Werewolves Can't be Soldiers

Few on Fractallus kept a calendar of the black moon, Lefeya’s, movements—few beyond the sailors and fishermen who relied on knowledge of its tidal effects. Sailors kept a calendar of Khito —the green moon — as well. Kalbass only kept a Lafayan calendar, and he lived in the middle of the Tranquil Forest. It hung on the wall in the small but cozy cabin he had inhabited since that fateful day he and his family were mauled on the road from Paviel to Tranquilis. If he were to really think about it, which he never did, he might have come upon the cabin a few days in.

The cabin saved his life. Only he had escaped to come upon the dilapidated dwelling. Alone in the woods since he was barely grown. Repairing it had given him purpose those first few years, purpose beyond living, if you could call it living; surviving was probably more accurate.

Working as a forest forager, he now sold his best finds like baby spindle mushrooms, rattle apples, and fizzle nuts in Tranquilis. Kalbass hadn't returned to Paviel since; there were too many painful memories, and it seemed too risky. Since finishing his cabin and recording the moon's movements, he learned to set out for town right after the black moon's trajectory set beyond the horizon of the planet, not to reappear for months.

It was spring, and Kalbass was out picking mushrooms and fiddlehead ferns. It was too close to the appearance of the Black moon to make the trip, so he was foraging for items he could set up to dry during those days he hunted nights and slept most of the daytime. These lengthening days were his favorite. The summer solstice had become his favorite holiday, with 20 hours of light and only 10 short hours of darkness. On this unfortunate day, he sat for lunch around midday, resting in a sunny spot surrounded by several clusters of fiddlehead ferns he was planning to harvest after his short repose.

Before he had the chance, a well-masked scouting party attached to a martial force marching on to Tranquilis stumbled upon him. Too relaxed, Kalbass was surrounded by men and women in armor, brandishing swords and spears, before he could gather his things and run. Their leader was wielding a set of manacles. They set upon him, unarmed, and confused. His instinct was to transform and escape; he was smart enough to know that killing knights or soldiers would mean more would comb the area, searching for the monster that killed them.

He was put in chains, added to a line with a host of others he knew lived in the forest. He could identify the foragers who lived closest to him. They were aware of each other but kept their distance. He could smell they weren’t like him, but the halfling herbalist was hiding something; he was sure of it. She smelled of something he couldn’t identify.

They were all taken to Tranquilis, a political upheaval of some sort, which had swept them up, whether they cared or not. Ushered into rows of cells, they were taken to the barracks, one of the few stone buildings in Tranquilis, known for its impressive wooden construction. A few never made it, like the herbalist. He wasn't sure if they were being held elsewhere for questioning or executed.

None of the captives had been aware of the political agitators until they caught them. If he had known that they were impostors, spreading over the homeland, destroying villages and taking towns, he comforted himself with thoughts of what he would have done. That he would have taken the cursed form and ended them right then and there, but he didn’t, and he most likely wouldn’t have. He cursed himself a thousand times over for fearing capture by the Order of the Mask more than fighting to live against these invaders.

Kalbass paced in the cell he had been confined to, night after night, his fists clenched, breathing vacillating between rapid, shallow huffs and deep, slow gulps of putrid, stale air. He looked up at the red-tinged night sky beneath the eerie light of Affial, growing increasingly agitated. His cell wall was smeared with the bloody remnants of his violent outbursts. He knew his time was running short. When Lefeya, the black moon, moved over their section of the world to shed her mysterious silvery light, weeks, no, only days away, he would transform, no matter how he tried to resist. To either be killed like a dog in his cell, or escape and kill captor and citizen alike indiscriminately. He finally settled on what he deemed to be the lesser of two evils for him, the latter.

Instead of trying to stir up resistance and escape in the clamor, he started planning a route for himself. He couldn't unlock other cells in that condition. The path to the gate was simple enough to remember, even once a more bestial intelligence took him over. The converted barracks wasn’t far from them. After examining the bars on the window, he knew that, even if he changed, he wasn’t getting through. Every time one of the guards walked by, he heard the keys clinking against their armor. They kept insisting trials were coming for them, and that everyone who promised loyalty to Eidru above allegiance to the queen would be let out and given a job.

What sort of job it would be didn’t matter to Kalbass. He didn’t trust that these “Liberators” would let him live any more than the Order of the Mask would. He knew most of the forest folk couldn’t give a flying fizzle nut which Megantani sat on the throne, or if there was a throne. They didn’t haul everyone in to say a few words; words easily said at their homes. They wanted more: retribution, servitude? It didn’t matter; Kalbass knew he couldn’t stay regardless. If this supposed trial came first, he would escape then; otherwise...

In the end, it was days, the black moon rising before they were taken for trial. Kalbass awoke in his cabin when dawn and reality rolled back over him, faint glimmers tinged in red. Faces splashed with fear and blood. The trail of bodies he tracked down on the road to Tranquilis was nearly ten miles long. The so-called soldiers tried to hunt him down the best they could, but he had been doing this a long time, running and hunting the woods for many years now.

He started to gather and burn the bodies in small piles, not wanting lycanthropy to spread to anyone or anything that might stumble upon them. When he got to the end of the trail, he realized bodies were already starting to escape into the woods or back to town. Likely fallen under the light of the moon with minor injuries; bites infected with his tainted saliva, looking like nothing more than men in the daylight.

When he got nearer the city, hoping to sniff them out, he could only smell burning wood and flesh and hear the far-off sounds of clashing swords and screaming men—dying in agony and fire. When Kalbass realized it wasn’t more coming for him, but fighting consuming the city, he climbed a tree near enough the walls to see in. He could see real soldiers and knights fighting the so-called liberators who led him and the other hunters and forest farmers to town in chains. He even saw one of the hunters, wielding a bow, atop a roof.

Before the previous night, he had never taken form in public, and now people were on the lookout for him. Instead of running in, he stayed outside the walls and waited just inside the tree line, near the abandoned and open gate, for anyone who tried to run out. They didn’t stand a chance, and the sounds of savagery were exciting his lust for blood. With fangs dripping and muscles shaking with anticipation, Kalbass heard stamping feet and leaped into the road.

Ferocity was his only name, talons and teeth, tearing through flesh, ripping armor apart at the hastily joined seams. Kalbass' superior size and strength, the adrenaline and curse washing his veins, overpowered the four tired men, already bloodied from the battle inside the walls. Torn limb from limb, three invaders and one imperial soldier were slaughtered with little effort.

An emboldened Kalbass took a last step into the gate, only to be shot directly between the eyes. The beast fell in a mass of hair and blood. As the last flicker of sentience faded from his mind, he returned to his natural form, Kalbass, a boy from Paviel, long dead. To be burned with the others.

K.B. Silver

First, I wanted to thank Sam Spinelli for setting up this unofficial challenge. It was very inspiring; I managed to write a poem about it, too. It didn't make it to the minimum 500-word limit, so I had to write an actual story. I hope you enjoyed the product.

This story is set in my Sci-Fantasy world of Fractallus. You can find some limited free lore articles, chapters, and side stories here, but I am releasing the chapters and lore as paid content.