Crow's Blood

“How did you come to be in this place?” Ulthric asked. “Crow valley?”

He’d rather have sat in silence with the human family, but the wife and her little girl were quite clearly terrified of him. Unable to ignore their shaking, fearful stares or the little one’s whimpers, he thought it best to at least prove that he could speak their tongue. Besides, it would take his mind off ripping them all apart. He seethed with anger and disappointment, and the beast within was rising to the surface. He could feel the shift coming on, itching in his fingers, raising the tempo of his heartbeat, sharpening his already predatory senses.

None of them answered his question. Ulthric growled.

“The crow people took us,” said the little boy after a moment.

“Thomas!” his father said, gripping him by the shoulder. The boy yelped. Ulthric turned on him.

“Let the boy go,” he snarled. White-faced, the father complied.

“Go on,” Ulthric said, lowering himself back onto his haunches. They were sat in the small chamber outside the main cavern. The pack had disappeared inside almost five minutes earlier. Ulthric was trying not to think about whatever was going on inside. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was missing it, because Saarl didn’t trust him still. He was useless as a pack member. Worse than useless. An encumbrance, not fit to be werekynd. Not fit to be anything.

“The crowmen attacked our village five nights ago,” the father said eventually. “Those they didn’t kill, they carried off. What are you going to do to us?”

“I don’t know,” Ulthric said. “I don’t make the decisions.”

“But – ”

The father was cut off by a sudden commotion from the larger chamber. Ulthric held up his hand for silence.

Hundreds of people – humans – were shouting from within the cavern. And amongst the tumult he could also discern the howls of his were-kin. Vega must have been right after all. It could only be a trap.

“Stay here,” Ulthric ordered. “If you try to escape you’ll die, either by our hands or those of the crowmen. I’ll be back soon.”

“Wait…” the father began , but Ulthric was already gone. He’d waited long enough. Heartbeat rising and with a low snarl escaping his throat, he took off up one of the sloping side tunnels, axe in hand.

* * *

“Saarl!” Vega howled, ramming his boardsword through the belly of the fourth crowman to come at him. “Come back you coward! Face me.”

The longfang stopped and turned. He’d been on his way out of the cavern, away from the frenzied melee at its centre. The pack was being assailed on all sides by a tide of crowmen, swords, axes, fangs and claws engaged in furious bloodshed as they fought to stay alive.

“Face me!” Vega roared at the top of his lungs, desperately trying to push his way through the press towards the traitor. “Fight me you grey-backed weakling!”

“You could never beat me, Vega,” Saarl replied, turning to square off against his oncoming rival. “You never think ahead. You’re no pack leader.”

“Prove it!” Vega said. He threw himself towards Saarl. Fangs bared, the old werekynd met him.

* * *

The cavern was in turmoil. The side tunnel had led Ulthric out onto one of the rocky ledges overlooking its centre. There, at the heart of the light beaming down through the hole in the ceiling, his pack made its last stand. There were well over a hundred crowmen swarming around the two dozen werekynd – savages big and small, bristling with their black tribal feathers and wielding crude cudgels and flint blades. They flung themselves at the werekynd, driven to a height of blood frenzy by the urgings of their chieftain.

The chieftain himself was a stooped old man, heavily bedecked in tribal finery and stood overlooking the bloodletting from a little rocky promontory towards the back of the cavern. He appeared alone, and defenceless. The pack was almost overrun, and Ulthric knew just from a glance that he couldn’t help them by intervening in the main fight. But if he could get to the chieftain…

A new noise interrupted him, a sound that sent primal shudders up his spine and made his hairs bristle. It was the howl of a fully shifted werekynd. And it was followed moments later by a second.

On the edge of the battle, Vega and Saarl had finally met in mortal combat. Both had undergone the metamorphosis, twisting and deforming into slavering, furred, feral monstrosities. Their weapons were discarded and their snapping fangs bared.

“Saarl!” Ulthric shouted, but his voice was drowned by the sounds of battle. Even as he watched Vega leapt at the longfang, his claws outstretched. The two met with a meaty crunch. Why had they chosen now of all times to settle their dispute?

Ulthric didn’t have the answer, and nor did he have the means to intervene in their struggle. Now that they had shifted only one would be leaving crow valley alive. All Ulthric could hope to do was save the lives of the rest of the pack. He leapt down from the ledge and raced towards the crowman chieftain.

* * *

Vega had lost control. He had shifted, and now the beast ruled him, body, mind and soul. Saarl too had given over to the animal within. It was their curse, the essence of what made them werekynd, man-beast, creatures of the Tanglewild. The untameable animal had finally escaped.

Vega slammed into Saarl and sent them both tumbling across the rocky floor of the cavern, snarling and snapping. Vega was bigger, and used his weight well, but Saarl was no pup to be bullied into submission. Unlike Vega he retained an ounce of control over his transformation, a kernel of human intelligence which served to further augment his bestial abilities. He hooked one clawed foot up under Vega and flung him off. In a flash their positions were reversed, Saarl straddling his larger opponent and snapping down with his fangs. Vega shrieked in pain as the longfang sunk his jaws into his shoulder. The sudden agony served to slice through his animalistic emotions like a dagger. Close to defeat, he was afforded a window of human clarity, one which he had but a second to use.  

Groping blindly, he gripped the first piece of loose shale he could reach and slammed it into the side of Saarl’s snout. The longfang grunted in pain, his clenched jaw relaxing and his fangs slipping free as he slumped off Vega. The longfang’s opponent didn’t hesitate. In the time it took to blink he had his hands around Saarl’s throat, the scent of the pack leader’s blood thick in his nostrils.

This ended now.

* * *

The crowman chieftain didn’t hear Ulthric until it was too late. The werekynd leapt with a roar, axe falling with every ounce of brute strength that the tired young man-beast could muster. The chieftain’s scream was cut short by the gristly crack of his skull being split open.  

Ulthric filled his lungs, and howled. It was the most primal, most animalistic of noises, a thing of fear and loathing amongst mankind and an act of dominance and pride for the werekynd. As the sound echoed back from the shattered ceiling, all eyes in the cavern turned.

It took the crowmen only a few seconds to realise what had happened. As Ulthric’s howl died it was replaced by the keening wail of a hundred voices. The chieftain, their spiritual figurehead and embodiment of their tribe, was most definitely dead. The confusion and sorrow which gripped the human’s hearts was the only opportunity the pack was going to get.

“Make for the entrance!” old Vrak barked. “On me!”

The pack broke its formation, driving like a wedge of steel and fur towards the tunnel they’d first entered through. Ulthric made to follow, but scarcely had he leapt to the cavern floor before two struggling figures impeded him.

Saarl and Vega were almost done. Both were bloodied, panting and hissing. Vega was winning. His heavier weight was pinning Saarl to the ground, whilst his hands squeezed the life from his throat. The longfang snarled and spat and snapped and clawed, but Vega clung on, jaws clenched, eyes glairing, muscles trembling.

Ulthric hesitated. Pack law was clear, he could not intervene in a leadership challenge. But now was clearly not a time for such challenge to take place. He could pick out Captain Aria’s shrill voice trying to rally the crowmen somewhere, and the sounds of slaughter as the rest of the pack continued to hack its way out of the cavern. Saarl and Vega would be left behind. It didn’t matter who won, because they’d both die if they kept fighting here.

Cursing, Ulthric grabbed Vega by his should guard and hauled him off Saarl. In a flash, the big werekynd rounded on him.