Brace For the Wolves

by Nathan Thompson

  “Stop calling them prey,” I said quietly. “People aren't prey. No matter their size or race.”

  “See?” the monster called out, pointing at me. “See? He speaks as prey does! It is not his fault! The prey have tricked him! The prey have tricked our prince!”

  “You dare defend him, Cess?” the monster on the right side of the lake shouted.

  “I identify him!” Cess shouted back. “Our prince was captured! Tricked! Raised to be livestock, instead of the greatest of us! Do you not see? He is no traitor-prince! He was wronged! Denied his birthright! Denied to ever touch prey himself! How could he know to be a prince, if he had been raised by prey? Wronged by them?” The creature whipped his head back at me. “If I can show you that you have been wronged, you will come home, yes? Unlock the prince inside of you, yes? Lead us? Get us more prey, better prey? Make us stronger?”

  “You are treading dangerous ground, Cess!” the Spawn on the left called out.

  “I am doing no such thing!” Cess shouted, even more loudly than the other Spawn had. “Stupid fools! Do you not see? Do you not think our fathers will reward us, if we return the wayward prince?”

  “No,” I interrupted quietly, but intensely.

  “Yes” the creature insisted, his voice weirdly determined and patient at once. “You would not even know how, yet. How could you? You don't even know what you're resisting, and it's not your fault. You've been wronged.”

  “No,” I repeated firmly. “No to all of that.”

  “All of it?” the creature repeated. “They did not wrong you then? Did they respect you instead? Did the prey try to teach you that you were a prince? Did they extoll you with honorable titles? Did they credit your accomplishments, and offer you the rewards you were due? Tell me how much they gave you. I will prove that we can do better. See to it that you get better rewards, more dignity, more power, wayward prince. Tell me what they have given you. Tell me first of the respect they handed you. If you can show the prey gave you a mighty enough title, I will submit to you right now, wayward prince. Tell me your most famous title back among the prey who raised you.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him I was done with this conversation, to tell Breena and Karim and Weylin to fire their spells, ready or not, because I had just had it with this crap.

  Cripple-head.

  My mouth snapped back shut. Had I said that out loud? I looked around wildly, but all I got was confused looks.

  “No title at all?” the monster asked. “Impossible. Greatness is your birthright, wayward prince. All but the Ilklings can see it, and the Ilklings are fools. Even prey is often smarter than the Ilklings. Someone had to notice you back home. Did they not give you a title? Did they not recognize anything about you?”

  Cripple-head.

  Bad seed.

  “That one's a lie,” I hissed under my breath, remembering my father's murder and his framing. I felt Breena flinch next to me, but no one else seemed to notice.

  “They gave you no title then, despite your greatness,” the tall Spawn decided. “Answer me then, lost prince. Do you truly believe you were honored by them? Recognized for what you were by them?”

  “Shut up!” I snapped, my right shoulder twitching out of nowhere. “Just shut the hell up! You don't know me! You don’t know anything! And why haven't you all fired yet?” I said as my friends jumped next to me.

  But the monster stepped backward and quickly fell prostrate.

  “Yes, master. As you command,” he answered, not looking up from the ground. “For are you not worthy of great respect?”

  “Fuck it,” I snarled. I gripped my magic handle and the Mongrel cleaver materialized in my hands.

  “This is a waste of time, and we're attacking this walking carcass right the hell now.”

  “I yield!” the creature shouted. “I submit!”

  “Stop saying that!” I shouted. “Every time one of you things surrender, you just get more disgusting!”

  “Let me give you your enemies instead!” Cess shouted, still not looking up from the ground. “Tell me who you wish to kill, so that I can serve! Tell me what treasure or prey or slaves I should bring to you! That is proper, wayward prince! We are bred to serve you! Just tell us how! So that you can come back home, where your throne awaits!”

  “I said shut up!” I brandished my weapon and started to charge forward. A heavy hand reached up and grabbed my shoulder.

  “Wait,” Eadric rumbled. “Trap.”

  I shrugged off his hand and whirled on him. For one horrible moment I was baring my teeth and holding a weapon over a man I had battled beside less than thirty minutes ago. He matched my gaze calmly, not bringing up his shield or preparing his weapon to strike. I stood over him, heaving, and then I took one final, deep breath.

  “Alright,” I said out loud, turning to the Spawn hell-bent on recruiting me for... well, Hell, I guess. “You want to serve?” I asked, turning around to face him again, still holding the two-handed cleaver. “You want to be smarter than the first idiot I had to kill? Call off your attack on the woman in the lake. All three of you. Call off the hunt for me, tell the howling Hordebeasts to stand down. If I have to even consider that your devotion is less than total, I'm taking you apart piece by piece. Right here. Right now.”

  “I cannot…” Cess desperately began to say, but then snapped his mouth shut. “Yes. As you command, wayward prince. Your orders should be recognized.”

  Both of the Spawn across the lake began to protest, but Cess snarled in a way that surprised me.

  “You will obey the prince, or the Fathers will learn and punish us! Halt our spell and call off the alarm! Tell the Howling Ones he left for the pathways!”

  The three gangly monsters stared at each other from across the lake for a long, hungry moment. Then the other two bowed their heads, and the black oil ceased billowing out from their hands. Then, as one, they began to whisper to themselves. After another unnerving moment I heard howls in the distance, but the howls gradually moved farther and farther away.

  There, I thought. That worked. Now I need to figure out how to get Guineve out.

  “We have obeyed, great one. Now what would you have us do?”

  “Stand down,” I said firmly. “Leave this location. Turn over the captives from all Pits and place them near the warded region you cannot cross.”

  “He does not know,” Cess said to his brothers across the lake as they started to protest again. I have no idea how they managed to hear each other so well when they were hundreds of feet apart. “He has not been taught. Forgiveness, great one. Please let this one explain. You will understand if you but hear.”

  “I really doubt it,” I replied, hefting the cleaver.

  “They are guarded by others!” the Spawn said quickly, bowing his head again in supplication. “They are guarded by another! We did not want this!” the creature spoke the final words fiercely.

  I stopped marching toward him, confused.

  “Please,” I heard Karim whisper from behind me. “Keep it talking. This is more than anyone else has ever learned from them.”

  I turned to look back at him, hesitating, and hating myself for it. Once more, my body tried to remind me how tired it was. When I lowered my massive blade, Cess decided he had permission to speak again.

  “They belong to the Icon, prince,” the creature said slowly. “In absence of our own royalty, we are to submit to the next worthiest. Such is our nature. The only part of our nature that you do not share with us, great one, for why should you ever submit to another?”

  “That's another point of contention,” I said dryly. “But tell me about this Icon.”

  “Yes, great one,” Cess whispered. “We have shamed ourselves. I will explain. And you will understand. May I rise?”

  I nodded, because he wasn't going to just sit there if I attacked him anyway. The Spawn rose slowly and carefully, keeping his head in a submissive position as he did so.

  “Thank you, great one,” the crea
ture said. “We are the most perfectly created of all life, but we still lack leadership. We are made to recognize greatness and amplify it, but without it, we are lost beings, desperately trying to fill the hole that its absence always leaves in us. So whenever the powerful and worthy comes we offer them our knee, as the first Pit Champion should have done properly with you, had he not misunderstood you and panicked. But his despair was so great that the Pit itself cried out, and across all of the worlds we began to mourn for our lost prince. The lessers among us did not understand, and wrongly called you traitor. In our error we believed them, and demanded judgment. We begged all of the worlds, all of the skies, all of the depths, for judgement, and in the end we were answered. He gave us new children, and they howled for you, across all of the worlds.”

  “You created the howlers just for me,” I said grimly. “What about the Malus members? Why did you not submit to them?”

  “We submitted to the greatest of them, but they still do not embrace us as fathers should. They hold us at arms' length, denying our names as sons, denying even the rarer others as daughters. And they would not give us the one we called the traitor-prince.” Cess lowered his head even further as he spoke. “Our pain was so great that we begged the worlds and skies and depths to send us something that would eternally look for the traitor-prince, for we thought if we hunted across all of the worlds, for all of time, we might one day find him. And we did.” The head rose. “And we found that he need not be a traitor.” The monster's nostrils flared with yearning. “His teeth are strong, and his hands are fragrant with the wielding of power and the shedding of blood. He need only cast off the lie that the prey can deny him. If he does that—” the monster's voice grew earnest—“then we will have both a father and a lord. A true king. A father like we once had of old. And all the stars and spheres and depths and skies will tremble as they remake themselves to be more pleasing to us, and less pleasing to themselves.”

  “That's still creepy, but you lost me with the line about the teeth,” I repeated. We really need to get Guineve, I tried to send through the mind-link. Hurry up and let me know when you're ready.

  I wish I had come up with a better plan, but everyone was still insisting that I continue my conversation with Mr. B-movie horror monster, who was still hell-bent on corrupting me into becoming the ruler of Super Freaky Land.

  “The signs are faint, but your body still bears the father's mark of power,” Cess whispered in a patient, instructional voice. “Even though you are growing in the wrong direction, it still grows enough to emerge on its own. Soon new powers will answer your beck and call. Your body will grow more terrifying and more handsome even to the most fickle of the prey. I see now, great prince,” the Spawn hissed excitedly. “You are finally growing impatient. You are tired of being as the prey said you should be. Look how quickly your body grows,” the monster said, pointing at my limbs. “You are young, yes? I know. We have seen humans on other worlds. And we know the prey's nature. You have been held back,” Cess insisted. “You have been feared by the other prey, yes? Have they tried to restrict you? Inhibit you?”

  Stop it, I wanted to say. Stop being right.

  He's had help to figure this all out, I told myself. Rhodes' men must have told him.

  But it doesn't matter, I growled at myself, because I'm nothing like him.

  “Have you not grown tired of it?” the monster continued. “You have been denied too long, have you not? Have the prey given you anything at all? Or have they taken and demanded from you? Have they given you proper gratitude? Respect? Wealth? Favors? Mates?” the creature continued. “Have they offered any recognition at all?”

  “Stop pretending you know me,” I growled out each word.

  The cleaver was back in the air. One foot stepped forward.

  Wes, don't.

  Breena's voice came softly through our link. The one she used the least, to speak directly to my mind. Keep it talking just a little longer. Please. I'm sorry.

  A hiss of my own whistled through my throbbing front teeth. This time they itched so bad, I wanted to bite something. But that was nonsense, so I just sat there growling instead.

  “They have not,” Cess continued, unperturbed. “But how could they? How could they recognize your strength? Do the sheep on your world offer wool and meat to the lions in their midst? No. Instead they feared you, as they should. And they bound you, because they were cowards, afraid of you, even though you had agreed not to hunt or claim them. They bound you, simply because you were strong, and great.”

  I gritted my teeth and tuned him out. I looked out across the lake. Guineve looked to be still curled up in her crystal, while the other two Spawn were staring at us in rapt attention.

  “But now you have thrown it off, great prince,” the monster continued. “Do you see that? You did this. On your own. Because you are different from them. Stronger than them. Better than them.”

  Finally, I thought. He got back to being wrong.

  But I didn't reply yet.

  “You have gotten nothing from them, and still grown mighty. Look at you,” the creature persisted, raising a hand to point at the improperly large blade in my hands. “Already among the strongest, fastest, wisest of your rank. Magic and power roll off of you, even when you are in a state of rest.”

  Gonna have to show me how to make that less obvious, Breena, I thought quietly through the link.

  Most people can't tell! Her reply was tense. Busy now! Will fix it later!

  “Think of how much you could gain with the help you deserved.” the Spawn continued. “We would teach you. Care for you. Help you get what you want. Did you not have great dreams, prince? Dreams that the prey did not understand? All of that can be done, great prince. All that and more. Just come home. Where you are wanted.”

  Almost done, Breena whispered. Just give us a few more seconds, Wes. Then you can be done.

  “What do you mean by home?” I asked. “Where do you even come from?”

  “We have all existed from the beginning, inside of our Fathers’ minds,” Cess explained. “It was only when they crafted our Pits that we could be born again, and walk the worlds that they had given us. Come to our Pits, great one, and accept the submission they will offer you. Bind with one, and you will become a Champion. You saw how weak our Wretches were, and then you saw how strong one became as a Champion. And if you bind with two Pits, you will go even further, becoming a Patron. Merely oversee their growths, and they will share their power with you. And we will benefit from the crumbs of power you will then leave in your wake.” The creature bounced slightly, with obvious excitement. “Your mere presence would make every breed of Horde stronger, and more numerous. You could share the wisdom you had gained of tools and of magic. You would make us mightier still, and we would love you for it, great prince. I promise you this, here and now, no one will ever love you more than we do. Unlike the prey, we will never take you for granted. We will praise you for your power, for the victories you will doubtless obtain, and we will always love you, because you are family. How could we not?”

  The monster cautiously rose higher, and looked out at his brothers across the lake. “Am I not right?” he called out. “Will we not love him? Will he not make us strong if he so chooses? And will we not praise him for it, and follow him forever?”

  Cautious silence.

  Then...

  “If he returns to the brood, we will have to submit to him,” the Spawn on the left shore projected, his voice sounding careful.

  “If he makes us stronger, we will cherish him forever,” the Spawn on the left shore shouted, his voice sounding sudden and eager.

  “You can tell, can you not?” the Spawn called Cess insisted. “If he binds with our Pits, we can become his personal Champions. We would stand tall among any of the Pits outside the Deep. He could even make us Brutes!”

  Even at this distance, I could hear the other two Spawn hiss in excitement. They were finally on board with the idea of bringing
me into their happy psycho-murder family.

  “You see, dear, lost prince,” Cess began patiently. “Respect. Gratitude. Love. We will spend ourselves to make sure you get all of it. I promise.”

  I hated them for it. I hated that they knew how people had treated me in the past, and were promising to be different, and better, welcoming me with open, bloody arms.

  And I hated that my own hands had been stained with blood too.

  They do not lie, a voice spoke up, one that I had thought I had beaten down. They mean every offer they have made to you. I know.

  As always, a brief sensation of pain accompanied that voice.

  Know this, it continued. However many you save, however many you help, none of those will be as devoted to you as your kin who now stand before you.