Firebrand

Martel let his sense of magic sweep out, only to be disappointed. It would not be that easy to find the beast. He doubted that he could achieve the element of surprise against an enemy with a strong sense of smell and who knew what else, so he let the gem on his staff become infused with light. In a pinch, he could drastically increase the luminosity and blind the beast if need be. It also allowed him to examine the ground, covered in a thin layer of snow. If his sense of heat could not find his quarry, he would have to resort to mundane methods. Bending down, he examined the snow until he found tracks. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel fire.net

The Tyrian scout had not lied. These paw prints suggested an animal greater in size than a man. Martel could only imagine the claws. Fortunately, his enchanted mail from his days in the legion still served him well. Martel rose back up and began following the tracks.

He was not afraid, not truly. He had dealt with monsters and magic far worse than this. All the same, he could not prevent a sliver of dread creeping down his spine as he walked into the dark wilderness, nothing to comfort him but the shine surrounding his staff. He understood the terror that the locals felt. A beast of this size, roaming in the night… ordinary folk like them stood no chance.

The tracks ended all of a sudden. Frowning, Martel bent down. How odd. He increased the light on his staff to see further, in case the wolf had taken a sudden leap, but he saw no signs nearby. It was as if the creature had flown away. For a moment, Martel entertained the thought; if true, he had woefully underestimated his prey. But before giving up, he resolved to examine the tracks again. He bent down and gave them a closer look.

He noticed a peculiarity. Where the tracks ended, the snow lay in a much thinner layer, as if someone had brushed it away. As Martel thought about it, he could not make sense of it. If the case, it had to be deliberate, considering it had only happened right here. The wind would have brushed away all the tracks or none. Could the wolf have done this with its tail? Conceivably so, but that begged the question why it had done so in this location. The answer came to Martel a moment too late.

Jumping out of a pile of snow, hidden from Martel's mundane and magical sight, a giant wolf attacked the wizard with such speed and surprise, he did not have time to summon his shield. He raised his hand on instinct, and powerful jaws closed around his limb. The wolf bit down with such ferocity, it burst the rings on his armour, and teeth sank into his flesh. At the same time, claws came to rake down Martel's face.

This time, he reacted properly. Dropping his staff, his hand shot up to seize the wolf's paw. As the creature snarled, saliva dripping down to mix with blood, Martel ignited his hand with fire to burn the fur he grasped.

Cunning though the creature might be, it still had a healthy respect for fire, and it released its jaws to push back and escape Martel's grip. Yet as it landed on all fours, it did not seem wounded by the flames like an ordinary animal would have been.

Once again, it leapt at the wizard, but Martel was ready. A strong blast of air interrupted its leap and sent it away. The beast rolled around on the ground before it managed to right itself, presumably confused at what had happened.

Martel had a chance to strike; a powerful lightning bolt should be sufficient to destroy even this hardened creature. But a strange sight made him pause. Now that he had time to examine his enemy, Martel saw thin lines of magic glowing white that ran across the wolf, like a harness or a leash. Martel had at times seemed such a shimmer on objects, artefacts, enchanted with magic. But never on a living creature. Martel intuitively knew with his newfound understanding that he could do more than simply see it – he could affect it. So he did. Reaching out with his magical power, Martel cut the threads. The effect was instantaneous. The wolf collapsed to the ground. More than that, a strange transformation happened, though in the faint light, Martel only noticed this piece by piece.

The yellow eyes of the wolf lost their shine. The fur, thick and strong, became old and mangy. Most strange of all, the creature seemed to diminish in size and become flat, like a hollowed out corpse. And Martel no longer saw any shine of magic, but he felt it, odious and irritating, like a smell to trouble the nostrils.

Cautiously, Martel advanced and reached out a hand to grab the wolf by the neck. As he pulled up, it was surprisingly light in his grip. It was in fact nothing more than a wolf's skin. But the true surprise lay in what it revealed; underneath, he saw a naked woman.

She opened her eyes in shock, perhaps startled by the sudden cold and wind. As she got up, Martel noticed numerous scars across her body, and she looked so thin, he could count her ribs with ease. He threw down the wolf skin on the ground between them, unwilling to hold it more than necessary, and he summoned a flame in between them to keep her warm. “Who are you?”

Shivering, she nonetheless gave him a haughty look. “A southern wizard. I should have known these soft-bellied cowards had no stomach to face me.”

“What is this?” He pointed at the skin lying before his feet. “Some kind of cursed item?”

“My revenge.” She smiled, and the scars on her face made it seem twisted. “They dug a pit. Threw me, my little brothers, and my mother down. Placed the skin on my father as night came and pushed him down. Before my eyes, he turned into a monster and ripped us to pieces.” However gruesome a memory, she seemed to delight in the retelling. “When sun rose, the skin fell from him, and he saw what he had done. He took the claws and opened his own throat. And the villagers came to fill the pit.”

“Yet you survived.”

“I survived. I took the skin on me. And when night returned, it filled me with strength. I dug through the loose soil and returned to the surface, and I killed everyone in the village.” She licked her lips and smiled.

“This happened when you were a child. You’ve been under the curse ever since?” Despite how haggard she looked, she had to be at least twenty or older.

“Curse? I did it willingly. The curse was on my father, but to me, it was a blessing. It made me strong,” she sneered.

Noticing that she glanced down at the skin, Martel decided to take no chances. He pointed down and let a ray of fire stream from his fingertip to incinerate the cursed item.

The wolf woman shrieked in terror, and she dove down, smacking her hands in vain against the flames to quell them. It had to burn her, but still, she persisted. Martel used the wind to push her away, letting the skin be consumed.

Watching her, Martel saw a pitiful creature. No threat to him or anyone in her current state. In winter, in this place, given her malnourished form, he doubted she would survive for long. She deserved death for the terror she had inflicted on others, probably, but Martel did not feel like it was his place to judge. Her crime was not against him or his people, and he had done wrong himself in the past; it seemed hypocritical to condemn another. At the same time, he had no interest in helping a deranged murderer.

“I won’t kill you,” Martel told her, “but nor will I save you. Go. If your gods forgive you, they may save you. If they don’t, your fate is well-deserved. Leave.”

She stared at him with wild eyes, but sense won out, and she turned around to flee into the dark. She had not taken many steps before an arrow came flying through the air and hit her in the back, going all the way through to pierce her heart. With a sigh, she sank to the ground.

Martel looked behind him to see the Tyrian scout holding her bow. “She threatened my children,” the woman simply said and turned around.