Rise of the Wolfking

Beasts bellowed in the distance, shaking the dusty red earth with their agony. The ground rumbled beneath his paws. Distant chases, heavy hooves desperate to escape swift claws and hungry bellies. Or, acidic geysers spitting up gray fumes into the hazy, orange sky. He reared his head back before plunging into the thick, black carcass. His teeth sunk down until they scraped pearlescent bone. With a snarl and sharp shake of his neck, he peeled back chunks of sour meat. Iron-rich blood spilled down his throat, as well as it could given how cold and curdled it had become. The hunt was old, but even fresh bodies carried a sick and poisonous taste. He tensed his throat, pushing the meat down to sit heavy in his stomach. 

Howls sliced the dense fog beyond the bounds of his cave. Songs teeming with desperation and grief. Prayers to those whom had perished on the sands, pleas for forgiveness for the Overland, a wish of warm food and cool water. He snorted in cold amusement. If they wanted to share in the carcass or drink from his pool, they knew the price.

Licking his jagged fangs to rid them of the sticky blood, he paced back to the curved stone wall of his den. The rock was carved by small, trickling streams of brown water. He dragged his tongue over the sharp cracks, filling his mouth with the droplets. The water burned as he forced it down, and it took several tries until he had cleared his teeth of the black blood.

If they wanted it so badly, they knew the one thing he required. He was merciful to share at all. They had done nothing. Earned nothing. All they knew how to do was pray and beg. It was his power that kept them safe from the most terrible monsters. It was his power that provided them a home. It was his power they ought to plead and beg for.

A small noise cut through the chaos, close enough to draw his ears back with a twitch. Claws clipping the hot stones, paws sifting through the sands. Panting lungs, small whines. For a while, that noise was familiar to him. Before she had become too afraid to enter his home. She had been the last--the only--to enter his den without doing so only to provide excuses. He would have her back.

He opened his mouth, terrible snarls rolling down his tongue to drip against the hot earth. He formed them into words of warning. To his back, the wolf whimpered even more pathetically but did not stop his slow creep forward. The demon walked with his head bowed so low his chin dragged trails through the fine layers of dust. His paws left small, red prints. Blood from the scorched lands or the jagged, black rocks.

At the opening to the cave, the wolf sunk down onto his stomach. His dirtied, brown coat melded seamlessly into the orange dust and red dirt. His jaws creaked open, words pouring out in wolf tongue. “We have expanded the search but still-”

He lunged forward, snapping his teeth at the bowed head. The littler wolf whimpered and curled tightly, his paws coming up to cover his scar-riddled snout. “I do not need more accounts of how useless you all are! How difficult is it to find one wolf?”

“Tw-” The little wolf flinched, and whined out, “two, my Lord.”

He barked out a harsh laugh, his head tilting up to stare at the sharp ceiling rocks of his den as if their shape could provide him a map. “Two? Two?” He shook his head and paced back to the dense corpse rotting at the center of his den. “Is this what it is all about? That. . . pathetic little creature? I should have ended him as swiftly as I did the others. If not for-” his growls faded away, taken away by the sudden sharpness of the memories rising to the surface. The memories carved into him of that night. Her teeth snapping at his throat, her claws raking at his shoulders. The way her ribs had groaned under his paws, her pained howls. “I was too easy on her.” He decided. “I let her keep him as a prize. I thought,” that his gift would be appreciated. He snarled, his teeth grinding together. “I should have known better.” All they did was take him for granted.

“There is no way for a wolf to survive on their own out in the scorch, my Lord,” the wolf pleaded, “perhaps she has-”

“No.” He snapped, his teeth clicking with the force of his bark. “She is stronger than that sort of death.”

The demon swallowed hard. His eyes fell to his paws and did not rise again. “Then perhaps. . . she has gotten out.”

“Out?” He roared. “No one escapes the choke. No one escapes my kingdom. And no one escapes me!” He paced forward through the hot sands, his talons scraping the rock with each step. The wolf began to shake, his whimpers coating the air. Small flecks of scent floated from him, tiny attempts at Fetor soaked in too much fear to be anything more than laughable. “I am the only of my kind. I am the last Silver-Tongued wolf, descendant of Alukah herself. I am King Kago, the ruler of the choke.” He bent down, his teeth beside the wolfs pinned ears. “I am the Wolfking.”

His body shook as he whined back small apologies. “Y-yes, my Lord.” He begged. “Of course, my Lord. It is only that we wish to find her for you, my Lord. If she has gone above-”

“Wolves,” the Wolfking snarled, “do notbelongabove.”

“Yes, of course, yes, my Lord.”

“If she has gone to the Overland, she will learn soon enough that there is no place for our kind under the blue sky.” The Wolfking promised. “They will hunt her. They will tear her to pieces and laugh as the light fades from her eyes. That is the world all you whelps fantasize about. You do not know what is it like up there. None of you know any different than the scorch. You have become ungrateful, too idle and lazy to keep up with the demands of this home.”

“Of course, my Lord, we do not know any better, my Lord.” He cried.

Kago snapped his jaws and stepped over him, walking out into the blistering sands and hot, red winds. His kingdom went still at his presence. She-wolves dropped to their stomachs, their eyes averted. Pups, sickly and thin as the last bite of a meal, burrowed into their mothers furs. Soldiering wolves, the young adults with enough strength to fight and the elders who filled their pitiful ranks, bowed their heads and awaited his orders.

“Are you hungry?” Kago shouted into the fog. Only hopefully anxious glances and baited silence answered him. “Then hunt!” He snarled. His barks echoed up the sharp ravines that sheltered them from the worst of the weathers. “Ah, that is right. You can not. You are all too weak to catch anything.” He spat his disgust, his eyes sharp and accessing. “I feed you! I keep you safe! And yet you all seem to forget! I do not ask for much in return.” he shrugged, sighing as he shook his head. “But one of you,” he snarled, as he did now when he thought of her, “got greedy.”

She-wolves curled around their pups, bodies tensed. Soldiers shifted from paw to paw. Kago drank in the scent of their fears, consuming it as a favorite wine. “And now she has run off! I do not ask for much, only that she be returned to me. And yet, not a single one of you can find her!”

Kago looked up at the red skies, at the world that was above their own. This far beneath the foot of Avernus, Kago sometimes forgot that another world was out there. A place with blue skies capable of terrible storms, endless seas teeming with sunken sailors, and frigid snows high enough to make any lost traveler a fresh grave without disrupting a single particle of dirt. A world that detested their kind. Kago had been there, as many eons ago as it was now. He remembered how they had been chased out, how the Avernians had pleaded with the Angels to wipe wolves from existence. Kago had been there--he had been the one to lead them into safety, into isolation. He had told her the stories each time her dreams became too dangerous. He had told her how ruthless that Overland was. And yet . . . had she ever been listening? Had he ever seen understanding in her blue eyes? No. No, now he was sure. She had never cared for him or for what he had done for them--if she did, she would have stopped begging him to take them to that hateful place.

“She is. . . there.” He whispered. “Her greed, her dangerous ambitions.”

Kago laughed. The sound echoed through all of the scorched lands. He saw her so clearly in his mind. He knew her better than she understood herself. She was running--and she would never stop. Not until she had gone to the only place she thought he would never follow. And suddenly, he knew exactly how to find her.

“If you want to eat.” He snarled, madness and joy lighting a fire in his heart. “If you want your mate or pups to eat--you will bring her to me. Drag her back down into the depth. Remind her that this place is the only land our kind can survive. Go, now! Bring me that she-wolf!”

Barking filled the air, paws pounding against the hot sands. Pups cried out as their elder siblings turned tail and fled into the orange fog. Mother dogs howled prayers of safety. Soldiering types gave last looks to thin she-wolves before turning away into the desert. Kago turned on his claws and slumped back into the dark.

“You will pay, my love.” He whispered into the space she had once been. “But do not fret. Once we are together again, there will be plenty of time to earn my forgiveness.”

In the distance, the fevered pitch of howls reverberated until they shook the red sands.