So what happens when you take the classic story of Robin Hood and twist it with vampires and shifter-beasts? ....... Heroes of Darkness : Book One, Everliving Kings Coming Soon! If you havent seen any of this yet PLEASE see the Notes section above! .....for those of you who have been reading along.... an fer Petes sake how bout some feedback here! (Except formatting ...that is on FB) NOW....chapter 8 8 Lord Rathbone was so lost in thought he never heard the fully armored knight clank his fully armored horse up to match the lords pace. “My Lord, the Irishman is demanding we stop for the night. He grumbled something about the full moon. I suppose these Irish savages are overly superstitious, but he is insisting we stop the caravan at once and demands to speak with you.” The Noble frowned at the knight as his thoughts returned to the present. “Ah yes, well I suppose I could have a word with them.” He responded as he turned his horse back to pace the carriage. “What is all this talk of stopping for the night? We are only two more days’ ride from Nottingham and I am leery of leaving that demon unattended for so long.” He shouted through the carriage curtains to be heard. Almost immediately the thick red drapes pulled back and a gruff looking occupant poked his head out of the window. “I tol yer man a’redy, we be stopping fer the night. One o’ me lads is an infected born and is still to young ta be out a chains on a full moon.” Lord Rathbone almost fell out of his saddle at the thought of having an uncontrolled shifter-wolf in the party. “What!? You told me there would be no complications! Just what sort of game do you think you are playing here O’Connor!?” The lord shouted in rage. “It’s all right boys, settle duwn.” The golden eyed shifter named O’Connor said over his shoulder as he held up his left hand to silence the growling of the others with him. “The Barron here, he ment’ no offence by it, he’s just surprised is all. Isn’t that right laird Rathbone?” he said with a smile enjoying the view of the nobleman squirming. “Fine we will stop, but you had better keep your dog on a short lead, we are risking a lot for this.” The lord grumbled before spurring his horse ahead and ordering the men off of the main road to make camp. “Can we trust him Shamus?” one of the shifters asked their leader as he sniffed at the air. Shamus O’Connor still looking out the carriage window frowned in thought before saying, “I doubt it, so look sharp lads. I can tell he ain’t tol us everything just yet.” The knights and attendants of lord Rathbone’s small force had been well versed in the art of breaking down and setting up their ever shifting homes, so it came as no surprise that they were done and settling in in less than an hour. As for their shifter guests however, the camp they erected was far more primitive and took them twice as long to complete. Once done with their menial tasks O’Connor’s men pulled a large wooden box down from the back of the lord’s carriage and dragged it over to the largest oak tree in the area. “Are you quite sure this will be save O’Connor?” lord Rathbone grumbled as he found the shifters wrapping large chains around the tree. When the shifter ignored him he reached out to tug on the smaller man’s sleeve drawing an immediate response from the pack. Two of them jumped behind the lord as the third and largest of them all stepped between his pack master and the stunned noble. With all three of the Irish shifters growling a threat Scarlet, the leader of the Nottingham pack, rushed over to keep the tensions from boiling over. It was not that he cared much for the foolish aristocrat but he knew having an all-out shifter battle in a territory that none of them controlled was tantamount to suicide. “Hold it ere’ mates! I fink we need ta start dis over eh?” he said as he slid between the large shifter-wolf and Lord Rathbone. Shamus took up the opposite position from Scarlet as he put a hand to the large man’s chest. “Scarlet has the right of it lads! We canna’ no be startin’ troubles round ere’. Tis bad enough we have to bind the big fella’, sure enough his ruckus will get us noticed anyway. So mi laird…” he said turning back to Lord Rathbone, “Let me introduce you to the fella who will be bound up tonight. This here is Shawn O’Rourke, Shawn little we calls him, mind ya dats cause of his age an not his size.” He laughed. “He’s only been infected born on tree months now, just still a pup really. Behind you we got Thomas O’Dell and his brother Allan, not to worry yer lairdship, little Shawn ere’ won’t hurt nobody tonight, not unless someone undoes the locks that is.” O’Connor finished with a smile. Lord Rathbone shot a glance first at the large man named Shawn and then at Shamus before saying, “I thought you assured me there would be no complications, this seems to be a very large complication to me.” Shamus shrugged in response, “It couldna’ be helped. Shawn ere’ is kinfolk, a human born to the O’Rourke line. His tribe has been serving the royal O’Connor line since before your pact even, their house symbol is the wolf. He weren’t supposed to be given the Geas but a newly infected wildling, er… dat is what we calls one without a clan, attacked him one night. So ere’ he is learnin’ how ta control the taint. It takes a bit o’ time and practice. He is my responsibility as Clan Chief so I had ta bring him along.” The ever-living lord frowned and pointed to the chains asking, “Well don’t you need silver chains to control him?” O’Connor smiled a wide grin, “Oh no, that is just a superstition, one we started to discourage any o’ those who may be stupid enough to try an’ hunt us. Ya see our powers are driven by the moon, an’ silver is linked with the moon, some say it is an element of the moon. Silver actually makes us stronger, besides silver is bloody well expensive, iron is not, so if we heard about somebody buyin’ up cart loads of the stuff we check into it an act accordingly.” Still skeptical the lord asked, “And you are sure about this? You can control your man and avoid any…outside interference?” Shamus continued to smile, “Oh aye that we will, an as fer…outside interference ya call it? Well me an Scarlet ere’ we agreed we will wait together, if by chance a local pack shows up we will explain it to them so don’t you worry none. Go back to yer knights and have them make darn sure the horses are secured, once our friend ere’ starts ta howlin’ they’ll try to bolt sure as Sunday.” Lord Rathbone nodded in agreement but still fumed at the unexpected interruption to their journey. Upwind from the pack’s small campsite and hidden high up among the dark of the trees, a lone infected risen watched the wolves chain one of their own to a large oak tree. Tarik’s mind raced with images of blood and war forcing him to shake his head to focus on what he was doing. It had been nearly four months since he had shared his mistress’s blood and now her dire warnings rang loud in his ears. “Do not stray too far from me my children, your creation is a delicate thing that must be monitored closely. Should either of you go too long without my blood you may slip into the madness…I would not wish that upon an enemy.” Tarik’s body shivered with cold chills even through the perspiration that covered his brow and soaked through his shirt. Pain shot through his head and chest doubling him over. He bit down on his lip to keep from shouting out in pain, knowing if the shifters found him he would suffer much worse before his death, but worse than that he would have failed the lady Anya. Tarik could taste the metallic tang of his own blood in his mouth realizing that he had bit down harder than he had expected to. To his surprise the pain in his limbs began to subside. “That’s it!” He thought to himself, “I need to feed the disease, if I do not the madness will take me and I will fail my lady.” The small amount of blood did ease the pain and clear his mind just a bit but he knew it was far from enough. “Perhaps I should hunt something? Perhaps that will help until I can reach the lady Anya.” He thought and then could hear a chorus of voices in his head shouting and pleading at him at once. “Hunt! Hunt! Yes! Hunt! Feed, we must feed! Blood! Must have Blood! Yes hunt!” Tarik squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his hands over his ears in a vain attempt to stop the shouting. “NO!” he silently bellowed to the voices, “You must be silent!” the shouting in his head subsided to a layered buzzing whisper forcing him to shake his head again to clear it. When he finally regained control and opened up his eyes he saw to his horror the shifters looking and pointing in his direction. “There it is again! The scent of blood on the wind, did you get it that time?” Scarlet shouted as he scanned he head back and forth and sniffed at the night air with his mouth open. Tarik cursed his luck and wondered how he was going to be able to move without them seeing him, but he also knew if he did not move soon they would find him. As he sat frozen in thought and indecision the shifter bound to the oak tree started screaming in pain. “Awe shite and begora! Lads get to the chains!” O’Connor shouted as he turned his attention back to Shawn little as the large man doubled over in pain. Somewhere deep in Tarik’s mind he knew this distraction was just the thing he needed to escape the shifters unseen, but he could not tear his eyes from the sight of the large Irishman’s transformation. Shawn fell to his knees screaming as a thick layer of red-brown fur forced its way out of his skin. Loud snaps and wet pops accompanied the shouting as the man’s hands, feet and legs stretched and grew. Blood dripped from his hands and feet as long claws pushed off his finger and toenails. Shawn’s grunts of pain grew deeper as his ribcage expanded with booming cracks. Tarik watched in horror as the man spit out most of his own teeth as larger sharper wolf teeth replaced them. With a long drawn-out yell Shawn’s face stretched and contorted to form a long fur-covered snout, finally ending in a shout that drifted into a hair-raising howl. The other shifters, still in human form, joined in the haunting song. The final result of this maddening ordeal was a huge creature not quite a wolf and not quite a man but somewhere in-between the two. Once done with the change the man-wolf re-mained on his hands and knees as he panted to catch his breath. Lord Rathbone, who had approached at the first sounds of shouting, stood behind Shamus and shook his head in shock. “That is what you go through every time?” he whispered past is suddenly dry throat. O’Connor nodded his head as he turned to face the noble, “Aye it is. An’ erey’ bit as painful as it looks. Dats why most of us choose a form to stay in most o’ the time; changin’ it back an’ fore just ain’t no fun a’tall.” Lord Rathbone frowned, “So can you control this change or not? That man changed because of the moon you said, and yet you are all still men. How do you explain that?” O’Connor shook he head and laughed, “I just look like a man, but like Scarlet ere’ I were born a wolf pup. We are what we call true-born or wolf-born, we can change at ana’ time we like cus’ it’s how we was born. We can change from a wolf to a man or even the half and half form ya see Shawn in now. We call that one a ‘wen’, kina’ short for wolf-men an’ easier ta pronounce with a snout. We are descendants of the first spirit-wolves that helped you with your little undead problem. Shaun little an’ the others are infected born so they are descended from the wolves that were wounded by the risen but survived. They became carriers of the shifting disease and like yer daughter, they can pass the taint along to humans. Dat is how they became what they are, but ya see during the full or the new moon the pull is too strong. They can’t stop the change at those times but after some time and practice they can slow it down and put it off for a time. Even now the lads can feel the pull to change, its instinct, a primitive urge they can’t fight.” Tarik shook his head again to clear it before deciding to end his eavesdropping. With what O’Connor had said it was clear at least three of the shifters would be distracted enough for him to make his break, but only if he went now. The infected risen turned his back on the shifter encampment and leaped for the ground, hitting the forest floor on the run. His movements, however silent, did not go unnoticed by the newly altered Shawn. The scent of a nearby risen sent the shifter into a frenzy. “Hey now big feller! Tak it easy will ya! Ya might hurt yerself with dem chains an all!” O’Connor shouted as the large wen strained to free himself. With an ear-splitting howl the hybrid Shawn snapped through the chains and backhanded Shamus to the ground before tearing off into the woods after the risen. A terrified Lord Rathbone practically jumped up and down at the top of his lungs. “I knew it! I knew this would happen! This is all your fault O’Connor!” The Irish pack leader jumped back to his feet and grabbed the lord by the collar. “Shut yer bloody hole you idiot!” he screamed before shoving the lord back a step and turning back to his men. “Thomas! Allan! Get after him! Scarlet we’ll be needin’ yer man too!” he yelled as the newly transformed brothers emerged from the bushes and darted off after their pack-mate. “No!” Lord Rathbone shouted as the wolf-men disappeared from view. “I forbid this! You have wasted enough of our time with this nonsense!” Shamus grabbed the lord with two handfuls of tunic and growled into his face with his golden eyes flashing in rage. “You don’t give me orders ya hear! An’ ya sure as hell don’ understand the situation! We have to find him and get him bound again right fast! If he is found by a local tribe runnin loose on their land they will take it as an aggressive act o’ war an’ kill us all! We ain’t got the numbers ta stand up against a whole tribe on the warpath an’ dat’ll end yer little expedition right here an’ now, ya understand! Not ta mention the fact he could create more wildlings if he attacks anyone, so we need ta find him right now! So you can either help us or ya can stay the hell out o’ the way!” The shifter king screamed as he could feel the lord trembling under his grip. As if to emphasize his dire words of warning a chorus of distant howls rolled over the camp from at least four different directions.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 03:54:52 +0000
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