The Wolf & The Witch

Deth brought his sword straight down on the wolf’s throat, and Lestat bought his boot straight up into the wolf’s jaw, and Lestat’s leg was longer than Deth’s broken sword. Deth head’s folded back like oiled hinges and his sword just knicked Lestat’s throat.

Deth fell back, taking Bethany with him.

Claire pulled Lestat to his feet and glanced at his bleeding arm, then turned to Deth. “Looks like your mate’s a little sick.” The fake bandages were close, and Claire reached down for one, and wrapped Lestat’s forearm.

Deth spit blood; he ran his tongue over his teeth- two or three were missing. His mouth was full of blood and the taste of iron, and copper. “Looks like-“ he spit blood again, “Your mate’s a little injured.” He looked down at Bethany- she was barely conscious. There were still a handful of his men behind him. He motioned for them, and they stepped forward, slowly, swords drawn.

Lestat took the few seconds to look around, and think: James had backed up with his wives and was watching, and he looked worried, and Lestat still could not figure out whether he was an enemy or a friend. Half his wives glared down, and half looked worried. Half of Edward’s elite guard- five wolves, had assembled on one side of the arena, the other half were coming, and the wolves who escorted them from their cell were on the other side of the arena. All wolves. All strong, and trained. All waiting. Lestat was smart enough to know it didn’t matter how strong he was- there was no chance of winning against twenty wolves in an open arena. Although it looked like a few of them were sick, and it looked like the sickness was getting to them. One wobbled, and one took a knee. Lestat saw only one option, but it was risky, and he needed weapons.

Claire pulled a skin free from Lestat’s side and took water to his lips. He drank, then she took the skin to his shoulder and poured water down his left arm and blood ran with the water. “My mate,” Claire said, staring Deth in the eyes, “Does not lose to pathetic shit stains like you. Bow your head and die.”

Mate? Lestat looked down at her. Mate? Pride ran up and over him like metal armor- pride that this beautiful, amazing woman thought that highly of him. Growls rumbled around his chest, and throat, and he pulled her close. Claire smiled up at him and ran magic down her left arm, through him, to his left arm, and froze the water and the blood solid. Ice added to ice, and hardened around his muscles, and compacted into a large, heavy club, and Lestat felt the weight in his back and shoulder. He rested his arm on the ground a second, and the sun glinted white ablations off the ice.

Claire glanced behind Deth and Bethany at the dead men and the large pool of blood, sticky, and red, and liquid, and then over her shoulder, at the wolves circling them.

Lestat started to lift his arm and was surprised- the ice weighed a hundred pounds or more. He took a step, dragging his left arm behind, then another. Deth stood with Bethany and she fell to the ground, pulling him down. Her white clothes were brown and red- dirt and blood. Claire wrapped both her hands around Lestat’s right hand- his cuffed hand, and took a long stride forward, and then pulled him forward with all the strength she had- Lestat used the extra momentum to raise his hundred-pound hand into the air and brought it crashing down onto Deth- he tried to shield himself with what was left of his sword, but the ice went through the metal as easily as it did bone- Deth was driven into the stones and the force of the ice destroyed his shoulder and the back quarter of his skull. His head bounced, and gray mush and tendons and viscera splattered the stones. His eyes went wide, and half-blank, but he was not dead. Yet. His feet twitched, and he was reaching for something, over and over, and trying to say something.

“Please…” Bethany moaned, her face covered in gray chunks and white bands of tendons like cotton threads.

Claire opened Lestat’s hand, and wrote: Blood.

He squeezed her hand, then opened it, and wrote: Swords.

Claire knelt down and put the back of her hand on Bethany’s forehead- she was burning alive. “That’s a higher fever than you had. Wow.” Claire looked back over her shoulder at him- “Makes you wonder what was in that closet.”

Wolves were approaching- the elite guard, walking up. One shifted, and another, and Lestat felt the thud of their footsteps in his feet.

“…what… did…” Bethany was delirious; her skin looked like condensation on the outside of an eggshell.

Claire was curious what happened to one of them when the other died, and what happened to the cuff. She grabbed the broken sword, laid it on Deth’s throat, and pushed down. His esophagus, and muscles, and tendons opened and pulled apart, like stiff laundry, and blood poured from the arteries- most of it down his throat, and he blinked, and breathed bright-foam bubbles out of the corners of his mouth, and died. And a moment later Bethany’s eyes went blank, and the metal cuff cracked and fell off their wrists to the ground. The inside looked like tree rings, and Claire snatched a piece as Lestat grabbed her.

They were being flanked, and the only place where there were weapons and no wolves was straight towards Edward and James. Blood and weapons. Lestat hefted her and ran towards the middle of the arena, and he heard the wolves following. His boots splattered the pool of blood and he reached down and grabbed a sword, and another, and Claire leaned out of his right arm and reached back, and froze the blood solid, and nearly passed out- she was using too much magic. Lestat slid off the blood to a stop, and spun around- ten werewolves were on them- their shirts torn, swords at their sides, black and brown fur, tall and strong. He knew his destination, and did not hesitate- he ran straight back at them, hit the ice, and slid. The wolves also slid- mostly into each other, and not the wolf and the witch as they shot past the frozen red surface. Lestat jumped to his feet the second they hit solid stone and ran.

James watched. His wives Bev, Soph, Olive, Em, and Emma watched. And they were all fairly impressed. Many in the stands were dead. And many in the stands were dying, and even the elite wolves were slower, and slightly sickly. Two were on the ground. If the crowd was any indication of the city outside, then the wolf and the witch had poisoned and killed over half the entire population. And if it weren’t for Olive, it was likely they would be poisoned as well.

Lestat ran straight for the dungeon. He had two swords in his left hand, and Claire in his right, and they hit the steps at a flat run, down the first set of stone steps and into the first narrow stone hallway. He turned, and handed Claire one of the swords. He knew this was a very dangerous place to fight- if they were thrown into a cell, and the door shut, then they could be killed in any number of ways. However, it was either here, or running to the gate, but even if they’d made it to the gate, it would be a fast death to fight werewolves on a bridge over a bottomless ravine. And they couldn’t flee to the sewers- not with poison running through the water and open wounds.

The werewolves came thumping down the stairs, stooping because of the low stone ceiling. The yellow light was crawled around the corners on anemic knees, and the smell of piss and filth turned the air acidic.

And the werewolves came. One at a time.

“Smart,” the first wolf said. The others stayed back a few steps, watching. In this hall there were only two choices for fighting- shift back to a man and use a sword, or have very little room to attack. The first elite guard remained a wolf, and walked forward on two hind legs.

Lestat let him come. The wolf charged and threw a straight right punch, hard enough to snap support beams, and Lestat dodged left, threw his sword into the wolf’s foot, and jumped. The wolf roared, and swiped, but it was a slow effort- his hand caught on the iron bars of a cell and Lestat grabbed his sword while in the air and slit his stomach open from one side to the other, and leapt back. The wolf fell backwards, holding his stomach, and spilled out across the stones.

Lestat backed up past iron bars down the dim hall. Some cell doors were open, some weren’t. Only a few had prisoners, and they were watching, curious.

Two werewolves shifted into men, drew their swords and stepped forward. Then they ran. Lestat kept Claire back and blocked right, dodged left, and pushed one of the men into a cell with his shoulder, then blocked again, swiped and missed, and the first man was up. Claire flung fire in his eyes and he dodged.

“Le-“ was all she could get out.

The man brought his boot forward and caught Lestat in the back of the leg and he went down on his knees. Claire watched as one sword was thrust at them, and one fell on them, and she was positive they were going to die, when Lestat rolled right, planting her on the stones and rolling his body over hers, then he flicked his wrist and swiped and took the legs of the nearest man. Claire grunted, and grimaced, and he jerked her back by the arm and she felt the blade of a sword skim her lips.

Lestat jumped forward, deflecting and attacking. If the damn guards were this skilled, how goddamn good must Edward have been? Holy hell. Lestat knew, from here on out- he was carrying an iron pike, and wished he had it now. Metal flashed against metal in the dim hall and another man was at his back, driving a sharp steel blade down- not as a man, not as a werewolf- but half-transformed: larger, stronger, but not enough to fill the stone and iron hall.

Claire reached out, grabbed the nearest bar, and jerked them back- but shouldn’t have. Lestat knew there was a man behind them, and had Claire not pulled them Lestat would’ve taken his hand. Instead a heavy hand caught his jaw and rattled his brain and the wolf and the witch were driven back into the bars.

The half-wolf brought his boot up to kick Claire, and Lestat pushed her, and took the heavy kick to his ribs, and another, and was just able to deflect a sword from pinning his head to the bars.

The half-wolf grabbed Lestat by the face and forced his head back into the iron, and the man pinned Claire against the bars with his boot in her stomach.

Lestat’s neck was being crushed. He dropped his sword, and his hand fell, pretending to pass out, and a half second later he snuck his hand up to his pack.

Another were-wolf marched down the hall, waiting, blocking out the light.

The man holding Claire reached out for her breast and she punched him- straight in the nose, busting it.

“You funging itch!” he roared, headbutted her, and pulled his sword back to run her through.

Lestat jerked the saw blade from his pack, shifted, turned and drove the jagged edge into the temple of the half-wolf pinning him to the bars, knocking him sideways.

Claire threw fire at the man holding her, and at the werewolf to her left. Magic down her arm, and out, and flung as much fire as she could- she flooded their eyes and noses and ears with fire, and their hair burst into flames, and she passed out.

The man pinning Claire to the bars had practiced thrusting a sword for over a decade. In wind, snow, against armed men, while being hit- his muscles had memorized how to kill. He was elite for a reason. Fire blinded him, and he was shoved aside by his dead comrade, but his thrust did not miss. He turned his hand on instinct, and his sword went straight into her right hip and pinned her to the bars by her ilium.

Claire slumped, and the sword snagged bone and Lestat caught her, kicked the man away and jabbed the sawblade into his eye, then slit his throat. Lestat saw fire, and saw the blade pierce her skin, and saw life leave her body. He retreated down the hall, into the dark. “Hey. Hey, wake up.” He held her tight, and he felt blood running over his forearm- hers. “Claire?”

The witch did not move, and she did not speak. She was limp in his arms, and her blood ran warm down his hand, down his fingers, and plopped off the cold stone floor.

*

And the bright sun was extinguished, and the stars wandered darkling in the eternal space, rayless, and lifeless, and the icy earth swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. Darkness, and there was but one thought: death, immediate, and inglorious, and the black hands of famine clutched his heart, and he looked up to feed on men, and the entrails of men.