Phang
Joined: 19 Sep 2004
Posts: 2160
Location: Phang's House of Mints
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| Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 5:51 am Post subject: Chapter 11: Part 1 - Wolf Army |
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First part up. Now you may sleep soundly in your beds again.
Winger sighed and slumped to the table.
“I have not been truthful to you. I know your hatred of humans, and I was scared. The Master has done worse than warp one of your kind – I was half-human from birth.”
The Alpha made no sound she could hear – she had expected gasps, or perhaps anticipated a fight for her life – but there was silence.
Eventually, he spoke.
“Continue.” Slowly, she did.
“My parents are similar to me, half-human beasts – but it was said that I was the only successful experiment of this kind, so I suppose that means my parents were once human, and had the beast added later to see if their child would be also half-beast. As you can see, it worked. I’ve been like this all my life. But I have wings, too, which I have not seen anyone here have. I suspect there is more than one animal within me.”
“You would, perhaps, be right. I have waited a long time for this moment…” the Alpha leaned forward out of the shadows, and Winger felt the shock she thought the Alpha would feel towards her. He was exactly the same as her in some aspects, save for the wings, but he was deformed and twisted. Tiny human-like fingertips sprouted out from under its paws, and its face was squashed flat like it had been crushed from a young age. A dishevelled mane hung down over its hunchback. “You were the only successful experiment, but there were many failed attempts who were incinerated – along with their parents. I escaped and made my way here, and they thought me a hardened survivor of some ancient tribe. They believe what they want, to try and keep their honour intact. If either of us revealed ourselves for who we really are we would be killed and removed from their records.” Winger was still shocked. Others had survived the wrath of the Master, others like her. Or at least, only this one. But there could be more…
“We need to kill this…well, the hand of the Master. And we need to gather the remaining tribes to do it. It can be killed with enough force, I think, but it will need everything we’ve got. And we might find others like us. We know about the Master, we have the skills of humans and animals. We can kill it, and we could kill the Master, and we can become a new tribe, and new species of creatures…”
“Concentrate on killing the hand first. Then we must end the Master’s reign. We cannot be a new race – look at us. We are not meant to be. We must prevent this ever happening again.” The Alpha sighed and looked towards the exit, where the rest of the tribe no doubt awaited them. “We must give the order to gather all the wolves, of all kinds. If force shall kill this beast, so be it.”
*~*~*
The order was given by the two humanoid creatures, and with all speed messengers left with invitations to all tribes still thought to be surviving. After merely days the fastest of them were returning, but many with reports of villages already eradicated by the time they’d got there, and even another messenger returning with the head of one sent to invite a Blood-Eye tribe on the edge of the cliff, where there were no sightings of the beast yet and where the wolves were hardened warriors. Obviously, they thought nothing of the Master’s hand.
But slowly, wolves began to flood towards the village. Amber-Eye, Golden-Eye, Yellow-Eye and even Fire-Eye wolves mingled with the wolves of the tribe, and some Dark-Eyes grudgingly trained alongside their brighter-eyed kin, though mainly they kept to themselves, as Dark-Eyes often did.
With a rainbow of burning eyes glinting up at her every morning, Winger spoke to them all, reminding them of how only with the full force and co-operation of all of them they would be able to bring down this great threat. The wolves were all powerful enough, but Winger still feared that it would not be enough. Some childhood part of her still grasped at the old teachings in the Factory – The Master is more than human. He came from the wilderness of Down Below and united the humans, and he has power over all you see. And there were no others like her or the Alpha, who still remained nameless. There wouldn’t be any in the Blood-Eye’s tribes, he had told her. The Blood-Eyes were strong, and slaughtered the weak as they saw fit.
Eventually the time came. The scouts had seen the beast, and it was closer than anticipated. It had been camouflaged with the dark blood of those it slaughtered, sickeningly and dishonourably using the life fluids of wolves to kill more of the beasts. This only angered the wolves more. They wanted vengeance for such dishonour. “Honour has left them closed to creatures like us – but it will help in the fight.” Sighed the Alpha, standing next to her at the front of the army. Winger looked to him, and asked him a question that had long been burning in her mind.
“What’s your name?”
He looked towards her with great sadness in his eyes. “I was a failed experiment, left in storage until time of incineration. There were perhaps hundreds of other failures there, all of us unnamed. But when the Incinerators wanted to refer to me, they called me fourteen.”
Winger nodded. “Fourteen the Alpha. The time to see if I have been any help at all is here.”
And at that, Fourteen raised his hand into the air. The wolves behind them, armoured with hardened skins and their manes hardened into crests with dried sap, cheered with barks and yowls before beginning the steady march towards the Hand of the Master. |
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