Zweihander: A Dark Fantasy Short Story

Art by Twining Tree Creations

Synopsis: Gareth the wolf knight is a servant of the god of war—cursed to only maintain his true wolfen form when holding a great Zweihander named Fang. His mate, a snow fox named Naya who serves the goddess of love and peace, supports Gareth through the trauma of repeatedly reverting to the human form of his birth. But when the war god demands that Gareth slaughter a group of Naya’s people for their opposition to an endless war, Gareth and Naya’s already-strained love will be tested as they grapple with their own helplessness in servitude to higher powers.

Zweihander was the first story I wrote in the furry fandom and it is the loose basis for my current book project. It was originally intended to be the first half in a two-part story. Though it's quite an overly miserable story (I like to say I got all my dark brooding out of the way early with this one) I still treasure it as the place where I began this strange and wonderful journey into furry writing. I hope you enjoy.

Content Warnings

War, violence, blood, death, references to sex, panic attacks and other psychological episodes, references to suicide, enslavement, betrayal, tragic ending

Gareth the wolf knight named his sword “Fang”, because the blade bit into him, locked its jaws, and refused to let him go.

He leaned upon the Zweihander in the aftermath of battle, helm and arming cap falling to the ground, and he surveyed the maelstrom of corpses that encircled him. They were motionless now. Survivors had long since bled out or been put down by Gareth’s fellows. Human soldiers picked through the corpses in advance of the buzzards. Gareth’s side had won the day, forced the enemy to retreat, and restored a bloody peace.

It made him feel terrible.

He clutched Fang’s pommel in one aching paw and draped his other arm over the massive crossguard to support his exhausted body. Fang was a god of a sword. Its mirror-smooth, silvery blade remained perfect despite the hard-fought day. It repelled all blood and filth, bore no knicks or bends, and its edge had never known blunting or the need for sharpening.

But though the sword bore no damage from the battle, Gareth had suffered greatly. Spattered sprays of blood crossed his hazel fur. He had broken a dozen bones and taken stabs through the gaps in his silvery plate armor. Most notably, his beloved tail had shattered when an especially bold enemy soldier—now a dead enemy soldier—had slammed it with a war hammer and caused the steel plate above it to fail. The agonizing pain of the wound made him realize how often he moved his tail without thinking.

Gareth panted, his eyes widened, and he groaned, but he remembered that he would heal those wounds easily enough. Rarely was a wound fatal to a wolf knight—much less to Gareth.

As if to punctuate those thoughts, a familiar sound emerged from the silence of the battlefield. Gareth’s ears twitched as the footsteps approached. He recognized those steps—even upon an earth made damp by the pooling blood of men. He looked up from his despair. His ears perked, and his tail swayed like a dog’s despite the agony of the movement.

Naya had come to talk Gareth down once more. Like Gareth, Naya was not human. The gods bestowed animal forms upon most, if not all, of their prestigious servants. Naya was a snow fox, with white fur that seemed to glow—even under an overcast sky, radiant and gorgeous in that grey and bloody place. He was the most beautiful thing to grace a bloody battlefield that Gareth could imagine. A bronze buckler on his back glittered gold in the sun, and his shining blue eyes stared deep past Gareth’s defenses. He looked so gloriously out of place in such an ocean of death.

“How many?” Naya asked as he rested his hand upon Gareth’s cheek. He spoke softly, with an accent of nobility as he scratched the fur with his graceful touch. His fingertips drew away flakes of dried blood that mingled in his snowy fur.

“Thirty-six,” Gareth estimated. He glanced at the bodies around them, remembering vividly some of the soldier’s faces from the moment Fang had struck them down. He shuddered and held back the bile flooding his throat, clutching the sword tighter.

Naya nodded. His eyes betrayed a hardened heart—a tunneled vision that focused only on Gareth, and that blocked out the hellish fields around them.

“Are you ready to give me the sword?” Naya asked.

Gareth felt a familiar fear washed over him when that question was asked. He began to shake as nausea burrowed deep in his stomach like a toothy worm, and as the reality of the situation set in. The battle had ended. Naya would take Fang from him. Gareth would lose himself again.

The wolf stared at his mate like a frightened child, and he shook his head.

Naya’s eyes pleaded with him. Eyes that beckoned him home, and to cast aside the field of battle. To just let the sword go.

“Would you give it to me ever so briefly?” he asked. “Just to wash the blood and wounds from your body. Then I will return it, if that is your desire.”

Gareth closed his eyes and choked on his own breath. He felt panic rising with him. But when Gareth looked at Naya again, the deep pools of his love’s eyes brought him back to reality. He rationalized it in his mind, like they had practiced. Gareth convinced himself that being rid of the pain of his injuries by relinquishing Fang—an unintended benefit of the curse that he bore—was worth the torment. He nodded, but he closed his eyes to avoid having to see it.

Naya’s gently pried Gareth’s fingers from Fang’s grip. The Zweihander fell out of Gareth’s paws, and those paws immediately began to transform back into human hands.

He kept his eyes closed as the transformation ran up his arms, sapping away his fur, which disintegrated into smoke. It expunged any blood that had soaked in, leaving his naked skin undirtied by the battle. The change washed over his body like a wave. It took his form from him, yet it healed his wounds completely. When the change reached his foot paws, they lowered from digitigrade to plantigrade form. His beloved tail disintegrated into nothing. When the wave reached his head, his snout and ears withdrew. The transformation drained his true form away, and he struggled to keep himself from weeping.

When the reversion back to his birth-form ended, a plain human with hazel hair and ghostly-pale skin stood in the wolf’s place. He appeared feeble, with sunken eyes and thin muscles that barely fit his armor. His eyes floated in the dark pools surrounding them, and locks of grey wisped through his hair, though he had only reached his twenties. A tear escaped his closed eyes and rolled down his naked cheek. Naya wiped it away with his thumb.

“Shall I still return the sword to you?” he asked, but Gareth’s golden eyes snapped open before Naya could finish the question, and he seized Fang’s grip again.

He felt the fur return to him like a rush of fresh air through his being. A flask of icy water after a trek through a desert. His hands became paws, his feet rose into footpaws, his ears and snout grew out, and his tail formed once more. Bulk returned to his muscles and filled out his armor until he looked a healthy weight again. He swished his tail in relief, twitched his ears, and gasped as if coming up for air.

When the transformation back into his wolfen form finished, Naya kissed Gareth on his leathery nose.

“Are you ready to return?”

Gareth sniffed, nodded, and followed his love with the reluctance of a man sent to the gallows.

They walked in solemn silence at first, and they did their best to find clear paths through the litter of bodies. Eventually, the casualties thinned out as they grew closer to the war camp, and away from where the two front lines of the opposing armies had smashed into each other. In time, they could walk side by side without the trauma of stepping over the dead.

Gareth cradled Fang by its pommel as he walked—the blade’s flat edge resting lightly upon his shoulder and reaching high up into the air. It was the least cumbersome way to hold the massive weapon and prevented the blade from smacking into things at every turn. Gareth remembered fondly how Fang used to be a simple longsword sword before his curse, when it transformed to make his dependency on it more cumbersome.

“How are things in the war camp?” Gareth asked, looking at his blurred reflection in the ornate bronze shield on Naya’s back. The shield was a relic of the goddess Liliana, and Naya had named it “Rose”. It framed Gareth’s face in engravings of golden flowers, and he admired how regal it made him look.

“They are well,” Naya said. “I have taken to leading our lady’s missionaries in prayers of forgiveness throughout each battle. It helps to carry my mind from the peril you face.”

Naya had returned to some of his duties as a high servant of Liliana, the goddess of love and peace, as of late. He had taken a sabbatical from those duties four years prior, when he and Gareth had begun courting. Servitude to gods left a bad taste in Gareth’s mouth, but if it helped Naya cope with their situation, he could not argue with it.

“I kill for Liliana’s enemy,” Gareth said. “Do you think she can really forgive warriors like me?”

“Of course,” Naya said. “Liliana does not condemn violence. She only asks that those who commit it do so in pursuit of peace.”

“And I do so in pursuit of peace?”

“Peace of mind, perhaps,” said Naya. “The peace that your true form brings you, and that having it forever would do for our love.”

“That’s a bit of a stretch,” said Gareth, readjusting his grip on Fang’s weight.

Naya shrugged. “I love you, and so it is what I must believe. For what is more peaceful than love?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Gareth had to hold his tongue from replying. He had seen many men kill in the name of love. He had seen men declare their love for the act of killing itself. The realms of love and war were far closer to one another than the missionaries would probably accept. Perhaps that is why Liliana’s doctrines seemed so contradictory and esoteric to the wolf knight.

And yet, Gareth could not help but appreciate the sentiment and Naya’s love for him. He smiled as Naya turned back and reached out to take Gareth’s free paw in his hand.

“We will find a way for you to keep your form without Fang one day. I still believe that. And then we will melt that sword down and retire to a home in the forest of my birth. I swear it.”

Gareth stayed silent, unwilling to swear that oath back in case the unfair world kept him from fulfilling it. He winced at the thought of destroying the precious Fang, despite its curse. Still, he followed Naya’s hope like a light in the darkness, and it almost gave him hope as well.

As they grew nearer to the war camp, the corpses thinned out and disappeared altogether, replaced by water wagons which men gathered around in traumatized silence. The endless war had raged for two centuries, and it continued to take its toll on the people of the world.

Gareth scanned the victims as he walked, feeling guilt from his involvement in the perpetuation of this cycle of bloodshed, then he stopped in his tracks.

His ears twitched. His fur stood on end.

The whine of a blade cut through the air.

Gareth whirled and turned Fang up to block the blow. Sparks flew as an unnatural blade crashed against Gareth’s. He held it off, one hand on the sword’s grip, and one hand on the flat of his blade, bracing against the assailant’s intense strength with both arms.

The man stared at Gareth with a demonic grin as recognition set in.

“You are more a whirlwind of death in every battle, Gareth,” the man said. “Such rage. Is there perhaps a reason for it?”

Gareth scoffed and pushed back from the man, who did not move an inch. They both lowered their blades.

Karak, the god of war, stood with the aura of a demon in his gleaming crimson armor. He took the form of a human with a bald head and blood-red eyes. An X-shaped scar, which he had acquired in some forgotten myth, adorned his forehead. The god hoisted his damascened claymore over his shoulder, and the spiderweb of fiery cracks which branched across it sputtered with flame.

Gareth turned to Naya, whose surprise from the sudden clash had settled into sorrow—ears lowering and tail falling still as he recognized the god.

“I need to see what he wants,” Gareth said. “Go back to the camp. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Naya nodded, clearly reluctant, but he continued on his path. Gareth watched him go for a moment before finally turning back to his god.

“What do you want, Karak?” he asked, his tail trembling.

Karak spoke to him in a haughty voice that seemed perpetually locked in an accent of mockery. “Ah, ah, it will not do to dispose of formalities, wolf. You will regard me with respect.”

He raised his gauntleted hand, and Gareth felt his free paw transform. He gritted his teeth and tried not to look at the hand that now gripped fang by the blunt section—the ricasso—between the hooks and horns.

The wolf sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “What do you want, master?”

“What do you ‘command’ would have been a more appropriate term, but no matter.” Karak lowered his hand, and Gareth felt relief as his paw returned to him. “I have a task for you. It will take you off the battlefield for once. Won’t that be a nice change of pace?”

Fear flooded Gareth’s face, and he gripped Fang tighter.

“Ah, I forget. You do not want to stop fighting. Still so eager to retain that form. Well, worry not. There will be plenty of fight to be had on this quest.”

Gareth sighed, already growing weary of Karak’s rhetoric. “Please, master, just tell me what you want.”

“Why I desire your safety, of course. You are being hunted.”

Gareth’s ears perked up, and he cocked his head. “Hunted?”

“Oh yes,” said Karak. “Three of my wolves have died already. Killed in their sleep. Not an easy feat, but these killers seem to have some aid.”

Gareth’s surprise was clear. The wolf knights acted as Karak’s representatives in many a war between countries and city-states, strengthening the war god’s power with their rage and brutality. They were the most powerful warriors in the known kingdoms. Not easy to kill, even in their sleep.

He had met a few of them, but Gareth felt kinship no longer. They all shared a brashness and disregard for life that Gareth had left behind. More importantly, the others were allowed to retain their forms forever—divine sword or no.

“Why are we being killed?” Gareth asked.

“It seems your mate’s benefactor seeks to harass me once more.”

“Liliana, the goddess of love and peace, is killing your knights? That’s hard to believe.”

“Not the bitch herself,” said Karak. “Her missionaries. She’s turned them to assassins. They’re killing my followers as we speak to weaken me, and you’re bedding one of them.” Karak raised one of his thick, black eyebrows. “Tell me, how much do you trust this mate of yours?”

Gareth growled as he realized what Karak was insinuating. Naya, indeed, served Liliana, but he could do no harm. Rose was a symbol of defense over aggression. Peace was Naya’s creed.

“You seek to divide us again,” Gareth said.

“Of course. Always. He is the reason you stopped fighting, after all. Not that it took much to get you back to the field.” Karak passed his hand over Gareth, and the wolf’s entire form blinked into humanity.

It was too fast. Gareth doubled over from the shock of it, as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

Karak smiled, clearly enjoying the act of tormenting his knight. He knew the true extent of the agony and trauma such a thing brought Gareth, and yet he reveled in it. “You know that I do not lie,” said Karak. “It is not in my nature. This is simply a…convenient situation. One suitable in showing you the error of your ways.”

Gareth spit on the ground at the ridiculous accusation. He braced for the God to reprimand him for such disrespect, thinking it worth it, but the retaliation did not come. Instead, the god seemed amused, as if admiring the hateful aggression, and returned Gareth’s form to him.  Gareth gasped as the relief filled him.

“Speak then,” Gareth said, catching his breath. “What do you command?”

“Well, I would have you kill that meddlesome whore of yours, but we have strode down that path before. No, I seek the death of other emissaries. The camp of assassins lies to the east, and they are coming for you. I can’t kill those under another god’s charge, but I can certainly have you slaughter the lot for me.”

Gareth frowned. “So, in the absence of me killing my mate, you would have me kill his people instead?”

“Is it not a fitting compromise?”

“Not for him.”

“Then he will have to accept it or abandon you.” Karak shrugged. “How tragic.”

Gareth closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This manipulation would drive a blade directly through the heart of his bond with Naya. Their love was already strained by Gareth’s condition, which caused them both immense fatigue, but this situation could finally exhaust them. Karak had tried to break them before, of course, but never with such a situation to reinforce his scheme.

“And I assume the consequences are the same if I refuse?”

“Of course,” Karak said. “I will take Fang from you, and you will wallow in your humanity until you come crawling back to me, groveling and begging for its return. Really, Gareth, it becomes more pitiful each time.”

Gareth snarled, shaking with rage. The god spoke too much.

“Come come. As long as you’re a good dog and do as you’re told you will still be allowed to change your form. No need for such posturing.”

Gareth tried to relax and still the shaking. He took a deep breath in through his nose, and out through his mouth. “Fine. I will speak to him.”

“Good dog.” The god of war reached out with a gauntleted hand and rubbed Gareth aggressively on his head. The metal of his grieve bit into the wolf’s skin and a trickle of blood matted his fur. “Their camp is in a place called Bitterrock Canyon. Your commander has already been informed of your departure. Do not fail me, wolf. I’m always watching.”

With that, Karak disintegrated into glowing embers and black smoke, which itself disintegrated into nothing.

Gareth looked up to the darkening sky and remembered a time when he had actually admired the god. Karak had, after all, granted Gareth the wolfen form he so desired. The wolf he knew himself to be inside, regardless of having been born as a human.

But then he had met Naya. He had fallen in love. He had asked to resign from his duty and to retire with his mate and, for his insolence, Karak had cursed him to only maintain his true form when holding Fang.

Gareth could not help but remember how his love prolonged his suffering. How he had only to cast his love away for Karak to grant him his true form permanently once more. That was to say nothing of the pain his condition brought Naya. His mate struggled every day to fight off the fatigue that caring for one such as Gareth could bring.

Perhaps he would be better off without Naya. Perhaps Naya would be better off without him.

Gareth took a deep breath, cast that corrupted thought aside, and resumed a solitary march back to the war camp.

He caught up to Naya just as he arrived at their tent, and they stepped inside together. Gareth’s quarters rivaled those of a captain, and they included standing room, furniture, and lantern light. War camps allowed knights of Karak such esteem and benefits—for fear as much as for reverence.

Gareth sat upon the wood-frame bed, and Naya approached once more—like a psychopomp come to guide a soul to the beyond.

Both of their ears fell back. Their fur flattened.

“It is time,” said Naya.

“It is time,” whispered Gareth.

Naya took the grip of the sword once more, Gareth closed his eyes, and Fang was pulled from the wolf’s grasp once again.

When Gareth had reverted to humanity, sinking into the malaise of losing his form, Naya helped to remove his armor. He placed it upon its stand and set Fang down on the long table in front of it. He took Rose from his back and leaned the beautiful shield up against the same table. Gareth would clean the armor of blood and mud later. Perhaps much later.

For now, he lay down in their bed, not even summoning the strength to change out of the clothing he wore under his armor during the fight. Naya held Gareth from behind and squeezed him tight. His soft fur against Gareth’s skin helped to numb the pain of being human.

Usually, the two would fall asleep and the malaise would leave with consciousness. But despite his intense exhaustion from the fight, Karak’s duties assaulted Gareth’s mind, and he could not sleep. “Karak wants me to do something terrible,” he muttered.

Naya shifted and rested his snout upon Gareth’s shoulder. “I would assume no less of him,” he said. “What must you do?”

Gareth turned to face Naya. It felt more respectful to look him in the eyes when explaining such serious matters. Naya was strained caring for Gareth’s condition, and Gareth wanted him to know he was appreciated for it. “Has your goddess spoken with you lately? Or given you any directives?” he asked. “Anything…new or strange?”

Naya seemed taken aback. “She cannot speak to me when in the war camp. It is ground consecrated to the war god. What is this about?”

Gareth ran his fingers across the fur of Naya’s hip, savoring his beauty before his words disturbed their peace. “Karak informed me of a band of your goddess’s missionaries. He says they’ve become assassins, and that they’re murdering wolf knights across the land.”

Naya recoiled at the revelation. “That is impossible,” he said. “No servant of the goddess would resort to wanton murder. Your god is spouting lies.”

“Karak is many things, but I’ve never known him to lie,” said Gareth.

“Liliana preaches peace,” said Naya. “She and Karak may be old enemies, but she would not seek to escalate the matter with violence.”

“You said it yourself. She condones violence done in pursuit of peace. Is it possible that her followers believe they’re fighting for peace by killing the servants of war?”

Naya stood up and crossed his arms. He stared at Fang with contempt.

Gareth followed him, stumbling slightly as he remembered how to use his human legs. He put his hands upon his mate’s soft shoulders. “Karak says Liliana’s assassins are coming for me next. He wants me to…put down the threat before they reach us.”

Naya sighed, not taking his eyes off Fang. “You are asking for permission to kill my people, then?”

Gareth’s silence answered the question.

Naya ran his paws over his head and pushed back his ears in frustration. He muttered to himself, under his breath. “I have tolerated so much of this curse, and now Karak seeks my people’s death.” He turned, and locked eyes with Gareth. “You must refuse.”

“Naya, you remember the consequences. If I don't appease Karak, he'll take Fang away and make me human again, permanently. I can’t let that happen. It would kill me.”

“I know,” Naya said. “But if my people have resorted to violence, we can guide them back to a peaceful path. We need not resort to execution, much less extermination.”

Gareth stopped to consider Naya’s proposal, and whether Karak would agree to such a thing. But Karak was a god of war. He would not tolerate a peaceful resolution to such a destructive weakening of his domain. He desired revenge and death. He gave no quarter and took no prisoners.

“Karak won’t accept it.”

“Well he must.” Naya insisted, turning away from Fang to face Gareth. “I am Liliana’s servant. I cannot condone killing them, no matter the consequences. I have tolerated much of what you must do to keep your form, but I cannot tolerate this.”

Gareth held his tongue as he tried to cope with Naya denying him. Naya had changed Gareth greatly, healing his bloodlust and indifference toward human life. He had gained great empathy, and it now pained him to kill. But in the end, he would do anything to retain Fang and his ability to become his true self. He wondered how many he had killed on the battlefield to keep Fang in his possession. He had tried to take count at one time, as some sort of atonement, but he had lost track long ago.

“These people are traitors to your cause. Why are you so protective of them?” he asked.

Naya seemed to want to answer, but he remained mute.

In that moment, the words of Karak invaded Gareth’s mind—that ridiculous insinuation that Naya could put the goddess before him.

“You believe I was told to kill you, yes?” Naya said, as if reading Gareth’s thoughts. “That is why you asked if I have heard from the goddess.”

Gareth stayed silent. Caught in Naya’s perceptiveness.

“I cannot believe you would consider such a thing,” Naya said.

“I don’t consider it,” Gareth panicked, realizing in that moment the irrationality of his thoughts. “You would never hurt me. I know that. I’m just looking for answers, I suppose.”

Naya turned again to stare at Fang once more. His tail whipped furiously, and his ears fell forward. His lips moved in a rebuke of the sword, snarling under his breath.

Gareth had never seen Naya in such uncharacteristic anger, but that glimpse of anger seemed to melt away all at once as Naya breathed deeply.

“When I blessed you on the day we met,” Naya said, “and when we shared a bed for the first time, I desired so greatly to bring peace to your heart, and to see you empathize with the suffering war brings. And you did. You changed. And it made me fall in love with you. But hearing you now, insisting that we kill them without pursuing other options…”

“I don’t want to kill them,” Gareth said, moving between Naya and the sword to face his mate. He held Naya’s paws in his hands. “I’m not who I used to be, Naya. I love you. But I can’t risk losing Fang by refusing Karak’s orders.”

Naya’s blue eyes locked with the gold of Gareth’s, and he sighed. “I suppose I understand,” he said. “I need to keep remembering how devastated I would be if I were to lose my own form.” Naya stroked the fur of his arm, swishing his tail. “I cannot imagine the pain you feel.”

But despite his words, Gareth thought he caught a hint of judgement in Naya’s voice, and it made him fearful. Naya understood Gareth’s need to retain his true form. He understood the agony Gareth’s humanity brought him, and he understood what Gareth needed to do to quell that agony. Gareth loved him for it.

But his greatest fear was that Naya would one day cease to understand, and that he would see Gareth’s desire to stay a wolf as a petty thing, not worth their struggles. He wondered if that understanding was finally decaying. A shadow of despair grew in his mind.

“I cannot believe followers of Liliana could become killers,” Naya said. “If so, then you are right. It means they are following their own misguided doctrine, and that cannot be tolerated. But we can solve this without violence and hope that Karak does not retaliate in full. That is my duty.”

“I’m not sure—”

“You must go and see if it is true.” Naya snapped. He turned away from Gareth, clenching his fists. “And I am coming with you.”

Gareth struggled every morning to stay sane, because every morning exemplified the extent of what Karak’s curse had done to him. To Naya and Gareth, the very word “morning” was synonymous with episodes of intense stress. It was perhaps why Naya took Gareth’s condition so seriously. The loss of his true form over and over again had left a deep wound inside of him that could not heal, and it began to bleed and fester with every awakening.

Gareth awoke to the surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins. He sat up, already shaking. His heart began to pound. He began to hyperventilate.

“N-Naya,” he said. “It’s…it’s it’s it’s…hap…”

“I’m here, dear,” Naya said, sitting up. He looked so exhausted, awakened from his slumber into yet another terrible morning, but he put his arms around Gareth’s shaking frame and hung onto him as he tried to catch his breath.

Gareth gasped. “Please get off. I need to move. I need to…I need to…” he shrugged out of Naya’s arms and stood up, but he took only a few steps before his legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground.

Naya sighed, having done this hundreds of times before, and he went to fetch a cup of water. Gareth choked and groaned as he wallowed in the dirt. He looked like a victim of poisoning, which perhaps he was—a poisoning of his body by his own mind, pumping whatever poison caused stress into his body by the flagon.

Naya helped him sit up and brought the cup of water to his lips. “Drink,” he said, and Gareth obeyed.

The agony was intense—the mental equivalent of being set ablaze, and it happened every single morning. No matter the preparation. No matter his state of mind. It was a subconscious thing. There was no coping with it. No healing and no reasoning that could quell the agony. Not even holding Fang helped to sate the agony. It just reminded him of his curse.

Naya and Gareth had figured out why this happened long ago. Every morning began another day of a cursed existence, where he was not allowed to be who he needed to be. It activated a feeling of fight or flight that could only be waited out. The storm would pass. It always passed. But in the thick of it, the storm seemed as if it would level him like a small village in the path of a hurricane.

“I’m…I don’t know if…Naya I don’t know if…if this goes on…I’m not going to...”

“Shhh,” Naya said. “Talk to me, my dear. About better things now.”

Gareth swallowed. “I keep thinking…there’s a cliffside, not far from here. And I can’t stop imagining myself jumping from it.”

“I said better things, Gareth,” Naya said, stroking his mate’s hair. “Better things.”

“But everything better is…they’re things we can’t have. That we can never have.”

Naya kissed Gareth’s forehead and brought his head against his furred chest. Gareth listened to the sound of his mate’s heartbeat. It did little to calm him, but he felt the edge of his torment dull ever so slightly.

And then he began to hate himself as he remembered the toll this took on Naya. Gareth could not help what was happening to himself. He tried every morning to find ways to quell his pain and to spare Naya the stress and exhaustion of caring for him. He had failed in every attempt.

“It will pass,” Naya said. “It always passes. Today is no different.” Naya looked up as if in prayer, but Gareth did not hear him as he whispered, “Goddess, help me in what I must do. I am so tired, and so very afraid.”

Gareth fastened Fang to a long scabbard that hung horizontally across the horse’s left side. He hesitated to let the sword go. His paws shook as he breathed deeply. In his human form, he would have been sweating. But he could not ride and hold the cumbersome Fang at the same time. Much of this journey would be on horseback. He would have to deal with it.

He let the sword go and lost his form once more.

Sighing, feeling cold without his fur and fighting back his rising nausea, Gareth began to load supplies into the horse’s saddlebags. He had packed light. Just some rations, a tarp in case of rain, and fire making tools. If all went well, the journey would only take a few days.

The horse’s name was Ash, and the stablehands had insisted he was the camp’s best horse aside from those of the captains. As Gareth loaded the last of the supplies into Ash’s saddlebags, he heard Naya’s voice from behind him.

“What do you think?”

Gareth turned to find Naya standing in a scaled leather cuirass over a white linen tunic and pants—pauldrons upon his shoulders, and bracers on his wrists. He wore hardened leather boots that reached his knees and that were reinforced at the shin and ankle. Gareth had never seen Naya in armor of any kind before. He thought he looked rather fetching in it.

“Where’d you get that?’ he asked.

“I told the missionaries that I was traveling, and they insisted I take it,” Naya said. “They had heavier armor as well, but it did not suit me.”

Rose hung upon Naya’s back and haloed his body in shining gold. Gareth was so entranced by Naya’s appearance that he failed to notice he was staring for an awkward length of time. He cleared his throat.

“Well, that will work,” Gareth said. He eyed the saddle, which Naya had insisted include a tandem.

“We could ride separate horses, you know,” Gareth said. “They will spare them for me.”

“Wouldn’t you rather hold each other close as we ride?” Naya said, rubbing up against him as he passed by. “Besides, if we are going into danger, I would feel safer with you than on my own.” Naya patted Ash’s neck, and its skin twitched in response.

Gareth noted that Naya seemed more cheerful than usual, despite the particularly hard morning and impending confrontation with his people. Perhaps the prospect of a journey, and thus a reprieve from the grimness of war camps, raised his spirits.

“Fair enough,” Gareth said, and he helped Naya onto Ash’s back. When his mate had mounted, Gareth checked that Fang was secure again before moving to mount the horse as well.

Naya stopped him. “You should praise our steed before you ride.”

Gareth looked up at Naya, perplexed.

“He carries us and our belongings so far. Might you not take a moment to offer appreciation?” A hint of mischievousness tinted Naya’s voice.

“I brought sweet grain pellets. They’ll do.”

Naya looked at Gareth for as long as it took for him to relent. He patted the horse’s neck and said, “Thank you, Ash. Ride swift and true, alright?”

The horse snorted and moved his head up as if nodding. Gareth found it remarkable how a horse’s responses so often seemed to mock understanding. He looked back up at Naya.

“Even a beast needs to be shown love.”

Gareth smiled, infected by Naya’s mood. “I suppose that’s why you love me?”

Naya smiled back as Gareth checked Fang one last time. Then he finally climbed up onto Ash, and the two set out into the wild.

It was five day’s journey to Bitterrock according to the directions a tradesman had provided, though Gareth expected Ash would cut down on that time significantly. The horse clearly loved to run at a full gallop, and they could scarcely bring him back to a trot to keep the overeager thing from overworking himself. They sped across the great plains, through shallow rivers, and between the foothills of mountains, and their legs grew sore after so many hours in the stirrups.

By the end of the first day of travel, Gareth realized he and Naya were enjoying themselves more than usual. A weight in the air had lifted from the moment they set out from the war camp. Naya talked more than usual—likely trying to take his mind off a future confrontation with his people. Regardless, Gareth felt wonderful listening to his mate talk so freely.

He spoke of Liliana’s doctrines and which he found most compelling. He asked Gareth for his stories of past battles and how he had managed to survive them. But most often, Naya fantasized about what they would do together if Gareth were ever freed from his slavery to Karak.

“I grew tired of the city, and the missionary road is arduous,” Naya said as they camped for the night. They had built a small fire that did not generate too much light or smoke, and that they could put out before true darkness fell. “It is why I desire to return to the forest village where I was born. We can make our home there.”

“Of course,” said Gareth as he bit into a piece of dried meat—paw resting on Fang’s grip. “It would be good to settle down. Will we have a home? Or is there a nice damp cave we can set up in?”

“Oh, there will be a home,” Naya said, chuckling. “One of stone, if it still stands. Something to hold fast against any storm and harbor our family from the cruelty of the world.”

“Cruelty?” Gareth said. “I thought you believed the world was brighter than I do.”

“I did, once. But one can only see their love go through so much pain before scheming to spirit him away to sanctuary.”

Gareth frowned. “I don’t want to change how you view the world.”

“I cannot help myself.”

Naya stared into the fire, and Gareth saw the flames reflected in his eyes. It highlighted something within him. The slightest hint of anger. Rage, even, at the future being kept from them.

Gareth grew concerned, and he set his meal down, putting his free paw on Naya’s cheek. “I may see a dark world, but you bring light to it.” He said. “Don’t lose your light for my sake. I would never forgive myself for darkening your heart.”

Naya smiled and turned from the fire. “That was almost poetic. You are so rarely sweet with words.”

Gareth felt his face flush with warmth.

“Anyway, it is difficult,” Naya continued. “You cannot help but be disheartening with Karak’s curse upon you. Your malaise is draining. I ask the goddess every day to strengthen our hearts to endure it.”

“And has she answered?”

“We are still here together, are we not?”

“I suppose so.”

Naya rested his head on Gareth’s shoulder plate as they watched the fire die down together.

Their solace was interrupted by the sound of steel boots upon the earth, and a haughty, arrogant voice.

“This was a mission for you, Gareth,” said Karak. “What is the fox doing here?”

Gareth sighed and spoke to the god without turning to face him.

“Don’t act like you didn’t hear our conversation in camp. You’re always listening. You know why he’s here.”

“Yes, I do,” said Karak. “What I don’t understand is why you have not denied him or driven him off.”

Naya froze and stared into the dying fire with wide eyes, as if Karak’s vision were based on movement.

“Because it doesn’t matter whether his people are killed or not. If it stops them from killing the wolves, that should be enough for you.”

“Ah, but it isn’t enough, is it?” Gareth felt the blade of Karak’s claymore upon the back of his neck. “I ordered you to slaughter the lot, not to make peace with them.”

Gareth momentarily wondered if the God would kill him for insubordination. He looked over at Naya, who was still frozen in place.

Then, Karak’s blade moved to Naya’s shoulder.

Gareth knew Karak could not kill a charge of Liliana himself. It was against the power of the gods to kill another’s emissaries. But it still sent a shiver through his spine and made Naya jump.

“This is your first and only warning,” said Karak. “If you interfere with my orders, I will send other wolves to slaughter your people regardless, and then I will send them to hunt you down, and I swear you shall be sent to the deepest pits of the beyond where unceasing flame will burn you until you one day curse this wolf’s name. I have tolerated you for your passiveness. Do not meddle in my affairs.”

Naya began shaking as Gareth stood and turned to face the god.

“You have made your point,” Gareth said. “He won’t meddle anymore. From now on he’s here for my company only.”

“You speak for him,” said Karak. “You will let him swear to me that he will not interfere.”

“He will swear nothing to you.”

“Gareth,” said Naya, and he stood to face Karak, who drew back his claymore. He looked into Karak’s horrible eyes, and the light went out of his own. “I will not interfere,” he said. “I will let you slaughter my people, and I will sit idly by while you do so, playing with my tail and grooming my fur like a naïve pup. Does this please you?”

In that moment, Naya, the delicate fox who worshipped peace and love, and whom Gareth had never seen so confrontational, stared down Karak as if he were ready and able to claw the god to death.

Karak frowned and held his sword out again at Naya’s neck. “What are you planning?” he growled.

Gareth stepped between them and lowered Karak’s blade using Fang’s hooks. “Master, please. He doesn’t understand how this works. That’s all.” Gareth turned to Naya and placed a paw on his shoulder. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but what you’re doing is suicidal. Don’t antagonize him. It’s not worth it.”

Naya glanced at Gareth, then the light returned to his eyes, and his confidence wavered. He turned away and walked into the forest in the direction of Ash.

Gareth turned back to face Karak. “I will take whatever punishme-”

Karak slammed Gareth in the face with the pommel of his claymore, knocking him to the ground. “Foolish dog.” He spit a glob of fire onto Gareth’s fur, which burned and spread like oil when Gareth frantically tried to brush it off. He held back a scream from the pain, but panicked gasps escaped him. “Mark my words, Gareth. You will see that I am right when this is over, and then you will return to me with fresh rage, more powerful than ever before. You will slaughter hundreds in every battle.” Karak grinned. “It will be glorious. Worthy of a song.”

Then the god of war disintegrated into embers and ash, and Gareth dropped Fang to heal the burn which had eaten his arm to the bone.

The following morning was especially difficult, exacerbated by the words of Karak, and his insistence that Gareth slaughter Naya’s people. Gareth awoke to intense shaking. He vomited in the woods, and collapsed against a tree as Naya retrieved water for him once more. Flashes of Karak’s fire upon his arm—the image of the bones that lay within, but especially his need to drop his sword and heal the wound—came to him, and made everything worse. Looking at Naya, he saw the despair at the doom of his people, and vomited again, though nothing but bile came up. His stomach was starved.

Naya stayed quiet through it all. He did not attempt to talk to quell Gareth’s stress. Perhaps he couldn’t bring himself to do so anymore. He simply fell against Gareth and held him tight, tail curling around his leg as they awaited the rising of the sun, and the end of the morning.

And inevitably, the end of the morning came as it always did.

The second day of travel was arduous, but they weathered it together. Despite the intimidation of Karak the night before, and the particularly bad morning, traveling outside the war camp was still a boon to their moods. Gareth couldn’t help his mind from turning to the words of Karak from time to time, but Naya kept him focused and distracted with adoring words, songs and stories. Karak’s appearance hadn’t tarnished Naya’s resolve in the least.

The terrain turned swampy, then rocky, then swampy again, and they spent many hours leading Ash around sucking mud and boulder fields. But throughout it all, their spirits stayed high, and in working together Gareth found himself remembering why he loved Naya so deeply.

Karak’s words in Gareth’s mind became muffled, then silenced altogether.

They camped for the second night, having made good time. They would reach Bitterrock Canyon the following morning.

Naya insisted on burying their camp deep in a specific patch of woods, saying the trees were dense and beautiful, and that there was likely a clearing inside. Gareth was surprised by his intuition, because there was, indeed, a clearing. They set Ash up at the edge of it for the night, built a small fire, and settled in for food.

Gareth began to discuss a plan for the next day as they sat together by the fire.

“You’ll stay here while I scout it out. I need to find out how many there are, and how safe this will be,” he said as he tore into a piece of bread, clutching Fang at his side. “Karak wouldn’t send me alone unless there weren’t more than a dozen. I should be okay, if that’s the case, then we can head back.”

He looked over to find Naya staring upward. The moon was full that night, and Naya gazed at it vacantly as if contemplating an existential dread.

“Naya?” he asked, and Naya snapped out of his gaze.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I have not seen the moon and stars like this in a long while.”

“It is beautiful,” Gareth said, looking upward himself as he chewed. He thought to make some claim about Naya being more beautiful than the stars themselves, but decided it was more groanworthy than romantic. Instead, he scooted himself closer to Naya, thirty pounds of armor clinking upon itself, and he held out his piece of bread.

“You haven’t eaten tonight, have you? Here, have the rest of mine.”

Naya took the loaf and stared at it for a moment, as if eating was some perilous decision. But at last, he did tear off a piece and chewed it down.

“I know you’re disheartened. I’m sorry it had to come to this,” Gareth said.

Naya swallowed and spoke as if to no one. “I am about to do the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life.”

Gareth raised an eyebrow and watched as Naya took another bite whist staring into the fire and chewing slowly. Gareth had to remind himself that Naya had never fought on a battlefield. To his knowledge, Naya’s greatest hardship had been leading missionaries and caring for Gareth. Perhaps sitting idly by while Gareth killed his people really would be the more difficult thing he had ever done.

Gareth sighed. “Listen Naya, I’ll make their deaths quick. They won’t suffer if I can help it. We can even bury them, if you’d like.”

“Please, stop talking about that,” Naya said. “I am done feeling sorrowful about this. I want to talk about other things.” He took another bite of his bread as Gareth wondered how Naya was able to simply extinguish his sorrow. He strained to think of other things to talk about, but Naya beat him to it.

“When we finally have our home in the forest where I was born,” he said, “I want to grow flowers. Of all kinds. And I want to sell them to those in the city, and to have our children help me in the fields.”

It wasn’t the first time Naya had brought up kids. He had always wanted to raise a family, and Gareth thought it fitting to give a loving home to those who had been displaced by the war.

Gareth smiled, imagining that fantastical future. “What will I do?” he asked.

“Whatever you want,” Naya said. “What is it you want, Gareth?”

Gareth paused a moment to think on it, realizing he had done very little thinking on what he would do if he ever escaped war.

“Perhaps I could learn how to hunt,” he said. “I’ve never laid paws on a bow. I’d like to try it. Seems like it’d be satisfying to land a blow with one.”

“I’m sure you could be the greatest hunter in the land,” Naya said.

“And you the greatest florist,” said Gareth. “You’ll fill the entire forest with flowers, until the mapmakers rename the woods to reflect their newfound beauty. I’m sure of it.”

Naya giggled and smiled up at him. “Poetic again,” he said, sighing. “I appreciate your confidence in me. However foolish.”

“Are you calling me a fool?”

“Perhaps. Although you are the most charming fool in all the land, if so.”

Gareth grinned. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“You said the same thing on the day we met. We were in bed together not an hour later.”

Gareth’s face grew hot, and he chuckled at the memory. “I suppose you’re right.” Then he looked at Naya and saw that loving look shining in his eyes. “Would you like to flatter me more?” he asked.

Naya looked up at Gareth with those shining blue pools and beautiful smile. Before Gareth could say more, Naya pulled him close by the rim of his breastplate and kissed him. Gareth surrendered immediately, melting into his mate, and he fell upon Naya, kissing him deeply upon the ground.

Then Naya drew back and smiled.

“Take off your armor,” Naya said. “I will show you flattery.”

Naya and Gareth lay under the silver light of the stars and moon. The glow of the fire had long since gone out, but their animal eyes allowed them to see with the lingering light of the night sky alone. Gareth had discarded his armor in a heap across camp from them, and he lay in only a tunic. Naya slept soundly upon his chest.

But out of the corners of his eyes, Gareth saw shadows moving in the forest. He thought it only his imagination—a trick of the moonlight and his own paranoias. But still, he decided it was best to not take chances.

He gently lifted Naya off of himself, and set him upon the soft grassy earth, taking a moment to watch him sleep. He looked so vulnerable there, lying peacefully in soundless slumber, glowing like a gem with the light of the full moon. Gareth wondered what god had blessed him to have met a person like Naya, of if any had at all. He smiled, and he got up from the earth, slipping into his pants and chauses without dropping Fang. He had become very good at doing menial tasks with one hand.

The instant he touched his armor, he heard Naya stir.

“What are you doing?” Naya mumbled with one footpaw still in his dreams. “Come back to bed, love.”

Gareth looked back at Naya and hesitated. “I need to get my armor back on,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be ambushed here, but the shadows in this forest are suspicious. I will not have you unprotected.”

“Shadows?” Naya asked. “You saw shadows moving. Are you sure?”

Gareth squinted. “No, it was probably just my imagination. A corner of the eye thing. But still, it’s a good reminder to stay ready.”

Naya leaned up on one elbow. “There is no need. Leave your armor and come back to sleep. We will be alright. The goddess protects.”

Gareth chuckled. “I trust myself more than I do any god, Naya. Now please, go back to sleep and I’ll keep watch.”

“No.”

Gareth looked back and locked eyes with Naya, deeply confused. Naya looked suddenly worried, and his eyes pleaded with Gareth to return to their little spot on the earth.

“Naya, is something wrong? You’re shaking.”

“No, of course not,” Naya said, ceasing his trembling immediately. “I want to rest by your side, that is all. It is cold tonight.”

Gareth took stock of the temperature. The night was actually quite warm. “You’re not acting like yourself,” he said.

“Is it not myself to want you back in my arms?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Gareth said. “I’ve never known you to be careless with our safety. Why now?”

Naya stared at Gareth for a long time, then his stare broke, and he averted his eyes.

“I just want to lay with you for longer. I want to savor these moments before you go to my people and...”

Gareth’s shoulders drooped and his ears fell back as realized Naya’s pain. He walked back to Naya and knelt before him. “I’m sorry, dear. I’m so sorry. I’ll put on my gear and sit with you, but I have a feeling in my gut. It would go against everything I know to stay so exposed.” Gareth stood again and went back to his armor.

“Gareth, for your own good, do not put that on.”

Gareth stopped, blinking and turning to meet Naya’s gaze once more.

“Come back to me. Now.”

“Naya, what’s wrong with you?”

A bird sounded in the forest, and Naya’s ears rotated at the sound. Naya closed his eyes tight and breathed out. When he opened his eyes again, the light had gone out of them.

“We will meet them soon,” Naya said. “I cannot allow you to put on your armor. They will not be able to touch you.”

“Touch me?” Gareth asked. “Naya, what are you talking about?”

Another birdsong. The same one. Naya’s ears turned again to meet it.

“Gareth, my love,” Naya said. “There is so much you don’t know about me. I have told you so many lies.” Naya stood, his long tunic covering his nakedness, sleeves falling below his paws, tail flowing behind him like a ghostly veil. “But there is no need for that now. As you said, the shadows are here.”

“The shadows?” Gareth said, glancing around at the forest’s edge. Nothing moved within it now. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…that you should have listened to Karak.”

Gareth’s ears fell, and a tremor ricocheted through him that caused his fur to shudder. His tail fell low and still.

“Karak is right, Gareth. Liliana is finally moving against him. She has shirked her role as a goddess of peace, and desires to finally end the reign of the war god. Her people have trained as warriors in secret for years now, preparing for this moment.”

Gareth stepped back, watching as Naya’s eyes truly lost their light. The emotion went out of his voice.

“She has ordered us to begin the purge of the wolf knights, and she has given responsibility for your death to me.”

Gareth stepped back, horrified. His stomach ached. His muscles felt weak. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

“But you’re not going to do it, right? You can’t.”

Naya stared directly at Gareth, like a monster readying to kill their prey. “It is the reason I tempted you out of your armor."

Gareth’s ears sunk lower. The earth seemed to shake with the emotional violence of this horror. He fell to one knee. Fang clattered to the ground. He became human once more, and for the first time he did not care to notice.

“Naya, you can resist her,” he said. “Karak has pushed me to turn against you many times, but I’ve rejected every attempt. Please, do the same for me. I beg you.”

Naya shook his head, and any remaining color drained from Gareth’s pale face.

“The goddess has little to do with my decision,” Naya said. “I cannot live with your despair any longer, Gareth. It has drained me. Driven me mad, trying so hard to heal you each morning but finding no end to it. Every day I am tired. So tired and afraid. All because of you and your misery. And now, you seek to kill my people.” Naya straightened up and squared his shoulders. “I will finally put you out of your misery.”

Naya let forth a whistle, like three chirps of a bird, and figures emerged from the shadows around him. Knights of Liliana—foxes, all of them—emerged to frame Naya. A dozen of them scattered around the clearing, surrounding Gareth. They carried a variety of weapons, meant to confuse, and wore blackened leather armor and dark cloaks only worn by those who hide in the night.

“No,” Gareth said. “Impossible. This isn’t you. You wouldn’t do something like this.”

“I’m sorry, Gareth.”

“But Naya, the future you wanted. The forest where you were born. We were going build a home and raise a family there. You can’t tell me that was all a lie.”

“It was not. Not at first,” Naya said. “But you never believed it would happen anyway, Gareth. Do not pretend it was ever really a possibility.”

Gareth was speechless. The life they had imagined together—their fields flowers, their home of stone, and their future children—burned alive in his mind.

“There is no point in fighting anymore, Gareth,” said Naya. “Just let go.” Then he turned to his brethren, and he gave the order. “Take him.”

The twelve foxes advanced upon Gareth, who still stared in horror at Naya. His legs turned to jelly. His mind numbed. His heart utterly shattered. He felt as if he were falling, looking up in disbelief as he plummeted to his doom. It didn’t make any sense. None of it made any sense.

Then he caught a glimpse of Karak standing behind Naya. A knowing smile stretched across his face.

Gareth found a deep rage possessing him at the sight of the god—rage that Karak was correct, and that Gareth’s world had fallen to the god’s relentless truth. Rage that Liliana had somehow corrupted Naya, or that perhaps he had been corrupted all along. Rage at himself, for having driven Naya to such fatigue, and for falling for his deceptions for so long. It was over. The love he had for Naya was nothing but fuel now, burning away like oil, transforming into a swelling, unstoppable anger.

The foxes advanced upon him.

Gareth picked up Fang by its grip. He shifted into a wolf. He stuck the point into the ground, levered himself up, and bared his teeth. A thunderous growl forced its way out of his throat, like the blast of a volcano. The molten abyss of a forge burned in his eyes. The foxes advanced. He watched them. Hated them. Desired more than anything in the world to kill them.

He transformed into the wolf of rage Karak had said he would become.

The first fox died in the space of three heartbeats.

As it neared, overeager, inexperienced, Gareth kicked the blade up from the ground. It drove through the fox’s guard and slit his face. The wolf turned the momentum of the blade and brought it down two times in a cross. It sliced the fox’s chest, right through the leather cuirass, sending crescents of blood like the blades of great scythes through the air.

The fox screamed.

It crumpled to the ground.

Gareth raised Fang in an upper stance.

“Come on!” He roared.

And the foxes of Liliana heard him.

Gareth stepped toward the others and screamed with the bloodthirst of a monster from the darkest of myths. Three came at him. A short sword, an axe, and a mace. He swiped Fang in a long arc across the group to drive them back, and cut the slowest of them across the stomach, dooming it to die.

Gareth whirled with perfect footwork to meet two foxes who had gotten behind him. He completed the strike and brought Fang down toward the fox on the right, but it turned Fang aside with the haft of its spear. The fox tried to slip past his guard, but Gareth seized Fang by its ricasso and used it as a lever to drive the pommel into the fox’s face, so hard and fast that it fell with a cracked skull back to the ground.

The second fox landed its strike, though not in the place the thing had intended. Its sword slashed into the outer edge of Gareth’s hip, rather than the stomach it had aimed for. Gareth didn’t even feel the pain. He used the moment to grab Fang by the blade in a mordhau, and drove the sword’s parrying hook into the fox’s neck. He wrenched the sword back so that the hook gouged out the fox’s neck, opening the airway and splitting the artery. The fox fell back, drowning in its own blood.

Gareth rolled, evading an attack from five foxes who lunged at him all at once, but not before a blade drove a deep gash into his right shoulder, and a mace caught him hard in the back. He jumped into a right-side stance, and barely set into it before charging into the group of five, slashing upward, splitting a fox from groin to shoulder and stabbing another spear-style through the chest. His adrenaline paid no heed to his shattered vertebrae, and split shoulder.

He wheeled the blade around himself on both sides, controlling the positions of the remaining three. The fox with the axe tried to dodge into his flurry. It lost a paw for his trouble, but it managed to grapple onto Gareth with the other paw. It snapped at him—trying to bury its fangs in Gareth’s neck. Gareth grabbed the fox by the tail and ripped him off. He heard the tail snap as its vertebra separated, and he threw the yelping fox back into his compatriots, knocking them down.

Two more foxes came from his side, and Gareth whirled Fang above himself, spinning into a flurry meant to drive them back, then breaking out and lunging at the one on the right. The fox managed to turn Fang aside and come at him. Gareth had swung too wide. He was open. The fox stabbed him through the gut.

The second fox came up behind Gareth, and with a swing of a war axe it chopped off his tail. 

Gareth screamed as blood poured from the wound, and the pain which should have been paralyzing lit an inferno under him instead. The world turned red.

“Why?!” he screamed. He took the fox who had driven the sword through him, and slammed it to the ground by its neck, skewering it the next instant. Then he turned to the fox who had cut his tail and brought Fang down upon it before it could react. Once. Twice. Three, four, five, six, seven times at impossible speed, beating through the fox’s guard and pulping the miserable thing into the damned earth long past the point of its death.

Two foxes from behind took the opening that rage had created. One bashed him across the head with a mace, and Gareth reeled from the impact. He kicked the mace-wielder back when it came at him again, and it hit to the ground, scrambling backward. Gareth raised Fang to finish him when the other fox jumped in front of him and used its shield to block an overhead blow from Gareth’s sword. The impact sent the fox flying with a broken arm, but it was enough of an opening for the mace wielder to jump up and move in again. Its club bashed Gareth’s head, cracking the skull. It should have ended the fight.

And yet, Gareth did not go down.

He kicked the mace wielder away from himself again and drove Fang through it like a spear, skewering the downed fox through its chest.

As he withdrew the sword, bringing it up to strike the shield-wielder down, he felt the heavy impact of a bolt in his back. He staggered, more from the force of the impact than from any pain. He looked toward the crossbowman and growled.

As the fox reloaded, Gareth caught a glimmer of fear in its eyes. No doubt, Gareth looked like a demon. He seemed an avatar of Karak himself, standing drenched in blood and moonlight, swords and bolts sticking out from his body, mutilated to such a degree as to recall paintings of horrors dreamt up by disturbed men. It felt good. Like a new form altogether, far truer than any he had possessed before. It made made him lethal beyond what should have been possible.

He would, indeed, build hills of corpses—hundreds of them—on the field of every battle now. He would serve Karak forever and never feel the morning again. He would drink from the blood-filled fountains of war and revel in every kill as he had long ago. He would have his form. He would enjoy his slavery again, and he would never make the mistake of letting someone free him from it ever again.

And then, his eyes fell upon Naya.

Naya, who had ordered Gareth’s death so soullessly, and who had watched with sociopathic numbness as the foxes advanced upon him, now knelt in a crumpled heap upon the ground. He shivered, hyperventilated, and mouthed some mantra of desperate, futile comfort as his betrayal ran its course. His tail thrashed wildly, his ears flattened, and his eyes widened as if he was being strangled. Naya reached out for something to grasp onto, found nothing, and collapsed onto his side, curling up into fetal position and trembling to a near-epileptic degree.

Gareth recognized that panic. That stress and utter despair. It was the morning—the same state of mental agony he found himself in as the sun rose each day. Naya felt something akin to it now. That chilling sense of loss. Of helplessness and futility. Of panic and despair. The chains of servitude to a cruel god preventing him from following his own path, cutting deep into his mind until he could no longer function. Doing what must be done, with no choice in the matter.

And he was utterly alone.

At the edge of the battle, no one tended to Naya as he had tended to Gareth for all those years. Gareth had never carried his struggles alone. Naya had watched him. Comforted him. Kept him from hurting himself, or from drowning in despair. Naya had cared more than should have been possible. He had given more of himself to Gareth than any god ever could. And now he sought to end Gareth’s life.

It didn’t make any sense.

And as Gareth watched Naya’s suffering, he realized there was no point in fighting for the sake of rage alone.

The rage of the war god slipped away.

Gareth knew that he could have won. He could have let that rage carry him to victory. There were only a few foxes left to kill. He could end them, heal his fatal wounds by dropping Fang, and return with glory to the open arms of Karak and the sweet embrace of war and bloodshed. It would be glorious. Worthy of a song.

But without the rage of his god or the love of his mate, Gareth had no fight left.

The mace cracked his skull from behind. Gareth reeled from the impact. He finally felt pain again, and he lost his wits as the agony hit him at once. So many blades pierced his body. So many bones were broken. He collapsed to the ground.

From his place in the dirt, Gareth saw Karak standing at the edge of the wood, bathed in moonlight that gleamed upon his crimson armor. The god looked disappointed—like a parent upset with their child. He shook his head, hoisted his Claymore onto his shoulder, and disappeared into smoke.

Then the pain of battle, the judgement of Karak, and his love for Naya were swallowed whole by the last crack of the mace.

 THE END