The Lupine Curse: A Tale of Netherway
Chapter 21: The Pale, Bloodless Hand

A thunder of hooves came rolling into the main entrance, sweeping aside gawking citizens. It came from the Lord’s Quarters of the city, consisting of the Lord’s personal guards, his men and Markus’ City Watch—under his command, once more. Their numbers climbed into the hundreds, surpassing that of the reinforcements standing outside the city gates.

The Lord had waited for the chaos to finally cease, not for any particular battle strategy, more so because he was a patient man and desired to smoke his pipe—for precisely fifteen minutes—every day in utter silence. Only when he’d had those fifteen minutes did he gather his men to defend and protect the people of Gods’ Rest. By the time his army had approached the main courtyard, he was already thinking about how he would have to donate coin for the mass grave digging and ceremonial disposal of all the deceased.

The Lord’s Guard came in with spears, swords, full suits of armor and even banners with the Lord’s crest adorning the cloth. The crest is of a hawk with a fish in its claw and an arrow in the other, colors of midnight, chestnut brown with white trimmings. Markus’ men trailed behind, looking rather disorderly in the shadow of the knights and their polished battle raiment, gleaming even beneath the darkening skies.

Torches were lit. The cold air of night had descended upon a day wreathed by massacre, but the crowds were far too excited to seek the reprieve of their homes. They could feel the mayhem’s crescendo rising, and though exhausted and wounded were many of the remaining in the crowds, surrounded by the bodies of both friend and stranger, they watched with keen eyes.

The army passed by Fenris, as the Lord commanded them too, despite the men shaking beneath their armor, not even meeting the height of the creature on horseback.

Men from the Lord’s army cast their arrows in flames and shot them at the door, until hundreds of them flickered like tiny stars, before conjoining into one conflagration to crumble the unbreakable entrance.

They all waited while the stones around the entrance sustained the flames. In that fire, Fenris stared—still shifted—and saw the way Ashara dragged her body, how Deidre cried silently in the corner, the look on Arienna’s face as he lifted her cold body, Timothy’s … Ash’s execution. The memories formed impressions on flames and played out so vividly, he almost wondered if anyone else could see them.

The beast burst through the doors. An explosion of fire, iron and wood sent shrapnel and giant, flaming embers shooting from the mouth of the city. The Crimson Hand reinforcements were packed in too close.

Fenris emerged from the tunnel, his giant body wreathed with flames, throwing himself upon the masses of cultists, thrashing wildly, roaring, biting, clamping his jaws down upon everything and anything moving he came into contact with, ruthlessly indulging.

The Lord’s army followed behind, keeping its distance from the werewolf, closing in on the assassins all too focused on Fenris. The bowman assembled themselves around the collected followers and sent them fleeing with arrows in their backs.

There was a brief handful of minutes when the cultists pushed back. Many instead launched themselves at the Lords’ Guard and Markus’ men, ignoring Fenris as he rampaged blindly. A few of the men fell, but the cultists were designed for cunning, swift attacks reminiscent of assassinations, for dismantling opponents much larger than them using the environment as an advantage. They were not soldiers, knights, or even swordsmen. They didn’t know how to work together as a unit.

The arrogance of the Scarlet Hand cost them everything.

As for Fenris. His anger could not be contained. It had soured to hatred. Pure and quintessential, it did what the gods intended it to, and snuffed out the lives of those who stood in his way.

Many cultists had fought Cursed Ones before. But never did one storm into crowds of them, afire, with the fortitude of a human’s frustration and will for vengeance burning beneath the eyes of the beast.

Never had they faced a Cursed One with such humanity.

It was rumored amongst the cultists that every last member of the Scarlet Hand in the Moonlands had been sent to Gods’ Rest, to capture the city and overthrow the authority there, as well as capture any who escaped, with strict orders to execute them promptly.

As dusk swung into midnight and the ringing of steel on steel at last ceased to silences interrupted only by rustling, Fenris overturned the bodies, one by one with his claws, making sure not one of those sad elves had survived. He reflected that, if he had not been cursed, they might’ve actually succeeded with their plans.

He was a dizzying sight of a shadow casting black smoke into the starry sky, stumbling about, sniffing through bodies and dripping blood as he did. As quiet as a wolf ever was.

The battlegrounds were empty except for Markus, Fenris, and the bodies surrounding them. The Lord—ever lazy—stated that he would decide what to do with the deceased after he’d had a long rest.

A few guardsmen in the distance were sharing a drink while they warmed themselves around a fire, sleepless from the adrenaline of battle.

Markus was plucking arrows from Fenris, who was sitting on his haunches, his tongue lolling out as he looked out at the sky, feeling the prick of the thorns here and there as they were removed.

Deidre emerged somewhere from the darkness, tiptoeing over bodies, shutting her eyes away from the most gruesome.

Fenris was horrifically quiet. His wolfish eyes were staring up at the sky, watching the clouds and the stars pass by while the steam from his nostrils rose rhythmically.

“I was always curious to see the way you looked,” Deidre said softly, alerting them to her presence.

Markus was silently brooding, too focused on getting all the arrows out of Fenris. It seemed there was no end to them.

The beast looked at her, nodded his head, then went back to stargazing.

Deidre had the strangest feeling that, even if she had chanced upon him one day in that form, she would somehow know it was him. There was an unmistakable resemblance between them.

Finally, the last arrow clattered the ground with the rest. Markus was not sure if he was cleaning Fenris’ corpse or his living body.

With a sigh that sounded more human than not, Fenris started up a faded path towards the forest. Markus and Deidre called after him, but he simply continued on all fours, leaving a trail of blood while he panted, seeking to indulge in what his animalistic side desired most: to rest somewhere in the wild.