all_inclusive | 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?"

[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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They've all had words for her. Spirit, witch, lemure. There are whispers that she is a curse from the gods themselves. She welcomes them but none will speak them to her face and Marceline continues to offer too sharp smiles and aloof behavior until someone else had the courage.

"I never play tricks," she replies, face innocent. "Not on my allies. No glue either."

If she's gluing swords to scabbards, she'll use her powers.

Outside the realm of the wolves who run the night, as the those who changed their shape with the moon who had raised him and a good portion of the Wolves themselves were, the Huntsman had little love of magic. Of course, neither did he have much love of humans and their concept of humanity without honor, but his allegiance was owed to Caesar with the agreement that the wolves be kept safe.

He had little personal rancor for the woman he spoke to then, for all her strangeness and fangs. While there was nothing on his face then that suggested he wholly believed her, let along anything like innocence on her face, he nodded. "See that it stays that way."

With one hand, he pulled his bow from where it had been looped around his back and retrieved an arrow to make ready. "When the clouds pass across the moon, we go. Understood?" He waited only for an acknowledgement before he moved on to assure that the others were ready as the light of the full moon above faded with each passing moment, eaten up by cloud cover. When all was dark, he brought two fingers to his mouth and let out a short, high whistle to signal the attack.

Marceline nods. Not beholden by the moon, she's already half-shifted, granting her the hearing and sense of smell of her animal self. Bloodlust is bubbling through her stomach, but she keeps a handle on it, listens to the human side of her instincts. It's what she needs to keep to her commands.

As the clouds pass, she straightens and draws her sword, running at the whistle.

No matter his desire to stay his hand, the group of warriors they tracked had gone too far in their strikes against Rome. The Huntsman would have kept the Wolves from action had it been a fort or an imperial camp ahead, not a village, well believing that the soldiers of Rome needed to defend themselves, not be defended.

His allegiance had been sworn, and no matter his personal feelings in the matter, they needed to be set aside in favor of seeing the Gauls stopped. There was no room for mercy in the first volley of arrows, nor the second, as the men were surprised in their fireside waiting. Sheer numbers played no part in the equation, not where twenty overcame three times or more times that number, the Wolves rushing from the cover of the woods on two legs or on four, using steel or the flash of teeth to tear apart the haphazard Gallic defense.

The scene was moonlit melee, and soon finished, leaving the Huntsman standing at the center of the camp with his sword in his hand and pulling in shallow breaths.

If any had doubted her abilities because of her sex, they were proven wrong on the battle field. In a long-limbed and massive monstrous form, she tore through her attackers and shielded her allies. The Gauls, overcome, ran from her path. Some made it to escape but others ran directly into steel and arrows.

Marceline howled at the moon as she let her body revert to human and looked over her shoulder at her captain.

Where he took little pleasure in each kill, in the destruction they wrought on the orders of their Emperor, the Huntsman was nothing less than satisfied to see the aftermath of their attack. Not for the many who lay dead at their feet, still in their sprawl across the ground, their blood seeping into the dirt, but for the skill of each of the Wolves under his command.

None of their number had been lost in the violence, few bearing so much as injury, stealth and planning as much on their side as their competency in battle and the ferocity with which they unleashed it upon those who opposed them.

Beyond steel, there were those who slipped liquid from one form to another and caused as much havoc in the panic they inspired in their enemies as they did destruction. The sound of their howls, Marceline's included, were a sound that had been his lullaby so long ago and now stood as a call of victory he could be no less comforted by. He nodded to the (apparent) young woman in approval. For all her strangeness and love of tricks, he would no sooner have denied her ability as he would have returned to Rome to live a life within its walls.

The Huntsman and His Wolves

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