Chapter 26

Ewoden

The shadow of the wolf receded and the rage and instinct faded with it.

Slowly Ewoden opened his eyes and found himself staring up at a pine wood ceiling. Bit by bit, pieces of total consciousness began floating back. Feeling came first, the sensation of the mattress below him. Then sound; low rumblings like distant thunder perfecting into the murmur of nearby voices. His vision cleared and finally he became completely aware of his surroundings. Slowly the former Sarafan tilted forward, hoisting himself up into a sitting position. Pausing just long enough for his head to stop spinning he found himself in a small bedroom. There was a bed side table with an oil lamp placed on it. This is what lit the room for the curtains at the window at the foot of his bed were shut tight. A set of pine shelves stood next to a wooden door, filled to the brim with books. The floor was carpeting red, black rune like patterns running along the outside. It looked like a small bedroom in a gentleman's household.

Ewoden tried to remember what he was doing here, but found himself drawing nothing but a blur of images that moved too fast for him to accurately recollect. The last thing he recalled was being lead outside from the garrison to the exaction ground. The brief image of a full moon hit him hard and instantly he realized what had happened.

The curse of the werewolf had fully taken hold in that moment. That was how he escaped. But… if that was so then what was he doing here? He tried to use magic, to contact Sally telepathically with the Whisper, even teleport away but nothing he did worked. It seemed magic of any kind was as ineffective here as it had been in the garrison. Was he still a prisoner?

Looking around the former Sarafan sighted a buddle of clothes on the bedside table next to the oil lamp. On the other side of which was a basin full of water, the blade for a razor stilling on top of a piece of white clothe. Looking down at himself he realized he was naked and was in dire need of a shave. If this was a prison, it was much more comfortable than the last; even if someone had taken him here in the nip. He shook off the memories of torture and sent over to the basin. While saving he noticed a mirror on the wall in front of him and used it to help clear away the short beard.

The clothes were plain clothe and wool and Ewoden only found enough will to change into the pants to give himself back some dignity.

Glancing up, he heard the murmuring voices growing closer and the rising of footsteps outside the door. Turning he watched it open and a familiar figure walk in. The man had changed his clothing from leather armour to a brown upper society jacket and pants, but he was undoubtedly the guard who had sat outside the former Sarafan's cell in the garrison. Stumbling back Ewoden reached for the razor hoping to use it as a weapon.

"Easy there lad. I'm not here to hurt you." He told him with a short smile holding up his arms defensively. "Seroli look out for one another after all." Ewoden paused, a confused look spreading over his face.

"You're a Werewolf?" His former jailor nodded once.

"One of the resistance members for the Willdendorf Cabal." He stated. "I'm also an Intelligence operative for the Seroli Master-Smith Ramak." Briefly the man glanced over the scars that now decorated the exposed arms of the former Sarafan knight. "I'm sorry I couldn't have gotten you out of that awful garrison before they begun the torture, but any rushing on my part would have exposed us both as Seroli. They wouldn't have hesitated to kill, even if we had information useful to them." A hand extended itself in greeting. "I'm Ral, this is my safe house."

"Safe house?" Ewoden repeated giving the room another glance.

"There are quite a few in the city here and there." Ral explained. "Most of them belong to the vampires but we have a few as well. Not that it 'really' matters who owns them; those who oppose the Sarafan, be they Werewolf, human or vampire is entitled to their safety in any one of them." Even as he spoke; Ewoden's head started swimming. It did about two laps around him and finally he was forced to sit back down on the bed, holing his head in his hands. His stomach had started to revolt as well, twisting itself into knot only experience seamen could tie. "Ah, that must have been your first full change." Ral realized out load. "It's not easy on the system at first but it gets easier with practise." For a moment he disappeared out the door and was not gone long before he returned with a small glass bottle. "Here, drink this." He uncorked the bottle and offered it forwards. Had Ewoden not been sick as a dog he would have questioned the contents of the container, but instead with his head unable to tell up from down he put the bottom top to his lips.

As soon it touched his tongue he could tell it was an alcohol of some kind. It was strong, very strong, in fact he had barley managed a sip before he had to cringe. The stuff had a kick.

"What is that…" He managed to gasp, weekly passing the bottle back.

"Bit of rum, bit of old fashioned mead, Bourdon and all mixed together with brandy." Rei replied putting the cork back in. "Not good on the tongue but it helps the human form digest the meat the wolf forms takes in."

"Meat…what meat?" Ewoden asked. The only thing he'd eaten for a week had been the stale bread the Sarafan had given to him.

"You don't remember?" Ral asked looking a bit surprised. "No… it was your first time so I don't suppose you would." He shrugged and turned to put the bottle down on the bedside table. "And not many first timers take a bite out of a Sarafan guard either." It took a whole five seconds before that information sunk in but when it did, it dropped like a rock. The bits and pieces Ewoden could remember from his transformed state came together briefly to show the blood and large chunks of flesh being torn out from under plates of armour. The sensation of fresh meat sliding down throat and the satisfaction of a successful kill, all sensations recalled animalistic impulses but remembered with human clarity. The shock finally hit home and Ewoden sagged forward, holding a hand to his mouth. Ral recognised the reflex and quickly pulled him over to the window, throwing open the curtains. Ewoden couldn't hold it in and vomited out into the street outside. Someone had been under the window below and just missed being hit with it.

"Hey watch where you're puking ya drunk!" A voice cried up angrily before whoever it was scuttled off.

"Easy there." The Seroli patted Ewoden on the shoulder several times as he gagged there, his arms straining to maintain the strength to hold him up. "You'll have to work on that stomach of yours. You need rest."

"What I need is a cure." Ewoden snapped at him. "I don't want to be this way!"

"Not many people do, but what's done is done. There is no cure." Ral told him helping him back to the bed. "Keep drinking this. May taste like a sword blade but it does help." He passed the brown bottle back to him. "Rest for now. Someone'll be up soon enough to give you a little help later."

"I just want to see Sally." Ewoden admitted out load, his face sunk towards the floor. Ral managed a sly smile.

"Got a sweetheart huh? That'll help more than my special mixture will." With that he was gone, closing the door behind him.

All Ewoden found he could do was sleep. At the moment, he couldn't force anything down his throat. Knowing he had torn off, eaten and enjoyed human flesh and blood convinced him he would never be able to even look at food again.

As if unable to deal with the truth, his mind focused it's attentions to something more pleasant; like the first time he met Sally. Avernus was under attack by demons and Ewoden had taken the opportunity to desert, running for all his life out of the city hoping an archer wouldn't spot him. No archer did, but a fire demon instead. The flaming beast chased the former knight across the plains and into the termagant forest, the trees slowed it's progress down but still it kept coming.

Ewoden eventually slew the beast with arrows before toppling backwards into a pit of quick sand. There he would have drowned were it not for the intervention of Vorador. The ancient had pulled him free, intrigued by the prospect of a human who did not tremble in fear in his presence. Taking him back to his mansion, Vorador decided to test him by locking Ewoden inside his library with one of his vampires; Sally.

She had toyed like him a cat with a mouse and he had been afraid, enduring a game of hide and seek she found amusing. Eventually however he stopped running and faced her, and when he did he saw that she was not the blood sucking monster the stories the Sarafan told made her out to be. She shared history with him for she too had once been a slave in the Provincial mines of Willendorf.

Impressed by the bound developing between them, Vorador took them both to be taught arcane science and magic under his sire; the legendary Janos Audron. There, they had stayed for the duration of their studies, growing closer and closer until eventually becoming lovers. Then their happiness was shattered when the Sarafan hunted Janos down and removed his heart, leaving them both without a mentor and a home. Disheartened and despised his affiliation, even past, with the Sarafan; Ewoden took to wandering the north of Nosgoth alone leaving Sally back in the service of Vorador.

An hour ticked by perhaps as he lounged in the state between awake and asleep but when someone opened the door to the room, the faint traces of morning were lancing into the room from the window.

"Oh, so it is you." A familiar voice stated. Ewoden looked up sharply in remembrance, seeing a tall man was standing in the doorway. The animal skin armour and metal plated armour had gone replaced by more mediocre clothing but it was still him. Mostly bald, with a single untidy Mohawk running from the back of his head to his temples; scars were the blades of an axe and a dagger had struck him still lanced down his face and across the side of his neck.

"Obelisk?" Ewoden asked sitting up. The large man nodded before entering the room completely. This was the Werewolf Sally and he had fought on the road north, the one who had bitten him. As much as Ewoden hated this new curse he felt no ill will towards the one who had given it to him. Perhaps that was part of the curse itself but whatever the reason Ewoden just couldn't hate the man.

"How was your first hunt?" The large man asked casually. Ewoden did not reply. "Fine then, I can see you're the kind of person who gets right down to business." He paused, sighed and then admitted. "Truth is you've been brought here to be part of the resistance."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Part of the new Werewolf resistance to be accurate." Oblesik continued. "Ramak and the other Master Smiths have decided they can ignore this new Sarafan threat no longer. They came close to dominating Nosgoth before but this time, even with a vampire Army in the north they may actually succeed." Ewoden had seen that huge army on its way to the front lines to the north so he was well aware of that reality. "We're setting up a resistance network with the Cabal and the human freedom fighters." Obelisk carried on. "But Inquisitors have started combing the city for us and it's becoming hard to maintain contact with the other groups."

"What happened?" Ewoden asked with a flat emotionless stare. He didn't even need to read the man's tone or voice or the melancholy expression to figure out something was very wrong. The werewolf's had been able to avoid the mass persecution the vampires suffered by evasion and stealth, but confining themselves to backwater communities on the outskirts of the civilisation and never engaging any Sarafan in direct combat. True the Sarafan themselves were on a dangerous rise but never would Seroli risk retaliation by conspiring this way. Obelisk looked away out the window across the rooftops of the city province.

"Stahlberg no longer exists." He muttered with a reluctant hiss coming directly afterwards.

"What do you mean, no longer exists?" The Ewoden asked repeating the statement.

"Burnt to the ground." Obelisk replied abruptly. "As if they where we were, the Sarafan attacked. Only a few Seroli escaped into the ruins to the north of town. Not even the fully humans citizens were spared. A forest of impaled innocents now stands were their homes once were."