The woods fell to darkness as the lady silverface retired behind a veil of grey tinged clouds. As if they were children now released from the watchful eyes of their chaperone, the gentle gusts of wind picked up the speed and rowdiness of their play, whipping up the powdery snow already on the ground, taunting them for their hapless inertia.

Conall reined in his hog, which snorted and shuffled its hooves agitatedly, chafing at the restraining leather straps. It clearly did not want to stop in this clearing, and neither did its rider; yet the lady had indicated that this would be her destination. Conall dismounted first, then turned and extended a hand to help his passenger down.

She landed softly, her soft leather boots making only a muffled thud on the snowy ground. For a moment, as the lady steadied herself, they stood close to each other, her bare hand in his gloved one, her intriguing face near his, the visible white puffs of their breaths mingling in the cold air.

Then she stepped away quickly, her pale hands clutching her cloak close to her, and the spell was broken.

Her amber eyes darting here and there as she stood alone in the clearing, the lady suddenly looked uncertain and vulnerable. Conall gave a knowing sigh; perhaps she was regretting her decision to arrive home at this time of the night. ‘Lady-‘

‘Bounty Hunter, will you escort me further?’ Her low voice trembled slightly as she spoke now. She looked at him through bashfully lowered lids, an unexpected show of shyness. ‘Please?’

‘It will be my pleasure, lady. You did not even need to ask,’ Conall said as gallantly as he could, gathering up the reins of his hog with a gloved hand. And he did, of course, truly consider it a pleasure.

Perhaps, Conall found himself musing, the lady might realise how unsafe the forest could be at night, and invite him to stay the night…

The hog grunted in protest at Conall’s hasty command to move forward, its beady eyes narrowing as if considering resistance. Luckily, it decided against it, and Conall was saved from engaging in an undignified tug-of-war with his tamed beast in front of the lady.

They proceeded on foot, as the trees now grew too close together on either side of the path for them to ride. The path was one that Conall had never seen before, and it made him feel unsettled. He had believed himself familiar with all the existing paths in the El Nath forests, and it had been a while since he found himself unaware about something of the forests he hunted in.

‘I think we’re close,’ the lady spoke up tentatively, craning her neck to peer through the thick growth. ‘But I’m not sure…’

‘Allow me to go first, lady. I will clear the way for you,’ Conall volunteered, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder to stop her. She flinched violently at his touch, startling even Conall himself.

But she recovered quickly to smile in thanks and sidestepped to allow him to go first, taking over the hog’s reins from him as he unslung and loaded his Arund bow.

Conall forged ahead, bow held at the ready. She followed silently, her angular face tight with tension. He noticed that she had a hand on her sword, and his hands moved to get a better hold on the dark painted wood of his bow as well.

The trees suddenly fell away, the path leading out to yet another clearing. A dilapidated shack squatted to one side of the clearing, huddling against the surrounding forest. Conall smiled in relief to have arrived without incident.

He was just turning back to the lady, when a movement at the corner of his eyes made the hairs at the back of his neck prickle involuntarily in the freezing night air.

There was no time to think, only to react; Conall dove to one side, and the scythe of the lady’s sword missed the back of his neck by the skin of his teeth, the cold whistle of steel too close for comfort. The lethal blade slammed instead against the trunk of the tree to his right, chips of wood splintering off as it bit viciously into the trunk.

‘Lady! What are you doing?’

The lady only coolly freed her blade with a controlled tug, and spun to lash out at him again, her breath clouding in small puffs at her exertions.

Conall blocked slash after slash, parrying them off with his bow as his training and years of experience kicked in. But the lady proved that she was indeed worth her sword, and got past his guard expertly, slicing open cuts on his bare skin and spilling hot blood on the white snow.

Then, with a sudden twist, her blade cut down and across Conall’s hands, cutting past muscle and tendon to touch bone. With a cry, he released his bow in agony, his hands opening up uselessly. Another twist of her blade caught the Arund by its sighter and flung the bow far away from its master. It landed with a barely audible crash at the edges of the clearing, lost from sight and out of reach.

Moving inhumanely fast, the lady lunged forwards and knocked Conall over, smashing cruelly across his face with the pommel of her sword. Dazed, Conall fell over to the snow-covered ground, his bruised face numb from where it slammed into the snow-covered ground.

It was sheer discipline and strong will that made him turn to scramble back up, but his attempt to get to his feet was cut abruptly short at the flash of cold steel that was now drawn at his throat.

‘Lady, please! What wrong have I done you?’ The blood roared in Conall’s ears, echoing his confusion as he stared up along the length of the sword to his would-be quarry turned hunter.

‘You wish to know my name, Conall Bounty Hunter,’ the lady advanced on him, one slow step at a time. Capricious silverface picked that very moment to shed her veil of clouds, and her fierce shine caused the lady’s shadow to stretch and fall over Conall.

The lady’s eyes, under the silverface, glowed a wild yellow fire.

A sudden fear seized Conall’s heart as he recognised that fey gleam. ‘You are a Were!’

‘Now hear my name, and know it clear. My name is Faoiltiama, daughter of Fenrir, leader of silverface’s pack.’ As she spoke, her low clear voice became impossibly lower, even inhumanely guttural. It was as if the words had to be shaped forcefully to be recognised by human ears. ‘My lord and father was killed last week, murdered by a human! There wasn’t even a whole body left for the pack to mourn for.’ A moan of grief seemed to bubble up from beneath the distorted voice.

Already her beautiful face was elongating, the bone structure shifting and mutating with queer liquid movements. Her strange mane of hoary white hair seemed to flow longer to cover her changing face, her broadening shoulders, her lengthening limbs. ‘I am Faoiltiama, sworn swordbearer of silverface’s pack. And by the power of the Lady, I have only this night to walk amongst humans, and seek the murderer that took my lord Fenrir away from his pack!’

‘It can’t be! It was no changeling I killed! He did not change back!’ Conall tried to crawl backwards, to escape from this suddenly fearsome creature as fast as he could. But his useless hands and clumsy feet slipped on the snow, sliding this way. But even as his bleeding hands painted the snow a bright crimson, they found no purchase in the traitorous snow.

‘I know my father’s pelt anywhere, Conall Bounty Hunter!’ With that, the words were lost to a wolf’s gruesome snarl as human throat gave way to a lycanthrope’s.

The last thing Conall was aware of was the lycanthrope’s hot musty breath against his face as its fearsome jaws met at his throat in a clash of scalding blood and red terror!

He woke up.

He woke up, but could not begin to detail the pain that thrashed in the aching muscles of his body: his crippled hands and cut face were covered in blood, and his torn throat had blood frozen across it, arranged like a macabre necklace of red.

Conall only had time to register the numb cold of the deepwinter chill and muzzily wonder why he had fallen asleep in the middle of the El Nath forests, before his vision blurred and darkened once again.

But he would later be found, and would be rescued to a warm place by fellow hunters on their usual hunting trail.

There would be no sight of Faoiltiama, and his mount would be nowhere in sight as well. It would have long run off from its master, terrified by the appearance of the Lycanthrope and then subsequently devoured by silverface’s pack as it fled.

The fur wrap that Conall had so proudly touted as a prize would also be gone.

Conall would revive, nursed back to consciousness by the folks of El Nath who love him so well. But he would never speak of his ordeal, nor would he ever take a bow or any other weapon to the hunting trails in all the winters to come.

Conall’s reticence would not be because of the devastating wounds dealt to his throat or his once-skilful hands. Rather, Conall would have understood, and accepted, the lesson that Faoiltiama had imparted him: No matter how enraged, even animals possessed greater compassion and mercy towards their prey than Man can ever begin to comprehend.

And, as they have done in centuries before Man existed, the feral species dedicated to silverface would continue to prowl through the silver-lit wilderness, under the fickle watch of their capricious guardian.

———————–
Previous chapters:
(1) – Waxing
(2) – Fullmoon

And that’s the end.

Thanks again for the comments and support. Another thank you to Tninja for his help in the first reading.

And Fenny, there’s your mention. ;D

*gives cookies out to everyone*