Draconic Shenanigans - Episode 47

Chapter Forty Seven: Vicious Kindred 

 (Artwork not mine, all rights to SJB1995)

 Whilst Kaelin was reporting to Charlotte so that word of their progress could be spread back from the Wizard's Tower to the Capital, Jeremiah was out wandering the battlements of Nether Wallop, taking of the night air and surveying just how well the influence of the One True God had settled into the minds of the populace. Grieving people were people looking for answers and the One True God was happy to provide those answers. His meandering had taken him up to the battlements but the pickings here where fairly slim. It appeared that professional soldiers and sailors were less likely to be willing to listen to the words of the One True God. In a way he suspected it, soldiers and sailors were known to be a godless, unrepentant lot and this lot remained closed mouths and untalkative. It took the whole of a circuit for Jeremiah  to realise that it wasn't just the usual taciturn resistance of the godless when someone tried to show them the error of their ways, the soldiers manning the battlements were tense about something else.

"My friends," Jeremiah approached a pair at the south east corner, "Whatever is the matter? I understand the funeral earlier was an unfortunate event but refusing to speak of such things will not do any of us any good. Come, why don't you share your troubles with a humble servant of the One True God and let us see if I cannot put them in a different perspective."

"A different perspective?" one soldier asked without turning, "Alright then what's your perspective of the fact that some of them furry burgers are out there again, only they are trying to be sneaky this time?"

"I beg your pardon?" Jeremiah frowned.

The soldier pointed out into the night. At the edge of the trees, shapes moved, white manes flickering in the light of the night. There was not a mass of them, or at least there didn't appear to be so, one or two moving in the night and then disappearing back into the trees.

"Wish I knew what the dog botherers are doing out there," the soldier muttered, "They've never waited this long before they send the charge."

"No sign of the winged ones," the other soldier observed, peering up into the sky. The first notched an arrow any way.

Jeremiah tugged his beard, watching the shapes flickering at the edge of the trees.

"You," he called to his battered bone golems, "Chase them."

The bone golems creaked around and then started towards the white and grey werewolves as they skulked in the edge of the trees. Their slow, ponderous steps where not exactly quiet and Jeremiah pinched the bridge of his nose as the white and grey shapes froze in the shadows, turned towards the approaching giants of bone. Before the bone golems were half way to the tree line the grey and white werewolves had turned and bolted.

Tikrumpdel, laying once more in the shallows of the river, keeping the trio of siege beasts from  causing any trouble, sniggered. He tried to hide it with a rumbling cough but it was none the less a snigger.

Jeremiah went totally, terribly still and the pair of soldiers shuffled slightly away from him. Jeremiah thrust forward a hand and spat a stream of words into the night.

The bone golems kept walking but almost imperceptibly something changed. After two more steps it could be seen, a subtle shift in their outlines in the night and a quiet rattling, clattering sound reached the ears of the watchers on the battlements. After two more steps it was unmistakable. The bone golems jerked and twitched as they sort to do each step, the rattling became louder as they shrank, a pale scattered trail spread out on the turf behind them. Long bones tumbled like dominoes, teeth and fangs rattled like dice, skulls fell like tombstones. The bone golems jerked twitched, crumbled, crawled, clawed their way across the turf and finally fell apart completely.

The two soldiers stepped back as the skein of power came twisting up out of the dark. For a second, Jeremiah was silhouetted against the glow and then it faded.

"That is ever so much better," Jeremiah turned away with a smirk and went back to the wall steps. The soldier drew back as he went passed.

"Did you see his eyes?" one hissed. The other shook his head but it was a gesture telling his friend to shut up and not attract the attention of the devil rather than a denial of what they had seen.

The following morning Lieutenant Winters and Governor Risgath looked down at the row of very dead brindle werewolves and one wholly white werewolves laid out on the turf at the edge of the forest.

"What do you reckon?" Inters asked, "Cause it seems to me that the ones who changed colour are cleaning house for us."

"I have spoken with the one who calls himself Michael Azrael," Risgath informed him, "He says that it was his intension that, if he could not change their bodies, then he would at least free their minds from the shackles controlling them."

Lieutenant Winters looked at the row of the dead werewolves for a second time.

"I'd say that he has done a good job," he noted.

"Sirs," a quiet voice spoke behind them and they turned to see Quenril stood there, eyes downcast.

"Quenril?" Risgath asked, "What brings you away from my sister's favourite?"

"He has given me permission to speak to you as he is busy with training his new mount and reassuring the others that they are still wanted, " Quenril bowed his head to the Matriarch's brother. Risgath glanced over the river plain to where Ulrich was standing waving the long thigh bone he had liberated from the wreckage of the bone golems. The two siege beasts watched said bone avidly. Ulrich span like a hammer thrower and released, the bone arching high through the air. The siege beasts turned and lunged over the plain, feet thudding against the turf. One managed the final lunge and caught the arching length of calcium. The other was there immediately, latching on to the other end of the femur, growling and tugging at it. The first was, understandably, reluctant to give up its prize. They both braced against the other, ears folding down sideways as they growled, the second jerking and yanking at the bone before stilling again, still growling. The first suddenly turned, forcing the second to either follow or fall over and release the bone. They stamped back over the turf, still growling and cussing at each other, thick necks bulging and straining as they yanked against each other.

"Two nights ago they were trying to kill us all and now they are playing like a pair of puppies, "Lieutenant Winters shook his head, leaning on his two stitches, "The craziness of war."

"Foot the ball in no man's land?" Risgath asked and then looked back at Quenril, "So why have you left the side of my sister's favourite."

"I would like to try and speak with this new type of werewolf," Quenril volunteered, a strange pattern of green and blue shifting over his skin, "I believe I can do it without too much risk to myself."

"Why?" Lieutenant Winters asked, watching the colour changes trace their way over Quenril's face.

"Because I'm already infected," Quenril admitted, "I haven't changed yet but it is only a matter of time. I hear the howling."

"He also stinks of werewolf," Kaelin stated landing beside him, shuffling her pinions into place, "Trust me, for someone who has the nose for the job, he smells of the pack. If they'll speak with anyone it will be him."

"Granted," Lieutenant Winters acknowledged, "But if smell is what matters then why not you?"

"Because I'm not of Ash Elf stock originally," Kaelin stated, "I'm not the right mixture but I will keep an eye on it. If it goes sour I'll lift him out of there." She shook her pinions and resettled them.

"Ceann Mor is also laying trip lines," Quenril gestured to the north of the east road, where the spider dragon was walking sideways, tail pushing and twitching through the grass, spinnerets busy, "He will do this side after the Matriarch's favourite has finished with his pets this afternoon. If they charge they will find their path more blocked than they expect it to be."

Risgath looked at Lieutenant Winters. After a moment Winters nodded.

"If they come tonight, you may have your chance to establish contact," Risgath informed Quenril, "I just hope you do not die trying this."

"So do I sir," Quenril bowed again. Behind him, Lady Zilvra hefted the rather gnawed thigh bone and then threw it. The siege beasts gave chase as it splashed into the river. Lady Zilvra just had time to lift a hand to her mouth as the siege beasts skidded to a halt on the bank of the river, before what looked to be a strand of water weed flicked the thigh bone over the siege beasts heads and they scampered off after it. Lady Zilvra inclined her head to the abyss eyed woman who stood among the willow trees. Ulrich looked away and Yaga Tuf's sister smiled before she stepped back among the trees.

Yaga Tuf herself stepped out onto the balcony of her walking hut and shaded her eyes, grabbing some fresh air and sunshine while she could. Behind her pots bubbled and simmered on the stove, the thick scent of the potion her family had been dolling out to the people who had been infected with the werewolf curse clinging to her clothes.

"Honestly," she muttered, "You'd think someone so learned would be quicker at a job." She peered in land, scanning the view to the mountains. After a while she stumped up the spirally walkway to the top of the garden that grew out of the walking hut's back.

"Whoop?" it asked gravely, "Whoop?"

"Hush," she reassured it as Jeremiah spiralled out of the morning air to land near his lounger.

"The... ingredients you ordered," he said narrowly, not looking directly at her as he set the basket down at her feet. As she lifted it and started picking through the contents he threw himself down on his lounger and wrapped his dragon like wings over his head. Gerald, his dragon winged, undead moth landed on his antlers and stared at the sigil spinning within. He reached out one leg towards the light... He snatched back the offending limb as the spark cracked off the tip. Jeremiah lifted a hand and flapped at him ineffectively.

"You haven't found enough wolfsbane," Yaga Tuf delivered her critique of Jeremiah's efforts, "The St John's Wort is old and the feverfew is practically wilting. That is not all Agrimony and the wormwood is very second rate. Dear Lord, what of this is wild oats and what is just plain grass? And those are regular poppies, not new world poppies. Honestly, it is a good job I grow my own Tiansin angelica and milk vetch. I dread to think what you would have brought back if I'd asked for those."

"You could always fetch your own supplies," Jeremiah groused.

"No I can't, not while I'm also brewing the next batch," she stated and pocked him with her cane, "Now up you get and try again."

"What did your last slave die of?" Jeremiah lifted a wing to glare at her.

"Over eating," Yaga Tuf some how kept a totally straight face, "And if you don't like it then you should have been more careful than to throw the name of your god about so damn much. Just because you are blind enough to worship that thing doesn't mean the rest of us want to go any where near that monster."

Jeremiah stood up slowly.

"I worship the One True God," he spoke quietly, "What do you worship witch? If..."

"I don't worship," Yaga Tuf interrupted, "I serve. I give of myself, over and over again, even to the stupid, the selfish and the petty, as does my daughter and granddaughter. Where ever we go we serve. We do what is right even, no, especially when it is not easy. We give even when we know we won't get a lick of thanks in return. And if you want to hang me and burn me for being a witch then you'd be right up there beside me on the gallows for being a heretic. These people have given you more chances than I would have done that's for sure. Think on that wile you try again."

Jeremiah glared.

"I don't have a basket," he sulked. Yaga Tuf looked at him flatly and tapped her cane.

"Basket," she told her house as its head came up level with her, the pottery of its form creaking and cracking as it stretched. It opened it beak and a basket was balanced on its tongue.

"If you do the job properly this time I'll make you lunch," she offered.

Jeremiah took the basket, beard fidgeting as he tried to decide what it was worth to him, balancing pride against the demands of his stomach. He took off and beat his way back towards the forest.

Down on the east road Thorian looked up as Jeremiah swooped over head but then he focused on guiding his siege beast, patting its neck as it plodded on, sides hung down with baskets that shifted slightly as it walked, clothes tied down tight to keep the contents in the woven carriers.

"Supply run!" Thorian bellowed up at the wall as he tapped his siege beast to make it settle down near the west gate. He'd already unstrapped several baskets by the time the volunteers from the Governors Palace came out of the gate.

"What have we got this time?" the woman who had served Ulrich and Lady Zilvra the day before asked.

"Crow berries," Thorian continued to untie baskets and hampers, "Bitter things but there are some bilberries to stew with 'em and make fruit cheese out of them. That singer Mirthrax found these funny root things. Called 'em sweet po-tay-toes. Said they could jut like regular spuds, you just have to take the skins off first."

"Now that is good news," the kitchen lady smiled, "Roots can keep you fed long after other food runs out."

"Well one of the wood cutters reckons he knows where some Mul-de-wah art-i-chokes are growing," Thorian sniffed, "If they are wot I think they are then they is what mah tribe call guff roots."

The kitchen lady couldn't help but laugh.

"Now there's a name," she giggled, weeks of tension easing off.

"That's what they make you do," Thorian wrinkled his nose, "Aye used to hate it when the guff root growers had their guff root feast."

"A feast?" one of the other volunteers asked as they picked up a basket, trying no to shake it too much as they laughed.

"Yeah," Thorian nodded as he unlashed the last few baskets, "First they look at each other's guff roots, then they do the dance of the guff roots then, at sundown, they eat all the guff roots." 

"I must say that... that it sounds," the kitchen lady put her basket back down to wipe a tear away, "It sounds rather a sight to see."

"You should wait til sun rise the following day," Thorian nodded darkly, "Then it sounds un-bee-lever-bull." 

The laughter echoed across the lake, making Tikrumpdel look round from the shore on the north side of Nether Wallop.

"Wonder what got them all going?" he sniffed, "I could do with a good laugh, helps me weight."

"Well hopefully this will help with that as well," Altan said, adjusting the set of a block of lake stone, roughly shaped but stackable, "Stoking that fire must take some doing."

"Well we'll see," Tikrumpdel muttered, watching the strange shaped forge coming together. It was not dissimilar to a regular forge but instead of the bellow pipes at the back it had an enormous funnel built out of the mixture of stones dredged up from the bottom of the lake and a few pieces tore free from the walls of Nether Wallop by the weeks of siege.

"Right, try that for size," Altan said as Thorian's siege beast stood up and started the march back up to where the foraging party was combing the woods for wild food that would keep the people alive through the winter.

Tikrumpdel edged his nose into the funnel and sniffed a couple of times, blowing enough heat to warm the stones. Altan laid a hand up against the stones and nodded to himself.

"I'm going to nee to build the walls thicker," he said, "But another two layers of stone and a later of sand and clay cob on the outside will have it ready to go."

"It's a tight fit," Tikrumpdel agreed, "And I think that air hole slit you put in was a good idea but I reckon it will work."

"As long as you remember to flame only by mouth," Altan nodded, setting to the work of building up the outside of the forge.

"Of course," Tikrumpdel snorted, "Fat I maybe, stupid I am not. I have to admit that I wish I knew that shrink spell that priest was throwing around so freely, it would have been much easier if I could have just sat in the bottom of the regular forge. I might need travel time from our work at some point to go and visit that Wizard's Tower I've heard about. If nothing else I'd like to see if it could be refined to the point you can target a single part of someone's body."

Altan paused in his work, than carried on without looking round.

"Why would you want that?" he asked.

"Look," Tikrumpdel held up a tubby paw. Altan looked and saw that said tubby paw was no longer as tubby as it had been. Between a restricted diet, galumphing and now swimming everyday, Tikrumpdel was beginning to shift the weight of centuries. Unfortunately his scaly skin suit was not shrinking as fast as his weight loss. 

"Ah," Altan nodded, "You'd like to shrink a few inches of flap off?"

"Wouldn't I just," Tikrumpdel grumped, "This is getting embarrassing."

"Well once we've repaired the King's Blade and helped Ulrich with his mechanical bodyguard, I could probably hold down the fort here for a good couple of weeks or more with the regular forge. There is quite a back log of basic iron needed here so if you want to head over to the Wizard's Tower while I get it sorted, we can pick up our arrangement once you are back. We also need to start sorting a trade link between here and the elf lands as well as the land beyond the Althalus Mountains for raw materials."

"Well that sounds alike just my sort of adventure," the Captain grinned as he walked over a gang of sailors behind him.

"Oh hello," Tikrumpdel lifted his head, "You have any interesting jobs to do?"

"If our good blacksmith does not have need of you for a while," the Captain smiled, "Aye was a thinking that it was a good time as any to get mah ship beached so we can see about a properly repairing  the holes that wee beasty left in her bottom. After that? Well I hear tell that you have a horde of tradeable goods that you would like to be a selling for some of the pretty good coins of the land. I think that I can be a helping with that."

Tikrumpdel's eyes began to gleam and then a cautious look crossed his face.

"And what would you be wanting in return?" a shrewd note was in the dragon's voice as he asked the question.

"Oh I don't know," the Captain grinned, "Shall we say... five tenths."

 "Ridiculous!" Tikrumpdel snorted, "I won't go a penny over half a tenth."

"Ah now come mon-a-me," the Captain grinned and spread his hands, "A surely the being who helps return your horde to glory deserved some recognition? I will be making sure you are not swindled by unscrupulous scoundrels."

"Not if you are the biggest scoundrel around," Tikrumpdel protested, "And who says I can't make the sales myself? It is my horde and I know that you small folk value what I have as worth more than its weight in gold. Three quarters of a tenth."

"Aye that is true," the Captain admitted, "But how are you going to convince the small folk merchants that you are there to trade and not just burn all their wares to the ground? You dragons, particularly you Lava Dragons, have quite the reputation but perhaps I could go as low as four and a half tenths."

"Like anyone who sees me coming won't believe that I'm anything but a joke," Tikrumpdel snorted, "Even want to be dragon slayers would be ashamed of killing something as old and slow as me, not to mention graceless, blubbery and clumsy. Who would be afraid of a dragon who cannot fly?" He reared back, showing off that though he had lost some weight, it did not make much of a difference to his appearance. "Not a penny more than a tenth."

What followed was a master class in haggling. Altan listened with both ears, even while he worked on making a forge that could be powered by dragon flame but still be safe enough for a human to use. The Captain pointed out the many dangers of such trade links. Tikrumpdel countered by offering to escort The Armoured Dragon on its journeys. The Captain observe that doing so would slow production. Tikrumpdel argued that scarcity would keep the price stable, stable and high. The Captain countered with lack of market. Tikrumpdel spoke at length about slow growth market. The Captain countered with the fact that he could not live that long. Tikrumpdel made a very strange comment about the Captains current mask not lasting that long but accepted the point. Altan frowned over that one as he put the finishing touches on  the second shell of the forge but didn't interrupt.

At last Tikrumpdel shook on two tenths being the Captain's share as the Dragon Forged steel wouldn't be the  only merchandise the Captain moved in his cargo holds. It was almost funny to see Tikrumpdel carefully extending a claw to shake hands with the Captain.

"So," the Captain said, "The question is now, would you be willing to help us retrieve mah ship from the sand bar she is currently stuck upon?"

"Now that I will do with out bickering over the price," Tikrumpdel replied, "Do you need me for a while?"

"Not at the moment," Altan nodded, "Though if you could scoop me out a couple of handfuls of clay from that spot on the river bank before you go, it would be a help."

"On that I can do one better," Tikrumpdel shuffled backwards into the lake, moving noticeably easier as his back legs found deeper water. "Definitely want that shrink spell," he grunted as he turned into the lake. He pushed out into deeper water and then duck dived down. The sailors stepped back as the wave washed up and over the edge of the grass. Then more waves sloshed over the beach. Where Tikrumpdel had dived was not quite deep enough and his back feet and chunky tail wiggled above the surface as he fought against his natural bouncy. After a couple of moments they slipped below the surface and his head reappeared. The two clawfuls of mud made a wet splat as they hit the sand of the beach. Tikrumpdel was back out before Altan could go and inspect the offering.

"How's that?" Tikrumpdel cried as the second two slapped down on the beach.

"It's good quality," Altan noted, "Any left over should be sellable once its been dried little and wrapped. I think our Captain should enquire about that as well."

"There seems to be many things you can sell to make a horde," Tikrumpdel noted, "I wonder why I seem to be the only one to realise this."

"It is easy to over look how useful little folk can be, when you see them only as things," the Captain noted.

"That is true," Tikrumpdel nodded, "Things, food or pests." He shook his head, "Someday I'd like to take hold of my people, all my people and knock their heads together until they saw some sense. I miss Gaudis."

The Captain stepped forward and laid a hand on Tikrumpdel's thick neck. 

"Come on," the big dragon shook himself, "If we are going to lift your ship while we have plenty of day light left let's get to it!" He adjusted the lay of paw, wing and shoulder to make a soft, uneven stair that the sailors could scramble up, though Wag House managed to slip and slide his way all the way to the beach again, much to the Bosun's bile.

Ignoring the Bosun's continued tirade Tikrumpdel backed and turned a lot more slowly, careful to not jostle his passengers. Once in deeper water he struck out for the sand bar where the Armoured Dragon had been beached to keep it safe from the attentions of the werewolves. The noble ship listed over to one side, the lake lapping well below the water line, her figure head staring sorrowfully off into the distance.

Tikrumpdel came along side and extended a wing over to her railing.

"All right lads," the Captain beamed, "Quick as you like and try not to tickle the big boy, we'll all be in the drink."

Tikrumpdel sniffed as he watched the sailors reach the railing and then struggle to get any where on the badly canted deck.

"Hold fast," e called and lifted a paw to the railing. The ship groaned, her sides not fully supported as she righted, keel grinding in the sand.

"To your stations lads!" the Captain bellowed as he made his way to the stern steps, "Let's not keep her waiting. Set the fore and aft sails!"

"Set fore and aft sails!" the First Mate roared.

"Raise the fire anchors!" the Captain roared as he took hold of the wheel.

"Raise the fore anchors!" the First Mate relayed.

"Raise the stern anchors!" the Captain bellowed as the ship creaked underneath them.

"Raise stern anchors!" the sailors jumped to the windlasses and pushed with all their might, chains rattling, rigging cracking as the cross wind started catching the sails.

"Tikrumpdel! Take us out!" the Captain ordered.

"Aye aye Sir!" Tikrumpdel worked his way back along the ship by hand and wing until he could grab both sides of the stern. Bracing back feet and tail on the sand bar he pulled, a long slow pull. Creaking and groaning, the ship came loose of the sand bar. Tikrumpdel arched back in the water, letting himself sink so that the ship rode up and over him in the water, like a child playing with a toy in the bath. He grinned under water as the shadow passed over his face. That was another thing his people missed, water could be a good thing as long as you were careful with it. He could now understand why the Swam Dragons and Coral Dragons spent so much time in it, it supported your weight most wonderfully and the currents tickled in such unusual ways. He rolled slowly in the water and pushed off of the sand bank carefully, angling deep so he was a long distance from the ship when he resurfaced, spouting like a whale and in no danger of capsizing his friends. The sails had caught the wind now and they were heading back to land. Tikrumpdel followed at a distance, swimming back and forth across their wake. It was almost like flying. Not quite as fast of course and you had to put in more effort to fight the resistance but it was the closest he had been to flying for years. That and it just felt good to be this agile again.

"What side do you want her laying on this time?" he circled in close as they approached Nether Wallop.

"Port side again," the Captain called down, "As high up the beach as you can get her without washing your friend away."

"Aye aye sir," Tikrumpdel grinned and turned, swimming away along the wake of the Armoured Dragon for away. He needed to be fast enough but not as fast as he was last night. If nothing else he didn't want to ride into the back of The Armoured Dragon. He was calculating even as he turned again. He dived until he believed he had the right depth to get the angle he wanted.

He started swimming.

The Captain was frowning, wondering where the promised help was as they approached the beach, then he felt the water raise below his ship.

"Whoa!" he cried out as the unexpected swell, rose under his ships kneel and lifted her up the beach, not as a breaking wave but as a rolling mass of water that reached the grass, broke with a splash and then with drew, leaving the Armoured Dragon heeled over on her port side, the Captain's final twist of the wheel having tilted her just right.

"How's that!" Tikrumpdel cried, surfacing just off shore.

"Impressive," Altan called from beside the forge, where he'd been treading up cob, "Only problem is you washed the rest of the clay back into the lake!"

Tikrumpdel looked round frowning, scanning the beach.

"Doh!" he clapped a paw over his muzzle and went diving again. 

Night closed in slowly round Nether Wallop that evening, a gentle darkening as people began to seek their beds without fear. Risgath and Lieutenant Winters lent on the battlements, Bishop Peter told firmly this time to not interfere. They watched the two figures standing at the edge of the forest, one twitching her wings every now and then, the other's white scarf matching his white hair. On the battlement near Risgath a mixed party of some what nervous soldiers and a large, eight legged dragon waited also.

"What are you going to do about feeding him if the werewolves do decide to a truce?" Lieutenant Winters asked without looking around.

"It will be difficult," Risgath admitted, "By the old ways, the other Clans would send captives as tribute,maybe some of their own but that was the old ways. I'm not sure that we will be able to spare the funds to buy in cattle not with having to restore the logging camps. It is something that my sister and I will have to discuss. There is also the matter that though we have fought side by side there is still a resentment to our kind here."

"That and you have to think about strategic value," Lieutenant Winters observed, "His Majesty doesn't like to have too many valuable resources packed in one place. If Yaga Tuf and her family are going to stay here then he'll want your great one some where else in the country."

"We could do with my sister here to discuss this," Risgath said.

"Where is she?" Lieutenant Winters asked.

"She's with her favourite," Risgath continued watching the two figures at the edge of the forest.

"Ah," Lieutenant Winters said no more.

Out by the forest edge, Kaelin shifted nervously.

"They may not come," Quenril observed, "That may have been a last tribute before they leave the area."

"Is that how Ash Elves would handle it?" Kaelin asked, "Not exactly beaten so a payment made in the blood of the ones who started it before a parting of ways?"

"Not exactly," Quenril admitted, "In the Underworld the ones who advocated for the course of disaster would be handed over to the foes while they were still alive for the foe to do with a they pleased. It is possible that the werewolves resisted our customs and that is why they were left dead but it was still an unfamiliar way of doing things. Something about it feels different."

"Different clan perhaps," Kaelin suggested.

"Maybe," Quenril hesitated, unwilling to argue the point. They fell silent, listening intently as the evening breeze stirred and died fitfully. Kaelin frowned to herself. That breeze coming off the lake was a nuisance, blowing the wrong way for her to smell anything. Though that also meant that if any of the grey and white werewolves had come back, they knew they had a welcoming committee waiting for them. They waited as the night deepened and the stairs shone more brightly. Kaelin glared as she watched the moon rise. Not long before the next full moon. That could only mean that some where up or down the south border her unlamented grand sire was planning something. There was no way he would let a full moon go passed without doing something spectacular and her guess was it would be especially bloody, particularly if any of the ones who got away from Nether Wallop made it back to tell him that his plan to tear down the walls of te man place had failed.

Her head turned back to the forest and her ears perked. Quenril went to ask by Kaelin held up her hand, silencing him.

They came out of the dark, lithe grey and white shapes, one females, others male, all of them guarded, cautious. They stopped just outside the trees, the males watching carefully for hidden attackers, noses testing the air, ears constantly on the swivel. The female growled something.

Quenril flicked a look at Kaelin but Kaelin was focused on the werewolf, puzzling over her accent.

"Repeat," she said in the language she used when she went wolf and wanted to talk wolf and not man talk. She and her little brother had used it. The other werewolves had used a twisted sort of manspeak when they were changed, just as she had done to tell Greely exactly what she had thought of him. It was just another way her grandfather had perverted the real ways of a wolf pack.

The werewolf female looked haunty and that just confirmed to Kaelin that she had one been an Ash Elf female.Nobody could do haunty quite like an Ash Elf Matriarch but she did speak again.

"She asks why we are here," Kaelin translated for Quenril.

"The Matriarch of the settlement wonders what your intentions are," Quenril stated, "She wishes to known why you left the bodies of some of your kind at the edge of this place last night." 

Kaelin went to growl this to the grey and white werewolf but didn't bother. Though the grey and white werewolves apparently did not speak human, they did seem to understand it. The grey and white matriarch growled back.

"They were advised that cleansing the followers of the Alpha would be considered a peace offering," Kaelin reported, "They went back to where they were being kept before this change was done to them. There were females of the once humankind there, ones unable to fight because they..." Kaelin swallowed back bile, "Because they are too far gone with child. They were kept caged at the cave system and den sites." Kaelin paused and listened some more, hands clenching. "There are those that were once Ash Elf women among them, survivors of the Kraken and Rat clans, taken as... as breeding stock." She wanted a bath. She really wanted a bath right now. A chance to scrub her grandfather's filth off her skin.

"They freed these ones but were unsure of what to do next," she continued, "They are planning to stay there while they learn to adapt to their new forms and new home. Females of the once humans advised that the Man-King of this realm would not let it stand as it is, that without reassurances that the Ash... the Ash Wolves mean to no longer raid human settlements then he would send his arm to scour them from the land, an army armed with bows and crossbows and fire. That the King's Blade would be sent to hunt them all and he would, even if it took a hundred years. If the King sent the Blade to hunt them there would be none left by the time he finished. That the Ash Elves, such as they were, are no more as it is likely there are not numbers enough to support a breeding population. If the time of the Ash Elves is done then it must now be the time of the Ash Wolves if the memories of the Begetters is not to fade away. Therefore it was decided to cleanse the followers of this man thing who proclaims himself Lord of the Wild from their number and offer them up as a sign of peace. Has the offering been accept?"

"Now that the intention is understood it will be," Quenril stated, "I will go further to say that if they wish to cross the river and hunt others of this Alpha's followers then they would be welcome, particularly if they drive them away from the settlements of this kingdom. The Man King of this land does not forget debts owed and if the Ash Wolves help with the cleansing of this werewolf Alpha and his followers then the Man King will see to it that they are recognised as people and therefore they will be unhunted as long as they do hunt other people."

The Ash Wolf Matriarch considered it, eyes half hooded. She growled something.

"It is an acceptable proposal," Kaelin reported, "And she will tell the other Matriarch's of this arrangement with the Man King and his people. The cleansing of the Man Thing Alpha and his pack with be swift."

"May your hunting be successful," Quenril bowed, "If I may give one more piece of information?"

The Ash Wolf Matriarch gave him a look that needed no translation.

"If you wish to cross the river do so out of sight of that grove of trees, "Quenril pointed at the grove of willows that had not been there a week ago, "She who dwells within that place may not recognise the agreement between our peoples as she is subject to no one but herself. She lives by her own rules and recognises no Matriarch."

The Ash Wolf Matriarch was still for a long moment and then nodded once before turning. She and her pack faded into the dark below the trees.

"Phew," Kaelin blew out a breath, "Now I understand why the Matriarchs of your people aren't questioned. That one would give my grandfather lessons in command."

"It would have been difficult to change her mind about leaving the Underworld," Quenril agreed, "I am beginning to see that it was a good thing that it was my sister who survived as Matriarch of our Clan, she was young enough to accept the times of change without s having to be trapped in the citadel first."

Kaelin nodded, guessing the Ash Wolf Matriarch was one of the older ones who would have clung to the old ways even while it killed them. As it was she'd had her mind changed quite forcibly, the werewolf change giving her no option than to adapt and grow into a new form.

Risgath and Lieutenant Winters were interested to hear of the proposal and the fact that these new beings were already building an identity for themselves.

"What do you think is going to happen with the once human ones?" Lieutenant Winters asked.

"As they are already listening to their advise then I would suspect that they will become subordinate females to the grand Matriarchs," Quenril reported, "A few may even be strong enough to become Matriarchs. It would have been unheard of in the Underworld but... times change. We would not have considered one of the humans an acceptable favourite for a Matriarch but now..."

"The Ash Wolf is correct," Risgath stated, "We are looking at the fact that our population is becoming too small to be sustainable. Unless there are more survivors somewhere that are willing to integrate to the new ways then we are looking at having blood lines that will collapse inward like spider webs gone wrong. It as happened before."

"The Spore Clan," Quenril answered Lieutenant Winters puzzled expression, "They refused to trade breeders with the other Clans. Their children started... changing."

"Most died just after birthing," Risgath's expression was hard, "Those that did not... Many had to be purged once they started hunting. A very few survived. The Clan collapsed, the bloodlines rotted through. Some say the last of them that were half way normal enough joined the Bat Clan in exile. After the war we have had on our hands I wouldn't be surprised. It was said that those who were physically strong were some how monstrous in their minds."

Kaelin raised her eyebrows. For a cruel and spiteful race such as the Ash Elves to be calling someone monstrous begged all sorts of questions as to how far the Spore Clan had gone and then she realised that she didn't want to know. Then she wondered whether all of the serums her grandfather had stolen from Sinbar and the dwergs had been used by her grandfather. She told that sneaking suspicion exactly where it could go and shut up. There was no point in worrying about something she had no proof of.

"Either way on that score I think we can safely stand the men down tomorrow night. We'll keep patrols on the walls and look outs but I think those off duty can be allowed to sleep indoors tomorrow night," Lieutenant Winters remarked, "I know they'll be glad of it."

"Proper beds all round," Risgath noted, swallowing a yawn, "They won't be the only ones glad of it."

"How are you going to get word to his Majesty about the arrangement with the Ash Wolves?" Kaelin asked as she waited at the top of the steps for Lieutenant Winters to make his slow way down.

"Once the Armoured Dragon is repaired I'll send a dispatch to the Capital," Lieutenant Winters said, "Hopefully sending them by the south route will mean that they don't out run it by too much."

Kaelin chewed the inside of her mouth.

"I have a quicker way," she offered.

Lieutenant Winters looked back up at her as he reached solid ground. Kaelin sighed and opened the locket as she reached him and Risgath. Charlotte curtseying gracefully.

"Good evening gentlemen," she said quiet clearly. They had the good manners not to gape.

"Tell her whatever you want to tell the King," Kaelin sighed, "She can relay it to the Palace in the Capital and oh, Charlotte?"

"Yes?" the painted lady asked.

"You'd better tell his Majesty and Elisha that Nether Wallop needs to have its own painting in the Governor's Palace," Kaelin said, "This place isn't going to be the back end of beyond any more. Not once those Nobles in Lotton hear that there might be a cure here for their daughters that where infected by that werewolf raid. I think its time we spread the network of paintings out a little more."

Kaelin was more than a little glad when the trio of them stopped babbling at her so she could get to bed and the following morning saw Kaelin joining the foraging party as guard and early warning system to simply avoid more questions. That and the guards for the foraging party had lost two of their heavy weights. Though the people were beginning to accept that the Ash Wolves had no interest in continuing the war, Risgath was taking no chances. If nothing else there was no guarantee that all of the brindle werewolves were dead and whhile there was the threat that those things were still running around no foraging party was going out without an escort of soldiers. They left just as the sun was peaking over the horizon, the light that strange steely grey of dawn, as they needed to go further than they had been to track down the sweet potatoes and what everybody had started calling guff roots after Thorian had done several more descriptions of past guff root feasts he'd seen. Kaelin wasn't entirely sure that his tale of his great Uncle's tuneful exploits and the avalanche he had caused with them didn't belong to a shaggy dog but she had to admit that she had to fight to keep her wing beat steady as she thought of both it and the memory of Estella and Alina leaning on each other, laughing until the tears streamed down their faces. After the horror of the war zone it had been a much needed release for everyone in Nether Wallop, although Bishop Peter had put his foot down and stated most forcibly that no one and he meant no one, was to tell the invalids until they were strong enough to stand it. Kaelin just figured he was sore after finding out that he shared a name with Ulrich's giant centipede.

She titled slightly, catching movement out of the corner of her eye but then she steadied. It was just Jeremiah, going out on a foraging trip of his own. Though he still shunned Yaga Tuf and her family every chance he got, the Witch of the Mountains had discovered how to motivate him as he had been put at her disposal - offer him food for every batch of usable herbs he brought in. Kaelin had a feeling that he was probably over harvesting from one area of the forest. Yaga Tuf's stern eye might prevent him from adulterating the ingredients for the Change Control Potion but Kaelin knew Jeremiah would not be able to resist the urge to distort his penance some how. He was the type to never admit they were wrong and just accept their punishment as the justice due their sin. Some where, some how he was causing pain to the world and it was most likely by damaging the balance of the forest. As if it hadn't been damaged enough already by her grandfather's army. That number of werewolves crammed into one area was going to have run off all the blood stock for just about every prey species. She doubted even the rabbits had been left alone. Surrounding and then digging out the burrows would have struck her grandfather and his closest cronies as a spot of fun. Incredibly gory fun. Kaelin's face darkened. There should be a god, a god of small and fragile things that could redress the balance some how, a prey creature that hunted the predator's that hunted for fun, something that would remind those that delighted in hurting those that couldn't defend themselves what it felt like to be small and venerable and weak. Now that would be a god Kaelin could get behind. She started imagining what this god would look like. A stag, she decided, quiet and still and delicate looking, stepping daintily through the forest, barely making a murmur. Just the sort of creature that her grandfather would have delighted in hurting until it screamed, hurting it and then letting it go again so it would run some more, so it would know just how much it was going to hurt when it happened again and it would happen again when he finished following its blood trail. He'd maul it and make it run, gasping and terrified until it didn't have the breath left to scream when he caught up with it again. Only this time he'd follow the blood trail only to find it suddenly stopped with no stag at the end. Then it would step out of the bushes at him, only now it wouldn't run and when he charged it, it would rear back like a stallion, only its front legs wouldn't end in delicate little hooves any more, they'd end in great knitting needles of bone and it would be his blood in the leaf litter,his screams in the air as it grinned at him and revealed fangs like a ferret.

Yes Kaelin could get behind a god like that.

She snorted suddenly. That would be why she didn't have much of a problem with Valodrael's eating habits, he was another one who like to target the monsters who delighted in hurting those who couldn't fight back. Kaelin had heard it said once 'murdering and murderer means the number of murderers stays the same'. Well she could imagine Valodrael's reply to that - 'only if you stop at one'. She grinned at that. She wouldn't mind it if Valodrael ate the old wolf, she wouldn't mind it at all.

Thorian waved up at her from the back of his siege beast, letting her know that they had found the first harvesting area. Kaelin saluted to let him know that she had seen the gesture and started circling low over the treetops, keeping an eye and a nose out for any of the brindle werewolves. She had no intention of letting them take one person more.

By mid morning she started landing in tree tops and over watching from there. The foraging party had not been interfered with and Thorian was headed back towards Nether Wallop, the harness of his siege beast loaded down with full baskets, the bag of scolding fresh out of insults and him busy composing a new song as he rode along. 

 "When the Alpha says 'we are the monster race',

We guff-der, guff-der in the Alpha's face.

When the Alpha says 'you will learn your place', 

We guff-er, guff-der in the Alpha's face!" 

 Kaelin struggled to keep a straight face.

"Parp-der, parp-der putt putt putta parp!" Haggis commented.

"Quiet you," Kaelin gave him a sharp tap, hanging on to her composure by the skin of her teeth.

 

As Thorian approached Nether Wallop a new chorus of sounds reached his ears, however the first thing he saw when his siege beast stepped out on to the river plain was Ulrich and Lady Zilvra's siege beasts, learning to sit and lay down on command. It was impressive, sort of, but his siege beast was being a lot more useful than their. He patted its neck as he approached the beach to get close to the West gate. 

"I am still not willing to send people out to the logging camps until we have more soldiers here," Risgath was discussing something with Lieutenant Winters as they headed back in through the gate, "We are running out of people. I've drafted a missive to be relayed by painting to the Capital tonight, once Miss Kaelin returns, an open invitation for any homeless, particularly homeless with families, to apply for residency here."

"So that's why you were offering a higher percentage of the profits from the werewolf pelts to the Captain in exchange for ferrying people to Nether Wallop," Lieutenant Winters nodded as he walked with his two sticks, "The homeless will not have the transport fees to be able to pay to get here."

"Precisely," Risgath noted, "And we need people, people who aren't needed else where. I know King Tatsuya will approve of such a resource move and he will see to it that women who want out of their current profession will have help to make it to the ships. We will need the potential of families to make the town thrive again."

"Not to mention the fact that such women will be attracted to men who value their opinions and wishes higher than their own," Lieutenant Winters said it absolutely straight faced. After a moment Risgath glanced over at the blacksmithy where Alina had borrowed her father's forge to start brewing the quenching fluid he was going to need to complete his great project, as well as medicines her mother needed for the sick and injured that still lay in the cathedral. Various herbs bubbled in decoctions, while others seeped in infusions, Alina's quick knife chopping and crushing, oils and greases simmering in several different pots on the forge that was running a lot cooler than it usually did. Risgath looked away, his skin darkening to charcoal black on an unmistakable blush.

"I've always wondered how they managed to do so many different tasks at once," Lieutenant Winters observed, "It has always occurred to me that the army could potentially run a lot smoother if we allowed women to join the logistics core."

"How do you know they haven't already been in the logistics core?" Risgath asked, "I have heard of the phrase 'doing a Jack Rum'." That time it was Lieutenant Winters turn to blush.

"I'll have you know he... she was a complete legend," he stated.

"Oh really?" Risgath asked, quietly and Winters remained silent, the ring of hammer on anvil coming to them even over the walls of Nether Wallop.

Altan was sweating as he pushed the two pieces of metal back into the forge. He and Black Randle had been up since before dawn. The meteor iron and Dragon Steel had taken almost longer than  he'd feared they would to heat and it was only thanks to Tikrumpdel having started to warm the forge before they arrived that they were this far along, that and Hartseer's and Black Randle's prodigious strength. Black Randle hefted his Apprentice Hammer as if it weighed no more than a lump hammer and Hartseer managed his Apprentice Hammer in his two left hands as if it weighed nothing at all. Between them and Tikrumpdel's flame firing the charcoal in the forge to white hot they were pressing through the work at a rate he had not thought possible, each hammer and fold taking a good faction less time than it would usually do.

He lifted a hand to Tikrumpdel and the old dragon paused his flame.

Altan lifted one white hot lump from the flames with a long handled set of tongs giving Hartseer the nodded as he did so. The King's Blade lift his arm from the forge, the broken end of his sword shifting in a range from white hot at the break to blue to yellow to orange to where it met his cherry red fingers. Altan lay the white hot lump o his anvil and as Hartseer laid the white hot end of his sword on top of it Altan placed the second piece to top off the stack. Altan's hammer struck the first blow. The rhythm was unrelenting, one, two, three, one, two, three, Altan, Hartseer, Black Randle, Altan, Hartseer, Black Randle, the crash of hammers on white hot metal, fusing it, hammering it out, blending it together as it was pounded on the anvil. Round and round they went, over and over until Altan banged his hammer on the anvil twice and the rhythm fell silent. At a nod from Altan, Hartseer lifted the glowing lump of metal and thrust it into the heart of the glowing charcoal. Tikrumpdel was already drawing a deep breath. The fire roared, heat danced, charcoal spat and metal glowed. Altan split and bent the metal, folding it back on itself and they beat it once again. Over and over the rhythm repeated, the metal folding and bending, the layers rippling through the metal, Dragon Steel, Meteor iron nd charcoal, fusing, blending, becoming Sky Steel, unrustable, strong, flexible. Over and over, the two men only grabbing drinks as Hartseer stood, metal cooking in the heart of the forge.

As the evening fell the Captain came wandering along the beach from where the Armoured Dragon was laying on the sand, her boards low near the keel burst out so that the damaged ones could be removed and replaced. He watched the work still going strong. After a while he kindled a small fire on the beach as the work continued, sitting so he could turn something on the edge of the fire while he still watched the work. The stars were shining when Milena and Alina came from the town gates to see that Altan remembered to sleep.

"Whoop?" asked the walking hut as it came strutting through the gloom, "Whoop?"

Altan clanged his hammer on the anvil one last time.

"That's it," he stated, "We can go no further this day and we are further along than I expected to be."

"How do you feel the work has gone today?" Milena asked setting the basket she carried down.

"Thirty folds at least," Altan accepted the flask she had brought and then wiped his brow with the cloth his daughter held out, "Maybe a couple more. Certainly enough for sky steel. Tomorrow I will begin the shaping."

"Will you be needing the burnt mud clay?" she asked.

"Aye," Altan rubbed his neck with the cloth, "And the quenching liquid. Is it ready?" Alina nodded.

"I cold pressed the oil nuts this morning," she stated, "The herbs have steeped, the salt is added. It will be ready."

"Will you quench it once or twice?" Estella asked as she walked down the wooden wing vane steps of the walking hut.

"Thrice," Altan replied, "Once in the quenching fluid, I will then paint the blade with burnt mud clay and quenching it in salt water. I will then harden the edge with a final heat and quench it again. Why?"

"I can provide the salt water," Estella said. Altan frowned.

Estella settled her stance and lifted her hands, her talismans spiralling behind her. The water came together out of the turf and lifted into the air, a rolling, rippling, shimmering globe of fluid that hanged in the air, supported and guided by her gestures. Altan stared.

"Can you flattened it and make it longer?" he asked. She frowned and changed her gestures. The water lengthened out into a sausage shape. Altan paused a moment and then thrust his hand into it. The water rippled but it didn't collapse. He grinned as he withdrew his hand.

"It will work, better if anything," he stated, "But may I ask why?"

"Call it my own experiment" Estella let the water drain away and relaxed, "My passenger needs a new body of his own and I have recently...ish been told my best chance of completely that project is to mix magics to produce something greater than its parts. Helping you, if it adds something to Hartseer's blade, would let me know that I'm on the rightsort of track. Does that make sense?"

Altan thought about it and nodded.

"Now that is sorted mon-a-me," the Captain called, "May I suggest taking a wash and then we can be a sharing of bread and salt."

They looked at each other.

"Last one in the lake is a limp fish!" Black Randle ran head long into the lake, barely pausing to shake his boots off. Altan was not far behind. Tikrumpdel unplugged his nose from the forge and wriggled backwards into the water. Once he was in the lake he sucked in enough breaths that he started to glow. The water around him started steaming. Estell ran into the water in her trouser suit and pushed off from the shore, aiming to swim all the way round Tikrumpdel and back to the start. Alina was not far behind her. Even Milena joined them in her shift after a moment.

"Are you not a joining them?" the Captain asked Hartseer.

"Nay," Hartseer lifted the lump of Sky Steel that was attached to where his blade should have been, promising the foundation of a new sword. He thrust it back into the cooling forge and piled charcoal on top of it, "The fewer reheatings the stronger the blade. I will wait here tonight and watch the fire. Tomorrow I will see whether Master Altan is as good as he thinks he is."

"Does it hurt?" the Captain asked after a moment.

"This?" Hartseer looked at where the heat was dancing round his fingers, his hand, no longer cherry red, "No, if anything it is rather comforting, feels almost like a warm bath or maybe a hand holding on to mine and that I haven't felt since well." He lifted one of his other hands and wiggled his fingers, the forge light and star light gleaming off his metal digits.

The Captain smiled but it was a smile that held understanding.

"And when you hit it with a hammer?"

"Does having a bone set hurt a human?" Hartseer asked back, "It is much the same principle."

"Ah," the Captain let the conversation go as the others returned from their swim.

"Why did you do this?" Milena asked as they shared food around the fire on the beach as the Captain handed round the long skewers of spicy fish he had been turning on the fire.

"I appreciate a seeing another craftsman at his work," the Captain smiled, dark skin shining in the firelight, "My craft is the a-reading of the wind and the weather to bring mah ship safe to port. Your husband's is the a-reading of heat and metal to create something that maybe is a-lasting a little longer. That and I enjoy the collecting of memories of strange sights and wonders and is this work not a wonder?"

"Aye that it is," Altan admitted, his eyes taking on the glassy shade of exhaustion.

Kaelin glanced at the fire as she led Quenril and one of the human soldiers out of the gate. She turned and lead them away to the edge of the forest.

"Right," she stated when they got there, "I've never tried this before so this is going to be a learning curve for me as much as you but Lieutenant Winters asked me to see if this is possible so we are going to give it a shot. If nothing else I don't want to be using my grandfather's methods so we are going to see if we can come up with something different." She looked at the soldier from the squad who had been blooded but not murdered by the werewolves. "How's your arm? Let me see."

Dressed in a looser shirt than his usual uniform, it was work of the moment for him to roll up his sleeve. The scar was long and brightly pink as it traced up his arm but it looked like it came from a wound two months old, rather than two days. Kaelin nodded. He was infected alright.

"When did you last have the control potion?" she asked.

"This morning ma'am as instructed," he reported. Quenril confirmed he was the same.

"Right," she sniffed and thought about it, looking at Nether Wallop, "This is going to hurt and it is going to sound grim. There are days when I still want to scream when I go through it. The main trick is to not shy away from the pain. You have to lean into it, you have to push through it. Don't cut it out of your mind like you did in boot camp, it won't work, you have to go looking for where the pain is greatest. You hunt that down and strangle it into submission. It hurts? You try and make it hurt more. When you show the pain that you are willing to go as far as it will then it will break and the change will run."

They nodded but she doubted that they truly understood what she meant.

"Okay," she said, "We re going to push ourselves a bit to get it started and it will give us some privacy if the change really goes for it. You see that river bank? We're going to run it!"

"Yes ma'am," the soldier just nodded. He probably should have asked if she had thought about how they would see. Quenril didn't have any issue with the low light conditions but the human definitely had. He tried, Kaelin knew that, he tried but either his senses were not awake yet or he was shtting them out without realising he was doing so. Within minutes of taking off up the river bank the human was falling behind, Kaelin could hear him stumbling over debree and splashing in the edge of the river. She didn't slow the pace, pushing them hard, Quenril matching pace behind her. The night air filled her nose, her ears heard the nocturnal creatures, her blood buzzed with the feeling of running just for the sake of running. She vaulted a fallen log, Quenril a leap behind her. There was a thud and a growl as she ran on. Good, that helped. She remembered when pain and fear of pain had started to break, when she had first started getting angry, when she had started wanting to hit back rather than lay down.

The cool air sucked and surged inside her lungs as she ran on. A short climb was ahead. She scrambled up it, her claws pressing out through the ends of her fingers. Quenril just jumped from stone to stone. 

A swear word cut through the night. Kaelin guessed that was either a split finger nail or a gashed palm. It would heal fast enough. She didn't stop. Another splash behind her. Any second now if she was any judge. She and Quenril avoided the rabbit hole easily enough. The crack echoed through the night. When the second followed Kaelin skidded to a halt and doubled back.  The private was grunting and gasping, the bones of his ankle twisting as they realigned.

"Remember what I said!" Kaelin crouched near by but not too close, "Hunt the pain! Lean into it! If you are going to die, die throttling that pain with all your strength!"

He screamed as his back humped and the bones of his face bubbled.

"Less noise, more effort!" Kaelin snapped. His teeth clicked shut and the change grabbed him by force. It was a savage sounding rip as his flesh changed.

"Oh boogers," Kaelin stepped back, "It was an Abomination that got him." The thing that straightened up on to its back legs was longer and thinner than the werewolves of Kaelin's original pack, its skin an oily dark black, hairless and shiny, its skull longer and narrower, teeth, far too many teeth, jutting at odd angles like it had two sets of dentistry in its mouth at once. Thankfully it didn't have the three legs of its infector but the legs it did have were longer than Kaelin's shifter form, bent in the double joint of a digitigrade stance, the tail that lashed behind, longer and covered in lumps and ossicones. The yellow eyes glared at her.

"Second lesson," she stood up, straight, no fear on her face, "Face the pain again to change back! Master the beast or let the beast master you!" She shifted as well, short, sharp, precise, her pinions flaring wide to back it up.

"And I can out beast you any day, pup!" she growled in the other language, "You want to try this?" The shifted soldier tensed.

The crash as he smacked face first into a tree shook pine cones out of the highest branches. He staggered round and shook his head, tail rattling.

"Try again pup!" Kaelin snapped. He did and sent up a sheet of water as he landed in the river.

"Try again pup!" Kaelin said again. He bowled into the under brush. Quenril dithered, Kaelin had instructed them to leave weapons behind so now he was useless, unless...

The strange werewolf stood up again. This time it circle Kaelin, eyes wary, ears swivelling as she turned to watch it. It tensed, trousers and shirt straining at the seems.

"Stand down Soldier!" Quenril barked.

The change whip cracked through him, leaving the human shivering and gasping on the leaf litter. Kaelin changed more slowly. 

"How did you know that would work?" she asked.

"I didn't," Quenril admitted.

"Well, you have the voice of command down pat," Kaelin noted, "You're not a father are you?"

He went charcoal black and shook his head.

"Well there's still time," Kaelin observed, then turned to the groaning soldier.

"You did pretty well for the first change," she noted.

"I... I lost control," he admitted.

"No you didn't," Kaelin stated, "If you were trying to kill me you would have used your teeth as well.Claws only? That was a dominance fight. All young pups do it the first time they change, trying to find where they are in the pack. Be grateful you were up against me. Grandfather would have broken your bones to make a point."

He didn't answer as he stood up, shivering in his wet clothes.

"Right," Kaelin nodded, "Let's try that again."

By the time she called it a night and had them start back towards Nether Wallop, she was actually fairly sure the human, Cyrus, had the control, if not down pat then was certainly on his way to being able to practise it by himself. Maybe have the control potion around the times of the full moon but definitely getting the hang of it. Finding out that the control potion helped bump start the ability to keep their own minds while they went through the early years of the change was certainly a piece of the information she was going to try and hang on to. It could be useful in the future. The irony of having a werewolf who's human name meant sun was not lost on her.

Quenril however had not managed one single change and that concerned her. She knew he was infected, she could smell it on him but no matter the running, the jumping, the hand to hand combat drills she'd put him through he hadn't come close to even starting the change. Some would say that perhaps that meant he was going to be a latent carrier but she was worried that it meant that the first time he changed it was going to be an absolute murder of a night.

She just hoped that she could help him hold on to something of his own mind when it happened and that she didn't wind up having to put him down. Whelp she'd cross that bridge when they got there.

Once they were back at Nether Wallop she called up to Marmaduke. The automation helped the three of them to climb up and over the walls but Kaelin caught sight of the sparkles and crackles inside his still rent chest plate and she could hear a faint mechanical whine of distress deep inside him. 

"I hate to break up the party," she said to Ulrich the following morning, tracking him down at breakfast time, "But you're letting the side down."

"I... what have I forgotten?" Ulrich asked, while Lady Zilvra looked at Kaelin with concern.

"You are neglecting the gift your dwerg friend gave you" she folded her arms, "Your metal clockwork friend? You haven't bothered to fix him and he's out on the battlements waiting for you to pay him an once of attention.  I suggest you broaden what you are looking at and remember some of your other duties, if your lady will lend you the time." She inclined her head to Lady Zilvra. The Ash Elf Matriarch had the decency to blush, her cheeks turning that charcoal black colour.

"Of course," she said, "A gift from the dwergs should not be neglected and I confess I did not fully realise that the other metal man belonged to my favourite. You should have made me aware of that my... love? That is the right human word for a favourite, isn't it?" 

Ulrich looked abashed.

"It is and it is lovely to hear you say it," he smiled, "And I have to admit that your wonderful company has been keeping me distracted. I think we'll have to go and ask Altan if he minds me borrowing some of the previous blacksmiths tools or if he'll help with the repair himself. I think I know how to do the internal stuff but the rents in his breast plate is going to take a little more knowledge than I have."

"Well get in line," Kaelin observed before heading off to get in the breakfast queue, "He started work again on Hartseer's sword at sun up this morning."

"Any one would think our grand King's Blade was not as infallible as he makes out to be," Jeremiah snarked as he went past, breakfast plate in hand.

"Hartseer never said he was infallible," Ulrich observed, remembering a conversation in the garden of the Wizard's Tower, "Only difficult to kill." Lady Zilvra frowned slightly at him but he just shook his head slightly. It wasn't his place to tell that story.

The pace of the hammer was slower in the cool morning air as they stepped out of Nether Wallop's West gate after breakfast, Ulrich riding Peter again to give the giant bug a little attention while Lady Zilvra rode Bartholemew again. Ulrich was glad now that he'd left the giant lizard behind when they had ventured to the Underworld, though he had an idea for all three of his smaller mounts that he was considering.

They stopped short of the dragon powered forge. The magic was almost as visible as the blows of Altan's hammer. The steely ring was hypnotic as Altan's steady pace rang out across the water. Hartseer turned and turned the blade at Altan's ods but the clash of hammer on hot steel was not the only sound to fill the air. Michael Azrael sat, bow thrumming over the strings of his cello, winding melody through rhythm as on the lake side of the forge Estella danced, water flowing through the air, following her movements and her movements followed the music of fire and forge, of cello and hammer.

"From the earth comes the ore," Altan sang as the shape of the blade formed, arm rising and falling steadily, the slow rhythm never failing and it seemed he could do it all day.

From the ore comes the iron.

From the iron comes the steel,

From the steel comes the blade.

From the blade comes the sword,

A sword is what you are.

The sword is what you are!" 

 Michael Azrael's cello sang, building to a crescendo as Hartseer lifted the glowing sword that formed the extension of his arm and thrust it back into the glowing hart of the charcoal. Tikrumpdel blew and the fire roared.

It took several cycles of hammer and music and song for Ulrich to remember why he was even there and it was hard to turn and leave, just watching Altan work was an act akin to worship. In that moment Ulrich understood why blacksmiths were either praised as blessed by the gods or shunned as being touched by the very devil. Eventually he was able to turn away and head back to the other workshop.

Marmaduke groaned and whirred with gladness to have his master's attention but then something sparked inside and he froze afraid to set it off again.

"Alright, let's get you fixed," Ulrich said, pulling out the roll of tools Handrun had given him. By the time Alina and Milena came into collect the kettles of the quenching fluid Alina had prepared the day before Ulrich was up to the elbows in Marmaduke's internal workings and Lady Zilvra was leaning over, trying to help him track down where the damage had been done.

The sun was sliding down towards the horizon and the light taking on the golden cast of evening when Altan gave the final nod to Hartseer and the King's Blade straightened to his full height to slide the newly forged blade straight down into the tall, thin quench tank holding the liquid brewed especially for that purpose. The flames from the organic components combusting in the heat of the dragon flamed steel licked up over Hartseer's fingers, coiled round his wrist and run up his arm before fading away. The blade came out still steaming and dull grey but Altan wasn't done. As soon as he could he began to carefully painting a runny mixture of burnt clay mud that had been mixed with water over the blade, starting at the edge with a thin layer, which he then printed a pattern of lines over. Once they were set he painted a thick layer of mud over the back of the blade.

Estella held the water she had spent the day preparing with Alina's help, achieving just the right balance of salt within its fluid form and dancing her magic into it ready for this moment as Tikrumpdel breathed and blew until the blade, mud coat and all, was glowing cherry hot.

"Remember," Altan instructed, "Try and get the blade into the water as quick and level as possible." Hartseer nodded once, stood tall and brought his arm down.

The water hissed, popped, Estella turning red as she speeded up her gestures, fighting to hold the water together as steam and clay exploded in three dimensions and the water ripple, the salt stopping it from holding the steam next to the blade but that made it more difficult to hold the water's form as internal and external pressure fought. Hartseer's glass eyes went dark as it continued to spit and shriek. Gradually the steam died off. A long while after that the water stopped shimmering around the blade.

Milena stepped forward and started moving blocks of stone, covering the top of the forge as Tikrumpdel started sucking in breaths until he glowed and creaked with internal heat. When Milena had narrowed the forge opening to only a hand span and Altan had scrapped the clay covering off the sharp edge of the blade, Tikrumpdel drew until even through the triple layer of stone and sand cob the walls of the forge became hot. The spear of flame that jetted up through that narrowed opening was almost blue and roared like its own being. Altan guided Hartseer's arm with his own hands, making sure that just the edge of the blade kissed the flame, the metal taking on a straw yellow blush. He guided the blade back until that colour was along the length of the cutting edge.

"Now!" he barked and Estella lifted the second batch of water into the air. Again the fight between hot metal and cool water, the scream of steam and the ripple of water, the shriek of the tempering of the metal being set into the blade. Gradually the steam died off once more. After while alter that Estella looked to Altan and he nodded. Estella swept her hands and what was left of the salt water slopped into the bucket with the remains of the first batch. She knelt down on the turf, catching her breath. Michael Azrael's cello took on a questioning note.

Altan stepped forward and dug into the layer of clay left on the back of the blade. It cracked and crumbled but the blade underneath remained whole. Hartseer lifted it, testing its heft in the evening light.

"It is whole," he stated and Altan breathed out a huge sigh of relief. Hartseer rinsed the steel in clean water to remove any lingering salt and then turned to Altan.

"You have worked a wonder and I am forever grateful," he praised.

"Are you sure you don't want me to polish it?" Altan asked. Hartseer thought about it.

"Would it be acceptable to you if I start the process as I have been caring for these blades for a... few centuries?" Hartseer asked.

Altan frowned, thinking.

"It's the time, isn't it?" he said, "We've won our peace here but else where..."

"They are still dying," Hartseer stated.

"Or worse," Alina said, stepping forward, "Kaelin... Kaelin was supposed to be given to her grandfather's second in command. These things and I hesitate to call them werewolves because they have found a new level of evil, they... don't take no for an answer." Her father paled.

Milena stepped forward and placed a hand on Alina's shoulder. She looked at her husband and nodded once.

"How do you want to do this?" Altan asked Hartseer, "A wheel or block?"

"Both," Hartseer stated, "Wheels for the initial shaping and blocks for the final polishing, as many as possible and preferably a leather oil shamy for the final edge."

"We'll find them," Altan promised, going to head towards Nether Wallop but then turning back and bowing low to Tikrumpdel as the dragon pulled his snout from the forge.

"My thanks, great lord," he said.

"Think nothing of it," Tikrumpdel rubbed his snout and grinned, "As long as I get my share of the gold we have been promised." He looked at Hartseer.

"The King always pays his debts," Hartseer bowed as well.

"Well as long as you see to it that he does," Tikrumpdel grinned, "I'd hate to have to go and collect the debt myself. City streets are always so crowded and narrow and yet the houses are so flimsy. Though perhaps it would be easier and less work to just go and stick myself in the river channel down stream and wait."

Hartseer just looked. Tikrumpdel shrugged.

"Ships can't trade if they can't get round my tail," he kept grinning, "And, well, it depends how wide the channel is at that point. Water might take longer than fire to build up but that gives the populance a chance to evacuate and blame their monarch for not settling his debts when he had the chance."

They held gazes for a long moment.

"Oh dam," Altan noted.

Alina groaned and covered her face.

"Oh Papa..." she moaned. Tikrumpdel guffawed, body shaking in rippling waves.

"Just bare it in mind," he said as he wriggled backwards into the lake, "I'll only wait so long."

"Understood," Hartseer saluted and turned to follow Altan's family back into the city.

Ulrich was still up to his elbows in Marmaduke's internal structure, struggling to put him back together.

"I'll help with that tomorrow," Altan promised.

"The breast plate especially," Ulrich grunted, "I think I have the rest just about sorted, just need to..." he reached for another cog.

"This one," Lady Zilvra handed him a different one.

"You sure?" he asked.

"Positive," she stated.

"Thank you," he nodded and reached into Marmaduke's internals to thread it back on to its axile and mesh the teeth with its neighdours.

"What is that grey stuff?" Altan lent in for a closer look, "It looks almost like..."

"Mushrooms," Milena said, "You turn over a log in the forst and that is what you'll find spreading over the surface. That's what mushrooms look like under the ground."

"Ah is that what it is?" Ulrich asked, coaxing a web of the stuff back into place over the anchor points of the axles that held the cogs he'd just replaced, "Well I'm rather glad of that. I was beginning to worry it might be something she had pulled out of someone and stuffed in here."

Marmaduke groaned and Ulrich gave him a reassuring pat.

"She? Which she?" Altan asked as he watched the work.

"Nanny Tatters," Ulrich explained as Alina light a lam and held it up to shine the light over his work, "Marmaduke was one of her creations that were supposed to guard her lair. I gave him a job opportunity after she was no longer capable of being his employer. Thankfully he took it up."

Marmaduke whistled a happy series of notes.

"There we go," Ulrich said a few minutes later as he guided the last cog in and wrapped it in its layer of fungus, "Altan, no, you've had a long enough day, tomorrow will do. Marmaduke, I'm afraid we are going to have to leave you unfinished for a little while so I want you to stay in the blacksmith's shop for tonight . Is that alright?"

"I'll keep him company," Hartseer said, lifting his blade from the wet stone, sighting along its edge. Lifting a hammer his tapped it a couple of times and looked again, straightening a slight bend in the blade, "I don't think he'll be any trouble."

Marmaduke creaked in agreement.

"If you are willing," Ulrich nodded, "I think all of us need a wash and some sleep time."

"That more than anything is what I miss most," Hartseer noted, his blade whispering against the wheel, "The ability to sleep. To just be able to turn off for a while."

"We catch a few z's for you," Estella promised as they left.

"If you can," Hartseer said, "If you can." 

It was cloudy the  following day but the mood in Nether Wallop was improving. Three nights without attacks and no alerts had enabled everyone to glean some much needed sleep and as Altan had said he could handle Marmaduke's breast plate on his own Ulrich and Zilvra had joined the forage party on their siege beasts, tripling the amount that cold be hauled back and decreasing the chances of attack even if there were some brindled werewolves lingering.

Black Randle came shambling back mid afternoon in bear form dragging his wagon by a tow rope. It was piled high with what he had been able to salvage, including three hive's worth of honeycomb.

He was just in time to see Tikrumpdel help relaunch the Armoured Dragon. The cheer that went up from the sailors gladdened the heart, although the Bag of Scolding was not so impressed as the Captain and Tikrumpdel had bargained again for the Captain to transport some of Tikrumpdel's old hoard to Lotton for sale. The rest was going to be stored in a strong room in the Governor's Palace for the time being. That meant, of course, that said hoard needed unloading from its current transport.

"I'd insult you but I'm having difficulty composing something to match the sight before me," it groused as Thorian tried to extract a barrel of cinnamon out of it.

"It talks?" Risgath asked.

"I don't have the time nor the crayons to explain this to you because you keep eating the crayons!" the bag yelled at him.

"Oh shut up," Thorian grunted, put it down, stepped on its hem and pulled. It yelled as the barrel came out.

"If you were locked into a room with a Begetter, you'd survive!"

Risgath said something in the Ash Elf's own tongue that was definitely not flattery.

"I am glad to see you didn't go totally human," Lady Zilvra smiled, folding her arms.

"I disagreed with how our society was run," Risgath straightened, "I hated the fact you never knew who was friend one day and foe the next. I hated the fact that one mistake could cost you your life and there was never the chance to make amends. I wanted a world where I was allowed to try and fall and fail and survive long enough to try again. I never disagreed with the reverence the Begetters are held in, what I disagreed with was the cruelty that reverence was used to justify.

She thought about it, ignoring the Bag of Scolding's continued tirade in the background, remembering the burial chamber below the Citadel of the Snake Clan and hat had burnt there.

"On that we can now agree Brother," she nodded.

"People! People!" Tasnar came scurrying in, "Oh Matriarch." He bobbed a quick bow, "I hope I'm not disturbing anything."

"No what is it?" she asked.

"You have to come and see this!" Tasnar's eyes were sparkling.

They clattered down to the main square.

Hartseer was putting his new blade to the test.

The post the werewolf had been tied to for target practise lay on the cobblestones, sliced in two. Black Randle kicked up the severed portion and hefted it. He launched it javelin style at Hartseer. Hartseer turned out of its way and swung. The post split length ways, clattering to the ground. The crowd cheered but the noise died half way. Several soldiers pulled the sheet from the last test and heaved the skinning frame upright.

"How fresh?" Hartseer asked.

"Left at the boundary this morning," the corporeal reported.

"Good," Hartseer stated and gestured for them to step back. They did so with speed. Hartseer studied the corpse and then lunged. The blade passed through from front to back as easily as a child pushing a stick into water.

Hartseer pulled it free just as easily and slashed. The werewolf's leg fell its femur, the strongest bone in its body cut clean through. Hartseer slashed again and the corpse fell apart at the waist. Another blow and half its rib cage fell away.  The final strike bisected it from its crown all the way down what was left of its spine.

"Behold the work of your master Smith and his family," Hartseer turned and held the blade a loft, "Respect to the crafters who match the wonders of the Lost Continent. Respect to them who equal what was lost in the Burning Land!"

The crowd cheered and Altan flushed, his family beaming beside him.

Estella stepped forward, clapping with the rest but there was a mischievous twinkle in he eyes. Hartseer stilled.

"Can the King's Blade accept a testing bout?" she asked as the crowd quieted.

"You do not carry a blade," Hartseer observed but not with mockery, "How do you expect to face me?"

Estella settled her stance and called forth water from the ground, her talisman's flying around her. She grinned as the water curled up and over her arms, extending them until the became long, thin and ropey. She cracked both like whips.

"Who says I need a blade," she smiled, "But is not combat that last test of a sword? We don't have to kill each other but you need a target that moves and I need the practise. What say you?"

Hartseer was still and then his eyes unmistakably grinned. He crouched into a wide stance and waited.

Estella breathed slowly and then she cracked her whips of water at him, one after the other. The blade met, cut, splashed water across the stones. Estella lashed again and again, stepping forward. The King's Blade was fast, sword cutting left and right, the whips shrinking as puddles slopped over the cobblestones.

Estella lashed at his feet, cut high with the other whip. Hartseer leapt, rolled in the air turning between the paths of water, blade carving a passage that cut one, then the other. He landed, feet braced wide.

Estella stepped back into the defensive stance, turned her arms, the water flowing to her again, coalescing into a pillar before her. She chopped at it knife hand style, her blows pinging lumps of water at him as fast as bolts. Hartseer bounced into a fencers stance, one leg forward, body turned side ways, one arm back and up, hand to the shoulder, other arm extended forward, blade flicking short, hard, controlled blows that batted the pellets of water away from him, taking short hopping steps forward and back as they pushed their reactions against each other.

Estella frowned, mouth pinching and circled her arms on either side. The water became two hoops, thick as cart wheels, whirling in line with her. With a yell she punched with one fist and then the other. The wheels slammed forward, converging on where Hartseer stood. He span and the wheels flew apart. He started forward. Estella uttered a cry and turned as well, water following her hands becoming a wave that turned with her, rose at her command and slammed down where Hartseer would have been if he'd kept coming forward instead of flipping back. He landed, cobbles ringing with his weight and flicked the blade forth once more, unfolding it from that other realm.

Estella lifted her arms out stiffly, the water rising as two walls either side of Hartseer. Estella slapped her hands together at arms length and the two walls of water slammed together. They burst into spray. Hartseer had all four blades out in two groups of two, steel singing as Estella punched a rapid series of blows, the water carrying them through the air to him. He cut every one.

The crowd was cheering loudly now as Estella didn't give up, kicking now as well as punching, making her foe, move and twist and jump as the water tried to snatch his feet out from under him. He circled her, trying to get in passed her fluid defence. He stepped on a patch of soil where the cobbles hadn't been repaired.

Estella gave a triumph yell and punched a double blow upwards. Hartseer shot into the air, blasted by the water that exploded beneath his feet. Only...

Estella yelled, stumbled back as he came crashing down. She tripped, fell... and didn't hit the cobblestones.

She looked to see Hartseer's fingers gripping the loose sleeves of her trouser suit.

"And that is why you should never cede the high ground," Hartseer nodded to her as he put her back on her feet, "You were very good for a beginner."

"Again then some time?" she grinned and held out a hand. He hesitated and something flickered in his glass eyes. Ulrich had the sudden insight that it was a memory, the other adopted daughter Hartseer had unknowingly betrayed to her death.

"That would be acceptable," he said at last and carefully shook her hand. 

The crowd cheered again and surged forward. Kaelin was carried with them when the blow struck her sternum just under where her collarbones met. The force of it made her cry out. Thorian turned his head to her.

It smacked her again and she stumbled, winded.

The locket hit her a third time and she yanked it out of her tunic. It thumped and jolted in her grip, almost hard enough to shake her fist.

 "Hoy Ulrich!" Thorian yelled, "There's something wrong with Kaelin!" Ulrich's head turned and he started fighting his way through the crowd, Lady Zilvra behind him.

Kaelin fought to open the locket, her fingers slipping as it trembled and jumped in her grip. It flew open.

"We need you now!" Lady Charlotte cried.

"Wait what!" Kaelin gaped.

 "We need you now!" Lady Charlotte's painted face was agonised.

"Where?" Kaelin demanded, the other members of the King's Special and their allies closing in, shoving through the crowd, Risgath and Lieutenant Winters shout at the milling people to them back.

"The Wizard's Tower!" Charlotte cried, etiquette forgotten, "We need you now!"

Kaelin felt cold certainty flow through her.

"It's him, isn't it?"

"My cousin, I know that voice any where," Charlotte nodded. Kaelin felt her mouth go dry.

"Kaelin, what is it?" Ulrich asked as the crowd started falling back. The face that looked up at him was greyish.

"Grandpa is at the Wizard's Tower," she stated, "And he's killing."

"Shite!" Ulrich muttered, "We're two days away by sail."

"Four by land," Hartseer noted, "Even I'm not going to make it in time."

The sunset painted the horizon a bloody crimson.

"Frack it!" Ulrich swore, "There must be something we can do!"

"There is," Lady Zilvra said, "But I'll have to come too."

"That's dangerous," Ulrich snapped.

"You don't know how much," Lady Zilvra snapped back, "But unless we use it the Wizard's Tower will fall and then her grandfather will have access to everything there! Can you imagine what that freak will do if he has access to that sort of power?"

Ulrich thought about it for a moment.

"Alright, what do we do?" he asked.

"King's Special and my body guard outside of the walls now!"Lady Zilvra snapped, turning to the West Gate, "Every one else stay inside the walls! Captain, did your sailors rig that harnesses we discussed?"

"Aye aye Ma'am!" the Captain saluted, "I will let the big boy be a knowing of where you have gone."

"Thank you," she nodded, short and sharp, "Risgath? You know the duty of our clan, keep Ceann Mor safe! And... and make sure the ones I leave behind with you, even those of low rank, are given to strong women. We need all the families this land is willing to give us."

"Understood," he nodded, "People make way! Make way for the King's Special! Let them through."

"Estella," Alina grabbed her cousin's sleeve, "You can't..."

Estella turned her head and Valodrael's darkness filled both eyes Alina gasped and stepped back.

"We do what we must," it seemed it was both Estella and Valodrael speaking, "This is our danger to brave and our foe to kill. You have faced your danger and your family saved you. Now we must face ours to be two whole people once more."

Alina stared for a long moment and then nodded once.

"You keep that baby safe for us," Estella smiled, her eyes once again her own, "I'm looking forward to being an Aunty." Alina smiled and nodded back, Estella turned and ran after the rest of the King's Special. She found them on the plain between the river and Nether Wallop. Thorian and Ulrich were climbing up... She understood why Lady Zilvra had asked the Captain about rigging. The Siege Beasts had been wrapped in what looked like a length of ships rigging so it was secure around their barrels and enough hanged down so that their riders could access their backs without having to make them kneel.

"Haul it up," Ulrich called over to Thorian, "You don't want these beasties being able to climb up after you." He matched action to word, pulling up his own rigging and securing it.

"Gotta!" Thorian held up a thumb and then did the same. Quenril patted Peter as the centipede jigged, Tasnar grinning as he held on to Bartholemew's neck, Sabal settled himself on Weatherall's shell. Estella stepped up beside Kaelin as Marmaduke, his breast plate newly repaired and lined with iron, hissed, eager to be going. Lady Zilvra frowned at the same moment Hartseer looked round to do a head count.

 "Where is the priest?" Hartseer asked and there was something narrow in his gaze.

"Oh forget about him," Kaelin snorted, stepping forward then, cupping her hands, she yelled up at the walls of Nether Wallop, "It's not like he's that much use to anyone. He's so darn lazy that even his god can't rely on him doing his job. I say we leave him behind and be done with a bad job!"

She waited a moment.

"What was..." Lady Zilvra started to ask but Kaelin held up a hand, stilling looking at Nether Wallop. A moment later and the truly ugly head of Jeremiah's puppetted drake leered over the battlements, its blue eyes glowing, green fire lapping around its teeth. Karma crouched, dull eyed and bent backed, clinging to the Drake's hide with one hand and some how holding on to Jeremiah's pack with the other.

The drake came slinking and growling down the wall and a moment later Jeremiah thudding on to the turf, Gerard fluttering behind.

"Going without me?" he sneered, book already in hand.

"Not now," Kaelin grinned.

""People!" Lady Zilvra snapped, "Step closer together."

Without speaking, without looking at each other the King's Special and their allies all stepped towards Jeremiah, boxing him in, Lady Zilvra's beast keeping close to its two pack mates.

"What?" he asked.

Lady Zilvra was already drawing the circle round them, cutting the design into the turf with her sword, incising it deep.

"Whatever you do, don't step outside of the circle!" she instructed, "Stay where you are and wait for it to be done."

"Er, what happens if we do step outside the line?" Thorian asked.

"Well if you don't want to die a messy death of being ripped apart at the seams, I suggest you don't," Lady Zilvra frowned as she closed the gap and started cutting the runes into the turf outside of it, being very careful to keep her feet on the inside though. They watched in silence as she worked, even Jeremiah holding his peace as the warning of what magic she was channelling buzzed over his skin. He set his jaw. More foul, female magics. It seemed that he would never be rid of them but he said not a thing to disrupt her concentration as she continued cutting the runes into place.

She nodded, once to herself as she reached the start again and then she stepped carefully back from the line before she turned and hurried over to her siege beast.

"Everyone ready?" she asked as she pulled herself up the rigging to sit aside the root of its neck, her body guards clustered around its feet. She pulled up the rigging and secured it.

"As well as we'll ever be," Kaelin grunted, shuffling her pinions.

"Very well then," Lady Zilvra made sure she was comfortable and then closed her eyes, beginning to chant.

Risgath and Ceann Mor watched from the walls of Nether Wallop as the circle grew brighter and brighter, the runes cut into the turf hissing and scorching. Above the heads of the King's Special a fiery dot of light appeared. It opened outward to become a spinning rim of flames. In the centre of that circle could be seen the awesome twisting bulk of the Wizard's Tower, the tree grown out of stone, light by the last light of day. Lady Zilvra continued the chant, the circle glowing brighter, growing bigger, spreading outward until it matched the size of the circle on the ground. Peter the giant centipede gazed upward, entranced by the sight.

Ulrich watched with concern as Lady Zilvra sweated, eyes screwed shut, fingers spread as if she was trying to hold up the sky.  With one last shout the spell clapped shut and Risgath, stood on the battlements of Nether Wallop, could only pray that they were safe.

It was not, as Kaelin put it later, a pleasant experience. It was like stepping round a corner and going into a nearly two hundred foot straight down drop. Her stomach felt like it was about to force its way out through her throat.

"Oh gaaaahhhhh," she panted, fighting to catch her breath as the shock shook through her. Then the smell hit her. She jerked up straight.

The Wizard's Tower soared over her, standing proud in the last rays of the setting sun but the gathering gloom was rent by the screams of war and the stench of death. All around her the corpses of Damned Souls lay scattered across the turf, ripped and torn, their strange shapes crumpled in death.

It wasn't hard to see why Charlotte had cried for their help. The werewolves had forced the outer wall and now ran a muck within the outer settlement.

Ignoring her rolling stomach Kaelin beat into the air, her feathered pinions battering the air.

There wasn't a single regular brindled werewolf any where in sight, they were all the twisted five limbed Abominations and the heavy boned, heavy jawed mutants that had proved so tough last time they had crossed paths. Kaelin thumped her wings, pushing herself as she skimmed round the circumference of the Wizard's Tower, keeping a eye on the ground. She did not like their odds.

If the Tower was a clock then there were packs made of half mutants, half abominations and a white werewolf leader at twelve, two, three, four, six half seven nine and half ten. Elijah had Damned Souls at most of those points but they were half the size in numbers and looked battered already. There were also three siege beasts, besides the ones the King's Special had brought, covering east, south and west.

Kaelin circled the tower again and swore. The transport spell had scattered them across the battlefield. She'd landed at five o'clock, Thorian and his siege beast was at seven o'clock, Ulrich and his mount was at eight but he was along way from the action and worse, his trio of bodyguards where at ten thirty. The entire northern quarter was uncovered.

Hartseer was getting his bearings at the half two mark, while Lady Zilvra fought her shying mount at half three, her body guards scattering to avoid being stepped on. Jeremiah was flicking lint off his robes at four o'clock and Estella was seeking cover at five o'clock. Kaelin swooped lower at six o'clock once more, wondering where the hell to begin.

"Well that wasn't so..." Ulrich was going to say 'bad' but his stomach proved him a liar. His siege beast mount jigged side ways uncomfortably as Ulrich gave throwing up his boot soles a good try.

"I hate these guys," Thorian grunted, "I really HATE these guys!"

His siege beast smashed its way through what was left of the outer gate house and ploughed into the abomination half of the pack at the half seven mark. Unfortunately the noise of tumbling stone gave them too much warning and they scattered, ducking away from the lashes of Thorian's Dragon hide whip and the stomping  feet of his siege beast. The siege beast even clashed its teeth at them but every single one of them managed to jump or twist out of the way.

Lady Zilvra, at the other end of the south quarter, could see over the walls and had spotted the pack snarling and slathering at four o'clock.

"Gain the wall," she commanded her five bodyguards and then turned back to studying the werewolves before her. Her gestures were short and sharp, her syllables sibilant and sinister, meant to dredge up the worst of the targets childhood fears and make them relive them again. Unfortunately it appeared that these creatures had no childhood to remember because they didn't flinch at all.

A scream rang out. One of her body guards, having gained the top of the wall had tried to take a pot shot at the abominations only for the bolt to jump the rail completely wrong. The guard beside him screamed and went down, bolt jutting from his boot top. The red started leaking at once.

"Fall back!" Lady Zilvra snapped, "All wounded retreat! Hide yourselves." The injured one limped to a guard tower in the wall and pushed open the busted door, slipping inside. The others looked at each other. The injured being told to retreat? It was not how it was done, the injured were supposed to fight on, to prove that they were still worthy of being part of the Clan, that they were worthy of the effort of being healed.

"Shoot the werewolves, you idiotas!" Lady Zilvra bellowed, "Grummos sen cerebro! Fight!"

They obeyed but their aims were so far off not one bolt hit. Lady Zilvra curse and swore, describing their mother's disappointments in them in blistering details. Just because everyone now had worth did not mean that everyone had the same value and value was something you earned. Her body guards were currently not earning their value.

On the opposite side of the circle to his sister, Quenril dropped a bolt into the grove.

"Hold still," he whispered to Peter and the giant centipede stilled as it crawled through the busted gate. Quenril straightened, breathed out, held his breath and squeezed the trigger. The abomination that was part of the pack at the ten thirty position let go of its grip on the inner wall the second it started climbing the wall. It screamed, spinning on the spot, arms twisting and contorting, trying to get at the bolt lodged in its back. It twisted and shrieked, the barbed head tearing at its muscles.

Jeremiah listened to the wails of pain as he stroked his beard. Considering his options, he opened his wings and pushed up into the air. Finding a good height he gazed at he disposition of the foes before him. Tugging his beard again as he settled into the drop and push that was his version of a hoover then muttered a prayer to his god, getting a feel for his drake. There were definite changes within it and he was curious as to what they were.

"Karma, hide yourself," he commanded and the vigor pack barrier turned, bowed under the weight, its dull gaze sweeping blue back and forth as it approached a hedge. Jeremiah left it to the job of burrowing into the greenery and turned his attention on the drake. The big ugly brute stood, legs spread wide, thick skull that could not decide whether it was dragon, crocodile or lion held low to the ground.

"Great god," Jeremiah bellowed, "He who has mastery and glory over all. He to whom all living things owe their lives and their breath. Look upon these worthless bugs that distort your righteous vision with their foul wants and perverted desires. Look upon them and judge them, oh great Lord. Give my tool the power to smite them for your glory and the strength to cast them down into the smoking pit of your wrath. Burn them with your righteous flame and claim their souls so that they may be tormented before you until the end of time. Shrike them with the full power of your arm. Use my servant as your vessel and weapon. Let it be glorified by the holding of your power and your might. May your will be done Klu'ga-nath!"

Thunder roll, thunder rolled from under the ground.

The drake seemed to swell with some dreadful internal pressure, its hide stretching, its eyes bulging, green flame dribbling between its teeth to hiss and skitter on the ground. It howled and charged! It crawled its way up and over the outer wall, its path splattered with green flame that sank into the stone, stinking as it went and sending up smoke that curled into faces that snarled and leered and lusted.

Estella was also on the move. There was a gate way at the fire thirty mark on the clock that was the walls around the outer town that circled the Wizard's Tower. She may have never been here before but her passenger was whispering strategy straight into her mind. That and experience had given her an edge that very few of the women of her country of birth would ever have. As such she did not run along the road, which would have bracketed her in the broken gateway for anything that happened to glance back at the noise of feet on gravel. Instead she ran on the turf beside the road, the short grass and dirt muffling her footfalls.

She pressed her back up against the stones of the outer wall to the left of the gate, panting several breaths. She gasped in, held her breath and risked a quick peek around the corner of the gate. The pack at the six o'clock position were scaling the inner wall, a mob of miss matched faces glaring down at them, prepared to fight and die for their Master Smith. Estella drew back and took several more breaths.

"Ready?" she asked, one hand on her mid drift, the other bracing her on the wall.

"Born for it," Valodrael purred in her mind.

"Right," Estella took a breath as big as she could manage.

The cramp viced through her but she knew the harder she pushed the sooner it was done. Kaelin would have understood the principle of pressing into the pain until it broke before the will.

The thick pile of gloop that erupted from her mouth heaped up before her on the gravel at the edge of the road. It surged and flowed, moving before she had even finished expelling it, squirming and wriggling, thick, wrinkled lashes of it twisting and embracing, coiling round each other as it humped and pressed itself into the form, long and sinuous, lithe and sensual, smoothing out into a hide speckled with dying stars.

Valodrael grinned and bounded through the gate, teeth gleaming, pale eyes shining as he saw his prey.

The white wolf looked back as he heard the crackling hiss of the avalanche beginning to slide. He screamed a warning o the pack and they dropped, jumped, leapt from the wall as the Chill of Void blasted across the stones, slicking them with ice and making snow fall as the air contracted with a scream. One of them wasn’t fast enough and its scream ended half done as its tissue’s froze, icicles rupturing through its hide as it fell through the full blast of Valodrael’s breath weapon. It shattered on impact with the ground, spraying chunks of pink ice in all directions.

Valodrael chuckled, a dry, dirty sound as he gazed upon the survivors, tongue unravelling.

“Well, you is looking fiiiiinnnneee tonight,” his voice rumbled and bubbled in one breath, “Almost good enough to eat.”

The werewolves whimpered and stepped back, fur bristling with fear.

Sabal’s tactic was more targetted than Valodrael’s mass terror method. He studied the movements of the pack at the half ten position as it shifted, the disturbance Quenril’s bolt had caused playing out before him. He levelled his hand bow, braced his knees on Weatherall’s shell, rose and paused for only a breath before taking the shot.

The white werewolf roared, its mane turning red. It’s roar was answered, a larger, deeper voice howling through the dark, a sound that carried spite and hate and evil, vicious and cruel in its indifference to the suffering of others. Kaelin felt her hackles stand up all over her entire body, so stiff and straight that her skin ached.

“He’s here,” she muttered, “Oh gods, Grandpa’s here!”

“I told you, cousin,” Charlotte spoke from the still open locket, “We need you here and now we know for sure.”

“Know what?” Kaelin grunted as she ducked into cover, eyes scanning her surrounding, trying to pin point where her grandfather’s voice was coming from.

“That we are cousins,” Charlotte noted, “Welcome to the family.”

“Huh,” Kaelin grunted, “More important things right now.”

“Yes of course,” Charlotte nodded her painted head. A second later they both heard it and Kaelin had to fight not to cower, the puppy within whimpering at the sound of the alpha’s wroth.

Tasnar took the full brunt of it, his hair standing up on end, his lip trembling, his hands shaking. The only thing that kept him on Bartholemew’s back was the saddle. His finger tightened on the trigger out of sheer reflex, the bolt flying off into the dark with no target.

“Tally Ho!” Ulrich bellowed back. His bowels were trying to turn to water, he was slicked with cold sweat and his skin was crawling but he knew those feelings, he knew them from years of half siblings that would have preferred it if he didn’t exist and had done their best to drive him to self ending so their hands would be clean of kin slaying. He knew fear and despair and humiliation, they had been the friends of his childhood and he refused to let them back into his life. Fear was flung aside, humiliation was spat at and despair curled up and died in the flames of anger.

“Tally Ho!” Ulrich bellowed again and his siege beast thundered through the shattered gate way Thorian had opened up, shouldering aside the last of the structure.

Ulrich unhooked his siege beasts rigging, tightened his grip on the end and jumped.

The werewolf mutant looked up just in time to receive both of Ulrich’s boot heels to the face. It yelped as it was flung across the rood between two of the houses of the outer town. It rose to hands and knees shaking its head and…

There was a horrible crunch as Ulrich’s siege beast stamped it into the ground several times over, snarling while it did so.

Kaelin pushed herself into the air in time to see the untamed siege beast to the south of the inner wall turn its head in the direction of Ulrich and Thorian. She swooped to the outer wall, pocked Haggis’ blow stick into her mouth and blew for all she was worth.

The untamed siege beast reeled, slamming into a house. It howled and clawed and stomped, battering its head against the building. Walls cracked, windows shattered, beams splintered and roof tiles fell like hail stones but that was a fight that hadn’t made a breach into the inner city and Kaelin figured Elisha would prefer a pile of rubble where a house once stood to having to fight the werewolves back through the gardens of the Wizard’s Tower to a last stand at the doors of the Tower itself.

She was not the only one tackling the siege beast problem. Hartseer scrambled up the breach in the east of the outer wall, rocks shifting and rolling beneath his feet, fingers finding purchase, legs powering through leap after leap. He reached the top and bounded down the other side, not breaking stride as he closed with the edge siege beast. It screeched as Hartseer’s blades spilt the thick hide on the back of its calf. Hartseer had his fingers spread, swords extended as two groups of two, the lower number of attacks compensated for by the extra strength he could bring to bare.

He spread his arms as wide as possible, wire hair rattling as it came free of its warrior’s cheque, as the east siege beast turned, growling to face him.

“It is a good day to live,” Hartseer roared the battle cry of his people, “It is a good night for you to die!”

As if in answer there was the shriek of tearing linen from above.

Amelia dived, wings tight, mouth gapping wide. The salty stink of her elemental weapon cut through the night air and the abominations of the pack at three o’clock screamed, shaking and gagging, coated in the glistening grey gloop, the smell of it burning their noses. The bright orange dragon pulled up and banked.

“Get out of our swamp!” she bellowed her own war cry as she circled for another pass. As she did so an orange glow began rising from the inner wall of the Wizard’s Tower but it fizzed and shorted out before doing any damage.

Elisha grunted and wiped sweat from his brow.

“Master?” Cyril Crowface asked, one wing bound tight to his side as the bones fought to heal.

“This magic is still foreign to me,” Elisha admitted, looking out from the inner wall, “It does not want to be bent to the will of a Mastersmith.” He looked at the dead scattered throughout the streets of the outer city, “But it will learn to bow.” He straightened and held out his hands again, starting to chant once more to awaken the wards and the barriers that were supposed to have been built into the very stones of the Tower itself and the community beyond.

With a rumbling crash the werewolves and damned souls thundered into combat along, the length of the walls, where there were damned souls to resist the invasion. Though the number of squads of damned souls equalled the number of werewolf packs, they were half the size of their snarling and uniform foes but in those first few moments of full battle they acquitted themselves well, taking only superficial wounds while spilling werewolf hides deeply and watering the ground red. No werewolf fell but they felt the sting of resistance and found it not much to their taste.

Above them Amelia dived, the sodium gunk spraying forth again. The white werewolf that was supposed to be leading the pack at the three o’clock mark threw itself under the over hang of a shop front, safe from the spray but not safe from what happened next. The sodium gloop on the abominations ignited with a coughing roar that barked louder than any werewolf. In an instant the flames leapt to newly soaked mutants and in the next heart beat they were all screaming and shrieking, running, arms waving, sparks flying up as the flames wrapped their limbs and consumed them. The noise was horrifying and the smell was even worse. The white werewolf climbed the shop front to the roof to get away from the spinning, shrieking things of fire and agony that had been its pack a moment before.

The fire continued to roar as the abominations and mutants collapsed, one after another, skin crisped, muscles eaten through by heat. The white werewolf stared down, slack jawed and silent at what had once been its command.

“Behold the power of the jewel of the heavens,” Jeremiah proclaimed, remembering to flatter Amelia. It had been a while since he’s tried to be charming but it seemed to work, her form doing that happy mid air wiggle as she banked round again. He lowered his eyes to the streets, his own wings keeping him aloft.

“Great Lord, the almighty, the one true god,” he prayed aloud, “Look upon the servant of your servant. May it be for you a fitting vessel for your wroth. Fill it with your fury and your judgement. Use its flesh to smite your enemies! Destroy the unworthy before you. Cast your judgement upon the non-believers who have defiled the world that you and you alone have made and claim their souls for your punishment!”

The Drake roared! Not only its voice but the voice of another burst from its mouth and then the flame came. Fire, even the fire of a dragon cousin, should not be green and it should not contain faces, faces that wailed and sobbed as they twisted and wept through the air. The abominations of the pack standing at the four o’clock position flinched back and then the flame reached them. Three of them didn’t have the chance to scream, the fire seemed to vanish down their throats and they bucked, twisting and turning. Their limbs twisted, their skin cracked, their eyes dribbled down their cheeks and they collapsed, great gouts of green flame jetting from their mouths. The white pack leader stared at their mortal remains, three of his pack cooked from the inside out. Jeremiah smiled.

The orange haze rose from the stones of the inner wall again, Elisha’s quiet voice murmuring through it, amplified without raising his voice. It crackled and snapped, vanishing once more. The more wary of the werewolves snorted and shook their heads but snarls from those around them pushed them on. Elisha sagged a moment but then straightened, lifting his hands once more to restart the chant but Crowface noticed that moment of pain.

He was not the only one to see.

“You is hurting mah friend,” he bellowed, “I hate it when things hurt mah friends!” The dragon hide whip cracked.

One abomination lifted fingers to a suddenly open throat, tore flesh pulsing as wind whistled through a broken wind pipe. It crumpled as Thorian yanked the second one off its feet hard enough to crack its neck.

“No one hurts mah friends!” Thorian roared as his siege beast kicked the others about until they squealed.

Despite his lack of character, there was nothing wrong with Donovan Ratcliff’s ears and he object to his people being bested in anything. The howl was the thing of nightmares, sliding up and down frequencies that hit the nerves like hammer, terror woven into a song and then spoken by a voice that should have been silenced years before and there was also the issue that he had used it so often and the packs had used the trick so often and all the while they had never thought of the thing called acclimatization.

“Try a different tune Grandpa, that one’s getting old!” Kaelin yelled into the dark, “In fact, I would say that it is BORING!”

The bark that answered her was more surprised than anything else.

Estella peeped round the gate house pillar at the noise and upon seeing that the pack at the six o’clock mark was distracted by both her friend and the damned souls trying to batter them to death she took the risk of stepping out on to the road way and beginning to circle her arms. Her talismans flew to position, helping to sustain the circles, channelling the raw power until… Estella punched through the centre of the circle and the magic rolled through the air. The abominations of the pack she was targetting were suddenly jumping up and down, yipping and yelping as if something or a whole swarm of some things were nipping and biting at their paws.

Estella giggled and Valodrael nodded to her before he drew the breath that sounded like ice rain battering across a great lake. Three of the abominations creaked and cracked as their tissues stiffened, locking them into perfect frozen statues, mouths agape, eyes bulging. The last two backed into the white werewolf pack leader but they barely noticed either him or the mutants struggling with a squad of damned souls, eyes locked on the star speckled dragon that paced towards them, grinning as he came.

Ulrich finished tying a rope around the hilt of his sword. It had been an unpleasant time climbing back up so he was not in the mood to try that trick again. He held the hilt of his sword like a harpoon and threw it. A mutant screamed and staggered, pawing at its head, blood flowing from the stump of a severed ear.

“Tally Woh!” Ulrich gasped as his siege beast lunged, its teeth snapping together with more force than a bear trap. It twisted its neck and another werewolf mutant disappeared between those tusk like teeth. Another lunge and a third vanished. The wounded mutant turned to flee and the siege beast snatched it from the ground and tossed it high. It vanished with a gulp.

With a yelp the last survivor of the mutants who belonged to the werewolf pack at the seven thirty position turned and smashed through a window of the house next to the fight. A second later it burst out of a back window and fled into the night, whimpering and leaving behind itself a sharp stink.

Lady Zilvra heard the laugh of her favourite and smiled in response even as she balanced against the lurching and heaving of her siege beast as it scrambled over the outer wall. She hissed and whispered the words of the fear spell and this time it took and took hard. The mutants of the pack at the four o’clock mark rolled over on their backs, feet in the air, whining like puppies. Lady Zilvra felt no sympathy and as her siege beast stood on the top of the outer wall she took the shot any way. A werewolf mutant gasped and curled round the bolt. Her body guards followed her example and two more arched around sudden pains. The other two bolts pinged off the pressed gravel of the strange road way. Lady Zilvra was going to give them a piece of her mind but her siege beast jumped, distracting her. It landed on the roof of a house that promptly collapsed below it, roof, walls and floors crashing together in a jumble that it rode down like a horse on a sand dune. It stumbled as it reached the pavement and then straightened, a rumble of threat rising in its gullet.

Tasnar shivered, fighting back the fear that was trying to steal his mind. Rubbing sweat from his eyes he looked around and saw something in the undergrowth just beyond Sabal and Weatherall, something stooped, something huge, something shaggy and black and… teeth, lots of teeth!

With a noise that was part scream and part yell Tasnar forced his hand bow up, against the pull of the fear that was trying to lock his muscles in place and pulled the trigger. The thing roared, rearing to full height, turning burning eyes on the Ash Elves.

“Oh shite,” Tasnar whispered and then yelled, “It’s the grandfather!”

Unfortunately Kaelin had already committed to her dive. She’d flown up as high as she could quickly and now she folded her wings and sliced through the air, aiming for the loose flap of skin at the neck of the south siege beast. Her teeth caught it, she slammed on and then she was splashed with something hot and liquid as there was a rip and the south siege beast roared. It span, the internal workings of its throat on show and the red soaking the ground. Kaelin was already out of its reach.

Hartseer jumped and span around the east siege beast, blades slashing, scales and fur falling like rain as he cut and hacked at the siege beasts legs. It stamped and stamped again, this shiny biting thing moving too fast for it to get a good lock on its position. Hartseer’s glass eyes were grim. Yes her was faster than this thing but it only needed to get lucky once and it was going to do him real damage. Fear, surprise, intimidation, where were the levers he needed to take control of this thing’s head? It suddenly staggered, snarling. The damned souls had arrived, leaping on to it from the walls. They did no damage but they pummelled and pummelled at it, blows falling like rain, making it bark and spin and yelp. Hartseer flipped back out of the way of its mad spiral. Well that gave him time and a distraction, now to work out how to use it as the right form of leverage.

The West Siege beast also barked and span wingless damned souls clawing and biting at it. The siege beast roared and bucked and spun, trying to shake damned souls off but they clung on like burrs, digging in claws sharper than a tics bite.

With the big beastie distracted Sabal picked the highest value target. Among the Ash Elves if the Lady commanding the mission went down the rest of the force would retreat in confusion. He breathed out, closed one eye, held his breath and squeezed the trigger.

Ratcliff reeled, shock stamping across his face. The pointed earred vermin had dared to strike him, the bolt lodged in the big muscle of his upper arm. He roared and there was command in that sound.

The pack at the ten thirty position, the pack that was closet, charged. Quenril managed a shot and one of the abominations yelped and stumbled but the rest didn’t even break stride.

Sabal screamed as he went down and then his shrieks turned high and thin a sound that no mortal should be able to produce.

Lady Zilvra didn’t know where to look first as the abominations she was facing suddenly bounded forward, passed her, to scramble up the wall and grab at her body guards. Three of them screamed as they were torn from their footing and tumbled off the wall. The noise of them striking the floor was the sound of eggs being thrown at a wall.

Zilvra screamed, the wail of a mother losing her children.

“Get off mah friends!” Thorian bellowed as what was left of the pack he was facing charged, trying to trip his siege beast’s legs, “Aye said, get off!” The whip cracked, an abomination choked and the last of the pack broke. The white werewolf barked and lashed out, trying to force them to stay but turned to realise that it was facing down a pair of very large creatures on its own. Not that it was facing both down for very long, Ulrich swung his siege beast’s head north and applied his heels as hard as he could, muttering curses all the while as Sabal continued to scream.

“Hold on, I’m coming! Just hold on!” he yelled.

Quenril and Peter did more than hold on they dived into the fury, battering the werewolves back from where they had pulled Sabal off of Weatheral’s shell. Weatherall was spinning and clouting every werewolf head within reach. Peter snapped and sheered, threatening to take limbs off with every crash of his jaws, while Quenril battered with two handed strikes of his blade, too artless to wound but enough to drive the abominations back. Tasnar dashed in and leaned over at a crazy angle in the saddle to grab at the battered, ruined thing that had been his cousin. Bartholemew pressed himself flat to the ground to let Tasnar haul the torn and twisted mess up in front of him.

“I’ve got you cousin, I’ve got you!” Tasnar kept saying as he heeled Bartholemew and the lizard dashed off south, going no where save away from the battle, any where but there seemed safer than where they had been. “I’ve got you cousin, I’ve got you!” The thing in his arms gasped and rattled, every breath gurgling in its tubes, the red slicking down over everything, Tasnar, the saddle, Bartholemew. “I’ve got you cousin, I’ve got you!”

The pulse from the Tower’s Defences was the strongest yet but it still did barely more than make the werewolves sneeze.

“Oh for goodness sake and Bourbon biscuit!” Kaelin barked and dived again. This time she flipped herself just before impact and locked her knees, crashing into the side of the south siege beast’s head. It staggered, shaking and wobbling but didn’t fall.

“Just what the frack does it take to put you down!” Kaelin screamed.

Estella stepped through the gate and widened her stance, planting her feet and bending her knees. She thrust her hands towards the floor and crocked her fingers as if grasping something. With a yell of effort she yanked both arms skyward. The pack at the six o’clock mark around the tower flew up into the air, punched upwards by fountains of water that erupted below their feet but they twisted in mid air, landing cat like on their feet, glaring at Estella.

“Oh shite,” she muttered.

The rattle of a ship dying in an ice storm filled the air. The white werewolf threw itself full length, skidding across the pressed gravel, losing fur and some of its skin on its front but saving its life. The others of its pack, the last two abominations and every single werewolf mutant, froze where they stood, ice rupturing them from the outside in and at the same time, the inside out.

The white werewolf regained its feet, snuffling with pain, just in time to see Valodrael smash its pack one by one, ice scattering in shades of pink and darker hues across the gravel. The Void Dragon was grinning with every strike.

Jeremiah glared. That beast and its host were going to be far too much trouble. He would have to research whether, there was a way to permanently bind the Void Dragon into Estella’s flesh. Once that was done it would be simple enough to cleanse the girl and then existence would be purified of her unnatural presence. He frowned as he stroked his beard, only keeping half an ear of the jabbering noise of the battle while he considered it. He frowned more, flicking his wings to turn him in mid air. Since when did a battle jabber?

The goblins erupted out of the hedgerows and ditches of surrounding farm land. Like ants they scrambled up and over the battlements of the outer wall, pouring down the inner side of the wall. This wasn’t a squad or a pack, it was a mob, a swarm, a rippling tide of green and grey and the abominations that had just killed over half of Lady Zilvra’s body guard were the closet targets available to where they had just come in over the wall. They piled in, jabbering and squeaking, rusty knives in tiny fists, teeth bared, little claws gouging and scratching. On their own, individually, they couldn’t have done much damage but they were not on their own, they were legion and they didn’t stop.

“That’s it!” Jeremiah crowed, “Strike! Strike for Stink-of-the-Midden! Strike down his killers! Strike for vengeance! Strike for justice!”

The goblins roared like a wave upon a shingle beach and two of the abominations went down, battered to pieces by sheer numbers and rage. The last one reared up from the pile and went to bound away. Jeremiah gestured and his drake opened its mouth, green flame scorching through the air, blistering and scolding but leaving barely any outward mark of its touch, killing its victim from the inside out.

“Tell Klu’ga-nath that I sent you,” Jeremiah cried and both the goblins and the werewolves screamed, their brains trying to crawl out of their ears at the sound of that name. Lady Zilvra turned an extremely strange shade of olive grey and heaved, pressing a hand low on her belly and muttering a pray to Tra’kan’hini to protect them both from what the priest was invoking.

Half a battle field away what was left of Sabal jerked in Tasnar’s arms, a dreadful gurgling rattle echoing up from his lungs as the red sloshed out of the lipless hole that had once been his mouth. Then everything went still, not a relaxed relief, a total cease of all motion, of all tension, of all fight. Tasnar felt it and froze, stiffening in total opposition to his cousin’s final unspooling. Bartholemew slowed, faulted, stopped, twisting his head back to look at his rider.

“Cousin” Tasnar asked quietly, as if he was trying to not wake him from a restful sleep, “Cousin? Cousin?” A little louder now as reality sank its dreadful claws into him. “Sabal!”

It was then that Tasnar learnt that there was a price to the friendship and warmth that Ulrich had shown them how to share – that the only way to be that open was to have love enough to break a heart.

The sound was not wail or scream, nor shriek or howl. It just was, solid and undeniable, the sound of the world being wrenched out of alignment and nothing would ever make it how it was again. Lady Zilvra went ashen, her heart echoing that terrible sound. She knew it, she knew it from when she had collapsed in Ulrich’s arms as the heart and the pride of the Snake Clan had burnt to ashes in the funeral vault under the citadel for it had erupted from her own soul as she had learnt that the years of cruelty and indifference had brought her people to the edge of extinction and their way of life to complete and utter smash.

And ringing above that sound, that terrible sound of grief, was laughter. Someone was laughing. Someone was enjoying the pain that had been inflicted.

Ratcliff bounded out of the dark n launched himself at Weatherall. The giant crab snapped out at him and he caught its arms. Weatherall waggled his eyes and twitched his mouth parts. Grinning Ratcliff started twisting both of the crabs arms backwards. Weatherall tried to back up. A bark from Ratcliff and the werewolves seized Weatherall’s legs, pulling them out tight. Weatherall made that grinding noise in his stomach that he did when he was distressed. Ratcliff laughed again and slammed his full weight on Weatherall’s arms. Shell cracked with a bang louder than a hammer blow on the anvil. Weatherall bucked, forcing out fluid in a shrill, bubbling whistle. Ratcliff bellowed with laughter as he finished the job, twisting Weatherall’s arms and ripping them free, dragging out tissue from deep within Weatherall’s shell. Still laughing as Weatherall staggered, Ratcliff chucked the crab’s arms aside and the pack fell on them crunching and chewing. Ratcliff fell on Weatherall himself and started ripping lumps and chunks out through the holes where the arms had been rooted. Some how, some how, Wetherall screamed as Ratcliff sank his arm into the crab’s internals up to the shoulder and ripped something long and stringy free. Ratcliff grinned, forcing one of Weatherall’s eye stalks round so the crab had to watch as the Grand Leader of the Pack bit down on the crab’s internal workings and started to chew.

“You baskets!” Amelia screamed at the laugher she couldn’t see as the bulk of the tower was in the way and dived.

The damned souls attacking the siege beast on the east of the Wizard’s Tower threw them selves clear, not looking back even as it lunged and bit, trying to punish them for daring to attack it. Hartseer was already running. Metal or not he did not want that stuff etching his new blade.

Amelia didn’t spit a stream of sodium this time, she hawked up the entire load in one single plug and mouthed it for a second, stripping away some of the protein oil that protected it. She spat it dead on target. The explosion bounced its shock wave off of the Wizard’s Tower and sent a solid wall of noise rumbling through the Dead Swamp. It was followed by the noise of cracking and snapping timbers and leaves rattling down as they fell in their thousands.

What was left of the siege beast crashed down on the pressed gravel a second later, its flesh blasted off its skeleton in strips and tatters.

Amelia was already far beyond them. The stream of grey, salty sludge splashed over the werewolves at the two o’clock position. They screamed as it ignited. They ran like comets, long tongues of fire trailing behind them as they shrieked. The only mercy was that, like shooting stars they did not run far, burning bright but fast and winking out as they fell.

The white werewolves leading that pack snarled and barked, demanding the survivor to stay even after all its pack mates had perished. The white werewolf turned back to led the charge deeper into the city in time to see Hartseer vault over the stack of barrels ahead of them, all four arms in play now. The upper two swords sank full length into its shoulders and then the lower two sheered it in half at the waist. He kicked the upper body off his blades and glared at the abominations that still lived, the lone mutant of this pack whimpering as it backed away.

The orange light flickered again, rising up, growing and swelling, becoming brighter and more stable. It didn’t burst this time, it flared out in a pulsing wave that scorched across the heavens. The abomination halves of the werewolf packs screamed, jerking and twitching, backs arching, three legs dancing jigs of pain. One from every abomination pack tumbled to the ground, shivering spasmodically. When the light retracted they did not get up again.

The pack of flying damned souls that had been battering against the back side of the pack Thorian had been fighting spiralled up into the sky as the last of their foes there give a last few twitches and lay still. They turned and swooped towards the south siege beast. It reared and bit as they swooped around it, coming close to striking its wounded throat again.

Around the tower the damned souls seemed to be finally gaining ground, pushing the werewolves back, clipping away at their numbers now that the King’s Special had evened the numbers some what.

A squad of fighters had stayed with Elisha and Cyril Crowface but a squad of the winged damned souls kept the werewolves at the nine o’clock mark from flanking Quenil and Ulrich, pinning them in place, darting and swooping, holding the pack in place, drawing blood at every swoop and then pulling up before a return strike could be made.

A squad of damned soul fighters swarmed the western siege beast, taking insane risks to keep it occupied, each and everyone of them only a snap away from being a nighttime snack.

Flying damned souls had kept the twelve o’clock pack of werewolves from scaling the inner wall. Lacking the numbers to face the werewolves directly, the damned souls raked branches and broken spars over the face of the wall, knocking abomination and mutant alike from stone every time they tried to climb.

The white werewolf at three o’clock of the tower yelped and spun, trying to protect its legs and back from further gashes, the red already staining its fur form the first injury the damned souls had inflicted. They closed in like hyenas that had found an old lion on its own and the white werewolf’s eyes went wide as it saw fury in the pale blue eyes of the damned souls.

The werewolf mutants that were bothering Lady Zilvra and her last bodyguard found themselves in a three way sandwich between her siege beast, Jeremiah’s drake and the winged damned souls that came shrieking out of the darkening sky. The wounds they dealt may have been superficial but they were distracting.

Ratcliff still laughed though, slicked to the shoulders with giant crab gore, laughing as he turned on Quenril and Peter. He shook something off his claws and grinned. He was going to enjoy this.

Ulrich’s siege beast slammed its head into Ratcliff’s chest and flung him twelve feet across the turf. Ratcliff snarled and went to roll over. The siege beast’s foot came down, pining him to the turf, his pelvis creaking and his breath coming short and hard.

“End of the line!” Ulrich snarled, “You are going to die tonight and nobody will mourn you! They’ll line up to dance on your grave!”

“Big words, little man, while you are sat up there,” Ratcliff snarled, “You come down here and one of the pack will make you one of us. I’ll enjoy breaking you after that.” Despite the pain he grinned, lolling his tongue up at Ulrich. “You’ll make a nice warm up round.” Ulrich grimaced down at the big creature. Kaelin’s grandfather was a foul example of werewolf kind, strength with no care, power grown bloated and rotten with no responsibilities to shape it. Ulrich looked at Ratcliff and saw the very worst of the nobility – accident of birth mistaken for right, privilege used as an excuse and entitlement excusing any desire. Ratcliff had only physically changed, mentally he had always been what he was now – self-centred, self obsessed, self serving and selfish. Ulrich looked down and felt his gore rise. Ratcliff was what any noble could devolve into if duty was forgotten or neglected. What Ulrich saw in the mirror was foul and it turned his stomach.

“Marmaduke?” he asked, hearing his metal servant’s footsteps finally joining them. He didn’t know where Marmaduke had been, where he had landed due to the spell fraying at the seams but that didn’t matter now. “Deal with this garbage.”

“What?” Ratcliff barked.

Marmaduke’s bronze sword whispered from its scabbard and the automaton stomped forward, his circular feet leaving prints the size of dinner plates.

Ratcliff threw up an arm as Marmaduke’s sword stabbed down towards his face. Ratcliff roared the pain as the sword point burst through his arm, threading the gap between the bones of his forearm. He wriggled and writhed, the red bright in the dark, trying to either wrench the sword blade out of Marmaduke’s hand or force the siege beast’s foot off his legs.

“It’s not so fun is it? When you are the one bleeding!” Ulrich glared.