Undertaker
Lisette
Mother always said to slow down, to listen to the earth. “Each vibration tells a story,” she'd said. The first time I ever followed this advice, I placed my tiny paw to the ground and felt the soft moss sink around my claws as a scream reverberated through me. Mother’s scream.
She’d been slaughtered earlier that morning, as well as the rest of my pack.
That was many years ago. But I didn’t need to sink my claws into the ground to get a sense of what had happened here.
The acrid odor of sweat and unwashed fur turned my stomach as I tiptoed down the dirt path. Dark crimson rivulets pooled in the dips and potholes. Worn wooden shutters dangled by their hinges, carts were crushed into nothing more than shards, and the ground was littered with abandoned wicker shopping baskets and smashed, rotting produce and… blood. So much blood.
In some areas, it was dry, sticky, and clotted, but in others, where it collected in a deep crack or crevice, it was still wet. But not fresh. No warmth wafted from its puddles.
Must've been days ago. And likely a damn massacre, I thought. Hopefully, some of them escaped before he got here.
But the blood splattered on the ground told me a different story—a hopeless story. I could feel the echo of their pain without pressing my hand or paw to the earth—the ones who’d been slain in the king’s rampage. The king’s pack—the Grimfur Knights—still practiced the barbaric ways of the Old Wolf. The frantic, high-pitched shrieks pulsing underneath the cobblestones and dirt showed me husbands were torn apart and eaten. Wives, too, after their king realized none of them was his mate. The mate he’d scoured the realm for to no avail for centuries.
A creature with a heart as dark as his doesn’t deserve a mate.
Perhaps that was why King Viktor was so cruel. His lack of a mate had driven him to insanity. A wolf’s mate would be there to soothe them, guide them. A wolf without its mate was lost.
Well, a male wolf would be lost.
My breath caught in my throat as I stepped over the smeared entrails left from the brutish pack’s visit. Intestines coiled like snakes and organs too mangled to identify. The pale corpse of a woman with wide-open iron-grey eyes lay in the grass, her face frozen in horror. Her arms cradled a baby’s sleeping basket, filled with cotton blankets and padding. But no baby.
Shakily, I exhaled and leaned forward, forcing myself to sniff. She smelled of sour milk and spit-up. And that sweet, downy, unmistakable scent that only came from babies.
She was someone’s mother. Where is her baby?
Fear prickled over my scalp, but I continued surveying the scene. An adult-sized severed arm lay to my right, the palm still open and fingers curled. Up ahead, more limbs.
Those bastards. I’d done this for years, but it never got easier.
I frowned at the corpses of the women they’d ravaged. Fellow she-wolves and humans. Reluctantly, I knelt and pressed my open palm to the blood-soaked ground. Wum. Wum. Wum. The earth told me in haunting, slow drums that the poor children had fled into the forest as Viktor laughed. I was at least glad they weren’t maimed, but I knew what horrors they’d witnessed.
Avaline will have found them already, I thought. Maybe they brought the baby with them. She’ll protect them.
As my nerves adjusted to the bloodshed, anger pounded in my heart, and my hands clenched into shaky fists at my side. A good pack had been slaughtered, their bloodied remains scattered as if they never mattered. I thought how frightened they must have been as their king descended upon them, tearing them to pieces in a fit of madness.
I recalled the feeling too well. The inexplicable dread I experienced as he did the same to my parents and the rest of my pack. I’d wet myself in fear, being only a child, and hid under the bed, listening to the screams of my pack all night. Until it was silent, and the last wolf prowled away. When daylight came, I crawled out from the dusty, dim hiding place and forced myself to keep my eyes forward, to the door, so that I couldn’t see the mauled bodies squelching beneath my bare feet.
Outside, I realized I was alone, and I collapsed to the earth, listening to it for the first time. The screams were so loud, so palpable, that I fell to my knees, covering my ears. What fear I carried, knowing I was the only one who made it out alive.
That first time I pressed my paw to the ground, to hindsight, as it was called, was the first time Viktor’s name appeared in my mind. But it wasn’t the last. The truth of what he’d done blazed behind my eyes on an endless loop for years. Centuries.
My eyes trailed up to the sky. It was morning, the pale autumn blue taking over the last bit of the moon. But I could see it. Its ancient, reliable glow faded into daylight, and I drew my power from it. Warmth hummed in my veins, my chest swelling as I gathered my lycan strength.
A wolf could channel the moon at any point in its cycle, use it for its needs, but when the moon was full, all wolves bent to its will. Humanity was shed as we shifted into massive creatures, covered in thick fur and bearing sharp fangs. While females could control their primal urges, even under the full moon’s curse, a male was controlled by it. Went mad over it. At least until he found a mate to ground him.
And these days, there weren’t many she-wolves left. Especially with Viktor the Bladetooth slaughtering them like so. Any woman who wasn’t his mate was deemed worthless.
Flexing my arms, strength pumped my muscles, and my energy rejuvenated like the striking of flint against steel. I stalked over to the stable, miraculously finding the horses untouched. One whinnied and trotted back, wary of me, even though I hadn’t changed into my other form. She knew, as all animals did. They could sense a lycan without them being in true wolf.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said, pitying the black mare as she jerked her head back. Her eyes were wide, glazed with trauma, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d seen it all. The slaying of her people. Slowly, I gave her a nuzzle, the heat from her snout tickling my ear. “I’ll be back for you come nightfall.”
Looking back and forth, I made certain I was alone before I shrugged out of my clothes. Of course, I was. The village was devoid of all life. The memory of the dead mother burned in my mind once again, and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking of her missing baby.
Where are you, little one?
I folded my worn blouse and pants into a neat pile, baring my flesh. Drawing more of the moon’s strength, I morphed. My fair skin prickled as red fur covered it, my body doubling in size as I fell to all fours.
And I began.
It took all day, as I knew it would, but I dug a pit as deep and wide as a large pond with my paws. Then I dragged the pack's remains to the mass grave. I hadn’t been there to protect them, but I could at least give them a proper burial. It was my occupation: undertaker.
Once done, I hunted, ate, and slept. I stayed in true wolf, in case I were to meet any other wolves lurking about. But after my rest, I shifted back into woman and dressed.
My chest heaved, restless anger churning inside me as I chewed my inner cheek. For too long, Viktor the Bladetooth had spilled blood. And I couldn’t deny that the weight of witnessing each tragedy had begun to weigh me down. I’d waited for years for someone to overthrow him. But no one had.
I feel heavy. Entirely too heavy.
Many moon cycles had passed between his this attack and the last one. The location was random, and it didn’t happen every time, but it was always around the full moon. I’d been sent here by Avaline, ordered to clean up whatever aftermath rotted under the night sky.
I took pride in my work, in caring for the dead. Undertaker was a respectable position in my pack, but I couldn’t stop the yearning. The yearning for revenge.
I had trained my whole life, honing my instincts with the best she-wolves in the Vale, and I'd prayed to the lycan gods, both Old and New, asking them what to do with my rage. The New Wolf said to make amends. To forgive. To soothe the inner beast.
But the Old Wolf… He called for bloodshed. He said to nurture the primal, flesh-tearing fury. He desired our true nature. I didn’t much care for his teachings.
How can Viktor commit such atrocities? Kill and mar his own kind? Wolves? Simply because they aren’t his mate?
Breathlessly, I sat back on my haunches, dirt thick under my nails. From the bank, I watched minnows swim in the clear creek behind the village.
Despite my efforts of burying the corpses, the place still reeked of death and violence. The shops and homes were in disarray, though it looked like nothing was taken. Just destroyed. I was a fighter and a hunter, but I was no carpenter or repairwoman. I couldn’t rebuild the village to its former charm.
It’s not like it matters. No one survived.
Besides, Avaline’s orders were strictly to clean up the disaster, bury the dead, and return home.
But I didn’t feel… satisfied. There was only so much carnage a person could witness before the fury absorbed them.
The image of the dead woman with grey eyes and her empty baby bed flashed in my mind. Surely they hadn’t harmed something so innocent? I didn’t even want to think of the possible outcomes.
My teeth caught my lower lip harshly, the metallic tang of blood filling my mouth. The sky darkened, but my anger didn’t soften. The moon peered from beyond the black night clouds. Waning Gibbous. Not full. Still, this didn’t stop the darkness that seeped through my soul. Somewhere, deep in the surrounding forest, the call of another wolf resounded through the trees. A call so eerie, so hair-raising. So… lonely. It called to something inside me, stirring my emotions even more.
I am ready.
Rising to my feet, I headed to the stable. The black mare huffed at my sudden arrival, at the vigor in my stride, but I took her reins in my hands. “You’ll be mine now. And no one will ever hurt you.”
If only I’d gotten here sooner. Maybe no one would have gotten hurt at all.
It was a foolish thought. One she-wolf against a horde of deranged, mateless male wolves? My gut sank as I imagined the outcome. My fate would have been similar to the others I’d buried. Torn to shreds by the alpha king of the Lupus Vale.
The pack I belonged to had a motto: “Only put yourself in harm’s path if absolutely unavoidable.” I understood why, but I couldn’t take it anymore. The retreating. The waiting until the damage was done to emerge.
No more waiting.
I mounted the horse, and we took off through the forest. Gnarled, black branches snagged at my threadbare blouse as the frigid wind cut into me, but my heart burned with such anguish I hardly noticed.
For too long, I’d been conflicted. Torn between good and evil. New Wolf and Old. Gentle yet violent. Caring yet cold.
But one thing was certain:
By my fangs, by my claws, Viktor the Bladetooth would die.
