With much trepidation Arc had let Luna go. Back to the life where she had
no future, even though he had offered her another option, even if he got
tried for treason because of it. She had refused.
"I'm doing this my way, Arc. I will not run away again, I have been running all my life and I'm tired of it," she had said, before turning to Ara, "Mother, if I die, or am imprisoned for high sedition, I want Mira to raise my little ones. Tell her that they are hers with my blessing, only, when they are old enough to understand, tell them of me and of what I tried to do for them. Watch over them, Mama, make me proud of them." With a final glance at little Arc-Luath and the yet unnamed female, Luna fought back the tears and left, buckling the collar back around her own neck.
As soon as she walked through her cage door it was slammed behind her. Luna shook her head sadly as she felt the metal bars, wondering how long it would be her prison and if she would ever see her babies grow up to be the wolves she knew they would become?
Snow White had come down to see Luna as soon as she heard that she was back. She had had a full report from Jasmine on the incident between Beck and Arc and wanted to see the evidence for herself. Luna did look as if she had been ill - she had lost a huge amount of weight and looked tired and haggard, little did she know it was from the constant care of a pair of mewling newborns over the past two days. She'd hardly slept the past the birth and was engrossed in taking care of her little ones, trying to absorb in a few days enough to last her for years, if she survived.
Nothing was said to Luna for two days. It began to drive her crazy. She would have killed for even the humiliating, condescending baby-talk that many of the junior keepers used to speak to her, and for which she usually wanted to rip their tongues out. Just because she had the eyes of a wolf did not mean that she had the mind of a moron.
It wasn't until the morning of the third day that she had any contact at all. Snow White herself came to her, 'Come on, Luna, can't have you lying around here all day.'
If Luna perceived a different tone in Snow White's voice she wasn't mistaken. She'd been greatly angered by Luna's apparent abuse of her trust, not understanding the underlying causes. She'd decided to take the wolf in hand and if she insisted on behaving like a cross between a spoiled child and a feral dog then that is what she'd be treated like.
Snapping a lead onto Luna's collar, the pair walked out into the summer sunshine. Once out in the full light Snow White could truly see why Luna had been after chickens the week before and she felt guilty for overreacting. Her bones showed proudly through her skin and her eyes seemed sunken, yet they held a new brightness as if some doubt or insecurity had been removed. The Queen lifted Luna's chin with two fingers and the wolf squinted in the full glare of the sun.
'Look at you, you're emaciated. I really must have a word with Beck. He's not feeding you enough.' This wasn't really fair and Luna knew it, Beck hadn't done a thing wrong and had fed the wolf a perfect amount to maintain her weight. He wasn't to know that she was an expectant mother, although it was his job to spot those kind of things.
Luna shook off the woman's support with a poorly disguised sneer.
'What's got into you, Luna? You never used to be like this.'
'Let's say that life is full of revelations.'
They walked in an uncomfortable silence, unvoiced questions hanging unanswered between them. A sudden change in Luna's stance made them both stop. Her nostrils flared, her ears pricked and her eyes became bright. She crouched down and started moving four footed and stealthily in a way that the queen had never seen before. Scuttling like a crab, Luna moved into a clump of tall grass taking the bemused queen with her.
All became clear when a herd of deer came trotting out from the fringe of the trees immediately ahead of them. Luna's breathing had slowed and she was now fully focussed in hunting mode assessing the individual members of the herd and weighing up her odds. Completely riveted on her target, a young fawn, one of this years obviously, with an injured leg, she had completely forgotten about the woman on the other end of the restraining leash. Judging her moment to absolute perfection she leapt forward to execute a death-run - a few sprinting steps, a leap and the hope that your bodyweight is enough to bring down the victim, a clean break-neck kill is a bonus - but it was roughly halted by a sharp jerk on her collar that sent her sprawling on her bony back, sharp hip bones digging painfully into the solid turf.
'Damn!' she screamed, angry at everything, but most of all herself for forgetting. Standing with some difficulty the wolf watched flashing bob- tails spring away from her and calling out the blessing for when a hunt has failed, praising the worthy, essential competition between life and death;
'Run fast, run well, good brother, The life that binds us is one and the same, One must die so the other can live, Until we meet, run well.'
She held no ill will towards the deer, failure was part of life and most hunts did fail, especially if you hunted alone, but why she had failed made her frustrated.
'I didn't know you could run like that. Four-footed I mean.'
'You didn't know I could speak either until I loosed my tongue.'
'Why.?'
'Four feet on the ground and double your speed, you can't outrun a deer on two. Plus you're less visible lower to the ground. Makes your chances better.'
'Then you would have.?'
'Without question. There is nothing quite so satisfying as fresh young venison still warm from the kill. The scent is better than a spring morning.'
'That's disgusting.'
'That's the life of a wolf. What's the difference between my meat and yours, except that mine has been given freedom and the good chance of getting away.'
'Here, if you want meat, eat this.'
Snow White thrust a piece of cold, cooked beef into Luna's mouth. The wolf gagged on it before spitting it out with unprecedented violence. The woman's patronising smile disappeared as Luna's face changed effortlessly into enmity.
'What the hell did you do that for?'
'Oh, calm down, huffy. Don't get all hot and bothered.' She stroked the wolfs' dark head, and unwittingly put the final nail in her own coffin by injuring her pride.
'Don't ever do that to me again.' Luna's fur bristled under the Queen's hand as it rested on her shoulder.
'Why must you do this, Luna?'
'What?'
'Make life so hard on yourself. Why do you have to fight everyone and everything you come up against?'
'Because I'm no cringing cur content to lie at your feet. And you haven't begun to see me fight yet.'
'I think I got an idea at the stable-yard of the Red Bear.'
Luna spat in contempt, 'I could have taken every one if they hadn't resorted to filthy underhand tricks. But their blood wasn't worth spilling on the clean ground.'
The untameable warrior light shone hotly in the wolfs' fiery eyes, it was a light that Snow White did not understand, the determination a wild creature needs to survive, and so she was afraid of it and wanted to put it out. 'You really are a savage, aren't you?'
The fire blazed brighter, 'I'd rather be a wolf in the trees than a man in his castle, for he has more power to be a beast than I.'
'Come on, let's go back.'
'Afraid of what you do not understand, or what you cannot have?'
'That malicious tongue of yours will get you into trouble one day.'
'Sooner than you think.'
'Sorry?'
'I said there's a storm coming tonight,' Luna sniffed the air with satisfaction and thought of how pleasurable it would be to make an end of it.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
This would be a sweet, sweet night.
The Stepmother checked all of her equipment meticulously, caressing them gently and fantasizing about their uses. A jewelled silver comb loaded with the most deadly of poisons was delicately slipped inside a leather pouch, making sure it did not come into contact with her skin. She fondled the bone dagger that Luna had given her and rolled up a thick canvas sack. Revenge was so close she could almost taste it.
Christine had been ordered to stay put, she had her own tasks to complete and plans to make. Killing Snow White was only stage one, and that was the part she wanted to complete.
Before she left she offered one last piece of advice, one she hoped would hold her apprentice in good stead; 'If you ever lack underlings to carry out your bidding, then find a wolf. So weak, so trusting, so proud, offer them the world and they'll eat from your hand. She who controls the wolves also controls peoples' fear. Remember that.'
She had left thinking over her own words. Luna had been so easy to manipulate and now she was going to reward her devoted little serf with all that she had earned.
The Stepmother clipped a blood red rose from her flowering shrub with the little dagger and placed it carefully in her lank, thinning hair, adding a splash of colour like fresh gore on a blade. Her stygian eyes for once bright and alive and not looking like they belonged in a cadaver.
The sun began to sink and there was one last thing to do before Luna called her.
Death was a frequent visitor to the castle that day and he collected his first victim before nightfall.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If anything Luna was in an even fouler mood than before. She had been silent since her aborted attack on the fawn letting the pressure and excitement of the oncoming storm fill her mind and tense her muscles, the natural anxiety of an approaching tempest working to her advantage and strengthening her resolve.
She'd spent the rest of the day with her so-called 'mistress' not saying a word out of pure spite. She'd felt utterly humiliated being paraded around all day on the end of a leash like a broken pup. Still, all means to an end.
The sun was low when the twosome arrived back in the prison yard. The keepers had finished for the evening and a fresh joint of meat awaited Luna in her cell. But for once she was not hungry - the blood of treachery had a bitter taste.
She watched the sun falling from the sky, glorious orange lighting the atmosphere and turning the clouds every shade of gold, pink, purple and blue by degrees. Stormclouds were already rolling in from the northwest. If this was to be her last sunset let her go out like the blazing sun, only it would not rise again for her, she was sure. She said an invocation to the god of the tempest, 'Thunder help me, for I fear I do not have the strength to complete this alone.'
'Come on, Luna, it's time to go inside now.'
'No.' This was her first act of outright rebellion, and she wasn't good at it. She was playing for time and she knew she'd have to come up with something better than that. 'I'm not going back in there, there are. rats in there!' Genius, she knew how much humans hated rats with their fear of disease and getting bitten. Wolves held no such qualms, rats were a good source of information due to their ability to get everywhere and they were a handy source of food if times got slim.
'Rats? Let me see.' Perfect. Hook, line and sinker. 'Where are they?'
'In the back, they're everywhere.'
Luna had hoped to be left on the outside for an easy escape, but she was taken inside and tethered. It wasn't ideal, but she'd have to make do.
'I can't see any.' she stopped as the door slammed shut, she thought it was just the wind until she heard the subtle 'click' of the lock and saw Luna reaching out as far as her leash would allow her.
'Luna, what did you do that for?'
Luna turned to look at her, and it made her step back. She was smiling, but the smile was wicked and sly. The bloody sun dipped below the horizon and the sky was darkening by the second with night and the stormclouds that were rapidly covering the starless vault.
It was time.
Luna threw back her head and howled. It was the most terrible sound Snow White had ever heard. The most barbarous battle-cries of trolls did not compare to this. It was horrible, bloodthirsty and inhuman. She had never really noticed Luna's teeth before: the four long blade-like canines, curved and dangerous, killing teeth if ever she'd seen any. They scared her as much as the noise for there was definite threat about his posture.
The figure that emerged was something out of a nightmare - old beyond her time, she hobbled out of the shadows on bare feet that were horribly disfigured by layers of old scar tissue from some injury. Her skin was saggy and wrinkled, very little flesh clung to those old bones now. It was hard to believe that she had once been the fairest in the land. As hideous and cadaverous as she was, Snow White recognised her instantly, 'You!'
'Hello, my dear. We meet again.' She turned to Luna, 'Well done, wolf. You have done excellently.'
Snow White was shocked, she didn't realise how deeply Luna had been involved, 'Luna, this was your doing. Why?'
The Stepmother's voice was shrill and mocking, 'Wolves have such a talent for duplicity, it almost makes me jealous,' but no one paid any attention.
Luna's eyes were cold and deadly and she seemed to bite off the end of her words and spit them rather than say them, 'I am nothing to you, just a wolf, maybe not even that. I am but another possession. This collar just proves that. Next you'll want me to jump through hoops to impress your fancy friends.'
'Luna, you know that's not true. I did it to give you freedom.'
'You did it to keep me slave! Why else would you put spells on it?'
'I put no spell on it.'
Luna shook her head disbelievingly, did she really think that lies would save her now? 'I have kept my side of the bargain. Let me out.'
Snow White put a hand on Luna's shoulder but she shook it off irritably. Snow White for once got angry at the wolfs' stubbornness, 'I respected you for what you are. Now I see why the villagers hate your kind and I should have left you where I found you - in a circus beast wagon. Traitorous vermin!'
Luna's eyes flashed dangerously crimson, she was losing control again, but there was still room in her wound to twist the knife once more. The Stepmother smirked unpleasantly, 'I'm sorry, Luna, but I can't let you out. You know far too much, and besides, my darling stepdaughter is right, she never put any spells on that collar. I did. You had to build up the bitterness and anger to carry out the deed.'
Luna's voice was hoarse with rage, 'You betrayed me.'
'Well worked out, wolf, better than I expected from a stupid animal like yourself.'
'But, my family.'
'Oh yes, your family.' For the first time Luna noticed a canvas sack that the Stepmother had been carrying. She let out a small whine as it moved and her blood turned icy cold as she knew for certain what it contained. The Stepmother reached inside and seized something small that whimpered and squirmed away from her bony grasp, 'Is this little rat yours, Luna? Quite pathetic, isn't he? Doesn't really deserve the life you gave him.'
Arc-Luath cried pitifully and scrabbled helplessly at the thin air, his little tail weaving around, as a poisoned comb rested at his throat. Time slowed down for the adult wolf as she saw that evil woman threaten his first-borns life. With a strength born of just maternal protectiveness, Luna threw herself bodily at the barred door of his cage, her leash snapping like a cotton thread.
Bars buckled and bent under the onslaught, but not enough, and not half as much as her body. Bones splintered and teeth shattered under ruthless attack, yet she still carried on. Blood and spittle flew from her broken and bruised mouth, yet she still continued. She persisted until her body could take no more and she collapsed in a daze, blood and salt tears inextricably merging as she lay prone on the floor, unable to rise.
It had wrenched Snow White's heart to watch Luna bludgeoning herself senseless against solid metal in the one hope that she could save her baby, and even more when she saw that she had failed and she knew it. But she didn't know if she should pity the wolf, she had been a key conspirator in her own destruction and so was guilty of high treason at the least. But something stank, Luna had been betrayed as much as she had, if not more.
The Stepmother removed the comb from the cub's neck and stroked his head fondly, 'No, we can't kill you, can we, my pet? You're far too valuable to me. When you grow up what a terror you'll be to the pathetic people who think that they can get rid of us. As for your mother, my precious, for her part she can watch me rise back to power, once we've got rid of the royal whelps, and be to me what she was to my dear Snow White, a dog.'
The wolf raised herself shakily onto her hands and stared the Stepmother straight in the eyes, blood and fragments of tooth flying from between split lips, 'I would rather die. You manipulated and used me, I would never serve you willingly.'
'You will serve me willingly or not!'
Pain trebly as strong as that on the full moon ripped through Luna's entire body as the enchantment of the collar showed its true potency. Her spine arched, her head was thrown backwards, her tongue was lolling out, bleeding where she had bitten it, and her limbs seemed to stick out at all the wrong angles. She shook as pure agony raced from ears to tail, and she screamed.
That scream was by far the most terrible thing for Snow White that evening. She had only ever heard anything like it once before when visiting field hospitals during the Nine Kingdoms Border Wars. It was the sound of the mortally wounded, those who knew they were dying but did not want to go quietly into the darkness. It sounded even worse as it bubbled through the spit and blood that filled her mutilated mouth.
The pain was so powerful that it had blinded the wolf. It felt like her body was being ripped apart from the inside out. It filled her whole world, a world of eternal suffering. Then everything slowed, the pain subsided and everything was peaceful. She had never felt so free as she watched her tortured body convulsing, and knew it wasn't her any more.
The body of Luna twitched and then lay still
The Stepmother had watched with grim satisfaction as Snow White had been unable to tear her horror-filled eyes from the act of obscene cruelty. 'Oh, don't worry about her, her pain's over. Worry about yourself, my dear. I have waited a long time for this moment.'
Thunder rattled around them as Snow White felt herself inexorably drawn towards the hag and it filled her with dread. Her arm stretched out through the distorted bars as if drawn on a string and the sharp venomous teeth of a silver comb moved close to the fragile skin. She remembered a scene much like it from her youth, only she didn't knew if she could survive again.
A strange, cracked, wheezing laugh stopped them both in their tracks. They looked round in wide-eyed terror. 'Fool!' A voice neither of them recognized hissed between jagged teeth, 'Think you could kill me? I cannot be killed, I am immortal!'
Luna, or whatever it was that inhabited her body, was standing behind them like the terrifying spirit of the wild, her eyes as wide and as white as the full moon, streaked in her own blood and as immovable as a mountain. If the storm raged around them it was because she was at the centre of it. The wind whipped her long hair in front of her face as she invoked the elements and called down an ancient curse. 'Hear me now, foolish mortal, you chose the wrong wolf to cross. You, who is but an infant in the ways of sorcery. Those who live by night know more of its dark guardians than you can imagine, and I, I am by far the superior mage, well experience in the darkest paths of magic and its many forms.'
Luna advanced.
In fear the Stepmother slashed at the wolf with the comb, oblivious of the bars that separated them for in her mood she believed that the wolf could pass right through them, opening new wounds on an already lacerated body. But poison that should have had immediate effect had none. The indestructible wolf seized the Stepmother's wrist and, with the strength of insanity, bent it, squeezed it and broke it until it dangled uselessly, still locked upon the comb, hissing constantly, 'The storm itself gives me life and thy weak poisons are useless against me. Tonight the Dark One is here and He has come for you. Rise up, rise up, brethren of the shadows. There is work to be done!'
"I'm doing this my way, Arc. I will not run away again, I have been running all my life and I'm tired of it," she had said, before turning to Ara, "Mother, if I die, or am imprisoned for high sedition, I want Mira to raise my little ones. Tell her that they are hers with my blessing, only, when they are old enough to understand, tell them of me and of what I tried to do for them. Watch over them, Mama, make me proud of them." With a final glance at little Arc-Luath and the yet unnamed female, Luna fought back the tears and left, buckling the collar back around her own neck.
As soon as she walked through her cage door it was slammed behind her. Luna shook her head sadly as she felt the metal bars, wondering how long it would be her prison and if she would ever see her babies grow up to be the wolves she knew they would become?
Snow White had come down to see Luna as soon as she heard that she was back. She had had a full report from Jasmine on the incident between Beck and Arc and wanted to see the evidence for herself. Luna did look as if she had been ill - she had lost a huge amount of weight and looked tired and haggard, little did she know it was from the constant care of a pair of mewling newborns over the past two days. She'd hardly slept the past the birth and was engrossed in taking care of her little ones, trying to absorb in a few days enough to last her for years, if she survived.
Nothing was said to Luna for two days. It began to drive her crazy. She would have killed for even the humiliating, condescending baby-talk that many of the junior keepers used to speak to her, and for which she usually wanted to rip their tongues out. Just because she had the eyes of a wolf did not mean that she had the mind of a moron.
It wasn't until the morning of the third day that she had any contact at all. Snow White herself came to her, 'Come on, Luna, can't have you lying around here all day.'
If Luna perceived a different tone in Snow White's voice she wasn't mistaken. She'd been greatly angered by Luna's apparent abuse of her trust, not understanding the underlying causes. She'd decided to take the wolf in hand and if she insisted on behaving like a cross between a spoiled child and a feral dog then that is what she'd be treated like.
Snapping a lead onto Luna's collar, the pair walked out into the summer sunshine. Once out in the full light Snow White could truly see why Luna had been after chickens the week before and she felt guilty for overreacting. Her bones showed proudly through her skin and her eyes seemed sunken, yet they held a new brightness as if some doubt or insecurity had been removed. The Queen lifted Luna's chin with two fingers and the wolf squinted in the full glare of the sun.
'Look at you, you're emaciated. I really must have a word with Beck. He's not feeding you enough.' This wasn't really fair and Luna knew it, Beck hadn't done a thing wrong and had fed the wolf a perfect amount to maintain her weight. He wasn't to know that she was an expectant mother, although it was his job to spot those kind of things.
Luna shook off the woman's support with a poorly disguised sneer.
'What's got into you, Luna? You never used to be like this.'
'Let's say that life is full of revelations.'
They walked in an uncomfortable silence, unvoiced questions hanging unanswered between them. A sudden change in Luna's stance made them both stop. Her nostrils flared, her ears pricked and her eyes became bright. She crouched down and started moving four footed and stealthily in a way that the queen had never seen before. Scuttling like a crab, Luna moved into a clump of tall grass taking the bemused queen with her.
All became clear when a herd of deer came trotting out from the fringe of the trees immediately ahead of them. Luna's breathing had slowed and she was now fully focussed in hunting mode assessing the individual members of the herd and weighing up her odds. Completely riveted on her target, a young fawn, one of this years obviously, with an injured leg, she had completely forgotten about the woman on the other end of the restraining leash. Judging her moment to absolute perfection she leapt forward to execute a death-run - a few sprinting steps, a leap and the hope that your bodyweight is enough to bring down the victim, a clean break-neck kill is a bonus - but it was roughly halted by a sharp jerk on her collar that sent her sprawling on her bony back, sharp hip bones digging painfully into the solid turf.
'Damn!' she screamed, angry at everything, but most of all herself for forgetting. Standing with some difficulty the wolf watched flashing bob- tails spring away from her and calling out the blessing for when a hunt has failed, praising the worthy, essential competition between life and death;
'Run fast, run well, good brother, The life that binds us is one and the same, One must die so the other can live, Until we meet, run well.'
She held no ill will towards the deer, failure was part of life and most hunts did fail, especially if you hunted alone, but why she had failed made her frustrated.
'I didn't know you could run like that. Four-footed I mean.'
'You didn't know I could speak either until I loosed my tongue.'
'Why.?'
'Four feet on the ground and double your speed, you can't outrun a deer on two. Plus you're less visible lower to the ground. Makes your chances better.'
'Then you would have.?'
'Without question. There is nothing quite so satisfying as fresh young venison still warm from the kill. The scent is better than a spring morning.'
'That's disgusting.'
'That's the life of a wolf. What's the difference between my meat and yours, except that mine has been given freedom and the good chance of getting away.'
'Here, if you want meat, eat this.'
Snow White thrust a piece of cold, cooked beef into Luna's mouth. The wolf gagged on it before spitting it out with unprecedented violence. The woman's patronising smile disappeared as Luna's face changed effortlessly into enmity.
'What the hell did you do that for?'
'Oh, calm down, huffy. Don't get all hot and bothered.' She stroked the wolfs' dark head, and unwittingly put the final nail in her own coffin by injuring her pride.
'Don't ever do that to me again.' Luna's fur bristled under the Queen's hand as it rested on her shoulder.
'Why must you do this, Luna?'
'What?'
'Make life so hard on yourself. Why do you have to fight everyone and everything you come up against?'
'Because I'm no cringing cur content to lie at your feet. And you haven't begun to see me fight yet.'
'I think I got an idea at the stable-yard of the Red Bear.'
Luna spat in contempt, 'I could have taken every one if they hadn't resorted to filthy underhand tricks. But their blood wasn't worth spilling on the clean ground.'
The untameable warrior light shone hotly in the wolfs' fiery eyes, it was a light that Snow White did not understand, the determination a wild creature needs to survive, and so she was afraid of it and wanted to put it out. 'You really are a savage, aren't you?'
The fire blazed brighter, 'I'd rather be a wolf in the trees than a man in his castle, for he has more power to be a beast than I.'
'Come on, let's go back.'
'Afraid of what you do not understand, or what you cannot have?'
'That malicious tongue of yours will get you into trouble one day.'
'Sooner than you think.'
'Sorry?'
'I said there's a storm coming tonight,' Luna sniffed the air with satisfaction and thought of how pleasurable it would be to make an end of it.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
This would be a sweet, sweet night.
The Stepmother checked all of her equipment meticulously, caressing them gently and fantasizing about their uses. A jewelled silver comb loaded with the most deadly of poisons was delicately slipped inside a leather pouch, making sure it did not come into contact with her skin. She fondled the bone dagger that Luna had given her and rolled up a thick canvas sack. Revenge was so close she could almost taste it.
Christine had been ordered to stay put, she had her own tasks to complete and plans to make. Killing Snow White was only stage one, and that was the part she wanted to complete.
Before she left she offered one last piece of advice, one she hoped would hold her apprentice in good stead; 'If you ever lack underlings to carry out your bidding, then find a wolf. So weak, so trusting, so proud, offer them the world and they'll eat from your hand. She who controls the wolves also controls peoples' fear. Remember that.'
She had left thinking over her own words. Luna had been so easy to manipulate and now she was going to reward her devoted little serf with all that she had earned.
The Stepmother clipped a blood red rose from her flowering shrub with the little dagger and placed it carefully in her lank, thinning hair, adding a splash of colour like fresh gore on a blade. Her stygian eyes for once bright and alive and not looking like they belonged in a cadaver.
The sun began to sink and there was one last thing to do before Luna called her.
Death was a frequent visitor to the castle that day and he collected his first victim before nightfall.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If anything Luna was in an even fouler mood than before. She had been silent since her aborted attack on the fawn letting the pressure and excitement of the oncoming storm fill her mind and tense her muscles, the natural anxiety of an approaching tempest working to her advantage and strengthening her resolve.
She'd spent the rest of the day with her so-called 'mistress' not saying a word out of pure spite. She'd felt utterly humiliated being paraded around all day on the end of a leash like a broken pup. Still, all means to an end.
The sun was low when the twosome arrived back in the prison yard. The keepers had finished for the evening and a fresh joint of meat awaited Luna in her cell. But for once she was not hungry - the blood of treachery had a bitter taste.
She watched the sun falling from the sky, glorious orange lighting the atmosphere and turning the clouds every shade of gold, pink, purple and blue by degrees. Stormclouds were already rolling in from the northwest. If this was to be her last sunset let her go out like the blazing sun, only it would not rise again for her, she was sure. She said an invocation to the god of the tempest, 'Thunder help me, for I fear I do not have the strength to complete this alone.'
'Come on, Luna, it's time to go inside now.'
'No.' This was her first act of outright rebellion, and she wasn't good at it. She was playing for time and she knew she'd have to come up with something better than that. 'I'm not going back in there, there are. rats in there!' Genius, she knew how much humans hated rats with their fear of disease and getting bitten. Wolves held no such qualms, rats were a good source of information due to their ability to get everywhere and they were a handy source of food if times got slim.
'Rats? Let me see.' Perfect. Hook, line and sinker. 'Where are they?'
'In the back, they're everywhere.'
Luna had hoped to be left on the outside for an easy escape, but she was taken inside and tethered. It wasn't ideal, but she'd have to make do.
'I can't see any.' she stopped as the door slammed shut, she thought it was just the wind until she heard the subtle 'click' of the lock and saw Luna reaching out as far as her leash would allow her.
'Luna, what did you do that for?'
Luna turned to look at her, and it made her step back. She was smiling, but the smile was wicked and sly. The bloody sun dipped below the horizon and the sky was darkening by the second with night and the stormclouds that were rapidly covering the starless vault.
It was time.
Luna threw back her head and howled. It was the most terrible sound Snow White had ever heard. The most barbarous battle-cries of trolls did not compare to this. It was horrible, bloodthirsty and inhuman. She had never really noticed Luna's teeth before: the four long blade-like canines, curved and dangerous, killing teeth if ever she'd seen any. They scared her as much as the noise for there was definite threat about his posture.
The figure that emerged was something out of a nightmare - old beyond her time, she hobbled out of the shadows on bare feet that were horribly disfigured by layers of old scar tissue from some injury. Her skin was saggy and wrinkled, very little flesh clung to those old bones now. It was hard to believe that she had once been the fairest in the land. As hideous and cadaverous as she was, Snow White recognised her instantly, 'You!'
'Hello, my dear. We meet again.' She turned to Luna, 'Well done, wolf. You have done excellently.'
Snow White was shocked, she didn't realise how deeply Luna had been involved, 'Luna, this was your doing. Why?'
The Stepmother's voice was shrill and mocking, 'Wolves have such a talent for duplicity, it almost makes me jealous,' but no one paid any attention.
Luna's eyes were cold and deadly and she seemed to bite off the end of her words and spit them rather than say them, 'I am nothing to you, just a wolf, maybe not even that. I am but another possession. This collar just proves that. Next you'll want me to jump through hoops to impress your fancy friends.'
'Luna, you know that's not true. I did it to give you freedom.'
'You did it to keep me slave! Why else would you put spells on it?'
'I put no spell on it.'
Luna shook her head disbelievingly, did she really think that lies would save her now? 'I have kept my side of the bargain. Let me out.'
Snow White put a hand on Luna's shoulder but she shook it off irritably. Snow White for once got angry at the wolfs' stubbornness, 'I respected you for what you are. Now I see why the villagers hate your kind and I should have left you where I found you - in a circus beast wagon. Traitorous vermin!'
Luna's eyes flashed dangerously crimson, she was losing control again, but there was still room in her wound to twist the knife once more. The Stepmother smirked unpleasantly, 'I'm sorry, Luna, but I can't let you out. You know far too much, and besides, my darling stepdaughter is right, she never put any spells on that collar. I did. You had to build up the bitterness and anger to carry out the deed.'
Luna's voice was hoarse with rage, 'You betrayed me.'
'Well worked out, wolf, better than I expected from a stupid animal like yourself.'
'But, my family.'
'Oh yes, your family.' For the first time Luna noticed a canvas sack that the Stepmother had been carrying. She let out a small whine as it moved and her blood turned icy cold as she knew for certain what it contained. The Stepmother reached inside and seized something small that whimpered and squirmed away from her bony grasp, 'Is this little rat yours, Luna? Quite pathetic, isn't he? Doesn't really deserve the life you gave him.'
Arc-Luath cried pitifully and scrabbled helplessly at the thin air, his little tail weaving around, as a poisoned comb rested at his throat. Time slowed down for the adult wolf as she saw that evil woman threaten his first-borns life. With a strength born of just maternal protectiveness, Luna threw herself bodily at the barred door of his cage, her leash snapping like a cotton thread.
Bars buckled and bent under the onslaught, but not enough, and not half as much as her body. Bones splintered and teeth shattered under ruthless attack, yet she still carried on. Blood and spittle flew from her broken and bruised mouth, yet she still continued. She persisted until her body could take no more and she collapsed in a daze, blood and salt tears inextricably merging as she lay prone on the floor, unable to rise.
It had wrenched Snow White's heart to watch Luna bludgeoning herself senseless against solid metal in the one hope that she could save her baby, and even more when she saw that she had failed and she knew it. But she didn't know if she should pity the wolf, she had been a key conspirator in her own destruction and so was guilty of high treason at the least. But something stank, Luna had been betrayed as much as she had, if not more.
The Stepmother removed the comb from the cub's neck and stroked his head fondly, 'No, we can't kill you, can we, my pet? You're far too valuable to me. When you grow up what a terror you'll be to the pathetic people who think that they can get rid of us. As for your mother, my precious, for her part she can watch me rise back to power, once we've got rid of the royal whelps, and be to me what she was to my dear Snow White, a dog.'
The wolf raised herself shakily onto her hands and stared the Stepmother straight in the eyes, blood and fragments of tooth flying from between split lips, 'I would rather die. You manipulated and used me, I would never serve you willingly.'
'You will serve me willingly or not!'
Pain trebly as strong as that on the full moon ripped through Luna's entire body as the enchantment of the collar showed its true potency. Her spine arched, her head was thrown backwards, her tongue was lolling out, bleeding where she had bitten it, and her limbs seemed to stick out at all the wrong angles. She shook as pure agony raced from ears to tail, and she screamed.
That scream was by far the most terrible thing for Snow White that evening. She had only ever heard anything like it once before when visiting field hospitals during the Nine Kingdoms Border Wars. It was the sound of the mortally wounded, those who knew they were dying but did not want to go quietly into the darkness. It sounded even worse as it bubbled through the spit and blood that filled her mutilated mouth.
The pain was so powerful that it had blinded the wolf. It felt like her body was being ripped apart from the inside out. It filled her whole world, a world of eternal suffering. Then everything slowed, the pain subsided and everything was peaceful. She had never felt so free as she watched her tortured body convulsing, and knew it wasn't her any more.
The body of Luna twitched and then lay still
The Stepmother had watched with grim satisfaction as Snow White had been unable to tear her horror-filled eyes from the act of obscene cruelty. 'Oh, don't worry about her, her pain's over. Worry about yourself, my dear. I have waited a long time for this moment.'
Thunder rattled around them as Snow White felt herself inexorably drawn towards the hag and it filled her with dread. Her arm stretched out through the distorted bars as if drawn on a string and the sharp venomous teeth of a silver comb moved close to the fragile skin. She remembered a scene much like it from her youth, only she didn't knew if she could survive again.
A strange, cracked, wheezing laugh stopped them both in their tracks. They looked round in wide-eyed terror. 'Fool!' A voice neither of them recognized hissed between jagged teeth, 'Think you could kill me? I cannot be killed, I am immortal!'
Luna, or whatever it was that inhabited her body, was standing behind them like the terrifying spirit of the wild, her eyes as wide and as white as the full moon, streaked in her own blood and as immovable as a mountain. If the storm raged around them it was because she was at the centre of it. The wind whipped her long hair in front of her face as she invoked the elements and called down an ancient curse. 'Hear me now, foolish mortal, you chose the wrong wolf to cross. You, who is but an infant in the ways of sorcery. Those who live by night know more of its dark guardians than you can imagine, and I, I am by far the superior mage, well experience in the darkest paths of magic and its many forms.'
Luna advanced.
In fear the Stepmother slashed at the wolf with the comb, oblivious of the bars that separated them for in her mood she believed that the wolf could pass right through them, opening new wounds on an already lacerated body. But poison that should have had immediate effect had none. The indestructible wolf seized the Stepmother's wrist and, with the strength of insanity, bent it, squeezed it and broke it until it dangled uselessly, still locked upon the comb, hissing constantly, 'The storm itself gives me life and thy weak poisons are useless against me. Tonight the Dark One is here and He has come for you. Rise up, rise up, brethren of the shadows. There is work to be done!'
