Werelord Thal: A Renaissance Werewolf Tale (2 page)

The loyal subordinate watched with growing
concern. The alpha’s legs jerked harder. His head tossed. The other
wolves awoke and blinked in the morning sun that warmed the meadow
outside their den. They stared at their alpha male and then got up
and sniffed toward him cautiously. The alpha female came out from
the den, her teats swollen with milk. She licked his face. He
grunted and then rolled away in a twisting seizure. His family
circled him nervously.

A raven flew into a tall pine and screeched.
The wolves glanced up at the dark sentinel whose abrasive voice
warned of an intruder.

The alpha male writhed across the ground,
tearing up the grass. The other wolves whined around him. With eyes
rolling back, he flailed his legs. Garbled howls tumbled clumsily
from his throat. His body distorted. The wolves jumped back. His
howls turned to rasping screams.

He raised his paws over his face and rolled
into a ball. The raven screamed. A strong wind blew through the
trees from nowhere. The wolves fled into the den, except for the
alpha female. She lowered her head and whimpered as the body of her
mate changed. Fur fell away. Smooth flesh bulged with muscles. His
tail retracted into his spine. Claws evaporated and soft naked
fingers grew out. Painful yowling accompanied the wrenching
transformation of the face. The snout and powerful jaws shrank. The
back legs curled under his torso and then burst into new legs and
feet.

At last his tortured screams ended, but the
revered alpha male was gone. A man, naked save for an old wolf hide
across his loins, lay shivering upon the disturbed ground.

He touched his face. For a long time he
stared in disbelief at his hands with his many colored eyes. Then
he ran his hands up his smooth arms. Each prickle of the relatively
tiny hairs against his palms puzzled him with the absence of his
luxurious coat. He brushed his fingers over his head. Here remained
fur but the texture was different. He had hair.

He met the alpha female’s eyes. Understanding
remained but a gulf had opened between them. She tilted her head
sadly, wondering at the alteration of her mate. The wind gradually
quieted and the other wolves ventured out. They snarled and rushed
forward to attack the man because all men were traitorous brothers,
but the female intercepted them. Reluctantly the pack heeded her
call to patience. With her tail up she padded toward the man while
her pack growled unhappily.

The man reached out to her but when he saw
the five-fingered evidence of his humanity he pulled his hand back.
He looked down, knowing he was unworthy of her. How could he
provide for her now? He was just a naked man in the forest.

Gradually she came closer. Her moist black
nose sniffed at his altered scent. She sensed the agony of his
heart and knew it was breaking because of her.

Her gentle whines were the essence of empathy
as she edged closer. When the man looked into her eyes again, he
wished he could give her an explanation.

She licked his cheek. He buried his face in
her soft fur. She tensed against the alien feel of his arms but did
not pull away.

The man tried to speak to her, but his throat
and lips made erratic sounds and the attempt flung his mind into
confusion. When she finally slipped out of his clinging arms, he
looked at the pack. The guarded expressions on their familiar
once-trusting faces terrified him.

Nervous little yips came from the den
entrance. His pups! The man jumped up. When he came so abruptly to
his full height, the wolves growled and the hair went up on their
necks. The pups, sensing the alarm, hung back in the shadowy
hole.

Unable to believe that his pack would harm
him, the man took a step toward the den, but the alpha female
jumped into his path. She doubled in size as every bit of fur
lifted. She was majestic in her fury. Never had she defied him like
this, and the man admired her power anew.

He knew why she blocked his way. No man must
ever come near the pups. Men were death. Merciless hunters. Beasts
without reason. Best to snoop only on the fringes of their mad
domain than seek again the kinship of joint dominion of the land. A
pup allowed to be curious about a man might ignore the elders’ hard
lessons of caution and be killed. Or worse yet, trapped by some
circus traveler and thrown alone into a bear pit.

These awful truths twisted his guts and
churned the raw meat he had feasted upon in the night. Sickened, he
ran across the meadow and collapsed against a pine tree.

His former pack mates spread out around the
den. The alpha female threw back her head and howled. Her lingering
notes sang of apology. She would not let him enter the den, but she
regretted the pain it caused him. The rest of the pack howled with
her. Their sadness drew tears from the man. When the salty drip
reached his lips, the taste forced him to recall his humanity. He
had been a man once. Memories fluttered into focus. Images of
people peeked into the blankness of his mind.

But how could he be a man? He had been given
a choice, and he had chosen.

He clutched his head. The wolf music spoke to
him. He heard their dismay but could give no proper response to
reassure them.

Slumping to the ground, he petted the old
wolf skin that had remained at his side after the transformation.
Turning it over, he gasped. Dark designs were painted on the bare
leather. Blocks of various shapes were lined up in rows. The alien
shapes bombarded his mind. His eyes that were so adept at spotting
movement struggled with the bizarre information. Finally, a small
block of four little images took shape in his understanding. At the
end of the last row, he saw: THAL.

He cried out and folded the fur to cover the
lettering.

Thal stayed on his knees for a long time. The
tree shadows crossed his body as they moved with the sun. His pack
settled protectively around the den and watched him with sad eyes.
His alpha female approached again and snuffled the wolf hide in his
hands, seeking the scent of her mate. Gently he stroked her long
snout and ran his hand up her cheek and behind her ears. To touch
her this way was soothing to him. She pressed against his rubbing
hand. He savored the affection, but his human hand against her
silver pepper fur impressed upon him the fact that he was her mate
no more. How unfair that some unexpected fate should seize him when
she needed him most.

As if in agreement, she pushed aside his hand
and licked his face. She slurped at the saltiness of his tears.
Then with her swift silent grace she trotted toward the den. She
looked back once. Thal had only disappointment to offer her.
Resigned, she entered the den to nurse her pups.

One by one the other wolves crept up to him,
but none let him touch. They whimpered and sniffed and then
retreated. Last to come was his most dependable companion. The
maturing male was clever and a pleasure to hunt with. He would have
to guide the pack now. Thal dipped his head to him, and the sign of
respect surprised the wolf.

The raven squawked. Thal regarded the dark
silhouette in the towering evergreen. The bird was right. He had to
go. He did not belong here anymore.

Thal needed space to think. The presence of
his family was too distracting. He struggled to remember his life
before the forest, but the blissful liberty of many seasons hunting
with his kin blocked it out.

He flung the old wolf hide over his shoulder
and walked away. Like his alpha female he looked back once, very
wistfully. He hated to leave, but the world of humans had reclaimed
him and he could not stay.

Altea folded a towel over her basket of eggs
to protect them from the hot sun. The market had been especially
busy with new produce flowing into the city. The cool spring was
finally warming, and hope for a bountiful year was cheering the
folk.

Her maid Cynthia pressed close as they worked
their way through the bustling crowd. She was carrying a bucket of
little strawberries. Altea expected her brothers to gobble them up
before they could sweeten a custard. She smiled when she imagined
washing the juice off their faces and fingers. Despite the constant
work her brothers required they were adorable. Altea tried to dote
on them. They all had splendid dispositions like their mother.
Happily they lacked the hard humor of her stepfather, although she
supposed he would adjust their boyish gears to fit the cogs of
adulthood sooner or later.

A heavy wagon drawn by two thick-limbed black
horses rumbled by Altea toward the Kamenny Most. People jumped out
of the way of the ponderous load. She noted the Habsburg seal upon
the barrels in it.

“No one cares about those who walk in the
street,” Cynthia groused.

“It’s not hard to watch out for wagons,”
Altea said, wondering at the maid’s sour mood.

She supposed the crowd was bothering the
woman, so Altea applied herself to advancing their progress. She
lifted her chin. “Excuse us,” she said many times and wove through
the people.

Some men lifted their hats to her. She
acknowledged their manners pleasantly while maintaining just the
right amount of aloofness. A young man with new clothes that showed
off his physique rather nicely ushered her forward with his walking
stick. “May I have the privilege of walking you home, Miss?” he
said with smiling eyes.

The presumption of the stranger was shocking
even if his daring proposal tantalized Altea.

“We can manage, Sir,” she replied brusquely
and brushed by him.

Even if his roguish attention tickled her
curiosity, she relished her power to deny and disappoint.

“Can you believe him?” Cynthia muttered. “As
if a decent lady would walk the streets with a stranger.”

“Of course not, Cyn,” Altea agreed.

Cynthia glanced over her shoulder. She
flashed with disapproval but deep down wanted one more look at the
handsome bachelor. “Probably some baron’s bastard who just fleeced
a tailor for that set of clothes,” she said.

Altea smiled. Cynthia was a good judge of the
occupants of Prague’s streets.

The crowd thinned after they left the Knights
of the Cross square and its adjoining river docks where various
provisions were being constantly unloaded. Riders and wagons went
both ways down the center of Karlova Street. Altea and her maid
kept to the side. The street jogged to the left and then Altea
reached her house. A workman was installing a new sign by the front
door. Its red and silver paint displayed a racing hound jumping
over a hammer. Below the image in ornate letters was the name
Fridrich. She did not understand the symbolism of her stepfather’s
new house sign, but she supposed it was not embarrassing. Some
people’s signs made even less sense with pictures taken from books
about exotic places that Altea was not sure existed. The world
offered up so many wild tales these days.

Without a glance at the new sign, Cynthia
trotted up the front steps, but Altea paused. She still had to
prepare herself to enter her home since her mother had died. Her
mother’s absence was like a choking smoke that would not clear.
Father Refhold had advised her that time would lessen the pain.
Until then she was to pray for her mother’s soul and speed her out
of Purgatory. Although Altea believed the advice to be good, she
resented that her mother had not gone straight to Heaven. She did
not intend to confess that thought.

Altea looked away when Cynthia opened the
door. The dark gate to the fortress of loss repulsed her. She
needed to gather courage a moment longer to tackle the sharp
feelings within.

Looking up the street, she thought about her
stepfather who would be in his office at the Court by the Town
Hall. It was not far. In her mother’s final year, she had often
sent Altea with messages to her stepfather. Altea had come to
realize that it was her mother’s way of giving her a break from her
bedside care. She had enjoyed the little breaths of freedom. Her
stepfather had not necessarily appreciated the needless
interruptions, but he had seemed to enjoy letting his associates
have a look at his fetching stepdaughter.

But Altea had no reason to bother him today,
and she disliked going near the Old Town Square since the dreadful
executions that spring. She still could hardly believe that
Gretchen had met such a grisly fate. Unlike most of her neighbors,
Altea had not gone to witness the event. She could not imagine
seeing that kindly old woman, who her mother had depended upon so
much, dragged to the stake with her head shorn.

A haunted shudder shook Altea. She did not
want to believe the crimes the old midwife had committed, even if
her stepfather had insisted they were all true.

“Altea!”

Yiri’s piping voice tweeted her name with
delight. The seven-year-old boy ran down the steps and grabbed her
arm. Hauling her inside, he blathered about a dead bird.

“Mind the eggs,” Altea scolded as her basket
swung.

“Come see. We’re going to do a funeral,” Yiri
said.

“Don’t say it’s in the house,” Altea
said.

Cynthia’s shriek from the kitchen revealed
the maid’s discovery of the avian body. Her shrill scolding put an
end to the boys’ elaborate plans.

Elias hustled toward the door with the limp
sparrow dangling from his fingers and flung it in the street.

Yiri protested loudly, and Patrik and little
Erik wailed.

“What were you thinking?” Altea asked of
Elias. At fourteen he was the oldest and presumably capable of
preventing the deposit of corpses in the kitchen.

“There’s dead birds in the kitchen all the
time,” he said defensively.

“Those are for cooking,” Cynthia said.

“We were considering a cremation,” Elias shot
back.