Azhar shook off his brief reverie as he watched the Spirals retreat into the night. The encounter with their leader left him cold. He had seemed so...noble somehow. He had called to him, not literally, but on some deep emotional or spiritual level. He wasn't sure which. He'd seemed important somehow, like there was something vital he had to do. Azhar had leapt to his aid without even thinking.
The young Fang wiped a bloody paw across his eyes, silently cursing his own talents. Sometimes he just knew...things. He was drawn to important people, to important things, to important places. He'd known the dark furred stranger was important, knew he had to help him escape from the thing that had crouched upon his chest like some nightmare given flesh.
He'd never dreamed that he would end up helping an enemy escape. And healing him afterward! I must be losing my mind! he thought to himself. This talent is a great nuisence at times, but it's never steered me so wrong before. I think. Maybe it's less reliable than I think.
He stood for a moment and felt as if he was being torn in two. Part of him wanted to leap after the Spirals, to run beside their leader and find out what could possibly be so important that his instincts had said to help this man. The other part wanted to stay here, to find out what the fight had been about to stay with...someone...there is someone equally
important here...
He shook himself mentally and clenched his fists tight enough to dig the tips of his claws in. The eerie white flames he'd called to his hands earlier, flickered and faded out as if snuffed out by his mounting frustration. Who is it? Who is so important? He tried to focus on the feeling, to see which way it wanted to pull him. It wasn't an exact science by any means, just a vague feeling that he should go somewhere or do something. Of course, he didn't always know what he was supposed to do when he got there.
He could practically scream in frustration. Why did I have to be cursed with this 'talent'!? All it does is get me in trouble! It drew me across the ocean to see the new King, to see this new kind of rulership. It drew me here to help a Black Spiral and now I can't even figure out who holds me here now! Maybe my family is as cursed as the sept elders said... He took a deep breath to try and calm himself. No. I can't believe that. I'm lucky to have these premonitions of where important things are going to happen, to know who will be important to coming events. Perhaps it's not a gift of prophesy quite like other Theurges get, but it's my legacy and even if it confuses me, I need to try and make the most of it. I just wish I hadn't come by it so young and inexperienced... and I'm thinking too hard and not doing what I should. Knowing is not enough, I need to do too, even if I'm not entirely certain what.
He looked over the battlefield, taking in the scattered bodies, the bloody snow, the eerie whiteness of the trees, pale and straight as bones. It was fitting place for so many to die. His eyes came to rest on a particularly large tangle of bodies in a rough circle around a young black man. Immediately he knew. That was the one who was important. He picked his way between the bodies, feeling his chest grow tight with sorrow and anxiety. Five cruelly twisted bodies lay amid the pile, clearly some of the Spirals from the attack. Two lanky young wolves lay with their jaws locked into the flesh of the Spirals, refusing to give upthe fight even in death.
Azhar knelt besides the other young man and carefully looked over the claw marks that crisscrossed the other's back. He carefully pushed a claw into the wounds to judge how deep the wounds were and found that not only had they cut into the underlying bone, but that blackish pus was already starting to ooze out of the wounds. That's the trouble with Black Spiral Dancers, anything they touch grows foul and corrupted, even simple wounds.
A slight whine made him pause in his probing. He hadn't thought the other man was conscious enough for anything he did to cause any real pain. The whine was repeated and he looked around quickly, sure it hadn't come from the man. Poking out from under the other man's chin was a delicate little muzzle. He lifted the man's head to find a metis pup huddled into the warm spot under his jaw.
"Well, that explains why he fought so hard now doesn't it?" Another whine and the pup turned towards the sound. "Shhh, quiet, little one." He placed his unbloodied hand near the pup's muzzle. Tiny sniffs stirred his fur, and then a little tongue rasped across his pads. He carefully picked the cub up and laid it across his leg. It burrowed into the fur, making little whimpering noises. "There, there. I'll see to your...father? and hopefully he won't eviscerate me for taking you from his grasp."
Azhar paused and cleared his mind, reaching inside to pull forth some of his own spiritual strength as he laid hands on the man's back. He felt the brief drain as he channeled his energies into healing as the spirits had taught him. The flow of blood ebbed, puss drooled onto the ground in great streams, and bone knit back together as the great claw wounds that marred the man's body pulled shut. The marks were still vaguely pinkish and probably would scar. Should I try again and see if I can close them all the way, or save my energy in case it's needed for someone else? It'll leave scars, but they're trophies he came by honestly enough.
The Fang laid one great paw on the black man's side and gently tapped at him with one claw. "Wake up. Your pup is worried about you." The cub whined plaintively as if to add emphasis to the request. The other man stirred slightly, but it would still take him a few minutes to come around. Azhar proceeded to look around in the meantime,watching as lean wolves slowly materialized back out of the woods. They moved in utter silence, drifting in and out of the shadows between the trees like ghosts. Considering how bloody the battle had been, and how eerie the surroundings, he wouldn't have been at all surprised if they had been ghosts in truth. Not that Garou usually became ghosts, but sometimes they lingered on as ancestor-spirits.
He could hear the howls of other Garou some distance off, apparently making sure the Spirals were good and gone. A nearby howl shortly drowned them out. It was simultaneously fierce and plaintive, a howl expressing both the sorrow at a packmate's death and the promise that it would not go unavenged. Azhar listened in silence, letting the locals honor their dead before they had to deal with new problems.
He watched one wolf creeping across the bloody snow towards him, slowly spiraling in towards him, one fierce eye focused on him as if waiting to see if he'd back down. Azhar held his ground and resisted the urge to keep turning to keep the wolf in sight. It crept up to the pile and sank its teeth into the back leg of one of the Spirals and slowly started to back away dragging the corpse. Now that he was practically nose to nose with the wolf, he could see it was blind in one eye, thus why it had been so cautiously circling him.
"Please, if you have a moment, could you tell me where exactly we are, and who we should thank for their aid?" he rumbled in the Garou tongue, trying to sound as polite as possible. Not that this was an easy task, trying to sound polite in a language that consisted primarily of snarls and guttural words. Instead he tipped his ears back in a submissive manner, but kept his tail up. Polite was one thing, submissive another entirely, especially since he was a Silver Fang.
The wolf paused in its task. "You are in our bawn, by the stream that runs over the rocks that shine so bright in the sun that it makes it hard to see. The ones who came to your call were from the Blood Red Pawprint and Wind Runners packs." It went back to pulling at the carcass.
"Thank you for being so precise, but I am not from this area, I do not know what caern we are at, or who controls it." He perked his ears forward a little more, trying a slightly more dominant stance.
The wolf paused again, one ear twitching slightly in amusement. "You talk funny. This is the Sept of Luna's Den. We are Red Talons."
"I thank you then, and I am sure he will thank your people for their bravery when he wakes." He could feel the other man stir beneath his hand and looked down to see him looking back at him groggily.
The wolf growled slightly. "The others will not be satisfied with just thanks. He led them here, he led them to our caern. They will wish retribution for the dead."
Azhar looked down at the other man. "Did you hear what he said?" A slight nod. "Is it true you knowingly lead the Wyrm here?" He seemed to think for a second and then nodded again. "It is a serious charge."
The black man coughed and spat up some blood. Clearly the wounds had been deeper than Azhar intitially thought if they'd punctured a lung. He answered in a raspy voice. "I know. I did not think they were so close behind. I thought I would be able to warn them first, to tell them what I'd seen. The pup slowed me down. Is it all right?"
Azhar pointed down at the pup where it was nestled into the fur of the his leg. "It's just fine, if a bit cold. You are a very good father to protect it so well."
The black man coughed again. "It's not mine. I found it and its mother nailed to a tree out in the forest. Looked like some sort of sacrifice. I was going to tell the packs here that there was some sort of cultish activity going on, probably Black Spirals, and then push on to Rutland. There's a pack there that's mostly metis, and I figure they might know how to take care of a pup better."
The wolf growled, ears laid back and tail up aggressively. "You lead Wyrm to our caern for some metis pup!? You should know Litany says "Do not take an action that violates a caern" unless you are a very stupid pup."
"I know! I didn't know I'd have a whole pack of Black Spirals come chasing after me! I was too close to the caern when I picked up their howls to veer out of the way without running right back into their teeth! Would you rather I had continued on so I was sure I was close enough that you'd hear the warning there was a pack of Spirals on you border or run right into them and let them sneak up on you unawares?"
"We have sentries, we would have seen them." The words were clear enough, but the set of the tail said the wolf wasn't so certain the sentries would have spotted them in time.
"Eventually. But how much damage would they have done by then?"
"None, because they would not have been here at all except for you leading them here." The wolf's tail was back up and the ears forward as he tried to stare down the wounded man. The two stared intently at each other and Azhar could feel his fur starting to rise in response to the unconcealed hostility between the two.
Azhar looked back and forth between the two for a moment and then out at the bodies lying in the snow before huffing slight to get their attention. They immediately broke their staring contest to look at him. I'm the biggest one here, and yet I feel the smallest. Perhaps I shouldn't have interrupted. Too late now.
"Hrrrr, I am not all that familiar with the area, but I count eight dead Black Spirals here, and there were probably at least that many more that escaped. Isn't that rather an unusually large amount of Spirals in one place at one time? Do they normally run in packs 15 or more strong here?"
The other two looked at each other for a moment, human eyeing wolf and wolf eyeing human until they mutually agreed this took precedence over their contest. The wolf pawed at the snow nervously. "There is a Wyrm hole many mountains towards the setting sun, but the packs do not usually come this far. They are usually small and move fast.">
The black man continued "I've never even heard of them running together in such numbers unless you were right on top of a caern that fell to the Wyrm, or possibly a hellhole. It's a good point. I don't know what a pack that big was doing so far away from their homes. Maybe there's a caern you guys don't know about, maybe a new one."
The wolf bristled again. "We would have seen that! We are not stupid! We would not let them breed so close!"
"I didn't say you did. Maybe they just got to the area. But I don't know what they were doing here. Well, I guess I do." A growl from the wolf indicated the man should explain very quickly or face the consequences. "The woman and her cub, the ones that were pinned to a tree looked like they'd been sacrificed. So maybe they were doing some ritual out here, I just don't know why or what for."
"Perhaps..." the wolf and the human both looked back at Azhar like they'd forgotten he was there, which was fairly impressive considering he was in Crinos. They could freeze water on a midsummer's day with that
look! He twitched his tail anxiously and tipped his ears back submissively. "One of the Spirals, the one in charge, I think, because I heard one call it 'Boss', was fighting with something else, something...worse than it was."
"What could be more disgusting than a Black Spiral?" The wolf looked genuinely perplexed.
"I don't know really. I just knew it was somehow worse. It looked like a Garou, but not." He scratched at an ear with one claw. "I mean, it looked like one, it was in Crinos, but it was like there was something missing." Now both Garou were intently staring at him. He swallowed convulsively and then continued on, speeding up in anxiety. "You know how when you're with a group of wolves and some of them are Garou and some are just wolves, the Garou have more of...of a presence, like they're more real somehow. It's subtle, but sometimes you can just tell they're more than just wolves. It was like that, but the reverse, like everything that made it a Garou had been stolen away and there was nothing left but the form."
They were both giving him a somewhat skeptical look. The wolf snorted "I did not see this thing, and no one else said they saw something worse than a Spiral. Perhaps you are confused. You sound confused. You look confused." He sniffed at Azhar's leg. "You smell a little more certain."
"I've got it's blood on my claws!" Azhar held his bloodied hand out towards the wolf, who sniffed it as well. He grimaced and rubbed his muzzle into the snow.
"Just more Wyrm stink. Your claws smell like you sharpened them on a corpse. I will ask, but I do not think anyone else saw your beast. Perhaps you are trusting the wrong sense. Eyes are easily tricked."
Azhar hesitated. "Maybe you're right, maybe no one else saw it. It kind of wavered, like it wasn't quite there really... I really didn't quite see it until I tried to see what was pinning the Spiral to the ground and make it thrash about. It didn't look like death throws, and then the thing sort of wavered and appeared when I looked at it too close. It was solid though, I put my claws through it and then it turned around and commanded me to let it go and it faded back out. Maybe it was a spirit of some sort, but the blood looks so real..."
"What do you mean, it commanded you?"
"Just that, it commanded me to let it go and my hands let go without me getting to think about it at all."
"You let the Wyrm thing go?" The wolf looked incredulous.
"The Spiral screamed at me to kill it before it got away and tried to drag itself after it. He seemed absolutely desperate to kill it." He whined slightly, trying to placate the other Garou.
The wolf snorted again. "Wyrm fighting Wyrm is good, let them kill each other. Very strange, it does not do that usually. It bites its' tail sometimes, but not during a battle. You are stupid to let the thing go. Did you kill the Spiral at least?"
Azhar shook his head. "I didn't realize it was a Spiral until some of the other ones showed up and knocked me out of the way. I was trying to find out what was going on, why it was fighting that thing."
The wolf looked like it was going to spit. "You are idiot cub then! Kill Wyrm, don't talk with it! Both of you are stupid!"
"I'm sorry, I just heard the howls and came. I didn't know what was going on. That was the first thing I saw. It confused me."
"STILL idiot cub!" The wolf snapped, and pawed at the ground, fur bristling in every direction. He looked like he was seriously considering leaping for Azhar's throat, even if Azhar was in Crinos and he was still a wolf.
"What the hell were you doing out here anyway?" The black man propped himself up so he could try and look Azhar in the eye. "It's pretty damn unusual for two wanderers to cross paths in the middle of nowhere, especially so conveniently. You don't look like anybody I've seen around before." Now they were both eyeing him suspiciously.
"I'm not from here. Look, we haven't even been properly introduced. I don't know either of your names and I really have no idea where this is." He grinned nervously and tucked his tail under submissively. "Let's try proper introductions and then we can go back to name calling and finger pointing."
The three eyed each other for a moment, trying to figure out who went first. All was silent for a moment until the briefly forgotten cub yawned loudly, turned over and promptly started snoring. The wolf snorted and shook himself and let his tongue hang out in a lupine grin. "We bore even a pup with too much talk. We will argue when we know better what to argue about. I am Lone Wolf Circles, a Traveling Moon of the Red Talons. This is my caern." He looked up briefly and yipped at the half moon overhead. "This is my moon, but you call it differently."
The black man looked up at the sky as well. "It's also my moon. I'm a Philodox. Is that what you meant, that we call it differently?" A slight nod from the wolf indicated it was. "My name's Ghiyath, I'm a messenger for the Silent Striders, so claim no caern as my home. I think the pup's name is Paradise. Or so an Uktena witch told me."
Azhar watched the other two and let his ears creep back forward and his tail come back up. A Silver Fang should not cower..unless it keeps him alive, but they seem to have calmed down. No wonder they're testy if it's their moon. "No wonder you both speak so well if you are both lawgivers. I'm Azhar Serpent-Slayer, a Theurge of House Wise Heart of the Silver Fangs. I'm from the Sept of the Shattered Stone Spring."
"I've never heard of it." Ghiyath looked rather skeptical again.
It's in Israel."
"Where is..." the wolf spluttered for a moment, not able to force lupine lips around the word. "That place you just said."
"On the other side of the ocean."
"Aren't you kind of far from home? Don't tell me you got lost." Ghiyath asked. Lone Wolf panted in amusement at the idea that anyone could get that lost.
"Lots of foreign Silver Fangs are interested in coming to see King Albrecht. He's rather...different than most kings."
"Big understatement, but you don't seem entirely like other Fangs either. So you came to bask in his glory or some such?" Ghiyath seemed genuinely interested.
Azhar thought for a moment before answering. If I'm to stay with him, if he's as important as I think, I should explain. If he doesn't trust me, I won't be able to stay with him, talent or no! "No, not really. I have a tendency to be drawn to places where important things are happening, or to important people or things, whether I want to go or not. Usually I just get pulled to places where there's trouble, or end up running around with someone who's about to get into rather a lot of it. Like you. I suppose it would be great if I was a Galliard, I'd have plenty of material for songs. Anyway, it was sort of inevitable I'd end up on this side of the ocean sooner or later. So I came and saw, and was told I should go out and about and get used to the country. I got a little turned around though. Snow is confusing."
"So you got lost in the snow?"
"I've never SEEN snow before! Well, I've seen it, way off in the distance on mountain tops, but I've never walked in it. It's rather unpleasant stuff. It's WET."
The wolf looked him over for a moment, an ear twitching in amusement. "You are in that form because otherwise you're cold, yes?" Azhar nodded sheepishly. Ghiyath burst out laughing and the wolf snorted in amusement. "You're sure you're not from my tribe? I mean, you're from the Middle East, you've never seen snow, and you have this unusual talent for finding trouble. You're sure you're not a Silent Strider?"
"No, but I get mistaken for one an awful lot. For some reason people think we're all from Russia. The Fangs bred with the nobility everywhere and Egypt had a pharaoh and nobles when the Russians were still running around in tribes and hitting each other with rocks tied to sticks. Yet somehow no one associates the tribe with anywhere but Russia, maybe a little bit with the United States now with the coming of ascension of Albrecht to the throne." He bristled slightly at having his heritage mocked. It hit too close to home. I'm as noble as any of the other young Fangs, even if my breeding isn't as perfect as it should be...
Ghiyath sensed his agitation and tried to soothe the Crinos crouched next to him. "Calm down, I'm just amused. You sound more like the stereotypical Silent Strider than I do. I'm an all American Strider from the Bible belt, I only have the Arabic name because my Uncle thought I should have a proper Strider name. He didn't think Reuben James Montgomery the Third sounded very appropriate. Hrm...actually it sounds like I got stuck with a name your folks would be proud of."
The two looked at Lone Wolf who perked his ears at them curiously. "I am just as I appear. Wolves are wolves, Garou are Garou, you monkeys have to make things complicated. I pity you, that you must deal with such confusing things. If you are done with your babbling, the others will want an accounting of how you came to be here and your thoughts on what is going on. I will attempt to explain the background, including the strange horrible foreign place where the winter snows stick only to the tops of mountains." He seemed like he didn't quite believe that. Azhar resisted the urge to correct his assessment. Explaining a desert to a wolf that had never seen one would be very difficult.
Ghiyath reached out and gently petted the pup where it lay. "Perhaps the elders will have some better idea of what to do next. I'm kind of unsure what's more important at this point, deal directly with the cub that the Spirals seemed to want so bad, or to try and figure out what they're doing up here. Maybe the Uktena witch I spoke to before would know what's going on, but if the cub's that important, maybe it would be best to go to Rutland first and see if there's anyone there who knows how to properly care for it instead of me just muddling around."
"You can explain your circumstances and concerns to them more directly soon enough. Then they will tell you what they think is best. You should be as clear as possible, not all of them speak in complicated ways like you." He looked directly at Ghiyath for a moment. "You should speak as a Garou to them. Do not try to be what you are not. You will confuse the meaning if you try to speak as we do." At that, Lone Wolf Circles turned and trotted off into the woods in search of the sept elders.
There were a few moments of silence while the two men sat quietly, thinking everything over. The pup happily continued to snore occasionally from where it lay on Azhar's leg.
Ghiyath finally broke the silence. "He was very articulate for a Red Talon and much more tolerant than I would have expected. They tend not to be very friendly."
Azhar scratched idly at an ear. "He understood you speaking English. The few Red Talons I've met before spoke no human language. Perhaps in learning it, he learned to speak his own better as well."
"A very odd Garou."
"And we are not?"

Part 4