Greywolf - The City of Ruin

Dawn's barely lightening the sky to the east as we creep towards the ancient ruin that was once a city.

It's nestled against a cliffside and surrounded by hills, its walls crumbling with large gaps between them. The main gate to the west is in better condition, with a tower on each side, but the other three towers aren't in nearly as good of shape. Especially on the east side. A swift moving large stream's eaten away the walls, collapsing them as it did with the tower, but there's another set of tall hills with steep slopes just beyond, so it's doubtful anyone's made an escape attempt that way.

Considering how barren and cold this place is for dozens of leagues in any direction, it's doubtful anyone's tried. According to Castor, most of the people he saw were women and children, with only a few old women and no men whatsoever, living in a combination of tents and ancient buildings partially rebuilt. Castor also caught the scent of food cooking, and saw women drawing water from the stream and carrying it back while the Daemo watched.

In fact, they're watching the prisoners so hard that they're not paying attention to anything else. Even though the sky's still dark as Muzen's heart, the tree's giving off a sickly yellowish glow, letting us see the Daemo standing on the broken walls and towers, along with those stationed between the gaps. Most of them resemble the man-like Daemo used as guards by much of the civilized world, with armor and weapons made out of their own secretions, except these have heads resembling beasts. But there's also squat Daemo with round heads and no necks, while others resemble a mix of animal parts with man-like faces. The Daemo above the gate is a large warrior with an eye on a stalk between its broad shoulders, while the huge monster, crouched down in the space where the city gates used to be, is a three-headed dog.

Every single one of them has their backs to us. "They've gotten lazy," I whisper to Attila as we slowly climb up to the small plateau the ruin was built upon. Asena and Titan are beside us, their attention focused on the three-headed monster filling up much of the space inside the open gateway, while Hypam and her warriors follow close behind.

The creature has all three of its heads resting on its yellowish-green paws. "Lucky for us," he whispers back as spearmen with large black shields get into position as well. Behind us, Hypam makes the sound of a bird call, and everyone with our group stops moving. "We're in bow range of the gate," he whispers, and I nod, following his lead as we crouch down on the dry earth. As we wait for the other groups arranged around the gaps in the walls to respond, he reaches out and fingers my armor, whispering, "How did Varsena do?"

"Best armor I've ever had" I whisper back, glancing down at its thick, transmuted plates, before hefting the Artifact katana that Varsena had also transmuted. "This too."

Attila holds out the Artifact battle-axe, pointing at the small cracks on both blades, like pebbles thrown at a mirror, and I give him a wry smile. Then both our heads turn as a bird call chirps from the darkness to our right. More bird calls chirp from farther down the broken walls, and Attila must be counting them, for as the last one sounds, he whispers, "Everyone's in place."

He gestures at Hypam, who nods back and motions for several warriors with shields to cover her and the half dozen Fire mages as they cup their hands. Seven spinning balls of fire light up the space behind the spearmen holding up their shields, as seven boys of the Horde, each carrying a mage's bow with an arrow nocked, step forward. Each Fire mage attaches their spinning fireball, now giving off sparks, to the arrowhead, and the spearmen kneel as the mages stand up. They take aim and fire.

Seven fiery comets streak over our heads as one of the creatures, farther down on a broken piece of wall, gives a shout. The warrior monster over the gate turns around just as the arrows strike it and explode. It blasts apart, the pieces dissolving into slime. The two-headed dog monster shakes itself awake and turns around.

Titan and Asena are already moving. The creature rushes towards them, and Titan takes the lead as Attila leads the rest of us forward at a slow jog, Titan raising his tower shield as the two-headed monster slams into it.

The creature bounces off as if hitting a stone wall, Asena bellowing an ancient war cry as she descends upon it like a storm of steel, and the rest of us take off at a run around them towards the main gate. Glancing up, monsters on the walls are dissolving as arrows hiss like angry serpents, the sound of shouting and pounding feet coming all along the broken wall now. As we pass the fight, Asena's ripping into the beast's side as Titan splits one of the skulls almost in half with his sword. We leave them behind as we reach the open gateway.

The first of the Daemo stumble out of the tower doorways to either side of the main gate, pitted weapons in their hands, and I rush to meet them. The first in line swings its sword as it overextends itself; I dodge, then slash it across its rat-like face before it can recover. It dissolves as the warriors assigned to clear this tower pass me, and engage the Daemo crowding the doorway. I get out of their way as I turn around.

Attila's fighting alongside a big warrior wielding a long handled mace and round shield, the Daemo reeling under their onslaught as more warriors join them. Attila blocks a blow with the haft of his axe, then swings at the Daemo's unprotected side as the warrior crushes another Daemo's skull. They press onward and I move away from them into the city.

Whatever buildings once stood here are only jagged stones like broken teeth, the area clear all around the massive Daemo tree glowing its sickly yellow color. It stands at least fifty feet tall, with its trunk sprouting tentacles like ropey snakes beginning to move about. Its roots extend outward at least ten feet, resembling giant, pod-like feet, and I watch its trunk split open lengthwise near its base into a gaping maw. Shite, what a monster!

Thankfully, its tentacles can't reach anywhere close to us, as the first spearman runs past me and plants himself at the point where the shield wall is going to form. Looking past the tree, the open area extends for a bit, then becomes a small city of tents and restored buildings, with animal pens and patches of tilled earth like gardens. The wind shifts, and the smell of too many people crammed in together with their animals makes me wrinkle my nose. To my right, Daemo at the gaps in the walls are being driven back by the fighters as the Daemo on the walls dissolve under archer fire.

Turning back towards the gate, the warriors are streaming into the tower doorways on both sides, while beyond them, Asena cleaves the two-headed creature's other skull in. The huge monster collapses in a heap and dissolves. Standing between the towers, Attila raises his battle-axe as he yells out something in triumph. I grin and raise my katana... wait, his eyes have gone wide and his expression's sliding into horror. I whirl around as the spearman behind me screams.

Wotan's blood, the Daemo tree's moved closer. Several of its tentacles are wrapped around the spearman's legs, and are pulling him towards its gaping maw as its roots... no, they're not roots. They're pod-like feet pulling the creature towards us. The spearman's dropped his weapon and shield and is now clawing at the knife at his belt, and looking past him at the tree, its got more tentacles waving about just inside its mouth. I look up as several more whip downward straight towards me.

Without thinking, I create a gate and step into the Grey. Instinctively, I do my complete circle with the katana out, scanning the ground and the sunless sky above me for Shadow creatures. The sky's clear and the area around me clear of everything except detailed shadows of Horde warriors pouring through the gateway or the gaps as the Daemo reel back... and the tree waiting to kill them all.

I end my circle and stare up at the shadows of the tentacles creeping towards me. There's no way I can kill this thing; shite, I don't think Asena or Titan could get close enough before it wrapped those things around their necks and strangled them. It's too big, and it's going to be on the warriors before Hypam and her Fire mages can hurt it. There's no way I can kill this thing alone.

"Not alone," a dark voice growls inside my head. I shudder, yet as I look up and up at the tentacles, hundreds of them streaming out like cannibal vines, I know it's right. There's only one way to stop this thing.

Sheathing my sword, I race past the shadow of the warrior with the knife now in his hand, and head towards the gaping mouth. As I get close, I can see there's a few eye-stalks with bulbous eyes mixed in with the ropey tentacles, three of them directly over its open maw. All of them are fully extended, straining forward to see better as the tentacles make a shadowy canopy over my head.

Stopping in front of the mouth split up and down, I try to stop the feeling of panic threatening to overwhelm me as I open a gate and step through it. The cavernous mouth fills my sight, large enough to swallow a Warghorse, its charnel house threatening to gag me as I close my eyes and become the gate.

My Shadow wolf leaps through me, taking my strength again as it dives straight into the gaping maw.

I fall back, landing hard on the ground as the grey Shadow wolf rips apart the interior tentacles with its claws and teeth, then begins tearing its way deeper inside. The Daemo creature shrieks as the tentacles torn away dissolve into slime and vanish. It stops moving as the Shadow wolf scrambles upward, perhaps into one of the creature's chambers, and is lost to my sight. But I can still hear it tearing apart the Daemo creature's insides as its tentacles whip about in a frenzy. It lets go of the spearman as it stuffs dozens of tentacles into its mouth, but I don't think it can reach the Shadow wolf, for the sound of frenzied ripping inside it continues as the creature shrieks again.

One of the eyes is looking right at me while dozens of tentacles whip straight down... as hands grasp me and pull me backwards.

Color bleeds away from the world, the tentacles now detailed shadows, as papa says in a mild voice, "You do know I'm not always going to be around to save you, right?" He doesn't wait for a response, but picks me up with surprising strength and slings me over his shoulder, carrying me to where Attila's shadow self looks to be shouting out orders. Papa makes a gate and walks through it.

Attila jumps back as papa dumps me onto the ground. "Guard my son," papa snaps as Attila gapes at him. Asena and Titan are running towards us, the Daemo tree still shrieking as papa adds, "None of you realize how dangerous it is for Greywolf every time he's forced to summon his Shadow wolf."

Asena stops beside us, with Titan close behind. "You bastard," she snarls. "In other words, once it finishes off the Daemo, it'll come after the rest of us."

Papa shakes his head. "Only Greywolf, and it won't try to kill him." Without explaining his cryptic remark, papa makes a gate into the Shadowlands and vanishes.

"Hel take that man," Asena growls.

"For all we know he could be the mythical king of the Afterlife," Titan rumbles as he drops to one knee beside me. "Greywolf, are you hurt?"

I shake my head. "Just sucked dry, in a sense. I'll be better in a couple days." Beyond the writhing tree, people begin screaming, and Titan gets to his feet. "Asena, time to get back into the fight."

Attila hefts his battle-axe. "I'll assign a few warriors to carry Greywolf back to the rally point, and join-"

"No," Titan rumbles, "you need to remain here. The situation is chaotic, and decisions will need to be made. Your men need to know where you are and see you standing confident."

"Besides," Asena adds, "the way that creature's whipping its tentacles around, it'll likely kill any human who gets close." She thumps the broad axe in her left hand against her armored chest. "We can shrug those off. You can't."

"Not to mention that Ghostdog entrusted his son to you." Titan points his sword to the far right, where Horde warriors have stopped advancing as they stare up at the Daemo tree now swaying from side to side. "Asena, keep on my sword side as we pass it by."

"Not a problem." As the two start running towards the edge of the tentacle's reach, Asena growls, "Wotan's blood, Ghostdog knew none of us had ever faced this kind of creature before. Why didn't he warn us?"

"At times I wonder if Greywolf's father is playing a deeper game than we know," Titan rumbles back.

The Daemo tree screams again, the creature shaking itself as if trying to dislodge the Shadow wolf inside it while the tentacles whip about in a frenzy. Horde warriors are running towards Attila, shouting in their harsh language, and Attila answers them back as a burnt smell touches my nose.

A moment later Hypam drops down beside me. "I was past the front gate with my Fire archers and saw what you did. Wysper told me the story of your saving her from Muzen this way, so I know what it took from you." She grins. "You saved me having to fletch a bunch of new arrows, because that thing would've been tough to knock down-"

The Daemo tree trumpets a ghastly shriek so loud I cover my ears, its tentacles no longer thrashing but standing straight out in all directions. Then it collapses inward. The vine-like tentacles melt away as its sides liquefy, the tree dissolving into a blob that quivers a moment before the earth sucks it up.

In the hushed silence that follows, the Shadow wolf shakes itself and stands up. It's larger than it was the last time and now resembles a Warg, with powerful limbs and a larger head with long fangs. It turns in a circle as if looking for enemies, but although the sounds of battle are coming from farther within the tent city, there's no other Daemo in sight. The grey Shadow Warg finishes its circle and stops.

It's looking straight at me. The beast's mouth opens in a smile, and begins running towards us at a lope, which quickly becomes a full out run. My heart's pounding, Hypam not nocking an arrow but only gaping at the Shadow Warg, the Horde warriors around us doing the same. Attila shakes himself as if overcoming an enchantment, and raises his battle-axe. "Greywolf's my friend," he yells as the beast approaches. "You can't have him." Shite, the Shadow Wolf's going to rip him apart. I try to shout, warn him to get out of the way, but my voice only comes out as a croak as the creature tenses itself. It leaps straight at Attila as he swings downward.

A grey oval appears between them and the Shadow Warg disappears as it passes through it.

Attila checks his swing, gaping at the place the beast had just been as I let out the breath I'd been holding. The Horde warriors seem shaken, as if they'd just seen a ghost, and a large one yells something at the others, motioning to where the Shadow Warg had been, then back at Attila. The others are nodding and yelling the same thing, as the large warrior begins banging his sword against his shield. The others join in, then more from behind us, and glancing back, the warriors on the walls are yelling the same phrase as they bang their shield or thump their two-handed weapon on the walls or on the towers.

I look at Hypam. "What's going on?"

Hypam's expression turns sardonic. "You just gave the warriors the sign they'd been looking for. Ghazan there," Hypam pointing at the large warrior who'd started the chant, "told the others the new clan's spirit just fought for us, and has now entered Attila. News of this is going to spread like a fire on the dry grass."

I shiver as I realize how close a call that had been. "If papa hadn't been waiting for this to happen, it likely would've knocked Attila aside and torn me apart."

"Not true," and we both jump as papa appears beside us and kneels down. "It doesn't want to hurt you, it wants to become you... or rather, wants you to merge with it and become a Warg in truth."

"Seriously?" Papa nods, and I say, "I don't understand. Asena told me that when I was conceived, you decided what elements of yourself to put in and what to leave out." He nods again, and I shake my head. "Why did you make it possible for me to become a monster?"

He reaches out with a calloused hand and smooths my hair. "Your mother told you she was bred by her parents for war, right?" I nod, and he gets to his feet. "So were you, and the war is just beginning."

Papa winks at us, then opens a grey gate behind him, steps through, and is gone.