The Five Houses were preparing for war for the first time in over fifteen hundred years. Each House plotted and planned and schemed in their own way, with each House playing to their own strengths.

House Moreau was gathered together deep in a cave that bore more of a resemblance to a stone-age society’s domain than that of a modern one. Tattered leather banners hung from the walls and ceilings while decorations of wood, carved stone and bone were strewn in what seemed to be a haphazard way around the caverns. House Moreau looked far more bestial and savage than any of the other Houses, their massive bulked-up frames perpetually stuck in a hunchback position and their large ape-like hands were tipped with claws that could shred steel plate like it was paper mâché. Their monstrous faces and large toothy mouths led many mortals to assume that the vampires of House Moreau were nothing more than feral, savage beasts, but this could not be further from the truth.

House Moreau was simply more in tune with the more animalistic and predatory parts of being a vampire, but despite this they were intelligent and cunning in the extreme. The seemingly random placement of objects and fetishes were in fact far from random. Everything had a place and a purpose, either to attract attention towards the object to allow for sneak attacks or traps to be more effective, or sometimes to act as demoralizing icons of evil to deter anyone foolish enough to accidentally or purposefully set foot in their domains. Some were imbued with magic and others were just there for show, but the deeper you went into the caverns and ruins under House Moreau’s control the more likely it was that the placement of objects would seem to go from random to purposeful.

House Moreau had gathered together for one purpose, to plot the actions and movements in and around Anglond. Unlike other, ‘more cultured’ vampires, House Moreau communicated to its own members with barks, yips, growls and other animal noises. This allowed them to communicate in a way that was not easily understood by outsiders and convey concepts and ideas that would take entire sentences in a few brief sounds. Sometimes they didn’t even need to make noises, and simply used pheromones, but that was merely one of the reasons why they often smelled rank and foul. Still, Grathe Moreau managed to get the point across to all of his House’s members and the House began to move as one.

…

Among the living there was a legend that once struck fear into whomever heard of it.

It was a tale of terror; of an unescapable evil that roamed like a herd of wild animals yet had the twisted intelligence of a gathering of men.

It went something like this;

“When the smell of fresh blood and rotting remains hangs in the air, and when the sounds of wild hounds and other beasts can be heard growing in the distance, kneel and pray behind locked doors and in a circle of candles or salt, for the Wild Hunt has come to prey upon you.

Hide your daughters and sons, hide your brides and bar any and all from entering your home, for the Wild Hunt has come to spirit them away, and to open your doors upon such a night will be an invitation to them to set themselves upon you like the predators they are.

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Only when the light of day has come and the sounds of the Hunt has faded into the distance once again shall you be free to open your doors and count your blessings, for the Wild Hunt only comes by night and only to those who are unfaithful to the One God.”

This was a story told to the youngest of the living in an attempt to scare them into devotion to the Church, as it had been so long since the last recorded instance of the Wild Hunt that no adult honestly assumed that the Hunt even existed. The Wild Hunt was a fairy tale and nothing more. A myth spread to keep children in line and scare them into obedience. No one believed that the locust-like band of murderous beings that scoured the lands of any unfaithful to the One God even existed.

So, when the smell of blood and rotting meat hung in the air of a moderately sized Anglish town and the baying of beast was heard growing in intensity from beyond the walls no one thought that it was actually the mythical Hunt. Everyone aside from the children assumed it was just a mix of monsters being monsters and the guard putting them down.

As the noise grew louder and the scent more intense, the children did what they were told to by the stories, much to both the quiet approval and disapproval of their elders. As little boys and girls hastily tried to barricade their homes and made circles of candles and/or salt and prayed for their lives, the adults merely went back to sleep. Or at least they tried to, but they could not. The sounds of the alarm-bell rang out through the night and a frenzied crier ran through the streets screaming at the top of his lungs like the Abominable King himself was on his heels.

“ALARM! ALARM! THE HUNT! THE WILD HUNT IS HERE! ALARM! ALARM! ALL HANDS, MAN YOUR BATTLESTATIONS! ALARM! ALARM! THE WILD HUNT IS HERE! HIDE YOUR CHILDREN, HIDE YOUR WIVES! THE HUNT! THE WILD HUNT IS HERE!”

Most of the adult populace simply assumed that this was a prank orchestrated by a town crier who wanted rid of his job, and so only a scant few men left their homes with bows and blades and made their way to the walls. Those who journeyed to the ramparts were in for a shock, as the sight of the onrushing Hunt made them rethink their stance on the old myth. Still, they were here, and they had to at least try and stop the oncoming tide of beasts and abominations that were now trampling over everything outside in a mad dash for the walls.

It was not the Dire Wolves that scared the guards and not the swarms of Fel Bats either. Instead they were afraid of the towering monster-men that ran on all four limbs like beasts as they screeched and howled like the abominations that they were. The Fel bats could be fended off with spears and arrows, and the Dire Wolves could not climb up the walls to begin with. These towering masses of muscle and sinew on the other hand looked strong enough to not only scale the walls with their own claws, but also durable enough to absorb the fire that was being leveled against them. With a massive howl, the monster men leapt from the bottom of the walls and dug their massive talons into the stone walls. Within a few short moments they had scaled the walls and had begun to slaughter anyone in their way.

…

It had been over fifteen hundred years since the last time House Moreau had assembled in such numbers; more than fifteen hundred years since the last time Grathe Moreau had declared a Wild Hunt. Now the full power of the Vampiric King of Beasts was on display as he slammed his body into the studded wood gate at full speed and send the wood in his path flying in front of him. Like an undead battering ram, he had smashed the gates open with the pure force of his speed, durability and strength.

Within but a single night, an entire city would disappear in a storm of gnashing teeth and rending claws. This city may have been the first to feel the Wild Hunt’s wrath, but it would not be the last. The Wild Hunt would not stop until it had been sated, and that could not happen until Anglond had been destroyed.

It was going to be a long, long night for the living in Anglond.