I was slogging through dry grass, trying to keep my head down while the sun cooked it. I could almost smell the tang of fire above me, trickling down from the top of my green hair. My thoughts were meandering among topics, drifting to a different thread every time I tried consciouslythinking.
Ahead, somebody laughed.
I wonder how Ellen's doing. I felt empty with hunger and thirst. My feet dragged on, over and over without thought or leaving the itchy stalks. Well, she hasn't really changed yet. There's that. Yesterday, I think it was, I killed a little bird, dark-feathered and delicate, with a hardly noticeable beak. I held it so the sun would do-something, cook it or dry it or...somehow make it edible. It was warm when my teeth sunk into it, but peculiar-tasting and bonier than anything I've eaten before. I hate warm autumn days. First transformations...terrible. I remember mine...I was a vessel in my own body, someone-something else seizing my emotions and thoughts barely after I registered fear and shock. I was in my room, thinking worried war thoughts that me tremble, when I felt a violent twinge-everything happened at once. Ears climbing upwards, watching the hair on my arms shoot up and lighten, my gnawed to the stump nails growing to a final point. I was horrified and opened my mouth to scream-but it was clogged with huge fangs and did not respond. The air came alive with scents-my wild musk, the soft wood, the pale yellow candle's smoke drifting to the sky. Get out, get out and leaping through the window, my body sliding through the glass cleanly, shardless. His hunger gushed in flames through blood I did not own, and I, the cowering prisoner, only fear making up my being.
I stopped, eyes widening in comprehension. The army doesn't know that -oh God, she's going to be with people when she changes! I started to run, like I could accomplish something with it, outspeed time and the Archer's Moon. The lightness of hunger becomes a lightness of my feet, and I needed to catch up with them, at least, at the very least-
Now I make myself small, tucking in my limbs. The moon, my devious yet lovely mistress, the sky on the edge of the circle she alights deep blue-black. And close to her, the indistinct cloud of gray.
Tomorrow will be the night. I can tell by the soft indent an unpracticed eye would miss. An eye that belongs to one who hasn't had to stare at the orb of death and beauty, anxiety and a desperate need to flee bubbling up within them.
Over the uncountable days, blending together, stirred by autumn winds or their chilly rains, I made my plan. Ellen will be safe. Sue will be safe. The army will be safe.
Will I be safe? The thought plagues me, yet...I try to forget. I have found, however, my memory has trouble letting go.
I am in camp, squinting into the night on guard duty. A pair of gray eyes blinks at me from the shadows cast by tree foliage. I stare, dropping my bow in fear. It leaps out at me, and the same wave of terror and a scent like night and animal, but unsettlingly off, hits me with the same force of the werewolf barreling into me. I notice a black streak on its back leg I had missed in the other relivings of this moment that gives no sleep.
And then I am watching, a bird with slow wings of cloud. Below is camp-familiar brown tents, not a single fold in the stretched fabric. Rows mishappen and each following a different line.
Ellen pauses. Saul walks toward her. Suddenly her head whips toward the moon and her ears seem to prick. Her brown hair reddens and retracts into her skull. Her rapidly extending claws shine with red light from nowhere. She is a blood red blur as she tears at Saul's arm, and I, cloud-bird, have no eyes to close...
The moon is sinking into paling earth when I awake, sweat only partially from heat. My pupils are constantly covered by tired lids, and the sun is shadowing distant trees by the time I give in.
The itchy reed grass I trampled to sleep on don't help my comfort. I get up, brushing some of the dry fragments off my clothes where they determinedly stick. Another day of movement-and a night, too. If I have it in me, Ellen won't kill tonight.
A cautious glance above the beige-white stalks reveals they have moved on. The constant rumble of food want is so common now I ignore it. These days my frame has thinned, slender, effective, and often underweight. My face lost everything it didn't need, at times seeming to cling desperately to my bones.
The cloud-crowded gray sky gives me a rush of hope. My quiver will be heavy by night's beginning.
I can't run as long as I could in the army, but I quickly catch up to the leisurely army. I know Roy's method-run fast every three days, keep the army's energy up and make it last.
I find it hard to believe how long they take to get somewhere. Before, occupied with cheery company and the bloodshed ahead, they seemed to take days. Now each day is a month, with all the hunger of one and more.
Ahead I spot trees, half-bare but possibly having food. The hot day yesterday will probably be the last for months. I dash into them, spotting a dismal-looking specimen in the back with small dark shapes peppering the ground among its roots. Even if it may be a little foolish, I take all I can find.
During the trek through the tall grass, loud and crackly, eating every other day was roughly the schedule. My throat seems constantly parched. I shiver from the piercing breeze cutting through the little forest. I live sunrise to sunrise, rest to rest, food to food. The future isn't now. and now is my worry.
There are times I roll in my despair, who can sometimes be my only friend. It happens in night- during my mindless following, of the army-while eating whatever I've acquired that day. Perhaps someday, after a long stretch where the ground and my stomach are barren, I will fall to my knees and die before I meet the dust and become it myself.
But the promise of food and contact-however distant-is why I go on. Perhaps something hopes I will see Sue and Roy again. That I can fight again instead of this, a pitiful stray dog shadowing a rich man who has no wish for it.
The forest's vibrant colors are dimmed by the wolf-colored heavens and down from them I feel a single drop.
Excitement flaring within me, I take out my glass bottle and hold it out, my tongue a mimic.
I withhold from skipping, jumping, or whooping, but a wide smile stretches from ear to ear, feeling strange on my thin face.
The bottle is gaining a substantial amount, water higher than skimming the base. My eyes squint against the rain, spattering my clothes with dark color. My throat no longer aches and screams.
The night approaches, and I tingle with anticipation. The sentries could spot me at any moment and charge. Shin-bad-and Klein-allegiances unknown. Doubts pound the wall my mind has made to protect the plan from reluctance. Despite my slight hunger, I feel much more content than I have the past month, even sitting down. I repeat the plan to myself over and over.
A different kind of tingle, and I stand up as quietly as I can. Slowly the autumn cold vanishes, my teeth elongate and gnash, I can scent the slight fear on the guards. A loud, wild howl echoes from within the fortress of tents. I withdraw slightly, the low-pitched noise piercing my heart with a sliver of terror despite its familiarity. I, too, tip back my head.
The moon hears my cry and grants my wish. The noise from camp stops abruptly, then come rustlings and heavy breathing. I run further in, howling again, the trees watching with only whispers.
The grass behind me is being trampled and sprinted over. I dig my claws into the ground, then push off, hearing her-the werewolf, I mean-burst from the trunks toward me.
She-I cannot deny it in the end-is snapping her fangs and sucking in air with intensity of the dying. It almost sounds like she foams at the mouth. First transformation. Poor Ellen...
I feel the wind from her claw's slash and whirl to face her. She leaps, aiming for an eye-I duck and she tears my ear instead. Growling, I let the moon's son take over.
I swipe with my claws over and over, catching her nose, her shoulder. She replies with a ferocious claw attack which scores rips in my clothes, grazing flesh. I catch her retreating paw with my fangs, and she struggles, squirming. The attempts worthless and more blood bubbling up from under my fangs, she whimpers and steps back as much as my teeth hold allows. Slowly I release her.
She appears to have taken me as leader-for now, at any rate. My ear stings strongly, and the shallow wound aches weakly but sharply. She's worse off than me, keeping her weight off the hurt paw, wincing occasionally.
I blink, then gesture at the roots of a near tree. She pads over and sits down hesitantly. Her eyes are wide. I slowly step forward, then again, then again. She has even lowered her head to her paws with closed eyes. I wonder what it's like to sleep as a werewolf. What do we dream of?
Tonight I smell prey-scents riding the wind, serene in sleep. I lick my chops and narrow in on one. My claws, speeding over the ground, practically itch to rip something. Really rip something. My face will bathe in blood and my mouth will collect it in a glistening pool that leaks from my fangs. The scent is strong enough to light up my eyes, make my paws dance and flex. The moon strikes a brown pelt, backlighting tall ears. I watch it silently for moments, the scent alone feeding me.
Now is the time!
I explode out from the trees, smooth and almost silent. A squeak of fright and it dashes for a burrow-I cut it off, snarling, and slice its back harshly. Another squeal, and it is off running again, slow and painfully. I bound over the short grass, bitten to the ground or in tall groups isolated. The sounds-the grasses scraping against each other, the terrified, high-pitched noises of the prey. Its short limbs pumping. My quiet, unnaturally even breath.
Right in front of me.
I make a final pounce, seizing its head in my jaws. It won't stop its squeaks or squirming-the wolf, so in power, feels a deadly happiness at slowly crushing its skull.
A single swipe along its neck, for the hell of it mostly, as life was already leaving it. Leaving it to come to me. I think, as if from far away, or from Archer's moon calling down toward the earth, that I would normally be nauseated by the blood spreading around it. By its slashed throat pouring out and its eyes slightly reflecting the moonlight. Now-I howl. Fueled by blood of the hunt. Fueled by the lightning within me.
Ellen! Check back! Wolt's voice-not like this one-commands with power, a bravery I believe he so little displays. I toss my head and smell. Even the dirt beneath me feels more alive, like it pulses and wriggles beneath my scarlet claws. Prey: for the moon, she says, I may hunt her lesser children, or the dwellers of sunlight she gives not a care for.
I embark at a quick pace, smelling often for the musk of werewolf and adjusting course. The scent is not as strong as I expected, but is probably blanketed with the clear scent of cold or the natural one of trees.
My sharp eyes recognize this place-the clearing where two creatures of the moon fought. And hurt without feeling. I become uncomfortably aware of my pained ear.
There is no one curled up in the tree roots.
I suddenly stand still, smelling deeply. A scream sounds from camp's direction.
She's hungry! I squeeze my eyes shut. I know what will happen if I don't make it. The wind streams around and under me in the rare moments my murderer's paws all leave the ground.
The tang of life-water hurtles through my nostrils and I burst out upon the clearing. Shin and Klein are gone from their posts-I determinedly make my eyes avoid the ground. The blood is in camp. Not here.
"KLEIN! SHOOT HER, GODDAMMIT, SHOOT HER!" Roy is clutching a claw wound-relief passes over me-and slumping against a tent. His breathing is shallower than it should be.
Ellen is in the center of camp, eyes empty but for bloodlust, her nauseatingly soaked claws holding a struggling Lugh. His muddy yellow robes are spattered, and he is trying to reach for a tome. I snarl and charge, knocking into Ellen. Lugh sliders out of her grasp, wincing as her claws scrape him.
She slashes me across the face, and I pause from pain. She doesn't hesitate, grabbing my shoulder in her teeth-the scarred one the black-streaked werewolf bit. I begin to whimper, energy dropping and slumping to the ground. The wolf in her, so violent.
"NOW!" A bow string releases, and the arrow's tip matches werewolf fur...
Silver. I flail, my claws nicking her skin. She will not let go, and has turned me to face the arrow's path. The wolf easily takes over my conciousness with ease while I fade. My ferocity awakens-I snap and bite and snarl, and finally Ellen releases me when I score a nasty cut down her upper lip. I zip out of the way of the arrow, which heads for Ellen. She looks up-
And clenches the piece of wood between her jaws. Her eyes widen and I smell singed hair-she spits it out and eyes it with distaste, then lifting her head with its bizarrely familiar human nose. The army around her back up, fear posessing them.
Werewolves cannot smell silver. We have to rely on our gray or yellow-eyed sight. I see another arrow and duck.
The other werewolf-not a fellow, or kin in my eyes-hovers over Lugh again, his eyes scared but hands automatic, weaving the way for a spell. His mouths to, without him, like the well-practiced tongue and repeated signs were hastily glued on a picture. Fire that pulsates an unnatural yellow storms at Ellen, burning her flat snout and completely decimating some delicate fur. She falls backward-an arrow flies toward her-
Ellen, die?! My mind struggles with such a sheer non-occurence-
Saul throws himself in the way, arrow stabbing his elbow. He swears indistinctly and rapidly, his healing staff out in seconds and disabling view of the injury. He glares determinedly at Ellen.
And jumps on her back.
In another world this could've been funny, doubled up the army under glowing dark gray sky. Instead Saul has his fingers dug into her back, while she tries twisting her head around.
My limbs give out and I flop red-silver onto the grass, some of it browning. What time is my death? I think dazedly. The others are too stunned by Saul to take notice of me. Ellen snaps her jaws around and charges toward me. I somehow get my shaky feet under me.
I feel like I'm watching myself, the cloud-bird from the dream, my wolf eyes with a human spark in them dull and faded. Ellen running, mouth back, tossing her head and snarling. Saul raising his healing staff, a foot scrapping the ground as the werewolf pitches.
She veers sharply away from me. The priest had knocked the positive rod hard against the side of her head, disorienting her. I begin to amble unsteadily back to the trees out of camp. I yip when something hits my nose-physically, and with a strong, somewhat herbal scent. Medicine for later...and my shadow is cast backwards by the pale lady hovering past midnight.
My body feels empty, drained. I've lost a lot of blood, blood that still drips on the almost black roots of the tree I lean against.
The wolf's eyes widen in anticipation of temporary death. The fur departs, my wounds redder and nastier without it. My fingers find it difficult to undo the tie on the medicine bag, almost cutting myself on my graceful but turning stubby nails.
I've had to use this before. Like most healing techniques, it works mysteriously and magically, as most believe. (Really...why can't they be mages?) Simply a white ointment that heals quickly.
The soft salve is cold, but once it hits the wildly contrasting scarlet-stained areas it warms, skin shimmering if the sunlight catches it right.
It takes a few days to be fully recovered from something of this scale, but the screams from camp echo in my ears. The howl of another. I cannot abandon Ellen after such a night, when her ordinary, kind veil is shredded by the gleams of murder.
The tree slowly lightens, sun stealing the pieces of night that remain.
