The Hard Road
Chapter 11
-/-/-/-/-/-
The crowd stuffed the outer room. While there weren't many normal looking folk, it held a ridiculous number of monster whatever the hell flavor of silver-furred wolfish Wesen things escorting them. Three or four each meant over forty guards accompanying the men. He felt fine but the others were shaking, balled up, and clammy. Why were they here? He had been severely injured every single day so far, and this was the only time he had been brought here.
The door creaked open and Captain Rosencrantz's profanity burst through. "I said hold him down! How am I supposed to treat him thrashing around like that?"
Visions flashed of geysers of vomit washing over his face and down the collar of his shirt. Draco inched away and eyed the exit.
Across from him was one of their squibs flanked by three of the Wesen guards. Sweat slicked the man's face. His shirt was soaked as he tugged against the big guys. His knees wobbled. Cramping fingers clawed at the white foam bubbling past his pained jaws. Tremors wracked the man's body. He jerked and pawed as he mumbled incoherently, and then his eyes flared fiery red. His head twisted and his jaws crackled. Silver fur sprouted from his cheeks and sheeted down his body. His nose extended into a canine shout filled with white fangs. Curved nails grew from his fingertips and the pads of his hands blackened.
The monster tore loose and launched straight at Draco. He conjured a chain snare which smashed it into the floor barely a centimeter from him. The recruit's guards swarmed. They pounded him with steel bars and stabbed crackling cattle prods into him.
In a flash it clawed loose and was on him. He got an arm under its chin and blasted stunner after stunner into its head, and then it was ripped loose and smashed into the floor.
Werewolves!
He stared at the guards. The whole bloody room is overflowing with Werewolves!
A knot formed in the pit of his stomach.
The full moon!
But the werewolf guards didn't even seem to notice he was there. They were talking normally, giving and following orders, and telling jokes. He may as well have been a chair or paint on the wall. They were, however, scrutinizing every single sick recruit.
The door wasn't far. Could he make it? Would they even care? They were ridiculously fast and immensely strong, but they were busy.
Bones crunched as the guards corralled a crazy one and smashed blows into it. It clawed and bit, tearing furrows into their flesh but their wounds swirled shut as fast as they formed. The were-squib came flying across the room again, but this time hit the wall and slumped to the ground like a wet sheet. Its golden brown eyes stared, unblinking, and its tongue laid in a growing pool of crimson. The beast's guts squelched out of a massive hole in its chest into a steaming pile on the concrete floor but none of the others were moving to investigate. A shiver rippled through him. Bloody LeClerc will stomp me to death if I'm immune and I let the stupid bastard die.
He waited, watching. The vision of the snake monster recruit being kicked into a bloody pile right there in front of him settled into his mind. Fuck. If I don't try...
He shoved the leaking gut pile back through the hole in the werewolf's chest and grasped its heart. He squished it once and then again, but nothing happened. He sent light electrical impulses into the organ, like Snape had shown him the night Granger's blasting charms ripped Carson's rib cage wide open. He yelled at the guards, but they were already fighting another werewolf's slashing and clawing, so he just kept working the heart. An eternity later, two werewolf aux-sans ambled over. His arms ached when he called out, "Hey, give me a hand here."
They chuckled and clapped before patting him on the back and jabbing injections into the beast. One scowled. "Guards got him pretty good. Crushed spine. Keep on his heart. Need to get him into the moonlight."
They hoisted the beast while his hand kept working and zapping. A minute later, rain slicked their bodies while thunder rumbled around them. The downpour let up for a minute and silver light rippled over the body. Bones stabbed into his wrist. The heart jerked alive and jumped out of his hand. Silver-haired flesh wrapped around his forearm an instant before the beast launched straight off the ground, ripping him loose. Fiery chains shot out of his fingers and cocooned the snapping werewolf.
The medics trotted off to find guards, abandoning him with the monster. It shook and tore, breaking loose in seconds and launched straight at him. He blasted stunners and then a lightning curse that shook the entire building. Its ears pulled back and it stared at him with fangs bared. A low growl rumbled out of its chest. It was circling, inching closer, testing him when another one burst out the door. The split second pause was all he needed. The first werewolf shot at him and he blasted an Imperius straight into its skull. Its mind was a jumbled mess, but his control anchored like steel. An instant later he sent it snarling and snapping at the other.
His body was shaking as the two werewolves tore at each other. That worked out considerably better than he expected. He was in the middle of congratulating himself when werewolf medics burst back out the door and yelled, "Lazy asshole! This is an emergency! What the hell are you doing out there?"
Back inside? Are they out of their bloody minds?
They had their hands in their hips. "Up! Do we have to get the captain?"
Fuck all. That was the one thing that would make everything worse.
Now he wished he hadn't sent his guards on their way. He eyed the werewolves rolling around in the mud. Draco had one imperiused just fine. Two would be better. He marched over and took control of the second werewolf while they were tangled and got the show back on the road.
He followed the silver haired Aux-Sans back through the studded metal door, flanked by his two new minions. Guard werewolves wrestled and punched crazy ones. Crimson splashes and chunks of meat smeared the dull white walls. Every single medic that wasn't nursing wounds was busy reassembling bodies, stabbing needles into the wounded, and doctoring each other, so he found the closest silver-haired heap and went to work.
Half a dozen werewolves later, Draco was pointing and ordering three werewolf aux-sans while his four minion werewolves beat the crazy off of them. The back door clanked open and Rosencrantz's mummified witch corpse stomped out with her giant three-pronged needle in hand. "Auxier! I need Auxier!"
Were-medics scrambled around while the guards slammed crazy ones head first into the concrete. Bloody hell! How would anybody ever figure out who is who with a disorganized mess like this?
He put the minions to attention and checked their identification tags. No love. Next was the heaps, but those came up with other names as well, therefore...
His werewolves corralled crazy ones, one by one, and hauled them over. He inspected the metal tags and jotted names on a clip board before claiming a hobbled Auxier from the guards. Bubbles of frothy blood spluttered past a wobbling jaw as he marched it forth and stood it before Rosencrantz.
"You? What the fucking hell does the sister-fucking sack of shit think this is? You don't have any training! And why the fuck is your sorry, inbred ass standing here?"
He snapped to attention but the minions stared at the captain with teeth barred. "Mon Capitan, the Aux-Sans ordered me to assist."
Her withered eyeballs rattled and her jaws ground like she was ready to curse him. "Fuck. I don't care. I'm five short and these idiots spend more time spilling potions and getting injured than accomplishing anything. Restrain Auxier while I administer the medications, then get him outside."
His minions surrounded a now imperiused Were-Auxier and then braced him. It growled at her, but she simply rammed the huge syringe into its stomach and slammed the punger home. The werewolf got three more injections before being dragged through the steel door and heaved into the rain. He got the list from the captain and they worked through the remaining ten in a half an hour.
His blood slicked arms, chest, and face throbbed from dozens of gashes and bites. The captain transformed back into her human form and pushed a large vial into his hand. He gulped it down without asking and braced as the entire world listed to port. Fire bubbled through his skull and gnawing hunger flooded over him. Stars and black spots filled his vision. Drool slicked his chin as he eyed chunks of torn flesh and red pools on the floor. He was greedily licking the blood off his arms when a medic shoved a pitcher of bubbling stink into his hands. His mouth drew open and he chugged the whole thing down, lumps, bones, and all. Draco shuddered as the stench of rotten fish burped into his nose. He was at the very cusp of exploding into a geyser of vomit when everything settled and he felt fine. Every single ragged gash and bruise completely evaporated without leaving a single trace except for the blood stains and torn uniform.
Quiet blanketed the empty room. All the guards and werewolves were now outside doing whatever they were off doing. Draco's eyes fluttered open and closed while his back pressed against the blood splattered wall. An elbow into his side shook him back. One of the werewolf aux-sans pressed a swollen brown paper sack into his hands. "Dinner?"
"Thank you, sergeant."
He dug in and found two sandwiches, an apple, a banana, and a bottle of water. The food seemed to disappear as soon as it hit his stomach, but it cleared his mind. Curiosity itched in the back of his brain. He had ten-thousand questions but worried about giving away the fact that he was a green recruit. The were-medic laughed and slapped his knee. "Doc said you're one of LeClerc's pitous."
Well, that ship already sailed. "The drill instructors just finished throwing our whole barracks upside down when the big guys grabbed me for a 'routine screening.' Imagine my surprise."
"Nice piece of work in there. I guess you're immune or you would already have turned. Doc said you were." The sergeant lifted his silver snout, sniffed, and shrugged. "I could have told them you don't have the wolf on you. She didn't want them to haul you in, but rules are rules."
The sergeant's French was excellent. Draco decided he wasn't in the Foreign Legion, but he still couldn't help himself. "How did you... You know, become a lycanthrope."
"It was after high school. Me and my buddies decided to hike across Europe. See the whole continent. Never even made it out of France. We got attacked in the Vosges on the way to the Black Forest."
The haunted mountains were fabled homes for werewolves, dragons, and other man eating creatures. The sergeant continued. "The beast got three of them. I don't remember what happened. I must have turned before it killed me. How did you get the wildlings to cooperate?"
"Magic."
It rolled it's fiery red eyes. "Right. You're sticking with the line of abracadabra bullshit. How?"
He transfigured a ragged hunk of flesh into a silver-furred rabbit and sent it hopping around. The sergeant snatched it, so he transformed it into a snake which hissed and wrapped around its arm before baring poison dripping fangs. The sergeant tore it loose and pitched it on the ground. Draco smirked and waved his hand with a flourish. "Abracadabra." A little puff of smoke rolled off the the snake an instant before it turned into a white spotted magpie. It cawed a mocking, "Abracadabra," and flew away.
The sergeant sat for a minute, scrubbing his thumb across his snout. "You're one of those wizard things, like Doc, aren't you."
He nodded. "Are you Wesen?"
The sergeant nodded. "Fuchsbau."
One of those fox monsters.
It continued, chuckling, "Yeah, how in the hell am I supposed to explain monthlies like this to a girl?" He chuckled and continued. "It's not all bad, though. I heal super fast and can pick up a truck when I'm riding the moon."
"What about normally?"
"My senses are a little sharper and I'm more athletic. I used to sit around and play video games all day, now I can run for hours and it's fun. That lot will be back around for another round tomorrow night, but we still have to do the other half. You're starting to smell good, which means I have to go eat."
Before he could ask what that meant, the medic ran off. He pushed off the floor and headed into the back. Rosencrantz was pointing and checking off her clipboard while six nurses mixed and stacked. He expected more werewolves, but the nurses were all Wesen. Two lion things, another like a bear, the green troll lady, two stripey cat things like DuPont and one crazy looking saber toothed cat woman with skin hugging black-striped white fur and claws that extended a solid four inches. That last one was the only one Rosencrantz acted carefully around. Everybody did. He shouldn't be, but now he was curious.
One of the werewolf medics clapped him on the shoulder and whispered, "Not for you. Don't even look."
The sour faced troll nurse stuffed a list into his hands and tsked at him. "Go on, Mr Wizard. Magic us up some wildlings so we can get some sleep. You think this is the first time somebody clever volunteered? Won't last half the night."
An itch gnawed in the pit of his stomach. Something nobody was telling him. Was this some sort of crazy test? The smart thing would have been to disappear and hide about two hours ago. Rosencrantz and the guards knew he was here and had assigned him tasks. Could he get away with feigning incompetence? The captain already considered him a blithering idiot but he didn't cherish the likelihood of being eaten alive.
He considered accumulating early injuries and taking himself out of the game. No good either. Rosencrantz would probably just let him die. Greyback's horrors flicked through his thoughts. The possibilities quickly played out in his mind and the only one that got him through in one piece was to make the system work like it was supposed to. No scrum of crazy to get loose and rip him in half. One, maybe two wildlings in the building. That meant managing the guards was key. They needed to know the schedule and have strict orders on timing. A straightforward plan was the ticket. He surveyed the inner and outer rooms. One wildling each, the rest had to stay outside. Space them out. He was now more thankful than ever for Snape's dozen werewolf essay assignments. He ran through the maths in his head. Reaction time, speed, burst strength. The guards needed room to respond. He sketched up the plan, set up the medics, and went to work.
They were six in and everything was going perfectly. One came in for treatment, Draco imperiused the wildling, the nurses gave the treatments, and back out the door they went. The hurricane of crazy stayed outside where the guards had plenty of time to control their charges.
And then an officer marched in. They all snapped to attention as he stomped past. "What in the hell are werewolves doing running all over my base?"
All the medics turned and pointed at Draco. The major sneered and eyed him. "Your uniform is a sorry mess, legionnaire."
Four gold bars. "My apologies, mon commandant."
"Why are there werewolves scattered all over my base?"
"Too many injuries, sir. This room is too small to contain more than two or three, safely."
"For you perhaps, what are you?"
"Wizard, sir. We are seven guards short tonight. Given the werewolves natural speed and strength, guards need approximately eight and a half meters separation, per wildling."
"Wizard, look around. If your lot was capable of handling this situation, we would have wizards here, but we don't. We specifically train lycanthrope guards. We have procedures for a reason. Our legion is founded on rules and order. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Name and rank?"
"Malbec. Engage volontaire."
The man's face exploded in red. He was screaming, berating him and then turned on the medics, and finally yelled for Rosencrantz. The two of them carried on at each other for five minutes before he silenced her. The git simply pulled rank. The whole lot of crazy was ordered back in line while Draco was sent to scrub out every single bathroom on the whole base.
He was absolutely shot when he stumbled up the stairs of the last barracks and found the cleaning supply closet.