Hugh Cook - The Werewolf and the Wormlord

‘Dansbrog!’

Thus roared Muscleman Wu. Then spurred his horse, crashing the beast through the nightgrowth, heedless of any damage which might be done to the brute which bore him or to himself.

Alfric waited to hear no more, but flung himself on to his own horse and spurred the beast. Off they went. Then the animal lurched violently as the reins restrained it.

‘Stroth!’said Alfric, tugging at the reins.

But they would not come free and the branch would not break. So down from the horse he leapt, meaning to unknot the leather, remount and respur. But there was no time. Wu Norn was almost upon him, his sword already out for a slaughter-spree. Then Alfric screamed in frustrated rage, then punched his horse, then swore in blubbering panic and fled.

Bent low he ran, bent low, stooping at speed into the thickest of the forest, running, panting, running through the lowgrowth undergrowth, the snaggle-hook trees too thick for pursuit, too thick for Wu to follow unless Wu dismounted.

Wu did dismount.

When Alfric stopped, he heard Muscleman Wu. The killer of men was not far behind. Alfric was weaponless, had no way to fight. But could not run, could run no more, for he was unfit, out of condition, that was the truth of it. He sobbed for fear of his death, then — Mud.

So thought Alfric, and grappled with a handful of the stuff, hissing with the pain as ice-splintered muck packed into his palm. But the pain was good for the pain steadied him, sobered him, and he began to think, it might be a little late but he was thinking at last, and he eased his breathing as best he could, and sank low, and sheltered himself in the shadows, and heard Wu Norn swear, and remembered.

Moon was the night, but still the shadows were many, yes, many many, here in the forest, the forest all stilts and crutches, all masts and fishing rods, and he was crouched in the thickest of those shadows, and the bafflement of the dark was sufficient to hide him, at least for the moment, yes, surely this man had lost him. Yes. But.

— But keep back!

Yes, he must keep back in the deepest of the shadows, for it was all too easy for the moon to catch the lenses of his spectacles and betray him by a splinter-flash of a light brighter than starlight. If he kept to the shadows, he would be safe, safe, at least for the moment.

— But.

But Muscleman Wu was not going to give up that easily. Wu began to quarter the ground, stabbing at logs lest they have livers inside them, kicking at softbogs in case lungs be laired within. Often he stopped. To listen.

So.

— What now?

— Retreat?

But this was no night for shadow-sneaking, no night for silent withdrawals. It was a night of frost-sharpened sounds, of sticks awaiting their rupture, of ice crusted that weight might break it. Alfric heard a night-hunter clitter through a litter of undergrowth rubbish a good two hundred paces distant. Wu Norn’s head swung round, and moon spiked briefly from the warrior’s eyes as he considered the sound and the distance.

Then Wu resumed his quartering-hunting.

‘Danbrog!’ roared Wu.

Then:

‘Grendelson!’

Then:

‘Come out, you whore! Iz-boliks, you banker-slut! Come out!’

But Alfric answered not to Iz-boliks, or to whore, or to Danbrog, or to Grendelson. However named, he would not answer. Instead, he lay still and thought.

Wu was formidable.

The warrior was wood-wise, could tell man from animal, and had hearing good enough to alert him to the need to tell. And Alfric, despite his thinking, had no bright ideas at all, and so was still lying there, still waiting, the cold of the mud hurting his hand, and he had no ideas, no ideas at all, for the mud was but a whim, for what could it do for him?

— Blind him.

But Muscleman Wu would kill him even if blinded by a faceful of mud. With sword in hand, Wu would kill him. Blade describing whirlwinds as it chopped through the night, slaughtering, fractioning, seeking, finding. At close quarters, a blinded man is still a killer if he knows what he’s doing. And maybe Wu would blink at the right moment, or the mud would go wild, or the mud would find its mark but would blind the enemy for no more than an instant.

— No hope.

— No hope without weapons.

— A stick, then.

Alfric reached for the nearest branch which looked weapon-weighty. But the thing was stuck to a tree, was growing out of a tree, and he could not pull it free, not without filling the air with the sound of wrangling wood, of warp-woe and tree-splinter.

Alfric paused.

Momentarily defeated.

Then rage possessed him.

No! He would not fail! He would not die! Not now, now, when he was triumphant, victorious in questing, and close, yes, close to the throne, very close, to ride to Galsh Ebrek was all it would take to make himself king, and to ride he must kill, and to kill needed weapons, and weapons he had, yes, teeth and claws, claws and teeth, and the weight of his haunches, the strength of the moon.

And the moon.

And the moon And the moon was swelling, girthing, growing, becoming hot, yes, hot, and tumescent, yes, misting from silver to blood, and a prickling sensation thrilled through Alfric’s arms as he willed the Change, his hands becoming clumsy, hairs thickening and darkening on the backs of his wrists, and already the moon was silver no more, but, rather, a smouldering fire.

The smells deepened, thickened and became more dangerous, their range increasing by several octaves. Hearing likewise prospered, so Danbrog Grendelson heard the thin whistling of the high-pitched bats, and heard too the whispers of the men who thought themselves stalking him.

— Quick, quick!

He tossed his spectacles aside, then tore free his boots and shuddered out of his clothes before his flesh could burst those accoutrements, then the pain took him, the spasms, the agony of the full force of the Change, and he thrashed in the shadows, heedless of the noise, helpless to save himself.

A voice:

‘Gralaag?’

Unintelligible that voice, a question lurching across the octaves.

Then Alfric kicked away the last spasm and lay still, lay on his back and stared at the bloody moon, and when the voice spoke again he understood it, yes, though the voice was warped and distorted, deepened and thickened, made barbarous by ears atuned to a different blood:

‘Grendelson? Is that you?’

Alfric rolled on to all fours and lurched across the forest floor. He was clumsy, finding four legs momentarily harder than two. But he was remembering, oh yes, remembering swiftly, remembering what he had learnt from a full three months spent running wild in the Qinjoks, and he hit his stride in less than a dozen paces.

‘Maf!’

Thus Muscleman Wu, swearing in strangled shock as the huge wolf charged toward him.

Then:

‘Norn for ever!’

Alfric heard the battlecry, saw the sword, and swerved, jinked, and ducked into the undergrowth, then was running full tilt, and thinking as he ran, thinking.

— Iron against bone and iron must win.

— But the man has a horse and no horseman will walk.

Thus thinking, Wolf Alfric ran at full pace, careless of noise. Then stopped abruptly and began to ghost through the forest, slinking from shadow to shadow, making for Wu Norn’s horse. There was no wind to carry wolfsmell or othersmell, no wind to warn or make the beast uneasy, so Alfric feared not discovery as he went into hiding barely fifty paces from Muscleman Wu’s abandoned horse.

Then Alfric lay still.

Wolf Alfric waited, a shadow hidden by shadows. Black, he was black, a beast of the night and hence hidden by the night, the underdepths of trees concealing him completely, all but for the eyes, the eyes as bloody as the moon which ruled him.