Howling Pact

The blood-red moon rose over Duskmere.

It was swollen and low—an omen to those who watched the skies too closely. But the villagers laughed at omens tonight. The Harvest Festival was the one evening of the year when debts were forgotten, when hunger was drowned in spiced wine, when even the poorest could share in the bounty.

Lanterns swayed from ropes strung across the square, their yellow glow mingling with the unnatural crimson above. Musicians played on a hastily built stage—a fiddler, a flutist, and a boy beating a drum as though his arms might fly off with joy. The rhythm was uneven, but it carried, and soon the whole square was alive with stomping feet.

Merchants called cheerfully from stalls heavy with bread, cider, roasted chestnuts, and late-autumn apples polished bright as jewels. Children wove between them, faces painted with smudged patterns of foxes, deer, and crows. Someone loosed a handful of paper lanterns into the sky, and the crowd roared with approval as the tiny flames floated upward toward the red moon.

Old men leaned on canes, mugs of ale spilling down their beards. Young couples slipped into shadowed alleys to steal kisses. Even the guards at the edge of the square—usually quick with a scowl or a strike of the cudgel—lingered near the wine barrels. For a night, Duskmere was alive.

The festival rang with joy.

Then came the scream.

At first it was thin, almost drowned by laughter—a girl’s shriek near the far side of the square. Some laughed, thinking it part of the revelry. But the sound rose—raw, desperate. Then another voice joined it. Then another.

The fiddler’s bow faltered across the strings, producing a squeal that set teeth on edge. The flute cut off. The drumming stopped. Silence spread unevenly, broken by those still laughing until they, too, realised the change in the air.

The crowd parted as though pushed. Mothers clutched children. Men turned to see.

And the firelight revealed them.

Figures stepped from the alleys into the square. Tall, gaunt, bound in blackened armor that seemed twisted and melted, as though forged in nightmare. Their visors glowed faintly with a ghost-pale light. They made no sound—not the scrape of boot nor the rattle of plate. They moved like shadows given form.

At their sides slunk wolves—if wolves they could be called. Their bodies were made of sinew and smoke, their eyes burning coals. Where their paws struck the stones, frost rimed the cobbles though the night was warm.

The Hollowfangs.

The word hissed through the crowd, carried in whispers sharp with fear. Some had only heard tales meant to frighten children into obedience. Yet here they were, silent as death, standing beneath the blood moon.

The first strike came swift.

One of the knights bent, its pale gauntlet closing around a child’s arm. The boy kicked and screamed, lifted high as though weightless. His mother hurled herself at the knight, nails clawing at its visor. Without turning its head, the creature struck her aside. She flew across the cobbles, the crack of bone sharp enough to silence half the square.

Chaos exploded.

Screams burst like firecrackers. People surged as one, crashing into stalls, overturning braziers. Wine spilled like blood across the ground. Children were lost in the crush, voices shrill with terror.

The wolves leapt. One tore into a man hauling bread, its shadow-teeth ripping flesh as easily as straw. Another darted into the crowd, dragging a girl down by her skirts—her cries cut short in a gurgle. Everywhere the beasts passed, smoke and frost lingered.

The guards tried to rally, but their courage cracked like rotten wood. One raised a spear and shouted for the men to form up. The words barely left his mouth before a Hollowfang cleaved him through, his body folding in the dirt. Others dropped weapons and fled.

The square was a slaughterhouse.

The fiddler crouched behind his barrel, bow clutched like a dagger though his hands shook too violently to use it. The flutist ran, disappearing into the smoke. The drummer stood frozen until a wolf bowled him over—then he was gone too.

An old man toppled in the press of the crowd, crying out for his son. A girl stumbled over him, only to be snatched by a pale gauntlet. A Hollowfang lifted her high. She thrashed, small fists pounding uselessly against black steel.

The moon glowed brighter, as though watching.

Some fought back. A butcher swung his cleaver into the side of a wolf, splitting shadow. The beast screamed like a human drowning, then turned and tore the butcher’s throat. A pair of farmers jabbed pitchforks at a knight, but the tines bent against its armor like soft tin. Their reward was a single sweep of the pale blade, cutting them both down.

The crowd broke fully then. People scattered down the alleys, tripping over one another. Children were abandoned, screaming for parents who could not hear them. The square emptied in fits, bodies trampled underfoot, until only the slowest or most stubborn remained.

And always the Hollowfangs worked with cold precision—snatching children, cutting down any who tried to bar their way. Their wolves prowled at the edges, herding survivors like livestock.

By the fountain in the square’s center, a small boy sat wailing beside his toppled lantern. His father turned, eyes wide, but before he could reach the child a wolf lunged. The man screamed, hurling himself forward. For a heartbeat he managed to shield his son. Then the beast’s jaws closed around his shoulder, dragging him down in a spray of blood. The boy shrieked as pale hands seized him, lifting him screaming into the night.

Still the knights made no sound. No breath, no grunt, no word. Only the ring of their swords and the whispers of the wolves.

The flames spread from fallen braziers, licking up the sides of stalls. Smoke churned through the square, stinging eyes and throats. Against the haze the Hollowfangs looked less like men and more like statues cut from void. The wolves’ shapes blurred as though half-dissolved, only their eyes fixed and certain.

The festival was gone. In its place was nightmare.

The music had died. The laughter had curdled to sobs. Families clawed at each other in blind desperation to survive. The cobblestones were slick with wine and blood.

When at last the Hollowfangs withdrew, they did so without haste, fading back into the alleys from which they had come. Their wolves slunk after them, dragging the bodies of the fallen, though most of what they took were children. Their cries echoed until distance swallowed them.

Only silence remained.

Not peace—never that. Only the gasping of the wounded, the low keening of parents clutching bloodied scraps of clothing where children had been. Fires crackled unattended. The stench of smoke and charred meat hung heavy.

Above it all the red moon watched, pitiless.

What had begun in joy ended in terror. Duskmere’s Harvest Festival lay broken, its laughter forever soured.

And in the silence afterward, every soul left alive knew one thing with dreadful certainty:

The hounds would return.