The Red Rider

by Billy Wong

  "Tonya, use your pike!"

  Finally the girl did, stepping in from the side to drive the head through its ribs. The monster froze with shock, and just then Red found its throat with her knife and ripped it wide open. Crimson liquid sprayed over her as it tottered backwards, fell over, and died. "Fuck, Tonya," she said, swallowing down some silver powder before clutching her shoulder from which blood gushed. "Now we're both hurt."

  "It's nothing, right?" Tonya asked nervously. "You've had much worse."

  "It'd be nothing if I didn't have to fight again. This might not kill me directly, but it'll hamper even me a little bit."

  "Sorry." She went to pick up her crossbow, at least considerate enough not to wait for Red to do it. "If you want me to do anything..."

  She wrapped her wound as best she could, glad the hand and arm attached to that shoulder still worked easily. Just pain then, and blood loss. Nothing someone with hundreds of scars like her couldn't deal with. "Never mind, it's fine. Just please please please listen the next time I tell you to do or not do something, all right?"

  "Okay."

  Hearing the guilt in her voice, Red felt bad about making her fault herself and turned to hug her. "I know it's hard, and that you're scared. But if you keep calm and listen to me, then we'll both have a better chance of getting out of this alive."

  "I understand." She cleaned off the tip of her pike. "I'll be brave and stick to melee now unless things are really bad."

  Red walked over to the warof, plucked the crossbow bolt from its body and smiled. "Looks like it hit a fleshy part, so we might actually be able to salvage this one. I guess the only thing you have to feel responsible for is a few tooth holes in me."

  They found the rest of the place empty except for those strange dead machines, and dragged their fatigued bodies towards the last ruin. "Not looking good," Red whispered on the way. The chain she pulled Herbert by felt heavier in her hand, and not because her shoulder stung. She wished old Art had mentioned the unique properties of the warofs' claws, if he'd known, and also chided herself for not taking the time to research their abilities. "One more chance to find a cure, then..."

  "You'll find a way," Tonya reassured her, touching her face. "You're the Red Rider, right?"

  She looked bemusedly at her friend. "After all this time together, I'm surprised you can still hold me in such high esteem."

  "Why shouldn't I regard you highly? You're so tough and brave, and the second or third best fighter in the land."

  "Second or third? Who else might be the second?"

  "They say Prince Aidan is very good, though we don't see much of it."

  "His sword's rusty," Red said. "I'm the second best." They managed to share a laugh over that.

  At last they approached the final ruin, identical from the outside to the others, but with a more noticeable layer of frost over it. It was the farthest one north after all. By now night approached, and Red knew Tonya must feel the chill all the way to her bones just like she did. They barely got the door open after tying Herbert to a boulder with no trees in sight, Red having to use her other shoulder now. She felt slightly relieved it would be the last such portal. Before they even got inside, she knew this time would be different. Already they smelled feces and urine, indicating creatures closer to the entrance, and probably more of them. Before they made it five feet into the structure, they heard the rising voices of multiple canines ahead.

  "What are we going to do..." Tonya asked as a warof stepped into view from a side passage, followed by another, then a third. "Maybe you should use a bomb?"

  "No, it's not desperate enough a situation yet. Give me your pike."

  "What?" The beasts trotted towards them with teeth bared, and Tonya gripped her shaft tightly no doubt expecting them to break into a sprint at any second. But then, she handed the polearm over.

  Red accepted it and doubled checked where Herbert's sword hilt stuck out over her shoulder. "You can use that crossbow now. We have to go for quick kills, so once I get near one of the wolves, shoot it. I know you're not that practiced with archery, but I'm not asking you to kill a wolf with each shot, just do your best to hit it." And when it slowed from that hit, Red would try and deliver a lethal blow to its vitals. An extended contest with three warofs was not something they wanted. "Got it?"

  "Yeah," Tonya said, fear in her voice, but also resolve.

  Before she could lose that resolve, Red charged, just in time as the wolves also quickened their pace. "Now!" she cried, approaching the one in front. Tonya's bolt hammered into its foreleg, making it pause to see what had hit it. Red rammed the pike deep into its neck, the impact driving it backwards. Jerking it out, she turned to face the next creature. She set the butt of her pole against the floor as it leapt and it impaled itself, but its momentum was so great she had to dive out of the way of its flying body. The pike trapped inside it, she drew Herbert's sword. "Tonya, shoot it!"

  A bolt pierced the warof's flank and it turned its head to snap at it. Red tried to behead it, but it sensed her coming and swatted her back with a paw, laying open the same arm with the injured shoulder. She hissed in pain and Tonya shot it again in the side, but it still didn't go down. Red rebounded to cleave into its muzzle, but didn't cut deeply enough to kill right away and got her blade caught in its bone for good measure. Maddened with pain, it shook his head back and forth, yanking her this way and that. She kicked it in the jaw, freeing the sword as they were pushed in opposite directions. Lunging back in with a thrust, she pierced through its eye into the brain, and finally the warof collapsed.

  "You okay?" Tonya asked, looking at her new cuts.

  "They're not too deep. Arm's still moving alright." Although, she didn't know if even she could eat much more silver in a short time frame without negative effects. "Good job." She went to retrieve the pike from the second warof's carcass.

  "Should I take that back? I won't have any close ranged weapon besides my dagger if you keep it, and..."

  "Here. I might have to borrow it again though, as needed."

  Tonya ran her cloak up the shaft, wiping the blood off. "Sure. You know best."

  She thought she detected a hint of sarcasm, which she thought perhaps unwarranted when her plan had gained them three dead warofs without grave injury to themselves. Then again, leaving Tonya without a heavy melee weapon did carry significant risk for her. Maybe Red shouldn't have asked her to drop her mother's sword off at home back in the day, but she'd never considered having to use the girl's polearm extensively herself as she might now. "Don't worry Tonya, I won't let you get hurt if I can at all help it."

  They retrieved one usable bolt from their foes' bodies, which hadn't hit bone, and moved deeper into the building. Unlike the previous locations, there wasn't one long hall that led deep inside, but more like a maze of interconnected rooms. "Why do you think there are so many more wolves here?" Tonya asked as they reached the central chamber, and spotted within it four warofs, two on each side. Thankfully, the creatures didn't notice them yet.

  "I don't know, but I figure we must be on the verge of discovering something big. At least, that's what I hope. I need to borrow your pike again."

  "What's the plan?"

  "We won't fare well if we face all four at once, so I say we kill the ones on the left first. We'll have to be fast about it."

  They crept along the room's left wall until one of the wolves sniffed and wheeled on them, then rushed. Tonya's bolt struck it in the shoulder just before Red's pike rammed through the roof of its mouth into its brain, making one quick kill. Its companion was just behind it, and Red couldn't bring the pike around in time to meet it. She jumped back from its lunge, pulling the polearm free. A crossbow bolt hit it over the eye, but glanced off the thick skull though it made it yip in pain. Red stabbed at its face. It slapped the point out wide with a paw, advanced to snap at her with its jaws. She drew one of her knives in an upward motion, splitting both its lips. But the damage was nowhere near fatal, and it roared in
rage. It grabbed the pike shaft in its teeth and whipped it back and forth, swinging her around with it.

  "Red," Tonya yelled, "the others are coming!"

  She glanced over to see the warofs pass the center and start coming up their side. "Then slow them down!"

  Tonya shot at one, then the other. Red heard a yelp followed by several crossbow shots in quick succession. "I think I got one! Lucky shot through the nose."

  "Great work!" Red said just before the warof whipped her into the wall. She threw her knife into its nose, making it release her pike. Taking it in both hands, she stepped forward forcefully and drove pointed silver through its heart.

  Flexing the shoulder that had slammed against the stone, she turned to Tonya—and saw her lying on her back, the surviving warof's paw on her with its claws digging into her chest. "No!" she cried, and hurled the pike like a javelin. It looked up and the pole disappeared into its mouth, tearing through the length of its body before the head poked out its rear end. It toppled over, instantly dead.

  Red ran to Tonya and knelt beside her. She put some silver powder to the girl's mouth, out of which blood leaked. "Here, take this."

  Tonya pushed her hand away. "No, save it," she croaked. "I don't... I don't think I'm going to make it."

  "Don't say that!" Tears threatened to burst from Red's eyes. "You can't die that easily, you're a girl! Girls are durable and tough, and eat damage like candy."

  She coughed and smiled weakly. "Girls like you, maybe. I haven't had enough practice... taking damage."

  "That's not what it's about! You have to believe in yourself and fight with all your inner strength. Besides... since when you are you experienced enough with battle wounds to know when you're mortally wounded?"

  Tonya raised her head, blinking. "So you think I'm not?"

  Red had lifted her shirt and now examined her hurts. The claws didn't seem to have punctured her lungs, as no frothy blood welled forth. The impact of the blow might have done some internal damage, given her bloody mouth, but that could just as likely mean she had bitten her lip. Her ribs weren't broken as far as Red could feel, though some more might now be cracked or bruised. "I don't think you're going to die," she said with a grin. "Probably just felt worse than it was since you're not used to getting hit like that."

  Tonya sat up, face tight with pain. "I guess I don't feel like I'm dying anymore. Still hurts like hell. Can I get that silver now?" Red fed it to her, and she swallowed it down with water. "Hope it doesn't make me too sick." She fingered the shallow holes in her chest made by the warof's claws. "Looks like we both have a bunch of injuries now."

  "Mine bleed more. Yours are mostly bludgeoning damage."

  "Yeah, but women have delicate bones."

  Red slapped her arm. "Hey, don't admit to being the weaker gender! It's embarrassing."

  "I would never call us the weaker gender when you're in it."

  "Right." She rubbed some salve into Tonya's puncture wounds and helped her up.

  "The next group we meet, can we please use a bomb on?" the girl begged, clasping her hands together.

  "We'll see how many they are before we decide."

  They explored the rest of the ruin, but found no more warofs or other points of interest. As it turned out, the only thing it had over the last two was a greater abundance of dung. "Dammit," Red muttered with gaze downcast, "I really thought we were close to something after such strong opposition. So the only reason more of them were here is because it was the lair of the main group?"

  "Maybe we should check the whole place again," Tonya proposed. She had been moving gingerly since the last fight, and Red appreciated her lack of complaint. "There might be a hidden area we missed."

  "Then we might have missed some in the other ruins too. So we go back to check them as well?"

  "If we don't find what we're looking for here, we probably should considering we don't have many other prospects for helping Herbert. But since this one had more 'guardians,' I'm hoping it'll more likely hold a significant discovery than the others."

  They went over the back rooms again, but despite poking and prodding around in the silent machinery could not uncover anything of note. Returning to the central chamber, however, Tonya spotted something she hadn't before. "Hey, isn't that hair sticking out the edge of this circle?"

  Red studied the round shape she pointed to in the very middle of the floor, and realized it might be a detachable panel which hid a way down. To test that, she tried to pry it up with Herbert's sword, but stopped fearing to break the blade. Hmm... she decided to carve up the warof's bodies and use their bones for same purpose. Gory, nasty work, which Tonya wouldn't watch, but at least they didn't revert to human form like actual werewolves. Using multiple bones for levers, they raised the stone lid to reveal a stairway down. Exchanging hopeful looks, they headed underground.

  They descended into a rough black-walled cavern far more natural looking than the building above, yet Red wondered if it had all been dug by the same creators nonetheless. After wandering through long, winding passages, they eventually spotted light ahead—light which couldn't be natural, so it piqued their curiosity more. Readying their weapons just in case, they continued on into a wider chamber, the back of which they could not see. Nearer to them was a twelve-foot glasslike tube attached to a machine, inside which energy in varying shades of blue swirled. Before the tube stood a man, of ordinary height but well muscled, with white hair and pale skin like an albino. He didn't have the red eyes, though. His hair color reminded her of the warofs' fur. She noticed now his furred, clawed hands and slightly elongated snout. A werewolf born under the eclipse, with the ability to take a form in between human and wolf.

  "The Red Rider," he said coyly, barely looking at her. "I'd thought about our eventual meeting, but didn't expect it to be so soon. Did you come here to find me?"

  "I don't even know who you are." But she had a sinking feeling...

  He exposed sharp teeth in a wide grin. "The other two werewolf 'kings' you fought? They were merely my pawns. I am the one who will lead my race into prominence in the world, from which they will no longer need to hide. I am called Lunarch."

  Chapter 11

  Red didn't have a good feeling about this, but tried to hold onto her bravado. "You're called, or you call yourself? Anybody can give themselves a lofty name, but not many live up to them." Beside her Tonya laughed nervously, holding her pike in unsteady hands.

  "It is what all will call me once I carve out a dominion for my kind."

  "You want to take over somebody else's land and impose your will on them? That isn't the right way. I'm looking for a cure for lycanthropy—why don't you do that instead, and free your people from this curse?"

  "Why do you call it a curse? We have more power than humans, which sadly has not been utilized to its potential. I will change that. As for the cure you seek..." He smiled. "I already know of it."

  Her heart leapt in her chest. "You do? Tell me!"

  "Why? You intend to use it to weaken those like me. I would hardly aid you."

  "I don't want to 'weaken' them, I want to save them! Especially those who've been turned—ones like you might not be mentally inferior, but people you change lose their capacity for higher thought, becoming simple beasts. Wait, why am I explaining this, you already know that! A cure would help members of your kind, unless you think physical strength is more important than a human mind."

  "I do not consider those that are turned to be my people. They are merely convenient byproducts of living, that we can use to further our goals. So your proposal to help them carries no merit in my view."

  So he only regarded those born as werewolves to be valuable. That didn't do her opinion of him any favors. "People you infect are just much thinking creatures as you, until you take that away."

  "That... is a little unfortunate. But one cannot concern oneself overly with the troubles of others before their own."

  Red shook her head. "Your 'people' aren't even a
natural race, but just a result of magical tampering to create living weapons if our theories are true. If you already know a cure, why seek to continue wasting the lives of your kin, instead of restoring things to the natural order so we can all live in peace?"

  He scowled. "Perhaps our abilities are not natural. But after being given them, you expect us to willingly throw them away? Naive of you to think those with power part so easily with it."

  "No, not naive. Hopeful. But I guess I was giving you too much credit in my mind. What about us? Once you bring your race to 'prominence,' do you plan to coexist peacefully with humans, or still indulge your urges to feed on us?"

  "It is in our nature to be above you on the food chain."

  "We're hardly prey who'll submit without a fight." She raised her knives. "Now I'll make you tell me the secret of the cure."

  "Uh, so what's in the tube?" Tonya asked meekly.

  Lunarch looked wistfully at the container that reached from floor to ceiling. "This? It was once used to collect moonlight in preparation for creating the ultimate werewolf, before the process was disrupted and the energy lost. Now I have reactivated it, and it gathers the power I will need to become a werewolf god."

  "Werewolf god?" Red spat. "Sounds like silly nonsense."

  "Maybe not a true god, as in divine. But for all intents and purposes, with my immense power, I will be."

  "All the more reason to stop you before it happens, then." She prepared to attack, but then he howled, and over a dozen more howls answered from the darkness behind him. A multitude of heavy footsteps sounded closer and closer, and she realized a pack of warofs approached.

  "My children shall tear you limb from limb," Lunarch beamed. "Oh, by the way... stop me and I'll tell you the cure. But I don't expect you to be thinking about that after tonight, in the afterlife."

  Red grabbed Tonya's arm to pull the petrified girl after her. "Run!"

  Sprinting back the way they came, lupine cries echoing through the tunnels from behind them, Tonya recovered her senses enough to ask, "Now can we use the bombs?"