Ronan: Night Wolves by Lisa Daniels (94)

Chapter Four

Hovering in the air, Kell glared daggers at the five home wreckers, trying to keep a lid on her rising panic, trying not to think about the thousands upon thousands of undead rising out of their graves, stepping into innocent people's homes, tearing out their soft insides...

She let out a scream, and Loras awkwardly morphed in mid-air to his human form, trying to placate her with his strong, warm hands.  The initial impulse to burst him away dwindled – she needed every ounce of strength to keep them alive.

“I'm sorry,” he said, now within range, grabbing her in a hug.  “I'm so sorry.”

“Could have mentioned something about this earlier,” she snapped at him.

“I don't think telling you would have made a difference.  They were all dead set on completing this plan.  I suppose...  I hoped they knew what they were doing.”

“Uh huh.” Kell examined the handsome werewolf, observing the yellow eyes crinkled in a mix of fear and concern and guilt.  Her heart thudded fast from adrenaline, and she pushed past the mounting headache to continue searching for somewhere to drop them all safely.

Not a lot of safe spots.  She didn't know if she possessed enough energy to drift them over to the mausoleum at the far end, or even if the building was tall enough to repel the werewolves, but she began anyway, knowing the longer they waited, the faster her magic ran out.

“Where are you headed? That building?” Echo squinted as she examined the mausoleum, dismissing her Monster.  “I hope that's tall enough...”

“Do not.  Speak.  To me.” Murder hissed over Kell's words.  Saving these worthless, miserable husks of living creatures’ lives filled her throat with bile.  Ruining everything the Crescent Island stood for.  Centuries of history eradicated in an instant, with cracking stone, buildings, and likely the loss of every living person upon the island.  They didn't have enough magic users to counter such ferocity.  The few werewolves that did live in their population were laughably small.

Wisps of blue spirits trailed after her, and she heard the rustle of almost speech, as if they were trying to speak to her, but once again, she never understood the tones that burbled out of them.

Out of the monolith, grasped the form of a huge wolf, blue eyes spurting their energy.

Oh, moons.

The guardian, at least three times as big as the other werewolves, looked up at them with those hollow eyes, and growled.  He was still intact as a creature, although shrunken from the years of death, preserved by his blue nimbus.

“That, ladies and gentleman,” Kell said between clenched teeth, “is the creature that blessed the first werewolf.  This thing you've just risen out of the grave is the ultimate ancestor of all werewolves.  Well done.”

“The source of all werewolf magic?” Helena examined the snarling guardian in interest as it stepped after them, legs trembling at first from lack of use.  “It wasn't the first werewolf that you people visited in the mountains?”

Kell didn't even bother to deign that ignorant question with a response.  She focused on drifting them to the mausoleum, aware that the wolf might be tall enough to just lunge onto the roof.  The others seemed aware of this fact as well, and watched it in fear.  Loras clung to her tighter, certainly not offering her comfort at this point, more to offer himself comfort.

“Use magic from my body if you feel yourself running out,” he hissed into her ear.  “Let's pretend I can be useful in this situation.”

“I'm not sucking you dry.  I might kill you.”

“Well, we'll all die if you don't save us, so I think that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make,” he said.

“How noble of you...” Kell rolled her eyes, still irritated and frightened beyond measure.  If they ever made it out of this...  she'd kill them herself later.

The headache worsened, until every inch of her brain felt like it was on fire, but she kept pushing them, until they finally settled on top of the crypt, and she collapsed, groaning, clutching her head.

Loras hovered over her anxiously, stroking her head, and she rolled to her side to observe the massive guardian wolf loping over to them, lips bared in a vicious snarl, ready to bite.

Echo stood ready to rebuff it with Monster.  Helena stepped forward as well.  Kell didn't know the Supreme's powers, didn't want to ask, really, but hunched up, shivering at the sight of the huge wolf.

It lunged at them, and Monster coalesced out of the darkness, rapidly matching the guardian in size, buffeting him backwards.  The guardian took great bites out of Monster, who simply regrew the lost parts, pushing, before expanding in size, gnawed on now by the myriad other werewolves flanking it.  Monster whirled its now bulbous arms like a windmill, sending everything flying, increasing in size until it now towered above the mausoleum, and its limbs formed into multiple grasping extremities, pushing everything away.

Despite herself, Kell felt impressed by the malleable nature of the magic.  “Can we escape on that?”

“I don't think so,” Echo muttered, the veins on her head protruding.  “There's too many.  The only thing I can do right now is repel the big one.”

“Don't destroy any of them,” Helena said, and Kell stared at her sharply again.  Now she turned to Kell.  “Look, you're an Islander.  Is there anything else we should be aware of, here? Any other objects? Anything we're supposed to consult?”

“Yeah, how about you consult with my fist,” Kell growled, scrabbling upright.  “Because you've ruined it.  Unless you reverse this debacle, we're doomed!”

Helena pursed her lips.  “By all intents and purposes, this spell should have worked.  There's something we're missing.  So, please, stop dissecting us in your minds and work with us here.”

Kell growled to herself, nervously watching as Erlandur stared at the Cursed Queen's skull, at a loss for words.

Off the top of her head, she couldn't think of anything.  Not that we ever took stock in raising the dead anyway.  That's a Shadow skill, and they've never been able to get near enough to the Island or obtain any objects of power to do any real damage.

One thing her intuition told her, however, was that she did know the answer.  She could help them.

Of course, it didn't want to show her exactly how.  That would be too easy.

I'm supposed to help.  I know this much.

“There's nothing I can think of with the Island.  Erlandur already wields the sacred armor.  He's got the Cursed Queen's skull, moon knows where you got that.”

“Lunehill,” Erlandur replied, finally waking up from his stupor, the night casting swathes of darkness upon his face.  “She was buried there.”

“Right, good.  Deduction.  Keep going,” Helena said, eyeing the guardian as it chomped at Echo's Monster.  The strain began to show on Echo, though she clung onto her magic as best as able.  Faith sidled next to her, taking out a strange amulet, which Kell sensed contained a potent branch of magic.  Echo gasped and seized it, nodding her thanks.

“Problem is,” Yarrow said then, “is maybe Erlandur's just not strong enough.”

“Wait,” Kell said.  “You...  what's your power, again?”

“I can control Shadows.”

Kell slumped, groaning.  “These aren’t Shadows, though.  Not really.  They’re something else.

“I can still control them,” Yarrow replied.  “Just not so many.  And certainly not the guardian.  There’s something there resistant to suggestion.”

Whilst they kept talking, their voices high and frantic, Monster expanded again, trying to compensate for the numerous undead taking chunks out of its amorphous body.  From this angle, it looked like a collapsing house, the foundations constantly being scooped from under, only to reform at the top.

Smart.

“We hold no additional relics,” Kell said.  “About the only thing that might help is if Erlandur is accepted by a wolf spirit, but as you know, that didn't work out the first time.  They're picky about who is given the magic.”

Listing the problem helped bring some clarity to their hopeless, nightmarish situation.  Loras continued stroking her hair, also helping to relax her, to make her less inclined to freak out.

“Remember,” he whispered into her ear, “if there's anything I can do, use me.  There's little else I can help with otherwise.”

“Thanks,” she whispered back.  She liked this werewolf, honestly.  Genuine person.  Strong and self-sacrificing and all that.

Shame they probably wouldn't make it past the night.

“Well, what should we do, then?” Faith was the one to now ask, obviously offset by the fact she couldn't leap down and start bashing things with her superior combat skills.

“If you can't get Erlandur to accept the wolf spirit, maybe the bones of the First Wolf can help,” Kell said dubiously.  “It will compliment the skull here.  But honestly, I have no idea.  I'm just guessing at this point.”

“It's a thought.” Helena scowled.  “But now we have an extra problem.  The bones of the First Wolf are a little far from here, aren't they?”

True, Kell thought.  She didn't think much of her idea, but the others seemed to latch onto it with a will.  Desperation, it appeared, made people do strange things.

Kell could almost see the cogs churning in Helena’s brain, as she likely considered ditching the operation and extending time to grab the bones.

Monster kept up the fight, though it became abundantly clear that Echo couldn't continue the magic for much longer, even with her tapping into the reserves of the magical object Faith had given her.

Helena sighed then.  “We won't reach such a thing in time, even if we can extend our deadline by a few months.  There has to be another solution.”

Echo let out a scream as the undead finally tore through her defenses, and Monster dissolved into nothing – along with the witch collapsing in an unconscious heap.  The guardian snarled and advanced forward, reaching the mausoleum in a few long bounds.

Kell felt Loras morph behind her, his human voice deepening to the guttural growl of the werewolf.  Yarrow let out a gasp as Loras bounded past the group, attempting to face off the huge guardian, though he appeared small and pathetic in comparison.  The guardian's jaws snapped at him, and Loras howled, his hackles rising, a lone defender against an impossible enemy.

Brave, Kell thought, heart sinking.  Brave and foolish.  She considered levitating him, though her magic reserves had now begun to scrape at the bottom of the barrel.

The guardian hesitated at the howl, blue eyes flickering ominously, before lunging at Loras.  Loras avoided the attack and jumped onto the guardian’s back, trying to gnaw into the dead flesh. 

Yarrow concentrated, extending her control to a few more undead, now directing them to attack the guardian as well.  Kell watched in dismay, not wanting to see the fall of the guardian, even though he had died many years before.  This was history, after all.  History they’d disturbed and offended beyond measure. 

Echo stirred feebly, even as Helena now went towards the guardian, raising up her hands.  Kell almost laughed out loud when she saw black icicles shoot out of Helena’s hands in a rain of spikes, scattering amongst the undead and freezing many in their spots.

“A Shadow that uses ice magic? How ironic.”

“Tell me about it,” Helena replied, giving a sardonic smile to Kell, even as she increased the barrage, mainly focusing on the guardian.  The guardian kept moving, until Kell allowed her magic to punch through and freeze the guardian in place, levitating him above the ground so that he flailed feebly.  Yarrow’s werewolves gnawed at the guardian’s legs, Helena’s icicles shot into it, Loras chomped into his neck. 

Erlandur did the same as Yarrow, abandoning his attempt to control everything, to instead focus on the few weaker minds. 

“Get it closer,” Faith ordered, and Kell obliged.  Faith then leapt onto the guardian with precision, avoiding the snapping jaws and slashing her sword into its mouth.  With the combined onslaught upon the guardian, it eventually fell limp mid air, shredded to pieces by everything that had attacked it.

Faith continued hacking into the flesh.  No blood spurted, it couldn’t from something that had been dead for that long, but the sound made a horrible grating noise.

Then came a snap, as Loras helped her pull out one of its ribs.

“Will the bones of the guardian do instead?”

Helena grinned wildly.  “You know, that is an excellent idea.”

Loras grabbed the ribs from Faith and leapt back onto the roof.  Kell released the guardian’s corpse once Faith clambered to safety, and Erlandur took the rib off Faith.  He held it along with the Cursed Queen’s skull and focused once more.

“It’s working,” he said.  “I don’t feel any limits now.”
“Really?”

In answer to Helena’s question, all the undead in the cemetery suddenly stopped moving.  Eerily still, they waited for something.  Erlandur flicked his hands, and they all got into line. 

Grinning, Erlandur said, “Well.  Guess we got ourselves an army, now.”

Kell stared at the undead sadly. 

She knew all the cemeteries across the Island would have cracked stones and disturbed earth.  The old now walked with the new.

The dead had risen to assist them against the Fractured City.