Chapter Twenty Seven: Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire
(Artwork not mine, full credit to the owner.)
Jeremiah managed to straighten up, coughing less severely as he did so.
"Well that went better than I'd hoped," he muttered, dabbing at his lips with a handkerchief, "I haven't ever tried to..." He coughed again, "Channel so much of my god's power before." He dabbed at the trail of blood at the corner of his mouth. "I didn't realize that it would be so rough to manage but the results..." He coughed again, "the results are acceptable."
"Dare I ask who, or what your God is?" Myslynn asked, war hammer at the ready, one hand resting on a device attached to the belt at her waist, her eyebrows pulled down over her forbidding expression.
"The mighty Klu'ga-nath," Jeremiah smiled, despite the name blistering his tongue. After all it tasted no difference from the rest of the blood in his mouth. "The Great Dragon, the First of the Skies, he who was, is and shall be Lord."
Ulrich turned his head sharply. Quenril and his two companions had stepped back, fingers flicking in a gesture that was undoubtedly meant to ward off evil. Something about the way they did it told Ulrich that they recognized the name that Jeremiah had uttered and feared it. He also remembered himself how reading that book Jeremiah had lent him had made him feel, that crawling pressure behind his eyes, the sense that something else was pushing into his skull, trying to find purchase on his thoughts, trying to take root. That made him look at Estella and the black that was still sloshing round in the bottom of her eyes. He'd have to ask her what it felt like to have Valodrael surge inside of her. If her description matched his experience in any way then he'd know that Jeremiah wasn't just using a simile. Ulrich felt a chill ripple up his back. Even when they were small, dragons were not to be taken lightly. A dragon that could be reckoned as a god? Now there was a truly terrifying prospect.
"Yes, well," Kaelin said desperately trying to rub the hairs on her arms flat, "Thank him for his help, if he hasn't split your tongue enough to mute you." Her efforts at grooming were pretty much in vain as the hair on her head was doing a good impression of a hedgehog's hair do.
Another howl tore through the air, answering howls joining it, swirling together into a chord of savage joy and the promise of more pain to follow. Kaelin's head snapped round, ears twitching as she focused in.
"Which way?" Myslynn snapped.
"That way," Kaelin pointed back up the hill, back towards Principle Mound.
"Step it up people!" Myslynn snapped, shouldering the head of her own war hammer as she spoke, her guards falling in around her. Kaelin ran on their right, Thorian only a step or two behind them, while Peter rippled along on their left, Ulrich hanging on and grinning like a manic. Sinbar and Estella trotted along behind them, Jeremiah puffing along at the rear, muttering and grumbling about his feet and complaining about the indignity of it all. Kaelin gritted her teeth, trying and failing to tune out the click clack of Sinbar's skeletons as much as the slap and squish of Jeremiah's puppets. On second thoughts, Jeremiah's puppets were worse, there was something about that sound that just conquered up images that tried to flare to life in both her visual imagination and her olfactory imagination, images she didn't want to be facing right now. She really didn't need the distraction right now as she was beginning to struggle with the running. It was quite literally an uphill struggle, not only against the gradient but also against the swarms of dwergs running in the opposite direction. They could have fought, Kaelin was sure they could have fought but the instinct to find their loved ones and defend them was over riding all sense. Then she heard another child cry out in the distance and hatred, hot and vicious, flooded through her, the beast bubbling just under the surface again.
They cut into the street that led up to the building capping Principle Mound and saw the swarm of werewolves and other things that writhed in front of its doors, looking like a single massive entity comprised of flesh and fur, limbs and fangs and claws. Kaelin nearly gagged as the smell washed over them. There was the musky brown of werewolf but now something else was threaded through it, a sickly greenish yellow that put Kaelin in mind of over done cabbage or... or pus. The smell was a thick greenish yellow pus that oozed and dripped in her scent vision, corrupted, irredeemable, rotten to the core.
She fought the urge to vomit, fighting to control her breathing, stumbling to a halt, unable to find her breath, even as Thorian charged ahead, his broad sword swinging as it cleared it scabbard.
"It's Thorian Time!" the orc crossbreed bellowed.
Parp! Purp! Parp! Haggis remonstrated with Kaelin, obviously not impressed that they were lagging behind.
"Oh yeah! Sorry!" Kaelin apologized and swung him round under her arm. Taking a deep breath, ignoring the smell and the urge to heave, she blew into Haggis' bag. The droning, skirling sound echoed up through the streets of Endingborough. Her companions' eyes sparkled as new energy surged through them, their steps steadying as cramping muscles eased and lungs found new breath. In front of them, werewolves shook their heads, glancing round, trying understand what they were hearing.
Peter took that as an opportunity, surging forward ahead of the group, mandibles scissoring with a clicking sound, a vicious light in his multifaceted eyes, scrabbling to catch up with Thorian.
"Whoa," Ulrich laughed, "First one to fifty gets the extra rations!"
Behind him, Myslynn stepped to the front of her body guards, pulling the device she had rested her hand on earlier from her belt. Out of the corner of her eye, Kaelin saw Myslynn level what looked like a short pipe attached by some strange device to a handle at the werewolves, then Myslynn slowly pulled back on a small lever under the handle. The device spoke.
It was the cracks of several thunderbolts but compressed into half the time, short, sharp, savage, the sound of a breaking bone multiplied several times over. A werewolf howled, not the bell call of the pack but a sound of raging pain as bright red bloomed on the hide of its back. It span, snarling and snapping at an enemy that was not within reach.
Kaelin stepped forward, stomach now steady though her mind was still disgusted by the reek of this perverse pack but Haggis' song rang out clear and true and Thorian swelled with its power, the anthem feeding his muscles faster than any meal could have done. Thorian broke into a run, sword raised over his head.
Thorian at the front, charging straight up the middle of the boulevard, heedless of the rich tiling cracking under his feet. Behind him, far to the left, Ulrich flashed passed the fronts of the stately buildings of the lore clerks and barristers, catching the shutters being slammed up in the windows out of the corner of his eye as he went passed. Behind him the three surviving members of the Snake Clan trotted, steps steady as they loaded their hand bows with bolts. Behind them, but gaining steadily Myslynn and her bodyguards, pounded forward, faces grim as they hefted their war hammers. Level with Ulrich's Ash Elves but on the right of the street Kaelin paced more slowly, Haggis tucked under her arm as the skirling sound of the bagpipes shook through the air, making the werewolves shudder and snap at each other, shaking their heads as the notes drilled into their ears. Sinbar's flute spoke a rising counterpoint to Haggis' drone, his six skeletons stepping forward behind Kaelin, black bones and sliver ribbons clicking quietly as they stepped forward, towards the rolling mass of fur and fury, Estella walking beside him as her talismans twittered and warbled.
Behind them all, Jeremiah ignored all the rich buildings around them and turned to Nanny Tatters.
"I know that you have more knowledge in your head than you are letting on," he hissed at her, "I know you still remember it. Now either you start serving me properly or I will sell you off, one piece at a time."
Her dull eye gazed at him blankly but he knew that some of what he said was going through.
"One piece at a time," he threatened, "I'll even tie the jars up with little pretty pink bows."
Her head waggled from side to side slowly, then she turned away and stepped a couple of paces towards the rolling melee that swirled and crashed and screamed against the doors of the state building. She stopped, bent her head down and traces of light began to stream across the surface of her single, popping eye. A blue glow rose in her gullet and trickled between her fangs, reminding Kaelin all too much of the swarm of kerveads that had threatened to drown them at the citadel of the Snake Clan, when she glanced back. The glow trailed across the ground in much the same way as well, trickling along the gaps in the slabbing of the road way until it began to pool around the feet of a particularly large, white furred werewolf. The glow soaked into the stones for a moment and then vanished.
"Idiotic waste of my..." Kaelin heard Jeremiah begin to remonstrate his puppet.
The ground heaved upwards with a the cracking squeal of sheering rock, a column of rock nearly nine feet across bucking into the air, the ground crying out with the voice of stressed stone, tossing the white wolf and his flanking body guards into the air and then collapsing back into its original place with the sound of shattering boulders, leaving a circle of broken rubble, the white slabs fit only for crazy paving. The white wolf and his two companions landed, head first in the circumference of burst ground with sickening cracks.
"Impressive," muttered Sinbar, raising an eyebrow. Thorian wasn't listening, Thorian had seen the group of dwergs standing shoulder to shoulder in the door of the state building, war hammers swinging in desperate arches, struggling to keep the werewolves from the door.
"Hold on! We're coming!" Thorian roared, "Hold on!" The red was rising in his eyes and when a werewolf abomination turned its head and laughed at him, it was more than he could taken.
Bellowing with wordless hate, he charged the group that was turning to face him, three brindled werewolves stepping up round the abomination and something else turning with them. It looked like a werewolf but its legs were shorter, its barrel broader and its jaws heavier with muscle. Later Ulrich said they looked like wolves that had been crossed with bull mastiffs. Its lips rippled back from its fangs. That was the last thing it ever did.
Thorian crashed into the center werewolf with a mighty down stroke of his broad sword. Thorian cleaned and polished his blade but it must be said that orc crossbreed workmanship tends towards the heavy and bulky as all else has a habit of breaking in their hands. As such Thorian's blade was not so much edged as wedge shaped at its limits and not very sharp as to keep grinding it back would have been a wasted effort. That it not stop it from being totally effective when it crashed into the werewolf's skull, not so much cutting its way through the bone as smashing it asunder all the way to its pelvis. Its companions blinked, brains trying to work out what had just happened as the red dripped from their fur. They should not have hesitated.
Roaring, Thorian span, broadsword moving as if it weighed nothing at all and the werewolf mastiff mutant lost its head completely. The abomination, claws hooking towards Thorian's face, came apart at chest height while the werewolf at its side parted at the waist.
The last werewolf ducked away, snarling, trying to get round behind Thorian, claws reaching for his kidneys but Thorian turned with it and its chest caved in round his sword.
"Five to me!" Thorian yelled to Ulrich.
"Well done, old boy," Ulrich called back as Peter rippled forward, "You learnt to count."
"Hey!" Thorian yelled but Ulrich just laughed.
Trotting behind Ulrich Quenril, Tasnar and Sabal dropped to one knee in unison and leveled their crossbows. With a swift whistle the bolts speed forward, thudding into werewolf hides. The beast arched backwards, snarling and twisting, fletched shafts jutting from their hides.
Ulrich was about to let Peter have his head when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Twisting his head, he saw the werewolves crouched on the edge of the roofs on the team's left, eye bright, claws curling on the dressed stone of the parapet ready to leap.
Ulrich kneed Peter sharply in the chitin and grabbed an antenna, hauling Peter's attention round. To the centipede's credit, it saw the danger almost without hissing at its rider and understood the situation without being told. With a burst of speed, Peter scaled the front of the lore house fast enough to make the werewolves flinch back, the abomination with them snarling to bring them back in line but it didn't do much good and Peter smashed into one as he reared over the edge of the roof and pinned it under his many legs, mandibles scissoring and snapping at the beast's head, leaving it struggling to hold the bugs' jaws away from its face.
Jeremiah gestured, weaving words and gestures together as he span the spell into being and then flicked it at the werewolves facing Ulrich. The werewolves whimpered and a couple of them wet their legs as the shadows around them groaned and creaked, moaning with the voices of the damned as their writhed free of the ground, long spindle fingered hands reaching out, leaving leprous prints on anything their touched, eyes devoid of hope or mercy. The abomination lunged and twisted on its three legs, snapping and biting at the shadow things that gaped back with mouths full of the corruption of the grave.
Estella shuddered and twisted the center ring on her bracelet of emerald and gold, disappearing from sight, the talismans squeaking in worry as she vanished. They circled tight a second later as there was a wet, organic tearing sound and a pile of black, oily gloop splashed on to the paving stones. It did not, however run like water, piling up like molasses in a jar as the retching sounds continued. It swirled, consolidated, mounted up as something underneath it fought to free itself, pushed out limbs, rippled out a pair of wings over which galaxies span into decay, stretched out into a head at yawned jaws of oblivion into being and finally blinked open eyes the color of dying supernovas.
"I didn't know we were having dinner out," Valodrael grinned, his voice bubbling and purring at the same time, wings flaring wide, ravenous sounds echoing up from his belly.
With a howl, a second white wolf turned on the left side of the street launched itself at Myslynn and her guards, its flanking pack mates joining it, their claws squealing off of dwergish armor with nerve racking sounds, the mid pitched whine of iron nails dragging down a black board. Myslynn punched a werewolf on the spout as it lunged dribbling fangs at her face. Even without her heavy duty gauntlets her fist was still driven by decades of pounding glowing hot metal on anvil and her muscles had never forgotten the strength of their youth.
"Do yourself a favor laddie," Myslynn snapped as the white werewolf reeled, "Discover what breath mints are for!"
Sinbar snorted a half choked laugh at that, the sound giving him the strength to tear his eyes away from Valodrael's rippling form.
"Well you don't see that every day of the week," he muttered and lifted his flute to his lips again, a slightly different tune spilling from the instrument, a peaceful, comforting air that stroked through the air with the gentle fingers of a mother's love.
One of the werewolves stepped back from the fight with Ulrich and Peter, yawning hard enough to make its jaw click. Crouching, it padded in a circle, eyes blinking, before it curled up, tail tucked over its nose, quiet snuffling snores rising from its still form.
Estella's Talismans curved and swooped, chittering with distress, their loops wide ranging and chaotic. It was not however, totally without worth because, as they spiraled up and up, crying out for their mother, snarls echoed out on the roofs of the building on the right side of the street, a werewolf abomination slashing the air with its claws, infuriated by the little things twittering and cheeping round its head, its companions snapping at the little mouthfuls that always seemed to be just out of reach.
"Cack!" Kaelin twisted round to see them, Sinbar turning also, flute not dropping from his lips, the light, haunting melody not faltering.
Myslynn began chanting something as she wielded her hammer, her guards echoing it as they swung theirs, their swings falling into rhythm with their words, a fighting style that wasn't the act of battling ones foes but the art of hammering the reality they wanted into being. The werewolves were falling back, growling and snarling but the sting of just the glancing blows they took made them hesitate, raw aggression not matching the dwerg's steady, measured way of making war.
But if Myslynn was holding her own against the raging tide, else where it was pressing forward, surging down the wide street, leaving prints of red and splashes of dark saliva on the patterned stones. A werewolf leaped at Thorian and burst before it could even scratch him, Thorian answering howl with a roar of his own.
Ulrich, on the other hand, was not so lucky. The first wolf missed him but the second struck true, claws digging into his arm muscle deeply and raking through skin and the muscle, shredding ribbons of flesh free. Ulrich yelled and as his arm dropped the third made use of the distraction, knocking his guard wide and then slashing him, over and over again, tearing through his shirt and flaying his chest to the bone. The red misted in the air, tickling down the face of the building.
The werewolves came swarming down the front of the buildings on the right of the street, their five limbed leader and his equally distorted first mate apparently struggling with the climb, or at least that was the excuse that made the most sense as they lagged behind the others as they swung, barking and yelping, down the three layers of balconettes, the front two leaping to the pavement, unmistakable grins on their faces as they faced the turning skeletons. The first however, missed as Sinbar piped a sharp note on his flute, the skeleton twisting its bones out of the way of the clashing teeth. The second werewolf was more successful, the blow rattling the bones of the skeleton it faced.
Across the street the white werewolf slapped out at Myslynn but even in midswing with her warhammer she was able to duck, the blow grazing passed harmlessly. Whether in frustration or as a call to arms the white werewolf let loose a noise that was part howl, part roar, shaking the air around it and others of the group that was piling in at the doors of Principle Mound, turned their heads, realizing that there was available prey coming up behind them. One turned and lunged at Thorian, claws hissing through the air as its arms blurred.
"Ow!" Thorian jerked back as its claws raked down his arms, "You are not nice!"
To his left a werewolf mutant bounded down the steps of Principle Mound, bunched its muscles and launched itself in a flat dive, covering nearly thirty feet in a single leap, its front claws punching into the breastplate of one of Myslynn's body guards with the sound of sheering tin. The dwerg screamed as the beast's weight and impact bore him down, its jaws closing over his face plate. It gave way with the sound of a metal cup being crushed under foot, the bright red spurting from the sudden rents. Myslynn lifted her war hammer and screamed a war cry that darkened the air, putting off the strike of the next werewolf that launched itself at Thorian, its teeth clashing an inch from his face. Thorian chopped down through its torso like he was hewing wood, only this wood parted company at a single blow.
The two abominations reached the pavement and turned grinning on Kaelin. Kaelin let the blow stick fall from her lips, swinging Haggis round to her back as she spread her hands wide, the claws creaking as they erupted from her finger tips. The abominations struck, sweeping high, sweeping low, teeth clipping and clacking together but Kaelin was always one step ahead, a duck here, a twist there, turning to avoid their blows, crouching and hooking the leg out from under one of them. It didn't fall, as it still had two legs to catch itself with, but it did stumble, putting it into the path of its fellow abomination. It screamed as its brother's claws raked down its back and turned with a snap at its comrade in arms.
Myslynn's body guards closed ranks and swung, only this time without their tick tock rhythm, each striking out on their own and despite years of indoctrination that told the dwergs that chaos would never matched order, they managed to land a solid hit on the white werewolf, the head of a war hammer thudding into its abdomen and driving the breath from its lungs. The werewolf mutant at its side yelped as something in its shoulder crunched under a blow.
Ulrich reeled under the onslaught, his shirt a bloodied ruin, his flesh not much better. The werewolf grinned and stopped striking out. Ulrich flopped forward, splattering red along Peter's back, moaning with pain. He screamed as the werewolf sank its claws into his shoulder to haul him upright, its leering smile filling his vision as it opened its maw to bite off his face. The point of his elf made, fae gifted sword slid between its ribs almost slowly, without effort as he just pushed it in. The look of shock on its face was almost worth the burning pain flaring across the front of his chest. He let its fall twist the hilt out of his hand as the abomination threw itself at him. It did not expect Ulrich to toss his remaining sword to his right hand and strike out a neck hit just as it closed with him. Clutching its fountaining neck it tottered to the edge of the roof and tumbled over, smacking on to the slabs below with a burst of red, a stain that would never come out of the stone. Peter's scissoring mandibles kept the other werewolves at bay as Ulrich slumped on his back, trying to hold in the pain.
Sinbar piped and piped as his skeletons and the werewolves clambering down the front of the Ministry of Development clashed and battered at each other. Despite everything, one of the werewolves yawned and slumped to the floor, eyes sagging shut as the web Sinbar wove with his notes claimed it and it sank down into sleep.
The soggy step of Jeremiah's puppets sounded out as he walked forward, towards the battle, Hat buzzing on his miter. Casting an imperious gaze round, he straightened and lifted his arms, chanting words that hissed with boiling power as his fingers traced the patterns in the air. With a smile he unleashed the prayer, fingers spread wide towards Ulrich's back. Dazed with pain and building shock, Ulrich slumped forward, head resting on Peter's now sticky carapace. He winced on reflex as a wave of heat broke over him. He turned his face up, blinking with pain, puzzled by the squeals. They didn't sound like the fires of hell, the ones that his father had told him that he was destined for as he was illegitimate and therefore never worthy of entering heaven. That was because they weren't.
The smoking stump of a werewolf stood before him, everything above its waist missing, the wound a flat plateau of burnt flesh. Beside it the last werewolf on this roof span and shrieked, one side of its body a red raw mess from ear tip to waist, its eye on that side a gloopy mess that trickled down its blacken cheek.
On the street below, Jeremiah dusted his hands and nodded to himself. It wasn't quite the result he had wanted but he could feel his god's approval of the attempted murder and felt his power swell. Well, this was turning out to be a very good day. He frowned and sighed as Thorian's roar disturbed his pleasant ruminations.
Thorian had fought his way to the bottom of the steps of Principle Mound and the hairy, drooling tide was becoming more aware of the fact that he was there, more turning to face him and the one that had already attacked him tried to hold him back. Another bounded forward to join it. Thorian stepped back but only to give himself room to build up his swing. The blow didn't carve the werewolf in two, it splattered, its ribs disintegrating as its lungs burst, bone shards scattering over the stones. The second one didn't have time to rethink its charge, Thorian's sword cleaving through arm, shoulder, chest, neck, jaw, its other shoulder and finally exiting as its fall put it beyond the sweep of his blade. Thorian wasn't done, he was never done, the red filled his eyes now and all that had claws and teeth and bad attitude was a target worthy of his rage!
Thorian didn't roar, he thundered as he plunged across the steps to his left, towards the thickest part of the mob raging at the buildings door. Without breaking stride he smashed his way into the thick of them, turning his run into a spin, sword held out at arms length, weight and speed carrying it through the air with a thrumming sound that ended in the meaty crunch as a werewolf abomination parted company from the greater part of itself. The werewolf beside it splattered seconds before a second abomination fell apart, squealing as it did so. The second werewolf raked at Thorian and lost both arms above the elbow, its howls echoing off the stone of the buildings flanking the boulevard as it collapsed, writhing, into a spreading sea of red. A werewolf mutant, reared on to its hind legs, heavy jaws snapping at Thorian and lost its head for its pains. Thorian slowed to a stop, sword tip drooping and he collapsed to one knee, lungs heaving as he tried to find his breath, the red fading a little as his body fought to keep up with the demands he was asking of it. For a moment the werewolves didn't try to attack, those still standing that weren't struggling with other foes hesitating, a wariness in their eyes as they swayed back and forth, trying to decide if this was a rouse to get them to come within arms length.
Back down the street, Lady Zilvra's brothers and their cousin, took careful aim, praying to whatever gods were left to them that they didn't sign their death warrants with this shot. The bolts zipped upwards, hissing between Ulrich and the werewolf still on the roof. It stepped back, snarling, glaring murderously at them out of its one eye.
Myslynn's guards drove the werewolves back, war hammers swinging as they refound their unifying rhythm.
At the door of the Principle Building, the guards were flagging with fatigue, the raging fight having sapped their strength, as had the weight of their over done armor, only the booming voice of their lord keeping them on their feet and united. With a yell one of them managed to dredge up enough energy to launch a mighty swing that smashed a werewolf's leg out from under it. It fell with a squeal and rolled to get up again, hampered by its dangling leg. A second guard didn't give it the chance, mashing its skull into the floor in a bright burst of red.
The white werewolf leading the pack at the door snarled, twisting and raking blows aside.
Back down the street Kaelin faced the two abominations a low snarl in her throat. They all jumped at the same time. Kaelin felt a claw snag her sleeve but it failed to ripe flesh. Her own claws drew a pretty pattern of gouges across their faces but it wasn't a frenzied attack. A scratch and a duck under they blow. A gouge and a kick to the midriff to keep them from cornering her. A gash and an elbow applied to a rib, hard enough for the wheeze of forced breath. A split nostril and a blow to a fang hard enough for it to jump out of the jaw. The abominations stepped back, a bloodied wariness in their gazes. Kaelin sucked breath after breath through her nose and then she grinned, the beast in that gaze as her hands lifted in the fighters ready stance but with fingers half crocked, claws lacquered red. Gods, it felt good for her and the beast to be in agreement, human and monster working as one.
"That's one thing civilization gives you that Grandfather wouldn't boys," she grinned, "And that's the knowing of when to use that anger. It's called control."
There was the rushing hiss of surging water as Valodrael speed up the side of the buildings on the left side of the street, tongue unraveling. The burnt werewolf's mad twisting saved it as Valodrael's dead star fangs clashed together unfulfilled but the Void Dragon wasn't done yet. Loving words of power rumbled up his long throat, bubbling into reality, making it creak as black squid tentacles writhed up from the floor and lashed at the werewolf, snapping round neck, wrist, ankle, knee, wrapping it in strangling holds. It screamed at the touch but that simply could have been pressure being put on its injuries. Valodrael grinned and ran his tongue, the color of nightmares over his lips.
"I gained rather a taste for your kind back at the citadel," he purred, stepping between the struggling werewolf and the gasping Ulrich, "So kind of you to provide another tit bit for my pleasure."
Down on the street Jeremiah imperiously turned to Nanny Tatter's.
"You," he sneered, "You are a dragon are you not? Then prove it. There is your target, breath on it." The one eyed, skinless zombied dragon lolled her head around and some how focused on the sleeping form of the werewolf that Sinbar had put too sleep before it could attack Kaelin. She padded towards it, heedless of the dirt ground into her skinless feet. Her mouth opened and the air rattled.
Sinbar's flute fell from his lips as his eyes opened wide. He stepped back, fingers clutching a small amulet of a four armed god, a whispered pray falling from his lips.
The air rattled.
The werewolves fighting Sinbar's skeletons went to take advantage of their suddenly mechanical foes and then turned their heads, realizing something was amiss.
The air rattled.
The two abominations turned and the grin faded from Kaelin's face, her scruff standing up so hard her skin hurt.
The air rattled.
Nanny Tatter's wasn't breathing out, she was breathing in. The air rattled and the sleeping werewolf's fur rippled as it turned white and then went thin and brittle. The air rattled and the weight fell off the werewolf's bones, its skin wrinkling, its eyelids falling in, lips peeling back from its teeth as the flesh shrank. The air rattled and the bones of its finger tips emerged as the flesh peeled back. Estella appeared, her talismans clustering to her, shivering with horror as she gazed in horror at the shriveling werewolf, her hand moving in a protective gesture, a whispered pray falling from her lips.
The air rattled. The werewolf's fur fell out on mass as its skin turned to dust, the last of its sinews creaking as they parted company, its bones crumbling to the pavement until all that was left was its tarnished fangs that clattered in a small circle.
The rattling stopped.
Kaelin let out a shaky breath, shivers running up and down her spine. Several of the werewolves round her whining with fear but Kaelin was busy looking at Jeremiah's diabolical grin. They were losing control here, of that she was sure but then Nanny Tatters turned and padded back to her master and Kaelin bit down on the need to scream. The Crone Dragon was no longer the pink and white anatomy diagram she remembered, there seemed to be a membrane stretched tight over the exposed musculature. It was thin, almost see through, certainly Jeremiah seemed to miss the fact that it was there but she could see it. It was almost as if... as if Nanny Tatters was healing. Kaelin clamped down on the urge to wet herself but the sharp, acid tang she detected on the breeze told her that she was possibly the only one of the wolves that managed to.
Unfortunately for it, the burnt werewolf that was facing Ulrich and Valodrael had not witnessed Nanny Tatters devouring its pack mates life force so when it heaved itself free of the clinging tentacles of night Valodrael had pinned it with the werewolf immediately attacked the source of its most resent pain. Valodrael just grinned as the werewolf clawed and bit and punched at him, the gashes its claws inflicted closing at once, its jaws clashing on liquid night and it would have had more success trying to punch holes in water.
The white werewolf leading the pack that had tried to bring down Myslynn, the last white werewolf in the battle, stepped back again, a sudden weariness in its eyes. It was obvious that the packs had not expected a resistance this determined or this successful. Broken, soggy masses of fur and rupture tissue lay scattered across the boulevard, leaking red into the stones and it could smell the musty, dusty mildewed wrongness of Nanny Tatters and the sharp, freezing promise that was Valodrael. It jumped back from a war hammer blow on reflex and turned, dashing away towards the face of the building on the end of the row to the left of the street. Another of Myslynn's guard struck out at it but it already had its momentum building and his swing was mistimed, missed and it was only with considerable effort that he pulled it up so that instead of crunching into his comrade's chest it glanced of his helmet instead, making it ring like a bell.
"Oi!" the dwerg with the ringing hat snapped, "Watch it, you stump lover!" He struck out at the werewolf mutant trying to follow its leader as he said it but still seeing double, the blow merely cracked a paving slab. However, the mutant tripped over the haft of his war hammer and before it could rise, Myslynn jammed the tube of the device she had used earlier against its skull. She pulled the lever again. The bark of a dozen thunder claps rolled into one roared out and the werewolf mutant's head burst like an over ripe pumpkin struck by a sledgehammer. Thorian was fairly sure he saw an eyeball fly off in one direction while its opposite ear went the other way.
Up on the roof Valodrael gaped, his jaws hinging like the mouth of a constrictor snake and struck. Ulrich watched in a daze of pain as Valodrael's head shook back and forth, the lower half of a werewolf jutting from his jaws kicking its feet savagely as its hands scrabbled for a grip. Seeing as its upper arms were pinned to its sides by Valodrael's throat, it was really struggling.
Ulrich blinked, not understanding as the werewolf's head bulged up through the back of Valodrael's, like a mask being pressed through a sheet of black and shiny rubber. Its jaws stretched wide in a silent scream.
Valodrael gulped again, throat working like an owl chick trying to swallow a whole lemming in one go. Now the werewolf's arms were pinned down to its wrists, its kicking legs twisting Valodrael's head back and forth, its agonized, imprisoned face straining down Valodrael's neck, its features becoming softer like a creature trapped in a caustic oil slick. It was still screaming that silenced howl of pain.
Valodrael's jaws shuffled, a egg eater snake concentrating on gulping down an ostrich egg whole. His head bobbed up and down as his meal shifted down his throat. With a final flick the werewolf's feet disappeared. Valodrael sucked in a couple of breathes and then his meal seemed to settle properly and an appreciative sound churned through his form.
Down in the street, the two werewolf abominations growled as the white werewolf howled a call. One of them lifted a claw to slash out one last strike at Kaelin. Turned out to be its last mistake. Kaelin knocked its blow aside with her forearm, punched its snort with her other fist, and grabbed the loose skin over its clavicle, twisting her claws into the flesh. Hand open, fingers making a claw edged chisel, her hand drove into its throat under its chin. Kaelin waited a beat and then pulled her fingers free, a ribbon of blood hanging in the air for a moment between them and then Kaelin pushed the body away and the ribbon snapped. Its pack mate turned and fled across the street, following the white werewolf, the last two werewolves standing in its part of the pack following. As the werewolves passed Myslynn's guards one of them struck out and caught the abomination in the middle, driving the breath from its lungs and putting it on its knees. It never got the chance to rise, another guard mashing its head to the pavement with final crack.
At the doors of Principle Mound, the exhausted guards struck out one final time as what was left of the werewolves, turned and fled, following the summoning howl of their white leader, claws scrabbling on stone as their scaled the face of the building on the end of the row, leaving bloodied, claw fingered, prints on the cornices. They disappeared over the edge of the roof and disappeared but then the howls rang out, just out of sight, the battered pack calling out to more of its kind.
Kaelin shook her head and flicked the blood off the ends of her fingers before bending down and wiping them on the hide of the werewolf abomination at her feet.
"You fight like chickens but without the courage!" Jeremiah bellowed after them, "I've seen puddings with more back bone than you!" The howling just continued but there did seem something desperate about it, as if they were trying to block out his words. Jeremiah scowled and cupped his hands round his mouth.
"I'D CALL YOU TOOLS BUT THAT IMPLIES YOU'RE USEFUL!" The howling faltered a moment.
Kaelin shook her head but then she thought about it. If Jeremiah provoked them into attacking again before they were fully ready, then they could mopped this up right now. She looked round the once pristine street. Once pristine was definitely the over active words in that sentence and they could definitely use a mop, some of those stains were never coming out. That was the only problem with a war hammer, it made any even bigger mess than a sword usually did.
She looked round to see the knot of guards coming undone at the doors of Principle Mound. Some of them simple sat down where they stood, exhaustion evident in every limb. They lord stepped forward, revealing himself to be Mister Shouty from the council meeting earlier. Even in his full armor and face plate helmet his shock was obvious. His steps were slow and his head kept tracking back forth, the hands on his war hammer unsteady.
"Here..." he whispered and Kaelin was sure only her wolf hearing enabled her to hear it, "Here... An attack here... In the Holys... the center of order..." Despite all his bluster and bombast, now he was faced with the foundations of his world being kicked for the second time that day, his mind was being to slip its wheels.
"Nah," Thorian reassured, straightening up, swaying on the spot, "It's fine... We sorted the baskets out... Nothing to it... Done it before... Just need to clean them up before the ker... the bugs... the light bug... things... turn up." He collapsed, his fall cushioned by the cooling back of a very dead werewolf. The Shouty Lord actually started forward and then a rattling snore echoed up from where Thorian lay, shaking the air with its resonance. The Shouty Lord stopped, looking around, confusion plain, even through the face plate.
Kaelin catch his eye and she nodded, once, but it was a nod of respect. He had started forward. A tiny crack of concern had wormed its way in there and that deserved respect. Not much but some at least.
With a rattling scrap of many legs, Peter crawled down the side of the buildings Ulrich clinging on out of reflex as he leaked and dripped red, Valodrael padding along close beside him, a look of concern in his supernova eyes. Ulrich was reeling in his seat and hardly seemed aware of his surroundings, not even noticing that Valodrael had retrieved the sword he had left stuck in a werewolf, nor the fact that a werewolf's disintegrating face seemed to be repeatedly swelling under Valodrael's hide only to be sucked under again. They reached the street level and Ulrich wilted, a drought afflicted plant.
"My dear Ulrich," Jeremiah bustled over, ignorant of the new interest in Nanny Tatter's eye, "My dear, dear Ulrich, is there anything I can do?"
"If you can stop the pain," Ulrich mumbled, the black haze in his head blocking out the recognition of who he was talking to. A very small, very dim part of his mind was yelling at him to shut the hell up, that the concerned voice was not to be trusted further than it could be thrown but that part was small and far away and rapidly shrinking, in fact everything seemed to be shrinking. Everything seemed to be getting so much further away. It was so dark and so cold. Ulrich wasn't sure were he was any more, there seemed to be nothing above him, nothing below him and then something moved in the void. Something long and scaly and vast. An eye opened, massive in its proportions, stunning in the malevolent intelligence that stirred behind it.
"So there you are, little Ulrich Brekka." The voice was inside him as much as without him and his soul quailed at the touch of that voice, an animal urge trying to drive him to run but there was no where to run to. It was not Valodrael but it held the same resonance and he knew for certain that Jeremiah hadn't been lying when he called his god the Great Dragon and this dragon wasn't kind. Its stared at him, weighing up his value and... then released him.
Ulrich sat up straight on Peter's back and looked around, the iron stink of battle surrounding him and his shirt pulling and tugging where the blood had stuck it to the hairs on his chest. He looked down and saw the bright pink mass of scar tissue criss-crossing his skin though the ragged tatters of his coat and shirt.
"Ruddy beggars have utterly ruined that," he took hold of the cloth and gritted his teeth. He yanked the rags free, biting down on the squeak as a fair amount of body hair was yanked with it, the cloth stiff with rapidly drying blood.
"Well I suppose I owe you a big thank you, old boy," Ulrich looked up at Jeremiah.
"Thank my god, good Ulrich, it was from him the power came," Jeremiah smiled, inclining his head, Hat buzzing mightily to hold his miter in place.
Ulrich's eyes widened as behind Jeremiah a shadow billowed into existence, a dragon's wings stretching wide as an unholy glow, filtered through fangs as long as spears.
The touch on his arm made him jump a mile.
"My dear Ulrich," Jeremiah smiled with oil dripping in every inch, "Are you feeling alright? You have gone most pale."
"Yeah," Ulrich swallowed, the shadow of the dragon having vanished between one blink and the next, "Yeah much better. Just a little... shock." He shivered, fighting to suppress it. Just what had he made a bargain with? He frowned, looking around him.
"Do you hear that?" he asked.
"Dear, dear Ulrich," Jeremiah chided gentle, "You are confused. That is to be expected, when you were almost dead today."
Valodrael rumbled his descent to that statement, unable to articulate the words around the mouthful of sword blade.
"Oh, I say good chap, careful with that," Ulrich smiled and reached out a hand. He took hold of the hilt but held still, letting Valodrael unclamp his fangs from around it.
"Thank you," Valodrael nodded, "I didn't much fancy having a sliced tongue. As for what you think you are hearing..."
"I hear it too," Kaelin called from the other side of the street, her head turning this way and that.
"Now Kaelin," Jeremiah frowned, "It is unfair to reinforce a delusion."
"It isn't a delusion," Valodrael boiled, "Look! You ridiculous little man." A talon, a six inch long filleting knife of a digit, pointed.
The smaller pebbles of the shattered paving slabs were jumping, jumping in a steady, unified rhythm that bounced them up and down.
Kaelin stepped back, her hair rising as larger and larger stones joined in. At the doors of Principle Mound, the dwerg guards scrambled to their feet, war hammers raising as the howls of the unseen pack rose to an ecstatic height.
Valodrael flowed across the street to coil beside Estella as she whimpered as the things stomped into view. His head swung to hiss, low and dreadful as move werewolves and their twisted kin suddenly lined the edges of the roofs.
The others were torn between staring at the werewolves clustering on the heights and the pair of things that had stomped into view flanking the doors of Principle Mound. The things turned their heads to look right back, they huge yellow eyes, glaring with an intelligence all the more terrifying than just bestial cunning. They were massive, shoulders level with the second floor of the buildings around them, thick back legs like bent tree trunks, the skin scaly like a lizard, the talons more like the feet of a giant running bird than either a wolf or a dragon. Their backs were level, their massive barrels balanced by a thick tail that smashed windows with every twitch. Their thick arms and articulated hands looked capable of reaching the floor but they were carried clear in a bipedal gait. On the end of massive necks, lupine heads larger than anything natural, turned as their jaws grinned, huge ears perking forward at the sight of prey. A tall crest of grey fur ran from between their ears all the way to their tail tips.
"Oh Grandfather," Kaelin muttered, "What the hell have you done this time?"
