Monster Party Book Seven: There's some things you're never gonna help or change, but hunger is something we can turn around!
Chapter Ten: Son when you grow up, would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the dammed?
Having escaped from Zhakata's temple, the group headed back into the city, making sure to duck into the first alley they could find. As useful as the red cloaks had been for getting around the temple, they drew slightly too much attention when worn outside of it.
Not only that, but if they moved at anything more rushed than an aggravated stroll, the amount of attention they drew would inevitably start increasing exponentially. The people of Zhukar respected and obeyed the priests, but they also watched them very intently for fear of angering them. If the group ended up bumping into someone while they were rushing around in priestly vestments, the person they'd collided with probably wouldn't feel safe again until they'd handed over half of their worldly possession and at one family member….
So the six adventurers discarded their robes, doing so in turns while being careful to always have one of their number keeping lookout. Keeping lookout, and also standing directly in the line of sight of anyone who might accidentally see what was going on. After that, they simply strolled out of the alley at a briskish pace, looking nonchalant as possible.
Back in their everyday outfits, the group should be safe from the Church of Zhakata's first round of repercussions, when they were trying to find the ones directly responsible for desecrating their temple. They would not be safe from the second round though, when the church having failed to find the actual guilty party, decided to start rounding up anyone who had irritated them and seeing if it couldn't 'convince' them to confess.
People like foreigners who had been behaving in a distinctly blase manner towards the holy writ of Zhakata, simply because they claimed to worship other gods.
The six of them needed to be out of Zhukar before that particular shoe dropped. So, when they reached their guesting house Mirri had one last "charming" (in the sense of making liberal use of her vampiric charm gaze ability) conversation with Leon while the rest of the group retrieved what possessions they had left behind.
Alexander paid the man one more batch of coins before checking out. That done, they headed for the secure location in the city's underground tunnels where they'd last parted ways with the Circle of Darkness.
Along the way Alex had gotten Florence to add some string, strengthen, and finally enchant the broken strands which held the Eye of Zhakata. The necklace was made whole once more and the silver haired man now wore jewel around his throat (having been careful to tuck it beneath the folds of his white undershirt so that it would draw less attention) the safest place that he could think of to keep it.
When they reached the underground passage the only thing they found waiting for them was empty air.
"Well this is just great, now I guess we just stand around and twiddle our thumbs till the faithful of Zhakata hunt us down." Cal groaned in irritation.
James Firecat's hands began to twitch slightly as he looked around the unremarkable passage, the young werecat evidently quite bored with their dull surroundings.
A moment later Mirri Catwarrior's hands began to twitch as well.
Alexander's single eye darted around the room before eventually settling upon those hands.
Then with shocking abruptness he reached out with his right arm, grabbed a handful of nothing and yanked it upwards.
He was gripping nothing, and yet he wasn't quite able to depress his fingers to the point that they rested against his palm.
"I've had a really rough day. I got woken up by a bunch of incredibly loud bells, had to play dress up, parade around inside a temple full of people who I hate, and got 'eaten' by a statue. When I have rough days, it makes me angry, and when I get angry I get unreasonable. Would you terribly mind not making my day any more aggravating than it already is?" He asked a patch of empty air.
A moment later the air flickered and a man became visible.
He was dressed in a brown cloak and his feet were currently dangling off the ground because Alexander had managed to seize him about the throat.
"Had to take precautions! Inquisition could have come here first!" The black haired blue eyed man gasped out in a slightly choked voice.
"They could have, but they didn't. We came here first. It would have been nice for you to drop your spell of invisibility and welcome us as friends of the Circle. A little respect and civility can go a long way, Mador seemed to understand that when he helped rescued me and my black haired companion." The silver haired man sighed, sounding more upset than angry.
"It was Madar, and you had the blond haired woman with you! Her and a transformed priest named Petchko!" The formerly invisible man corrected.
Alexander slowly nodded and lowered the robbed man to the floor.
"Hmm, while you're a bit lacking in manners you do value attention to detail over blindly agreeing with whatever your told, so I suppose that's something. I take it Madar sent you?" He questioned.
"Did you get the Eye?" The robbed man pestered.
Alexander's black gloved hand, which had just let go of the man in brown, promptly seized him about the throat again.
"Lets try this again. You're using me to help accomplish your goals. I'm somewhat less than enthusiastic about this prospect but I'm willing to play along… if I get rewarded and shown the proper respect. I was 'hired' to do what no one else in Zhukar could do. So, you'll answer my questions first. I take it Madar sent you?" Alexander repeated.
"I was sent by Bolsh. He runs the Circle within Zhukar." The robbed man answered and was rewarded by having his throat released again.
"I see. Your name is?" Alexander pressed, twitching his fingers just a bit for effect.
"Olvoro." Olvoro promptly responded.
"Pleasure to meet you Olvoro, I'm Alexander Diamondclaw. I understand that the Circle of Darkness has places it can hide us in Zhukar where even the inquisition won't be able to find us?" The silver haired man asked dispassionately.
"No it doesn't. But we can get you out of the city and hide you among the transformed. They inquisition is powerful, but not so powerful that it can find people in the desert." The Circle of Darkness' representative replied.
"There's that attention to detail. Sorry but Madar seemed not to think I was important or trustworthy enough to give me any sort of pass-phrase for dealing with your organization. A man winds up getting a touch paranoid when he's treated like that. So I take it you'll be our guide out of the city?" Alexander explained his most recent 'lapses of memory' to Olvoro.
"Do you have the Eye of Zhakata?" Olvoro repeated his own previous question with a hungry look in his blue eyes.
The adventurer reached beneath the fabric of his shirt and pulled out the black jewel that he'd managed to steal from Zhakata's temple.
Olvoro began to reach out for it, only to promptly get his hand slapped away by Devi Skye.
"If you wanted it so bad, should have stolen it yourself." The elf stated bluntly.
"The Circle of Darkness has important plans for that stone!" Olvoro pleaded.
"Then I'm sure Bolsh, or whoever he takes orders from will be polite enough to explain what they are to me when the time comes. Since the Circle of Darkness is keeping me in the dark, I'm keeping hold of the Eye. Bad things happen when I hand over important magical artifacts over to people I don't really trust." Alexander insisted.
Olvoro did not look pleased with this news, not in the slightest. He also did not at all look ready to try and protest though.
"Very well then, lets get out of the city while we still have time." The Circle member insisted before heading off down the underground hallway.
Mirri clicked her tongue once and then offered the black haired man a playful smile.
"I'm much too tall and pretty and to be a dwarf, but I'm still pretty good at knowing my way around underground. Make sure you lead us on the most direct path out of the city. If you start leading us back towards the temple..." She let that particular comment hang in midair.
It was a very paranoid group of seven that struck out down what was hopefully the Circle of Darkness' secret path out of the city.
XXX XXX XXX
Luckily for everyone, said path actually went where it was supposed to.
Though Cal was a little surprised at the group's turn of good fortune Mirri wasn't.
Her vampiric hearing had allowed her to track Olvoro's heartbeat, and while he was (justifiably) scared of Alexander Diamondclaw, his heart wasn't quite beating fast enough for a man who was leading someone already expecting treachery (and preparing retribution for it) into an ambush.
After walking a fair distance underground the tunnel slopped upwards towards the ceiling. Eventually Olvoro was able to push aside some tiles allowing both light and a few handfuls of sand to enter the tunnel. He scrambled out and the others followed, finding themselves standing acceptably far outside the gates of Zhukar.
"Well that's one problem taken care of." Alexander admitted as he climbed out into the open air.
As actively as the followers of Zhakata were no doubt searching Zhukar at the moment, there didn't seem to be anyone patrolling around out here. After a few moments back in the sunlight it wasn't hard to figure out why either, the desert's heat promptly reasserted itself with a vengeance now that they were outside Zhukar's walls. Any group of soldiers in heavy armor marching around out here would either need magical protection or they'd surely be slain by the heat before any foe's blade had a chance.
"How do we find the transformed ones?" Devi wanted to know, since Alexander had insisted that linking up with those like Petchko would be their next major task now that they'd escaped the city.
"Don't even bother trying to find them. Those savages have lived out here far too long, just head away from the city, they'll find you first." Olvoro promised the six in a not at all reassuring manner.
Once the entire group had left the tunnel he quickly scuttled back into it and resealed its opening behind them.
The half a dozen adventures were thus left at the mercy of the desert's scorching heat and whipping winds.
"Florence, some magic would be welcome." Alexander admitted as he already could feel the first bead of sweat starting to form on his brow.
The dryad got to work doing what she could to mystically protect the group and then they headed out away from Zhukar. Even if they didn't end up meeting any of the transformed the more distance they could put between themselves and Yagno Petrovna the better.
XXX XXX XXX
It was late afternoon and the sun had just begun to fade when all of a sudden four shapes appeared before the group with a suddenness that took even experienced adventures by surprise.
Three of the figures were hooded and robed. The fourth though was more monster than man; he stood roughly seven feet tall with a ghastly face that was part lizard and part dog. His bare (aside for some patchy fur and a crudely stitched vest) chest was massively muscled his arms and legs were equally oversized.
"What do you here, where mongrelmen be?" The monstrous figure demanded. His speech was deformed and awkward thanks to a pair of large tusks which prevented him from being able to fully close his mouth.
"The Circle of Darkness sent us. We're here to help free Zhakata the Provider." Alexander answered.
Somewhat unsurprisingly while Madar had refused to give him any pass-phrases for dealing his own companions, he'd been all too willing to explain exactly what Alexander should say when introducing himself to the transformed.
"You have Eye?" The spokesman of the 'mongrelmen' growled at him wearily.
Once again Alexander reached under his shirt and produced the black jewel.
There must be something truly mystical about that jewel (though if it had any magical powers of its own it hadn't cared to show them to Alexander yet) since just like Olvoro, the mongrelmen seemed to recognize it on sight. Almost instantly a heated exchange broke out among the four, the mongrelmen speaking to one another in a bizarre mix of grunts, growls, and low hoots.
Then after seemingly browbeating the other three into agreement, the largest of the mongrelmen began to approach the group, a look of disdain on his face.
"Wahrg say you not so tough. Why we need you to free Lord Zhakata? You fight Wahrg, show your strength in combat!" The muscle bound blend of beast and man insisted.
Alexander Diamondclaw stepped forward, his single green eye gazing pointedly at "Wahrg", figuring that the mongrelman was most likely suffering some difficulty with proper use of pronouns rather than speaking on someone else's behalf.
"What kind of fight?" He asked calmly fingering Wolf Claw with his right hand.
Wahrg snorted dismissively as he curled his half hands half paws into fists.
"Small man throw away his sword, fight Wahrg with just his fists, like how Wahrg fight. Is fair. We fight until one say give up, or hit so hard can't say anything for a while." The mongrelman explained.
It seemed that he was more interested in s tribal honor duel than a genuine battle to the death.
"I can accept that, just give me a moment to get ready." The silver haired man reflected.
Alexander slowly and carefully unstrapped Wolf Claw and tossed it to Florence. He trusted her to look after his blade until he had genuine need for it.
Then with sudden swiftness he reached up and yanked at the black strap which held his eye-patch in place. The string was torn asunder by the force of his grip and Alexander dropped it to the dusty ground to look out at Wahrg with both of his eyes.
Alexander Diamondclaw's right eye was a sight that could shock the bravest of men. It was neither scarred nor utterly missing, it was whole and it was functional, it was just… wrong.
It was a strange golden yellow color gold color with a pupil that light seemed to reflect off of rather than enter, the sort of eye that had was never meant to be found in the skull of a human being. It was the sort of eye that you might find in the skull of a wolf.
Just like Wahrg had done, Alexander curled his hands into fists. Fists that began to grow larger.
His entire body began to grow larger, as what at first seemed to be silver hair, but then became more accurately describe as silver fur started to sprout across it.
His ears began to migrate upwards towards the top of his head much like where James' resided, though they were larger and mildly less pointed. His face began to elongate as his teeth grew sharper, larger, and more numerous. His black gloves seemed to simply fade into his skin so that there was room for what had once been ordinary fingernails to become wicked looking claws.
As his boots vanished, his feet grew wider and became huge paws as well, though his posture remained upright, his spine unbent.
In less than a minute Alexander Diamondclaw transformed from an ordinary man into a terrifying mix of man and wolf, with a coat of shining silver fur.
"So, when do we start this fight?" The wolf monster that had been Alexander Diamondclaw asked, with a voice that somehow unlike the rest of his body was completely unchanged.
Alexander was used to a variety of reactions to his power of transformation, though people running away in fear or cowering in horror were the two most common.
He'd never gotten this particular one before though…
Wahrg and his fellow mongrelmen threw themselves to the dusty ground, and began to sob. Not in terror, but in reverence.
"Zhakata… Zhakata…. Zhakata..." They repeated the words over and over again.
"No. No, no no! I'm not Zhakata!" Alexander insisted, suddenly feeling the sort of guilt over his power of transformation that hadn't struck him in a long time.
"What Zhakata take from… you find again?" Wahrg gasped in awe as he still refused to remove his head from the ground.
"He chase sandstorm, and catch it..." Another of the mongrelmen muttered softly.
"He pure and whole again." Another added.
"He worthy to go among men..." The last one declared solemnly.
None of the four was willing to so much as gaze upon Alexander's paws, let alone his face.
"Zhakata hasn't been able to take anything from me!" Alexander insisted.
In retrospect, Zhakata (or at least worship of him) had been able to take away any real hope Alexander had of finding a good drink in G'Henna, but he was keenly aware that saying such things aloud would be contraindicated at the moment. For that matter, Zhakata and his worshipers had also stolen a handful of hours that Alexander would have preferred to spend sleeping over the last few days.
"When Yagno lay hands on him… he must lay hands on Yagno!" Wahrg declared eagerly.
"Not let himself be molded, but mold self instead!" Another added.
"He who so pure, so human, essence could not be stolen." The third insisted.
"He who Zhakata refuse to curse, bless instead." The fourth agreed.
Alexander was getting a throbbing sensation in the back of his head. A throbbing sensation that he expected would be more troublesome than a great many more direct injuries he'd sustained in his past. Regeneration could knit flesh, mend bones, or speed up the body's production of blood, and all of it could even be relatively painless. There was one thing it most assuredly couldn't do though, and that was cure the common headache.
Surely there was a reason for it, a reason Alexander fully expected to understand, right after he awoke one morning to find that it was just past ten and his bed had been replaced with a pile of platinum coins.
"What I am has nothing to do with Zhakata! I don't worship Zhakata!" The wolf-man monster insisted bitterly.
"He don't worship Zhakata?" Wahrg whimpered in confusion.
"He… he don't worship the one who did this to us?" Suggested one of the cloaked followers.
"Is… is there another god so powerful?" Still another pondered.
"What god made you in such divine perfection?" The final member of the small group pleaded.
"I am not perfect! I am not the chosen of a god! I am not some righteous paladin! I am just a monster who doesn't hate ordinary people as much as he hates hates other monsters..." Alexander Diamondclaw insisted as he began to undo his transformation, silver fur retracting back into his skin, his body shrinking and clothing starting to reemerge.
XXX XXX XXX
"Especially myself…." The silver haired man finally spoke the words that had been on his mind if not his lips since the end of his encounter with Wahrg.
It had been easy to convince the mongrelmen to escort the adventures to the ramshackle gathering of tents that passed for a center of civilization among their outcast people.
Alexander Diamondclaw (who Wahrg and the other mongrelmen continued to revere to the point that he'd been grateful they hadn't insisted on carrying him so that his boots didn't get dusty) had been given one of the largest most spacious tents available (which among the mongrelmen was another way of saying it didn't have any obvious holes in it) close to the collection of bonfires they were using to gain some measure of warmth during the cold desert night.
"You're not a monster to me." Insisted Florence Bastion (who unsurprisingly was sharing Alexander's tent) before leaning herself against his firm chest and gently running her hands through his hair.
"Yes I am. I'm a monster to myself, I'm a monster to you, I'm a monster to them, I'm a monster to everyone. That's the one reason I'm still able to live with myself, I recognize my own monstrosity." Alexander insisted bitterly.
Despite his foul mood, Florence refused to pull away.
"Remember what I told you so many years ago… I've seen apple trees grow crooked, and death's head trees grow straight. It is only by the fruits of a tree that you can truly tell its nature. The fruit that you nurture are sweet and life giving." The dryad insisted.
"First Gavin, though he at least comes by it honestly, then Marda, now Wahrg and the mongrelmen, why does everyone expect me to be some splendid savior who solves all their problems?" He growled in irritation.
"Because you are more than an ordinary man Alexander Diamondclaw. You are also a wolf."
"The greatest wolf." Alexander growled, suddenly seeming actively irritated rather than morosely melancholy.
"The greatest wolf." Florence eagerly agreed, as she continued to caress his shining hair.
"I don't expect you to be a god, I don't expect you to work miracles. All I've ever expected from you was what I expected when we first met… for you to try and make the world a better place." She insisted.
"Those mongrelmen out there..." Alexander waved a hand at the small throng of transformed beings who he knew were eagerly positioning themselves as close to his tent as they dared go.
"Everything I said to them, no matter how hard I tried, it just made them want to believe in me more." He reflected, his mood turning dour again.
"Don't you want them to believe in you?" Florence pressed.
"Not as a god. Not as the champion of a god." The once more (James had provided him with a fresh one once he'd reverted his transformation) eye-patch wearing man insisted.
"What about as a wolf? Do you want them to know how you are the greatest wolf? These mongrelmen, they have nothing..." She began.
Before the dryad could go any further however Alexander cut her off.
"There's a difference between belief and respect you know. Alas, because of what they've been through, they'll probably believe in anything now, even a god who got them into this mess in the first place." He finished for her.
Florence, nodded, having come to the same conclusion as Alexander himself.
"Faith is a powerful, tangible thing Alex. When a man has no logical reason to expect anything but suffering and misery, he can still have faith in something greater. Some people put their faith in gods, others in childhood fairytales." She pointed out, her voice soft and gentle.
"Childhood fairytales reward faith far better than gods." Alexander sniffed dismissively.
"No mater what happens now Alex, they're going to believe in you. Can you blame them, when you have what they so desperately desire? When you have the power to transform between man and beast at will? Not for the power of being a beast, but simply the dignity of being a man. The comfort of knowing that others won't hate them on sight. You should be able to understand that, its why you wear this..." As the dryad spoke, her right hand finally left Alexander's hair and began to massage his eye-patch instead.
Alexander said nothing, his single visible eye simply stared out at the tent flap.
"They're going to believe in you, the only question is how and why? Do you want them to believe in you as some divine figure who turns a deaf ear to their cries while holding himself disdainfully above them? Or, do you want them to believe in you as the great Alpha Wolf, the Alpha Wolf who walks among them, who shares in his pack's suffering?" She asked the question that to Alexander Diamondclaw was really no question at all.
He stood up and headed for the tent flap, pulling it back and stepping out into the mongrelmen encampment.
Almost instantly he was the focus of who knew how many eyes, of who knew how many different types. There were human eyes, green slitted feline eyes, eyes not too unlike his own right eye, even strange lidded eyes that never seemed blink or even squint, those who had earned the displeasure of Zhakata had been remade in all shapes and sizes.
A woman whose arms were coated with feathers as if the limbs were halfway to being wings held them out towards him pleadingly.
"Please? Just a little, a few scraps of cloth is all I need..." She begged.
Alexander bit back a bitingly sardonic comment about how if she'd simply positioned herself closer to the fires rather than waiting for a miracle outside his tent she wouldn't need to ask for thicker garments.
As he looked at her more closely, and she continued to look pleadingly at him, as he saw how her arms had been clumsily wrapped in white linen though there was no sign of a wound, and he understood.
It wasn't about keeping the heat in or the cold out, she wanted cloth so that she could hide the more blatant aspects of her disfiguration. She wanted to be able to look at her reflection, and see a human being rather than a monster.
Alexander began to remove his black coat.
"What's your name?" He asked her tenderly.
"Acquilina, great lord." She answered in a piteous voice that wasn't quite fully human.
"Let me see what I can spare..." He insisted and slid Wolf Claw free from its sheath.
His clothing had been enchanted by Florence to survive his transformations and so he doubted he'd be able to simply tear it apart with his bare hands, but with a few quick cuts from his sword he easily managed to slice it a section of it free.
"For what crimes were you transformed?" He inquired while handing over what had once been a sleeve.
"My daughter… she was three years old… I hadn't even named her yet… but she was so hungry… even if it was a fast day..." The woman wept as she began to wind the cloth around her arms.
"Did she survive?" Alexander pressed, hoping he wouldn't regret the question.
"Yes… but, she, she was sent to one of the orphanages, the priests said I was unfit to call myself her mother." The woman sobbed.
Alexander leaned in close and she rested her head weakly upon his chest. She only finally ceased crying when her eyes were ringed with red, as if her grief had outlasted her body's supply of tears.
The silver haired man then slowly turned his attention to another of the mongrelmen, this one was male, and his body was awkwardly slumped.
At least that was what Alexander thought at first, then he realized the mongrelman's legs had fused together into a serpentine tail. Not that his upper torso had gone unchanged either, his back bent at a strange angle, and one of his hands ending in a hoof rather than a hand, and those (along with his 'tail') were only the obvious changes.
"Your name?" Alexander asked the horrifically transformed mongrelman.
"Salvatore." He answered in a low croaking voice that suggested he had some frog in him as well.
"What did you do to deserve such punishment?" He knew he'd regret hearing the answer, but couldn't bring himself to stay silent.
"An inquisitor, he wanted to have his way with my sister, so I bashed his head in with a rock." Salvatore answered.
"Even like this, would you still do it?" The eye-patch wearing man demanded to know.
"Someday Zhakata will forgive me. She never would though, not if I hadn't tried to help." The poor deformed man said with an awkwardly misshapen smile.
Alexander soon passed over the remains of his other slave to Salvatore.
"If there was any justice in the world, I'd look like you, and you'd look like me." He reflected with a heavy sigh before turning his attention to a third mongrelman.
XXX XXX XXX
"There isn't… there just isn't enough." The once again transformed Alexander Diamondclaw whimpered, sounding surprisingly pathetic for a wolfman monster.
He gazed out at a sea of pleading eyes, and wished that there had been more he could give them.
There wasn't though, first his black cloak, then his white undershirt, then his black pants, then what he wore beneath those as well. He was now forced to rely on his silver fur alone to protect him against the cold desert night, not to mention all the other inevitable problems of being naked.
He'd handed over every single scrap and stitch of cloth he'd been wearing to the mongrelmen. Much like Salvatore he didn't regret his actions, it was impossibly clear that they'd both needed and deserved the fabric more than he did.
So now he hunched awkwardly before the small crowd of mongrelmen, wondering what, if anything, he possibly had left to give them. There had simply been too many for each of them to get some piece of his garments, and there had been nothing he could do about that.
Still, while Zhakata might turn his eyes (or just his remaining eye if Madar was right) away from the suffering of those who worshiped him, Alexander Diamondclaw would not.
"Lord Diamondclaw, why are you so blessed?" Asked Acquilina.
The mongrelwoman had pulled away from Alexander after taking his left sleeve so that others could come close, but now that he had no garments left to donate she had crawled close to him again.
"I was lucky. I wasn't brave, wise, or stout hearted, if anything I was obstinate, ignorant, and foolish. I didn't deserve or earn the blessings I have been given, I was simply lucky." He insisted, turning away from her imploring gaze.
"Sometimes, luck is all it takes Lord Diamondclaw." Salvatore croaked.
"Yagno Petrovna did not set out to find Zhakata, Zhakata found him when he was 'lucky' enough to have been shut out of his home for a night." Insisted a mongrelman named Kiryl whose face was strangely sunken and owl like, especially given the feathers that grew around his ears.
"Yes, and look how wonderfully that has worked out for everyone! You out here in the desert, starving for lack of food while trying to scrape together even the barest sinews of a civilization, them out there in the cities, starving in reverence to Zhakata!
Blind luck is no solid foundation for gods to determine their champions! Yet they still do it anyway. How, how can beings of such great power be so foolish, so arrogant, and still consider themselves worthy of worship?" Alexander growled, projecting ire not at anyone in particular (not even Yagno Petrovna) but simply at the ill-conceived unjust nature of the world.
"Whatever god chose you Lord Diamondclaw, it was relying on more than luck. It saw the kindness and gallantry in your heart!" Acquilina insisted.
"No it wasn't and it didn't! I am not the righteous servant of some 'glorious' god here to pass judgment on wicked men! In fact, for this world to be truly just and fair, there needs to be someone who can call the gods to account for THEIR SINS! There must be a reckoning for the way that THEY have mistreated and betrayed US!" He snarled in a sudden flash of anger, his silver fur standing up straight in irritation.
Then his momentary flash of rage passed and his body began to slump slightly.
"I'm sorry, you shouldn't have been forced to hear that. What you need to understand is that I wasn't chosen by a god.
I was chosen by a wolf. Except that even to use the word 'chosen' is a lie. I had made such an utter and complete ruin of my life, that there was nothing left for me but the wolf. Likewise, for the wolf, there was no one for him but me. Neither of us had a choice in the matter.
We were just two beings, whose lives had been utterly destroyed, two beings who were utterly without hope. Both utterly doomed, unless we found some way to build each other up instead of tearing one another apart. So, now here I am, 'blessed' by the wolf. Also, before you even f**king ask, the wolf was not created, sent, inspired, or otherwise in any way shape or form related to Zhakata!" Alexander explained, finishing off with a heavy sigh.
"Even if it is not a god, tell us of this wolf." Insisted Salvatore.
Alexander's body seemed to move of its own accord yet again, but this time instead of feral rage, there was just shocked confusion. He sat up straight, his mismatched eyes awkwardly winking in turns, as if even the feat of simply getting them to move in synchronization was beyond his capabilities at the moment.
When that temporary paralysis passed, Alexander slowly turned to face the mongrelmen once more.
"If… if you sincerely wish to hear it… then I'll tell you the story. There once was a wolf, mightier than all others. Yet, for all his strength, he was neither cruel nor vicious, he was simply a wolf. He has no desire for the mindless worship or the elaborate fripperies with which gods surround themselves. The only thing he wanted was what should have been justly due him, respect for his power and prowess. He never got it. He never EVER got it." Alexander's tale began.
It might have gone on longer were it not for the way that his lupine nostrils twitched of their own accord. In this shape Alexander Diamondclaw's sense of smell was far keener than that of any ordinary human, and for some bizarre reason they had just detected the stench of decaying flesh.
The ground around him suddenly parted and gray skinned humans began to struggle forth from beneath the desert's dust. Somehow even though they remained largely human, their sunken yellow eyes and wicked looking teeth managed to make them look far more monstrous than any of the mongrelmen which surrounded them.
"Oh, you undead bastards, you just had to interrupt my story!" Alexander Diamondclaw growled in frustration.
There were five of them, but one of never managed to completely work its way free from the ground. The moment its head popped into sight, a huge silver paw descended down upon it, smashing the skull into an ugly mess of bone splinters and viscera.
The small crowd of mongrelmen surrounding Alexander (or at least those of them who had still been awake enough to realize what was happening) began to panic. The difficulty of rousing a large crowd to proper flight without people getting in each others way was compounded by the fact that each mongrelman individually needed time to properly commit its own body to the process.
Their instinctual gut reactions were often all too human, and human methods of fleeing would often do little good, for example Salvatore needed time to remember that he had to try and slither rather than run. If the undead could get among them it would be a massacre.
But that was a big "if" at the moment.
Because to get among the mongrelmen they'd have to get passed Alexander Diamondclaw. Alexander Diamondclaw's whose body was no misshapen mixture of more than a handful of different animals thrown together at random, it was a near perfect synthesis of man and wolf.
One of the undead monster reached out with its decrepit claw-like hands, eager to tear Acquilina apart as the mongrelwoman was trying to remember how to stand with her duck like feet.
Those clawed hands were swiftly seized by a much larger pair of silver clawed limbs.
"Me first. Hurt, me, first!" Alexander insisted, before his muscles tensed and he tore the undead's creature's arms from their sockets.
Then he proceeded to use them as primitive clubs to bash the beast's head in. That done, he tossed them aside, but with enough force that they sent another of the beasts sprawling to the dirt it had so recently climbed free of.
It fell at the feet of Kiryl who it had been menacing only a moment ago. The mongrelman's eyes darted between the temporarily defenseless ghoul and Wolfclaw, which Alexander had discarded along with his cloak.
He seized the sword and didn't even bother to free the blade from its sheath, instead he using the weapon (scabbard and all) to bash wildly away at the undead creature.
Alexander danced back and forth before the two remaining monsters, the black talisman around his throat sparkling as the firelight. The beasts seemed all to eager to follow up on his request, and closed in upon him.
He struck before they got a chance to seriously hurt him though, seizing each by the shoulder and slamming them into each other. Then he fell upon them, his claws ferociously rending their innards apart, ripping and tearing at their already decaying carcasses, until even whatever dark magic had animated them in the first place could no longer grant them mobility.
Then he rose back up, and his silver furred ears twitched, he could hear screaming. These five hadn't been the only ones, they hadn't been close to the only ones…
XXX XXX XXX
"I..." BLAM!
"WAS..." BLAM!
"GONNA..." BLAM!
"GET..." BLAM!
Callan Wright was in even less of a good mood than normal.
He'd been given a tent to share with Devi (granted not one as close to the fires as Alexander, but he'd take what he could get) and then this had happened.
Luckily, his number one priority inside the camp had been finding out what passed for food among the mongrelmen (and then deciding if he really was just that hungry after all) him and so hadn't been able to put the tent to its proper use yet. Which in turn meant that he (unlike Alexander Diamondclaw) had still been fully clothed when the attack started. Out in the wastes of G'Henna 'fully clothed' meant that Cal had been wearing a large heavy belt that held no less than six loaded pistols.
Alas he'd used most of his best combat potions back in the Zhakata's temple, but while undead monstrosities tended to be more resilient than living foes, a big enough bullet moving at a fast enough speed could still have quite the impact upon them.
The problem was that he'd needed two of bullets each to dispatch the pair of monsters that he'd just finished off. That meant he only had two shots left, and there were half a dozen more of the monsters still on their feet. Devi had managed to tangle one of those six with her flail and was trying to snap its neck or rip its head clean off, but it hadn't given up the ghost just yet. As if that wasn't bad enough one of the monsters was bigger and faster than the others.
The Lamordian alchemist dropped his currently empty pistol and reached for another fresh one. He brought it up, sighted it in on the largest monster and fired.
BLAM!
The thing was deceptively fast though, even as Cal had started to draw a bead on the beast, it had started to move. Cal's bullet ended up "missing" to the extent that instead of a head shot, the round only slammed into one of the smaller undead's right shoulder.
"Nice… try..." The large monster hissed at Cal through its razor sharp teeth.
The intelligence necessary to speak was not a good sign in a foe. Mindless undead could be dangerous themselves, those that could still think though were far worse, he'd seen plenty of proof of that.
The wounded monster fell behind, but the others pressed on and Cal reached for his last gun. Four monsters in front of him, and only one bullet.
It'd be nice to imagine that he could be enough of a hero to somehow make that particular equation balance out. If he'd had nothing but a month to think about it, maybe he could. Maybe if he could convince all the monsters to stay perfectly still he could eventually (after several hundred failed attempts first) figure out the one single trajectory that would cause a bullet to ricochet from one monster's head to another, to another to another, to finally strike the last one, and on top of that still retain enough momentum to be lethal even to undead monsters.
Maybe there was some equation that would make it all work out in the end, but even Callan Wright wasn't smart enough to figure it out in only a few seconds.
So he made up his mind, chose his target and fired.
The large undead beast was fast, but not quite fast enough to avoid a perfectly aimed shot from one of Cal's pistol's that had been more or less centered on the monster's belly button.
Instead, he managed to shift himself enough that the round tore through the side of his naturally gaunt stomach and out his back.
The wound didn't bleed in the slightest, and the monster didn't even bother to inspect the gaping hole that had been blown in its body.
"Pathetic." The creature hissed as it continued its advance on Cal.
"Funny, I was thinking the same thing." Cal replied and with his very smuggest smile.
The alchemist then simply crossed his arms, taking neither a single step back or making any effort to reload his weapons.
That confused the monster, but not for very long.
The source of Cal's sudden confidence became blindingly clear when the monster was walloped in the back by one of its own minions.
Moonlight reflecting brightly off of his silver fur, Alexander Diamondclaw had worked his way over to this section of the mongrelmen camp. He grabbed the undead monster whose shoulder Cal had wounded, and promptly set about wielding it as an impromptu club.
WHAM!
WHAM!
WHAM!
Alexander laid into the horrific creatures with a vengeance, hammering both the one he had seized and its companions into pulped fleshy masses that wold have made a quite revolting sight, if the sheer fact that they had ceased to move didn't bring an even more powerful sense of relief and joy to Cal's heart.
By the time he'd finished dealing with all those minions, the one he'd turned into an impromptu bludgeon of was too broken to be of any further use or threat. As he was doing so, the only undead monster that had talked rolled across the dusty ground and locked its arms tightly around one of Alexander's powerful legs.
"All that lives is frozen before my grasp!" It hissed out with maniacal glee, slowly rising to its feet.
Its clawed hands began to grope for the talisman worn Alexander wore around his neck.
Before Alexander got a proper chance to disprove that particular theory, someone else arrived to the fight.
A shadowy streak of black, white, and red arrived, then grabbed hold of the monster's arms.
"Not all that is dead serves you." Declared the voice of Mirri Catwarrior.
Her outfit was considerably more unruffled than normal, and blood was dripping from her lips.
Her pale arms squeezed with strength beyond that of any normal human woman, and the sound of bones starting to creak, pop, and shattered filled the air.
"One moment I'm just getting started on a nice relaxing evening with my favorite suck buddy, the next you show up. Not only did I have to stop feeding, but I can tell just by looking that even if you still had blood it would taste horrible." The vampire reflected before headbutting the gray skinned monster and driving him to his knees.
"So, I guess its a good thing that I can enjoy something as simple as killing for killings sake..." Mirri Catwarrior reflected, before she kicked the monster's head with enough force to cave in its skull and squish whatever remained of its brain.
The gray skinned creature dropped to the ground now utterly unundead.
"Fun, but not as much fun as I was going to have." She decided.
Seeing that there were no more foes to slay, she sauntered off with an almost offensively casual air, taking the time to slowly lap up the few drops of blood that still stained her lips.
There was no more screaming, and Alexander Diamondback managed the closest thing to a smile his largely lupine face was capable of at the moment.
"That's at least one problem dealt with." He admitted, gently placing a huge silver paw on top of the black talisman that hung around his throat.
"That last one though, I think he wanted this thing, even more than he wanted to kill me." The wolfman monster pondered.
Cal was by his point more or less used to the various shapes that Alexander Diamondclaw could take. Granted, everything logical, rational, scientific, Lamordian principles had taught him said that such things were impossible (conservation of mass and energy alike could only throw up their theoretical hands in surrender at the prospect of a six foot tall man turning into a seven foot tall wolf monster, especially given that he gained what had to be well over a hundred pounds of muscle in the process. At least when he went from purely man to purely wolf the numbers more or less equaled out) but Cal had long ago decided that empiricism won out over raw theory any day of the week.
So, given the numerous "impossibilities" that went into the transformation in the first place, what was heaping one more atop the pile by having him able to talk in a perfectly human voice through a decidedly inhuman muzzle? It was kind of reassuring in a way (or so he told himself) since he'd never seen Alexander loose control of himself because of his transformative powers. Thus, said powers were a net positive to Cal's chances of staying alive.
Sadly, even though Cal could trace his family history back to the time when Old Man Mordenheim had been as young as he somehow still looked (that was another case where "logical rational science" wasn't of much use) and it was in theory Lamordian as could be…. Somewhere along the lines one of his ancestors must have been have had an affair.
It was the only explanation for why Callan Wright's mind still had a primitive, emotional, Verbreker aspect (and it could be a shockingly large aspect when it wanted to) which insisted quite loudly and frequently that creatures which looked like a deadly mix of man and wolf were not for making friends, and especially not for swearing loyalty to.
They were for running away from.
Running as far and a fastly away from as possible!
Running with the wild horrific 'hope' that while you might never be able to outpace the beast, you could at least dream that you would outpace your soon to be deceased friends who would utterly fill the monster's belly.
"Better you than me?" Cal eventually suggested awkwardly.
"Correct." The huge wolfman monster that had just saved his life and was really Alexander Diamondclaw all too readily agreed.
"Boss, now that there's no monsters left to kill, you think you might want to change back?" Cal suggested, hoping that such a transformation would help steady his nerves, or at the very least make it so he didn't have to tilt his neck up to quite so much while having this conversation.
"I wasn't wearing clothing when I transformed." Alexander admitted looking as abashed as he could at the moment.
Callan Wright hung his head in irritation, everyone in the world was clearly having a better night than him right now!
Okay maybe not those mongrelmen who had just been killed…. The point was that better nights were clearly being had!
End Chapter.
AN: I finished writing this chapter roughly a week and a half ago. I really should have been able to get it proofread and posted sooner but stuff (including Battle For Middle Earth and a cold) happened.
Well at least now that it is here I can stop using the fact that I'm "a chapter ahead" so to speak to procrastinate writing chapter eleven!
Anyway, not since Brian Cohen has someone struggled to deny the prospect of their own divinity as thoroughly Alexander Diamondclaw.
As I mentioned way back in the first book, people will interpenetrate whatever they see through the context that they find most familiar/likely. If you see something that is a mix of man and animal in Verbrek you probably assume it is a lycanthrope, if you see the same thing in Markovia you think it is a broken one, see it in G'Henna and you assume it must be some form of mongrelman. It is just that most of the mongrelmen are such an awkward mish mash of man and beast that it is more of a disability than a source of superpowers.
So when the mongrelmen see Alexander who not only can transform into a tall powerfully built bipedal beast… well you might recall that "powerfully built bipedal beast" is exactly how Zhakata tends to be depicted even if exactly what kind of beast he is (assuming he doesn't resemble several different kinds at once) changes from one icon to another.
So, just like Petchko back in chapter four, don't think too poorly of the mongrelmen just because their first assumption is that Alexander must some form of blessed/champion/paladin/avatar of Zhakata.
Technically even the weaker ghouls should be intelligent enough to speak also and not just the ghast that leads them, but hey this way was more dramatic/fun.
Also yes Alex probably could have shaken off the ghast's paralyzing touch, he's made much harder fortitude saves already, but since he could see Mirri coming and knows how she gets if she can't kill someone every so often, he decided to give her the pleasure.
Finally you may be wondering "Wow, Alex was never this harsh with Wyan or any of the other people in Tepest who believed in their pantheon, what is going on?" or something roughly equivalent. Well there's a fairly simple answer. While the people of Tepest have faith in Belenus and the other gods of his Pantheon, the way they act is based around the solid very real (and appropriate) fear of evil fey and other monsters living in the woods.
Despite it being called an inquisition, religion isn't really the root cause of people's paranoia, fear, and occasionally hatred in Tepest. The religion that they teach is just a framework that is hung over their understanding of how the world works. People in Tepest aren't doing horrible things because they believe some god(s) told them to the way that they're starving themselves in G'Henna to try and earn Zhakata's favor, and people doing things simply because gods told them to is as you can guess a very big sore spot for Alex.
Why? Well you'll get to find out before this story is over (which at the rate I'm going will probably be around Christmas) I promise.
