THE WOLVES OF WAR
The white eye of the watching moon glared down on the burning village. Corpses sprawled everywhere. Most of the dead looked as if they had fled in panic and been overtaken by large beasts. Their flesh was ripped and their bones had been broken and gnawed for marrow. When he’d heard the sounds of violence and cries of pain Kormak had almost ridden on. After all, the civil strife tearing apart the Kingdom of Valkyria was not his fight, but the eerie howling told him there was work for him here.
Another strange echoing cry rang out through the cold night air. It sounded like the baying of a wolf but there was also something almost human in that call. It was answered from a different part of the village. Kormak reached for his sword but he did not draw it. He would only do that if he intended to kill.
His horse snorted skittishly although it had been trained to endure far worse than this. He got down from its back to inspect the dead.
He had been hoping to find a bed for the night in the local inn. The long chase after the Ghul Razhak through these mountains had left him badly in need of rest. Instead of sleep, he had found only horror and death. It must have come recently, for the bodies were still warm and the blood around some of them had not even started to congeal.
Something huge loped towards him out of the darkness. It had the shape of a man but it was bigger, perhaps half again as tall and perhaps three times as heavy. Greyish fur covered its body. Its head resembled a combination of a man and a wolf. Around its throat was a chain of nocturnium, one of the ancient night-metal alloys, forged into strange and terrible Elder Signs.
The monster opened its mouth and howled. Its long pink tongue lolled from its open maw. Its massive yellowish fangs glittered in the moonlight. Spittle drooled from its jaws and dripped onto the ground.
Hunger burned in its eyes as it moved ever closer. It came on with a terrible confidence, as if certain that it could not possibly be opposed by the man in front of it. It sprang, its leap carrying it far further than any human could jump. It stretched out its arms, long claws glittering in the moonlight, bright with the promise of death.
Kormak stepped to one side. His dwarf-forged blade leapt from its sheath, slashed outwards and parted the creature’s head from its shoulders. Its skin sizzled where the sword edge bit. Even as he watched, the wolf-man changed back into a human being. Its corpse lay there in a pool of pink pus.
Another howl rang out, as if in answer to the dying wolf-man’s cry, followed by a cry of pain.
Kormak moved through the streets of the burning village towards the sounds of screaming. He had heard that things were bad in the Mountains of Darkness and it seemed that he had not been misinformed. He passed a temple, a small shrine really, on fire in the middle of the village. The symbol of the Holy Sun was inscribed on the burning spire. He knew that these people were of the same faith that he himself followed.
He emerged into the middle of the temple square where another wolf-man confronted a villager armed only with a scythe. He was standing over the recumbent form of another human, trying to protect him. The wolf-man advanced with a lazy confidence that seemed entirely justified. The man slashed at it and his blade pierced the creature’s flesh. The skin knitted behind the cut, there was no blood, and it was as if the creature had never taken a wound. Some magic protected it from the effects of normal weapons. Kormak began to understand how just two of these monsters had been able to slaughter the entire village.
Kormak shouted, trying to get the monster’s attention. The peasant looked at him and in the moment when he was distracted, the wolf-man reached out and lazily tore his head off. It stood there, clutching the severed head, blood dripping over its talons. Its mouth lolled open and it seemed almost to be laughing. Kormak walked towards it, blade held at the ready. In the moonlight, the runes on the sword glowed slightly, telling Kormak of the presence of magic, even though he did not need told that at the moment.
The wolf-man seemed confused. Kormak guessed that it was not used to having its victims advance upon it, showing no fear. He also guessed that the creature sensed the power within his dwarf-forged weapon and was alarmed by it. Perhaps it smelled the blood of its companion on him.
Before Kormak could do anything, the wolf-man turned and fled, bounding away faster than a horse could run. It sprang over the wall of the village and raced off into the night. Kormak could hear its howling receding into the distance and knew that he could not overtake it.
He looked around him one more time and could see nothing but dead bodies and burning buildings. There was no sign of any further monsters so he strode over to where the headless villager lay. Beside him was a wounded man in the robes of a priest, a great gash torn in his flesh. Looking at his wound, Kormak knew the man did not have long to live. “What happened here?” he asked.
The priest looked up at him. “Massimo’s Wolves came. They killed everyone.”
“Massimo?” Kormak asked.
“Jaro’s henchman. The wizard. Moondog rebels, the pair of them. Kill them, Champion of the Sun. Kill them all.” He coughed blood and tried to make the sign of the Sun over his ripped chest. His eyes went wide and cold and Kormak realised that the last thing he had seen was the moon, an ill omen for a man of his faith.
Kormak picked his way through the ruins of the village, looking for survivors. There were none. The wolf-men had been thorough about their work. On his way back, he checked the body of the wolf-man he had killed. It still lay there, in a puddle of what looked like liquified flesh. The night-metal necklace glittered on its throat. Looking closely Kormak could see that it seemed to have fused into the flesh.
Kormak prised it free. It tingled in his hand as he touched it. He could feel the foulness in it, the taint of Shadow. It shattered when he struck it with his blade.
A wisp of ectoplasm drifted free and he ran his blade through it too, dissolving it and sending the bound spirit to its final death. Whoever this Massimo was, Kormak thought, he knew powerful dark magic.
He did not want to take his rest surrounded by the dead, and perhaps the wolf-man would return with companions.
In the distance Kormak could see smoke rising. There had been a lot of it since he had started riding through the Mountains of Darkness. Everywhere he looked there was burning and the signs of strife. It felt wrong. It was late autumn, not the time for local lordlings to be making war. He had seen more burned-out villages with the charred bodies of massacre victims strewn through them. He had seen farms and cottages burned to the ground. He had seen the flocks of sheep slain and left to rot.
He had been born in the mountains of Aquilea, a rough land, where clan feuds burned hot and long but he had never seen anything like this. Flocks were for rustling, not to kill and leave lying. This was more like the work of mad beasts than men. It was as if madness had struck right across the mountains.
He had seen their tracks, those of large, armed bands, leading away from the place where the massacres happened. Mingled with those of horses and men had been what looked like those of very large dogs. He guessed the wolf-men rode with the warriors.
Ahead of him he saw a body on the road. There was something about this that was at once repulsive and disturbing.
He reined his horse to halt and dismounted to inspect the corpse. He noticed the smell from many strides away, a peculiar mixture of rotting meat and something else, something suggestive of things long dead. He had a suspicion he knew what he would find even before he reached the body and he was not disappointed.
He knew the man, or he had known in him life. It was the robber-knight Wesley. His features seemed to have aged and at the same time putrefied. His body and his life had been consumed by the Ghul who had possessed him. It feasted on the life energy of its victims even as it took possession of their bodies.