Shifters After Dark Box Set

by S M Reine et al.

  Around the fire were the bedrolls of another forty men. They, too, each wore the same silver harness as the werewolves. Four men were awake, eating hungrily off of metal plates.

  “We should be back to the stronghold next week,” said one man. He ran his hands across his beard stubble and spat upon the ground. “I thought when Lord Arnkell led us out through that cave, we’d never see home again. Revenge for what that princess did to us is going to taste sweet.”

  “She will pay.”

  “But what if her father comes?” asked one of the soldiers.

  “We are an army now,” the first replied. “Just as Lord Arnkell said. All of Haidra’s men should be dead by now. We’ll get ourselves new recruits from any survivors and then we take over the Haidra lands, just as he promised. We’ll teach that family to put curses on us.”

  Aein slinked back, her heart pounding. She wiped her face with her hands. All of her people were hiding themselves away in those cells for each other’s safety. They would be sitting ducks. It would be a massacre.

  One of the werewolves whined.

  “Come on, now, Fuller,” said the man to the dog. “I know the harness is uncomfortable, but you’ll tear us from limb to limb if I let you go.”

  Aein knew the werewolf was whining because he smelled her and was longing to rip her apart. She turned and hurried back to the road. If those werewolves got loose… if they were released from whatever was holding them… She quickened her pace. She did not stand a chance against a pack of them. She hoped the men would not figure out that the werewolves were trying to tell them something, were trying to let them know that all was not right.

  She got her horse and climbed onto his back. This time, she gave a tap of her heels and leaned forward in the seat. They needed to go faster than a walk, even if the dark was pressing around them. They needed to get as far away from those werewolves as possible.

  She whispered a silent prayer to the gods. Oh, for her people left behind. What did they mean this was payback to Princess Gisla? Was Princess Gisla somehow involved in all of this?

  A shiver ran down her spine and she urged the horse to go even faster. Whoever fashioned those silver harnesses knew what they were doing, she thought. But who knew that silver could control them? And how did they create so many in so short a time? It was as if… she stopped herself from the thought, but then continued it, her certainty ringing true. It was as if they had known there would be werewolves. It was as if this was part of a plan.

  The question was whose plan? She thought this was just some revenge played out by Cook Bolstad. He said that Lord Arnkell was not a good man, and she thought the dish which changed everyone was retribution for some grievance. But now… did Princess Gisla turn them and that’s why these men said there would be payback? Did Lord Arnkell? Was it something else entirely? It did not make sense.

  She wished Finn was with her. He would know what to do. He would tell her to stay focused on her task. She needed to gather as many of the berries as she could to try to bring sanity to the werewolves, which would stop this plot, whatever it might be. People could not continue to go around acting like monsters. But, she thought, perhaps the monsters had already existed in the stronghold before a single person turned into a werewolf. Perhaps she had been living with and serving monsters all her life.

  Chapter Nineteen

  She continued on for the next week and a half, terrified of stopping to rest. She pushed her horse to his limit, but was careful not to push him over. Her journey would not be helped if he dropped dead. Aein breathed easier knowing that all of the werewolves in the camp had changed back to human, and in human form, they would have no memory of her. She kept looking over her shoulder, though.

  And despite everything, she almost wished that the form of one particular werewolf would darken her path.

  Finn, she thought. Would she ever see him again, she wondered. She hoped that the one berry was enough to keep him sane. She hoped that he had not slipped back into a meaningless beast, possessed by only the desire to bite and tear. She touched her lips. She hoped that he remembered.

  Still, she did not see any sign of Finn or any other werebeast. It should not have made her feel as lonely as it did.

  The trees began to change, the land became boggy. Her horse’s hooves hit the solid planks of the walkway and too soon, she was in the swamp. She sat up a little straighter in her saddle, trying to keep aware of her surroundings. A frog sang in the distance. Where had she seen those berries? It had been almost three months ago. The seasons had changed. Things that were alive were now dead. Things which had been dead were now alive. The swamp contained ghosts as she wandered through it alone.

  She and Lars had traveled on this path, she reminded herself, and they had stopped to rest. The hill was easy to spot then, she tried to comfort herself.

  But as she thought, she failed to notice that the fog began to gather. It started slowly, pooling around her horse. Her horse began to shy away, spooked by the pressing white. Then the fog nipped at Aein’s ankles and wrapped around her legs. It brought with it the memories of all the awful secrets it contained. It was full of the sounds of her nightmares, the sounds of the beasts who hunted her. She knew enough now not to fall prey to its tricks. But it was like it was amplifying her worst fears back at her, like it could read her mind.

  She tried to reach out and reason with it, to explain she was not here to hurt, but to help. The fog did not care. It only gathered around her stronger, blocking her eyes so that she could not see more than a foot ahead of her. She dismounted and took her horse’s reins, stepping carefully in front of him so that they did not go head first through a rotten plank and into the swamp.

  It was only because she was walking along, feeling the edges of the wooden road that she found the break point. Only a few inches of green grass let her know she had found the clearing.

  She stepped carefully out, hoping that she was not wrong. The fog pressed closer, as if trying to herd her back onto the road, but she would not be stopped.

  And at once, the fog was gone. Her horse gave a whinny and shook his head. Aein swallowed and looking back at where they had come. This hill was in a single pocket of sunshine, surrounded on all sides by a wall of white. It was as if there was something here which repelled all of the magic of the swamp, which acted as an antidote to anything the fog might bring. Ahead were the berry bushes. Aein’s eyes prickled with relief. She had made it. She had found them.

  She ran up to the bushes and a cry ripped from her throat. They were almost barren. The birds and other animals had eaten it almost clean. What did she expect almost three months later? There was no way that this bush could have grown fruit year round. She pushed her hands through the brown and crumbled leaves. Here and there were a handful of berries. She checked every branch and looked down on the ground for anything that had fallen. She counted thirty. Thirty berries to save the entire stronghold until the next time that the bush bloomed.

  “Oh gods,” she wept. “What are we to do?”

  “Aein?” came a voice.

  Aein spun around, not able to comprehend the sound of another human after all these weeks by herself.

  “Aein?” asked the voice again.

  Was this another trick of the fog? “Who are you?” she asked.

  The man stepped out onto the hill, his red hair the first thing to break the gray.

  “LARS!” she shouted, shoving the berries in her pocket and then running to throw her arms around his neck. “You’re alive! Oh, Lars! You’re alive!”

  It was him! It was truly him! Her tall, gangly, pale, freckled partner. His beard had grown in thick and full. His hair was a curly mess. He was filthy and dirty, but it was him. She held him tight.

  “You were going to bring help…” he whispered. His voice was filled with anguish. “Why didn’t you send help?”

  She broke away from him. “What are you talking about? The Lord Arnkell sent an entire troop of men out here to relieve
you. When you didn’t return for the wedding… we thought… we thought you were dead.”

  There was madness in his glance, the madness of someone who had spent close to three months in the fog alone. “They never arrived.”

  It was then that Aein became very cold. What happened to them? Had they met the same fate as Johan and Whalter? Or had Lord Arnkell not sent them at all?

  She tried to think the best way to ask him. “Lars?” asked Aein. “I have a very strange question to ask you.”

  “What?” he replied.

  “What do you remember between the time of sunset and sunrise?”

  His eyes became far away. “I have just been trying to survive. I have just been trying not to go insane in this fog. I go into the cabins every night, fearful of the beasts that come out after dark. I cannot face the twilight. I cannot face the night…”

  Aein reached into her pocket. She pulled out one of the berries. She hoped that just one would be enough. She would then have only twenty-nine left. Only twenty-nine more chances of redemption until next summer. “I need you to eat this,” she said.

  “What?” he asked with a glint of suspicion.

  “You must trust me,” said Aein. “Eat it. I will tell you everything that has happened.”

  “I don’t understand… You come here after abandoning me, thinking that I was dead, and the first thing you care about is me eating a berry?” He backed away fearfully. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “No! No, Lars… The twilight will be coming soon and I don’t want to lose you, Lars. I cannot risk losing you again. This is the only way. Please, just eat it. Please, trust me.”

  It was like trying to coax a wild animal. He was so mad, she could feel him trying to figure out how to even make a decision. In the end, it was defeat that won, and it broke Aein’s heart. He took the berry from her hand, not because he felt like it contained hope, but because he seemed resigned to death. He placed it in his mouth. Aein breathed a sigh. It felt like she had been holding her breath the entire time.

  “Good,” she said. “Good.”

  “Good what?” asked Lars.

  “Now we must get your horse and leave, Lars. This is what has happened...”

  And so she told him everything: about the feast, about the transformation, about her discovery of the berries, of the plot she discovered with the werebeasts held in silver. Lars stumbled.

  “You are saying that I am one of them?” he asked, shaking his head, his eyes vacant and glassy. “You are telling me that this is the reason why I cannot remember anything at night anymore?”

  Aein nodded. “It was those mushrooms I harvested our first day in the swamp.”

  Lars took a swing at her. She backed away, shocked by his reaction.

  “You did this to me?” he shouted, tears streaming down his face. “You are the one who caused this all? I killed two of my friends because of you?”

  “I did not know!” she shouted back. “I did not know!”

  Lars fell to the ground, weeping. Great, hot tears spilled down his cheeks. Aein went over and wrapped her arms around him. He pushed her away, but she would not be daunted. She just hugged him tighter and he leaned against her in exhaustion as he sobbed.

  “Shhhh…” she whispered. “Shhhh… it is all better now…”

  “How can it be better?” he asked. “How can it be better ever again?”

  “The berry,” she replied. “It protects you.”

  “It doesn’t not change the fact I have killed innocent, good men.”

  “It was not your fault. You were possessed by a terrible beast…”

  “It is all my fault… it is all my fault…” he wept.

  “Shhhhh…” She pressed her cheek against his sweaty hair and just rocked him, holding him until he was done. “Shhhh…”

  Chapter Twenty

  She walked Lars back towards the central camp. The fog enveloped them the moment they stepped off the hill. Lars’s knees buckled, but she pushed on, trying to get him to lean on her for support. She had no idea how he held up against this mental assault for all these months. She would not allow herself to grunt even when he stumbled and all his weight fell on her. It was as if now that she was here, any strength reserve, any resources he had been drawing upon, were empty. He could no longer fight. And her heart broke all over again. It was worse than if he had been killed. He had been here all this time, hoping she would come for him, thinking himself abandoned, slowly going mad in the fog. She would not have wished such a fate on her worst enemy.

  As his legs went out under him again and he did not even try to rise, she lifted him up and helped him onto her horse. Her animal turned his head and nudged him, as if understanding the dire nature of this situation. Did she imagine that her horse even stepped a little softer so as not to jostle her rider? Lars hung heavily upon the horse’s neck, slumped in the saddle, unable or unwilling to rise.

  They arrived in the camp. She could see that Lars had long since stopped caring about keeping it neat and tidy. This was the living space of a man who did not expect to survive to see the next day. Why worry about disposing rotting food and human sick when one expected to die in the night?

  Fortunately, though, she saw he had taken care of his horse. Perhaps it was having a creature dependent upon him which caused Lars to fight. Aein went through and looked for anything of value they should take with them. There was an ax for cutting trees. There was Lars’ weaponry. He had left his steel sword and chainmail to rust in the elements. Something was better than nothing, she thought, and packed it anyways.

  His bedding and clothing was ripped and soiled to the point of being unusable. She rested with her hands on her hips and glanced over at Lars. He had not moved from his position on her horse. If he was a werewolf, then perhaps he no longer needed such things as beds and blankets. They would have to figure it out later, she realized.

  “We can’t leave our post until the replacements arrive…” he murmured.

  “There are no replacements,” she explained back. “The stronghold has fallen and we have lost the border.”

  He did not say anything else for a while. And then softly he repeated again, “We can’t leave our post until the replacements arrive…”

  “They aren’t—”

  “We must stay at our post until the replacements arrive!”

  Aein realized that he no longer understood what he was saying, that the words coming out of his mouth were the words that had been looping in his brain since she left.

  “We’re going to meet them,” Aein lied. “We have a new rendezvous point and I was told to bring you with me.”

  He seemed to calm down. “We have to meet our replacements…”

  “That’s right,” she soothed. “I am just going to finish packing and then we are going to meet the replacements.”

  He finally stilled. She went over to his horse, who shied away from her at first. He had forgotten what it meant to have a rider. And who knew what tricks the fog had been playing on his mind. She told herself that she would just get him out of the swamp and then worry about gentling him. If they could just make their way north, everything would sort itself out.

  It was then that she heard a sound. The way the horse flicked his head up and down made Aein know she wasn’t hearing things. This wasn’t just the mist playing tricks on her. Aein took out her sword and scanned the fog in the direction of the noise.

  A black dog-like shape emerged from the gray. Aein planted her feet and prepared for the attack. But the wolf did not come after her. Instead, he sat down before her and gave a soft whine.

  For the first time since they parted, the smallest glimmer of happiness found its way into her chest. She lowered her sword. “Finn?” she whispered.

  “Kill it,” murmured Lars. “Before it kills us…”

  “He is one of Lord Arnkell’s new hounds,” she lied again. “He was sent here to lead us to the rendezvous.”

  “Oh…” was the only response f
rom Lars.

  Finn stood and stared into the fog. He looked back again at Aein and whined again.

  “We have to get out of here, don’t we?” she said, fearfully. “Something is coming.”

  Finn gave a sharp bark and took a few steps forward. He barked again, as if urging her to follow.

  She ran back to the other horse. It didn’t matter what they packed or didn’t pack if they didn’t make it out alive. She grabbed it by the reins and, resentfully, the horse followed. She tied him to her own horse and led the two away from the camp.

  Finn kept running back to her and then running forward. He’d then wait for a few minutes before running back again and repeating the process.

  “I would go faster if I could,” she hissed, “but I have a feral horse and an injured man.”

  It didn’t stop Finn from urging her on. She quickened her pace to a jog to keep moving faster. Finally, she looked back at the two horses and knew something had to be done. She would just ride double with Lars and take frequent breaks.

  Just as she walked over to the horse, though, there was a low growl which came from the mist. She looked over at Finn. His hackles were raised and his hair stood on end.

  “They found us,” said Aein. She pulled out her sword. She also pulled out Lars’s sword and put it in his hand. She stroked his cheek and said, “We have to fight.”

  His eyes opened. He did not seem to comprehend what she was saying, but his hand gripped onto the sword.

  “We are about to fall under attack,” she said again. “We must defend our post.”

  This made him sit up. The madness was still upon his face, but she realized it was the madness of someone willing to fight to the death, in fact, hoping for death.

  She looked forward and the werewolves came out of the haze. These monsters did not sport the silver harnesses that were on the creatures in the camp. There was nothing controlling them. She swung her sword in two hands before her and growled right back at them. She was just as willing to tear them limb from limb as they were willing to take her down.