Fogstep slowed to a walk, his sides heaving under my legs. I decided against spurring him on, giving him a break from the steady canter we'd held for an uncountable time. I was just as sore as he, having ridden off and on since daybreak. Be I walking him through a marsh or cantering through an open field, we had been traveling literally all day. My gray's gasps came in visible puffs, frosty gray in the chill night air. Night had fallen about an hour ago, and we now found ourselves plodding along through a dense forest. It was not so thick, though, that the night sky was obscured. Which I appreciated-the stars likened themselves unto the shrapnel of a diamond's explosion on a velvety blue canvas. Beautiful to anyone's eyes, even my unlearned ones. Here and there brown clumps of cloud floated in indifferent abandon, promising a possible rain later on in the night. I allowed myself and Fogstep a quiet moment of self-appreciation. We had traveled from Minas Tirith to Isengard, almost a five hundred-mile trip, in only a month. For a moment I almost convinced myself that I was the fleetest messenger under Denethor's rule.
My moment of pride was swiftly forgotten when my attention came to an oddly silvered cloud.
My heart jumped to my throat. Sensing my sudden terror, Fogstep sped to a nervous trot. Looking ahead, I saw the very crown of Isengard's tower above the treetops. I was too close. That cloud would move any moment. Fast as my pony was, I would be even faster. There was no way I could get either of us away in time. I should have departed at night a month ago, gotten a good look at the moon before I accepted this foolhardy trophy quest! Only one thing I could do now...
The cloud shifted, releasing more shafts of moonlight.
Feeling the blood pulse in my temples, I rather sharply pulled Fogstep to a stop, causing him to toss his head up in indignant query. Shaking with adrenaline, I half fell off my horse and smacked Fogstep's dappled arse. Giving a snort of indignant surprise, he bolted. As my vision fogged with red, the last conscious image before my eyes his galloping flanks. Such an energetic sign of retreat turned my blood to fire, my instinct urging me to give chase. Despite my feverish eagerness, I suddenly felt nauseous, wobbling and toppling onto the unforgivingly damp leaf litter.
I felt myself become an abomination.
Saruman stormed down the stairs from Orthanc's crown. He bitterly regretted using the roof as Gandalf's wallless cell. Things had been going so well, he had sensed it. Gandalf had been on the brink of succumbing to his will. Why did that wizard have to be so infuriatingly resourceful? Of all the people to have Eagles for allies...
When a sniveling orc came up to him and bowed his face almost to the floor, the wizard was in such a mood that he almost smote him on the spot. But his cooler side won over, and convinced him that something important is to be told if an orc would come all the way up here to tell him something. Most of the time they were not permitted past the front gates, let alone this high up the tower.
"Speak, you twit!" snapped Saruman, his frustration at losing Gandalf bleeding into his tone. He should have taken more precautions! If he could have broken that foolish wizard, he would have been a formidable ally. But now Saruman's secret was out, and now it would only be a matter of time before news of his betrayal spread. The orc flinched in awe of the wizard, unaware of the anger festering within.
"There is a great trouble below, sire," he stammered, eyes darting nervously as if he was torn between not wanting to be the bearer of bad news and not wanting to be punished for withholding information.
"What kind of trouble?" demanded Saruman, tiring of the orc's clumsy respect. The blood in wizard and orc alike ran cold at the next note.
A pure, powerful howl, long and clear and primal.
"Rally the Uruk-Hai." ordered Saruman flatly, storming past so that his underling couldn't see the fear in his eyes.
"But they are rallied-" insisted the orc, but Saruman was already rushing down the stairs with a fleetness one wouldn't expect in such an elder. He was peering out the door in five minutes, but he couldn't have gotten there fast enough. By then the wolf was really on a roll.
He saw it across the workyards, on the precipice of one of the chasms that concealed his war factories. Even from this far away he could hear its infuriated roars and see the hulking furred creature, silhouetted in the moonlight as it ripped the oncoming bipedal figures to shreds. Idiots-they would be much more useful marching on Minas Tirith than throwing themselves against an unquenchable hunger such as this. Not to mention what other damage it could cause to whatever other vital factories it could find.
This was just going to be one of those days, wasn't it?
Casting a basic teleportation in his head, Saruman rushed through the magic without thinking and suddenly found himself directly behind the animal. Though his dominant logical side screamed at the uncharacteristically bad idea, he found himself in awe for a frozen moment, one soon forgotten in the oncoming pandemonium.
As if time had become sluggish, he beheld it turning slowly towards him. Perfectly rippled muscles blanketed in shaggy brown fur. A long, bloodied muzzle crinkled in a snarl, revealing sublimely chiseled fangs tainted with crimson. Reaching digits with long claws sharp enough to befit that of a mountain cat rather than a canine. Lurid blood and gore splattered on its chest and arms where it had taken blows and given executions. But those eyes, burning embers of orange with pupils dilated almost to the point of nonexistence. Those eyes that contained all the rage and ferocity of generations of werewolves, the eyes that knew nothing but three words.
Hunt.
Crush.
Kill.
It lunged at him, ending the magical instant to Saruman's unprecedented dismay. But fortunately for him, his reflexes still worked while he was busy marvelling at the monster that was about to dice him. Swinging his staff up and out, he clobbered the beast upside the head with the staff's mace-like head, sending the monster reeling and giving him time to back up to a safe range. Turning from the limited forces of working orcs and Uruk-Hai it had been merrily bashing moments earlier, the werewolf now turned its attention to a new, more promising opponent.
Saruman felt like his innards had been spilled from his corpse already.
Squelching his inner fear, Saruman regarded this threat with a glacial look in his obsidian eyes. Raising his staff, he muttered under his breath, voice composed and confident even as the beast charged toward him at a terrifying speed. At the last moment the wizard's eyes flared with light, and the milky orb in his staff unleashed a torrent of white hot ribbons on the wolf.
Sidestepping, Saruman let its momentum carry the beast past him as it shrieked in pain. Claws tearing the earth, the wolf skidded to a halt, entire swathes of fur smoldering as if live coals had kindled in his pelt. It struggled to its feet, a guttural growl rising in its massive chest. But before he could prepare himself another spell, the werewolf sprinted towards Saruman and caught him off guard, using all four legs to launch himself at the wizard. At the last moment it pounced up, giving him a much-needed alternative.
Ducking and stabbing his staff up, Saruman flinched at the sudden volume as the creature bellowed in agony directly above him. Pushing it off of his staff, Saruman hastily backed away again as it struggled to its paws. While a stab from a wizard's staff would have ended any lesser creature, only silver would finish this beast. Wobbling slightly from the intensity of the wound, it regarded Saruman with a new glaze of pain overcasting those luminous orange eyes. Saruman realized now that drastic measures were necessary, and racked his brain for the spell of Mordor that would suspend the animal long enough for him to get the right metal to finish it. But it was up again, and before he could react it lashed out once more.
He cried out in equal parts pain, surprise and outrage as the wolf's fangs ripped Saruman's arm open to the bone. Ex-pristine white sleeve tattered and bloody, Saruman yanked it back and held it gingerly, staring at it in horror as he ogled the incredible amount of red. Sweeping his tail and hind legs around, the wolf cleverly tripped Saruman, causing the wizard to wince as he back hit the ground hard. Then he was staring into the maw of the beast, frothing slightly and sporting fangs that glistened with doom. He braced himself, at least glad in a way that he wouldn't have to live with the curse of lycanthropy...
Thok.
Choking a little, the beast collapsed, knocking the breath out of him with its weight.
Pushing the corpse off of him with a frantic strength he didn't usually possess, Saruman scrambled up, breathing heavily as he looked down at the suddenly limp animal. An arrow had run right through the creature's skull, yet it snored peacefully with scarcely a twitch of the lip. Saruman looked behind him, scanning for the perpetrator amongst the milling crowd. An Uruk-Hai, shaking slightly, clutched a bow and gulped as the other troops gave him a wide berth. Saruman nodded and gestured at his savior, trying to retain his authority.
"You, there," he rasped, voice slightly hoarse from the raw terror of his close encounter. "How did you put him out?"
"Lead mixed with fool's gold," grated the soldier, looking down at a small bag clenched in his fist. "Dreadfully poisonous, sir. And that was a right bull's-eye. Do you reckon the brute's dead?"
"I'm afraid not," replied Saruman, trying not to react himself as the other orcs chattered uneasily. "Only silver can kill a werewolf, especially such a specimen as this. But the human side of him could be an important figure that will be missed if we dispose of this...anomaly. Take him out into the woods, track him to the place where he transformed. Leave him there, but put him in shade so that he'll revert back to human instead of waking up and going on another rampage."
Waving his good hand to dismiss the soldier, the wizard watched nonchalantly as the Uruk-Hai yelled at three other soldiers to help him with the wolf's body. Before they could touch it, Saruman hurriedly crouched down by the wolf's limp corpse. He couldn't remember which was the key ingredient, so he grabbed a handful of fur in one hand and yanked out a fang with the other, mildly wondering in the back of his mind if the human side of it would miss its tooth. He arose smoothly, casting a cool gaze over his shoulder as they heaved the body into a cart turned gurney. Turning his head dismissively as if there was nothing wrong, Saruman strode back to the tower, cradling his drying arm and watching it anxiously as if it already had claws. His very bone ached as if even it had been scathed by the wolf's assault, and his open veins protested painfully with every pulse of his heart. The stupid messenger orc from before came up by his side, hustling to keep up with the human's longer strides.
"Do you need me to help you dress that up, sire?" he asked, bowing his ridiculous bow again. Saruman snatched his arm back closer to him, glaring at the orc as it shied away from the wizard's wrath.
"No," he retorted, striding into the tower again. "Away with you!" This was bad, terribly bad. He could cleanse the wound with holy water, but he felt that it was too late for that. The curse was already in his system. He had to dig up that antidote brew, before the next full moon sealed his fate. Where could it possibly be? Was it within a month's ride of Isengard? How would he manage to cure himself while juggling his new duties as a double-agent?
Today there is another werewolf in Middle-Earth, one that roams Fangorn every full moon and terrorizes Isengard. Its pelt is snowy white, bespeckled with black, and its eyes are as dark and glossy as fresh obsidian from the livid volcanoes of Mordor.