The End of Rage

Wren sloshed across the threshold of the inn. She couldn't have been more sodden if she'd been dumped in a lake. Right now all that she wanted was to be dry. Well, that and to be free of her curse.

"Bad night out there," the innkeeper said. He was a big, portly sort with pond-scum-green skin. "Glad to have you, but you'll needs to be sharin' a table. No one's stayin' on the road this night."

Wren inclined her head towards the orc. A stream of water poured from the brim of her hat. She looked about the taproom.

Goblins, gnomes, dwarves and elves made up the bulk of the horde. A mob of pixies cavorted about the rafters. A small party of humans gazed upon the crowed with bewildered expressions.

Wren's partner, Kolpik, a rat-faced kobold, sat at a small table far too far from the fire for her dampened tastes. She sidled thought the crowd towards him.

As she sloshed up to the table, Kolpik looked up from his feigned sleep and let his chair fall back on all fours with a bump. His beady eyes glinted in the firelight. "You look like a drowned rat."

"You're the one with the tail."

"You're the one with the water."

She stuck out her tongue, dragged over a momentarily vacant chair, wrested her clinging skirt down a finger width and sat. Her seat squelched.

"So why the change of plan? We were to meet in Luskar. I only just found the bezoar yesterday." Wren wound her corn-silk tresses into a long rope and wrung a stream of water from them. "Had to butcher nearly two score goats."

"He's here."

"Here?" Wren glanced about the room. Her gaze lingered on the humans. "Like here, here?"

"No, not here, here. I mean here, in Ashfjord. The signs are right."

An eager, feral energy blossomed in Wren's breast. "What signs?"

Kolpik's pink nose twitched. He leaned back, stroked his whiskers and gifted Wren a toothy grin.

"Well, first thing is the bandit baron. Used to hole up at some ruin the local yokels call the Old Fort. Talk is some knight has gone an' drone him in."

"Was it Miguel? Is he still there?"

"Yup, the knight's still there. Apparently this knight has taken the ruin for himself. Seen his men out repairin' the walls these last three mornin's."

"So what's to say its Miguel and not some random freelance fighting man trying to make name for himself?" She could not keep the impatience from her voice.

"Well, for one, there's the killin's."

The sparking energy within Wren's breast compressed into a lead ball. She leaned nose to nose with the rat-man. "What killings?"

"Family pets. Dogs, cats, a few sheep. Nothing big. No village folk. Not yet."

"If it's him, that'll change." Wren's tone was flat.

"I found one, you know. A cat, or what was left of it." He shuddered. "Vile things, cats. The gods should've never made them. Still..." He let his words trail off.

"'Xcuse me, Miss?" a voice said, at Wren's shoulder.

Wren turned her head to find herself staring into the buxom breasts of what must've been the innkeeper's daughter. She had the same mucky green complexion.

Wren leaned away. "Yes?"

"What'll y' have?"

"Something hot. Anything you got."

"Potato cakes and mutton. No pie," Kolpik said.

Wren glared at Kolpik. "Forever why not?"

"It's rat! Can you believe that?"

Wren's stomach swelled. She went cross-eyed and hiccupped. There was a burning in her throat.

"Yes," she said and waved the waitress away, "skip the rat."

The goblin-girl gave the pair of them a hurt look and turned to go.

"Wait." The cauldron within Wren's stomach burbled and she burped. "Bring some rum, whatever you got."

The girl nodded and departed.

"Wren," Kolpik said, "you've got to stop. You're drinkin' way too much."

Wren looked up. Her vision went blurry and not just because of the water that dripped from her hair. "It helps," was all she said.

"There's one more reason I know Miguel's here." Kolpik's voice had grown somber. The fun was gone. "I've seen him."

Wren's tears dried. Her emerald gaze took on the tint of poison. Kolpik shuddered. Miguel was a dead man.

When her food arrived, Wren ate in silence, nor did Kolpik interrupt. His whiskers merely drooped when she ordered a second bottle of rum.

"Well," she said. She tossed back the last dregs of her rum and stood, only slightly unsteadily. "Better go find a place to spend the night." She looked out the rain washed window. Her shoulders sagged.

"This inn's got dry rooms upstairs."

Fear clawed at Wren's throat. Her waterlogged flesh paled further.

"It's not safe. What if I turn?"

"We've got the shackles. If you start to yammer I'll gag you. Besides, how bad do you want to sleep in that?" He waved his paw at the flood beyond the windowpane.

Wren rubbed a wrist. "Yeah, not at all."

The innkeeper led them to a room not much larger than a closet. It was cramped with its one small bed and single rickety chair. The bed had a scratchy straw mattress that Wren suspected harbored lice. She threw her still damp camp blankets on the floor instead. Kolpik took the chair.

"Well," she said. There was a slight warble in the timber of her voice. She stripped down. "I hate this. You know, the dreams, the terror, the killing." She fished a pair of silver shackles from her pack and tossed them to Kolpik. She stood with her back to him. "I hate this curse. I hate what it's making me do, what it's turning me into."

"I know," Kolpik said. He clamped the shackles about her naked ankles and wrists. A nasty rash erupted where the silver touched her flesh. She ignored the burn and squirmed into her blankets. Kolpik worried his long-stemmed smoke-pipe as she drifted towards sleep.

She was standing naked in the woods. The cold light of the rising moon's evil glare sliced the secure darkness about Wren. She fled. The moon reached for her, big, cold and full.

It caught her heels. Her ankles twisted painfully and she fell. Moonlight pounced upon her. It bathed her in its heartless glow.

Wren's back arched. Muscles bulged. Bones broke. A howl of agony tore from her throat. Her jaw lengthened. Ratty hair erupted from her flesh. Green eyes grew feral. Teeth lengthened and hands twisted into clawed paws. Her bones re-knit.

Half-elf, half-rat and all horror, Wren lurched to her feet.

Sensitive ears picked out the flutter and cry of bats. Her pink nose twitched. New scents assaulted her olfactory nerve and the miasma of something hated floated upon the breeze.

Wren began to hunt. A rabbit sped from her path. She startled a doe and its faun. She passed them by. But the cougar she pounced on.

One swipe disemboweled it. Dead but not ready to lie down just yet, the feline's teeth and claws dug deep tore into her. She squealed in pain but her wounds healed as they always did. She dismembered the cougar limb from limb.

When the killing rage left her, she gagged. Panic choked her. A seizer shook her.

Wren's eyes snapped open. Warm darkness and the warm glow of Kolpik pipe greeted her. Their eyes met. She drew a ragged breath.

"What if someone kills him first?"

"Then we'll find another cure. There's always more than one way to skin a rat."

He said no more and though she was frightened, her eyelids grew heavy again. Just before she drifted off, Kolpik leaned over and stroked her hair. She murmured something unintelligible and sleep claimed her.

The next morning dawned dreary grey. Water dripped from every leaf, eve and bough in the vicinity of Ashfjord. Kolpik released her shackles. She slept in.

Later, they took a long breakfast that grew into lunch. They left the inn late. Kolpik avoided the road and led Wren deep into the dripping wood. By early evening they had found their way up the side of a small rise crowned by a broken keep.

Men, hobgoblins and even a few elves were repairing the rents in the ruined bailey wall. Beyond, Wren saw a poorly ordered pile of stone that formed the mass of the keep. Empty windows pierced its bulk. Wren wondered which was his.

Wren leaned towards Kolpik. "Do they know? Are any others infected?"

Kolpik considered. He shook his head. "They're not infected. If they were there'd be a lot more than dead pets in that hamlet back there. As far as them knowin'? I'm not sure. He's done a pretty good job of denying it, even to himself."

"I can't imagine how they wouldn't? He must change as often as I do. Wouldn't he? Why do they still follow him?"

"Charisma. People will overlook a lot when they love someone."

She was grateful that he didn't add that she had once been as they. "Which one is his? Which window?" She peered up at the rough face of the keep through the foliage.

Kolpik pushed aside a branch and pointed.

"There," he said. "Top row, third from the left."

Wren said nothing for a long time. At last, voice cracking, she asked, "How're we going to get in? I don't fancy fighting our way through a whole army to get t' him. You'll never make it and one of them is bound to use silver against me."

Kolpik eyed Wren, head cocked.

He snorted. "I suppose that's one way of saying, 'you're no good in a straight up fight.'

"So, here's what we'll do.

"The moon'll set early tonight. I'll shackle you until its set. Then, once there's little chance you'll turn at some inopportune time, you'll climb that wall by that watchtower there. Throw down a rope an' we'll take out the guard. I'll post myself atop that tower an' cover you. You'll climb up an' have a visit with Miguel. Can't really help you there anyhow. Sage said you'd have to get the blood."

Wren's voice wouldn't come so she nodded. She fingered her dagger nervously. The silver blade burned the pad of her thumb. FARTS

They whiled away the remainder of the day. Kolpik shackled and gagged her as the moon passed overhead. During the periods where she was sane, Wren counted three guards on the close stretch of wall. The guards took turns in their irregular rounds of the battlements. Between times they huddled in the warmth of the squat tower.

After Kolpik released her, Wren stepped into the recently cleared space between the wood and wall. She strode towards the wall slowly. She paused between paces. When a guard unexpectedly left the tower to relieve himself, she merely frowned her distaste and stood still. He didn't see her. Or perhaps he thought she was a stump. Either way, he didn't raise the alarm.

When she reached the wall, she raced up it as though she were a lizard upon a fence-rail. Just below the top she paused. She looked back. Her keen eyes found Kolpik. He gave her a nod and she flipped up upon the battlements.

A glance showed the bailey to be clear. Above, in the keep, only one window flickered with failing torchlight. Beside her the ill-fitting door to the tower was partially ajar. Light, warmth and laughter leaked from within.

Wren tied a rope off to one of the battlement's crenulations and tossed it over. Less stealthy than Wren, Kolpik dashed across the empty expanse between the wood and wall. Even with the rope's assistance, his climb to her perch was far slower.

Wren's voice was no louder than a leaf falling. "Three." She held up an equal number of fingers and motioned to the door. Kolpik cranked his crossbow. Wren eased an eye to a crack in the door.

A shadow blocked the light. A smell akin to a troglodytes' armpit slugged Wren in the nose.

A gruff voice sounded from the other side of the door. "Hold your bets. Going to make another round." The door wrenched open and a hobgoblin all but trampled Wren.

Wren pounded a dagger into his chest. He burped up something vile and fell upon her. She staggered. Wren, and the deadweight atop her, tottered towards the bailey.

"Troll dung!" The expletive wrested free of Wren's mouth despite her need for silence.

Not the courtyard. Not the courtyard!

Muscles strained. She shoved. The hobgoblin toppled towards the woods. Wren's gut bent double over a crenulation. What was left of her brunch nearly joined the hobgoblin.

Keep moving, girl. Wren rolled away from the view below. A sword notched itself upon the stone that had so recently bruised her abdomen.

Her dagger pinioned her attacker's wrist. Another dagger silenced his scream stillborn. The guard's still moving corpse bowled Wren to the floor. His whiskered chin bloodied her lip.

Kolpik stepped over the sprawling couple. A reverberating thunk sounded. A hole blossomed in the last guard's chest. Dice clattered across the floor. The man toppled from his chair.

Kolpik froze, his gaze locked upon the dice. "Devil's eyes."

"A little help here?"

Kolpik dragged the corpse from atop her, let her through the door and barred it.

"That didn't exactly go as planned." She made a face and wiped her fingers through the guardsman's blood that covered the breast of her tunic. The effort merely painted her hands red.

"What does?" Kolpik said. He was already headed for the roof ladder. "Let's get this over-with. Killin' good men is bad business."

Wren waited until Kolpik had let himself through the roof access. She let five more heartbeats gallop by. She swallowed and let herself back out on the battlements.

As casually as she imagined a lazy guard might, she strode towards the keep. She stopped from time to time. She didn't have to feign a watchful presence although her gaze was for what might've been happing inside rather than outside the keep.

All the while, her heart hammered out the time.

At last she reached the shadow of the keep's bulk. Kolpik gave her an almost imperceptible wave. She turned to the wall.

The keep was worn and old. Hand and toeholds came easy. She climbed swiftly. Blood, from hands and shirt, marked the first spans of her ascent but faded as she gained elevation.

She'd climbed many times her height and sidled across a quarter of the keep before she came to the window Kolpik had pointed out. There were two bars set in it. The iron smelled raw. They were tightly fitted. There was no rust.

The sound of heavy, nighttime breathing issued from beyond the aperture. Inflection and timbre were familiar. It brought back memories of when, of when... She assassinated the memory. She clung to the wall over precipice while her mutilated reflection bled from her consciousness.

Slow, painful heartbeats thudded by. Her fingers began to cramp.

What you doing, girl? Get a move on. She poked her eyes up over the edge of the windowsill.

Before her was a large room. A four poster bed dominated one wall. A wardrobe and an armoire lined another. The furnishings were fine. However, the bed hangings were in shreds. Tapestries beside the door were in tatters. The door itself was heavily gouged.

Upon the bed lay Miguel. Bare to the waist, scares crisscrossed his chest. He was more muscled than she remembered. His flaxen hair was laced with white. He'd had blue eyes.

No. No! She rammed an astral dagger into the cerulean vision before her mind's eye. He is the enemy, my target, my salvation. Don't think. Don't remember. A ghostly hand clutched her heart and wrung a strangled sound from her breast. Don't feel. Kill!

She caged her heart in bars as stout as those barricading the window. She peeked one more time, marked the door and sidled along the wall to the neighboring aperture.

Dim torchlight flickered from within. Again, her sharp ears detected snoring. She eased her gaze over the windowsill a finger-width and saw bare hall. The door to Miguel's room was barred. Beside it, in a chair rocked up against the wall, slept a single guard. His face was clean, his complexion clear and ears sharp. Very elfin.

Two torches bracketed the door. One had burnt out. The other still flickered fitfully.

Wren slipped a dagger from its scabbard and thrust it, and her arm, through the aperture. She began to worm her way in.

Baby bedbugs, flees, lice, silver and all things itchy! The aperture was narrow. Wren's ears scraped against the bare stone as she forced her head in. Her shoulders had to go through sideways. Although small, her ribs compressed as she forced her breast through. Air came in tiny gasps that clawed her lungs.

A grunt sounded. She squirmed frantically. Chair forelegs sounded a single drumbeat against the floor. She slipped another hand-width into the hall. A full, ragged breath swelled her breast.

A shadow rose before the torch. "By the Three Shades, who are you?"

Wren's head snapped up. Her bellybutton fulcrum teetered towards the courtyard. Her legs swung free in a frantic dance absent of balance and grace. She ducked her head to stop her slide.

She hurled her dagger from memory. The blade tumbled catawampus. It slammed into the guard's forehead hilt first. Wren heard his sloppy slide to the floor. She wormed the rest of the way through the window. The flooring greeted her face with a painful kiss.

She scrambled on her hands and knees to the felled elf. His breath misted the blade she held before his mouth.

Her heart wasn't black enough to do the safe thing. Wren abandoned the guard and lifted the bar from the door. Barely opening the portal, she slipped inside. It took a heartbeat for her eyes to adjust to the darkened room. When they did, she crept to Miguel's bed.

Miguel slept easy. Peace softened his rugged lines. His slumber didn't give speak of the curse he harbored. Wren's eyes drank him up.

Oh Miguel, do you know? Did you know? A vison of their last struggle invaded. She tried to murder it. It would not surrender her mind. Do you know what you did to me? What I became? What I did?

I want -- I wanted to die. How is it that you don't?

Carefully, she eased a silver blade from its sheath. She positioned the poniard a hand-span above Miguel's heart. One hand grasped the hilt and the other covered the pommel in order to maximize leverage. Both shook.

A crossbow bolt sped clean through bone and lung. The projectile slammed the dagger from her grasp.

Wren cried out and scrambled over Miguel to reach her blade leaving a trail of pink blood. The elf guard clubbed her so hard with his crossbow the weapon busted. Wren tumbled from the bed.

The guard flung aside the mangled launcher. His blade leapt from its scabbard. Wren rolled to her feet and backed into the wall. She raised her hands in front of her face. The elf's sword traced a crimson ribbon across Wren's forearm, cheek and breast. She leapt to attack.

A fist blindsided her. Her feet lifted from the floor and she landed in a pile. The new blow whispered of a strength that hadn't been in the iron of the guard's sword.

"Wren! Hells, Wren." Miguel thrust aside the guard that was trying to get between them. "What are you doing here?"

"I killed her, Miguel! Emella! My sister. My own sister!" Wren's gaze made to flay Miguel's bare chest. An air eating rage welled within Wren's lungs. Her bones popped and snapped. Her muscles bulged. Hair rippled from her arms. "Because of you! You did this to me!"

Wren contorted. She shrieked. Miguel fell back in horror. The guard lunged.

Wren bounded away. Her momentum carried her halfway up the wall before she sprang back upon the elf. His blade lanced clean through her gut. She grabbed his head and yanked. There was a sickening pop. He fell away. He dragged his useless weapon with him. Iron wasn't silver. She was already healing.

"Wren?" Miguel back-peddled. She dropped to all fours, snarled and lunged. His fist hammered her. Sparks danced before her vision. Her sinistral ear rang. She tumbled across the floor to pitch against his bed but with animal reflexes she regained her feet and leapt upon Miguel's back. Incisors pierced into his dextral shoulder. He smashed her against the wall. She ground his shoulder between her jaws.