a hundred pounds, though he continued to dwarf most. His attitude changed too, but not in a good way as he seemed more tense and on edge. People still mocked him from time to time, some trotting out the "Knight of the Folds" moniker or making fun of the loose skin under his chin, and he didn't hesitate to fight them. Red took her share of lumps helping him out when too many of their friends would join in. She wasn't sure whether to view his newfound resolve to stand up for himself as a good or bad thing. A person should have pride, but maybe sometimes it would be better to keep that pride inside in order to avoid violence.