Vilja stood, put a hand on the bigger girl’s steel-clad arm. “No, Lydia. Don’t go. Don’t make her leave, Shrelle.”
I knew enow about Nordic honour that the stigma of dismissal from a thane’s service would be almost unbearable for a housecarl, and I would wish that on no one. Besides, as Vilja observed regularly, I was ‘quite fond of Lydia’.
“I do not give you leave to go, Lydia. Please sit. I would have you thoughts on the matter.”
“I am at your service, my thane.”
“W-Would anyone like a drink?” Vilja interposed. “I’m quite thirsty.” She received no response.
Lydia, clearing her throat, sat squarely upon the log. She appeared to have difficulty swallowing, yet looked at me directly. “I cannot imagine that my thane truly enjoys eating people.”
I all at once felt flushed; my heart raced as a herd of mammoths thundered between my ears. I needs must admit as well that my female parts twitched, demanded contact – and, I concede, it had nothing to do with present company. It took great effort to remain motionless. “I do not enjoy it, exactly,” I dissembled. “I… It is what I must do to heal… to live. And only their hearts,” I added, as if that would make the fact more palatable.
Vilja seized upon it: “Oh, is that all, then? Well, that makes it all right, of course.” She swallowed; appeared to be holding back more than tears.
I had no answer; I could barely look at her.
“You still have not told us why,” she insisted.
“Yes, I did.”
“Oh, it’s so you can…so you can mate all day and night with some tavern wore?”
Precious Vilja; she could not even swear effectually.
“The word you want is whore, dear, or perhaps slattern, strumpet, or harlot. And what we did was tumble – fornicate, rut, or copulate. Or perhaps even ‘make love’.”
“No. It sound to me like mating. There is nothing loving about it.”
I sprang to my feet. “How would you know?” The beast was nearly upon me.
The other girls must have seen it, as Vilja gasped, eyes flying wide as she fell back off the log; the snick of steel clearing leather as Lydia interposed herself between us.
“My thane! I needs must remind you that you yourself assigned me to protect Vilja, and you haven’t released me from that geas.” As I wrapped both hands around her throat – noting with some horror that my digits were elongating and sprouting fur – I met my housecarl’s gaze; it held no fear, only regret and… resignation, perhaps?
I turned, bolted up the path; this time I noted my accoutrements sloughing away as my beast form came upon me in the brightening daylight. I was soon loping on all fours, racing through the rough scrub as I tore at any passing forest creature; a rabbit, now a fox; I cared for naught but the rage! I had to kill… something.
IX Return to the Pack
I left my travel-mates for several days; I did not trust myself around other humans. I do not recall how long we were apart, or even where I went, for the most part, except that I gave in and sought Aela. We lay as usual, this time in her room in the living quarters of Jorrvaskr.
“It is never the same with… with anyone else,” I managed, still quivering from my climaxes.
“‘Anyone else’?” the lissome Huntress echoed (this time, I was pleased to note, as out of breath as I). “What do you mean?”
I mistook her query as jealously. “What do you care? I have enow left for you.”
She grabbed the shoulder-length plaits of my sweat-matted, tundra cotton hair, twisted so that I faced her. “Listen to me. Have you mated” –there was that word– “with others– other humans?”
“One or two.” I still did not understand why it mattered to her. “What of it?”
“And what happened?”
Now I thought she was seeking gratuitous detail. “The usual,” I retorted. “She was pleasured – many times. As was I. What does it matter?”
She growled. “Why do you suppose it is so good with me and not any human?”
“I… I do not know. Because you are stronger – you can keep up with me? Let me go!”
She did so, laid down once more beside me. “Pup, you know nothing. That is it exactly, and why you must not mate with a human – unless you are prepared to deal with them afterward.”
I still did not understand, and said so as I half-sat to get a bottle of wine. (I was thankful I could stomach wine, at least, as well as other spirits, although I still could not eat.)
“Give me that.” Ere I had it to my lips, Aela snatched the bottle from me, drained it in a few sloppy gulps.
“Bitch!” I protested, though I knew it would do no good to attempt to wrest it back from her. “That was the last one.”
She belched, tossed the empty aside. “Know your place, pup. Fetch another. And none of that Alto slop, by Frostfire – something decent, like Firebrand or Colovian brandy.”
“I am not your servant – get it yourself!”
She was atop me before I noticed her move, preternaturally strong hands about my throat, yellow eyes glaring into mine, elliptical pupils dilated. “There is much for you to learn, cub,” she rumbled in my face. Curiously, I was unaware of her sex centred upon my stomach this time, for her visage morphed into a snout, fangs abruptly appeared as her jaws opened and she leaned in until my nose was practically down her throat; her breath was humid, smelled of iron and cheap wine. Suddenly, I was sweating more profusely; nonetheless, I sought to fight back.
It was a mistake, of course; I was not yet as strong as the rest of the Circle each on their own, let alone against three of them, as Farkas and Vilkas, along with Aela, sought to put me in my place. For, just as did their fully lupine cousins, werewolves had a strict social hierarchy, and if I had had any illusions that Kodlak Whitemane was solely in charge of the Companions, I now knew whom the dominant female of the pack, and likely leader, was.
Furthermore, if I had thought that sex alone with Aela was incomparable, I was completely unprepared for the ‘lesson’ the twin brothers and the Huntress gave me. I have no doubt that, at certain times during our tryst, we were in beast form, at other times human – perhaps even, yes, both at once. Yet, it is not coyness that compels me to spare my audience the prurient details; I simply do not remember them clearly, and thus I would deign not make up lies or exaggerate – although, judging later from my sheer exhaustion and sense of gratification, embellishment would not be possible. In any event, I will have another chance later in my tale to describe such an encounter that turned out even better.
As I prepared to leave Whiterun sometime anon, intending to return to Vilja and Lydia, Kodlak Whitemane intercepted me halfway down the long staircase into Whiterun proper from the main doors to Jorrvaskr.
“I would have a word with you, lass.” Out of breath, the old Nord seemed anxious.
“What is it, old man?” I did not dislike the Harbinger, but he had recently lectured me regarding Aela’s and my attempts to wipe out the Silver Hand, the beast hunter group that was dedicated to killing werewolves, ostensibly for slaying one of our number, Skjor. We had met with some success, even despatching their supposed leader, yet Kodlak believed that we had gone too far, that it would only result in escalating reprisals. Further, I shared Aela’s and the others’ disdain for his desire to ‘cure’ himself. He had told me on more than one occasion that, with blood of the beast in him, he doubted he could go to his Nordic afterlife of feasting in the halls of Sovngarde with his gods and ancestors, instead of having his soul claimed by Hircine, the god of shape changers and hunters. In fact, Kodlak had already tried to enlist me in removing the curse by seeking the coven of witches that had supposedly laid it upon the Companions some 200 years ago. I had told him I would think about it, although, at the time, I did not intend to do so.
“I wonder if you have thought about my… appeal.”
I was about to answer ‘No’, but something changed my word. “Yes.”
He looked at me expectantly.
“I… have thought about it. I must think on it further.”
“It is just that I feel… time passing, and I wish to go to Sovngarde.”
“I heard you the first time, old—Harbinger.”
I looked into his rheumy grey eyes, wrinkled, sad white-bearded face. He seemed about to say something else, but only managed, “Talos guide you, lass.”
I resumed my rapid descent down the steps, wondering how old one must be to cease appreciating the benefits of being a werewolf. After all, here I was, in full, heavy armour, well-nigh prancing down a long flight of stairs, yet still breathing evenly, even after a full night of—.
All at once, it occurred to me that the question might just have been answered; I did not have to look to know that Kodlak laboured back up whence we had both just come.
It was only then that I realised I had not clarified Aela’s admonishment not to have sex with humans – other humans. Nonetheless, I would soon discover the reasons myself, as my choices became ever clearer.
X Vengeance
Kodlak Whitemane was dead. The Silver Hand audaciously attacked Jorrvaskr, and slew him. Some escaped, and they stole the fragments of Wuuthrad, Ysgramor’s battle-axe – Ysgramor, of course, being the founder of the Companions many centuries ago. Heartsick that I was not there to help defend my shield brothers and sisters, we determined that we would take revenge on them; storm their own stronghold, wipe them out, and recover the pieces of Wuuthrad. Vilkas and I accepted the charge, and I decided it was not the best idea to bring my other friends, thus I left Vilja and Lydia behind in my Whiterun house, Breezehome.
It betided that it was not much of a challenge, and so we shortly returned to Jorrvaskr, whence we attended Kodlak’s funeral. Jarl Balgruuf and other citizens as well as, of course, all the Companions, listened to a eulogy from Eorlund Greymane, the Companions’ smith. Following the service, Eorlund asked me to find the last piece of Wuuthrad that Kodlak had kept near, so that Eorlund could re-forge the weapon. When I did so, I found the Harbinger’s journal, as well; and I admit that I felt almost no guilt as I read it. Aside from noting his wish to be cured of lycanthropy, he made mention that I should become the next Harbinger!
Leave a Reply