“Come find me, if you survive the full moon,” the strange lord had said. The one they all feared, even the chasseurs in their shiny silver armour.

The lord who commanded the werewolves and the Rot alike.

“Lord Relentless.”

Issa had practised saying the title in the Loegrian language ever since he had gotten bitten—with a brief break while he had figured out how to regain his human form after full moon. He was moving north, too. Away from the Valoisian troops, hopefully.

At first, he had wished Lord Relentless had been a little more clear on how to find him, but it had become obvious to Issa why he hadn’t bothered quite quickly:

He was being called. When he tried to deviate from the path, from the right direction, even to search for food, it was as if he were climbing a mountain. To go north, on the other hand, was effortless. No, not effortless. But less effort than it should have been.

As if all the roads north led endlessly downhill.

It had been a weak, barely-there pull right after the full moon, but with every step Issa had taken, it had grown stronger. After a full month of walking, Issa was quite certain he couldn’t have turned around even if he had wanted to.

Maybe this was the magic of Lord Relentless. If all the other werewolves in the country feel the same pull towards that man, it was no wonder he commanded them so easily. How would it feel to stand in front of him?

And where did that power come from?

It certainly didn’t come from Lord Mithras.

Not that this was a bad thing, Issa reckoned. He had learned to worship Mithras because failing to do so would have brought the wrath of the Empire down on his family, his whole village. But he wasn’t Valoisian-born, wasn’t of the Sun God’s Chosen People. What had the Golden Lord ever done for him?

Lord Relentless had spared his life, only had ordered him bitten.

So Issa had kept moving north. Towards the capital of the enemy, if he guessed correctly. The thought of arriving there scared him to no end, but where else might someone like him find help? A freshly created monster. Where else could he go but towards the capital of monsters?

And now another full moon was over, and he was once again stuck in the wolf body. Not that he would have wanted to walk around the landscape buck naked. Just that a choice would have been nice.

Issa stopped at a little stream, sniffing the water before drinking. He was probably foolish to put any hope in the Loegrians. Most likely, they would press him into service soon as they got a hold of him, just like the Valoise had.

But it was nice to dream of a better future as he walked. Even if he would never make it off this strange island again. Perhaps, there’d be a way to let his parents know he was alive, some day?

The thought was blown from his mind before he could even start to think of all the reasons why it wouldn’t work. Lord Relentless was moving. Moving fast, too.

It felt like an earthquake. As if the whole world rearranged itself around him, dragging him in a new direction. It was a good thing he’d crouched down to have a drink, or the sudden change in the magic might have swept him off his feet.

It called him stronger than ever.

Three days later, he arrived at a city. He had been running almost day and night to get there so fast. It was a big city, and the call was compelling him to head straight for the gate. The air tasted of salt, and seagulls cried overhead.

He had reached the coast. In the far, far distance, the ocean glittered in the sun.

Issa sat down on his haunches, panting like a dog in the heat. Trying to catch his breath before he walked in there. The city scared him.

It had a port. A centre surrounded by walls, and sprawling quarters around that. The city had outgrown its gates, but Issa could see guards and soldiers at every road leading in.

He had to risk it anyway.

Once he started walking, there was no stopping. The power dragged him forwards, into the city. The guards lowered their muskets at him when he approached, but they didn’t fire. They just watched him walk closer. Issa stared back. He couldn’t have so much as growled at them, even if he had wanted to—the call prohibited it.

He wondered if they knew it. When he reached them, they got out of the way, calling to each other in their own language. Issa had no idea what they said, but it didn’t sound scared, or frantic, or angry. Possibly amused.

The streets were curiously deserted. It was the middle of the day, and this city was big. Issa couldn’t tell if the red brick buildings were homes—if so, they were bigger than any homes he had ever seen—or factories, but still, there should have been people about their day in either case.

The only people he trotted past were more men in uniform. They appeared to be searching the buildings?

There wasn’t a single child in sight. Was the city being evacuated?

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

The deeper Issa moved into the city, the more likely it seemed. When he crossed a bridge over a channel, he spotted another werewolf on another bridge just down the channel, but still no one who looked like a citizen.

The other werewolf was moving in the same direction as Issa, but more slowly. Limping? Issa lost sight of them before he could tell for certain.

His own paws were protesting soon. They weren’t made for cobblestones. It would have been nice to have boots to change into.

Finally, he reached a plaza. Unlike the rest of the city, it was full of people, all of them burdened with as many suitcases, rucksacks, and bags as they could carry. All of them queued in front of a large building on the other side of the plaza. Issa heard a train whistle.

In the middle of the wide open space stood a ramshackle stage, a woman on top. Below her feet stood more werewolves and guards, and it was there that Issa was dragged. He stopped in front of a man who couldn’t look less like Lord Relentless: bright red hair and an equally bright beard, missing one hand. Shorter and older than Lord Relentless, too.

Issa had never seen hair like that.

The stranger asked something. Issa didn’t understand, and he didn’t know if a wolf could even speak. Yet he had no choice but to answer. The stranger dragged it right out of him. So Issa whined softly.

The stranger cocked his head, frowning. He said something else, and Issa found his body changing all on its own.

Was this stranger equally powerful as the moon?

The transformation was as painful as any triggered by the moonphase. As long, too. When Issa climbed to his feet, a blanket landed on his shoulders, and he gratefully wrapped it around his hips to cover himself.

“You’re Valoisian,” the woman on the stage said, speaking the Imperial language. “What’s your name?”

“Issa. Lord Relentless told me to come find him,” Issa added. He couldn’t see the lord anywhere, but perhaps it would help.

“When was that?” the woman asked.

She spoke Valoisian like a noble. Or possibly a priest. Not that there were any priestesses.

“Before or after the death of Marshall Soto?” she added when Issa didn’t answer right away.

Before or after… “The marshall is dead?” Issa asked. They had killed Marshall Soto already? How?

The woman nodded briskly. “When were you bitten?” she asked again.

“I just went through my second full moon,” Issa said, because he didn’t know how else to measure the time. “I didn’t count the days.”

“Are you here to fight for Loegrion?”

“Yes,” Issa said. He didn’t need to think about that question. “Lord Relentless told me to find him,” Issa said. “I thought it was to fight. I don’t know what else to do.”

He’d been a soldier ever since his parents had been forced to volunteer him to pay off a debt. He had been hardly more than a boy then. Now he was one of the Empire’s veterans. He didn’t have much love lost for the Valoise, but he did hold a certain pride in his skill and experience.

“Very well,” the woman said. “I am Lady deLande. Lord Relentless is my betrothed. I trust that you will follow my orders the same as his.”

Issa didn’t really think the one-handed stranger would give him any choice in the matter, but he said “yes, milady,” anyway. She appeared to be in charge here, judging from the soldiers that were hanging back, waiting for her to finish with Issa to report. The last thing he wanted was to defy her in front of the crowd.

He moved out of the way, retreating into the group of werewolves. He recognized some of them, fellow Imperial soldiers. The other half looked Loegrian to him, with the strange, almost white hair of the locals. They were staring at Issa and his fellow Imperials.

He sidled up to a lieutenant who still wore parts of his yellow uniform, epaulettes included. “Sir, may I ask where we are?”

The officer jumped as if Issa had snuck up at him. His eyes had changed shape, and there was no white visible in them at all. His gaze darted everywhere but in Issa’s direction. Just as Issa thought he wouldn’t get an answer, the officer said, very quietly, very fast:

“Deggan, soldier, Deggan. Port city. Major port city. They’re evacuating. Imperial Army is on the way.”

“Upstream of this river lies Deva, the capital of Loegrion,” added another man, wrapped in a similar blanket as Issa. His skin was a little lighter than Issa’s own. His language marked him as another officer. “We’ll be taken there once the evacuation is completed.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Issa said. He wished he could understand what the lady was saying to the Loegrian soldiers. Issa watched as group after group walked up, gave brief reports, received orders, and hurried off again.

“They’re reporting parts of the city cleared out,” the officer in the blanket said. “Seen anything interesting on your way here? Like our troops?”

Issa shook his head. “Came straight here,” he said. “Sir, is it true that Marshall Soto is dead?”

“He, and most of our—their cavalry, yes,” the man said. “Got bitten in that battle myself,” he added. “The marshall thought he had Lord Relentless nailed down, and attacked without all his cavalry there. We would have ridden them down anyway, but they had another magic trick nobody saw coming.”

“So the Loegrians are winning?” Issa asked.

The officer shrugged, tugging at his own blanket. “That’s the tricky question, isn’t it?”

He looked up at the lady, at the big building in the distance and all the people waiting in line to enter. It all looked very orderly. Another train whistle sounded, and a moment later, the line moved forward.

It all looked very controlled, Issa thought, very purposeful. The officer looked more doubtful, but he didn’t say anything else.

Issa settled in to wait. It felt very familiar, just hanging around until someone else had finished their part of the operation. At some point, the lady left her post on the stage to talk to the people leaving the city. The one-handed one sat down on the stage, keeping all the other werewolves around himself. In his presence, it was difficult to even think about walking away. It just didn’t seem to make any sense to leave the plaza. Not even to find some shade.

When the lady returned, she had an entourage of four young men with her. They wore a different uniform than Issa had seen so far—made of simple, brown leather, not the rich red of the Loegrian army, or the silver and blue he had guessed was the city guard. Perhaps, this was some kind of militia? The leather clad guards were very young, barely more than boys, and they wore their leather armour like it was the first time.

The four young men carried water, some hard tack and dried meat, which they passed out among the werewolves. The guards—boys—looked nervous as they handed out the food, staring wide-eyed at the changed eyes of some of the werewolves, as if they expected to be jumped at any moment. But when he tried, Issa found it equally difficult to think about hurting anyone. Hard as he tried, he couldn’t even bring himself to reach out to grab the hand of the boy offering him food.

It was odd, the way his own arms wouldn’t obey him.

He thought the one-handed one had felt his intention, and that it wasn’t malicious. The old man rolled his eyes at him, but didn’t come down from the stage.

It took three days to evacuate the city. When the werewolves climbed aboard the train after the lady, the final people to leave, it was empty. Entirely deserted. Including the livestock.

The last thing Issa saw was smoke going up above the roofs.