Vorador began to back away from the advancing pack of angry black Werewolves but stopped, remembering with a stab of anxiety that there was no place to run. Snapping his head back he saw that coming down the ravine he had just left were the oncoming white Werewolves, the pack he had been hunting before they had turned the tables on him. He was now pinned, stuck in a narrow ravine with the black Werewolves come up and the white Werewolves coming down. Collectively there had to be well over a hundred of the beasts, more than he could hope to combat and they would come at him now in a rush. Nor was there any chance of fleeing, as he did not have time to assume the form of a raven and simply fly away. The beasts were coming in quick and all Vorador could think to do was reach for the handles of Havoc and Malice.
As he stepped to one side, looking for better ground on which to defend himself, the two packs of Werewolves looked past him and straight at each other. Both groups suddenly paused, each and every one of the beasts going perfectly still. For a single moment the world seemed to freeze in place as if it were locked in cold, silent ice.
Then that ice broke. Lips were drawn back over fangs in hideous, hate-filled snarls and suddenly the beasts were charging. The white Werewolves were closer and reached Vorador first, but incredibly they ignored the Vampire and ran past him. Seemingly forgetting he was even there, the pack ploughed with utter savagery straight into their darker furred kin. The utter brutality and savage bloodletting was ghastly. Torn fur, muscle, flesh and bone went flying in all directions in a melee of gore. Jaws tore away hunks of flesh and claws raked through hide to slice deep to the bone. Within moments five of the Werewolves lay butchered upon the ground, their corpses trampled upon by the struggling packs which still sought to add more to the dead.
Vorador hesitated in stunned awe for only a moment before his instinct for self-preservation took action to prompt him into moving.
-0-
“I was no fool to look a gift horse in the mouth. I did not question why these two groups of wolves chose to fight one another. I merely decided that it would be prudent for me to slip away from the scene. Let these beasts fight their civil war if they wished, so long as it gave me a chance to escape.”
-0-
With several acrobatic bounds up the face of the rocks he was clear of the ravine and amongst the tall pine trees, away from the bloody melee. The Werewolves were separating, spreading out now. Both packs seemed to realise the folly of fighting in such a bottleneck and were choosing better battle sites to settle whatever dispute they had. Many of them scrambled out of the ravine as well and once on level ground paired off to settle their struggle in evenly matched pairs.
Vorador prudently kept a good distance, slipping into the form of an ordinary lupine to do so. In this shape he bounded through the snow easily and he was able to keep well ahead of any of the fighting beasts. The battle between these two packs was making a terrible noise. Howls of rage, hatred and pain were constantly splitting the air as well as growls and snarls and the wet slopping of torn flesh. The snow all around began to turn pink with the spilled blood being showered everywhere the two packs fought. Their constant struggle back and forth churned up the snow until the ground began to turn into a thick, muddy expanse.
Sitting on his haunches, safely hidden in the concealment of a thick patch of holly bushes, Vorador watched the brutal battle continue. The two packs were tearing into each other with a hatred that went beyond mere spite or territorial clashes. This single-minded savagery was clearly in the realm of fanatically inspired abhorrence, a conscious feud. While he was grateful to the circumstance for allowing him to escape that trap he had so foolishly blundered into, it did reveal once more that there was more to this whole mess than he knew.
The Mandarins had summoned the black Werewolves to attack him, yet it had been their clearly estranged white furred kin which had attacked William’s invading army. Somehow, Vorador did not think that the white furred, alpha male Remus was under the control of the Mandarins. This apparent rivalry between one Werewolf group working for the Mandarins and one which did not seemed to confirm it. If that was the case, why had Remus directed his arctic beasts into attacking the invading army and ensuring the deaths of the royal family? All but William that is, the lone survivor ascending to the throne. Vorador had been suspicious before, now that suspicion blossomed into grim certainty.
His canine ears flicked as the sound of many people all moving together reached him and the Vampire turned. He looked out towards the northwest and coming through the forest from that direction were other figures. Unlike the fighting beasts all around him, these were Men. Their spiked leather armour indentified them as natives from a distance long before he could see their facial features.
The soldiers were coming on fast, ascending the uneven rise up towards the ravines. The trees around their current position were more thickly clustered together and the holly bushes were so tall that they obscured the sight of the incomers. Vorador was quick to put such terrain to his advantage.
Quickly he morphed back to his regular form and from there into another in his growing library of alternative shapes. The giant spider scuttled forth upon its unleashing, slipping up gracefully into the branches overhead. The trees made a blanketing canopy over which he was able to traverse silently, a mere suggestion of movement in the shadows of the overlapping pine needles.
Once he found the perfect ambush spot, a crevice in a tree where two thick branches parted, he paused to wait. The soldiers kept on coming, some of them running ahead to scout the vicious skirmish going on just up ahead. The Vampire quickly counted heads. The group of soldiers numbered perhaps twenty-five or more and some of them had brought with them combat dogs. Large, furry canines with leather armour across their flanks and long serrated blades attached to either side of their muzzles. He was no rash fool to take on a force that size directly, so instead he waited patiently for an opportunity. When the force had trudged through the snow and passed him, he sprang.
Thick strands of sticky webbing lanced out and caught three stragglers bringing up the rear by the throat, wrapping around them so tightly that they could not even cry out to warn their fellows of the attack. Each one was hauled up into the branches and before they could struggle and reach for their weapons they were skilfully wrapped up in entangling cocoons of silk.
The instinct that came with this form directed Vorador to feed this way. The Humans were fortunate in that he was a spider in shape only. He did not need to inject them with digestive juices to dissolve them from the inside out. Their end came quick and easy, a simple bite to the neck and the draining away of their precious life blood.
Methodically he drained them. One by one he drew their blood from them and used it to bolster his own energies and strength. The fatigue of his journeying washed away and was replaced by enhanced vigour. Even his mind seemed to clear and everything around him began to sharpen as if coming into focus. The blood of three grown men would sustain him for quite some time.
When he was done he shifted back to his normal shape and with renewed strength leapt from branch to branch, leaving the drained corpses to rot in the webbing. His acrobatic skill served him well as he vaulted through the branches. He kept pace with the soldiers who seemed not to have noticed that they were missing three of their number. The dogs had not caught his scent, probably more occupied with the stink of Werewolf so thick in the air. Still, Vorador was not going to take any chances so he made sure he stayed downwind of them.
When the soldiers saw who was causing all of the noise, they pulled up and stopped. They formed a line and watched as the sprawling conflict of beast on beast continued. The war dogs with them all began to emit anxious whines and hunkered down into the wet earth, much to the chagrin of their handlers.
Despite the unusual sight of such a conflict, none of the Humans appeared that surprised. Most of the expressions on their faces seemed more irritated than confused, especially the annoyed frown on the face of the larger man at the front of the line. Judging by his slightly more elaborate armour he was probably their leader. The fur he had woven into his armour was thicker, probably from a bear, and had jagged spikes around the rim of a fur helmet that covered his crown.
“Do we aid the beasts, my Chief?” One of the nearby soldiers asked.
“Which ones?” Another asked in reply, his tone sardonic. Their leader shot the joker a glare.
“I would pay attention to this scene if I were you, Bataar.” He said and pointed. “The beasts are the tools of the Mandarins and they appear to cut down anyone with a loose tongue that flaps against them.” Sharply he turned and poked the soldier in the chest. “Be glad our homes are so far from Zwergstadar that we don’t fall under their spell and lose our very souls, but never forget they can strike us down whenever they please.”
The soldier took a slight step backwards.
“Yes, my Chief.” He replied quickly. The Chief looked back over his shoulder at the melee and regarded the carnage for a moment. The tide had turned in the battle in favour of the black Werewolves. Their pale fellows had suffered great losses and were pulling back, some even breaking from the fight to gallop north through the snow and foliage as fast as they could.
“We were never here.” The Chief said, turning to survey his soldiers. “We never saw this fight. We were all patrolling further north, on the lookout for scouts of the invaders.” It was not a question and the soldiers all nodded an affirmative. “Then back to the camp!”
With that the soldiers began to depart, leaving their spectating of the battle. As they went, those in the rear took up some dropped branches to scratch out their footprints in the snow, leaving no sign of their passage. Soon they had gone and not one of them looked around for the three of them which hung dead in a wrapping of spider silk.
Vorador had long since stopped watching them, his attention fixed on the battle. By now it had decided its victor. The white Werewolves were in full retreat now, galloping in an undisciplined rout. The black Werewolves harried their pale kin a little distance but then pulled back, seemingly content to see them defeated and driven away. Those in retreat didn’t even bother to keep in company, the few of their number left scattering out in a generally northwestern direction. The Vampire had his eye on one in particular. He was limping badly from a deep gash sliced through his left thigh and was lagging behind the other survivors.
Vorador was quick to move, slipping back into the now well-worn form of the spider. The arachnid scuttled across the branches, clearing distance far quicker than the injured beast could. He easily and swiftly outpaced the creature. Once he was a good way in front of it he clung to the branches and waited, the silk spinning abdomen poised.
The Werewolf lumbered on oblivious to any danger that waited for it, perhaps distracted by the painful slash on its leg. As the creature stumbled beneath him, Vorador unleashed a torrent of silk over it. The strong, sticky threads wrapped themselves around the beast and snapped tightly, pulling its arms and legs tight to its body. It cried out in pain and alarm, thrashing about wildly and in animalistic panic. But as Vorador began to weave a web around it no amount of struggling enabled it to free even a claw.
Soon it hung there suspended in the middle of a large tangling web stretched between two wide trees. Despite its struggling, the beast was held fast, unable to move in any direction. The Vampire circled the thrashing animal several times on the web to make sure there were no weak points in the restraints, then slipped down to the ground.
Assuming his regular form he turned to regard his prisoner with a flat, empty expression. Seeing him the beast snarled in anger.
“Release me, you disgusting leech!” It growled, seeming to chew on the words. Vorador lifted one eyebrow slightly, not intimidated by the display of angry savagery in the slightest.
“Answer my questions and perhaps I will.” He said calmly.
The Werewolf hissed, although in pain rather than spite. The angry wound on its leg was still weeping blood. Suddenly its form quivered and began to constrict. Flesh began to recede into itself along with the long white fur. Vorador watched in some fascination as the feral form faded and Human features came forth. The bulging chest which Vorador had taken to be enlarged muscles settled into the far more familiar sight of a woman’s breasts.
Her hair was long, down to her wide, childbearing hips and snow white, tangled and matted with filth and sweat. She was completely naked with her entire body on display where the tangling spider silk covered her. Perhaps she thought by transforming back to her regular shape that the restraints upon her would slacken. This proved to be incorrect, her body bound as tight as ever. Sensing this, her anger returned and she snarled and thrashed just as much as before.
“I will tell you nothing!” She spat at him in fury once her remission back to her normal form was complete. The Vampire watched her impassively, seeing that under the grime that covered her were strange, dark tribal tattoos mostly concentrated over her breasts and thighs.
“A woman?” Vorador asked as if to himself, ignoring her nakedness. She fixed him with a glare just as fierce as if she had been in her feral shape.
“Gender is not important in the midst of the pack.” She said and her tone was insolent, as if she were talking to an unenlightened child. “We are all equal.”
The Vampire raised an eyebrow at her.
“Under Remus?” He ventured a trifle condescendingly. She glared at him with such naked hatred that she trembled in her silk bindings.
“Under our law, laid down by Remus.” She corrected and began to struggle some more but all she succeeded in doing was making herself sway in the webbing.
Vorador took a few steps forward.
“Tell me, why were you and those other Werewolves fighting one another?” He asked her. She spat at him, a glob of saliva and blood landing between his feet.
“I told you I would tell you nothing!” She snarled, cursing him with many vulgarities, most of which were in an obscure dialect and language that escaped him.
“Why did your kind attack the incoming army and murder their royal family?” He asked, undaunted by her curses. She ignored him. “Why is Remus so interested in interfering in a Human war?” He began to calmly walk forward. “Where is Bane?” She answered none of his questions and fixed him with a stare. He stood before her, within arm’s reach. If he wanted, he could reach out and snap her neck with one hand. Her eyes flicked over him, noting the hilt of Marrow at his side and the deadly twin axes strapped across his back.
“If you’re going to kill me, then get it over with!” She growled. “You will receive no information from me!”
Vorador was quiet for a long moment and then slowly a wide, amused grin split his mouth, showing off his fangs.
“Kill you?” He asked sardonically. “Who said anything about killing you?” His words caused a flicker of doubt and fear to pass across her face and to press that advantage he put on his best sadistic expression. It was play-acting but effective. He looked right into her suddenly shaken eyes.
“The peoples to the far west have an old legend.” He began in a deceptively casual tone, still grinning. “It tells of a deceiving trickster who had the audacity to deceive God into abandoning one of his chosen. When the chicanery was discovered, God punished the trickster terribly.”
With deliberate slowness he began to shift his form, making sure she could witness every moment as he elongated into the slender form of the serpent shape he had recently acquired. He rose up over her, rearing back on a long slender neck and body.
“The Trickster was bound to a rock and in the branches of a tree above him was suspended the deadliest snake in the world.” He hissed, forked tongue flicking out as he spoke. The animal form was capable of forming words but the sound echoed from the depths of his long body, giving it an ominous reverberation. His long body coiled around itself, leering over her now stricken face. Slowly he let the fangs tucked into his upper jaw push out to make them the centre of her attention. “And into the unprotected eyes of the Trickster would drip its lethal venom.”
It was pure theatre but he let two beads of this form’s poison run down the length of his fangs and hang there, poised. The woman began to struggle in the silken restraints violently, turning her head this way and that in a desperate attempt to get clear. Vorador leaned his reptilian head in closer, the fangs now inches from her face.
“Do you feel inclined to endure the torment of God?” He rasped insidiously, forked tongue lashing at her face. The woman was clearly in a panic now, her eyes wide with horror and her skin gone almost as white as snow.
“No!” She screeched in fear. “Get away from me!” The snake kept itself close, the drops of venom falling from the ends of the fangs. It missed her by less than an inch and disappeared into the webbing.
“Where is Bane?” Vorador demanded in a flat tone, making sure his fangs were kept right in front of her face the entire time.
“On the island!” She gasped, writhing in her panic. Vorador quickly looped a coil of his body around, giving him added height to impress upon her the true size of his serpent form. While a physical threat was sometimes necessary in interrogation, a good display of superiority and power would do the trick as well.
“What island?” He asked. The woman let off a short whimper that was very canine-like despite her having reverted from her beastly other form.
“Our lair is a large island off of the northern coast, in the middle of the Jagged Gulf.” She confessed and her voice was wracked with dismay for speaking. “Bane concealed the entrance to his Grove there at the alpha male’s request.”
Vorador considered this for a moment. While it narrowed down Bane’s location it did not pinpoint him exactly. He would need to consult the map William had given him. He was sure he had seen an island to the north but it had been a landmass of some considerable size. A man could lose himself in such a place easily if he wished.
“Where on the island?” He asked her intently, slowly beginning to retract the poison dripping fangs back into his mouth.
“The Druid only lets Remus know the way in.” She whined. “It is a hidden place protected by the stones.”
“What stones?” Vorador pressed on, taking stock of everything she told him.
“Standing stones that were placed on the island.” The woman said and then her chin dropped down onto her chest. “They somehow protect the Grove from casual intrusion. I do not understand their magic.”
Vorador did not like the sound of that. He was about to ask something else when the woman cut him off.
“No more!” She growled, eyes downcast. “If you wish to torture me then do so… Fear has made me betray my pack, my family. Dying in agony is a fitting punishment.”
Vorador regarded her with cold reptilian eyes for a silent few seconds and then slipped back into his regular shape.
“I think I have enough information.” He replied and slowly his hand moved up until it was resting on Marrow’s protruding hilt. There had been a time in his life when regrettably he had been quite a sadist and would have enjoyed carving up a bound prisoner unable to move. But he had been through a lot since then and had matured considerably. A simple thrust to the heart and death would be instantaneous.
But even then he found no attitude of dispatching her. He ought to. She was a Werewolf, one of the beasts used to tear down the civilisation of the Ancient Vampires. He ought not to show mercy to any of their breed.
-0-
“I should kill her right here and now but her words had struck a cord with me. Family. That was what this was all about. Had I really become so soft over the centuries that a simple word or two would stay my hand?”
-0-
Despite himself, Vorador recognised now that the Werewolf’s notion of the pack was very similar to how he considered the link between himself, Janos and Umah. They were family, a close unit who had stood with him for centuries. Realising that, any appetite he might have had for killing this woman was gone.
He growled, disgusted with himself for such weakness and then turned. The woman looked up, confusion and disbelief written on her dirty face as he began to walk away.
“If you can free yourself before some scavenging animal comes, then you’re free to go.” He said without turning around. “That’s the limit of my generosity for today.” He left her there and marched off, not looking back to see if she managed to free herself or not. Whether she did or did not was not his concern.
Once he was out of sight, he changed into the shape of the wolf and ran off north a short distance to put some miles behind him and the scene of the lethal battle of beast on beast. After another half an hour he came to a stop on the gentle slope of a hill. There he changed back and sat down on the edge of a protruding rock.
Now at least he knew where to go. Quickly he drew out the map and studied it again, his eyes moving up to the northern coastline he had briefly seen on his flight to Weirstein. The island drawn in the middle of the gulf, despite being a large landmass, was unnamed on the map. If the scale of the diagram was correct, the island was at least as large as the Black Forest he had once called home, an expanse of dozens of miles. There was enough space there for Bane to conceal himself from any searcher. Still, it was the only clue he had to his lair.
Satisfied with his new destination, Vorador folded the map back and quickly assumed another form, sprouting feathers as he transformed into the anciently familiar shape of the raven. On the wing he soared up into the sky and catching the wind he flew forward.
The journey back north did not take as long as coming south had. Spurred on by a strong wind and fuelled by the blood he had taken in surplus, the Vampire achieved a good speed and cleared ground very quickly. The tundra rolled away beneath him and by the time the cliffs on which Weirstein stood became visible again, the stars were rolling out in the coming of the black of night.
Vorador cast a glance down towards the area as he soared on high. The encampment surrounding the city was gone now and the gates of the settlement closed shut. Banners of the Northern Kingdom hung from its walls to show the allegiance of the garrison troops.
Off to the east, moving in a long column of men up into the highlands beyond the cliffs was the main bulk of the invading army. They were distant now, a smudge in the haze. But even so Vorador could see the marching mass of armed Humanity and hear the thudding of so many moving feet.
-0-
“William’s army marched on to the east in furtherance of their war. I had no further reason to help him with his campaign. Perhaps he would even succeed in conquering this realm. Perhaps I would find his head on a spike in a month’s time. Either way would be fine by me.”
-0-
Dismissive, Vorador carried on, flying past it all for another half hour until the frozen shore came into sight. Then he began to slowly glide, dropping lower until he alighted gently on the edge of the water. There he assumed his own shape again and looked out to the horizon. Icebergs of various sizes, some even seeming to give off a faint greenish light floated in the water, giving the expanse an alien look. But beyond them was a darker, wide shape which was almost lost in the dark of the night.
Vorador pressed his lips together, seeing that the map’s scale had been right. The island was as large as portrayed. Perhaps the underground tunnels extended all the way there and the white Werewolves used them to get back and forth from the isolated place.
The Vampire then nodded and spread his arms out in preparation to change back into a bird. However, he paused as a new thought came to him.
-0-
“While it would be easier to fly across the distance on the wings of a raven, I would run the risk of being seen and perhaps discovered. I did not want to give the Druid any time to prepare for my arrival.”
-0-
Surely Bane would have set some sort of ward to warn him against approaching danger. The Druid seemed eccentric but hardly a fool. If he were sensed oncoming in the form of a fragile bird, he would be left vulnerable to a possible pre-emptive strike.
Vorador paused to reconsider his approach. He would need to reach the island with the utmost stealth but at the same time in a form that was powerful enough to defend itself. The answer was quite simple.
-0-
“The safest solution was before me. A swim across open water in the form of the snake.”
-0-
Grimly Vorador looked out at the amount of water between himself and the far shore. He had been close to panic when dumped into the underground river. Now he was contemplating a swim across open, arctic cold water. Hardly a comfortable prospect.
Still, it was the best alternative to a dangerous direct flight. Letting out a reluctant sigh, Vorador called forth his newest form and once he was in the shape of the serpent, he glided into the water.