It was said that one could hear her screams throughout all of Tyria.
Some even say that their echoes still haunted the forests at night, as if the banshee-wails of the wolves mocked that moment, howling of the pain of her struggle to bring new life to the world and an heir to her husband.
All of Tyria held its breath, as the woman writhed against the restricting bonds placed upon her by the attendant physician, for he had predicted it would be a difficult birth and knew only too well that her fierce determination to hold her beloved child in her arms was so great that her own safety seemed to be at sake. Already her pale skin glistened like highly polished marble dappled with a summer rain, so much was she altered by the sweat of her labours.
Beyond the great oak doors of the bedchamber, the Lord Maleficio, a huge bear of a man made moreso by the hulking furs upon his person, was restless for news. Affording his wife the dignity of privacy, he had forbade any but the doctor and the ladies of the chamber to bear witness to the birthing. He also sought to spare himself from alarm, for he could not conscience the sight of his fair and regal Lady in the throes of such agony, and though he had been a mighty and victorious warrior of renown, the sight of her blood spilling out upon the bedsheets was more than he could abide. With impatient trepidation, he paced the stone floors, his boots striking time with the tolling heartbeat of the chapel clock, drawing the bearskin cloak about his bulk to keep out the intrusive fingers of the winter night.
Within, the ladies-in-waiting cooed their mistress, coaxing her to one last, final effort. The doctor's brow was raw from his wiping away perspiration with the rough fabric of his robe. The room seemed filled with her ladyship's pain.
At last, the infant was cast from her, a crimson train of blood in it's wake. It seemed that in an instant her struggles and cries abated, and a weighty quiet fell upon the room, as if the silence itself had been born a twin to the ashen-skinned, smeared body that fell into the arms of the doctor in attendance. The physician hurried to clean the frail creature of it's gory warpaint, gently at first, then with an anxious vigour that rapidly filled the mother with some nebulous sense of dread.
She arched herself to better see her offspring, her eyes trying to seek some signs of her own new flesh among the coarse folds of the towelling.
Some moments passed before the first piercing, confused screams of anguish were heard.
But they would not be those of the child.
A shrouded figure, indiscreet and obtrusive by virtue of its very attempts to hurry unwitnessed from the darkened doorway of the great hall, rapidly made it's way out into the Tyrian night.
Clutched to it's chest, half-hidden beneath the enclosure of it's own robes, was a small, pathetic bundle of what it hoped would appear to be nothing more than soiled and bloody rags - perhaps, the bonds and towels so recently stained during his Lady's birth-trauma, or at least that was the impression the silent traveller hoped to convey to the townsfolk. Already they were out in numbers, despite the lateness of the hour and the fierce inclemency of the winter air, huddling and whispering of what had taken place that night. Rumours and omens abounded, seers held their heads low, wringing their trembling hands, for there were some events, some terrible secrets, that could not remain hidden long from those who had sight beyond that of their eyes.
Casting a nervous glance back at the great guild hall, he could see the high window uppermost within its walls almost blotted out by the watchful silhouette of his master. Maleficio was known throughout the land as a wise and noble man, but the tragedy that had befallen his house that night had seen him changed. Unable to look upon his wife in her afflicted state, he had become hard as flint, merciless in his distress. He could not bear to see the child, and had raged at the very air around him, drawing his blade and thrusting it high above his head, as if seeking to strike a wounding blow at the gods he felt had shamed him.
He had instructed the cowering physician to burn the remains, so that nothing would be left of the calamity except for hushed suspicions and haunting night terrors. It was as if his Lordship believed that grief itself could be consumed by flame.
The shuffling character threw back his hood, feeling the steely-chill of the night air grasp his face like the hands of some icy spirit, making his way purposefully towards the edge of the great forest. Blizzards battled to delay his progress, their whiplash-winds threatening to steal his terrible cargo from him, until he at last saw the imposing trees ahead, their branches slashing in the darkness, as though they too felt his Lordship's wrath.
Placing the fragile parcel of woe upon the frozen ground, the physician knelt a while, his head low in respect of the moment, and, despite himself and his high office as apothecary to the house of Maleficio, he let slip a silent, guilty prayer for the fallen.
He could not bring himself to burn the tiny heap of fabric and flesh, and even as he had tried the tiny, guttering flame was snatched out of existence by the wind. As a man of science, he knew no respect nor fear for those powers that were hinted to lie beyond the edges of reason, but on a night such as that, with the shroud of death hanging heavy upon the land, even he sensed some inkling that the child was meant to be spared the ignominy of lying as ash and fragile bones in the forest snow, to be fought over by the very wolves whose eyes could be seen winking and glinting hungrily from the dark pall of the woods. They would not care if their midnight feast was cooked or not, simply that it was fresh and easy to run with.
Setting his meager burden down upon the crisp blanket of snow, he set about burrowing deep into its surface, his hands growing red as blood from the bitter cold, until he had created a shallow grave of ice. Rising to his feet, gasping with exertion, the frosty air snatched his every exhalation and turned it instantly to thick, white plumes of steam - it was as if his very heart was ablaze, his head the chimney-stack from which the raging smoke rising within him escaped.
With as much tenderness as his numb and shaking hands could muster, he placed the swaddled body inside the makeshift burial plot, and brushed the heap of displaced snow back over it, trampling the last of it down, silently praying that it would seem too arduous a task for the wolves to trouble themselves with for such a brief and unsatisfying meal.
Eventually, the blizzards gave up their fight and moved on, and there began a solemn and gentle falling of snow, as though the frozen skies themselves wept for this lost, forgotten child.
In time, the babe's eyes flickered open, squinting even in the dirty half-light of the fire dying in the grate.
As though the snows that had seemed destined to be it's final resting place had sought to leave their mark upon him, the infant's eyes were the purest white, and a few thin strands of silvery hair covered a head so pale it was as though the poor creature were alabaster come to life. The child opened it's mouth and shut it's eyes tight as though crying, but no sound came forth above the faintest gurgle of lungs drawing their first gasps of the stale, smokey air.
Struggling against the damp, discomfort of it's swaddling, it freed one pallid arm and reached out, the dwarfish fist clasping outwards until it siezed upon a hand almost as white and frail as it's own. It squeezed it's find feebly, unable as yet to sense the dry, wrinkled skin that barely covered the aged bones within, nor could those fresh eyes see the ragged, gnarly nails that formed the extremity of the emaciated fingers.
Somewhere within the ramshackle hovel into which the child had awoken, there was a proud and wondrous sigh, before finally a voice broke the silence, a voice as parched and cracked as autumn leaves.
"Welcome, my child", it gasped, scarcely able to keep the awe from it's words. "Welcome to my home".
It was on the occasion of his seventh year that the young Maleficio first began to question his strange and mysterious heritage.
In that time, he had come to know the old man to whom he had first awoken as a father of sorts, although it was no secret that it was not so. All the same, he was a wise and doting guardian, who did all within his wits to ensure that his young charge grew as strong and healthy as was possible. Few secrets surrounding Maleficio's existence were kept from him, and knowing no other life, the boy neither questioned nor concerned himself with the curious nature of his own life.
Indeed, since the subject of his life is raised, the ancient sage had told him at a very early age that he was not, as such, gifted with life as the world knew it to be. Whilst it was the forces of life and nature that were responsible for his guardian's walking upon the earth, Maleficio had learned that he was an envoy of that dark, netherworld, an ambassador of Death. As such, he needed neither food nor water to sustain him, and although his lungs drew air the exhalation and inhalation was more in facsimile of life than any necessary means for his survival.
In keeping with this alien behaviour, the boy also lacked the ability to voice himself, aside from occasional animal sounds from deep within him at times of emotional intensity, and to counter this, the old mage taught him to write with charcoal and slate, something that Maleficio learned with unusual speed and diligence.
By this medium, the wizard was able to explain to the boy that he was an ancienct practicioner of forbidden magics, long since exiled to the infertile wastelands of the frozen forest by the mistrust and ignorance of the world. He told of finding the young Maleficio's lifeless body half-buried in the snows, left there by an uncaring, ashamed society who did not see that spark of life within that had to be nurtured and coaxed, the tiny body tended until the forces of death, perhaps guided by the hand of Grenth himself, blossomed within and those pale, empty eyes opened to take their first look upon a frightened, unkind land.
When the time came for the boy to enquire after his parentage, the old man was hesitant but frank in his replies. Perhaps he feared for the young Maleficio's feelings, or maybe he was concerned that his protege might see fit to go off on some fool's errand to trace his bloodline and discover the truth for himself, something that would have proved perilous to one so inexperienced in the ways of the world, and so vulnerable to the harm that lurked any whose appearance and demeanour was so very different from those who might judge him a freak or a misfit, or worse, a vision of the demonic.
In his wisdom, the wizard elected to betray every secret he dared, believing that to sate the young lad's curiosity might also satisfy any desire to wonder what lay beyond the frozen forest, and prevent him wandering out secretly in search of answers to his private quest.
The boy learned that he was born of the loins of a great warrior lord, who had taken his lands from the cruel, gauntlet-grasp of the dwarves of the Stone Summit, vile, intolerant creatures whose red eyes told of the blazing hatred that burned within their steel breastplates for all who were unlike them. It had been a long and bloody struggle, but the mighty Lord Maleficio had prevailed, freeing the frightened and hiding peoples of the area over the dead bodies of their tyrannical and merciless oppressors. It had been said that the acres of land he siezed in his conquest had reeked of the flesh of the Summit warlords, baking in their armour as they lay in heaps upon vast funeral pyres.
And then, a time of peace and wisdom, with the house of Maleficio ruling in just and righteous cause. The corpses of Dolyak and dwarf had decayed, their last and only act of charity being to better fertilise the lands for the farmers who prospered there. Many came from afar to settle within Maleficio's domain, having heard of his decency and fair-minded rule.
The old man told his attentive young companion of the occasion upon which the Lord Maleficio took a wife, a young and willowy girl who had come from peasant stock, but whose presence and manner gave little clue of her humble origins. She was an equal match to her courtly husband, and their union was celebrated with feasts and merriment throughout the province. It was expected of her to give him a son worthy of being heir to his reputation and estate, and sure enough, it was soon announced that she bore his child, and she retired from public view in order to prepare herself for the rigours of birth.
Then came tragedy, for the anticipated childbirth turned sour, and due to the incompetent ministrations of the court physician, the child emerged, never to draw breath.
Shamed by this, the Lord Maleficio, for whom failure had never been a fellow in his life, and who felt that the death of his only child was a slur upon his manhood, ordered the child's remains to be taken far from his lands and abandoned.
But the doctor whose bungling had killed the child was as inefficient in his task as a pallbearer as he was a physician, and the child was not hidden from prying eyes as had been instructed, for that very night, the old mage had looked out from his hovel to the sight of a small bundle of lifeless cloth in which he found the infant's body. Having travelled many strange and magical places, and seen sights that few were privy to in their lives, he was not afeared of the tiny corpse, but instead he brought it into his home and gave many silent prayers to Grenth for the chance of a single drawn breath from the pathetic little runt left upon his doorstep.
After several hours, and with the old man's hopes beginning to fade, the mummified homunculus stirred, shrugging away part of it's filthy shroud, and the eyes flickered open to look into those of the one who had not given up faith in his resurrection.
Intrigued, the young lad sketched out a few words upon his slate, each a question to be answered in turn by the old mage, until came one topic that gave him reason to pause. Maleficio had asked of his parents, wondering if word had ever come of their regret, of their wish to have their child back with them once more.
The wizard hesitated a while, pondering how best to say what he wanted the boy to know.
He took Maleficio's slender, white hand into his own.
"It is forbidden for any to speak of you, my child. You have become more legend than mourned. No grave marks your fall, and no public or private display commemorates your passing. You are", the old man said gently, "Forgotten".
The boy's face clouded over, his pearly eyes misty below a forehead heavy with a confused and baffled frown.
For many moments, the pair sat in silence, a quiet broken only by the soft crackle and spit of the burning logs in the grate.
At last, the mage broke their wordless contemplation, seeking to offer the boy something positive and hopeful, determined to make him realise his unique role in the world.
"My boy", he began, "I have dedicated the better part of my brief time in this world to the investigation of things for which most men have no stomach, and for which few beliefs have a name. As my knowledge grew, I took up the challenge of exploring these secrets by seeking to practise their philosophies, something for which no one lifetime could ever be enough".
Maleficio looked up, his expression intense and fascinated by the wise man's words.
"There is a path to unnatural power, a path which has long-gone under the name of necromancy. A simple title which hides many dark and potent talents beyond the understanding of the common man".
The old man let these cryptic words settle in the lad's mind, before continuing upon his tale.
"It is the theory and effect of the powers that lie inherent and unused within the dead, powers which can be as devastating as they can be restorative. But no mere man can ever master this field of study, for by our very nature as living, breathing beings, we do not command the respect of the dead, nor do our words compel them without a struggle. These are primal forces, and one might just as well attempt to order the sun to rise and the moon to fall as to give orders to those who have passed from this mortal realm".
"But in you, I see an opportunity to embrace and dominate these powers, to instruct the corpse to bend to your will. The dead will listen and obey you, for you are their kin. It is a terrible, arcane power that you have been granted, but it is not without its price".
Smiling in reassurance, the wizard set a hand upon Maleficio's rounded shoulders and whispered conspiratorially in the young boy's ear.
"I can grant you many things, my child, but there are some limits even to my powers. You can never speak, for what you have to say is not for the ears of the living. Nor can you rejoin their ranks. You are as unlike them as the very rocks and timbers that have hidden us these many years, and only those like you, or practicioners of the forbidden arts such as myself, will understand you. And your pain".
He watched as the frail hands took up the slate and the charcoal and scratched three simple words that the old man had scarcely prepared himself to answer.
It read: 'What of love?'
Pursing his lips and balancing his words carefully, the old wizard replied to him, thoughtfully.
"Love is as much a part of life as the foam is of the tide. And life is not a domain that welcomed you, young Maleficio".
Even as the old mage spoke, Maleficio was scribbling hurriedly upon the slate, his anxious determination to express himself making him smudge some of what he wrote, whilst other words were rendered barely legible in his haste.
'Then I will never know love? Never feel the warmth of another's skin, the scent of another's hair, the touch of a kiss upon my lips?'
Giving forth a gentle sigh, Maleficio's host answered slowly and with watchful eyes: "It's never been known. But there is always the journey of hope to guide you. That you are aware of things that lie out of your reach might suggest that it lies just ahead of you, just a short distance from there here and now that you inhabit. I fear, however, that it will never draw much closer to you than that".
Young Maleficio bowed his head, his empty eyes unable to convey the burden of sorrow that had befallen him in those few words from his mentor.
That night, he laid out in the snow, just as he had been abandoned as an infant, no more feeling the cold than he had then.
All the same, he shivered.
And the snows began to fall for him.
So it was that the young Maleficio was reared as his own, and never was a father more attentive or devoted to his duties as the old warlock - for in his mounting years, only a mage of necromancy could be so acutely aware of his own mortality and the growing spectre of Death whose black-slippered footfalls dogged his passing days.
As the years passed, he nurtured the child into adulthood, and, in keeping with all those who had gone before him, he taught the boy all he knew and instructed him of whispered things that even he, in his long life, had yet to learn. This had been the way of things for as long as night had followed day, each passing generation hoping to keep itself alive through moulding the new into their own image, keeping the mysteries of their accumulated knowledge alive by word and deed.
Countless days were spent by the two, sitting by the gently burning fire of moss and peat, as the wizard told the young Maleficio of dark practises and secret rites that many would wish to be long-forgotten. He spoke of gods whose names held terrible reverence in the strongest of hearts, and of powers and abilities that the age of science and belief considered to be unnatural. As for the boy, he simply listened, gazing curiously at the spitting, frail flames of the humble fire, absently wondering what purpose it might serve beyond providing its feeble illumination. On occasion, he let his delicate, white hand venture towards the dancing, orange conflagration, observing the fine delicacy of its glow and yet feeling nothing of its warmth. Only when he saw his nails begin to char and his pale flesh blacken did he withdraw his hand, examining the effect upon his skin with intense interest.
Eventually, when the ancient magician felt that he had told the young boy all he could to prepare him, he led young Maleficio into the frozen forest. The time had come to spare the lad from mere talk and fancy. Now he must prove the power of his words, and make the images he had tried to convey into something more tangible.
They walked until even the sun began to bow its weary head, the mage often stumbling in his frailty, lifted to his feet and supported by the boy as they neared the heart of the darkest areas of the icy coppice. In time, they came upon a small clearing, littered with the uneaten scraps left by the wolf pack who had made their home there. It was a desolate place, the snow dappled with blood like crimson shadows, bones scattered amongst the clumps of grass that struggled to thrive amid the unkind snows. Here and there, flesh and fat and fur still clung to the shiny, white frames of what had once been some unfortunate or lame forest creature, made a meal by the opportunistic and unforgiving wolfkin.
Maleficio gazed out across the charnel, letting the old mage catch his breath. Slowly, and with growing alarm, the young boy cocked his head, once or twice shaking it as if something were troubling him.
The wizard took his arm, squeezing it with the little strength he could yet muster, and smiled reassuringly at the fearful boy.
"You hear them? The voices of the dead are not to be feared. We are honoured that they should speak to us, my boy".
And he did hear them. Softly at first, but soon rising; imploring, animalistic howls and whines that spoke of their miserable end at the fangs and claws that had greedily rended them asunder. Soon their troubled, long-lost pleas rose up, merging into one endless, terrible shriek, stranded souls given voice.
And there was something else, some other meaning that pierced the din.
It was anger.
The combined outrage and fury at their plight - for they had not simply been preyed upon, dragged to that awful, ungodly place to be witness in their final moments of life to their very bodies being split and burst in a frenzied, feasting bloodlust. No, they had then to spend the rest of eternity as spirits held captive by their mortal remains, tormented by the relentless sight of the very creatures that had slain them, made to watch each day grisly re-enactments of the same bloody fate that had befallen them, seeing their own bodies and those of others ripped and swallowed, their precious blood lapped from their skeletons, their final resting place dictated by wheresoever the wolfkin defaecated.
Had Maleficio known it, he would once have been sharing their cry, but for the intervention of his benevolent tutor.
They cried out for vengeance.
Wordlessly, Maleficio and his master sat resting upon the edge of the wolves' den.
The boy had no understanding of why they waited, but he knew better than to question the old man's instructions, and trusted that their purpose there would eventually become clear. For his part, the mage watched his young charge expectantly, knowing that if he did not soon see what must be done, if the instincts and skills that he had taught the boy these long years did not provide him with the answers he sought, then he had truly failed.
Occasionally, he would whisper almost to himself of the place to which they had come, speaking of the Old Times when there had been a thriving township nearby whose scribes had given a name to the vast woodland area that surrounded their humble settlement. They had named it Fenric Forest, a place to be treated with all the respect that nature was due, somewhere for woodsmen to make their living, for hunters to feed their families and for those less fortunate to forage for berries and wild roots. It became a place where apothecaries would travel to find remedies and supplicants from the rarer species of plantlife, and even a place where children could play, frolicking upon the grassy clearings and hiding among the tall, sheltering trees. As time passed, the forest became their very livelihood, providing everything they could need to live and prosper.
There was some confusion, he told the boy, about what finally befell the denizens of the township, since all those who could tell the tale had been long ago returned to the earth, but wisdom had it that a grand mage had called upon them and orchestrated their downfall. Some said it was from offence at some long-forgotten slight, an insult that had gone unforgiven and which had caused him, in his wrath, to call into existence the desolation of those he despised. Others believed it was an act of random spite, as though the cruel wizard had seen their idyllic world and the very sanctity of it appalled and enraged him, until he set about designing its destruction as an offering to the very chaos he served. Yet more spoke of the demolition of the town and all the citizens within as nothing more nor less trivial than an exercise in his dark skills, an anonymous and defenceless target that he chanced upon, and which served as an opportunity for him to wage his vile, untried magics upon them.
Whichever was the case, the wolves of Fenric came.
With unnatural stealth and patience, they drew their first blood quietly and without warning. Over days, hunters failed to return from their expeditions, and the stock of the townships' timber declined as fewer and fewer of their woodsmen were to stagger back from the forest, laden with the spoils of their days' work. Weeks passed, and the desks at the school began to grow empty, while widows and grief-stricken fathers were the few left to bow their sullen heads under the chapel roof. Abandoned toys and workmens' tools lay strewn about the town, whilst the brave menfolk banded together to seek out the lost among the trees, finding little but broken branches, scraps of clothing, and axes and bows discarded in panic-stricken flight. When they found more than that, they discreetly buried it, and returned home to say nothing of their fears, not daring to risk inspiring more fear than was already in evidence throughout the town. Instead, they called a meeting in their great hall, and set about a plan to leave their homes and seek sanctuary to the north, hoping to call upon the charity of the noble family Maleficio, and find safe haven in their vast lands.
In some strange precognition, it seemed as if the wolves of Fenric were aware of their plotting, for even as the last remaining citizens were debating their exodus, there came the victorious baying of their persecutors, a terrible and bold chorus of unearthly voices which made plain that the beasts had scented their fear and finally broached the boundaries of their forest home, setting grisly, bloodied paw upon the streets of the town. What transpired in that last hour can only be imagined, and was better yet forgotten, and no witnesses lived to speak of it.
When finally it was over, and the sated wolves withdrew to savour the blood upon their tongues, dragging the carcasses of children they had spared from the raging feast - for they were the easiest to bear back to the wolfkin's den, and the tenderest morsels to offer their young - the town fell silent, the slow path to decay and ruin ahead.
Occasionally, travellers would happen upon the debris of the town, some scavenging the few goods and chattels they could carry, others secreting stolen gold upon their person, before heading out upon their way to sow tales of the havoc and bloodshed that they imagined to have taken place there.
As for the wolfkin, they flourished, released from their unholy task once the town and all its folk were dead, ekeing out their existence throughout the forest, sometimes striking out at the unwary and unarmed journeyman in some small repetition of the grand and wicked quest that had seen them brought to the world.
Maleficio looked up at his master, letting the weight of his words take hold upon his boyish imagination. If all this was true, why had the old mage brought them to this terrible, forbidding place? Surely, by his own words, he had described the very last place in the forest to which an old man and a young boy should travel as darkness was beginning its descent, even moreso because neither of them had weapons with which to defend either themselves or the other.
And yet, the wizard seemed at peace, untroubled by the ghastly sights before them, and unmoved by the tale he had told.
Slowly, and without the slightest sign of fear, the old man pointed out into the encroaching darkness.
The young Maleficio let his eyes follow the path indicated by the wizened finger, peering into the gloom for whatever he was meant to see. His pale eyes struggled to make sense of the formless night or the impassive, encompassing trees.
Then he saw them.
Like fireflies, amber specks of light were drifting into view, each paired with another and barely moving at all. In that moment, Maleficio heard the souls' cries, which he had so far done his best to ignore, rise up into a cacophonous wail of fury.
He heard the old man whisper: "The wolves of Fenric".
Scrambling to his feet, the young boy siezed the mage's arm, trying to lead him from the clearing and to safety. Instead, he threw off the boy's grip and shook his head, something like a smile playing upon his thin, dry lips.
"We cannot possibly outrun them, Maleficio. I'm far too old and you too tasty. Dead as you are, a wolf is never one to turn his snout up at carrion".
The mage affectionately ruffled the ice-white hair of his young apprentice, seeming blissfully unconvinced of any impending danger. Why was he doing this? Had Maleficio the ability to speak, he would have screamed of their peril, cursed the old mage for bringing them to their deaths after so long nurturing the little life they both had left. Instead, he let the murdered souls cry for him, his mouth open and yawning as if he were a conduit for their pain and anger.
Behind him, Maleficio heard the steady tick-tock of twigs breaking beneath heavy, approaching feet.
He turned warily, aware that any sudden movement upon his part might spell certain, swifter deaths for them both.
There were thirteen of them in all, most of them equal in size to a large bear, yet more lithe and balanced in their stance. Their unblinking eyes lit up their matted, bloodstained muzzles, betraying snouts that were wrinkling both at the scent of their prey and with the sneering hatred of the weak and unguarded. Even in the darkness, it was possible to see the pelted might of their muscles, trained and honed by countless kills.
The largest of them all, bulkier and perhaps fattened by his natural right to take the larger portion of any feast, broke from the pack and prowled closer, imperceptibly lowering his front legs and raising his haunches in preparation for his first, fatal pounce.
The souls screamed vengeance in Maleficio's acheing skull.
They demanded retribution.
Throwing back his head in despair, the boy's mouth opened wide in a silent cry of despair, his body arching back as if some great burden were suddenly upon him. His whole body shook with anguish, his arms splayed out, hands clenching until the dead flesh creaked. He was dimly aware that his boots were no longer upon the ground, his frail body held aloft by the very intensity of his emotions.
I will give you your revenge, he swore to the cries ringing in his head, I will give you your right to vengeance.
The wolves leapt forward, fangs bared, drool trailing a silvery wake. At their head, the pack leader lunged at Maleficio's suspended form, jaws snapping to catch one dangling boot.
In that moment, the voices in his head were gone, yet still he heard them. They came from the ground, sudden and sharp, making the wolfkin swing round in their tracks wildly, their sensitive hearing rebelling against the fearsome clamour. Some yelped in pain, others giving rise to agonised howls. The leader himself rounded upon them, growling and baring his jaws, trying to marshall his baying troops.
As the noise rose up from the ground, so too did the bones and shredded flesh of their victims, miraculously huddling together, forming a whole. Soon, masses of decaying residue were alive, stumbling into motion, limbs breaking free of the bloody clumps, bones holding them aloft to stagger clumsily towards the night sky. Gruesome maws opened up in a grotesque parody of a mouth, from which poured forth the squealing exclamations of the dead souls once more granted an audience. Grunting and snarling, they moved on the retreating wolfkin; brittle, white limbs flailing, striking deep at the fur and finding the flesh beneath.
Fresh blood began to decorate the snowy ground, long, dark ribbons that sprouted from the struggling beasts. As they brought each wolf down, felt the ribs and skulls crack and the soft tissues rupture and tear, yet another of their skeletal counterparts emerged, birthed from the flesh of the dying wolves, bursting through the fur and launching itself into the onslaught.
The leader fought to the last, eyes blazing until they were pricked out by a blow across it's thrashing head. Seconds later, it had vanished beneath a score of relentless undead adversaries, it's growls becoming cries becoming the snapping of bone and the softer sounds of flesh being spilled onto the ground.
Maleficio dropped to the ground, his weakened legs giving way beneath him until he fell to his knees, gasping. Although he knew he was already dead, he had never felt so much of the sensation as he did then, the little life that fired him on almost burnt down to a cinder within.
He felt the old man's hand upon his shoulder.
"Take it back", he heard him whisper. "Take it back quickly before you lose it forever."
As much as Maleficio did not understand, he knew exactly what he must do, the teachings of his master giving way to something not unlike instinct.
Closing his empty eyes tight shut, the boy took back the life he had briefly permitted the undead horde, willing them to die so that he may live.
Steadily, they crumbled before his eyes, tumbling apart into the random jumble of viscera and gnawed bone from which they had sprung. As they did, there was an unearthly seething hiss, which was most likely an exhalation of the gases produced by their accelerated decay - but to Maleficio it seemed as a sigh, a contented release that signalled a final peace now that vengeance was theirs.
"Sleep well, my children", he overheard the old mage intone. "Sleep well".
They had walked back in silence, the old man appearing spritelier in his gait than before. Unlike his master, Maleficio shambled along behind, still weak but deep in thought. The strain of his resurrective exertions had left him bowed, his hands still crippled in half-clenched pain. His master had told him that the sensation would pass with time, but that every time he fuelled his minions it would worsen the physical effects upon him. Some of the most prolific advocates of necromancy were left hobbled and hunched for their efforts, he had warned.
Finding themselves back at the mage's hovel, Maleficio fell back onto his makeshift cot. The old master tended to him, casting strange enchantments and using a delicate brush and draughtsman's ink to fashion an elaborate symbol about the boy's left eye.
"This will help you, my boy", he muttered, taking pains to hold Maleficio's head still as he provided the final flourishes to the design. "Many of your kind wear them, to ward off the ills that your magic inflicts upon you".
Standing back and placing the light of a candle flame near to the boy's face to admire his handiwork, he smiled broadly.
"I have something else for you, now that you have come of age".
From a sack secreted behind the stone grate of the fire, the old man drew a bundle of black and silver. Holding it aloft, he let it fall open, amused by the curiosity upon the boy's face as he watched the suit of armour unfurl to the floor. Despite his weariness, Maleficio rose up from the bed and let his delicate fingers play across the gleaming black leather. It was bound together by a multitude of steel buckles, too many to count.
"I wore this once myself", his master said proudly, his eyes filming over as with distant memories of his youth. "But it truly belongs to the dead, not the living. These fastenings were wrought in order to restrict the crippling nature of a necromancer's skills. They will hold you upright even as your body seeks to fall".
Between them, they strapped Maleficio into his new garb, taking great pains to tighten each buckle until it could be moved no further. When at last it was complete, the boy flexed every limb, listening to the leather and steel creak and clink as they fought to hold him in their grip.
The old man clapped his frail hands with glee, chuckling at his proud new apprentice.
He fished once again into the sack. "And now, I feel, the time is right for you to claim your birthright".
He held in his palm a small golden seal, worn and scarred.
The boy looked up at him quizzically.
"This", he was told, as the mage twirled the glittering emblem in the firelight, "This is the Mantle of Maleficio. Wear it, and it will bestow upon you the title robbed from you by an untimely death at the clumsy hands of a physician's science".
Carefully, and with some awe, Maleficio took it from him, examining every feature and flaw as though it were a Shiverpeak diamond. Even despite the ravages of time, the legend that ran around its extremities could still be read: DEFENIIS RE ORBIS VERSA IRACCEPTUS MORTIRE.
The old man translated: "'Preserve our world against unwelcome Death', it's Ancient Tyrian".
But Maleficio cared little for the language in which it had been written. His interest was more for the meaning behind the inscription, for in it he saw a little of why he had been so sorely abandoned those many years ago. They had felt that death was something to be feared, something that had to be shunned and avoided at all costs, lest it consume their world. In some respects, it made their fearful and hasty behaviour understandable at last. All throughout his years under the tuition and guidance of the mage, he had assumed that he had been a source of shame.
Instead, they had been terrified, and not by him, but by the state of Death into which he had been born.
He pondered as to how many other subjects of this earthly realm lived in dread of Death, for if they feared it then they would surely fear him too, for he was Death incarnate. What power did this give him over the living evils of this world, if they would feel spinal shivers under his gaze and their nerves turn to shreds in his presence?
It was then, as he emerged from this contemplative reverie, that he noticed the peculiar and singularly symmetric quality of the scarring upon the seals surface. He removed one glove in order to run his fingertips over the indentations, feeling as if he should understand their origins better than he did.
Perhaps reading his thoughts, the old man cleared his throat cautiously.
"You're right, of course", he began. "They are the marks left by teeth".
Maleficio looked upon his master's face, that kindly, time-worn visage into which he had gazed on so many occasions over the long years of their isolation. It was as if he was looking at him for the first time, his bleached eyes searching for some resemblance to the man he thought he knew.
"The wolves of Fenric have always been a tool of vengeance, young Maleficio. Just as they were those many years ago when those ignorant townsfolk shunned a young necromancer because he embodied their mortal fears". The wizard nodded at his apprentice's bleak uniform. "I wore that then. The powers it gave me", he hissed thoughtfully.
Maleficio felt his body tremble, but it could never have been from the cold. His hands were tightening, the leather creaking like a bowmaster's string being drawn back for a kill.
"Oh yes, those naughty children we sent to bed tonight, they were mine. I lacked the affinity with Death to summon anything other than the living, but what a merry song they've been singing all these years. I had not intended for them to survive so long, but they were oh so very cunning, hiding out in the forest, taking their mission of retribution to levels beyond my anticipation".
The old man siezed the seal from Maleficio's hand, smarting slightly at his cold touch. Even the gold had grown chill in his apprentice's grasp.
"It was they who brought you to me that night, as a peace offering, I suspect. The dead had been hard to come by once my work in the old town had been completed, so they gave me one last subject in order that I might spare them".
He looked with wonder at Maleficio, rising from his perpetual stoop with a strange, misplaced pride.
"But my efforts at necromancy had results far beyond my expectations. No mere minion came forth from your frozen corpse, only to falter and die within moments. Instead, you were given life. And in you I saw a tool of vengeance far greater than any mere wolf. The Lord Maleficio, Master of the Dead, Harness of Souls, The Great Leveller".
"Of course", he went on, playfully, "There could only ever be one Lord Maleficio. And had he not cast you out, left you for the bait of petty forest creatures? There had to be revenge, my boy, and my children did so enjoy their responsibilities".
The young boy pierced him with a look, his slender frame quaking with emotion, the steel restraints straining against the swell of his outraged chest.
"There could be no going back for you", the mage reasoned. "So what matter that there's nothing left to go back to? The lands of Maleficio have been scoured clean of their vile inhabitants. Tonight was not merely a test of your abilities, it was your first act of reckoning. To slay those who had slain your kin. It's interesting to wonder if some part of that abbatoir from which you summoned forth your warriors may have been your own flesh and blood. Certainly of more use to us dead than alive, I'm sure you agree..."
If the mage had the slightest notion that his words were raising fury in his young apprentice, he was either too convinced of his own powers to concern himself, or his ranting boasts had consumed him to the point at which he was oblivious of the effects they were inciting. Whichever mistake he had made, it was nonetheless a mistake, and he was ill-prepared for what occured in the next few moments.
The boy's shaking form had reached the level of feverishness, his body constricting against the bonds of his tunic until several of the buckles could fight him no longer and sprang open, the leather beneath parting to betray pallid, hairless flesh.
Suddenly conscious of the heat of Maleficio's ire, the old man smirked.
"I think in time, you will see the error of this behaviour, my boy. I should have expected some little gratitude for the errand of righteousness I had performed in your honour, not this ridiculous spectacle. Unless, of course", he sneered amusedly, "You're hoping to raise minions from the ether, then I see no materials with which your skills can possibly work".
He raised his staff gingerly, making plain he was prepared to use it to raise wards and enchantments to quell his apprentice if he did not desist, his crusted old lips parting to take in breath, in preparation for uttering some esoteric incantation.
What happened next prevented him from any such action.
Without warning, Maleficio flew from the soil of the hovel's floor, sending gusts of dusty earth up in grey-brown clouds around him. His arched body twisted violently, his arms and legs thrown back as if he were nothing more than a marionette caught in a gale. He flung back his head, the empty veins of his neck mapping their route down to his tunic as his very skin grew impossibly taut with the act of summoning.
His mouth snapped open, and a voice emerged, booming throughout the small enclosure and sending pots and jars rattling and rolling about their unsteady bases. It was a man's voice, loud and riven with hatred.
It snarled: "You murdering abomination! Had I the power of life once more, I would tear your blackened heart from your chest and drive it into your foul, perverted mouth!"
The mage felt the staff slip from his grasp, and though he wasn't aware of his own terrified retreat, he sharply felt a wall at his back, as though the fierce proclamation had thrust him backwards with it's very savage vehemence.
Through the clamour, struggling to make himself heard, his voice now thin and reedy with fear, he stammered: "Who..?"
"I", came the stormy reply, "Am the Lord Maleficio!"
"That's not possible", the wizard cried out, shielding his rheumy, watering eyes from the whirlwind of dust and dirt.
"What have you done with our son?" It was a different voice this time, shrill and stricken with horror, and though he had never heard it before, the mage knew it to be the voice of the Lady Maleficio. "Why could you not let him rest in peace?"
At that point, the young boy's head snapped forward, his eyes finding those of the mage, his open mouth twisting to a snarl. From out of the grimacing lips came the sound of a boy, much younger in years than his apprentice, but nonetheless his own.
"I am the Lord Maleficio, Master of the Dead, Harness of Souls, The Great Leveller, the weapon of retribution that you fashioned from a lifeless infant". The boy's body leapt even further into the air, lunging closer to the old mage and sending his tumbling to his knees, his frail hands held out in supplication. "And in keeping with your wishes, my master, I bring you vengeance!"
White eyes rolled up to show crimson fire beneath, and the wizard felt a ferocious ache in his body, growing in intensity until his very bones seemed made of flame. He tried to scream, to beg, to scramble from the terrible sight, but his wizened skin grew agonisingly tight about him. He gazed down with streaming eyes upon his fragile hands, seeing the skin blister and crack as the bones within began to emerge. Had he known of it, he would have been grateful that he was spared the awful image of his own skeleton bursting from his body as though it were a stone squeezed from some over-ripe fruit, the delicate structure of white bone struggling to be free of it's fleshy bonds, rising up to stand as the tissues within and without fell away in a sluggish, steaming mass, before the young boy snatched back his life and set the stranded ivory tower of disconnected parts toppling to the dirt.
And then, as the raging storm of anger dissipated in but an instant, Maleficio fell to the floor, exhaustion sending him on his way to a profound and deep slumber.
The tall, rakish figure stood among the ruins, motionless as a black-clad scarecrow made of brittle, twisted branches.
Around him, the broken house of stone and wood, once proud and majestic, now shattered and corrupted by the ravages of time at its most ruthless and unforgiving. The lone witness to the devastation, so very long ago, let his pale eyes travel over the debris, blinking away the flurry of snow that gathered up and surrounded his narrow form. His stance scarcely moved by the whistling gale that set the leather decorations upon his staff flailing and fluttering, the young man tried to imagine how different the scene might have been had he lived. Perhaps he would have played among the stout wooden chairs of the banquet hall, now stripped by damp and scattered in abstract shapes, their wood forming a surreal graveyard in memory of those who had perished there.
Had he lived, perhaps the wolves would still have come, as likely to spare him as all the others whose remains now lay beneath the snow, just as his had oh so many years past. Somewhere here might have lain his mother and father, their bodies foraged and plundered of their warm flesh. Perhaps they had survived, fled with as many as they could rouse before the onslaught, settled elsewhere.
Certainly, there were no voices to be heard in the fallen house of Maleficio, nor any souls seeking to commune with him.
All was silent, white, and peaceful. As graves went, it was no different to any other, and he knew very well how well the snows could serve as a final resting place for the lost.
In a little while, he knew, he would move on. There was nothing here for him now, if there ever had been.
He would travel, explore, discover; he had no map to guide him, but the stars in the sky would help him find a way.
There were many things ahead, many troubles and conflicts, of that he was certain. The old man was right - it was not to be an easy journey, and even less so without any destination to lead him on.
But there was always hope.
And, alongside that hope, the promise, perhaps, of love.