Shades of Grey

SHADOWS TRIBAL CAMP— MAY 1844

Thus, my training began. I worked with Gefahr on making my transformations smoother and on fighting with the traditional weapons of a Shadows Warrior: a spear, a short sword and a device called a Rongut made of thick rope with several thousand tiny hooked needles embedded securely in the rope fibres, similar in appearance to a cat o’ nine tails. With such a description, I do not think I need to elaborate on the importance of learning how to use this particular weapon properly, nor do I need to divulge the difficulties of doing so.

“No!” barked Gefahr as I once again managed to rip into my own back with the tricky Rongut. “You must become one with the weapon! You must focus your energies! You are too distracted!”

I looked at Gefahr through irritated eyes. Of course I was distracted: tonight was the full moon: the night I had to secure Forma down inside one of the many prison cells outside the camp as she went through another painful wolf cycle. Such thoughts would normally tend to preoccupy a person.

“Again!” he ordered.

I bit my lip to keep from retaliating and calmly wiped the sweat from my brow. Gefahr had forced me to practice for a good five hours now and both the weapon itself and the dojo floor were flecked with my blood, but I obeyed him.

Gefahr drew his halberd and came towards me with easy speed. I swung the Rongut around towards him, but he easily blocked the strike with his halberd and forced me to the ground, the hooked needles digging mercilessly into my neck.

“What are you going to do now, Newling?!” he taunted as he pushed the Rongut further into my skin.

At that moment, the door to the dojo opened suddenly and in rushed Freyja, Roslyn and the others.

“Grey, come quickly!” Ian cried. “It’s Forma!”

I looked up at Gefahr, gritted my teeth and kicked upwards with all of my strength, sending him flying across the dojo and crashing into one of the wooden support poles. I stood quickly, pulled the Rongut out of my neck and dropped it to the floor.

“I’m going to see to my Maisling,” I answered as I wiped down my various cuts and quitted the dojo.

I followed the others through the city to a small shop in a more tightly compacted commercial area. A large crowd had gathered around the shop entrance, whispering and watching anxiously. Freyja and her friends scoffed and mercifully proceeded to part the crowd for me when suddenly a very old and very fragile looking man with cataracts in his cockeyed gaze grabbed my hand with fervent intensity.

“You must not seek him!” he said in a shaky voice as his body began to convulse violently. “You will succumb to him! He will destroy you!”

The man fell to the ground and began to shake uncontrollably. Several people in the immediate vicinity stopped to tend to him, but judging by their casual speed, this was not anything out of the ordinary. Goran then gripped my shoulder, reminding me of my priority.

“Come, she’s fading fast.”

Roslyn nodded.

“And don’t listen to the soothsayer. He’s been mad for years.”

I nodded and pretended to agree, but something about the forcefulness in the man’s cloudy eyes would not let me easily forget the image of his urgent pleadings…“succumb to him”…?

The crowd leapt aside and I was granted clear passage into the shop where Forma laid prostrate on the floor behind the front counter; two young girls daubing her pale sweat covered brow with damp cloths.

“How long?” I asked the shopkeeper.

“Not five minutes. As soon as it happened, I sent the young ones to fetch you,” he replied, stoutly nodding to Freyja and her friends. I bowed to them appreciatively.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Of course,” Freyja countered.

“Can we do anything else?” Ian asked.

I watched as Forma’s chest rise and fall with growing difficulty and I turned to the others.

“Will you prepare a cell for her? It will not be long,” I said quietly.

“Yes,” Caelan said quickly. “Let’s go.”

Immediately, they ran out of the shop and I approached Forma’s side, gripping her trembling hand and daubing one of the damp cloths against her clammy skin.

“You look…awful,” she said between laborious breaths as she beheld my beaten form. I chuckled once.

“Ronguts are the devil’s instruments,” I quipped as I set the cloth aside, staring at her colourless face with difficulty. I could still see Natara’s seedy smile…

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“I really don’t…have a choice…do I?” she remarked through a wheeze. I bit my lip in anxious dread.

“Come on, let’s go,” I urged gently as I helped her stand. We left the shop and began the walk across the city to the cells around the outside where Freyja and the others stood, flanked closely by the witch doctor and the chief.

“I’m sorry, Grey,” Freyja sputtered, gesturing to the witch doctor and the chief. “They insisted on being present.”

I shook my head.

“It’s alright. Thank you.”

Freyja and her friends looked relieved and backed away in respect as the witch doctor stepped forward. He said nothing, he just touched my face gently before lightly touching Forma’s. He then rushed into the cell and waved us forward.

“Quickly! I can see it coming!”

I looked briefly to the chief who gave me a solemn nod of approval. I nodded and pulled Forma forward, but she would not move.

“Forma?” I asked.

Forma had gone limp in my arms, her head lolling to the side as I gently prodded her ribs. The witch doctor rushed out of the cell and gripped Forma’s face in both of his hands, holding her head up. I nearly dropped her in surprise when I saw her face.

Forma’s eyes had turned black and I could see her veins beginning to pump the black, poisonous curse throughout her body, draining her of what little colour she had left. I then felt her begin to shake: we did not have much time.

The chief and the others watched as the witch doctor helped me to manoeuvre Forma’s body towards a group of thick chain shackles in the middle of the room. Quickly, we began to fasten them around her limbs, which were beginning to convulse and twitch into all manner of unfavourable positions. It was the most grotesque transformation I had yet witnessed. How could this be? It was only her fourth one!

“Leave!” the witch doctor ordered suddenly, just before Forma let out a hideous scream.

“What?!”

“You can do nothing now! I know what must be done!”

The witch doctor looked at me with such conviction and urgency that I knew I had no other option. I quickly left the cell and joined the others, watching from the other side of the bars as the witch doctor began to march around Forma’s changing body, waving his staff and chanting various incantations. I watched as the chains around her glowed a brilliant purple and then leapt over her, creating a net that forced her to lean over her knees and face the ground. It had seemed like a decent method to keep her as docile as possible, but now it seemed cruel and inhumane.

“Please be careful!” I blurted, gripping the bars on the cage.

“Do not worry, Miss Echo,” urged the chief. “The witch doctor knows—”

Suddenly, there was an explosion from the entrance tree of such magnitude that it dislodged several layers of earth from the cavern walls and silenced all movement inside the city: the only sound that could be heard was Forma’s wheezing gasps for air. All eyes in the camp were on the entrance tree, waiting as the debris filtered away from the entrance…no one dared breathe…

Out of the smoky haze came a thundering herd of the dog-headed Kestaslian Cynocephali soldiers, each riding a fierce looking dragon/horse hybrid: a Draquus.

“No…” exhaled the chief. “He found us…”

A brief beat of assessment passed before the soldiers began attempting rough means of apprehension. I understood the chief’s words: they were here for the tribe, here to finish the job the Kestaslian King has sent my mother to start so many years ago.

The Shadows wasted no time in defending themselves and an epic battle began. Every tribe member transformed and attacked in a single collective defensive manouevre. I took one look at a very nearly fully wolf Forma before I transformed myself and leapt into action, bearing down upon the closest Draquus, locking my teeth into his scaley, hairy flesh. We tumbled in a mass of powerful muscle but I dug my back legs into the rough shale floor and pinned the Draquus to the ground with my strong wings, proceeding to exhale the strongest burst of flames I had yet to produce over both the Draquus and its dog-headed rider.

I then roared in pain as I felt something pierce my left side. I lifted my left wing and saw that three Cynocephali had shot hooked spears into my gut and were now attempting to pull a large net over my hulking body.

Rage shot through me and in one smooth motion, I knocked them backwards with my arm, sending them straight into a line of flames that Syla had exhaled towards another group of soldiers. Once she had successfully charred all of them, she looked to me and gave me a sly Dragon smile. I nodded to her as well, equally proud.

A great, roaring crash then echoed throughout the cavern, drawing every eye to Forma’s cell. I turned and watched as Forma’s fully transformed body crouched under the purple chains, snorting and breathing heavily, when she suddenly let out a roar that dwarfed anything the Dragons or Draqui had managed. She then lifted herself up, easily breaking the magical chain restraints and stood strongly in her powerful werewolf form, snorting as she stared at the brutes battling outside her cell.

She roared loudly, prompting the other Shadows to roar with equal vigour as we all leapt for the motionless Draqui. However, this brief stillness allotted the Cynocephali an opportunity to utilise another weapon in their arsenal: bombs laced with a narcoleptic gas.

It took several moments for me to notice that I had inhaled the gas, even as my limbs began to work improperly and I collapsed to the ground, sliding back into my human form. The last image I have of that day is of a net being thrown over my useless body.