Werelord Thal: A Renaissance Werewolf Tale (59 page)

Rainer felt utterly renewed with the
enchanted werewolf fur draped across his palms. The pain caused by
his betrayal of Thal let go of him like a dandelion seed in the
wind. Vitality surged through his flesh. Rainer threw back his head
and took deep gasping breaths to glory in his sudden freedom. The
fluffy clouds that he beheld suddenly trumpeted with angelic
renewal. He had never dreamed that possessing the fur would free
him of Thal’s dominion. He could truly belong to God now. He rushed
away without looking at Thal, knowing that he could not endure the
sight of the man he had betrayed. Thal had offered him friendship
and Rainer had ruined him.

One of the sellswords had a heavy set of
chains and manacles dangling from his belt and he brought them out.
The metallic rattle spoke of bondage and hard death. Thal saw red
with a rage so intense he wondered if he would transform even
without his fur.

When the man grabbed a wrist to apply a
manacle, Thal surged with wrathful strength and pulled his arm
free. He grabbed the chain and punched the man in the face. The
sellsword reeled away clutching his spurting nose. Thal kicked the
man pinning his chest between the legs and then bashed the third
man across the chin with his elbow.

Breaking free, he wrapped the chain once
about his fist and swung the iron manacles. He beat his attackers
with the chains. The metal dented their armor and gouged their
faces and broke their fingers. Pistol bit their calves and hands
and buttocks as they rolled about in abject defeat.

Once the bloody men were cowering to his
satisfaction, Thal threw down the dripping chain. He retrieved his
sword and his hat. The crowd of onlookers fell back when he looked
around. He could not spot Rainer but his trail lit up his mind like
a comet on the blackest night. Thal stormed after the monk and
people evaporated from his path like he was the Apocalypse on
cloven feet.

Thal fumed with wretched anger. The absence
of his fur was the most upsetting sensation imaginable. He felt
stripped of the very essence of his life, unmoored from Creation
and bankrupt of spirit.

Thal gained on the monk rapidly. Rainer
quickened his pace. He shouted warnings about the sorcerer that
chased him.

Foot and horse traffic was crowded near the
Kamenny Most. Thal pushed through the people agitated by Rainer’s
raving. Horses balked when Thal passed near, adding to the
disorder. Some mounted men in royal livery spotted Thal and
hollered for him to be stopped, but the few who dared to set hands
on Thal were flung away roughly, and Thal’s attention never wavered
from his prey.

Rainer broke into a run on the bridge. The
wolf fur’s tail flapped in the wind as Rainer’s sandals banged on
smooth stones.

When Thal reached the bridge two horse carts
veered from him and blocked traffic. The mounted royal guards were
stymied in the chaos, and Thal sprinted after Rainer.

Over the middle of the Vltava, he tackled him
into the stone wall. Seizing Rainer by the throat, Thal greedily
yanked his fur back into his possession. Rainer clawed at the
steely hand crushing his windpipe.

“How could you do this to me?” Thal yelled.
“No one will ever accept you like I would have. Not your God. Not
your brotherhood. No one!”

“I’m sorry,” Rainer wheezed but it was too
late for apologies. Thal had felt the desolate violation of having
his wolf fur taken and knew that all sympathy for Rainer was
forever erased.

In addition to Thal’s punishing grip, the
magical pain in the healed bite wounds returned to Rainer. He
groaned and his struggles diminished.

“Unhand that man! How dare you touch a man of
God?” shouted a stalwart citizen.

Thal faced the man rushing to the monk’s
rescue. He was of sturdy build and well dressed but fumbling to
draw his dirk. The heat of true battle had never warmed his cheeks
before but he had a courageous heart.

Thal kept Rainer pinned against the bridge.
“This is no man, and he rejects the fate that his God has given
him,” Thal ridiculed.

The man had managed to get his dirk out, but
he halted a couple paces away behind his shaking weapon. Upon
really taking in Thal’s appearance he realized he was substantially
outclassed in the arts of violence. Anger had intensified the many
colors of Thal’s eyes. The wolf fur glistened in the sun with
supernatural beauty.

Hastily the man crossed himself. “God save
me. It’s the witch monster,” he said.

Letting go of Rainer, Thal faced the man and
drew his sword. He took one step forward and the man backed
off.

“Be gone with you!” Thal said. The man looked
at Rainer coughing over the edge of the bridge.

“Leave him alone,” the man admonished,
clinging to his desire to do the right thing.

“I will,” Thal said ominously. He whirled to
face the other people. Traffic had halted. Horses neighed and
people cried out with alarm.

A few swings of his sword moved the onlookers
back. Thal returned to Rainer. He looked ashen. The glow of health
that the enchanted fur had briefly bestowed was gone, and his
ragged misery returned.

“Go from me, Rainer,” Thal commanded. “Live
with my curse upon you and know that you can never serve me or call
me friend. Go back to your brothers. Find out how long it takes
Vito to send you to his fires.”

“Noooo!” Rainer wailed and clutched his head.
The scars on his face stood out brightly against his depleted skin.
He called out to his God and Savior but received no cleansing or
surcease of his pain.

Thal held his fur tightly and turned away.
Rainer’s misery was not his doing.

A gasp from the people made Thal look back.
Rainer stood on the edge. His arms were spread wide and he was
falling forward. Thal naturally reached out to him, forgetting his
wrath, but he was not close enough to grab him. Rainer tumbled into
the water like a tree falling off a cliff. Thal rushed to the edge
as did many other people. Having no skill at swimming, Rainer
splashed uselessly in the river’s current and was soon pulled
under. Profound shock subdued the witnesses. The monk had chosen
suicide and was forever banished from the bosom of his Church.

Thal watched the water flow but Rainer’s head
never popped up. He wished he had been able to ease Rainer’s
torment. A companion to sing and hunt with would have been a good
thing.

There are others, he reminded himself
soberly. Perhaps not all saw their werewolf power as a curse.

Pistol whined at his feet, warning Thal not
to linger. He looked toward the Little Quarter side of the river.
The royal guards were making their way toward him. The other way
toward Old Town was relatively clear, but he had business still in
the Little Quarter. Thal reasoned that a handful of mounted guards
with only spears would not be too much trouble.

Quickly he secured his fur to its place
beneath his cloak. He did not have time to reload his pistols.
After sliding his sword back into its sheath, he wagged a finger at
the astounded people and said, “No one say I pushed that monk in.
You all saw I didn’t do it.”

With his admonishment spoken, he dashed off.
People stayed to the edges of the bridge and the riders advanced.
Everyone expected a big confrontation and the capture of the
notorious criminal, but the front horse swerved and stymied the
riders behind it. Thal jumped onto the edge of the bridge and raced
past the group of armed guards and then jumped back onto the
bridge. Dodging pedestrians, he wove through people and raced back
into the Little Quarter. Because of his speed, he disappeared into
narrow streets before the riders that pursued him got turned around
and off the bridge.

Thal turned every corner he came to and by a
circuitous route emerged into a residential area of palaces for
royal administrators. He slipped through an unlocked gate into a
walled park filled with mature trees. The leafy cover was cool and
soothing. A small chapel was tucked among the trees but no one was
about. Thal went inside the little stone building. A small cross
and altar were within and a cushion with two depressions was
positioned in front of a rail for comfortable praying.

Thal flopped against the wall and sat down.
Gold and red light came through the stained glass. The lead
framework on the main window cast an image of Wenceslaus. Thal’s
heavy breathing was loud in the small space. He slid a hand against
his fur, grateful to have retrieved it. Looking up at the ornate
cross, its gold leaf shining in the colorful light, he thought of
Rainer. The poor man had not found the solace he needed in his God,
and Thal reflected upon his inability to deliver it either.

Altea was mindless with disoriented terror.
Hard hands hauled her through the square like a cow being brought
to slaughter.

The growing crowd raved at her.

“Behold the witch!” someone shouted over and
over.

“Witch!”

“She brings the Devil!”

“Kill her!”

“Kill the witch!”

The vicious clamoring for her demise
bewildered Altea. She moaned and sobbed helplessly as her captors
propelled her forward.

A rock hit her in the chest. Then a rotting
turnip struck her. She tried again to twist away, but the hands
squeezed her arms mercilessly and dragged her forward.

People leered at her and someone poked her
with a stick but the dreadful men holding her shoved him away. When
the throng impeded her captors too much, riders came alongside and
cleared the way.

They entered a street off the square, and the
pressure of the crowd relented.

“Let me go. Let me go,” Altea pleaded.

The men brought her to a squat stone building
with small windows and an appalling smell. Someone pushed open the
thick door. Confronted by the dark hole, she clawed at the men, but
her fingernails scraped uselessly across thick cloth or armor. She
twisted and kicked and threw a foot up against the door frame. The
men yanked her back to dislodge her foot and then bashed her head
against the door frame as punishment.

The pain was stunning. She was only aware of
a mixed up swirl of grim images as they dragged her inside. She saw
dark red splashes of blood on the stone walls and floor.

Down a long hall they took her. When she saw
the lattice walls of thick iron bars, she started screaming. A door
screeched open and they tossed her into the reeking straw.

Altea landed on her knees and stayed there
trembling and crying. The men followed her inside. One of them
grabbed her from behind and lifted her up. His hands scooped her
breasts and he pressed himself against her bottom.

“Got caught in just your nightie,” he
laughed.

His partner came around in front of her. His
blonde hair was greasy, and dark grunge filled the grooves between
his teeth. He put his hands on her hips. The thin fabric of her
nightgown offered only a flower petal’s protection from his
calloused hands.

“No, no, no,” she sobbed.

The man behind her covered her mouth and
squeezed her breast hard. The man in front of her cackled into her
face. She shut her eyes. His hands slid between her thighs. He
groped her genitals, and pressed his fingers into her vagina.

“My cock’s getting hard for you. I know you
witches like cock,” he said.

Altea shoved him back with her knees.

“Hold the bitch,” he complained.

The man behind Altea hooked one of his feet
in front of hers, and his mate stomped on Altea’s bare foot. He
clamped a hand around her throat and started lifting her
nightgown.

“No time for that,” declared someone outside
the cell.

The men released her. She fled uselessly into
a corner and collapsed against the bars like a fly in a spider
web.

“You can’t do this!” she screeched.

The men laughed and heaved shut her cell
door. It clanged into its frame like a badly tuned bell. When
everyone left, Altea ran to the single window and stood on her
tiptoes to see outside.

“Help me! Help me!” she screamed to someone
on the street. He frowned at the jail and sped up. Two women walked
by and Altea screamed to them. They looked aghast that she had
spoken to them and hurried onward.

Altea screamed and sobbed until she slid down
the wall and huddled in pitiful defeat. Grimy straw that stank
worse than a chamber pot after a bad meal splayed out around her.
Rat turds sprinkled the slick floor.

Shaking and utterly depleted, she lapsed into
a half conscious state. She stared into space while her mind
blundered across the broken ground of reality seeking escape.

She yielded to the drunkenness of despair.
Her eyes lost focus. Trauma vibrated through her battered flesh
like a nail plucking a lute string. A tenacious flicker of her
spirit clung to the cliff edge of madness and coaxed her to hang
on. The delirium of true raving insanity would bring no
comfort.

“Thal,” she whispered.

She was here because of him. There could be
no other cause. She had embraced his monolithic mystery. The
lessons of a lifetime she had tossed away. Her hungry kisses had
gorged on sweet fruit born of forbidden freedoms.

Yet she could not match these terrible
punishments to her actions. She had only yielded to a natural
longing for love. Despite an upbringing that had warned against the
temptations of the flesh, she had found no evil in the connection
of their bodies. The exciting pleasure had beckoned her with the
promise of bliss, and Thal’s passion possessed a purity that seemed
meant only for her. Kissing him had been as if sipping from the
Holy Grail. His touch had redeemed her from an oppressive
loneliness that confined her and admitted no breeze of the world as
it actually was. Even on the filthy floor she savored memories of
their brief encounters.