XXVIII - The Slaughter
Piers had never been so grateful to be out of the fray. He stood on the roof of the church, obscured by the protective shadows produced by the building’s spire, watching as the chaos unfolded below him. People fled and screamed and fell over each other in a desperate attempt to get away. Some scrambled into nearby buildings. Others ran for the closest shelter that they could find, even if all that they could find was a knee-high decorative shrub or a thin tree trunk that did little to obscure their quivering forms. Those who were fortunate enough to stand near the mouths of streets or alleyways made quick exits, vanishing into the darkness, their echoing screams lasting far longer than the visage of their escaping bodies did. Others remained frozen in place by the icy grip of fear, petrified by the scene that was unfolding before them.
The air escaped from Piers’ lungs when he watched that horrible monster slice into Gaston with its nightmarish claws, and it had taken all of the inner strength that he possessed to keep his bow firmly in his grip and his arrow properly nocked. His heart shattered as he thought he watched his stalwart leader, who had given him purpose and who had always been so exceptional to him, perish at the hands of that behemoth, but as he stared down helplessly while the crowd of onlookers broke out into a frenzying panic, he realized something that filled him with a new, dangerous sense of hope: Gaston Dupont was still alive.
Gaston lay on the cobblestone ground below, blood escaping from his chest and pooling beneath him, but as Piers watched, he noticed that the man had somehow started to move. His motion amounted to little more than him squirming along the ground, doing his best to put some meager distance between himself and the approaching werewolf, but he was moving all the same—which meant that he still had a chance at surviving this nightmarish ordeal.
Piers wanted to climb down off of the roof and go to his leader’s side, but he knew that he could not. His role in this plan had been made clear: he needed to remain undetected on top of the church roof so that he could catch the werewolf by surprise. If it came down to it, his arrow could’ve been the only thing that saved them from the beast, but in order to have the best chance of taking the thing through its heart, he needed to stay hidden. And so he did. And he observed as the people below him prepared themselves to be slaughtered.
The werewolf, invigorated by the blood that it had freshly spilled, eagerly sniffed the air before it bolted forward, chasing after its injured quarry. An unfortunate villager, who in his panic accidentally ran directly into the charging beast’s path, was eviscerated when a mindless, fury-driven claw lashed out and tore away half of his face. The man collapsed in the lycanthrope’s wake; the monster continued to run toward Gaston without even looking back at its slain victim. Piers did not think that the hulking creature even realized that it had already taken a life. Its swift, violent act was driven by pure instinct, and was thus quickly forgotten just as soon as it was complete, if it was even considered at all.
Gaston worked desperately to crawl away from the rushing beast, but he could barely find the strength to move. He feebly slid along the red-soaked ground, escaping with the pace of a slug that had already been exposed to a lethal dosage of salt—salt which continued to pursue it even as it burned and bubbled with the last throes of its pitiful life. The Plague doctor’s apprentice, whose name Piers did not remember, stood nearby with her crossbow raised and aimed at the rampaging monster, but something stilled her hand. She seemingly could not bring herself to loose her quarrel upon the rampaging werewolf, and instead only watched in stunned horror as the thing continued to move closer and closer to the squirming form of Gaston.
Poniard was the first to act. The loyal canine ran past Gaston with the speed that only a dog out to defend its endangered master could conjure and leapt toward the charging beast.
“No, Poniard!” Gaston yelled, his voice a raspy mess. “Stay back!”
She did not heed her master’s call. The impact of her little body failed to slow the monster, but she managed to chomp down on the creature’s arm with enough force that the thing flinched with sudden surprise. The wolf desperately grabbed for the angry canine that was latched onto its arm, but due to where her fangs had dug into it, the beast was not quite able to reach her. Its attempt lasted for only a few short moments before the werewolf realized that such effort was futile, and instead it chose to swing its distressed arm with all the force that it could muster. Poniard’s body twisted unnaturally as her mouth came free from the werewolf’s hide. She soared through the air and disappeared into the darkness of a nearby ally, where she crashed with an ear-shattered thump. The last sound that Piers’ ears ever heard from her was a sharp, heart-wrenching yelp.
“No!” Gaston croaked. He turned his head from where his dog had vanished back toward the hungry monster, which had resumed its charge. “You hellish fiend! Vile, despicable beast!”
If the werewolf understood him, it did not react to his words. Instead it continued its pursuit until it was almost upon him, its huge, gargantuan form ready to finish its chase with one final, decisive pounce. It was at this moment that Fiora and Arne jumped into the fray. The gunslinger pulled one of her pistols from her hip and discharged its ball, which struck the behemoth in its massive shoulder and caused the thing to stagger several steps before temporarily coming to a halt, giving Fiora and Arne an opportunity to step in front of their downed leader. Fiora dropped her empty pistol and pulled the second one from her hip while the aftermath of the first weapon still rang through the air, but the werewolf had already started to recover from the blow before she even had the thing in her hand. Its muscles and fur began to twist and squirm until the lead ball lodged within its flesh fell harmlessly to the ground, taking a light spattering of red with it as it went. Blood dribbled from the creature’s injured shoulder, but Piers was certain that it would not be long before the thing was entirely healed.
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“No, Fiora!” Gaston cried. “No, Arne! You both must escape! This creature is far too fearsome for us!”
Like Poniard before them, neither of Gaston’s companions heeded his desperate orders. Spreading apart from each other, they both slowly closed the distance between themselves and their foe, which stood only a few short meters away. It watched them with equal parts rage and caution as it remembered the pain of the blow that it had only just recently endured.
Then the beast noticed Fiora’s second pistol, and recognizing it as the source of its suffering, it allowed its rage to take control once more.
The werewolf charged at Fiora, closing the distance between them in a mere moment. It then swiped its massive, clawed paw at her pistol hand just as she was pulling the trigger. The projectile struck the creature’s furry palm as it ripped the pistol—along with Fiora’s hand—away from her body. Fiora screamed as blood escaped from her fresh stump; she instinctively reached for her wound, but her good hand would never make it there before the lycanthrope took her to the ground with the full force of its imposing weight. She crashed against the cobblestone, her entire body snapping and cracking with the impact. Fiora would never get the chance to scream; the werewolf immediately latched its powerful jaws around her neck and chomped down hard enough for its teeth to meet. The gunslinger died in a torrential display of crimson, her body going limp as it fell away from the ruined flesh that remained trapped between the monster’s blood-smeared fangs.
“Fiora!” both Gaston and Arne cried at once.
The beast did not seem to hear them; overtaken by the rage that it felt for Fiora, it discarded the chunk of throat in its mouth and lowered its jaws back down to the corpse of the gunslinger. Taking her by the remnants of her neck once more, the werewolf began tossing the body around with several brutal shakes of its massive, furry head, spraying messy globs of vermillion liquid as it went. Piers watched as Arne, seizing his opportunity, crept up behind the distracted lycanthrope and slammed his battle axe into the thing’s exposed back. Blood escaped from the creature in a savage splash as it roared with the fresh pain; Arne tried to pull his axe free of its target, but its heavy blade was trapped between the werewolf’s shifting mass of muscle, which had already started its rapid healing process. The lycanthrope whirled on its heel in search of its unseen attacker, and Arne, who still clung to the shaft of his axe, was violently lifted by the sudden motion. The momentum of the aggressive jerk dislodged the battle axe’s blade, and both weapon and wielder were flung several meters through the air, closer to where Piers watched from the church. Arne grunted as he slammed into the ground, his head smacking against the hard surface as his neck snapped back with the impact that was only made worse by the heavy plate mail that he wore. The crazed werewolf, drawn by the sound of Arne’s pain, turned in the burly man’s direction. In his dazed state, he barely had enough time to raise the shaft of his axe in order to protect his body before the lycanthrope came crashing down upon him.
Piers was certain that the creature’s overwhelming mass would immediately snap the weapon in two, but the thick battle axe held strong as Arne pushed its shaft against the beast’s chest, just barely holding its sharp, reaching claws and hungry, ravenous mouth at bay. Piers knew that his companion could not hold off the monster for very long, and he knew that Arne knew this as well.
Arne and the werewolf were positioned in such a way that the crown of the man’s head, and thus the torso of the beast, both faced the direction of the church atop which Piers hid. The archer was confident that he was close enough to strike true, and that he could kill the werewolf with a single shot through its bloodthirsty heart. He only needed one direct opening to the beast’s chest in order to place his arrow exactly where it needed to go, but its chest was already far too low for him to be able to land his shot, and it only continued to sink lower and lower as both Arne and the battle axe began to weaken. Its teeth moved just a little bit closer to the big man’s thick, fleshy neck.
Piers held his bowstring so taut that he feared it would snap if he applied any further pressure. He kept the head of his arrow aimed down at the struggling pair, waiting for his opportunity to fire. The archer desperately wished to abandon his position so that he could go to his companion’s aid, but he knew that to do so would be foolish. The best thing he could do for Arne was stay where he was and hope that the big man would somehow manage to push the beast off of him enough to give Piers a chance to strike. The only person who could help Arne now was himself.
But that was never going to happen. The beast was simply too powerful. Arne was clearly losing the struggle; every inch that he gave up was another that he would never be able to regain. Piers knew that he needed to act now, before his dear friend was taken from him in the same way that poor Fiora was. A new plan quickly came into being within his mind. He would fire his first arrow at the lycanthrope’s face, saving his companion at the cost of exposing himself to his enemy. But perhaps this would not matter. Perhaps the pain and surprise from the initial blow would cause the werewolf to rear back, allowing Piers to deliver a second, more lethal strike. He had never met an archer who could pull, nock and fire an arrow with more haste than himself, after all. If anybody could do what needed to be done, it would be him. And so he would.
Piers adjusted his aim slightly so that now his arrowhead was prepared to take the beast in its face, just above its ravenous, gnashing mouth. If he was lucky, Piers would even manage to hit the thing in the eye—and then, if fortune and skill were willing, the heart.
Unfortunately, he would never have the opportunity to put this plan to the test.
A sudden, searing pain sliced through his lower back and infected the innards of his abdomen, spreading rapidly like a raging fire. He suddenly felt very aware of his body, which began to seize up right before another burst of agony erupted near the first. The pain caused him to stagger and lose his grip on his arrow, which flew wildly into the darkness, never encountered nor perceived by its intended target. Piers felt himself take a stumbling step toward the edge of the roof. He twisted his torso around as he toppled over the precipice, and for a brief moment managed to see the cloaked figure that stood behind him on the roof.
And then his body met the ground.
