by Jeff Shanley
son,” he said. “I will not fight you.”
FIGHT ME! I roared. But Manakh stood his ground. Surprisingly brave for one so resigned to defeat. But I knew I must take the crown from him to legitimize my victory. And since he would not fight…
I lunged forward, and held him down. I towered over him, this little king who, with tears streaming, pleaded for me to kill him. But I knew better: he was begging for mercy, and mercy was simply out of the question. I opened my jaws wide, and ripped his left arm from its socket. Blood poured from his body onto the red stone, but our immortality would not allow him to die. I did the same to his right, and he screamed with such pain that my entire army stopped to watch.
I ripped his legs from their places, and the great Kingfather Manakh, Mênecoth the First, the chosen Kingfather of the Werewolves by the word of the Shaper, laid before all as naught but a torso and a head. But he was not dead. No, I would allow him to live, and see his folly played out for the remainder of his eternal life. For mercy is the way of mortality. And I shall be, alone among all of my people, truly immortal.
“Bring the prisoner to the highest point on the mountains behind us,” I commanded Kahacîr, “and hang him on a harness.” Kahacîr was taken aback by the cruelty, but he knew better than to question his High Lord. “That is his sentence, Lord Kahacîr. Carry it out.” I looked over the people, and their fear empowered me.
“I am Azgharáth, Redborn, Bloodwreaker, and High Lord of Kânavad. This land is now mine, as are you. I will take us to a place of greatness. We are werewolves, and we will reign supreme above all else that walks upon this earth. And it is not by the grace of the Shaper, or Manakh that we ascend to supremacy. It is by the will of Ak’horos the Mighty. I reclaim this land, and this city, and name it in his name: Ak’horokaš.”
My men roared and cheered, and those who had shifted to our side for their own sakes cheered with them. It mattered not, for my victory was now complete.
It was many centuries later before I found out otherwise.
Your victory is almost complete, Servant, said Ak’horos. The White Wolves have taken refuge in the Great Peaks. Pursue them, and take what is Mine. Do whatever you must.
For the next ten thousand years I pursued them, for Ak’horos’s purposes and for my own vengeance. They were the ones who had caused my downfall all those millennia ago. But now, here I stood, triumphant over them. But a storm brewed in the east, and from the horizon I could feel something coming…
EIGHT
My sons and I enjoyed absolute supremacy for ten thousand years after our conquest of Kânavad. Ak’horokaš became the pinnacle of construction, a marvel among the mighty wonders of the ancient world that would never be seen by mortal man. The White Wolves fled, buried themselves into the Great Mountains like ticks and fleas, and they knew my power.
With the help of Kahacîr and Yehâgaf and my sons, we reawakened a dormant volcano of the blackest rock. Upon that mount, in its very caldera, we constructed a monument to Ak’horos, a black temple. And at its center was a bronze urn molded from Manakh’s crown, burnt black by the heat of the volcano. And every half-millennium when the moon is red, I summon those two to this Black Mountain of Ak’horos, and we cut our flesh and pour our blood, and swear all we have and all we are to him and him alone.
In time I gathered five more Lifestones, and set them up around Kânavad. But the Lifestone of Íne still evaded me, and I was enraged. I sent thousands upon thousands of men into the mountains, searching for Íne’s descendants, but they could not find any trace of them. I killed them for their failure.
And then after a strong storm many centuries after, my scouts told me of stirrings in the lands to the south of that place we call the Narrowvale.
“There are ships, High Lord, five ships in the south-lands,” they said to me. And I wondered.
“They’re naught but mortal men,” I said. “Let us wait for them to come to us before we feast on them.” And wait we did. It was not long before we saw tribes of men making their way like ants out of the Narrowvale heading west. Those we encountered had already heard of us, and were either unafraid or stupid. A few there were, however who threw in their lot with us, and they told us of a new kingdom rising in the South, in the realm they called Ánovén. Their king they called Etheôn, and by all accounts he was a master warrior in his time before, as Manakh had been. And they told us that these “Wolven” were blessed with powers beyond those of mere men. Strange, it seemed to me, that the Shaper would make the same mistake twice. Regardless, I could not afford anyone challenging my supremacy. But I sat idle, and watched their cities sprout and their people mate, and the Wolven soon became a powerful people indeed.
Some time after that first report, I sent my men into the Narrowvale, and there they encountered some of these Wolven, these Cénáre as their own tongue described them. They fled back south to their king, and Etheôn launched an attack on my lands, seeking to claim the Narrowvale as his own. Whether he wanted it or not mattered little to me; he had spilled the blood of my race, and so needed to understand that there were consequences.
I gathered an army of fifty thousand, and with Kalahoth at my right hand we marched on the Narrowvale, and war. The Wolven were fierce fighters, and six of Etheôn’s seven sons were present at that battle, and they fought with such ferocity that I hadn’t seen in centuries. It was really quite refreshing.
That battle lasted for six years, in which each of us in turn continually gained the upper hand and laid siege to the other. But finally, I grew weary of this game. They had constructed a large encampment around their hold of land, and we burst through, slaughtering everyone we could find and the first we could see. And finally I came upon him. Etheôn. The so-called “High King” of Ánovén.
He summoned a sword before him and lunged at me. I dodged, and bit down on his armor. I felt my fangs pierce the armor and sear into his flesh, and he cried out in pain. I recalled my man-form and took his sword in my hand. The silver blade burnt my skin, but I took hold of the hilt. And raising him high up by the neck, for all to see, I tossed him up and he fell back down. Down on his own sword. His blood cascaded down my arm and I smiled as his men cried out in despair.
But his son, Etheôn’s damned son the men called Eredôn Farsighted, took his own blade and ran headlong for my Kalahoth in a rage, screaming his father’s name wildly. No one else, just Kalahoth, and he summoned his foul sword. Kalahoth was caught at unawares, there was no way he could have defended himself. And it was all too late. The sword pierced my eldest son’s stomach, and he burst into a pillar of fire and collapsed into a pile of blood and ash.
I let loose a roar like that which I have never uttered, and to this day I swore vengeance on the House of Eredôn, that when they come into Etheôn’s throne I will be there to take it all from them. And my victory will be truly complete.
EPILOGUE
There is an ancient prophecy known by the Loremasters of the Wolven. Spoken long ago in poetic verse, it ran thus:
Bómuric endâro daetimec néntâro; ké al Kež’bómuri gahrata tathálinc
(Born of the first shall come the last; with he and the Redborn, armies amassed)
Gan’kemm hi va’cérah un hade; Hréokai, Nentóvar rumith enka
(They shall do battle as the mountains fall; Betrayer, Lastking they shall be called)
Seven there are, no less and no more
From the depths of deepest time they come;
Gathered by the Betrayer, Ak'horos will come
And the will of the Shaper will be no more...