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all_inclusive2014-04-20 11:35 pm
follow_the_wolf) wrote in all_inclusive2014-04-20 11:35 pm
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The Huntsman and His Wolves
Stories of the Huntsman and his Wolves were traded over the fires in the camps at the edges of Roman territory. Those whispers twisted with each telling, changed in the inflections and origin of its speaker. The Roman Empire spanned continents and pulled its soldiers from every territory, but no matter the language of those who shared the story, every tribe had a word for 'wolf.'
Some said they were outlaws who had been brought under the heel of the Emperor and had agreed to follow his orders in exchange for the sparing of their lives. Some said they were soldiers who had moved too smoothly through battle and been hand chosen by their commander to join his elite unit. Still others claimed they were shapeshifters who changed shape with the moon and so only struck enemy forces on those three nights of every month that the moon was at its fullest. There were whispers that each Wolf stood towering tall and lean under daylight, and became monstrous creatures under the fall of night. Most shocking of all, there were even whispers that there were women among their number who fought alongside the men as equals.
All agreed that the Wolves wore heavy mantles of thick fur across their shoulders, the long cloaks that fell behind them the color of the forest at night. They moved like ghosts through the forests they struck from, attacked only at night and fought with sword and bow and what could only be imagined as strange knives by the wounds left on the dead they left in their wake.
The Huntsman stepped at the forefront of his Wolves then, as dusk fell heavy among the trees, and looked over his shoulder to inspect those who ranged behind him, readying themselves for the strike ahead. He lifted his chin and spoke to the nearest of his Wolves, "You prepared?"
Some said they were outlaws who had been brought under the heel of the Emperor and had agreed to follow his orders in exchange for the sparing of their lives. Some said they were soldiers who had moved too smoothly through battle and been hand chosen by their commander to join his elite unit. Still others claimed they were shapeshifters who changed shape with the moon and so only struck enemy forces on those three nights of every month that the moon was at its fullest. There were whispers that each Wolf stood towering tall and lean under daylight, and became monstrous creatures under the fall of night. Most shocking of all, there were even whispers that there were women among their number who fought alongside the men as equals.
All agreed that the Wolves wore heavy mantles of thick fur across their shoulders, the long cloaks that fell behind them the color of the forest at night. They moved like ghosts through the forests they struck from, attacked only at night and fought with sword and bow and what could only be imagined as strange knives by the wounds left on the dead they left in their wake.
The Huntsman stepped at the forefront of his Wolves then, as dusk fell heavy among the trees, and looked over his shoulder to inspect those who ranged behind him, readying themselves for the strike ahead. He lifted his chin and spoke to the nearest of his Wolves, "You prepared?"
[AU and open to any who might like some leather and fur clad warriors in the Northern reaches of the Empire. Obviously any who are already shapeshifters could remain so, but others (such as the Huntsman himself) are purely human warriors]
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There is a panic, but there is an even deeper hunger that makes itself known quickly, as though being amidst wolves is going to bring him back to the person he had once been. No, not person. It brings him back to the monster that he always is. "Prepared for what?" he remarks icily, holding onto his control by a tenuous string.
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Although he had never before seen this Wolf, memories crowd into his thoughts and supply the name and history of the last to join their waiting number. This one was one only on the edge of being controlled, who had had the Huntsman so often fingering the fletching of an arrow in the none so idle consideration of what might have to be done if he could not follow what the Wolves were. "The Gallic warriors ahead," he reminded the other man.
The brutality the other was capable of was as familiar to him as the breath in his own chest, but where the Huntsman took no pleasure in the acts he committed in Caesar's name, he suspected the other took all too much.
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Hal feels the stretch and the pull of another life inside of him, but it is not a future pulling him to remember. No. It is the demonic part of his soul that yearns to pull at the flesh of their offenders and that wars with the stable, sensible part of his mind. He casts his glance to his comrade, breathing in the blood in the air raggedly, his control fraying by the second. "Do you wish for any parts of them to remain?" some part of him spoke, as if separated, culled, and removed before given leave to speak. "For I believe there will not be much otherwise."
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The Wolves had made a name for themselves in their tactics, the strikes they made from the darkness to decimate forces who had let their guard slip or would soon be too ruled by fear to act clearly. As little as the Huntsman liked the slaughter that inevitably followed, and never did they take prisoners as such a tactic could not survive for such a mobile group, it was the best way he knew how. "On my signal, wait for two volleys by the bowmen, then attack."
A brief check of their number and their readiness, and the Huntsman brought two fingers to his mouth to loose a whistle, the sound singing through the air for a second before it fell again into the darkness.
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Parts of him warred inside his mind, the good and the evil, both fighting to be in control. His skin itched, as though on too tight, but he listened to the commands. Hal is terribly used to commands, by now.
When the volleys are through, he runs, drawing his sword from its scabbard and charging, showing little mercy with every movement. This is inherent to him, this battle, but when blood is spilled, the entire world comes to a screaming halt. Four of them have been disposed of, but Hal stays shakily in one place, staring down in horror at the body beneath him.
...at the blood.
And he's so very hungry.
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He had heard the whispers of the reputation of the Wolves on those rare forays into the camps of the Roman army, those rumors beyond the truth of their strange humanity to the ability of some of their number to change their shape with the moon. They were spoke of as ghosts, but equally as cowards, their stealth and their preference for the night seen as cowardice rather than prudence.
When the world fell silent and he stood in the aftermath, drawing a rag from a pocket to wipe his sword clean of the blood at its edge, he looked to his wolves and knew different.
He turned to see the sharpness of one man's features, that haunted expression that had him moving quiet but swift toward that Wolf to speak to him. "You are through?" he asked, watchful and calm as he sheathed his weapon.
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He is not to do this. He has sworn to give control to the sane parts of his mind and not the monster. It still gnaws at him, but he fears it will always do so, because to tell the truth, it is a part of him that cannot be shaken. Hal slowly and methodically wipes the blood from off his sword until there isn't a trace of it left, taking care not to breathe in through his nose until he was finished.
"Do you think the fear of the gods is in them?" he asks, for if not, they have not done their task well enough.
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At the edge of the camp now littered with the bodies of their slain foes, looking around himself earns Hal's question only one answer. "I think the gods are all that matter to them now," he said, his brows drawn together. Resignation, not victory, triumphed in his voice, drawing his words flat from him and emptying them of all inflection.
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And though Hal has suppressed the hunger, it is still a hungry and vile smile that crosses his lips as he stares at the destruction around them, caused by their own hands. It is everything and it is wonderful and he had a part in it. Some thirsty part of his soul (if ever he still had one) calls out for more of it, but he tempers it with the knowledge that he must keep allies if he wishes to keep his life comfortable.
His gaze skirts over his companion. "And how many lives did you take?"
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"Six, this night." How many had been taken by his hand, at the edge of his sword, or at the tip of an arrow from his bow, he had long ago lost count. Their faces had long ago blurred into a mosaic of fury and of pain and of desperation, buried under the weight of necessity and set as distant from himself as he was able. He took care not to kill the innocent, to keep harm from women and children, to spare animals wherever he was able. The life he bought in blood spilled was often a thin thing, but it was his all the same. It was all that was his.
It was a subject he did not wish to discuss and indeed pulled himself physically back from, choosing instead to tell the other man. "We will finish here, then move on."
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