I am afraid what I told everyone in the village about my father dying recently was not true. He died over fifty years ago, in an attack from a rogue Wolf. That rogue Wolf made me on the same night as he killed my father. The same Wolf was also the one that killed that boy from your childhood.
William thinks he knew my father, all the older people from the hamlet do. In fact, it is me they remember. As Oscar and Victoria told you yesterday, we age slowly. I was twenty-four when I was attacked. My wife was killed on the night of my first Wolfing… by me.
In the bloodlust of first Wolfing, you have no control, and you probably will not realise until you first see it. Instinct is the only force that drives you. There is no command over your actions. Your memory may return, it may have returned already of your first night or it may take years, decades even. Or, the memory of your first Wolfing may never return.
I was lucky. I woke to discover my wife’s body had been ravaged by what I thought was the same monster that had killed my father and badly injured me. My memory returned immediately and the shock of what I had done and what I had become almost drove me mad. I fled my house, my home and what was left of my family. They thought I had been killed along with my wife but that my body had been dragged away to be devoured.
I vowed to find and kill that monster myself. It took many years of searching. I travelled throughout this country. I set myself as a Wolf hunter, pretending I was hunting wolves for the King’s Bounty, but specifying that I would take on wolves that had turned man-eater rather than take the bounty from locals with normal wolves. I left them to hunt those, personally that practice sickened me.
I was looking for one Wolf in particular, the one that was directly responsible for my father’s death and indirectly responsible for my wife’s.
I came close to the rogue many times during my search yet I never saw him. One winter, I came across a fairly large town and an Inn called ‘The Half Moon Inn’. I took a room and asked as I usually did, if there had been any wolves seen of late and if so, had there been any attacks on people. The barman was obviously very uncomfortable with my line of questioning, which I took to mean that there had been attacks. I pressed him further, but he beckoned to a man sat with others at a table, this man came over to us.
Now, what you have to understand is that even though I had been Wolf for a few years by that time, I was untutored in their – our – ways so I could not sense other wolves, or rather, I could sense them but I did not recognise the sensation. He, however, was most likely a whelp. He also did not appear to recognise me as a Wolf.
He told me that he would visit my room late that night. I thought this unusual, but made no comment other than to agree to the meeting.
When he visited me, he tried to kill me. He could not turn Wolf without the aid of the full moon, but still he had enormous strength. As I had at least twenty years on him as Wolf, I easily tore him apart.
Furious, I went to find the barman. The man was ready to fight yet I wanted answers. I did not kill him, but he too was no match for my strength. I told him what had become of his friend and he stopped struggling, realising that he would be next.
I found that they were brothers. They were indeed whelps, a few months into their Wolfing. They were made one month apart. A Wolf had attacked the one I had killed and he in turn had attacked his brother on his first Wolfing, but the brother was luckier than my wife, he escaped with just serious injuries and his life.
The barman assured me that he would get someone to come and see me, but I had already tasted his idea of meetings so I persuaded him to take me to see this ‘someone’ right then.
The house we visited was lit at the window; we could see the lanterns flickering behind the shutters. The door opened as we approached and we went inside. I had never anticipated such a large group of people as were gathered there. The man that stepped forward was the Wolf we know as Darius. He bid me welcome and I was directed to a chair. They already knew of the death of one of their kind and I started to feel uneasy. It was beginning to look like I was on some kind of trial. It soon became apparent that it was indeed a trial but I was wrong in my assumption that it was I that was to be tried.
First, Darius asked my name and where I was from. Then he asked who had Wolfed me. I had not heard the term before and was puzzled until he explained it to me. I tried to ask how he knew I was a Wolf, but he stopped me and asked again who had Wolfed me. I told him the truth in that I did not know.
He asked for details of my attacker. I had no choice other than to comply with his request. I gave him a full account of the attack on my father and me and of my wife’s slaying. Then I told him that I would find the Wolf that caused this misery to me or die in the attempt. Darius informed me that in his opinion, it would most likely be the latter! Then he asked for details of that evening’s events.
I recounted the conversations with the brothers. Then Darius asked about the kill I had made. I hesitated. I sensed that the crowd were becoming restless and had been listening intently to everything I had said. I knew there was little or no chance of me getting out of there alive if that was what they wished. Darius turned to the crowd and quieted them. Then he asked again of the killing.
I gathered my composure and told him how the barman’s brother had attacked me when he came to my room and in my defence at first, and then in anger, I fought him and tore him apart. Darius nodded to me, and then turned to the barman. The man was smirking nastily at me. Darius asked if they had realised I was Wolf when I was asking about the rogue. The barman said that he thought I might have been, but his brother confirmed it after I had left to go to my room. Darius nodded again. Then he asked what the First Laws said.
I had never heard of this and I was very curious. The barman replied that The First Laws stated that a trial must be held to condemn a Wolf to death unless an appointed representative judged and killed him. He smirked at me again and I remember thinking that I was to be found guilty of breaking a law that I knew nothing about.
Darius again nodded and he turned to me and said: “You killed one of our kind, one of your kind, without trial. You are not an appointed representative and therefore judgement could not have been passed on that Wolf.” He turned away from me then, but I could still hear him clearly as the crowd were deadly silent. “Yet it is the one that he killed and the brother who are guilty. This Wolf was defending himself. He probably knows nothing of our laws. They on the other hand, definitely know; this one quoted correctly from First Laws.”
The smirk vanished from the barman’s face. Even before he could utter protest, the crowd, or jury, fell upon him. I had never seen other wolves and I had not realised how quickly they could turn Wolf. Indeed, I assumed that we could only change at full moon.
I heard the sounds of bone snapping, wet slurping noises and screams as an arm was torn from its socket. They were not devouring the man; they were ripping limbs and flesh from him. I had torn his brother apart, but I had gone for the kill at the soonest opportunity. These were literally taking their victim apart piece by piece yet prolonging his agony.
They were experts in torture. When they left the body, I thought he was already dead. I was shocked and horrified when I realised he was writhing in agony still. All that was left of him was his head and torso, he was naked and most of the flesh was stripped from his bones. Where his arms and legs had been were just bloody messes, not even stumps for they had removed the whole limb from the sockets. I felt sickened that I was the cause of this man’s agony.
Darius ignored the man’s moans and whimpers and told me to finish him. I could not leave the man suffering, so I bent to him and tore out his throat, ending it swiftly. When I looked up, the room was empty. I had not heard them leave. I again, had never thought it could be possible for the room to be cleared in less time than it had taken to end that man’s life. I left the house through the back door. I did not wish to be found with a mutilated corpse.
I went back to the Inn, took my belongings, left an amount of money to pay for the room and left through the window. I was miles from the inn in less than an hour. I ran all the way, yet Darius caught me with little or no effort on his part.
He asked me of why I was fleeing; I told him that I was not fleeing. He laughed and pointed out the fact that I had left by a window rather than the door and that I had run, not walked. I was forced to concede. Darius turned and walked away from me then. I did not know what to do, I had nowhere specific to go to, and so I followed Darius. I walked alongside him silently, but it was not long before I started asking questions.
I asked how many wolves were in Darius’s company, how long he had been a Wolf and other questions. Each of my queries was met with the same response – absolute silence. I gave up on conversation then. We left the road and eventually came back to the outskirts of the town, on the opposite side to where the inn was situated.
Darius stopped at what I assumed was his house; he turned to me and said: “Find somewhere to stay. You will be safe here. The… mess has been cleaned up. You need to be tutored; you are a danger to every Wolf whilst you are ignorant.” Then he went inside and just closed the door. He appeared at an upstairs window and pointed behind me. I turned and saw a house with lights behind the shutters so I went there. That door was opened as I got to it, just the same as the other door had been.
The oldest man I have ever seen still alive greeted me. He was a tiny little man – thinking about it now, I’m not even sure if it was a man or not. He was wizened and grey-haired – it must have been a man… surely?
I digress. He led me to a room at the back of the house. There was a bed and a chair and a rickety little table with a jug of water on it. He closed the door behind me as soon as I had passed him and entered the room. My training started the next day. Darius has been with me since that night. I have learned so much from him. I owe him almost everything – even my life.
Images 1 & 2 my own
Images 3, 4 & 5 from Pixabay.com