Edited by: tommyjl7
The fortified camp that they have raised was nothing more than a trap, and they were a lure. Within the forest, they found a naturally formed stone wall, around four-five meters tall, twenty or so wide. Nothing great, but should be more than enough to serve their purposes. They acted quickly, using Gisele’s axes (and her muscles) they cut down three big trees before using them to make sharpened poles they later buried in the ground as a primitive palisade. Once again, every single one of them jutted out only a meter from the ground, but its role was not to stop the werewolf, but to limits its movements and possibly slow down.
Outside of their “little fort”, they raised four piles of herbs, from all directions: south, north, west, and east. If Johann would decide to show up, a nasty surprise would wait for him.
In the center of the camp, Gisele was sitting in the lotus position with her sword lying on her thighs. Jasper and two other hunters moved into the forest to break the totems – the symbol of werewolf supremacy within the forest. If he was acting like most of the Lycans, he wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to avenge the damage that was about to be dealt to his pride.
She waited a minute, ten, twenty, thirty - before hunters finally returned gasping for air.
- “Are you sure that Johann would follow you?” Gis asked without opening her eyes
- “Yeah, we left a few smelly tracks behind us, if he can’t follow them, he would be a disgrace to his kin.”
- “And how would we know that he noticed our little act of vandalism?”
- “It’s simple, he would just…” at that moment a long, angry howl could be heard from depths of the forest.
It was filled with anger and madness so much, that the whole forest resonated with its vibration. Jasper got goosebumps from the dark emotions that filled the air.
- “I guess you don’t need to bother with answering.” She slowly stood up, shook the dust off her clothes, and grabbed her sword. Jasper stayed with her in arena-like formation in the middle of the camp, while the rest of the hunters jumped behind the fortifications hiding in the bushes. They quickly started rubbing herbs paste into their body and clothes in order to hide their smell, at least just a little.
Jasper and Gisele were pressing their backs together in order to avoid the werewolf’s attacking their backs, bastards were well-known for these strikes. They would attack the spine on the neck level, completely paralyzing or even instantly killing their preys with a single strike.
And they waited.
A single drop of sweat started falling off dragoness chin, the hunter didn’t notice at first that he was holding breath because of anticipation. His grip over his weapon was too thigh, noticing it, he loosened it a little. Still, he couldn’t calm pounding of his heart.
Oh, if old man Rupert would know that he decided to stay in the battle zone instead of choosing another hunter to do so, he would be mad. Truly furious.
But Jaspy was done with hiding behind the bushes, he wasn’t training all these years just to hide. He killed few minor monsters, he wasn’t trying to jump right on the werewolf without real combat experience. But it will be the first time he would duel with a monster on this level.
Hunters had their own system of ranking monsters. Werewolves were B rank – which meant that single hunter could never stand a chance. Never. If single hunter would spot, or even just suspect the presence of werewolf in the area, he was supposed to immediately call for backup.
The knowledge about fighting with such opponent boiled the blood in the veins of young man. That was supposed to be his first step for hunting vampires – an A rank monsters.
Then it finally happened, bushes all around the camp started shaking violently, as if a massive monster was moving past them at an incredible speed. The monster wanted to jump right away, yet all he saw were two warriors with joined backs and dozens of spikes coming off the ground – no opening he could use for an instant kill.
Then, it stopped. Nothing. Silence. Jasper and Gisele tensed up, awaiting a swift attack, for a charge that would force them to break their formation, yet that never happened. Instead, one more savage cry could be heard before the monster leaped into the arena, avoiding a fence like formation and all the spikes that were put inside, creature landed on all its four at a distance of six meters away from dragoness and human.
He raised on its rear legs presenting his huge body. While standing he towered over them - he was over 2 meters 20 centimeters tall, and that was with his back being crooked, already used to moving like the animal he was.
Almost nothing from his human side remained, his whole body was covered in thick fur, his face was barely holding onto last similarities of human, with long snout and tusks so long that they did not fit in his mouth. Only eyes remained slightly human, like the eyes of a man in his drunken rage, barely able to focus on the creatures he was about to kill.
- “Johann, is that you?” Jasper asked without breaking his stance.
At the same time, Gisele stopped covering his back, there was no need to as beast decided to abandon the idea of fast attack, instead, she was moving slowly in the circle trying to take a position on the other side of monster and make best out of advantage of the number.
Young hunter asked that question to merely taste the water, to check how much sanity remained in the beast in front of him, and it did not react to his own name.
- “Come with us, Johann, Marie is worried about you…”
- “Marhieee…” the beast for a moment lost its focus and let out a grotesque whimper.
He almost completely lost the ability to use human speech, yet apparently, there was one last thing that was holding rests of his sanity in place – the memory of the woman he loves.
Wonderful, emotions are also a form of magic - if despite such deep changes in his mind and body he still remembers her, there is a hope to bring him from the verge of darkness.
- “Yes, she found a cure for your… condition. Please, let her help you…”
Yet, Jasper didn’t know about the relations that these two had, he couldn’t know that Johann wanted these powers to be the one helping Marie, he couldn’t know, that by suggesting that Marie wanted to help Johann one more time, he pushed him further into the oblivion of his corrupted soul.
Beast grabbed his head with both paws, raised it high to the sky and cried.
- “NoooOOOOO-UUUUU”
What started as a cry of rejection quickly turned into most natural sound that he could make – a howl, a deafening, ear-drum breaking howl.
There was no time to waste, Jasper quickly brought his silver blade covered in wolfsbane and thrust it aiming at the monster’s exposed leg. He wanted to cripple it, with its regeneration ability such wound wouldn’t be permanent, yet would allow hunters to safely secure him and once again shut him in the basement, stopping the last phase of the curse.
It all happened so quickly, or maybe, extremely slowly? Jasper could see how within three seconds he overcame the distance that separated him from the beast. He could see how his blade was getting closer and closer to the skin of the monster. He noticed Gisele running from the side to aid him too. Ha! At this point, her help will not be requi…
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Half a meter was separating his blade and beast’s skin, and at that moment the monster opened his eyes and gazed upon him. He saw everything in slow-motion, yet what truly frightened him, was that the beast was barely interested in him. Despite that he could end the battle with that one thrust, the best didn’t mind. It stopped looking at him, instead, its eyes scanned the surroundings.
Even though everything appeared slowed down to Jasper, monsters eyes were moving extremely fast, it stopped for a moment looking at Gisele far more interested. 25 centimeters before leg would be pierced.
Monster once again shifted his eyes on Jasper, doing nothing, the blade was getting closer and closer, when the tip of the blade was merely ten centimeters away, monster moved, he saw as every muscle in beast’s thigh tenses before it changed its footing. One leg to the side, one leg back, at the very last moment monster left the blade’s trajectory. Not only that, at the moment it was in the blind spot of young hunter’s weapon, which didn’t allow him to pose any threat, bah, the beast even positioned hunter between himself and Gisele, nullifying her attack too.
And then, it raised its paw, bared its claws and slashed. Jasper couldn’t react in time as he was still lost in the momentum of his blade. Razor like nails easily cut through leather armor, and further, through the skin of shoulder, if it had just a split of second more, it would break the bones. Only a miracle allowed Jasper to keep his arm.
A miracle named Gisele.
Seeing that dragoness shortened the distances quickly, beast withdrew its hand and kicked young hunter toward warrioress, wanting their bodies to collide.
Jasper was once kicked by the horse, yet, the power of this hit was incomparable, only because he was kicked in the side, his bones were not fractured into dust. Yet dragoness did not stumble upon the hunter. Balancing wonderfully with her tail she stopped for a split of second and jumped over his body slashing vertically.
The blow raised a small cloud of dust from the ground limiting beasts vision and saving young man further, allowing him to crawl back and get a breath.
- “NOW!” Jasper managed to cry out before starting to cough.
Remaining two hunters that were hiding in the bushes started setting the piles of herbs with fire.
Wolfsbane, jasmine, and dandelion started burning releasing a thick, grey and brown smoke, which covered all edges of the arena and eventually started creeping inside.
Werewolves are stronger, faster and usually smarter than humans, atop of that they do not fight “fair”. This is why humans are also not supposed to stick to the honor - while battling such beasts one couldn’t limit himself with such silly things like pride.
For them, smoke would be just annoying, barely poisonous. Wolfsbane would dull their senses, and scratch the insides of their throats, dandelion would irritate their eyes while jasmine… would do nothing. Not to them.
Jasper started getting up still holding his belly, he couldn’t join in, not now, not in this condition, all he could do, was to admire the duel of Gisele and beast that no one could defeat alone. Or so he was told.
Her moves were perfect, savage, simple. No excessive movements, no dancing-like showing off. Each strike was either supposed to cut one of the limbs off or be an opening for another strike.
Gisele slashed from the side, her huge blade cutting through air let out heavy cry. Monster ducked its colossal body under it, trying to bite her leg, yet dragoness raised one of her legs up and used the momentum of the blade that was still spinning to perform a powerful kick that sent monster flying. The monster that easily weighted more than 200 kilograms fell over two meters away, even though it turned in the air and landed perfectly, monster whimpered slightly.
And woman, she was breathing loudly, yet not because she was tired. She was panting with excitement as an awful, almost perverted smile bloomed on her lips. That woman was enjoying herself! She was facing a monster that every human avoided on purpose, and she was having a great time!
And after two seconds of gazing at each other, they once again leaped at one another, Gisele with her opening vertical slash, the werewolf with swiping his paws from the side and opened mouth ready to bite.
Yet Gisele and her colossal weapon had the advantage of range, that caused the beast to change trajectory. It kicked the ground jumping to the side, avoiding the sword by an inch, moved to the side and tried attacking unprotected side of warriors.
The “unprotected” side jerked, once again masterfully balancing her tail and mass of the weapon she rotated, avoiding claws of a beast like a twisting tornado, and as the two bodies were passing each other, Gisele once again had her sword raised above her head standing outside of monster’s attack range.
She brought her sword down, beast tried jumping away again, yet this time it was split second too late. The blade caressed monster’s back leaving a red mark from the neck up to tailbone. The cut wasn’t very deep, but the purity of metal surely painfully burned the monster’s body.
In that duel, she drew the first blood.
Johann rolled away hissing in anger. His eyes were filled with pure hatred, as it collapsed completely on the ground. Smoke shortened the arena size by half, Jasper already started crying because of it, yet he couldn’t run away, not just yet. If something would happen, he could at least jump on the beast granting additional second to Gisele so she could either save herself or strike back.
Werewolf noticed that the meeting with smoke would end quite painfully for him, so he decided to move into the center of the arena, as far from the wall of grey and brown fog as it was only possible.
Once again the two jumped into a battling embrace, into the dance of war, trading blows and strikes. Gisele’s attacks were perfect in their simplicity, yet these also made them relatively easy to be predicted. Monster got used to dragoness fight flow, thanks to which he eventually landed few minor scratches on girl’s calf.
And then, she made a fatal opening – thrusting her blade instead of slashing she exposed her neck to the monster that jumped to the side avoiding the attack. Veins pulsating in her body showed the beast where the most important arteries were located. He jumped on his new target.
Yet, the woman dropped her blade completely. What werewolf thought was a mistake, it wasn't an opening, it was just a bait. Because, what sane person would actually drop his/her weapon while fighting with the beast such as himself? What would she do? Punch him?
… she did. Up until now, he didn’t notice that gauntlets that Gisele was wearing had iron spikes on it, the metal wasn’t completely pure, but was more than enough to deal serious damage.
After first blow, werewolf spat out two of its fangs, he tried to shift the stance that would allow him to use best of his size and weight advantage… yet he didn’t have enough time, for dragoness already unleashed the tempest of blows that wouldn’t allow him to get enough time to shift his position.
Uppercut to the chin, two fast strikes in the belly, a kick under the knee, swipe from the side that hit him over his eye.
The last attack caused him to stumble, move two meters back and fell on the ground, right in the smoke. Dandelion attacked his eyes, blinding him almost completely, wolfsbane completely dulled his sense of smell and sting upon every wound, disturbing his healing.
The creature started whimpering in agony as it crawled out of the smoke screen. He raised his blurred gaze on the silhouette of dragoness. There was no way he could fight in this condition. He filled his lungs with as much fresh air as he could as he started running across the smoke… just to impale himself on one of the sharpened poles.
He got off the trap and tried moving onward, yet dragoness, jumped after him into the smoke, grabbed his tail and threw him back into the middle of the arena. Arena, that was even more filled with smoke.
The beast was exhausted, its senses dulled, his strengths were quickly vanishing. Johann knew that there was no way he could win against that woman, not here, not now, not when she had the support of three other men and not on the arena filled with traps and poisonous gas.
He decided to use his last trump card.
He raised his head once again, and let out a painful howl. Filled with a cry of help, with pain and agony. A king of the forest was calling for help,
And beasts answered. A pack of grey wolves came from the forest in less than a minute, as if transported by magic, and jumped right on the arena. The smoke hurt them no less than their king, yet in a blind rage caused by a howl they didn’t care about their lives. Like one man they jumped on the Gisele and hunters. They weren’t much of a challenge, hunters and Gisele quite easily get rid of twelve monsters which were dying after one precise attack, yet when they gazed looking for the werewolf, they did not spot it. The monster ran away.
- “FUCK!” Gisele hit the nearest tree, sending huge part of bark into the air
- “Fuck indeed…” Jasper hissed quietly still holding his stomach “… the longer he stays in the woods, the stronger he becomes. His damages will be gone in a few hours… yet he will not fall for the same trick again.”
- “What will we do now, brother Jasper, are we chasing him or…” one of the hunters started
- “No. Let’s team up with Rupert, and hope that they had more luck than we…”
- “It wasn’t about luck…” Gisele cut in his speech “… it was you. Why the hell did you jump on it?! We talked about it, you were supposed to support me. Deliver one or two slashes from the side as it would be focused on me! Instead, you got yourself crippled at the very start of the battle! With help of another warrior I could easily corner him!”
He knew she was right. He wanted to justify his actions. He wanted to shift the blame or find some excuses. Yet he did not.
- “I… I know. I am sorry.” He said quietly
- “Save your apologies to families of people that this beast may, and most likely will, rip into pieces.”
She walked past him, hitting him with the shoulder in the process. She was harsh - but right. They had a plan, plan that HE made… yet. He lost to his desire of being a human that defeated a werewolf alone.
Curses. Rupert repeated it day after day.
Mind over body.
The mind. Over the body.