Belief was easier than questions. We went back to our ordinary routine, hoping the challenges of questioning our world would leave us alone. It wasn't long before our world ended.
Lieutenant Colonel Rose briefed those of the pack he had selected to accompany Dreich and Doctor Imbrium. By request, Bruna and I were included. "Listen to me, we will be posing as tourists during the last portion of this journey. Dreich has outlined a pilgrimage that will lead us to the resting place of the objects we seek."
"How long will we be out there?" Bruna asked.
"Three nights. We have no choice but to go now, as I have orders from General Stone to reach the site ahead of an unknown enemy force that is also after these same objects." Lieutenant Colonel Rose detailed. I raised my hand.
"Atanarjuat, you were going to ask how they know the whereabouts. It is currently unknown how they gather intelligence. My theory is that they have some magical means of spying on us." Lieutenant Colonel Rose determined.
"Is this enemy the Elders?" I asked.
"The exact composition of their forces and their political alignment is unknown to us. Our codename for their active units is 'Grandpa'." Lieutenant Colonel Rose recited.
"The Elders." I muttered, glancing at Doctor Imbrium. They nodded to me but said nothing. It felt strange to have known more than my commanding officer. I guessed anything was possible at the beginning of a war, and that is what we seemed to be doing. A race to arms, a cold war, hidden enemies and even shadier friends. I didn't like it.
"Grandpa doesn't need to waste their magic. We tell them everything." Dreich stated.
"That's enough." Lieutenant Colonel Rose stared down the creature with a powerful glare. "Everyone in this room is part of my pack. I'll have no more dissension."
"Very well. If you don't want me to point out our obvious mistakes." Dreich made a helpless gesture. "Then I won't."
"It would be a mistake to underestimate Grandpa. It would be a greater mistake to turn on our own." Lieutenant Colonel Rose told Dreich and all of us. "Every choice is always a mistake, our goal is to minimize, understood?"
"Yes sir." Dreich saluted limply.
We departed, wearing collars, for our three-day hike. Our flight seemed to take longer than before. It was cold on the plane, and the pack held still under blankets in the back of the empty cargo plane. I started to fall asleep until I felt Bruna nuzzling me.
"You will become a wolf." She said very quietly. It was impossible to hear her over the roar of the mighty air we sailed upon, but I felt her breath on my cheek and knew her words.
"Will I obey you?" I asked.
"I believe in you. Whatever form you are in, you will still love me." Bruna sighed and smiled. I could barely see her in the dark, but I knew how she looked when she said that.
Drifting into sleep beside her, perhaps I had only dreamed of that exchange of words. On the ground, when we arrived in that desolate country, we were as figures in the night, from our plane to the old tour bus we had rented. Without gear or weapons, our travel was easy and unnoticed.
It was soon dawn, as we stepped out of the vehicle with our hoods drawn. Our eyes shone, but it was only starlight, and we were alone at the shrine of the ancient pilgrimage.
"We will walk this pilgrim's trail. You lycans will know the scent, I am sure. There is an alder that stood along this trail for a thousand years, and it shall stand for a thousand more, unless someone has cut it down." Dreich stared with familiar eyes at the hills all around us.
"And in the sunlight, how will you fare?" I asked Dreich.
"My lovely friend, I shall fare better than you under the moonlight." Dreich patted my shoulder.
We hiked all day and wore our robes, concealing ourselves and keeping warm. Dreich began to sing to us, and his tenor was pleasant and skilled. I was surprised when Bruna sang too. She was very happy when she recognized the song Dreich had for us. Several times I asked them to sing again, as the tedium of walking all day began to wear upon my mind, which fled from thoughts of the night.
When it was night we made a camp. "We could go on, but Atanarjuat must have this night. Are you ready?" Lieutenant Colonel Rose asked me.
"How can I be ready?" I sat staring at our campfire. I looked around at the others, Dreich, Bruna, Doctor Imbrium and Halo. "I alone will be subject to this change. Why am I even here?"
"I need you here." Doctor Imbrium reminded me.
I doubted Doctor Imbrium really needed me to be there. It seemed like some kind of mistake, and I thought about how Dreich had talked about making obvious mistakes before we left. Was it true that all decisions were mistakes, and only some lesser than others? At that moment, with the moon rising from behind the hills, I thought so.
"I love you." Bruna whispered to me, her gaze intense, as though she were afraid for me. Whatever she felt, it wasn't fear, but rather some kind of concern or sympathy. She knew what I would go through, and it was like a birthing, necessary but painful.
As I was about to change, the feeling of dread grew within me. Then I beheld the moon, almost full, rising from behind the hills. At first, nothing happened.
Everyone stared at me, and I knew there was just some kind of delay. It was not long before it caught me, my body felt like every part of me was bursting and boiling. I let out a pained yelp as I fell over. My right leg kicked out and felt like my knee was bending backwards, my ankle swelling and twisting. All my joints cracked violently and my ribs expanded while my spine tightened and pulled me into a contortion of agony. I spewed bile and gasped for air, but my lungs felt like two balloons in my chest, about to explode.
There was nothing else I knew after that, for when the suffering was over, I was the wolf. As the beast I was robbed of my senses, filled with rage and hunger. My robes lay in torn remnants where I had fallen. My companions might have felt my fangs at their throats, but it was said that while I growled and bared my teeth, I was tamed.
The maiden held her hand out and then placed it as a muzzle over my bared fangs as I growled at her. She recognized the wolf was her friend, and the wolf recognized her as his own. Somehow the wolf grew calm, under her touch, and then with her delicate body she hugged and held the fur-covered beast. It let her lay it down and give it lullabies until it slept beside her in the midnight dew.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
In the early dawn, just before sunrise, I lay in soreness and felt like all of my bones were sewn into my muscles. Bruna lay beside me, watching me sleep. She smiled with her tired eyes and said softly: "You're back. That wasn't so bad."
"Everyone is safe?" I asked with fear. I knew what a werewolf could do. Upon the pilgrim's trail, I was the wolf.
"Yes, my love. I was able to tame you. They are all asleep. It was a quiet night." Bruna yawned.
"You love me?" I smiled weakly for her.
"I think you already knew that." Bruna closed her eyes and let herself sleep. I looked around and beheld my damaged robe. I stood, trembling like a newborn in the cold morning air. I went and collected my clothing and wore it, despite the rips in it from the claws I'd had.
"Lesson one, remove clothing before becoming a wolf." I told myself.
I heard a soft chuckle from Dreich, who was watching me from the shade.
"How do you feel right now? You know what you are, has it changed something? Has the knowledge that the Major can tame you made this easier, less fearsome?" Dreich wondered.
"I don't know." I said. "I am very tired. Let me get some rest and then I will tell you."
"There is no time to rest." Dreich told me. "We must away."
"I am only slowing us down. Why am I here?" I wondered.
"Perhaps it is my fault." Dreich considered. "I see Grandpa in the faces of all I don't trust."
"You mean the Elders?" I asked.
"I like the codename. They call themselves the Elders. Grandpa is old and mean, and certainly not to be trusted. He is very crafty." Dreich was having a lot of fun, his grin showing his fangs.
"I'm hungry." I realized suddenly.
"There is food in the village we will reach in a few hours. We camped far away on purpose." Dreich's shade looked deep and cool, and I wondered if he was stalling, avoiding the morning sun.
"Thank you." I said, considering that we had camped far away out of consideration for the threat I posed to the unsuspecting villagers.
"For what?" Dreich asked.
"I appreciate that you thought of the people I would have endangered." I said plainly.
"You're welcome. I am not the monster that some people feel I am. I'm actually a pretty sweet guy." Dreich said with his heavy accent. I noticed his English had improved very fast, and I wondered how many languages he knew.
"Do you know many languages, Dreich?"
This made him laugh. "There is really just one language. People choose not to hear each other. I hear them though; I love to hear what people say. When I listen to someone speaking, or singing, it makes me happy."
"Very well. You are so different than most people." I pointed out.
"I should hope I am different than all people. I am a unique and intriguing man, don't you think?"
"Neither of us is just a man." I fingered the tears in my clothing.
"Of course. Perhaps on a different day, I will tell you what sort of man I see you as." Dreich promised. "Today you wrestle with the beast within and the threat it poses to your humanity. Let us not send you into battle on an empty stomach. Shall you and I go on ahead to the village?"
"I don't want to leave Bruna, not even for a few hours. It is hard to explain." I tried to explain.
"No need. Among humans, love is quite powerful. Among monsters, it triumphs over all reason." Dreich smiled again. "Go lay back down beside her then. I will let you rest and I shall go alone and bring food."
I nodded and took his suggestion. The smell of part of a lamb cooking woke me up later. Dreich had purchased cheese and wine and part of a butchered lamb and returned to us. I watched him nibbling on the cheese. I noticed he didn't eat much.
Nobody was interested in the wine and Lieutenant Colonel Rose asked: "Did you get the wine for yourself?"
"I don't drink wine." Dreich chuckled.
"That's funny." Bruna said with a mouthful. "Where'd you pick that up?"
"Treach told me about it. Said vampires are a joke these days. Nobody believes in them." Dreich stood. "Are we ready? We've rested for half the day."
"Let's go." Bruna sprang to her feet.
We continued to our next camp, chosen because it was lined with a purple flower that Dreich called lycoctonum. I stared for a long time at the thick pole with the wolf effigy carved atop it and the metal ring fastened into it. The place smelled of old ways and death.
"They were planted." Doctor Imbrium looked at the flowers. "This is a place of moonlit trials. Wolves were waited upon under the moonlight to transform. When they changed, they were killed, still chained up."
"Shall we camp here?" Dreich asked me.
I nodded. Bruna looked upset and said:
"It's horrid."
As the night approached I said to her: "I do not think what they did here was wrong."
"I was born a wolf, and I might never have changed." Bruna implored me to consider that she might be right.
"Many people in my village were killed. I lost everyone I loved." I reminded her.
"One mad dog does not make the breed evil." Bruna argued but with patience and respect for what I had experienced. I realized that in a way, she was actually right.
"You won't hurt anyone. That's why we are wearing these collars." Lieutenant Colonel Rose had approached us. "Are you ready this time?"
I disrobed and stood in the moonlight. Instead of fighting it I tried to surrender to it. Somehow it made it a little less painful and it went faster, or perhaps it just hurt less because my body was getting used to it.
Dreams of running through the forest in the valley below, with Bruna beside me, brought me great joy. Our paws tore the ground as we ran with lightning swiftness through the shadows. When we reached the edge of the parkland, we stopped and howled at the falling moon, calling to our pack, calling to the moon, summoning the deepest thrill of our hunt.
"This way, brother." Bruna's wolf eyes spoke to me, her tail swishing excitedly. We ran along the edge of the wood until we had reached the camp.
"This is no dream." I said to her with my gaze.
"No, but it will be like one when the mists of morning make it easy to remember, but the laughter of the day makes it impossible to recall." Bruna pushed her nose into my fur and then stared, and I knew her words.
Shivering in the morning, I wondered if it was a dream. I looked to where Bruna slept beside me, and then I spotted the pair of wolf tracks that had circled us and vanished to our bed. She had changed and ran alongside me. It was so daring and faithful, I felt moved by it somehow.
As we were walking later, Bruna said to me:
"The wolf is not evil."
I had nothing to say to that. She had proven we could run free and cause no harm. I felt safe as long as I was with her.
"I feel a little jealous." Halo said to me as I knelt beside him, where he had lapped water from the creek.
"Because she loves me?" I asked him.
"No, because she trusts you. She loves the whole pack. The alpha female is the mother to us all. I can never know that light, she will not trust me again." Halo explained. I looked up from where we knelt and watched Bruna laughing at a joke Dreich had told her.
"I am sorry." I told him.
"Do not be sorry for me. You are an honest man. I wish I could be called an honest man. I squandered it, you know, all the trust." Halo lamented.
"I will trust you, Halo." I told him. "You call me into the wild, and when I first saw you, I wanted the wilderness and the freedom I saw in your eyes."
"That..." Halo gulped. "That actually means a lot to me. Thank you for reminding me of the freedom I love so dearly. Sometimes I want to be alone. I am not meant for a pack."
Our journey reached the place where the ancient tree stood, still early in the day. I stared at it for a long time. Dreich had grown oddly solemn and then he knelt and seemed to be praying.
"Is this it?" Doctor Imbrium interrupted.
"This is where I buried the unnatural gemstones. It is also where I buried my mother, Aranbel. She was queen among the vampires, the noble Uphirim." Dreich said, sounding sad.
"How are we supposed to get to them?" Doctor Imbrium asked.
"I suppose we will have to dig." Halo unpacked some folded army shovels. "Oh look, I brought enough for all of us. Looks like we will all be digging."
This made Bruna laugh, despite herself. I laughed too. It pleased me that she could laugh at a joke told by Halo, and the look on his face when she did was priceless. He looked like a little boy whose mother had just kissed his forehead.
When we had finished digging, there was a small casket atop a stone slab. I presumed we had reached the grave. Dreich claimed the treasure. "We got here before Grandpa, and all that will be left is an open grave."
"We should fill it in." I must have sounded concerned, for Dreich said reassuringly:
"They cannot harm her, she is already dead. All that is left is dust and ashes, and a son who will always love her."