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-Chase-
For the glory of the Father, the Mother, and the hunt, she thought as the dragon died, screaming, with her fangs in its fleshy throat.
Long after its final throes had ceased, Chase stood two-legged over its corpse, smiling her red smile. "Your flesh is mine," she whispered. "Your blood is mine. Your life is mine." Dragonblood remained in her mouth and upon her tongue even after she changed; and as she did with all her prey, she savoured the bittersweet taste of its life's crimson.
It had been a struggle. The lair of the creature now displayed all the signs of one. Blood was painted across the bone-strewn floor. Vast cracks ran up the ice walls. The rows of icicles that had formed on the ceiling had been broken and shattered. Now the frozen cave was silent once more, but for the noises the bandits made as they searched for worthy treasure.
They believe themselves to have earned it. Chase watched them, still smiling. Even Amos. Despite his fear of the creatures, the Redguard had been one of the five warriors Gramu had selected to join in the dragon hunt. He was still alive to tell the tale; he stood across the cave, running his fingers along a fragment of the beast's discarded skin.
It had been how she'd hurt it before—this kind of dragon had a hide like a serpent's, and apparently shed it accordingly. Its skin had still been fresh and new the day she encountered it in the wilds; it was still soft and vulnerable, though notably tougher, when Chase returned to its lair with a pack in tow.
She'd found Gramu and before the entire clan she explained where she'd been all day and announced her proposal of raiding the lair of a dragon—infamous hoarders of treasure, she reminded them, and exaggerated it to wind the bandits up. It didn't take them long to lose interest in her and the supposed punishment their chieftain intended to inflict upon her for disobeying his orders—again. Even the chieftain had been intrigued at the thought.
It took him three days to make his final decision, but of course he was for the idea. A wounded dragon was easier to kill than a whole and hale one, he'd declared, and that was when Chase knew he was sold. He's gluttonous for more than war, she'd thought in triumph. So he chose five bandits—Amos and four fools she didn't care to know—and the next day had her lead them into the lonehold and to the dragon's lair. Fresh snow had fallen in the time Gramu had delayed, but in her wolven skin, not even veiled scents were missed.
As evening fell they came to the lair at last and found the dragon resting, but fully awake, within. Battle had begun at once; it knew why they were here, and recognized her, and wordlessly had launched an elemental attack that instantly froze one of Gramu's warriors. The dragon's wounds to its underbelly and leg had healed somewhat, but still harried it throughout the fight—yet never had Chase met a fiercer opponent. She found herself seriously doubting wounded dragons were any easier to kill than unwounded ones, for this was a dragon that exceeded estimation.
It could breathe both fire and ice, become invulnerable for brief but crucial moments, and shatter armour with three whispered words. That was how a second bandit had died; he was struck with purple energy cast from its maw that turned metal as brittle as eggshell, and was promptly snapped in half with one sweep of its tail.
The fight continued, three human warriors and a werewolf against one wounded dragon. Chase never would have imagined such difficulty killing the injured beast, but wounded predators were infinitely more dangerous. It was especially ferocious, furious even, as though the impertinence of these mortals had done it some personal insult. It was Gramu that dealt the first game-changing blow; his axe cleaved clean through the joint on its wing, crippling the entire limb. From then, it weakened continuously throughout the fight. Though its breath attacks remained something to beware, they came less often.
And so eventually, working together like a pack, they drove the beast into submission—another bandit died in this attempt—but Chase was the one who slipped through the dragon's weakening defense and administered the final killing blow. Her fangs tore easily through the scales yet to toughen, and the dragon writhed beneath her as she prayed.
So had ended the battle, in victory, yet Chase was not fully contented. A pack indeed succeeded against a krag-nalihr, but something is missing. This does not feel as right as it should. Was it because she'd wounded it before she and her pack came after it? Did she need to convince the clan to pursue a healthy, whole dragon, to prove to the wolves that even two-legged hunters, who were far weaker, were capable of slaying the krag-nalihr when they came together?
She growled and shook her head in growing frustration. Before she thought she knew, and she'd been so sure—now she wasn't, and doubted her choice. I may have just wasted my time.
"Hey, dog!" She snapped around at the bandit's call. "Where's the treasure you promised us?"
A soft growl rumbled deep in her throat. I am no dog on a leash. She stalked to him, and his self-assured smile faltered at the danger he sensed in her. He stepped back and threw up his weapon, which she easily tore from his grasp, and flung the burly Nord against the wall as echoes of the wolf's strength thrummed beneath her skin.
"Chase!" Amos ran over. "What the hell are you doing?"
"You heard him," she growled without turning around. "You heard what he said."
The bandit struggled back to his feet with a bewilderedly furious expression. "She gone rabid or something?" he shouted.
"Just have a care what you name her," Amos advised. "She's been a…little sensitive about that lately."
Chase glared at him, and was satisfied to see him visibly flinch. Perhaps my eyes are bronze to him. "I will not tolerate anything less than what I deserve," she warned. You will not so easily make me forget the spirit in me again. She looked back at her victim. "Call me that once more, and you will see your entrails in your arms before you even saw me tear you in half."
Only when she was satisfied with the bandit's newfound fear did she turn away, giving his fallen weapon a scornful kick. Like a pup to its mother's teat.
"He had a point, though," Amos said, walking with her. "About the treasure."
Chase curled her lip. "So I was wrong about it."
"No—you lied about it." Amos gestured furiously around the lair. "You said you saw treasure. You claimed to have seen the glint of gold and precious stones with your own eyes—I see nothing but ice and bones and the fetid remains of its last meal!"
She scowled at him. "You lowly humans and your lust for shiny things."
Amos shook his head. "No, this is about the bloody reward for killing that monster—and your deception. You've been like this, distant and defiant, ever since that damned wolf showed up."
Chase answered softly. "You will not speak of my alpha like that again."
"I'll speak of him as I damn well please, d—" He began to say it, then wisely remembered, abandoned, and continued. "He told you something, didn't he? He gave you some orders and now you're fulfilling them out."
She smiled wryly at his presumption. No orders were given but to remind these mortal fools that I am no bloodhound, I am the hunter among hunters, and I am the wolf that kills easier than she breathes. "You have ended a dragon," she said. "Are you not satisfied?"
"I didn't kill the bloody thing for glory!"
"You didn't kill it at all."
Amos narrowed his eyes. "No, I didn't…you did. And you were the one who suggested it. You convinced us all that this lair had something worth taking; you wanted us to come here and kill—to help you kill—this monstrosity. Now how does this further the mysterious plot you've been playing since that wolf paid you a visit?"
Chase laughed. Humans are so petty! "Wolves do not bother with plots or secrecy," she answered. "When we want something, everyone knows of it! We solve our problems with death and blood—every new alpha has killed his last before the eyes of the entire pack! Should we ever be dissatisfied we fight for satisfaction or submit in shame at the source of our dissent! Deception is but a negligible matter with wolves—we do not play that trifling game."
"But humans do, and they are good at it," Amos answered coldly, "and what I think you have forgotten is that you aren't wholly wolf—there's human in you as well, and humans are quite capable of lying and cheating to further their own desires at the expense of those around them—and all those who do are despicable."
"You think I care for your opinion?" Chase whirled on him and he recoiled, instantly wary. "There are only two voices in this world that have sway over me, whose words and thoughts for me count for anything at all, and you are most certainly not one of them."
As Amos opened his mouth to answer, a great shattering of ice sounded.
The argument forgotten, Chase sought the source of the noise at once, and found it just as quickly; Gramu, standing in one frozen corner of the cavern, pulled back his axe from where he'd cleaved clean into the gleaming wall. Splinters lay all around him, crunching beneath his boots as wordlessly he drew himself back and swung his weapon into the wall once again.
"Gramu!" shouted Amos above the second surge of cracking. "What in Oblivion are you doing?"
The Warglutton appeared to have no answer but to heft his axe around a third time and smash it into the ice wall with another deafening crack. When this was done he cast his weapon aside, dropped to his knees, and reached into the three deep ruptures he'd set into the wall. He pulled, the frozen segment he'd crudely carved cracking and splintering with the effort, until at last the chunk of ice surrendered to his greater strength and was torn from the wall.
Panting a little, Gramu pushed himself back to his feet—the fruit of his labours, a large chunk of the wall, rested in his arms.
"There is treasure here," the Warglutton announced, "but not the kind we expected!"
He then raised the slab of ice above his head—and that was when Chase saw what was imprisoned beneath the gleaming rime, what Gramu had been blunting his axe to attain.
And some inner part of her instantaneously made everything she'd known make perfect sense.
"Wait!" she roared, but her cry came too late; the ice block was hurled and smashed upon the floor.
Gramu smiled, immensely satisfied. "No wonder she was so fierce. What a prize she guarded."
Chase started forward, then stopped in surprise. The ice had broken and scattered with the force of impact, yet what had been contained within rested quite intact upon the floor, surrounded by the ruins of its holding; a ridged and patterned oval the size of a small boulder.
A dragon's egg.
"Stendarr's mercy," Amos swore, gaping at the thing.
Gramu walked over to it and quite easily lifted it off the ground, though he needed both his hands to support it however he held it. "No gold," he said, studying its glittering shell, "no jewels…but there was one precious stone she protected, and from her we have won. This!" He raised the egg above his head to admire it from all angles. "This is the wealth of our victory."
Chase stared at it hungrily. Oh yes it is. A dragon's egg…an invaluable item, a prize without price, and perhaps what she'd unknowingly been searching for. It will be useful. I need it. I don't know why yet, but I need it. It was an instinct in her, and in her an incessant want for the egg was seeding. Shirju may know what best to do with it…but a dragon's egg…the offspring of our enemy…
A plan burst into life in her mind. We could hatch it. We could take the egg and hatch it ourselves—it will drink the milk of wolves, and from then its loyalty will be bound to us. We will raise it to be a hunter among hunters…and when the other packs see what we have accomplished…when we demonstrate that we can make even dragons bend to our will…dragons kill their own kind as readily as men and wolves kill theirs. We will train it to hunt for us, hunt its own kind…
It was a strange and flawed and even quite an outrageous plan, but one that in the instant of her epiphany, she was certain would work. I must have the egg. It is not Gramu's. A far more primal edge to her was stirring in her soul. He did not kill the dragon, after all. He did not kill its guardian, its mother—it was I who tracked her to her lair, and I who delivered the killing blow. It is the law of the hunt; I am the hunter and that is my prize.
"I don't see how that's worth anything," said the bandit who Chase did not care to know. "It's just an egg."
"Idiot," Gramu snapped. "Don't you realize what we could do if we had a dragon of our own? We could do more than ambush and slaughter unwary travellers, barely scraping by a profit. We'd be burning towns to dust."
Chase curled her lip. That is not what will happen to that egg. "You can't trust in that," she snarled. "Dragons show no loyalty whatsoever to any they consider below them—and any who are not immortal are just that."
The bandit chieftain turned to her. "Not if we raise it."
"You won't raise it," Chase growled. "I killed its mother. By all rights, that egg is mine."
Gramu started to laugh. "What is this—finally, after so many announcements that you care nothing for the profit and only the blood, greed has grasped your hard wolven heart? I can see it in your eyes. You want this." He brandished the egg. "You want it so desperately, you need it, and you're prepared to kill to satisfy your avarice and take it for your own. I know that well. It's the black and thriving soul of banditry, and it only took a dead dragon and the sight of its unborn offspring in the form of a shining stone to waken it in you."
Chase snarled, her skin itching—she was but moments away from transformation. I will not stand to be mocked by the likes of you, Warglutton. "Give it here. You have no right to that egg."
"I have every right," he answered, and a scowl darkened his coarse features. "You have none to challenge me for this that I claim as my own. This is what you promised the clan when you led us here. You should have realized that when you put the idea forward!"
"You think I care for the clan?" Chase spat. "I'm not such a sentimental creature! I obey the laws of the hunt, the lowest laws a beast may follow—and deny those laws and you prove yourself lower than the lowest of them."
Gramu snorted. "I obey no law but my own—and those who disagree with my laws I kill myself."
Chase gave a hollow laugh. Did he think he was invulnerable to her fury behind his skin of silver? "I'd love to see you try," she hissed. "I don't agree with your laws and I never have—and I won't endure you or your arrogance a moment longer. You presume to command the wolf." Her hands tensed, her bones twisting slowly beneath her skin. In a surge of pure bloodlust such as this, the wolf she could call at will. "You do not. You never have."
"I knew I never controlled you, not really," Gramu answered. He set the egg down behind him and clenched both fists. "These recent disobediences have only told me that the day would come when you would betray me."
"Betray?" Chase spat. "Betrayal would mean I was loyal to you. Never, you stupid little man. I was never loyal to anyone but my pack."
Gramu snorted. "And that visiting beast served to remind you of that. Of course."
"Chase—" Amos grasped her wrist like a vice, fearful anger sharp in his voice. "—enough of it. Stop that. Stand down, now."
It worked once, when she was docile, a good dog; now it kindled the simmering rage and gave her the inhuman strength to seize Amos by his throat and hurl the stunned Redguard across the cave into the other bandit. Both were thrown to the ground, and both were still.
"Give me the egg," Chase growled, voice darkening as the change began to consume her. "Last chance, before I tear you apart."
Gramu chortled. "In your risen rapacity you have quite abandoned sense. You are a werewolf—incredibly vulnerable to what is covering every inch of the body you want to rip to shreds."
"You are a craven to hide behind a skin like that."
"I am sensible—you are not." Two burly fists rose in front of his helmed head. "As you are about to discover."
He lunged with a roar, and Chase answered; within seconds she'd completely assumed her wolven form, and howling in fury, she lunged to meet him.
And for the first time in her life, she shrieked in agony.
Gramu's studded fists smashed into her abdomen, each blow burning right through her thick pelt and down to her flesh, penetrating it, boiling her blood. When Chase lashed out in defense and knocked the bandit away, she screamed again as her palms smashed into the silver plates and the skin was scalded. She recoiled, cradling her paws as they steamed, the flesh turned raw and painful.
He is right. For a moment, terror filled her, quashing the fury, the bloodlust—animal fear. She'd never known it, she'd always been the hunter, the predator; and now she understood how the prey felt when she converged on them as the monstrous wolf she became with every change, every release. I'm defenseless. He is right. I cannot harm him while he wears his silver skin!
There was nowhere exposed for her to strike. Gramu got back up, laughing loudly in her sudden dismay. "I've waited for this," he said, advancing as she guardedly retreated. "I knew this was to happen, your mutiny; I could practically taste your raging dissatisfaction with me. I've disposed of every man and woman that ever dared raise a blade against me; whatever made you think you'd be any different, beast?"
She snarled at him, snapped her fangs, but he advanced in complete confidence, and what could she do but recede from the metal that burned? Beware Gramu, her alpha had warned, and she never had, because she'd killed every single animal that she'd so desired with no more trouble than it took to shift her skins. So long as that silver hide is upon him, he is the one creature in this world that I cannot kill. The thought was utterly degrading. All my strength and speed and fury counts for nothing against this!
But when she felt her foot brush against a shard of ice upon the ground, once more Chase had an epiphany. I cannot hurt him, the wolf cannot hurt him—but that doesn't meant to say he can't be hurt.
Gramu lunged—she darted out of the way, seized the slab in her claws, and hurled it with all her wolven strength at his face when he spun to strike again. It shattered against his helmet and he staggered back, cursing.
"Go on, then!" he exclaimed. "Hurl all the bits of ice you want! Throw the bones at me! My men! Toss the dragon on me for all I care—that's not going to kill me!" He turned back laughing. "Face it, dog, you can't reach me! You hate being so helpless! You hate being unable to kill me like you've killed everything else in this gods-forsaken world!"
Chase bared her fangs. Yes, bloodlust demanded that she sink her fangs into the meat of his body and crunch his bones, but so long as silver guarded him, she could not. It was highly frustrating and incredibly infuriating that she, the most powerful wolf in the world, was routed by a single man behind a simple metal skin.
Her eyes landed on Gramu's axe, left and forgotten on the sidelines of this fight. Forgotten no longer, she thought with a savage smile, as memories flowed through her mind. Any skin can be broken.
She lunged for the weapon and seized it in her claws. Not so long ago she asked Estilde why humans bothered with such large, ungainly things as swords and axes and hammers. There's a lot of power behind the blows, she'd answered. Heads are swept from shoulders, spines are severed, and limbs are cut clean off.
Chase growled as she dragged the ridiculously heavy axe around, straining to grasp it with two paws while maintaining balance on her hind legs. Time to put that to the test.
Gramu laughed at the sight of her. "I can see the irony in this situation now," he declared—but it seemed to Chase that fear sounded faintly beneath his brazen boldness. He knows I've found the flaw in his master plan. "Bare-handed, I could kill my prey and she can't kill me; and like all of your two-legged prey, you now turn to a weapon, a piece of metal, to save you!"
But there's one great difference, Chase thought in growing satisfaction. My prey's weapons never could kill me—but the same cannot be said for you.
She swept the axe around, but almost at once she lost her balance, and her strike went wide and wild, cracking deep into the floor of the cave.
Gramu laughed. "You can't even swing the bloody thing!"
His scorn fuelled Chase's fury. She heard him advance but focused on pulling the weapon from where it'd stuck fast in the ground. She succeeded at last, and staggered again with the weight of it. Gramu advanced and struck her hard.
Pain burned across her muzzle and she recoiled with an agonized whimper, which swiftly deepened into a growl of rage. She tightened her grip, braced herself, and brought the weapon round in a deadly arc. The axe struck home, throwing Gramu across the room, where he collided with the opposite wall and fell with a grunt onto his front.
Chase flattened her ears, snarling her delight. Estilde hadn't been wrong. The weapon did all the work; she just had to hang on for the ride.
She marched to where the bandit chieftain lay limply upon the floor, dragging the axe behind her. Slowly he came round, filling his breathless lungs with air, straining to rise. A low growl rumbling in her throat, Chase used the blade of the axe to turn her victim over, determined to see the extent of the weapon's damage.
It was remarkable. She'd completely shattered the silver plates on his front.
The axe penetrates with brute force. Chase smiled savagely and raised the weapon once more. It's an ungainly thing, but it channels my strength and gives to me the capability to break his guarding skin.
There was nothing Gramu could do but shriek as she smashed his chestplate to pieces while he was still inside it. The blade of the axe tore it apart, exposing his heaving chest bruised and bloodied with the force of her vengeful strikes. Growling still, Chase flipped the weapon around, and with the end of its hilt she clumsily knocked his helmet from his head so she could stare into his watering eyes.
Only then did she toss the ungainly thing aside and extend her claws and a toothy smile. How she was going to enjoy this, to inflict upon this beast the rightful penance for one who thought himself above the laws of the wild and the hunt.
For the glory of the Father, the Mother, and the hunt. She sank her claws into his pale skin and Gramu gave a little shuddering gasp that tickled her ears delightfully. Your flesh is mine.
She tore into his breast, closed her clawed hand around his beating heart, in one fluid movement in which she could feel its frantic throbs against where the silver plate had scalded her palms. Your blood is mine.
And into his trembling, glazing eyes she stared until the last of the pulses in her hand ceased.
Your life is mine.
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