Magic isn't gone. It waits, under the bloody roots of the weirwoods. It waits for one to seize it, to feed it, to master it. An age of magic is coming. An age of wolves. An age of blood.
Wolf Age (Harry Potter x ASOIAF insert fic)
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Decided to do the NaNoWriMo thing this year after seeing some stuff on it. Here's my story.
He woke.
What was waking but life? The rush of senses, the smells the sounds the tastes.
That tyrant that sat in the sky was blinding and he threw an arm over his eyes.
He had arms, he had eyes. That much was clear. But little else besides that…
By degrees, the world came back to him.
Slowly, the man lowered his arm, slowly light filled the world.
He was surrounded by large brown pillars, and atop them, little green things.
Trees, he realised, they were trees.
The man stood. He was a man, yes this was true too…
Many trees were a forest, and the little daggers beneath his feet was a carpet of grass.
He was a man, this was a forest, but what was a carpet?
Slowly the world came back to him. The man looked around himself, looked around the forest.
The smells filled his nostrils; the sharp fresh tang of pine needles, the earthy odour of wet rotting leaves, the hints of animal musk and distant cooking fires. He caught a glimpse of a black squirrel moving through the snow-covered branches of an oak, and paused to study the silvery web of an spider.
Where was he?
Who was he?
The trees around him were tall, they stood like sentinels, grey-black bark hoary with moss and dew in the sunlight. Around their roots stretched the grass and small plants and upon the leaves crawled little things, things of life and purpose.
But what was his purpose?
It was peaceful, he was untroubled in the nakedness of his mind and body as he stepped, simply existing in the forest.
But it wasn't enough. Hunger grew in him as he wandered, nails brushing through the ferns as he walked among the trees. His limbs were strong, his body well formed. His gait steady with confidence. His feet took him toward the smell of fire and blood.
It was the scent of civilisation and it drew the man onward. The fire-smell grew stronger and the man inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring as he took it in. It reminded him of something, of struggle and of battle, of burning and killing and death. Mixed with the scent were other smells though, smells of a different sort of struggle, a desperate stench of sweat, a finality and a hunger-suffering.
The man heard muttering. The wolves called and the birds sang, but this was conscious speech.
Strong hands brushed aside the branches that tugged at his skin and he stepped forward, into a clearing.
Here was shelter and food, the man needed these things, he knew.
But there was another in the glade, bent over examining a broken stave, no, a broken bow, for it had the remnants of a leather grip. He was a hunter, his face thin and weary. His eyes sunken and dark, his hair was greasy and unkempt. He had a scraggly beard that covered his chin and neck, but was only dark whisps on his cheeks, and he wore tattered clothes which seemed too big for him, even the patched cloak about his shoulders. He wore no hat or gloves, and his shoes were bark-bound slippers.
There was a misery in those eyes, the stranger knew. A misery of inevitability, of a failed struggle.
The hunter was unaware of him, still examining his bow in hopes of salvaging it. The stranger, for truly he was a stranger to this place, looked at him closely, his steps having brought him within only a few feet of the hunter now without the other perceiving him.
Something must have caught the hunter's eye and he looked up, "Seven hells!" he shouted, voice cracking as he fell back, grasping for a knife at his belt.
The stranger just regarded him as he began to babble. The hunter's words were unintelligible, but it didn't matter anyway.
"Please, I don't have anything!"
The stranger stepped past him to an unmade fire. The wood was too wet, the stranger saw, for even in small nuggets of bark and birch-sap wood, the hunter had not been able to make a fire and draw warmth.
The stranger strode to the firepit, over the frozen ground and reached out.
The wood burst into flame.
His will had called the fire, his command.
And to the stranger, that was the first thing that day that had not seemed strange.
"Old Gods help me." The hunter babbled in fear behind him and the sound of the hunter's knife cut across the glen as the weapon fell uselessly to the ground.
The stranger sat. The fire burned merrily away, as if flint and steel had set it hours ago. The world was strange, this place was strange, but the power that lit the fire? That was not so strange.
The stranger inhaled again. The scent was not of woodsmoke, the fire burned too purely for that, no it was the scent of heat itself almost and a searing clarity. Then the stranger turned toward the hunter's dwelling, scenting the meat drying on a rack.
The temptation was there, to leap up, to devour the meat in that moment, to gorge himself till fresh blood ran down his chin, to sup and bite and rip and gnaw until…
Where had that come from?
The stranger frowned. He looked back to the hunter, then to the meat.
"What'd you want?" the hunter asked quietly, half crouched across the glen. "I told ya, I've nothing, not enough to survive the week with my bow broken… The meat's all I have!"
The stranger just looked at him. He held the hunter's gaze till the later looked away meekly.
"Alright, just don't, do'n hurt me, please, I do'n have much."
The stranger watched, absorbing the heat of the fire as the hunter prepared the meat. He set it upon spits, he bound it with a thin cord of bark, then set it over a frame of wood above the fire. The fat sizzled at is fell and the meat darkened.
The stranger longer to taste it, but he waited, a man could wait, a beast could not, but he kept his eyes on it as it turned, the rich scent filling his nostrils and his mouth as he tasted the air.
"The name's Torren." the hunter said. "Can you even hear me, wizard? I never thought I'd see the day… Listen, do you want a cloak? I don't have much, just some furs, look, here…"
The stranger looked, and in the hunter's hands were untreated furs. The stranger nodded, clothes, these were familiar too and he draped the fur around shoulders.
"Not even your smallclothes." The hunter murmured. "Where've you come from then, eh?"
The stranger ignored him. If the hunter would babble to himself there was no point trying to listen. What were his words? The stranger didn't know. He remembered speech, he thought, he remembered talking to other people, shouting, calling curses and laughing. When had that been? Not here certainly.
The hunter took the meat off the spit when it was done. He served it up on a rude wooden plate without any accompaniment, only the dripping seared flesh.
It was juicy, tender but slightly burnt in some places which gave it a ashy taste. The taste was of blood, of copper and iron, the texture stringy and tough. No matter. It was good, thought the stranger, and he ate. He ate some more, then looked to the hunter again.
The hunter stared at him unblinking. "By the Gods…" he whispered, but his vision fled the stranger's in terror, looking back down at his own plate.
Under the stranger's gaze, the hunter set more meat above the fire, dripping and sizzling. Next to the fire, the hunter had placed a large rock, where he had laid his bow and a flask of grease. He used a piece of cloth to wipe and oil his bow, making sure it was in good condition for his next hunt, or rather it would have been, save for the fact that it was broken in two.
The stranger looked at him still, not breaking the gaze till the hunter delivered up another platter of meat.
The hunter's hands shook as he took up his cloth again, nervously running the rag over the bow's wood, as if maintaining the tool would somehow maintain his calm.
The rest of the equipment was hardly better. There was but one bow, one axe and one knife. Only a few arrows lay in a cloth quiver hanging from the tree under which the hunter had set his shelter, and that item like all the others was patched and darned till it was more patchwork than the original material, whatever it had been. There was no cheese, no bread, no wine and no more furs or horns. Only a small pile of bones and the fur the stranger now wore were to show the hunter's employment, meek that it was. Nor were there any companions to his existence, no horse or dog. He was alone and poor, living from day to day in the wild.
"Torren." the hunter said, drawing the stranger's attention. He pointed to his chest, enunciating the word, "I'm Torren."
"Torren." the stranger replied. His voice was rough and he coughed, licking his lips.
The hunter grinned for a moment, then hastened to hand over his skin of water.
The mountain stream wet the stranger's lips in a refreshing coolness as he looked again at the hunter.
"Damn those eyes." Torren whispered. Then he seemed to marshal himself. "And who're you?"
The stranger just looked at him. He still didn't understand the words, and the longer he sat here the more he began to remember.
"Longshanks, it'll have to be." Torren murmured. "Alright, Longshanks, we've no meat and I've no bow. I hope you can use that magic of yours to muster up a meal."
The stranger said nothing.
Day turned to night, and Torren pulled his ragged cloak around him and curled up under a cocoon of bark. It would be little respite from the biting cold, but the stranger, no, 'Longshanks', simply commanded the fire to burn anew.
After his command it burned with a blue flame, and Torren shut his eyes tight as he whispered fearfully to himself.
Morning came soon. Longshanks hadn't slept. Or had he? He had a name now, and names had power. He stood, the fur falling from his naked form, stepping out into the forest.
The sun was high in the sky. He had slept long, he released. Night was his ally, but he'd hunted in the day too before. Longshanks followed his nose, followed the scent of blood. Not more than a mile away he knew. Loping through the trees he ran toward it, stomach demanding the rewards of victory. Under the canopy of leaves, over rough roots and the soft damp forest floor. Brothers howled around him, birds took flight as his passing and branches cracked beneath his tread. There was peace in the forest yes, but there was struggle too.
The wolf stood before him, muzzle dripping viscera from the preybeast under it. It stepped over the aurochs, paws on the creature's broad back, growling, teeth bright in the sunlight. It was as tall as a man at the shoulder, a long snout and legs, a lean, gaunt aspect but a terrible sight to find in the forest.
Longshanks held the wolf's gaze. He pierced it's mind. He felt the rush of the chase, felt the broken rib where the aurochs had crashed it's horn into his side. He felt himself, the wolf, felt himself rush and run, felt himself scent the wind.
He saw through the wolf's eyes. He saw colours and blurs that only made sense to its keen senses. He felt his urge to hunt to run to kill. He felt the rush of victory and the certainty of food. He felt desire and wrath. He was the wolf, the aurochs died beneath his bite, struggling as blood flowed into his mouth and the prey's lifeair bubbled out from the wound in spurts and sprays.
He felt himself struggle with the man, felt himself clawing and scratching as invisible blades cut into his own flesh. He felt the wolf die and hear the man roaring as he ripped into his neck.
Longshanks awoke, covered in blood. He was standing in the camp again. The aurochs and the wolf's corpses were floating behind him as he stepped into the clearing, Torren shaking in fear as he sat beneath the everburn flame.
Torren prepared the kills under Longshank's gaze. The man shivered, casting wary glances back toward the man every now and then. He would speak on occasion, to Longshanks and to himself, but Longshanks couldn't understand him anyway.
His beast's hunger sated, Longshanks was content to follow him when he started to break down the camp. They walked, walked a long distance through the forest as Longshanks commanded the dressed carcasses to float behind them. Torren had been moving too slowly, carrying the goods on a sort of sled before Longshanks had put forth his will, but it seemed like the hunter might have preferred that he not interfere, even if it slowed them. Whenever Torren would look back at the proceeds of Longshank's hunt he would quail in fear and swear an oath, finger an amulet of dark wood at his neck and look away.
Muggle.
The word was strange.
Each time he looked at Torren he felt hatred. Hatred of weakness, of ignorance. He felt superiority, but he didn't know what the word meant.
They walked further, joining a packed earth trail where the trees had been cut back to let wagons through. Then the forest opened out completely. Torren bade him frantically to give him back the hunting materials, to curtail his will, which he did. Torren quickly set them back on the sled and took up the rope, dragging the aurochs and wolf together. He didn't get far, he was weak.
But Longshanks was strong. He seized the wolf, setting it over his shoulder, then striding forward across the earth toward the village across frost-rime fields. Torren babbled behind him and he heard the sled grind over the earth.
The villagers came out to meet them. The muggles started talking to each other excitedly, gesticulating toward him. But he just strode forward. He could sense a power there, in the centre of the village a tree with bloody leaves.
He ignored those before him. Any who got in his way saw the fire in his eyes and stepped back swiftly, the children cried out as they saw him and Torren ran behind him calling calming words.
It was older than any tree he'd seen in the forest. Old and furious. Old and broken. Old and forgotten.
Blood ran down the roots and offers were weighing in the branches and around the trunk.
The tree wept. Longshanks saw a face carved into it, his mind flew within and he touched something ancient and terrible. He saw himself, reflected through the crimson sap.
The branches spread over him like a temple, bones and entrails hung from the boughs and Longshanks could smell the stench of death and decay. It was heady. Foul, nauseating. It was maggots and crawling things, suppurating poisons and malignant fungi growing amidst the world's roots. It was the fragility of life and the inevitability of death.
Then Longshanks stepped back, Torren was tugging at his side and before him was an old woman with a painted face, speaking to him in an ancient tongue.
He just looked back at her blankly, for it was no more intelligible to him than had been Torren's speech.
"I told you, I think he's simple." Torren explained to the others, though Longshanks could see that the fear never left his eyes, and he stank of deception.
"He may stay." a broad, fat man said, the headman of the village. "I'm satisfied he's no Wildling, no matter how strange he is, and he keeps the Old Gods."
The old woman reached up and fastened an amulet like Torren's around Longshank's neck. He looked down, fascinated by it.
"Come away, Longshanks, let's get you some food." Torren said, gently tugging at his elbow again.
The village became his home in time. Each day he rose, ate and drank, he would go to the stream near the village and command the water to warm to bathe him, though Torren had begged him not to.
He began to learn the language, though when he spoke it was rough and rude. Torren helped, as did the old woman, Valla.
Joram was the headman and when Longshanks had command enough over the community's language he question Longshanks thoroughly. There was little to be said though, for Longshanks remembered little, and Joram released him with a frown.
Longshanks went back to the woodpile. He chopped and chopped each day with an old axe he'd been given and the old charcoal burner living in the village would give him food and lodging. Sometimes he'd go into the woods with his axe. The burner had tried to stop him once, but when he'd returned bloody with a shadowcat's carcass over his shoulder the burner said nothing else.
Many looked to him with fear. They would not meet his eyes. They would avoid the Weirwood at the heart of the village when he was there, and would speak nothing in his presence when they could help it.
Some though were different.
Palla, the laughing one.
"Longshanks!" she cried one day when he asked her where he could find dragons (for they featured importantly in his mind for some reason), "You say the strangest things!"
Palla would twirl her hair between her fingers when she looked at him. She would wear little blue flowers on her head, and her hair was always braided with ribbons when she came to watch him work.
He ignored her at first. That was easy, for she was a silly thing. Just a muggle.
But as the month went on he felt something stir within him. His beast couldn't be sated with the forest's animals anymore. He would look at Palla and see something more in her. He felt a hunger for her, felt that he would like to see her opened, like to feel her insides or see her naked spread out in the moonlight.
The headman must have seen his looks at the girl and he came to chastise him one day. Longshanks just ignored Joram. He enjoyed the woodcutting, it gave him time to think, to organise his thoughts.
Each day he grew in knowledge, but each day he remembered more about himself. He remembered war, or so he'd call it, he remembered screams and battle, remembered great fires and acts of evil. He remembered castles, or so the villagers called Winterfell, the nearest such structure. He remembered the giants of old Valla's stories late at night when he crept into the village hall to listen in. It was strange, strange indeed to know such things, but he would find himself experiencing flashes of emotion or thought when he worked.
One day a bear broke into the village larder and killed a young couple who'd chosen to frolic there. Longshanks hadn't been invited to the funeral, but he knew they'd be ceremonially drained of their blood to feed the Heart tree, and a feast after to celebrate the lives of the dead. He heard the merriment in the village and he hated it. He felt a darkness slip into his soul, a sorrow and a need.
The hunger grew and Longshanks looked up, longing for the moon.
Storm gathered heavy in the sky, the stars turned away, for none could see what Longshanks would do that night.
He stalked the bear to it's den. He hissed and roared as it scored his flesh with it's claws, he drained the creature's life with his teeth and screamed his own victory to the moon. His magic stirred again, and in the morning the villagers stood in wonder around Longshank's hut, starring fearfully at the wound-bearing body of the bear outside.
Joram came, cap in hand and sorrowful to his door the next day. Longshanks heard his apology and his words and said nothing. The headman fled soon after. Palla came next though with a knotted string. Her hands worked over him taking measurements as Valla, her grandmother, tended his wounds. They both marvelled at his strength and fortitude, but it was all Longshanks could do to keep still, for his urges were getting stronger.
He could smell her. Her hair was down for she was unmarried, and it smelt of woodsmoke from tending her fire to mix her grandmother's poultices. Her skin was salty as Longhsanks tasted the air, longed to taste her, longed to step forward and pin her to the wall, to take her in his arms and to rip at her flesh.
Two weeks later the village held a great ceremony. They wassailed the orchards around the settlement, calling for new life and prosperity as summer went on. Longshanks was invited this time, though he said little. He wore a fine new cloak, cut from the hide of the bear he'd slain, it's hood decorated with the teeth and claws of the beast. The villagers look at him with respect and admiration, though their fear had stayed too.
Longshanks drank from the cups of spiced ale, he ate of the cheeses and fruits in the feast, he even danced nimbly enough with the women of the village, though Palla's ruddy face was never far from his gaze.
Her father was Alyn and the man invited Longshanks to dine with them to discuss matters.
"You must have a better house." Alyn said, "You are a man of worth, and though you've not been with us long, that much is clear. There is a life here for you, Longshanks, should you want it, and none shall turn you away."
Longshanks said little to that. His eyes were dark as he looked over the great fire in the village square.
The moon.
He felt it, prickling on the back of his neck. The clouds parted, and for a moment lunar luminescence bathed the village.
Longshanks clutched at his heart.
It was on fire! It burned!
He cried out, falling back from his bench, knocking over a tankard which sprayed everywhere.
"Longshanks!" Alyn shouted, rushing to his side.
The fire pulsed and Longshanks screamed, he roared. The moon! The moon!
The world went white as he looked up and saw it, blood vessels in his eyes burst and his pupils narrowed as Alyn fell back with an oath, dodging Longshank's flailing limbs.
His heart burned, his heart would explode out of his chest and he ripped at his clothes, tearing them apart with suddenly jagged nails. He could feel his bones breaking and he screamed again, screamed ang screamed and screamed.
He felt energy, he felt aggression, the world became suddenly clear as he ripped his skin away, fur sprouting in its place. His beast urged him to run, to slay, to kill!
He stood, throwing back the men who held him down.
Longshanks smiled. This was familiar, this was good. He had not known who he was, not known whether he was a man or a beast in its shape, but this was who he was!
"Warg! Warg!" screamed the villagers, and they fled his sight. Three men ran forward bearing staves and knives, but Longshanks stepped forward, towering over them as he grew. Seven feet, eight, ten feet tall and his claws sharp.
One strike opened a throat and warm , rich blood spewed forth, coating his dark fur.
Another swipe broke Alyn's back as you leapt over him into a knot of terrified villagers.
The beast set about him with claws and fang, slaying and killing, biting and laughing in his wolfish growl.
A dozen died there among the trestle tables and he fallen foods. Longshanks hunted more through the orchards, ripping into them and scattering limbs as he leapt through the branches.
He remembered this. He remembered more with each life taken, and that drove him on. He broke through the doors of the village hall and killed all within, piling their bodies high, gobbling down the tender flesh of the young with glee.
He remembered the hunt, remembered chasing screaming muggles through the cities and the countryside.
He broke through the doors of the village huts. He killed and killed, he drank of their blood and screams. He knew he shouldn't do this, his memories told him it was wrong, was foolish, but he couldn't stop himself. The beast called him to kill and kill he did.
Night's shroud flew on and Longshanks stalked through the woods now, seeking those who'd fled the village. A trio of archers struck him with deft shafts which sank into his flesh, but his form was stronger than theirs and the regeneration of his blessing just pushed the arrowheads out, even as he snapped the shafts away in anger. Those three he killed slowly, clawing their bellies open and breaking their limbs, then leaving them to die slowly in the woods.
He caught a familiar scent then. Woodsmoke and flowers and terrified sweat.
His Palla had fled to the heart tree and knelt sobbing before it. She shook, her eyes were blind with tears and terror. He heard his approach, heard the claws on his feet tear the earth as he stalked forward.
Her grandmother lay dead beside her, her face claws away and lying as a flap of flesh almost peeled away from the skull. She had crawled, or been carried here, Longshanks knew, and the blood on Palla's clothes told who had borne the old woman there.
Longshanks approached slowly. This was a place of power, a place of magic, a place of rightness. Yes… he remembered this, the feeling of that power and might. The feeling of superiority and glory.
He lay his claws over Palla shoulders, his mouth descended to her throat, his rough tongue darted out to taste her neck as she sobbed.
Longshanks shivered in anticipation, his claws tightened, their sharp points piercing the girl's breasts and shoulders.
He howled and it shook the weirwood's boughs. The fetishes and sacrifices shivered and danced as Longshanks bellowed. He remembered! He remembered who he was!
He bent to kiss at Palla's neck, his claws tightened again in desire and her breath whistled through pierced lungs.
His teeth closed in need. He tasted her flesh, hot and wonderous.
Longshanks woke hours later among the abused corpses. He was naked and bloody. The heart tree watched him, accepting his offering. Ravens laughed in the trees as he walked through the dead village. He went to the well, and this time he called the water forth to bathe him, heating it easily with his magic. He was in bliss, and even wordless and wandless his will was done.
It had been foolish, but what could he have known? Absent his memories he couldn't have predicted what had happened.
The stranger, for he was a stranger again now all those who knew him were dead, walked through the village. From the smith he took a knife and axe, from the headman's house he took silver and jewellery.
He retrieved his bearskin cloak, then, smelling it and taking in the scent of the stitches he retraced his steps, going back toward the heart tree.
He stooped over Palla's corpse, using one jagged nail, now as long again as it should be to cut a lock of the girl's hair. He sat on the roots of the tree, braiding the strands together and tying it around his wrist. Something to remember her by…
There were no horses in the village, none who he'd not already killed or who'd gone mad in the murder of the previous night, so the stranger set out down the trail on foot. Jorum's clothes fit him, or they did after the stranger had used his magic on them.
He knew this feeling wouldn't last. He'd need to feed again, he'd need a lot of things, and soon enough the period of bliss after the full moon would fade.
But he knew who he was now! That was enough. It didn't matter that he had no wand, no way of knowing how he'd come here, he knew who he was, and what he was.
The stranger walked down the trail for three days, passing through two more villages on each night. They'd not heard about the slaughter yet for they welcomed him and his stolen silver. He even spotted a few people he could recognise in the settlements who vouched for him.
The stranger left the villages unmolested. He was going to Winterfell.
One day riders thundered down the road. He had smelt them and their horses for hours before he saw them. He had nothing to fear from muggles though. The power of the transformation was fading, but he knew he'd still be able to call on the beast if he needed it.
"You there! Stand fast!" roared the sergeant, his grey whiskers bobbing and his chest blowing as he panted, calling his horse to stop in front of the stranger.
He stepped down from the stirrup, the grey wolf on his surcoat stained with blood and sweat.
The stranger just regarded him.
"Aye, it's you alright." the sergeant said, "You come from Immerstead don't you? You know what happened there?"
"What happened there?" the stranger replied in mock confusion. "I left days ago."
"By the Gods!" swore the sergeant, "You're a lucky one. I heard how you took a bear and now you escaped that… horror!"
"Horror?" the stranger asked, "I know Jorum was to have a feast, but I was busy hunting." and he laughed genuinely, it wasn't even a lie after all.
The sergeant shook his head, a paleness slipping into his complexion at the memory of the massacre. The stranger quickly averted his eyes as he felt the connection of the Mental Arts slip into place, an unwanted connection, for now.
They explained quickly. Bloody bodies, dead villagers, corpses gnawed and partially eaten, three men tortured to death and cruel fates for the children.
The stranger was horrified, truly, for what man wouldn't be?
"You must come with me, I must report to Lord Stark. You were lucky indeed to escape it, there must be hundreds of wildlings in the Wolfswood, savages, savages the lot of them!"
The other soldiers of the sergeant's band spat and growled their own oaths.
"Lord Stark will see to them." said one, "He'll call the banners!"
"Aye and he'll have words with the Glovers and all!" bit back the sergeant, "Hundreds of them it must have been, Lord Cerwyn is bringing in all the villages to his keep but they must have been lurking there for weeks to have pulled this off." the sergeant quickly mounted his horse, gesturing for the stranger to mount behind one of his subordinates, but the man in question took one look at the stranger's side and dismounted, giving his horse up instead.
"We must be away to Winterfell." the sergeant continued, "What do we call you, I heard tell of you from a few of the villagers between here and Immerstead, they said you couldn't talk? That you didn't remember who you were."
"I have now." the stranger replied, and he knew his eyes made the sergeant uneasy.
"Oh? Then how're you known?"
The stranger smiled. He had wondered that for a month.
"Fenrir Greyback."
He woke.
What was waking but life? The rush of senses, the smells the sounds the tastes.
That tyrant that sat in the sky was blinding and he threw an arm over his eyes.
He had arms, he had eyes. That much was clear. But little else besides that…
By degrees, the world came back to him.
Slowly, the man lowered his arm, slowly light filled the world.
He was surrounded by large brown pillars, and atop them, little green things.
Trees, he realised, they were trees.
The man stood. He was a man, yes this was true too…
Many trees were a forest, and the little daggers beneath his feet was a carpet of grass.
He was a man, this was a forest, but what was a carpet?
Slowly the world came back to him. The man looked around himself, looked around the forest.
The smells filled his nostrils; the sharp fresh tang of pine needles, the earthy odour of wet rotting leaves, the hints of animal musk and distant cooking fires. He caught a glimpse of a black squirrel moving through the snow-covered branches of an oak, and paused to study the silvery web of an spider.
Where was he?
Who was he?
The trees around him were tall, they stood like sentinels, grey-black bark hoary with moss and dew in the sunlight. Around their roots stretched the grass and small plants and upon the leaves crawled little things, things of life and purpose.
But what was his purpose?
It was peaceful, he was untroubled in the nakedness of his mind and body as he stepped, simply existing in the forest.
But it wasn't enough. Hunger grew in him as he wandered, nails brushing through the ferns as he walked among the trees. His limbs were strong, his body well formed. His gait steady with confidence. His feet took him toward the smell of fire and blood.
It was the scent of civilisation and it drew the man onward. The fire-smell grew stronger and the man inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring as he took it in. It reminded him of something, of struggle and of battle, of burning and killing and death. Mixed with the scent were other smells though, smells of a different sort of struggle, a desperate stench of sweat, a finality and a hunger-suffering.
The man heard muttering. The wolves called and the birds sang, but this was conscious speech.
Strong hands brushed aside the branches that tugged at his skin and he stepped forward, into a clearing.
Here was shelter and food, the man needed these things, he knew.
But there was another in the glade, bent over examining a broken stave, no, a broken bow, for it had the remnants of a leather grip. He was a hunter, his face thin and weary. His eyes sunken and dark, his hair was greasy and unkempt. He had a scraggly beard that covered his chin and neck, but was only dark whisps on his cheeks, and he wore tattered clothes which seemed too big for him, even the patched cloak about his shoulders. He wore no hat or gloves, and his shoes were bark-bound slippers.
There was a misery in those eyes, the stranger knew. A misery of inevitability, of a failed struggle.
The hunter was unaware of him, still examining his bow in hopes of salvaging it. The stranger, for truly he was a stranger to this place, looked at him closely, his steps having brought him within only a few feet of the hunter now without the other perceiving him.
Something must have caught the hunter's eye and he looked up, "Seven hells!" he shouted, voice cracking as he fell back, grasping for a knife at his belt.
The stranger just regarded him as he began to babble. The hunter's words were unintelligible, but it didn't matter anyway.
"Please, I don't have anything!"
The stranger stepped past him to an unmade fire. The wood was too wet, the stranger saw, for even in small nuggets of bark and birch-sap wood, the hunter had not been able to make a fire and draw warmth.
The stranger strode to the firepit, over the frozen ground and reached out.
The wood burst into flame.
His will had called the fire, his command.
And to the stranger, that was the first thing that day that had not seemed strange.
"Old Gods help me." The hunter babbled in fear behind him and the sound of the hunter's knife cut across the glen as the weapon fell uselessly to the ground.
The stranger sat. The fire burned merrily away, as if flint and steel had set it hours ago. The world was strange, this place was strange, but the power that lit the fire? That was not so strange.
The stranger inhaled again. The scent was not of woodsmoke, the fire burned too purely for that, no it was the scent of heat itself almost and a searing clarity. Then the stranger turned toward the hunter's dwelling, scenting the meat drying on a rack.
The temptation was there, to leap up, to devour the meat in that moment, to gorge himself till fresh blood ran down his chin, to sup and bite and rip and gnaw until…
Where had that come from?
The stranger frowned. He looked back to the hunter, then to the meat.
"What'd you want?" the hunter asked quietly, half crouched across the glen. "I told ya, I've nothing, not enough to survive the week with my bow broken… The meat's all I have!"
The stranger just looked at him. He held the hunter's gaze till the later looked away meekly.
"Alright, just don't, do'n hurt me, please, I do'n have much."
The stranger watched, absorbing the heat of the fire as the hunter prepared the meat. He set it upon spits, he bound it with a thin cord of bark, then set it over a frame of wood above the fire. The fat sizzled at is fell and the meat darkened.
The stranger longer to taste it, but he waited, a man could wait, a beast could not, but he kept his eyes on it as it turned, the rich scent filling his nostrils and his mouth as he tasted the air.
"The name's Torren." the hunter said. "Can you even hear me, wizard? I never thought I'd see the day… Listen, do you want a cloak? I don't have much, just some furs, look, here…"
The stranger looked, and in the hunter's hands were untreated furs. The stranger nodded, clothes, these were familiar too and he draped the fur around shoulders.
"Not even your smallclothes." The hunter murmured. "Where've you come from then, eh?"
The stranger ignored him. If the hunter would babble to himself there was no point trying to listen. What were his words? The stranger didn't know. He remembered speech, he thought, he remembered talking to other people, shouting, calling curses and laughing. When had that been? Not here certainly.
The hunter took the meat off the spit when it was done. He served it up on a rude wooden plate without any accompaniment, only the dripping seared flesh.
It was juicy, tender but slightly burnt in some places which gave it a ashy taste. The taste was of blood, of copper and iron, the texture stringy and tough. No matter. It was good, thought the stranger, and he ate. He ate some more, then looked to the hunter again.
The hunter stared at him unblinking. "By the Gods…" he whispered, but his vision fled the stranger's in terror, looking back down at his own plate.
Under the stranger's gaze, the hunter set more meat above the fire, dripping and sizzling. Next to the fire, the hunter had placed a large rock, where he had laid his bow and a flask of grease. He used a piece of cloth to wipe and oil his bow, making sure it was in good condition for his next hunt, or rather it would have been, save for the fact that it was broken in two.
The stranger looked at him still, not breaking the gaze till the hunter delivered up another platter of meat.
The hunter's hands shook as he took up his cloth again, nervously running the rag over the bow's wood, as if maintaining the tool would somehow maintain his calm.
The rest of the equipment was hardly better. There was but one bow, one axe and one knife. Only a few arrows lay in a cloth quiver hanging from the tree under which the hunter had set his shelter, and that item like all the others was patched and darned till it was more patchwork than the original material, whatever it had been. There was no cheese, no bread, no wine and no more furs or horns. Only a small pile of bones and the fur the stranger now wore were to show the hunter's employment, meek that it was. Nor were there any companions to his existence, no horse or dog. He was alone and poor, living from day to day in the wild.
"Torren." the hunter said, drawing the stranger's attention. He pointed to his chest, enunciating the word, "I'm Torren."
"Torren." the stranger replied. His voice was rough and he coughed, licking his lips.
The hunter grinned for a moment, then hastened to hand over his skin of water.
The mountain stream wet the stranger's lips in a refreshing coolness as he looked again at the hunter.
"Damn those eyes." Torren whispered. Then he seemed to marshal himself. "And who're you?"
The stranger just looked at him. He still didn't understand the words, and the longer he sat here the more he began to remember.
"Longshanks, it'll have to be." Torren murmured. "Alright, Longshanks, we've no meat and I've no bow. I hope you can use that magic of yours to muster up a meal."
The stranger said nothing.
Day turned to night, and Torren pulled his ragged cloak around him and curled up under a cocoon of bark. It would be little respite from the biting cold, but the stranger, no, 'Longshanks', simply commanded the fire to burn anew.
After his command it burned with a blue flame, and Torren shut his eyes tight as he whispered fearfully to himself.
Morning came soon. Longshanks hadn't slept. Or had he? He had a name now, and names had power. He stood, the fur falling from his naked form, stepping out into the forest.
The sun was high in the sky. He had slept long, he released. Night was his ally, but he'd hunted in the day too before. Longshanks followed his nose, followed the scent of blood. Not more than a mile away he knew. Loping through the trees he ran toward it, stomach demanding the rewards of victory. Under the canopy of leaves, over rough roots and the soft damp forest floor. Brothers howled around him, birds took flight as his passing and branches cracked beneath his tread. There was peace in the forest yes, but there was struggle too.
The wolf stood before him, muzzle dripping viscera from the preybeast under it. It stepped over the aurochs, paws on the creature's broad back, growling, teeth bright in the sunlight. It was as tall as a man at the shoulder, a long snout and legs, a lean, gaunt aspect but a terrible sight to find in the forest.
Longshanks held the wolf's gaze. He pierced it's mind. He felt the rush of the chase, felt the broken rib where the aurochs had crashed it's horn into his side. He felt himself, the wolf, felt himself rush and run, felt himself scent the wind.
He saw through the wolf's eyes. He saw colours and blurs that only made sense to its keen senses. He felt his urge to hunt to run to kill. He felt the rush of victory and the certainty of food. He felt desire and wrath. He was the wolf, the aurochs died beneath his bite, struggling as blood flowed into his mouth and the prey's lifeair bubbled out from the wound in spurts and sprays.
He felt himself struggle with the man, felt himself clawing and scratching as invisible blades cut into his own flesh. He felt the wolf die and hear the man roaring as he ripped into his neck.
Longshanks awoke, covered in blood. He was standing in the camp again. The aurochs and the wolf's corpses were floating behind him as he stepped into the clearing, Torren shaking in fear as he sat beneath the everburn flame.
Torren prepared the kills under Longshank's gaze. The man shivered, casting wary glances back toward the man every now and then. He would speak on occasion, to Longshanks and to himself, but Longshanks couldn't understand him anyway.
His beast's hunger sated, Longshanks was content to follow him when he started to break down the camp. They walked, walked a long distance through the forest as Longshanks commanded the dressed carcasses to float behind them. Torren had been moving too slowly, carrying the goods on a sort of sled before Longshanks had put forth his will, but it seemed like the hunter might have preferred that he not interfere, even if it slowed them. Whenever Torren would look back at the proceeds of Longshank's hunt he would quail in fear and swear an oath, finger an amulet of dark wood at his neck and look away.
Muggle.
The word was strange.
Each time he looked at Torren he felt hatred. Hatred of weakness, of ignorance. He felt superiority, but he didn't know what the word meant.
They walked further, joining a packed earth trail where the trees had been cut back to let wagons through. Then the forest opened out completely. Torren bade him frantically to give him back the hunting materials, to curtail his will, which he did. Torren quickly set them back on the sled and took up the rope, dragging the aurochs and wolf together. He didn't get far, he was weak.
But Longshanks was strong. He seized the wolf, setting it over his shoulder, then striding forward across the earth toward the village across frost-rime fields. Torren babbled behind him and he heard the sled grind over the earth.
The villagers came out to meet them. The muggles started talking to each other excitedly, gesticulating toward him. But he just strode forward. He could sense a power there, in the centre of the village a tree with bloody leaves.
He ignored those before him. Any who got in his way saw the fire in his eyes and stepped back swiftly, the children cried out as they saw him and Torren ran behind him calling calming words.
It was older than any tree he'd seen in the forest. Old and furious. Old and broken. Old and forgotten.
Blood ran down the roots and offers were weighing in the branches and around the trunk.
The tree wept. Longshanks saw a face carved into it, his mind flew within and he touched something ancient and terrible. He saw himself, reflected through the crimson sap.
The branches spread over him like a temple, bones and entrails hung from the boughs and Longshanks could smell the stench of death and decay. It was heady. Foul, nauseating. It was maggots and crawling things, suppurating poisons and malignant fungi growing amidst the world's roots. It was the fragility of life and the inevitability of death.
Then Longshanks stepped back, Torren was tugging at his side and before him was an old woman with a painted face, speaking to him in an ancient tongue.
He just looked back at her blankly, for it was no more intelligible to him than had been Torren's speech.
"I told you, I think he's simple." Torren explained to the others, though Longshanks could see that the fear never left his eyes, and he stank of deception.
"He may stay." a broad, fat man said, the headman of the village. "I'm satisfied he's no Wildling, no matter how strange he is, and he keeps the Old Gods."
The old woman reached up and fastened an amulet like Torren's around Longshank's neck. He looked down, fascinated by it.
"Come away, Longshanks, let's get you some food." Torren said, gently tugging at his elbow again.
The village became his home in time. Each day he rose, ate and drank, he would go to the stream near the village and command the water to warm to bathe him, though Torren had begged him not to.
He began to learn the language, though when he spoke it was rough and rude. Torren helped, as did the old woman, Valla.
Joram was the headman and when Longshanks had command enough over the community's language he question Longshanks thoroughly. There was little to be said though, for Longshanks remembered little, and Joram released him with a frown.
Longshanks went back to the woodpile. He chopped and chopped each day with an old axe he'd been given and the old charcoal burner living in the village would give him food and lodging. Sometimes he'd go into the woods with his axe. The burner had tried to stop him once, but when he'd returned bloody with a shadowcat's carcass over his shoulder the burner said nothing else.
Many looked to him with fear. They would not meet his eyes. They would avoid the Weirwood at the heart of the village when he was there, and would speak nothing in his presence when they could help it.
Some though were different.
Palla, the laughing one.
"Longshanks!" she cried one day when he asked her where he could find dragons (for they featured importantly in his mind for some reason), "You say the strangest things!"
Palla would twirl her hair between her fingers when she looked at him. She would wear little blue flowers on her head, and her hair was always braided with ribbons when she came to watch him work.
He ignored her at first. That was easy, for she was a silly thing. Just a muggle.
But as the month went on he felt something stir within him. His beast couldn't be sated with the forest's animals anymore. He would look at Palla and see something more in her. He felt a hunger for her, felt that he would like to see her opened, like to feel her insides or see her naked spread out in the moonlight.
The headman must have seen his looks at the girl and he came to chastise him one day. Longshanks just ignored Joram. He enjoyed the woodcutting, it gave him time to think, to organise his thoughts.
Each day he grew in knowledge, but each day he remembered more about himself. He remembered war, or so he'd call it, he remembered screams and battle, remembered great fires and acts of evil. He remembered castles, or so the villagers called Winterfell, the nearest such structure. He remembered the giants of old Valla's stories late at night when he crept into the village hall to listen in. It was strange, strange indeed to know such things, but he would find himself experiencing flashes of emotion or thought when he worked.
One day a bear broke into the village larder and killed a young couple who'd chosen to frolic there. Longshanks hadn't been invited to the funeral, but he knew they'd be ceremonially drained of their blood to feed the Heart tree, and a feast after to celebrate the lives of the dead. He heard the merriment in the village and he hated it. He felt a darkness slip into his soul, a sorrow and a need.
The hunger grew and Longshanks looked up, longing for the moon.
Storm gathered heavy in the sky, the stars turned away, for none could see what Longshanks would do that night.
He stalked the bear to it's den. He hissed and roared as it scored his flesh with it's claws, he drained the creature's life with his teeth and screamed his own victory to the moon. His magic stirred again, and in the morning the villagers stood in wonder around Longshank's hut, starring fearfully at the wound-bearing body of the bear outside.
Joram came, cap in hand and sorrowful to his door the next day. Longshanks heard his apology and his words and said nothing. The headman fled soon after. Palla came next though with a knotted string. Her hands worked over him taking measurements as Valla, her grandmother, tended his wounds. They both marvelled at his strength and fortitude, but it was all Longshanks could do to keep still, for his urges were getting stronger.
He could smell her. Her hair was down for she was unmarried, and it smelt of woodsmoke from tending her fire to mix her grandmother's poultices. Her skin was salty as Longhsanks tasted the air, longed to taste her, longed to step forward and pin her to the wall, to take her in his arms and to rip at her flesh.
Two weeks later the village held a great ceremony. They wassailed the orchards around the settlement, calling for new life and prosperity as summer went on. Longshanks was invited this time, though he said little. He wore a fine new cloak, cut from the hide of the bear he'd slain, it's hood decorated with the teeth and claws of the beast. The villagers look at him with respect and admiration, though their fear had stayed too.
Longshanks drank from the cups of spiced ale, he ate of the cheeses and fruits in the feast, he even danced nimbly enough with the women of the village, though Palla's ruddy face was never far from his gaze.
Her father was Alyn and the man invited Longshanks to dine with them to discuss matters.
"You must have a better house." Alyn said, "You are a man of worth, and though you've not been with us long, that much is clear. There is a life here for you, Longshanks, should you want it, and none shall turn you away."
Longshanks said little to that. His eyes were dark as he looked over the great fire in the village square.
The moon.
He felt it, prickling on the back of his neck. The clouds parted, and for a moment lunar luminescence bathed the village.
Longshanks clutched at his heart.
It was on fire! It burned!
He cried out, falling back from his bench, knocking over a tankard which sprayed everywhere.
"Longshanks!" Alyn shouted, rushing to his side.
The fire pulsed and Longshanks screamed, he roared. The moon! The moon!
The world went white as he looked up and saw it, blood vessels in his eyes burst and his pupils narrowed as Alyn fell back with an oath, dodging Longshank's flailing limbs.
His heart burned, his heart would explode out of his chest and he ripped at his clothes, tearing them apart with suddenly jagged nails. He could feel his bones breaking and he screamed again, screamed ang screamed and screamed.
He felt energy, he felt aggression, the world became suddenly clear as he ripped his skin away, fur sprouting in its place. His beast urged him to run, to slay, to kill!
He stood, throwing back the men who held him down.
Longshanks smiled. This was familiar, this was good. He had not known who he was, not known whether he was a man or a beast in its shape, but this was who he was!
"Warg! Warg!" screamed the villagers, and they fled his sight. Three men ran forward bearing staves and knives, but Longshanks stepped forward, towering over them as he grew. Seven feet, eight, ten feet tall and his claws sharp.
One strike opened a throat and warm , rich blood spewed forth, coating his dark fur.
Another swipe broke Alyn's back as you leapt over him into a knot of terrified villagers.
The beast set about him with claws and fang, slaying and killing, biting and laughing in his wolfish growl.
A dozen died there among the trestle tables and he fallen foods. Longshanks hunted more through the orchards, ripping into them and scattering limbs as he leapt through the branches.
He remembered this. He remembered more with each life taken, and that drove him on. He broke through the doors of the village hall and killed all within, piling their bodies high, gobbling down the tender flesh of the young with glee.
He remembered the hunt, remembered chasing screaming muggles through the cities and the countryside.
He broke through the doors of the village huts. He killed and killed, he drank of their blood and screams. He knew he shouldn't do this, his memories told him it was wrong, was foolish, but he couldn't stop himself. The beast called him to kill and kill he did.
Night's shroud flew on and Longshanks stalked through the woods now, seeking those who'd fled the village. A trio of archers struck him with deft shafts which sank into his flesh, but his form was stronger than theirs and the regeneration of his blessing just pushed the arrowheads out, even as he snapped the shafts away in anger. Those three he killed slowly, clawing their bellies open and breaking their limbs, then leaving them to die slowly in the woods.
He caught a familiar scent then. Woodsmoke and flowers and terrified sweat.
His Palla had fled to the heart tree and knelt sobbing before it. She shook, her eyes were blind with tears and terror. He heard his approach, heard the claws on his feet tear the earth as he stalked forward.
Her grandmother lay dead beside her, her face claws away and lying as a flap of flesh almost peeled away from the skull. She had crawled, or been carried here, Longshanks knew, and the blood on Palla's clothes told who had borne the old woman there.
Longshanks approached slowly. This was a place of power, a place of magic, a place of rightness. Yes… he remembered this, the feeling of that power and might. The feeling of superiority and glory.
He lay his claws over Palla shoulders, his mouth descended to her throat, his rough tongue darted out to taste her neck as she sobbed.
Longshanks shivered in anticipation, his claws tightened, their sharp points piercing the girl's breasts and shoulders.
He howled and it shook the weirwood's boughs. The fetishes and sacrifices shivered and danced as Longshanks bellowed. He remembered! He remembered who he was!
He bent to kiss at Palla's neck, his claws tightened again in desire and her breath whistled through pierced lungs.
His teeth closed in need. He tasted her flesh, hot and wonderous.
Longshanks woke hours later among the abused corpses. He was naked and bloody. The heart tree watched him, accepting his offering. Ravens laughed in the trees as he walked through the dead village. He went to the well, and this time he called the water forth to bathe him, heating it easily with his magic. He was in bliss, and even wordless and wandless his will was done.
It had been foolish, but what could he have known? Absent his memories he couldn't have predicted what had happened.
The stranger, for he was a stranger again now all those who knew him were dead, walked through the village. From the smith he took a knife and axe, from the headman's house he took silver and jewellery.
He retrieved his bearskin cloak, then, smelling it and taking in the scent of the stitches he retraced his steps, going back toward the heart tree.
He stooped over Palla's corpse, using one jagged nail, now as long again as it should be to cut a lock of the girl's hair. He sat on the roots of the tree, braiding the strands together and tying it around his wrist. Something to remember her by…
There were no horses in the village, none who he'd not already killed or who'd gone mad in the murder of the previous night, so the stranger set out down the trail on foot. Jorum's clothes fit him, or they did after the stranger had used his magic on them.
He knew this feeling wouldn't last. He'd need to feed again, he'd need a lot of things, and soon enough the period of bliss after the full moon would fade.
But he knew who he was now! That was enough. It didn't matter that he had no wand, no way of knowing how he'd come here, he knew who he was, and what he was.
The stranger walked down the trail for three days, passing through two more villages on each night. They'd not heard about the slaughter yet for they welcomed him and his stolen silver. He even spotted a few people he could recognise in the settlements who vouched for him.
The stranger left the villages unmolested. He was going to Winterfell.
One day riders thundered down the road. He had smelt them and their horses for hours before he saw them. He had nothing to fear from muggles though. The power of the transformation was fading, but he knew he'd still be able to call on the beast if he needed it.
"You there! Stand fast!" roared the sergeant, his grey whiskers bobbing and his chest blowing as he panted, calling his horse to stop in front of the stranger.
He stepped down from the stirrup, the grey wolf on his surcoat stained with blood and sweat.
The stranger just regarded him.
"Aye, it's you alright." the sergeant said, "You come from Immerstead don't you? You know what happened there?"
"What happened there?" the stranger replied in mock confusion. "I left days ago."
"By the Gods!" swore the sergeant, "You're a lucky one. I heard how you took a bear and now you escaped that… horror!"
"Horror?" the stranger asked, "I know Jorum was to have a feast, but I was busy hunting." and he laughed genuinely, it wasn't even a lie after all.
The sergeant shook his head, a paleness slipping into his complexion at the memory of the massacre. The stranger quickly averted his eyes as he felt the connection of the Mental Arts slip into place, an unwanted connection, for now.
They explained quickly. Bloody bodies, dead villagers, corpses gnawed and partially eaten, three men tortured to death and cruel fates for the children.
The stranger was horrified, truly, for what man wouldn't be?
"You must come with me, I must report to Lord Stark. You were lucky indeed to escape it, there must be hundreds of wildlings in the Wolfswood, savages, savages the lot of them!"
The other soldiers of the sergeant's band spat and growled their own oaths.
"Lord Stark will see to them." said one, "He'll call the banners!"
"Aye and he'll have words with the Glovers and all!" bit back the sergeant, "Hundreds of them it must have been, Lord Cerwyn is bringing in all the villages to his keep but they must have been lurking there for weeks to have pulled this off." the sergeant quickly mounted his horse, gesturing for the stranger to mount behind one of his subordinates, but the man in question took one look at the stranger's side and dismounted, giving his horse up instead.
"We must be away to Winterfell." the sergeant continued, "What do we call you, I heard tell of you from a few of the villagers between here and Immerstead, they said you couldn't talk? That you didn't remember who you were."
"I have now." the stranger replied, and he knew his eyes made the sergeant uneasy.
"Oh? Then how're you known?"
The stranger smiled. He had wondered that for a month.
"Fenrir Greyback."
16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Fascinating tale, I didn't think Harry Potter werwolves transformed in the same way as Warhammer Skinwolves but I quite enjoyed all of it regardless.
- Location
- United Kingdom
Warhammer's are distinguished by not having a transformation, but by the individiual lycanthrope tear it's way out of the body of the human, and then the wolf's flesh dropping off away from the human underneath. Unusually though it's a relatively stable mutation which is weird given warhammer.
Comparably harry potter ones seem to rip their clothes etc and also have a traumatic conversion. I wanted to just add a bit more colour to the transformation though really, and the idea of having to rip off your own skin is pretty metal.
Arimai
Curmudgeon
Your reaction to Martin's attempt at Grim Dark is Hold my Beer? @FractiousDay? I'm not sure how you'll turn a madman into a compelling villain. Fenrir has gotten a boost and sanity, since he couldn't cast a spell without his wand in the books. He reveled in his animal side and acted like a methhead, rabies victim.
16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'm sorry I am not sure I follow. Was not what occurred effective villainy?
16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
...was there supposed to be a happy ending?
- Location
- United Kingdom
I'd make a couple of points here I suppose. Firstly, I don't really know what's going to happen with this. I've not written it yet after all. I'd hope it would be reasonably compelling despite having a protagonist who was villanous. So is Tyrion for example so it's not that unusual.
I'd contest the idea that Greyback is a madman. He evidently can plan and so on, he's not just a monster running about, despite the implications of pedophilia in his depiction. I'll be leaning into the non-madman elements in order to actually have a character who's interesting rather than an continous depiction of a guy runnign about killing stuff
As for GRRM and grimness, I generally reject this, it's massively overstated. ASOIAF is still a heroric fantasy story. People talk about it being dark or gritty and aside from some parts which sure might be, the majority of it is pretty standard fantasy stuff, there are heroic characters and people doing good things, even if some of those people are struggling against others. I've not really seen people saying 'oh what a depressing book'. It's not necessarily uplifting as other fantasy tries to be, but it's certainly not as Grimdark as people make it out to be
- Location
- United Kingdom
Pleased with the reception of this so far. Amused by some people who seem to not understand what it's about but given the usual sort of HPxASOIAF crossover that's not surprising (and is indeed one of the purposes of this fic, to subvert the usual crossover stuff). No idea whether I'm on track for 50k in November as part of the challenge, but I'm going to give it a good go in any case. This was was posted a few days ago on Patreon and further chapters (including the next one which is there now) will be up there before they're elsewhere. I'm planning on posting the whole fic with 5k each week, which will be therefore over the next 8 weeks. After I finish the 50k I'll poll people to see what they're interested in next.
The dense greenery of the Wolfswood rapidly faded away.
The party rode swiftly, cantering on flat ground, then trotting the horses where the trees grew thicker or the ground less firm.
Fenrir had a harder time of it than the others. For one, he was bigger, he was more than a hand's span taller than the tallest of the party and he'd also not ridden anything in years.
Wizards would of course use a variety of creatures as mounts, gryphons coming to mind for example, but for the most part they rode brooms, and then only recreationally. Floo travel was the most common method of long distance travel, with apparition being another way. The most skilled wizards (a category in which Fenrir did not include himself) could use more esoteric methods like when the Dark Lord turned himself into smoke to fly without external assistance.
These were the thoughts that distracted Fenrir while he rode. He had to have some distraction, for even within a few hours he was saddlesore, his thighs chafed and his head so shaken about by the pace of the ride that he could only grit his teeth in frustration as they passed through the trees.
The ride took them past villages and little stone towers, past houses half built into the earth with turf roofs which stank of earthy safety. Once they passed a larger wooden castle, whitewashed by Muggles outside with buckets of caustic lime. Fenrir had to breathe through his mouth while the sergeant spoke with the knight of the structure to get the latest news.
"Lord Stark rallies to Castle Cerwyn, we'll report to Captain Mollen there!" the sergeant called. From the castle came grooms and servants and they ate a quick meal, only half an hour at table at most before they left again.
Greyback had heard of 'the Stark of Winterfell'. He had some understanding of the terrain around him, knowledge enough to know the rough geography of the Wolfswood, of the territory of Lord Glover, the supposed steward of that forest, as well as the orientation of the Kingsroad which ran north past Castle Cerwyn to Winterfell, the capital of the region. He knew enough to know that Westeros, the continent he found himself on, was ruled by a single king, yet divided into several regions.
This told him nothing at all of how he'd found himself naked and alone in a forest on what seemed to be another world.
But Fenrir Greyback was a practical man. He always had been, it was almost a requirement as a werewolf. In truth, he was looking forward to it. Here was a whole new world, and one absent the cursed Ministry of Magic, absent the nonsense of the blood purists.
His world. If he willed it…
If he could only think for a moment, instead of concentrating on trying to keep his seat on this ridiculous horse!
On through a barrowland, on past three companies of men wearing black axes on grey for their sigils, on past farms and mills. On past the musky odour of cattle, the scent of leather and horsesweat his constant companion. On past smoke and blood at the cookfires and hunting spots of villagers, on to the gloriously sweet and clear scent of the rivers they passed. On past ale and bread in the inns and the salt of a quarry.
"You don't ride well, if I might say so, friend." the sergeant said to him one night when the troop had bedded down.
Fenrir slept within the confines of his bearskin cloak. It was a rich garment indeed and he'd had more than one envious glance at it. Any who looked more than once got a glimpse of his eyes though and hurriedly looked away.
He kept his gaze averted, pretending to fiddle with his boots while he thought on his reply.
Torren, that foolish muggle back in the village, had been terrified of his eyes. For a month before he'd regained his memories he'd just thought the man a coward. Greyback knew he was a large and intimidating man after all, his years of lycanthropic transformations leaving a distinct cast to his features, and not one that inspired friendliness. This was different though. Fenrir had realised it when he'd caught a glimpse of the sergeant's memories.
The prime requirements for the Mental Arts was clarity of thought and strength of will. Some would call it a technical skill, one of secret knowledge and training, but Greyback knew better. He had been a werewolf for decades and over time he'd managed to control the transformation somewhat, to be able to almost induce it, to call upon its strength. The Department of Mysteries would have liked to get their hands on him for their experiments but he'd never been foolish enough to let that happen.
But now after his amnesic episode in the village, he found his focus sundered. Whenever he met the gaze of the muggles he could feel himself clawing his way into their eyes, into their minds.
The Mental Arts could be dangerous on the user as well though, and he'd resolved to try to avoid looking people in the eyes till he was in more control.
The bliss of the transformation was still affecting him.
While some lycanthropes suffered stresses and premature ageing due to their transformations each month, Greyback welcomed them. He had eaten well, his beast had delighted in the slaughter of the village and it had given him a boon. It sometimes happened after a particularly good hunt, for a few days after he would feel the pangs of joy, a sensation almost like stretching after a long sleep. It was glorious, though hazardous given the distraction that it caused, clouding his focus.
In truth, the massacre had been incredibly foolish. He hadn't let himself go like that in decades. Not since the Ruhr in '62.
He had been silent too long. He was too distracted, and Greyback dug his pointed nails into his palm till they drew fresh copper-blood.
"Not in some time." he replied back to the sergeant.
"Aye, seems not. You remember who you were then? Did you serve? You have that look about you. Was it a blow to the head? I've heard men can lose their memories from it sometimes."
"I remember more each day." Greyback replied. 'Had he served'? What did that mean? He was in dangerous territory. He needed the access the sergeant's rank could give him… "I did serve yes, though I only remember some of it."
"Where was it? In the War?"
Greyback had heard of a war. Alyn had fought in it, but hadn't gone into details. Apparently a war against dragons, or perhaps people who supported dragons in some fashion. "No, not there." he replied.
"Ah, the Disputed Lands then." the sergeant nodded sagely. "I thought you might be a sellsword. Men don't get muscles like yours without battle. Which company were you with? I knew several who served with the Second Sons or the Company of the Rose."
"They were the Death Eaters." Greyback said with a smile.
The sergeant nodded, as if that wasn't an unusual name, "And your commander? I don't know the name but I might know the sigil."
Fenrir knew the sergeant suspected him. He knew how he looked and had used his appearance and reputation for his own benefit many times. But what was the sergeant's plan?
"He called himself 'Lord Voldemort'." Greyback replied slowly. "His sigil was a serpent and a skull on a green field."
"Sounds like a Dornishman… They love snakes." replied the Sergeant. "Well, we'd better sleep, we'll reach Castle Cerwyn tomorrow if we ride hard."
Fenrir grinned a toothy grin as he lay back. The idea of the Dark Lord being dismissed by a muggle was farcical. Oh well, not like he'd be seeing Riddle again.
As he lay there the lycanthrope thought further on his initial question. What was the Sergeant thinking? The questioning had been an interrogation. Likely the man would report Fenrir's words to his commander, and then to the various lords of the North. No doubt in his mind, the Sergeant didn't suspect him of being a werewolf. Apparently magic was a thing of the past in Westeros, confined to story and tale. But a wildling spy? An infiltrator or scout of the force of barbarians who had butchered the village? That might be more probable.
Greyback slept fitfully. He had never slept especially well, for werewolves were often nocturnal, forced into work below their station because of their condition. Well, Greyback had rejected that, rejected the Wizards and their laws. If they named him 'beast', he would act like one, and besides, night was often the best time to strike.
The waking was done quickly. The men dined on cheese, bread, and cold sausage, then swiftly mounted and rode. After another uncomfortable day of riding they sighted the modest keep of the Cerwyns, the banner which flew above the keep was made of silver thread, not merely grey-dyed wool like the surcoats of the soldiers.
Now again Fenrir scented strange smells. Some wizards or muggles lived in rude fashion, especially those of his own kind, but he'd rarely smelt the acrid scent of tubs of urine from a tannery, or the earthy cloying smell of open latrines. It was as if this world was all new to him, it even recalled his first Change, the first time he'd transformed and how the more powerful nose of the werewolf had opened a new world of sensations and senses to him.
Greyback dismounted with a groan. They had to dismount at the pickets beyond the castle, making their way through a copse of tents. It was not that forest of canvas from the attack on the Quidditch World Cup, but it was well-populated all the same. Here were hundreds of unwashed soldiers smelling of greasy, rust and sweat.
He saw more sigils there, the axe of Cerwyn, the mailed fist of Glover, the moose of Hornwood. The Sergeant pointed them all out and muttered to himself and his company as you walked toward the keep. "I'd not like to be Lord Glover now." he said darkly.
As Greyback understood, it was a great embarrassment for the Glovers to have missed what was apparently a sizeable force of wildlings. It would be more embarrassing though to have those 'wildlings' disappear like morning mist before the sun, for Greyback was hardly going to confess.
They passed washerwomen and their babes, beating drying clothes with sticks and scrubbing laundry over boards. Fenrir licked his lips as they passed, sighting one beauty, her dress soaked and sticking to her skin.
No.
He had sated his beast in the village. He didn't need to hunt so soon.
Instead, he brought his wrist to his face, scenting the lock of hair he'd cut from Palla's head while she lay broken and rent in the dawnlight.
There was a tension in the air. Fenrir had been a werewolf for forty years, and his nose was keen. These men were preparing for battle, but they seemed to have no fear. Admirable…
For muggles.
The Sergeant reported to his captain, and that captain to his commander, and that commander led them into the keep to the study of Lord Cerwyn. The space was reasonably large, and comfortably decorated, though not luxuriously so.
Fenrir could smell spices, only a small amount, in a locked chest in an otherwise musty draw. He could smell the private privy through a door, and the oil from the weapons hung on a stand. The room was round, located in one of the towers of the keep, with a large window bordered in well-cut white stone. A river, the White Knife perhaps, wound its way through the countryside beyond, while within a fire burned merrily in a stone fireplace. Lord Cerwyn himself was there, a man of forty or more, with a boy in the House livery attending him. On the table were some signs of wealth such as a silver candlestick, an inkpot of blown glass, imported presumably, a steel razor Fenrir sensed by the smell of the ointment on the blade, and two leatherbound books. Fenrir looked them over and discounted them as soon as he saw them, none had value to him.
"My lord," Ser Kyle Condon, one of Cerwyn's commanders reported, "This man, Fenrir Greyback by name, was staying in the village before the attack. I have knowledge of him from others who have known him over this past month. A hunter found him in the woods wandering naked and the headman took him in. He proved himself over time, killing a blood-mad bear on his own."
Fenrir did not bow. He would sometimes feign subservience to Wizards to fool them, or at least he had in his youth before his appearance changed so radically, but he refused to feign such to a muggle.
Even without his wand he could kill the man before he drew another breath. He almost felt himself move then before he quashed the dark urge, a sudden energy, a strength in his legs, he saw himself leaping over the table, hand drawn back to slash open the man's throat!
"How did you come to be in the Wolfswood in such a state?" Cerwyn asked, and it shocked Greyback out of his fantasy.
"I don't know." he replied easily, "I even couldn't remember how to speak at first."
"I can vouch for this, through my sources, my lord." Condon put in, "It is the reason we did not suspect him. It would take a mummer of surpassing skill to pull off such a ruse, and," Fenrir heard a rustle of metal behind as the man shrugged in his chainmail, "he doesn't look like a mummer."
"No, he does not." Cerwyn said cooly. He regarded Greyback, who quickly averted his eyes. Would the lord take it as subservience? Perhaps, but the werewolf supposed his pride could accept that at least. "Well then, we shall question you." the lord continued, "Where were you on the night of the massacre, we deem it to have happened more than a week ago, from the condition of the bodies…"
Now that was interesting. It seemed his beast's savagery during the transformation had made them think the village had been destroyed several days before it had. Why was that? Fenrir's mind worked as he considered his answer. 'The condition of the bodies', did Cerwyn think the villagers had been killed, then subsequently scavenged by the creatures of the forest?
But no! Greyback had told the Sergeant when they'd met that the villagers were preparing for a feast, and the feast had been laid out in readiness. They'd been halfway through when the moon had risen. Surely the local people would know what day the feast was? They'd even had the wassailing cauldron out. This was potentially dangerous… If they thought the feast had been days earlier than it had been, what would they do? Greyback didn't know enough about the Northerners to consider it properly…
"I was hunting." Fenrir just answered honestly, still thinking. He didn't need to explain exactly what he'd been hunting, namely the villagers, and he was hardly about to correct the lord about the timing. Better to disappear perhaps, before they questioned his story further.
"Was there any sign of a wildling band in your hunts?" Cerwyn leant forward, "Spoor, the remains of camps, unusual smoke or fires?"
What was best to answer there to frustrate them the most?
"To the north, some of the others said there wasn't much prey, that the wolves weren't howling to the north." Greyback answered.
The north of the village was into the most densely forested and least accessible part of the Wolfswood. Hopefully that would lead them on a merry chase, wandering about in the woods for weeks before they realised their mistake.
"See to it, Ser Kyle." Cerwyn ordered and continued his questioning.
Yes, Fenrir had been a hunter, yes he'd lost his memories but was regaining them, yes he'd served in battle under the banner of the Death Eaters, no he didn't know where Voldemort was now, yes it was a small company anyway so maybe that's why Cerwyn hadn't heard of him. Yes he'd killed that bear, yes he now wore it as a cloak, no he'd not heard anything, he'd left before the massacre.
Cerwyn started to grow frustrated before Ser Kyle deflected him. In the end both Fenrir and Kyle were sent away.
"You may have your pride, Sellsword." the knight said to him after they were out of earshot of the lord, "But you'd be wise to remember your courtesies. My lord took offence there, but he's a just man. Others would have had you whipped for your insolence."
"They could try." the werewolf grinned.
The smile seemed to unnerve the knight, and he said nothing more for a while, handing Fenrir off to his subordinate, Mollen.
The werewolf was brought to the inn just outside the castle, given a room and told not to leave. No guard was posted, but Greyback heard the innkeeper speaking softly with Mollen as he shut the door. He would be watched, and informed upon if he tried to escape, no doubt.
Greyback threw himself down on the narrow cot.
Then he got up again immediately, stalking to the door he opened it and bellowed down in the rasping growl that was his voice, "Innkeeper! Food and drink in an hour!"
He smelt the fear off the man immediately and grinned, then he slammed the door shut just to terrify the publican.
Most amusing.
With a grin, the lycanthrope went back to the bed. Off came the bearskin and the jacket he'd stolen from Joram. He lay down in the bed, legs crossed, arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
There was much to consider, and Greyback went over it in his mind, slowly organising his thoughts. It was essential, both for controlling his urges, and to properly examine his situation. He had not survived fifty years as one of Europe's most infamous criminals by being hasty, even if he let himself go sometimes when his beast was raging.
Firstly, he was on another world. He'd never heard of such a thing, but through magic many things were possible. There could be any number of magical artefacts which might cause such a thing. Or was he in the future? There were plants and animals and people, where had they come from? The muggles had many comical theories about the existence of life on other planets and what form it might take, why then did everything appear so… mundane?
Was he in a different time? Had he been crushed by a comically large time-turner? Experienced some other improbable magical accident? He hadn't studied muggle history since he'd been a boy, and he vaguely remembered the names of some of the kings of Britain, of that one with nine wives or the other one with the crooked foot. He didn't remember anything like this.
Was he in the future? One where humanity had somehow regressed back to a medieval state of technology?
He supposed there would be no way to tell that, and moved on from the thought.
How had he gotten here? He thought again on the ridiculous thought of an enormous time-turner falling slowly toward him, splattering him with it's weight, and he laughed a little to himself. He would die in battle, of that he'd always been sure, never in such a silly way as he'd envisaged.
What was the last thing he remembered?
Greyback cleared his mind. The Dark Lord had returned. Fenrir had thought him dead, killed by the Potter boy years ago, but then his contacts had told him of the return and Fenrir had sought him out. While the werewolf had never been permitted to wear the Dark Mark, such was the blood purist ideology, he had been accepted among the Death Eaters, though never respected. Nevertheless, he would put his pride aside for his people, and serve Voldemort as long as the dark wizard served Fenrir's interests in turn.
He remembered… where had it been? One of the packs in Croatia he thought, he remembered the caves under Papuk, the clan of his people who made it their home. He had been reacquainting himself with the clans in preparation for rallying them into a season of violence on behalf of Voldemort, who had renewed his promise to make Britain a free country for werewolves.
Greyback had never entirely trusted the Dark Lord. Anyone would have been foolish to do so, but Voldemort provided him the means and cover to bite others, increasing the numbers of his people, which in turn translated to military, magical, and political power. That was enough, and Fenrir had used that strategy before…
He was getting off track. He focused his mind again, piercing the veil of his foggy brain.
Voldemort had been agitated, looking for something. Fenrir hadn't been told what, he'd just followed when he was bade to. They had gone on the attack, followed Voldemort into battle.
But where?
Had they attacked some sort of esoteric site? A place of exotic magics or energies? Had the Dark Lord enacted some dread ritual which had gone awry? Had the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore opposed them and the resultant wild enchantment somehow transported him to this world?
Fenrir wracked his brain for ideas. He was no loremaster, but he knew of a few curious magical artefacts. There was the Veil of Death for one, no one knew what happened to those who passed through that. Had he slipped into it? Been tossed in by the Order during a duel?
But why would the Veil of Death function in such a way? The common consensus was that it truly transported those who fell into it into an afterlife, thus giving it it's name. Even so, why would Voldemort have attacked the Department of Mysteries? Had he sought something there to oppose Dumbledore?
Fenrir moved on, that was also irrelevant, ultimately. Perhaps this was all some hallucination. Perhaps he'd taken a bad batch of potion. Or perhaps his mind was just breaking down in the last moments of his life, his blood rushing from a wound as he lay dying in some dark place back on Earth…
It was a morbid thought. Greyback rolled his shoulder uncomfortably, bringing his arms down and laying his clawed hands over his belly.
Once again he came back to his initial thought. None of this really mattered he supposed. He would do as he'd always done. Greyback was a greedy man, he was quite happy to accept that. He had desires, ones he would sate regardless of the prey. He couldn't be satisfied with living as most werewolves did, staying in some isolated cottage away from civilisation and eking out an existence scrabbling for scraps.
No, he wanted more.
And absent the Ministry of Magic, it seemed he could have it.
Not as a single man perhaps, but this was a world ruled by might, and compared with a muggle, Fenrir knew he was strong enough to make something of himself. Back in the solar he'd thought of killing Lord Cerwyn, been confident he'd be able to do it. He could move faster than a human, he was stronger too. Strong enough to defeat three men with ease perhaps, though he'd never fought muggles in steel armour…
He had his own strength and a purse of stolen silver, the world was his…
The first step, Greyback thought as the scent of salt and meat wafted up from the greatroom below, was to secure his magic.
Werewolves were generally required to get along without wands. His people occupied the liminal space between beast and being in the Ministry's classification, and that meant their rights to carry wands were often constrained. Similarly, due to the social stigma of lycanthropy and the dangers of the physical transformation, werewolves could rarely get the education or occupations which might allow them to educate themselves in magic properly. Greyback himself had been expelled from Hogwarts after Headmaster Prewitt had learned of his affliction, though Greyback knew Dumbledore had been more willing to accept lycanthrope students and other half-breeds, that half-giant gamekeeper sprung to mind.
Then there was the physical transformation of course. One could hardly carry around a wand when loping through a forest, and most werewolves found themselves waking naked and covered in blood if they didn't lock themselves up during the full moon.
Greyback scoffed, he had never respected those who did that. They claimed it was a matter of self-control but he knew it was just cowardice.
In any case, he was used to working without a wand. Never for so long though. He would often just steal or take one from a victim, but here he had no wand and no way to get one.
Magic was real though. He could feel it. It was different in some way, perhaps less constrained by the networks of wards, magical transport systems or national enchantments, but he could still feel it if he concentrated. The weirwood, that had been a thing of magic, and Greyback fingered the amulet he'd been given in the village, carved with the face of the Old Gods.
Had the Old Gods been wizards? Or something like it?
There were dragons though and other magical creatures. That was certain and very clear from the villagers. Some, he supposed, might be mundane but it was clear there were magical things in Westeros and that meant reagents and materials.
While Greyback had a broad set of skills from his varied life, wandlore was one thing he'd never investigated. It was useless to do so, for what werewolf would be able to amass the resources, connections and acceptance from the community to start to sell wands or find employment in a wandmakers?
He knew that wands were constructed from various woods, and that they had different cores. Wizards would often remark on wand combinations, but in truth, only those fascinated by divination or of a superstitious temperament actually cared about it.
Greyback's first wand had been alder and unicorn hair, but he'd lost that decades ago. More recently he'd tried to buy from a Bulgarian wandmaker to see if he could find something more useful to him. He'd not really intended to buy, he'd really been scouting the shop with the intention of robbing it later that night, but in any case the Bulgar wizard had been happy to try to match him.
The result had been an affinity for oak and blackthorn, with a core of dragon heartstring, but before he could make the purchase the wandmaker had ordered him out of the shop and called the local aurors. Greyback hadn't been sure why at the time, he'd assumed the man recognised him as a werewolf and feared for his life. He'd been right do so, but Fenrir also supposed that the combination of the wood and core might have had some meaning which scared the wandmaker.
He had already seen oak trees, as well as firs, pines, sycamores and willows. He was inclined to try weirwood as well, though he might take time to do so, till he'd had some practice with the others first.
Then there was the core. If he could find and kill a dragon he might use the heartstrings, but he'd have to look at others if the dragons proved illusive.
Until he had a wand he couldn't cast spells or use most magic. While he didn't know wandlore, magical theory and the ways in which it applied to werewolves had been a great interest of his, and Greyback knew what his limitations would be.
No apparition. Not without a high risk of splinching, and not knowing his destination besides given he was on a new world and hadn't seen many locations. No complex charms, transfigurations or curses. No wards, and any runes he wanted to make he'd have to carve, or get someone else to carve sufficiently proficiently to take the magic. With a wand he could cast Fiendfyre and destroy a city, without one he'd just burn himself to cinders. No precise control over the Mental Arts.
With a thought, he snapped his fingers and called a little bluebell flame. A parlour trick…
Orthodox magical theory, at least that which predominated in Europe and the colonies, stated that magic was the application of will and magical power through mnemonic tools such as incantations or wand movements. It was more complex than that of course given the addition of the inherent power of a wand, but the wizards of Asia or Africa had native magical traditions of long study and significant power, unlike those Greyback had been taught, and even they held true to the basic principles. Whether a Chinese wizard used hand gestures and movements of the limbs to cast a spell, or a British wizard used an incantation, it was much the same at the basic level.
He could use curses wandlessly, he'd always had an inclination toward direct, violent spells like Cutting or Blasting curses, but that would be about it till he acquired a proper wand.
Then there was the sheer convenience of using magic! He'd used magic in the village to shape water or to slightly alter his current clothes, to kill the bear and the other animals. That had been instinctive, the same way children sometimes used accidental magic. Supremely powerful and learned wizards like Dumbledore or the Dark Lord could use magic like that consciously, but Greyback didn't count himself among their number.
There was also the infrastructure of magic and of the Wizarding World. There would be no easy international travel for him, perhaps not ever, for Greyback had no idea how one would go about connecting two fireplaces together or to a wider Floo Network. The Ministry had people for that, or so he assumed. It was just something that happened after all, presumably it was someone's job.
Potions too, would be in short supply, and Greyback doubted he'd have the time or resources to set up a proper workshop. There were some potions which could prove extremely useful to a werewolf and though he was philosophically and morally opposed to the Wolfsbane Potion, he'd used it more than once when the need arose to control his beast, when he couldn't afford to lose a night to it running free.
He would have to seek out an alchemist. Some of the reagents might be the same, but while he knew how to brew the Wolfsbane Potion by heart, as well as a few others, he'd never completed his formal education in that particular art.
Fenrir had been lying in bed for an hour or more by now. He stirred himself, sitting up, stretching and cracking his joints. The transformation created new bones and muscles and it was always slightly uncomfortable to be back in human form afterward, but he'd gotten used to it over time. It was just like breaking in a new pair of boots really.
The smell of a meaty stew made him salivate. He would eat well tonight he decided, for despite his dining on the villagers he found himself hungry again. This time he'd make do with mundane fare. He was looking forward to it even as he concentrated on the rich scent wafting from the innkeeper's cookpot.
His first step must be to seek places of magical power, and places where he might acquire reagents for future experimentation. That would take months no doubt, and if he seeded the starts of a few clans of werewolves while he was doing it, even better.
Reagents meant cities though. Merchants and herbalists who might already have such items, learned men like scholars and historians who might point him in the right direction.
Gaining such knowledge would require funds both to pay the people, and to bribe anyone who might question Greyback about why he wanted to know such things. He knew the permanent effects of his transformations over the decades made his appearance intimidating, and he'd not stoop to wearing a mask, he was proud of his scars and his aspect.
He could turn assassin or brigand, kill for coin, whether on his own initiative or on the orders of another. Those occupations were familiar ones to him. Or he could make a direct approach, scale the walls of a keep by night and steal away with a lord's valuables perhaps…
Ordinarily he could have just robbed and Confounded a muggle, but without a wand he wasn't capable of such a spell.
Someone knocked at his room's door. The hinges squeaked and a young girl, not unlovely, though far from the best he'd seen walked in nervously. She averted her eyes, staring at the floor as she came to bring him his food.
The smell of her and of the meal interrupted Greyback's thoughts. They could wait. For now he would eat.
And who knows, perhaps the innkeeper's daughter might do for afters?
The dense greenery of the Wolfswood rapidly faded away.
The party rode swiftly, cantering on flat ground, then trotting the horses where the trees grew thicker or the ground less firm.
Fenrir had a harder time of it than the others. For one, he was bigger, he was more than a hand's span taller than the tallest of the party and he'd also not ridden anything in years.
Wizards would of course use a variety of creatures as mounts, gryphons coming to mind for example, but for the most part they rode brooms, and then only recreationally. Floo travel was the most common method of long distance travel, with apparition being another way. The most skilled wizards (a category in which Fenrir did not include himself) could use more esoteric methods like when the Dark Lord turned himself into smoke to fly without external assistance.
These were the thoughts that distracted Fenrir while he rode. He had to have some distraction, for even within a few hours he was saddlesore, his thighs chafed and his head so shaken about by the pace of the ride that he could only grit his teeth in frustration as they passed through the trees.
The ride took them past villages and little stone towers, past houses half built into the earth with turf roofs which stank of earthy safety. Once they passed a larger wooden castle, whitewashed by Muggles outside with buckets of caustic lime. Fenrir had to breathe through his mouth while the sergeant spoke with the knight of the structure to get the latest news.
"Lord Stark rallies to Castle Cerwyn, we'll report to Captain Mollen there!" the sergeant called. From the castle came grooms and servants and they ate a quick meal, only half an hour at table at most before they left again.
Greyback had heard of 'the Stark of Winterfell'. He had some understanding of the terrain around him, knowledge enough to know the rough geography of the Wolfswood, of the territory of Lord Glover, the supposed steward of that forest, as well as the orientation of the Kingsroad which ran north past Castle Cerwyn to Winterfell, the capital of the region. He knew enough to know that Westeros, the continent he found himself on, was ruled by a single king, yet divided into several regions.
This told him nothing at all of how he'd found himself naked and alone in a forest on what seemed to be another world.
But Fenrir Greyback was a practical man. He always had been, it was almost a requirement as a werewolf. In truth, he was looking forward to it. Here was a whole new world, and one absent the cursed Ministry of Magic, absent the nonsense of the blood purists.
His world. If he willed it…
If he could only think for a moment, instead of concentrating on trying to keep his seat on this ridiculous horse!
On through a barrowland, on past three companies of men wearing black axes on grey for their sigils, on past farms and mills. On past the musky odour of cattle, the scent of leather and horsesweat his constant companion. On past smoke and blood at the cookfires and hunting spots of villagers, on to the gloriously sweet and clear scent of the rivers they passed. On past ale and bread in the inns and the salt of a quarry.
"You don't ride well, if I might say so, friend." the sergeant said to him one night when the troop had bedded down.
Fenrir slept within the confines of his bearskin cloak. It was a rich garment indeed and he'd had more than one envious glance at it. Any who looked more than once got a glimpse of his eyes though and hurriedly looked away.
He kept his gaze averted, pretending to fiddle with his boots while he thought on his reply.
Torren, that foolish muggle back in the village, had been terrified of his eyes. For a month before he'd regained his memories he'd just thought the man a coward. Greyback knew he was a large and intimidating man after all, his years of lycanthropic transformations leaving a distinct cast to his features, and not one that inspired friendliness. This was different though. Fenrir had realised it when he'd caught a glimpse of the sergeant's memories.
The prime requirements for the Mental Arts was clarity of thought and strength of will. Some would call it a technical skill, one of secret knowledge and training, but Greyback knew better. He had been a werewolf for decades and over time he'd managed to control the transformation somewhat, to be able to almost induce it, to call upon its strength. The Department of Mysteries would have liked to get their hands on him for their experiments but he'd never been foolish enough to let that happen.
But now after his amnesic episode in the village, he found his focus sundered. Whenever he met the gaze of the muggles he could feel himself clawing his way into their eyes, into their minds.
The Mental Arts could be dangerous on the user as well though, and he'd resolved to try to avoid looking people in the eyes till he was in more control.
The bliss of the transformation was still affecting him.
While some lycanthropes suffered stresses and premature ageing due to their transformations each month, Greyback welcomed them. He had eaten well, his beast had delighted in the slaughter of the village and it had given him a boon. It sometimes happened after a particularly good hunt, for a few days after he would feel the pangs of joy, a sensation almost like stretching after a long sleep. It was glorious, though hazardous given the distraction that it caused, clouding his focus.
In truth, the massacre had been incredibly foolish. He hadn't let himself go like that in decades. Not since the Ruhr in '62.
He had been silent too long. He was too distracted, and Greyback dug his pointed nails into his palm till they drew fresh copper-blood.
"Not in some time." he replied back to the sergeant.
"Aye, seems not. You remember who you were then? Did you serve? You have that look about you. Was it a blow to the head? I've heard men can lose their memories from it sometimes."
"I remember more each day." Greyback replied. 'Had he served'? What did that mean? He was in dangerous territory. He needed the access the sergeant's rank could give him… "I did serve yes, though I only remember some of it."
"Where was it? In the War?"
Greyback had heard of a war. Alyn had fought in it, but hadn't gone into details. Apparently a war against dragons, or perhaps people who supported dragons in some fashion. "No, not there." he replied.
"Ah, the Disputed Lands then." the sergeant nodded sagely. "I thought you might be a sellsword. Men don't get muscles like yours without battle. Which company were you with? I knew several who served with the Second Sons or the Company of the Rose."
"They were the Death Eaters." Greyback said with a smile.
The sergeant nodded, as if that wasn't an unusual name, "And your commander? I don't know the name but I might know the sigil."
Fenrir knew the sergeant suspected him. He knew how he looked and had used his appearance and reputation for his own benefit many times. But what was the sergeant's plan?
"He called himself 'Lord Voldemort'." Greyback replied slowly. "His sigil was a serpent and a skull on a green field."
"Sounds like a Dornishman… They love snakes." replied the Sergeant. "Well, we'd better sleep, we'll reach Castle Cerwyn tomorrow if we ride hard."
Fenrir grinned a toothy grin as he lay back. The idea of the Dark Lord being dismissed by a muggle was farcical. Oh well, not like he'd be seeing Riddle again.
As he lay there the lycanthrope thought further on his initial question. What was the Sergeant thinking? The questioning had been an interrogation. Likely the man would report Fenrir's words to his commander, and then to the various lords of the North. No doubt in his mind, the Sergeant didn't suspect him of being a werewolf. Apparently magic was a thing of the past in Westeros, confined to story and tale. But a wildling spy? An infiltrator or scout of the force of barbarians who had butchered the village? That might be more probable.
Greyback slept fitfully. He had never slept especially well, for werewolves were often nocturnal, forced into work below their station because of their condition. Well, Greyback had rejected that, rejected the Wizards and their laws. If they named him 'beast', he would act like one, and besides, night was often the best time to strike.
The waking was done quickly. The men dined on cheese, bread, and cold sausage, then swiftly mounted and rode. After another uncomfortable day of riding they sighted the modest keep of the Cerwyns, the banner which flew above the keep was made of silver thread, not merely grey-dyed wool like the surcoats of the soldiers.
Now again Fenrir scented strange smells. Some wizards or muggles lived in rude fashion, especially those of his own kind, but he'd rarely smelt the acrid scent of tubs of urine from a tannery, or the earthy cloying smell of open latrines. It was as if this world was all new to him, it even recalled his first Change, the first time he'd transformed and how the more powerful nose of the werewolf had opened a new world of sensations and senses to him.
Greyback dismounted with a groan. They had to dismount at the pickets beyond the castle, making their way through a copse of tents. It was not that forest of canvas from the attack on the Quidditch World Cup, but it was well-populated all the same. Here were hundreds of unwashed soldiers smelling of greasy, rust and sweat.
He saw more sigils there, the axe of Cerwyn, the mailed fist of Glover, the moose of Hornwood. The Sergeant pointed them all out and muttered to himself and his company as you walked toward the keep. "I'd not like to be Lord Glover now." he said darkly.
As Greyback understood, it was a great embarrassment for the Glovers to have missed what was apparently a sizeable force of wildlings. It would be more embarrassing though to have those 'wildlings' disappear like morning mist before the sun, for Greyback was hardly going to confess.
They passed washerwomen and their babes, beating drying clothes with sticks and scrubbing laundry over boards. Fenrir licked his lips as they passed, sighting one beauty, her dress soaked and sticking to her skin.
No.
He had sated his beast in the village. He didn't need to hunt so soon.
Instead, he brought his wrist to his face, scenting the lock of hair he'd cut from Palla's head while she lay broken and rent in the dawnlight.
There was a tension in the air. Fenrir had been a werewolf for forty years, and his nose was keen. These men were preparing for battle, but they seemed to have no fear. Admirable…
For muggles.
The Sergeant reported to his captain, and that captain to his commander, and that commander led them into the keep to the study of Lord Cerwyn. The space was reasonably large, and comfortably decorated, though not luxuriously so.
Fenrir could smell spices, only a small amount, in a locked chest in an otherwise musty draw. He could smell the private privy through a door, and the oil from the weapons hung on a stand. The room was round, located in one of the towers of the keep, with a large window bordered in well-cut white stone. A river, the White Knife perhaps, wound its way through the countryside beyond, while within a fire burned merrily in a stone fireplace. Lord Cerwyn himself was there, a man of forty or more, with a boy in the House livery attending him. On the table were some signs of wealth such as a silver candlestick, an inkpot of blown glass, imported presumably, a steel razor Fenrir sensed by the smell of the ointment on the blade, and two leatherbound books. Fenrir looked them over and discounted them as soon as he saw them, none had value to him.
"My lord," Ser Kyle Condon, one of Cerwyn's commanders reported, "This man, Fenrir Greyback by name, was staying in the village before the attack. I have knowledge of him from others who have known him over this past month. A hunter found him in the woods wandering naked and the headman took him in. He proved himself over time, killing a blood-mad bear on his own."
Fenrir did not bow. He would sometimes feign subservience to Wizards to fool them, or at least he had in his youth before his appearance changed so radically, but he refused to feign such to a muggle.
Even without his wand he could kill the man before he drew another breath. He almost felt himself move then before he quashed the dark urge, a sudden energy, a strength in his legs, he saw himself leaping over the table, hand drawn back to slash open the man's throat!
"How did you come to be in the Wolfswood in such a state?" Cerwyn asked, and it shocked Greyback out of his fantasy.
"I don't know." he replied easily, "I even couldn't remember how to speak at first."
"I can vouch for this, through my sources, my lord." Condon put in, "It is the reason we did not suspect him. It would take a mummer of surpassing skill to pull off such a ruse, and," Fenrir heard a rustle of metal behind as the man shrugged in his chainmail, "he doesn't look like a mummer."
"No, he does not." Cerwyn said cooly. He regarded Greyback, who quickly averted his eyes. Would the lord take it as subservience? Perhaps, but the werewolf supposed his pride could accept that at least. "Well then, we shall question you." the lord continued, "Where were you on the night of the massacre, we deem it to have happened more than a week ago, from the condition of the bodies…"
Now that was interesting. It seemed his beast's savagery during the transformation had made them think the village had been destroyed several days before it had. Why was that? Fenrir's mind worked as he considered his answer. 'The condition of the bodies', did Cerwyn think the villagers had been killed, then subsequently scavenged by the creatures of the forest?
But no! Greyback had told the Sergeant when they'd met that the villagers were preparing for a feast, and the feast had been laid out in readiness. They'd been halfway through when the moon had risen. Surely the local people would know what day the feast was? They'd even had the wassailing cauldron out. This was potentially dangerous… If they thought the feast had been days earlier than it had been, what would they do? Greyback didn't know enough about the Northerners to consider it properly…
"I was hunting." Fenrir just answered honestly, still thinking. He didn't need to explain exactly what he'd been hunting, namely the villagers, and he was hardly about to correct the lord about the timing. Better to disappear perhaps, before they questioned his story further.
"Was there any sign of a wildling band in your hunts?" Cerwyn leant forward, "Spoor, the remains of camps, unusual smoke or fires?"
What was best to answer there to frustrate them the most?
"To the north, some of the others said there wasn't much prey, that the wolves weren't howling to the north." Greyback answered.
The north of the village was into the most densely forested and least accessible part of the Wolfswood. Hopefully that would lead them on a merry chase, wandering about in the woods for weeks before they realised their mistake.
"See to it, Ser Kyle." Cerwyn ordered and continued his questioning.
Yes, Fenrir had been a hunter, yes he'd lost his memories but was regaining them, yes he'd served in battle under the banner of the Death Eaters, no he didn't know where Voldemort was now, yes it was a small company anyway so maybe that's why Cerwyn hadn't heard of him. Yes he'd killed that bear, yes he now wore it as a cloak, no he'd not heard anything, he'd left before the massacre.
Cerwyn started to grow frustrated before Ser Kyle deflected him. In the end both Fenrir and Kyle were sent away.
"You may have your pride, Sellsword." the knight said to him after they were out of earshot of the lord, "But you'd be wise to remember your courtesies. My lord took offence there, but he's a just man. Others would have had you whipped for your insolence."
"They could try." the werewolf grinned.
The smile seemed to unnerve the knight, and he said nothing more for a while, handing Fenrir off to his subordinate, Mollen.
The werewolf was brought to the inn just outside the castle, given a room and told not to leave. No guard was posted, but Greyback heard the innkeeper speaking softly with Mollen as he shut the door. He would be watched, and informed upon if he tried to escape, no doubt.
Greyback threw himself down on the narrow cot.
Then he got up again immediately, stalking to the door he opened it and bellowed down in the rasping growl that was his voice, "Innkeeper! Food and drink in an hour!"
He smelt the fear off the man immediately and grinned, then he slammed the door shut just to terrify the publican.
Most amusing.
With a grin, the lycanthrope went back to the bed. Off came the bearskin and the jacket he'd stolen from Joram. He lay down in the bed, legs crossed, arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
There was much to consider, and Greyback went over it in his mind, slowly organising his thoughts. It was essential, both for controlling his urges, and to properly examine his situation. He had not survived fifty years as one of Europe's most infamous criminals by being hasty, even if he let himself go sometimes when his beast was raging.
Firstly, he was on another world. He'd never heard of such a thing, but through magic many things were possible. There could be any number of magical artefacts which might cause such a thing. Or was he in the future? There were plants and animals and people, where had they come from? The muggles had many comical theories about the existence of life on other planets and what form it might take, why then did everything appear so… mundane?
Was he in a different time? Had he been crushed by a comically large time-turner? Experienced some other improbable magical accident? He hadn't studied muggle history since he'd been a boy, and he vaguely remembered the names of some of the kings of Britain, of that one with nine wives or the other one with the crooked foot. He didn't remember anything like this.
Was he in the future? One where humanity had somehow regressed back to a medieval state of technology?
He supposed there would be no way to tell that, and moved on from the thought.
How had he gotten here? He thought again on the ridiculous thought of an enormous time-turner falling slowly toward him, splattering him with it's weight, and he laughed a little to himself. He would die in battle, of that he'd always been sure, never in such a silly way as he'd envisaged.
What was the last thing he remembered?
Greyback cleared his mind. The Dark Lord had returned. Fenrir had thought him dead, killed by the Potter boy years ago, but then his contacts had told him of the return and Fenrir had sought him out. While the werewolf had never been permitted to wear the Dark Mark, such was the blood purist ideology, he had been accepted among the Death Eaters, though never respected. Nevertheless, he would put his pride aside for his people, and serve Voldemort as long as the dark wizard served Fenrir's interests in turn.
He remembered… where had it been? One of the packs in Croatia he thought, he remembered the caves under Papuk, the clan of his people who made it their home. He had been reacquainting himself with the clans in preparation for rallying them into a season of violence on behalf of Voldemort, who had renewed his promise to make Britain a free country for werewolves.
Greyback had never entirely trusted the Dark Lord. Anyone would have been foolish to do so, but Voldemort provided him the means and cover to bite others, increasing the numbers of his people, which in turn translated to military, magical, and political power. That was enough, and Fenrir had used that strategy before…
He was getting off track. He focused his mind again, piercing the veil of his foggy brain.
Voldemort had been agitated, looking for something. Fenrir hadn't been told what, he'd just followed when he was bade to. They had gone on the attack, followed Voldemort into battle.
But where?
Had they attacked some sort of esoteric site? A place of exotic magics or energies? Had the Dark Lord enacted some dread ritual which had gone awry? Had the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore opposed them and the resultant wild enchantment somehow transported him to this world?
Fenrir wracked his brain for ideas. He was no loremaster, but he knew of a few curious magical artefacts. There was the Veil of Death for one, no one knew what happened to those who passed through that. Had he slipped into it? Been tossed in by the Order during a duel?
But why would the Veil of Death function in such a way? The common consensus was that it truly transported those who fell into it into an afterlife, thus giving it it's name. Even so, why would Voldemort have attacked the Department of Mysteries? Had he sought something there to oppose Dumbledore?
Fenrir moved on, that was also irrelevant, ultimately. Perhaps this was all some hallucination. Perhaps he'd taken a bad batch of potion. Or perhaps his mind was just breaking down in the last moments of his life, his blood rushing from a wound as he lay dying in some dark place back on Earth…
It was a morbid thought. Greyback rolled his shoulder uncomfortably, bringing his arms down and laying his clawed hands over his belly.
Once again he came back to his initial thought. None of this really mattered he supposed. He would do as he'd always done. Greyback was a greedy man, he was quite happy to accept that. He had desires, ones he would sate regardless of the prey. He couldn't be satisfied with living as most werewolves did, staying in some isolated cottage away from civilisation and eking out an existence scrabbling for scraps.
No, he wanted more.
And absent the Ministry of Magic, it seemed he could have it.
Not as a single man perhaps, but this was a world ruled by might, and compared with a muggle, Fenrir knew he was strong enough to make something of himself. Back in the solar he'd thought of killing Lord Cerwyn, been confident he'd be able to do it. He could move faster than a human, he was stronger too. Strong enough to defeat three men with ease perhaps, though he'd never fought muggles in steel armour…
He had his own strength and a purse of stolen silver, the world was his…
The first step, Greyback thought as the scent of salt and meat wafted up from the greatroom below, was to secure his magic.
Werewolves were generally required to get along without wands. His people occupied the liminal space between beast and being in the Ministry's classification, and that meant their rights to carry wands were often constrained. Similarly, due to the social stigma of lycanthropy and the dangers of the physical transformation, werewolves could rarely get the education or occupations which might allow them to educate themselves in magic properly. Greyback himself had been expelled from Hogwarts after Headmaster Prewitt had learned of his affliction, though Greyback knew Dumbledore had been more willing to accept lycanthrope students and other half-breeds, that half-giant gamekeeper sprung to mind.
Then there was the physical transformation of course. One could hardly carry around a wand when loping through a forest, and most werewolves found themselves waking naked and covered in blood if they didn't lock themselves up during the full moon.
Greyback scoffed, he had never respected those who did that. They claimed it was a matter of self-control but he knew it was just cowardice.
In any case, he was used to working without a wand. Never for so long though. He would often just steal or take one from a victim, but here he had no wand and no way to get one.
Magic was real though. He could feel it. It was different in some way, perhaps less constrained by the networks of wards, magical transport systems or national enchantments, but he could still feel it if he concentrated. The weirwood, that had been a thing of magic, and Greyback fingered the amulet he'd been given in the village, carved with the face of the Old Gods.
Had the Old Gods been wizards? Or something like it?
There were dragons though and other magical creatures. That was certain and very clear from the villagers. Some, he supposed, might be mundane but it was clear there were magical things in Westeros and that meant reagents and materials.
While Greyback had a broad set of skills from his varied life, wandlore was one thing he'd never investigated. It was useless to do so, for what werewolf would be able to amass the resources, connections and acceptance from the community to start to sell wands or find employment in a wandmakers?
He knew that wands were constructed from various woods, and that they had different cores. Wizards would often remark on wand combinations, but in truth, only those fascinated by divination or of a superstitious temperament actually cared about it.
Greyback's first wand had been alder and unicorn hair, but he'd lost that decades ago. More recently he'd tried to buy from a Bulgarian wandmaker to see if he could find something more useful to him. He'd not really intended to buy, he'd really been scouting the shop with the intention of robbing it later that night, but in any case the Bulgar wizard had been happy to try to match him.
The result had been an affinity for oak and blackthorn, with a core of dragon heartstring, but before he could make the purchase the wandmaker had ordered him out of the shop and called the local aurors. Greyback hadn't been sure why at the time, he'd assumed the man recognised him as a werewolf and feared for his life. He'd been right do so, but Fenrir also supposed that the combination of the wood and core might have had some meaning which scared the wandmaker.
He had already seen oak trees, as well as firs, pines, sycamores and willows. He was inclined to try weirwood as well, though he might take time to do so, till he'd had some practice with the others first.
Then there was the core. If he could find and kill a dragon he might use the heartstrings, but he'd have to look at others if the dragons proved illusive.
Until he had a wand he couldn't cast spells or use most magic. While he didn't know wandlore, magical theory and the ways in which it applied to werewolves had been a great interest of his, and Greyback knew what his limitations would be.
No apparition. Not without a high risk of splinching, and not knowing his destination besides given he was on a new world and hadn't seen many locations. No complex charms, transfigurations or curses. No wards, and any runes he wanted to make he'd have to carve, or get someone else to carve sufficiently proficiently to take the magic. With a wand he could cast Fiendfyre and destroy a city, without one he'd just burn himself to cinders. No precise control over the Mental Arts.
With a thought, he snapped his fingers and called a little bluebell flame. A parlour trick…
Orthodox magical theory, at least that which predominated in Europe and the colonies, stated that magic was the application of will and magical power through mnemonic tools such as incantations or wand movements. It was more complex than that of course given the addition of the inherent power of a wand, but the wizards of Asia or Africa had native magical traditions of long study and significant power, unlike those Greyback had been taught, and even they held true to the basic principles. Whether a Chinese wizard used hand gestures and movements of the limbs to cast a spell, or a British wizard used an incantation, it was much the same at the basic level.
He could use curses wandlessly, he'd always had an inclination toward direct, violent spells like Cutting or Blasting curses, but that would be about it till he acquired a proper wand.
Then there was the sheer convenience of using magic! He'd used magic in the village to shape water or to slightly alter his current clothes, to kill the bear and the other animals. That had been instinctive, the same way children sometimes used accidental magic. Supremely powerful and learned wizards like Dumbledore or the Dark Lord could use magic like that consciously, but Greyback didn't count himself among their number.
There was also the infrastructure of magic and of the Wizarding World. There would be no easy international travel for him, perhaps not ever, for Greyback had no idea how one would go about connecting two fireplaces together or to a wider Floo Network. The Ministry had people for that, or so he assumed. It was just something that happened after all, presumably it was someone's job.
Potions too, would be in short supply, and Greyback doubted he'd have the time or resources to set up a proper workshop. There were some potions which could prove extremely useful to a werewolf and though he was philosophically and morally opposed to the Wolfsbane Potion, he'd used it more than once when the need arose to control his beast, when he couldn't afford to lose a night to it running free.
He would have to seek out an alchemist. Some of the reagents might be the same, but while he knew how to brew the Wolfsbane Potion by heart, as well as a few others, he'd never completed his formal education in that particular art.
Fenrir had been lying in bed for an hour or more by now. He stirred himself, sitting up, stretching and cracking his joints. The transformation created new bones and muscles and it was always slightly uncomfortable to be back in human form afterward, but he'd gotten used to it over time. It was just like breaking in a new pair of boots really.
The smell of a meaty stew made him salivate. He would eat well tonight he decided, for despite his dining on the villagers he found himself hungry again. This time he'd make do with mundane fare. He was looking forward to it even as he concentrated on the rich scent wafting from the innkeeper's cookpot.
His first step must be to seek places of magical power, and places where he might acquire reagents for future experimentation. That would take months no doubt, and if he seeded the starts of a few clans of werewolves while he was doing it, even better.
Reagents meant cities though. Merchants and herbalists who might already have such items, learned men like scholars and historians who might point him in the right direction.
Gaining such knowledge would require funds both to pay the people, and to bribe anyone who might question Greyback about why he wanted to know such things. He knew the permanent effects of his transformations over the decades made his appearance intimidating, and he'd not stoop to wearing a mask, he was proud of his scars and his aspect.
He could turn assassin or brigand, kill for coin, whether on his own initiative or on the orders of another. Those occupations were familiar ones to him. Or he could make a direct approach, scale the walls of a keep by night and steal away with a lord's valuables perhaps…
Ordinarily he could have just robbed and Confounded a muggle, but without a wand he wasn't capable of such a spell.
Someone knocked at his room's door. The hinges squeaked and a young girl, not unlovely, though far from the best he'd seen walked in nervously. She averted her eyes, staring at the floor as she came to bring him his food.
The smell of her and of the meal interrupted Greyback's thoughts. They could wait. For now he would eat.
And who knows, perhaps the innkeeper's daughter might do for afters?
- Location
- United Kingdom
We've now breached the 25k mark with a rather large 7.5k chapter I've written up yesterday and today. I very much enjoyed writing that one, and am indeed enjoying this fic in general so far. It's quite novel to force myself to write in a particular style, and also to remember to integrate particular things. For example, Greyback as a werewolf has a good sense of smell, so I have to imagine what he's smelling when he goes somewhere new. I also have to imagine how depraved he is, as that's another part of his character which has been interesting to write about. In any case, feedback is most welcome as I'd like to see what people think of this in general, whether the prose or the characters or the plot so far. The 7.5k chapter has some fairly significant stuff in it, and will be posted in a couple of weeks as per the posting schedule. 2 more advanced chapters up currently, will probably do more over the next couple of days as I still want to try and reach 50k in November.
Fenrir woke to fire and smoke.
Yet, aside from the raids and bloody reprisals at Voldemort's order or to sate his own bloodlust over the years, he'd rarely woken to these scents.
Fire and smoke. Yet there was a peace there too.
Greyback lay in his cot and breathed the air. Scents came to him as he lay still, closing his eyes, losing himself as he walked the world through the sensations.
His blanket and the straw of his mattress were musty and a little damp. There were the cooling embers of a fire in the grate of his room, but no servant had come to light it again during the morning, no doubt fearing his response.
The bearskin cloak stank of grease and lye from the tanning and cleaning process. It was warm though, and besides it was a rich garment made from his own victory.
The crumbs of the honeycake he'd devoured last night, as well as the fading smell of the stew were there too. There was rye in the hard black bread, there was the cream of herbs and butter combined. There was the spices and the heady meat of the meal.
There was the oil of his dagger and the scent of iron and war.
There was the harsh burn of silver, for even the coins in his stolen purse would rub together and shed minute particles of dust which would burn his nostrils. Lycanthropes could handle silver, but only the highest purities would actually cause injury rather than irritation.
Further, Greyback loped. He scented beyond his room, down upon the air currents to the kitchen where another day's soup bubbled and the innkeeper carried the contents of chamber pots to the latrine beyond the inn's door. He smelt the fresh dew on the grass, the frost melting away under the sun's assault. He smelt the earthy scent of manure, from men and horses both, from the gathering army.
It was beautiful.
But the werewolf had work to do. He stood swiftly, leaping from his bed, setting his boots on his feet and his cloak swirling behind him, down the stairs and out the door before the innkeeper could draw breath to call him back.
Up to Castle Cerwyn Greyback went. More men had come during the night, it seemed, and Fenrir remembered the scent of horses and of the troop, as if in a dream he'd detected them as they rode in at midnight.
Ser Kyle was with Mollin, the captain of Lord Cerwyn's guards, but neither were difficult to find. They were looking over maps and records in an office and one glare at a man-at-arms had brought him to the commanders.
"It is Lord Cerwyn's order that you remain here." Ser Kyle said cooly.
Greyback hadn't meant to confront the man, but the knight had spoken even before the werewolf was able to decide what to say.
"I told you to stay at the inn. That way we know where you are, should Lord Cerwyn need to speak with you again." the knight continued. "I think he means for you to speak with Lord Stark, but Lord Stark is rallying his banners at Winterfell and coordinating the search of the Wolfswood from there. I've heard it said the Lord of Winterfell will move south to meet us here, but Lord Cerwyn would know more."
"What am I to do then?" Greyback asked.
"You are to wait patiently for Lord Cerwyn to call for you. Memory you may have lost, but if there's one thing you must learn again it's courtesy." then Kyle made a dismissive gesture with his hand and called another man over to escort Greyback out.
The werewolf walked surly from the chamber, then out into the yard. There were men training all about him and Captain Mollin turned to him.
"I'd listen to him, if I were you. Lords have their expectations, and no matter how you look, you're a man, not a wolf or a beast."
That made Greyback smile, "There are no wolves like me."
The remark put a distasteful frown on Mollin's face, but Fenrir hadn't been able to help himself. He knew the Starks had a wolf for their sigil, perhaps it was fate that'd brought him to the North.
Unlike other werewolves who tended to lose themselves in their beasts, living a crude and primitive existence on the edges of civilisation to conceal their savagery, Greyback had always revelled in his own curse. Yet, he'd never let it overcome his reason. He indulged himself yes, for there was little sweeter in the world than meat fresh of a young girl's thigh, but he was a leader among his people. Many looked to him for guidance, and unlike the weak dogs who played along with the Wizards, Greyback had actually made progress in his association with the Death Eaters. He wasn't respected, but he was valued at least for his skills. They took him seriously, didn't treat him like some animal…
"Listen." Mollin said after they'd stood looking out at the yard for a time, "If you conduct yourself well you might gain a good position. You've the look of a wanderer. Do you want that to continue like some vagabond? You know how to fight, that's clear, you could get a position in Lord Cerwyn's guards, or even Lord Stark's if you impress him. If you'd desire it, if you'd give your word of honour to obey Ser Kyle in battle and follow the banner I could get you weapons, put you somewhere you could see battle against these wildlings bastards! These lordly lords love courtesy yes, but they like men who can kill too…"
Leaving aside the fact that there were no wildlings and all this activity was for naught as soon as Greyback slipped their sight, the werewolf regarded the captain with something akin to admiration. It was a kindness, an unexpected one.
"I'll think on it." he just said.
"Aye, you do that."
Greyback left the castle swiftly. He had holes in his story and would rather not be questioned further on it. Mollin's remarks had been interesting, but as Fenrir went among the vendors of the small village outside the castle gate, he saw the advantages.
Ultimately, he was a stranger. No one would trust him, not without a reputation, not without familiarity and trust. Each merchant, from the tailor to the smith to the grocer, all looked at him with suspicion and distaste. He was a wanderer, without kin or community, and it showed.
Greyback supposed that this is what it must have been like in the past, on Earth that is. If you turned up somewhere without papers or means to communicate, or without knowing the customs of the area you'd be seen as a threat. That had how it'd been for him when he was younger, trying to meet other werewolves or join packs, most of them out in the Balkans or Eastern Europe. More recently, he could walk into any pack and all there would know him, such was his reputation among his own kind.
But he had scars to show when it had been different.
On Westeros though he had no such community, not even the shared curse of lycanthropy to bind him to others.
The solution, he supposed, was to acquire a reputation. Acquire fame, a sigil, and the means to ensure people knew him. The means also though to shed that sigil like a lizard sheds its skin when he needed to, to fade back into obscurity.
He brought hat, gloves, hatchet, and a pack of travelling supplies in the town outside Castle Cerwyn. He didn't really actually need them, he was used to the cold and the kiss of the elements on his face. But, he thought, it would look strange to be without such things on the road. Additionally, he wasn't used to travelling for so long by Muggle means and he supposed eventually he'd want such clothing.
He might have to cut the fingers off the gloves though, he wasn't trimming his nails, they were too useful in combat and they'd grow back again in a week anyway.
Of course, acquiring a reputation and recognition would have it's challenges. The land was at peace, apparently, for the moment and there would be no battles for him to partake in. If he wounded anyone they might have the secondary effects of a werewolf attack, and that might expose him further. It would be useless to seek a reputation he could be respected with, then to lose it all when people realised he was a monster.
But then, that had worked fairly well before. Even since he'd started biting children, or threatening to, Wizards had feared him. As far as he knew he was the only lycanthrope to make such threats and that gave him a formidable reputation, one he'd used to apply political pressure before.
What to do? What to do?
He wandered back down the main road toward the castle. He'd heard tell of a scholar there before and that might be a route to more information.
Greyback walked slowly, unhurried in his pace.
When he was younger and less visibly altered by his beast he'd been able to rely on ignorance and kindness. He'd been a young man, to be able to fool aurors into letting their guard down before he opened their throats hadn't been especially difficult. He'd even been captured by the Ministry once and the Aurors had been fooled by an act that he was just a Muggle tramp. In his dirty clothes and without a wand it had been easy to fool them, and Fenrir remembered the day fondly.
Now though he was in his fifties. Any look of innocence and kindness was long since gone from his face, and his frame and bulk had swelled as his beast's influence waxed in his flesh.
Once, a Romanian witch had called him 'beautiful'. They'd rutted under the moon and she'd borne him a litter of half-wolf children, each with his piercing eyes who'd grown up to look like small versions of him.
He wasn't sure if he'd go that far though, vanity had never been a failing of his. Men called him a monster and they were probably right. The problem now though was that it was so clear. He was no play actor, he could deceive when he needed to, but his very aspect would arouse suspicion.
He'd somewhat sabotaged himself in this way. He'd trained himself to smile with his mouth open for years and it was habit by now. His fangs were intimidating he knew and it gave him a fearsome appearance. Now though he wasn't sure he'd be able to stop himself doing it if he wanted to.
The maester of Castle Cerwyn was a middle-aged man with a thin chain around his neck. He was unremarkable, beneath Fenrir's notice in truth. The werewolf shouldered his way into the maester's turret, past bookshelves and cages of those strange ravens.
The birds flapped their wings and cawed at him as he came into the room. He growled a low rumble from his chest and they fluttered back in their cages, pressing themselves against the bars as far away from him as they could.
Fenrir turned to the maester. The man was looking at him in alarm, a piece of paper scrunched in his hand.
Greyback couldn't actually read. He was literate in English, German, Latin, Greek and many of the
Cyrillic languages, but on Westeros he'd yet to learn to read. That would hold him back he knew, especially in his studies of magic. Nevertheless, he would find a way around it. He looked at the scholar with hunger…
"I have come to learn, maester." he told the man.
The room was cramped with books and papers, with boxers of dried herbs and with the cages of ravens. Each enclosure was marked with words, no doubt the places the ravens would fly to and bear messages, and Greyback had seen several birds heading out of the tower over the last few days as the maester or Lord Cerwyn communicated with others to coordinate the campaign against the wildlings.
The room smelt of ink and wax at that moment. The Maester had been writing and Fenrir saw an unfinished letter on the table next to a stamp with a battleaxe and a little pot of wax next to a strange device to hold a measure of the substance over a flame to melt it before the scholar would seal the letter.
Under that scent there was herb and oil from the tinctures and medical supplies in the closets. They were packaged, but either the maester was messy, or his packaging wasn't robust enough to stop the substances escaping.
The scholar seemed to rally himself, standing up straighter, jutting his weak chin forward and assuming a haughty look, "You are this simpleton from the forest. What could you want to learn?"
"About the world and it's man opportunities." Fenrir replied easily. He could smell the man's fear.
"Be gone with you, or I'll call the guards!"
That just made Fenrir smile more. "What use would calling them be if you'd be dead by the time they arrive? But then, I am only a simpleton from the forest, so perhaps I don't understand."
The conversation was most informative.
Greyback had already more or less decided to flee Castle Cerwyn that night. He ordered the maester to tell him what he knew about the world, about the different polities and political tensions among the lords of Westeros, about the wildlings. He claimed he'd heard of a warg having caused the destruction at the village and that he wanted to know about magic, but the maester had only scoffed and told him they didn't exist.
The information was useful, both what it covered and what it didn't. Greyback learned of the tribes of the Mountains of the Moon, of the Wildling raiders and of the Ironborn. He learned of the wars in the Dornish Marches and of the pirates of the Stepstones. In any conflict he could find employment he knew, but more than that he needed to pursue the resources to make his wand.
From the maester he learned all manner of trivia, for once he got going the maester forgot his fear and seemed to actually quite enjoy himself. The man wore a chain of iron, bronze, silver and bronze links, these were marks of his knowledge of astronomy, warcraft, alchemy, astronomy and healing. Apparently it did not denote great knowledge, for some maesters would forge several of the same link if they were truly knowledgeable in their subject. In any case, magic, denoted by a link of Valyrian steel, was not present on the man.
The maester told Greyback many things. He told of the Dragonhold of Valyria, of the Children of the Forest and the wargs of the Old North (neither of which the maester regarded as actually existing), as well as of the runes of the Old Tongue and the pyromancy of the Alchemist's Guild or the Red Priests of Essos.
If Greyback had a notebook he'd have been scrawling in it. The maester of Cerwyn wasn't an unusually knowledgeable man, he merely came from a scholarly tradition. What more could a true loremaster teach the werewolf?
Strangely, the maester let Greyback go without confronting him after their conversation was over. Greyback left with a grin on his face. Perhaps the man simply yearned to actually talk to someone. Perhaps the werewolf's pursuit of arcane subjects (which the maester regarded as of no practical use to a spy or enemy) had set the man at ease.
It didn't matter.
Greyback waited till nightfall in his room at the inn and ate well again. He prepared, fooling the innkeeper into beliving that he'd gone to sleep, then leaping from the window, gaining purchase on the beams of the neighbouring building and going swiftly across the rooftops of the small town toward the corrals of the gathering army's forces.
It was easy enough to steal a horse. Greyback could see well in the dark and he stalked around till the sentries were tired enough to slip past them, into the corral itself. His scent, the smell of a bloody wolf and the growl he let out terrified the horses. A wolf was among them, and Greyback leapt atop one grey stallion, keeping low to it's back as the horse bucked and screamed. He set his heels to the beast's sides, his physical strength more than his skill in horsemanship keeping him in his seat as the creature ran terrified, leaping over the corral's fence, darting past the army's sentries into the night.
Greyback let the beast run. It was twenty miles or more to Winterfell and he could afford to let the horse tire before he needed to rest it. He was unfamiliar with horses, he had to admit, but he was relatively sure they had to be rested.
They ran on through the night. Greyback could see well, even if the horse couldn't, and he directed it around potholes and divots in the road. On and on they went and all the while he thought.
The Order of Maesters, from what Fenrir understood, were hostile to magic. Why so? Was it a practical aversion or a philosophical one? The maester of Castle Cerwyn didn't seem to believe in magic, seemed to think that yes, perhaps it had existed once, but no longer. That it was in the past was clear, that dragons had once flown and strange things once happened, that the Long Night, an apocalyptic time had once reigned and that strange creatures had stalked about, doing whatever it is they did, But more than that was unclear .There was clearly no organised teaching of magic, not anything like Hogwarts of the Ministry. There were no magical authorities., no Aurors or Hit Wizards. No codification or organisation of magical creatures either, or so the maester explained.
A Septon Barth, apparently a famous priest, had investigated Dragons and categorised them in a book, and some maesters had travelled in Essos, another continent near Westeros to examine the traditions o the religions in those areas, but it seemed to Greyback that there was simply not the same sort of popularity of magic that had so overwhelmingly populated his own world.
Again, why had this been? Or rather, why was it now?
Greyback wasn't an Unspeakable. He didn't know the higher mysteries of magic. He had no training in understanding such things or examining them closely. He was a practical man, a trained man in certain things, a killer and a bandit, a political leader and an agitator, a warrior and a hunter. He had knowledge yes, especially regarding lycanthropy and the various related studies such as potions or the Care of Magical Beasts, as well as some skill in curse breaking, but he'd never had the chance to take up a scholarly pursuit.
Unless he could learn to read especially fast, he'd need attendants and acolytes. People to read for him and present him with information. That would take some time, and be risky, but it was a thought for another time...
Returning to the previous idea as he let the horse rest by a stream for a time, Fenrir sat on a rock in thought. How did one destroy magic? How could one reduce it, bring it down, remove it from the world?
The destruction of magical artefacts, of magical infrastructure, the systematic elimination of magical teaching and education… These would all reduce the amount of magical things in the world, but wasn't magic more than that?
They were a thousand different explanations on where magic actually came from. As a rule though, the Wizarding World had no love for philosophy. It was enough that Wizards could alter reality with a whim, there was no need to deeply consider matters. For his own part, Greyback had never done so. He had wondered, idly over the years, where lycanthropy came from, whether it was (as people said sometimes) a curse or whether it was just a magical disease.
He knew the 'Being' directorate of the Ministry of Magic had their own views on it, indeed Greyback had distributed polemic notes directly against material disagreement with many of the material which had been released by them and the Werewolf Capture Unit, but really no one knew or had a proper idea on the matter.
Had magic declined like the tides? Simply went away over time due to some external influence or astrological phenomena?
Magic had never declined on Earth. Wizards had simply decided to separate themselves. Some, especially Purebloods, thought it was weakness and that Wizards should rule over Muggles. But what was the point? It would be like ruling over animals, there wasn't anything that Muggle slaves could provide that Wizards couldn't just magic up. It had always been a strange political debate within Wizarding society and anyway in most countries the various Ministries of Magic would ignore crimes against Muggles.
On Westeros though obviously that hadn't happened. Had Wizards, or whoever could use magic, for certainly they weren't the same sort of Wizards Greyback was familiar with, simply declined in general? Greyback almost refused to admit it, it grated against his pride, this time as a Wizard rather than just as a werewolf.
Had the Valyrians been Wizards? Had the Doom of Valyria destroyed some large magical network, possibly a warding or a enchantment gone awry? Had that created some sort of magical backlash and destroyed that kingdom?
But no, it couldn't be that either, Fenrir thought, throwing little pebbles into the bubbling brook his horse was drinking from.
There were alternative magical traditions on the planet, both in Westeros and Essos. There were at least a dozen which the maester had spoken of, if not more unspoken or which the maester didn't know about.
And, it seemed at least, that magic was still present. Either the magical destruction of Lalyrua had destroyed magic's influence, or it had not.
Clearly it had not.
Greyback rode on through the night. Over the hills and between barrows he rode, through the woods and the cries of creatures all around. The horse was tiring, this journey might kill it he knew, but he didn't care. It wasn't his horse after all.
Just over the next hill Fenrir found a camp. He'd not smelt t, for the wind blew north and harshly at that. Soon enough though he was drawing closer and could see campfires, tents and pavilions in the centre. This must be Lord Stark's force. Evidently the lord had decided to bestir himself and move south to combine with Cerwyn's troops.
In truth it mattered little to Fenrir. It just meant there would be fewer armed men in Winterfell to make his life difficult.
He sat on his horse for a time before he went on. Was there any opportunity here or should he just move on? There were sentries he saw, and though he'd evaded them against the men of Cerwyn, he had no particular desire to chance a confrontation.
He led his horse in a long circle around the camp instead. The wind changed as he went on, blowing to the west instead and it brought him the scents of the camps.
Again he took in the smell of the campfire. The smell of charred wood and burnt up meats when the men had tossed the bones of their meals into the fire after finishing. He smelt the sweat of the infantry, the oilskins on the archers' weapons. Further on he smelled silk and spice.
Why was there spice? Why pepper and cardamon, why the scent of saffron? It was bizarre. Why would you bring spices to a battle? Were they planning on doing some cooking instead of fighting?
Greyback supposed that wars must be longer here. A wizard could turn and think, and apparate instantly to a battlefield. Even crossing a country of hundreds of miles was only a few hours by broom, even an old broom rather than one of the ones you'd use if you were intending to attack something. Greyback favoured the Floo Network himself, it was convenient to travel to public places, and he had any number of haunts like old pubs that catered to the more unusual clientele that he could use to get close to his victims.
He put it out of his mind. He needed care here, it wouldn't do him any good to arouse the whole camp as he slipped by, that might cause this Lord Stark to send back men to Winterfell, and he wanted time to assess the place before he made his next move. If nothing else, the settlement was bigger and would be well supplied with all that he might need than the Castle Cerwyn was, and that meant he would want to be more careful than he'd been previously perhaps.
There was a sentry in front of him.
Greyback's stolen hose whinnied softly and he struck it om the ear harshly to silence it.
The sentry looked up. Peering into the dark toward Greyback.
Could Fenrir escape?
Did he want to?
His heart beat faster as he smelt the man's fear, prickling out in the night's cold on his skin.
Fenrir grinned, his muscles tensed as he made to stand in the saddle.
The man's eyes widened in realisation, then further in fear as he perceived the werewolf.
Greyback leapt!
A startled scream ripped its way from the man's throat before Greyback tackled him to the forest floor. He rolled over and over with the man before grasping him by his surcoat and swinging him up and into a tree, knocking the wind from him. The werewolf drew back his hand to slash at the man's throat with his clawed nails.
And then slowly lowered his hand instead. Relaxed his arm in a conscious effort, felt the tension draining away…
Then with a swift flurry he drew his dagger. Fenrir stabbed the man half a dozen times in the chest, savouring the scent as the sentry died, drowning as his lungs filled with blood. He had to die by mundane means, not look like a wolf had savaged him.
Greyback was back on his horse swiftly, then off through the woods. He galloped down the road, putting as much distance between himself and the camp as possible.
He had almost lost himself there, his beast had roared in triumph when the sentry's throat beneath his hand.
But no, he would kill when he willed it. 'Beast' the Wizards called him, but he was a man underneath.
On Greyback went, his horse dying undeath him as he rode. The creature stumbled, it puffed and blew, begging for respite. Greyback abandoned it at the side of the road and walked the last mile or so. He could see Winterfell from here, see a dozen turreted, snow-capped towers.
To another, it might have been a great fortress, something of power and strength, a wonder of the world.
But Greyback was tired after his ride. He wanted to eat, and to sleep.
He could take the world.
But he'd do it after a nap.
Fenrir woke to fire and smoke.
Yet, aside from the raids and bloody reprisals at Voldemort's order or to sate his own bloodlust over the years, he'd rarely woken to these scents.
Fire and smoke. Yet there was a peace there too.
Greyback lay in his cot and breathed the air. Scents came to him as he lay still, closing his eyes, losing himself as he walked the world through the sensations.
His blanket and the straw of his mattress were musty and a little damp. There were the cooling embers of a fire in the grate of his room, but no servant had come to light it again during the morning, no doubt fearing his response.
The bearskin cloak stank of grease and lye from the tanning and cleaning process. It was warm though, and besides it was a rich garment made from his own victory.
The crumbs of the honeycake he'd devoured last night, as well as the fading smell of the stew were there too. There was rye in the hard black bread, there was the cream of herbs and butter combined. There was the spices and the heady meat of the meal.
There was the oil of his dagger and the scent of iron and war.
There was the harsh burn of silver, for even the coins in his stolen purse would rub together and shed minute particles of dust which would burn his nostrils. Lycanthropes could handle silver, but only the highest purities would actually cause injury rather than irritation.
Further, Greyback loped. He scented beyond his room, down upon the air currents to the kitchen where another day's soup bubbled and the innkeeper carried the contents of chamber pots to the latrine beyond the inn's door. He smelt the fresh dew on the grass, the frost melting away under the sun's assault. He smelt the earthy scent of manure, from men and horses both, from the gathering army.
It was beautiful.
But the werewolf had work to do. He stood swiftly, leaping from his bed, setting his boots on his feet and his cloak swirling behind him, down the stairs and out the door before the innkeeper could draw breath to call him back.
Up to Castle Cerwyn Greyback went. More men had come during the night, it seemed, and Fenrir remembered the scent of horses and of the troop, as if in a dream he'd detected them as they rode in at midnight.
Ser Kyle was with Mollin, the captain of Lord Cerwyn's guards, but neither were difficult to find. They were looking over maps and records in an office and one glare at a man-at-arms had brought him to the commanders.
"It is Lord Cerwyn's order that you remain here." Ser Kyle said cooly.
Greyback hadn't meant to confront the man, but the knight had spoken even before the werewolf was able to decide what to say.
"I told you to stay at the inn. That way we know where you are, should Lord Cerwyn need to speak with you again." the knight continued. "I think he means for you to speak with Lord Stark, but Lord Stark is rallying his banners at Winterfell and coordinating the search of the Wolfswood from there. I've heard it said the Lord of Winterfell will move south to meet us here, but Lord Cerwyn would know more."
"What am I to do then?" Greyback asked.
"You are to wait patiently for Lord Cerwyn to call for you. Memory you may have lost, but if there's one thing you must learn again it's courtesy." then Kyle made a dismissive gesture with his hand and called another man over to escort Greyback out.
The werewolf walked surly from the chamber, then out into the yard. There were men training all about him and Captain Mollin turned to him.
"I'd listen to him, if I were you. Lords have their expectations, and no matter how you look, you're a man, not a wolf or a beast."
That made Greyback smile, "There are no wolves like me."
The remark put a distasteful frown on Mollin's face, but Fenrir hadn't been able to help himself. He knew the Starks had a wolf for their sigil, perhaps it was fate that'd brought him to the North.
Unlike other werewolves who tended to lose themselves in their beasts, living a crude and primitive existence on the edges of civilisation to conceal their savagery, Greyback had always revelled in his own curse. Yet, he'd never let it overcome his reason. He indulged himself yes, for there was little sweeter in the world than meat fresh of a young girl's thigh, but he was a leader among his people. Many looked to him for guidance, and unlike the weak dogs who played along with the Wizards, Greyback had actually made progress in his association with the Death Eaters. He wasn't respected, but he was valued at least for his skills. They took him seriously, didn't treat him like some animal…
"Listen." Mollin said after they'd stood looking out at the yard for a time, "If you conduct yourself well you might gain a good position. You've the look of a wanderer. Do you want that to continue like some vagabond? You know how to fight, that's clear, you could get a position in Lord Cerwyn's guards, or even Lord Stark's if you impress him. If you'd desire it, if you'd give your word of honour to obey Ser Kyle in battle and follow the banner I could get you weapons, put you somewhere you could see battle against these wildlings bastards! These lordly lords love courtesy yes, but they like men who can kill too…"
Leaving aside the fact that there were no wildlings and all this activity was for naught as soon as Greyback slipped their sight, the werewolf regarded the captain with something akin to admiration. It was a kindness, an unexpected one.
"I'll think on it." he just said.
"Aye, you do that."
Greyback left the castle swiftly. He had holes in his story and would rather not be questioned further on it. Mollin's remarks had been interesting, but as Fenrir went among the vendors of the small village outside the castle gate, he saw the advantages.
Ultimately, he was a stranger. No one would trust him, not without a reputation, not without familiarity and trust. Each merchant, from the tailor to the smith to the grocer, all looked at him with suspicion and distaste. He was a wanderer, without kin or community, and it showed.
Greyback supposed that this is what it must have been like in the past, on Earth that is. If you turned up somewhere without papers or means to communicate, or without knowing the customs of the area you'd be seen as a threat. That had how it'd been for him when he was younger, trying to meet other werewolves or join packs, most of them out in the Balkans or Eastern Europe. More recently, he could walk into any pack and all there would know him, such was his reputation among his own kind.
But he had scars to show when it had been different.
On Westeros though he had no such community, not even the shared curse of lycanthropy to bind him to others.
The solution, he supposed, was to acquire a reputation. Acquire fame, a sigil, and the means to ensure people knew him. The means also though to shed that sigil like a lizard sheds its skin when he needed to, to fade back into obscurity.
He brought hat, gloves, hatchet, and a pack of travelling supplies in the town outside Castle Cerwyn. He didn't really actually need them, he was used to the cold and the kiss of the elements on his face. But, he thought, it would look strange to be without such things on the road. Additionally, he wasn't used to travelling for so long by Muggle means and he supposed eventually he'd want such clothing.
He might have to cut the fingers off the gloves though, he wasn't trimming his nails, they were too useful in combat and they'd grow back again in a week anyway.
Of course, acquiring a reputation and recognition would have it's challenges. The land was at peace, apparently, for the moment and there would be no battles for him to partake in. If he wounded anyone they might have the secondary effects of a werewolf attack, and that might expose him further. It would be useless to seek a reputation he could be respected with, then to lose it all when people realised he was a monster.
But then, that had worked fairly well before. Even since he'd started biting children, or threatening to, Wizards had feared him. As far as he knew he was the only lycanthrope to make such threats and that gave him a formidable reputation, one he'd used to apply political pressure before.
What to do? What to do?
He wandered back down the main road toward the castle. He'd heard tell of a scholar there before and that might be a route to more information.
Greyback walked slowly, unhurried in his pace.
When he was younger and less visibly altered by his beast he'd been able to rely on ignorance and kindness. He'd been a young man, to be able to fool aurors into letting their guard down before he opened their throats hadn't been especially difficult. He'd even been captured by the Ministry once and the Aurors had been fooled by an act that he was just a Muggle tramp. In his dirty clothes and without a wand it had been easy to fool them, and Fenrir remembered the day fondly.
Now though he was in his fifties. Any look of innocence and kindness was long since gone from his face, and his frame and bulk had swelled as his beast's influence waxed in his flesh.
Once, a Romanian witch had called him 'beautiful'. They'd rutted under the moon and she'd borne him a litter of half-wolf children, each with his piercing eyes who'd grown up to look like small versions of him.
He wasn't sure if he'd go that far though, vanity had never been a failing of his. Men called him a monster and they were probably right. The problem now though was that it was so clear. He was no play actor, he could deceive when he needed to, but his very aspect would arouse suspicion.
He'd somewhat sabotaged himself in this way. He'd trained himself to smile with his mouth open for years and it was habit by now. His fangs were intimidating he knew and it gave him a fearsome appearance. Now though he wasn't sure he'd be able to stop himself doing it if he wanted to.
The maester of Castle Cerwyn was a middle-aged man with a thin chain around his neck. He was unremarkable, beneath Fenrir's notice in truth. The werewolf shouldered his way into the maester's turret, past bookshelves and cages of those strange ravens.
The birds flapped their wings and cawed at him as he came into the room. He growled a low rumble from his chest and they fluttered back in their cages, pressing themselves against the bars as far away from him as they could.
Fenrir turned to the maester. The man was looking at him in alarm, a piece of paper scrunched in his hand.
Greyback couldn't actually read. He was literate in English, German, Latin, Greek and many of the
Cyrillic languages, but on Westeros he'd yet to learn to read. That would hold him back he knew, especially in his studies of magic. Nevertheless, he would find a way around it. He looked at the scholar with hunger…
"I have come to learn, maester." he told the man.
The room was cramped with books and papers, with boxers of dried herbs and with the cages of ravens. Each enclosure was marked with words, no doubt the places the ravens would fly to and bear messages, and Greyback had seen several birds heading out of the tower over the last few days as the maester or Lord Cerwyn communicated with others to coordinate the campaign against the wildlings.
The room smelt of ink and wax at that moment. The Maester had been writing and Fenrir saw an unfinished letter on the table next to a stamp with a battleaxe and a little pot of wax next to a strange device to hold a measure of the substance over a flame to melt it before the scholar would seal the letter.
Under that scent there was herb and oil from the tinctures and medical supplies in the closets. They were packaged, but either the maester was messy, or his packaging wasn't robust enough to stop the substances escaping.
The scholar seemed to rally himself, standing up straighter, jutting his weak chin forward and assuming a haughty look, "You are this simpleton from the forest. What could you want to learn?"
"About the world and it's man opportunities." Fenrir replied easily. He could smell the man's fear.
"Be gone with you, or I'll call the guards!"
That just made Fenrir smile more. "What use would calling them be if you'd be dead by the time they arrive? But then, I am only a simpleton from the forest, so perhaps I don't understand."
The conversation was most informative.
Greyback had already more or less decided to flee Castle Cerwyn that night. He ordered the maester to tell him what he knew about the world, about the different polities and political tensions among the lords of Westeros, about the wildlings. He claimed he'd heard of a warg having caused the destruction at the village and that he wanted to know about magic, but the maester had only scoffed and told him they didn't exist.
The information was useful, both what it covered and what it didn't. Greyback learned of the tribes of the Mountains of the Moon, of the Wildling raiders and of the Ironborn. He learned of the wars in the Dornish Marches and of the pirates of the Stepstones. In any conflict he could find employment he knew, but more than that he needed to pursue the resources to make his wand.
From the maester he learned all manner of trivia, for once he got going the maester forgot his fear and seemed to actually quite enjoy himself. The man wore a chain of iron, bronze, silver and bronze links, these were marks of his knowledge of astronomy, warcraft, alchemy, astronomy and healing. Apparently it did not denote great knowledge, for some maesters would forge several of the same link if they were truly knowledgeable in their subject. In any case, magic, denoted by a link of Valyrian steel, was not present on the man.
The maester told Greyback many things. He told of the Dragonhold of Valyria, of the Children of the Forest and the wargs of the Old North (neither of which the maester regarded as actually existing), as well as of the runes of the Old Tongue and the pyromancy of the Alchemist's Guild or the Red Priests of Essos.
If Greyback had a notebook he'd have been scrawling in it. The maester of Cerwyn wasn't an unusually knowledgeable man, he merely came from a scholarly tradition. What more could a true loremaster teach the werewolf?
Strangely, the maester let Greyback go without confronting him after their conversation was over. Greyback left with a grin on his face. Perhaps the man simply yearned to actually talk to someone. Perhaps the werewolf's pursuit of arcane subjects (which the maester regarded as of no practical use to a spy or enemy) had set the man at ease.
It didn't matter.
Greyback waited till nightfall in his room at the inn and ate well again. He prepared, fooling the innkeeper into beliving that he'd gone to sleep, then leaping from the window, gaining purchase on the beams of the neighbouring building and going swiftly across the rooftops of the small town toward the corrals of the gathering army's forces.
It was easy enough to steal a horse. Greyback could see well in the dark and he stalked around till the sentries were tired enough to slip past them, into the corral itself. His scent, the smell of a bloody wolf and the growl he let out terrified the horses. A wolf was among them, and Greyback leapt atop one grey stallion, keeping low to it's back as the horse bucked and screamed. He set his heels to the beast's sides, his physical strength more than his skill in horsemanship keeping him in his seat as the creature ran terrified, leaping over the corral's fence, darting past the army's sentries into the night.
Greyback let the beast run. It was twenty miles or more to Winterfell and he could afford to let the horse tire before he needed to rest it. He was unfamiliar with horses, he had to admit, but he was relatively sure they had to be rested.
They ran on through the night. Greyback could see well, even if the horse couldn't, and he directed it around potholes and divots in the road. On and on they went and all the while he thought.
The Order of Maesters, from what Fenrir understood, were hostile to magic. Why so? Was it a practical aversion or a philosophical one? The maester of Castle Cerwyn didn't seem to believe in magic, seemed to think that yes, perhaps it had existed once, but no longer. That it was in the past was clear, that dragons had once flown and strange things once happened, that the Long Night, an apocalyptic time had once reigned and that strange creatures had stalked about, doing whatever it is they did, But more than that was unclear .There was clearly no organised teaching of magic, not anything like Hogwarts of the Ministry. There were no magical authorities., no Aurors or Hit Wizards. No codification or organisation of magical creatures either, or so the maester explained.
A Septon Barth, apparently a famous priest, had investigated Dragons and categorised them in a book, and some maesters had travelled in Essos, another continent near Westeros to examine the traditions o the religions in those areas, but it seemed to Greyback that there was simply not the same sort of popularity of magic that had so overwhelmingly populated his own world.
Again, why had this been? Or rather, why was it now?
Greyback wasn't an Unspeakable. He didn't know the higher mysteries of magic. He had no training in understanding such things or examining them closely. He was a practical man, a trained man in certain things, a killer and a bandit, a political leader and an agitator, a warrior and a hunter. He had knowledge yes, especially regarding lycanthropy and the various related studies such as potions or the Care of Magical Beasts, as well as some skill in curse breaking, but he'd never had the chance to take up a scholarly pursuit.
Unless he could learn to read especially fast, he'd need attendants and acolytes. People to read for him and present him with information. That would take some time, and be risky, but it was a thought for another time...
Returning to the previous idea as he let the horse rest by a stream for a time, Fenrir sat on a rock in thought. How did one destroy magic? How could one reduce it, bring it down, remove it from the world?
The destruction of magical artefacts, of magical infrastructure, the systematic elimination of magical teaching and education… These would all reduce the amount of magical things in the world, but wasn't magic more than that?
They were a thousand different explanations on where magic actually came from. As a rule though, the Wizarding World had no love for philosophy. It was enough that Wizards could alter reality with a whim, there was no need to deeply consider matters. For his own part, Greyback had never done so. He had wondered, idly over the years, where lycanthropy came from, whether it was (as people said sometimes) a curse or whether it was just a magical disease.
He knew the 'Being' directorate of the Ministry of Magic had their own views on it, indeed Greyback had distributed polemic notes directly against material disagreement with many of the material which had been released by them and the Werewolf Capture Unit, but really no one knew or had a proper idea on the matter.
Had magic declined like the tides? Simply went away over time due to some external influence or astrological phenomena?
Magic had never declined on Earth. Wizards had simply decided to separate themselves. Some, especially Purebloods, thought it was weakness and that Wizards should rule over Muggles. But what was the point? It would be like ruling over animals, there wasn't anything that Muggle slaves could provide that Wizards couldn't just magic up. It had always been a strange political debate within Wizarding society and anyway in most countries the various Ministries of Magic would ignore crimes against Muggles.
On Westeros though obviously that hadn't happened. Had Wizards, or whoever could use magic, for certainly they weren't the same sort of Wizards Greyback was familiar with, simply declined in general? Greyback almost refused to admit it, it grated against his pride, this time as a Wizard rather than just as a werewolf.
Had the Valyrians been Wizards? Had the Doom of Valyria destroyed some large magical network, possibly a warding or a enchantment gone awry? Had that created some sort of magical backlash and destroyed that kingdom?
But no, it couldn't be that either, Fenrir thought, throwing little pebbles into the bubbling brook his horse was drinking from.
There were alternative magical traditions on the planet, both in Westeros and Essos. There were at least a dozen which the maester had spoken of, if not more unspoken or which the maester didn't know about.
And, it seemed at least, that magic was still present. Either the magical destruction of Lalyrua had destroyed magic's influence, or it had not.
Clearly it had not.
Greyback rode on through the night. Over the hills and between barrows he rode, through the woods and the cries of creatures all around. The horse was tiring, this journey might kill it he knew, but he didn't care. It wasn't his horse after all.
Just over the next hill Fenrir found a camp. He'd not smelt t, for the wind blew north and harshly at that. Soon enough though he was drawing closer and could see campfires, tents and pavilions in the centre. This must be Lord Stark's force. Evidently the lord had decided to bestir himself and move south to combine with Cerwyn's troops.
In truth it mattered little to Fenrir. It just meant there would be fewer armed men in Winterfell to make his life difficult.
He sat on his horse for a time before he went on. Was there any opportunity here or should he just move on? There were sentries he saw, and though he'd evaded them against the men of Cerwyn, he had no particular desire to chance a confrontation.
He led his horse in a long circle around the camp instead. The wind changed as he went on, blowing to the west instead and it brought him the scents of the camps.
Again he took in the smell of the campfire. The smell of charred wood and burnt up meats when the men had tossed the bones of their meals into the fire after finishing. He smelt the sweat of the infantry, the oilskins on the archers' weapons. Further on he smelled silk and spice.
Why was there spice? Why pepper and cardamon, why the scent of saffron? It was bizarre. Why would you bring spices to a battle? Were they planning on doing some cooking instead of fighting?
Greyback supposed that wars must be longer here. A wizard could turn and think, and apparate instantly to a battlefield. Even crossing a country of hundreds of miles was only a few hours by broom, even an old broom rather than one of the ones you'd use if you were intending to attack something. Greyback favoured the Floo Network himself, it was convenient to travel to public places, and he had any number of haunts like old pubs that catered to the more unusual clientele that he could use to get close to his victims.
He put it out of his mind. He needed care here, it wouldn't do him any good to arouse the whole camp as he slipped by, that might cause this Lord Stark to send back men to Winterfell, and he wanted time to assess the place before he made his next move. If nothing else, the settlement was bigger and would be well supplied with all that he might need than the Castle Cerwyn was, and that meant he would want to be more careful than he'd been previously perhaps.
There was a sentry in front of him.
Greyback's stolen hose whinnied softly and he struck it om the ear harshly to silence it.
The sentry looked up. Peering into the dark toward Greyback.
Could Fenrir escape?
Did he want to?
His heart beat faster as he smelt the man's fear, prickling out in the night's cold on his skin.
Fenrir grinned, his muscles tensed as he made to stand in the saddle.
The man's eyes widened in realisation, then further in fear as he perceived the werewolf.
Greyback leapt!
A startled scream ripped its way from the man's throat before Greyback tackled him to the forest floor. He rolled over and over with the man before grasping him by his surcoat and swinging him up and into a tree, knocking the wind from him. The werewolf drew back his hand to slash at the man's throat with his clawed nails.
And then slowly lowered his hand instead. Relaxed his arm in a conscious effort, felt the tension draining away…
Then with a swift flurry he drew his dagger. Fenrir stabbed the man half a dozen times in the chest, savouring the scent as the sentry died, drowning as his lungs filled with blood. He had to die by mundane means, not look like a wolf had savaged him.
Greyback was back on his horse swiftly, then off through the woods. He galloped down the road, putting as much distance between himself and the camp as possible.
He had almost lost himself there, his beast had roared in triumph when the sentry's throat beneath his hand.
But no, he would kill when he willed it. 'Beast' the Wizards called him, but he was a man underneath.
On Greyback went, his horse dying undeath him as he rode. The creature stumbled, it puffed and blew, begging for respite. Greyback abandoned it at the side of the road and walked the last mile or so. He could see Winterfell from here, see a dozen turreted, snow-capped towers.
To another, it might have been a great fortress, something of power and strength, a wonder of the world.
But Greyback was tired after his ride. He wanted to eat, and to sleep.
He could take the world.
But he'd do it after a nap.
16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You have a talent for exposing the humanity of even the nastiest of characters. I have quite enjoyed what has been written so far, especially the segments wherin greyback tries to understand the world he is in through limited and biased knowledge.
I also admit to being amused whenever he he intimidates these petty nobles who think they can cow someone like him with threats of violence as easily as wagging their fingers. They must be overly used to such.
I also admit to being amused whenever he he intimidates these petty nobles who think they can cow someone like him with threats of violence as easily as wagging their fingers. They must be overly used to such.
- Location
- United Kingdom
Glad you're enjoying!
Yes, I imagine that to feudal lords, the most distinctive thing about Greyback isn't that he looks unusual or bestial, but rather than he so obviously flouts the feudal system. Some people like the Hound get away with this because of his noble status, but considering things like Jon's chapters when he thinks how weird Wildlings are
- Location
- United Kingdom
This chapter was up a couple of weeks ago. I've written 2 chapters ahead so far, which puts us at about 33k words done. I've not in fact acheived the 50k in November target, but I've been sort of busy over the last few days so haven't have the time to write another 17k. I'll give myself another week as I did no planning for this and starting writing in week 2 of November. I've not put the poll up for what I'll be writing after the 50k is done. I've enjoyed writing this so far, but I do have other ideas. Voting is up on Patreon.
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The room was small and cozy, with a low ceiling and a narrow window. The walls were made of rough grey stone with little flecks of shining quartz. On the floor there were fresh rushes, Greyback insisted on it, he couldn't tolerate the smell.
Just because he was a werewolf it didn't mean he wanted to live in filth… Too many of his kind fell into such traps and it made their enhanced senses a torment.
And besides, the peasants of Winterfell were perpetually covered in mud and dung. Or so he though when he got a whiff of them.
Fenrir didn't like cities, generally speaking. He especially didn't like muggle ones, or dense collections of wizards. Where you got density you got industry and artificial things… They stank. He hated Diagon Alley for example, and took great pleasure whenever he'd been order to terrorise it and blow up a few shops.
Greyback spent a lot of time in the wilds. Some of that was deliberate to be sure, some less so and more than once he'd had to crawl into a cave to hide from Aurors after a wound or a transformation that left him too tired to move, but that was relatively rare.
He could deal with cities. Well planned ones, well-ventilated ones… He couldn't deal with muggle pollution or soot clogging his nose, couldn't deal with the horrid smells of potion shops which had never been cleaned properly, or the harsh smell of solvents or caustic chemicals when they were.
Winterfell wasn't so bad, he supposed. The snow froze most of the bad smells, and the gong farmers were relatively efficient in their work. Certainly, he was enjoying being able to pay to have his clothes washed regularly, so that was an advantage.
The fireplace in the corner provided warmth and light, and a pile of logs was stacked nearby. His wooden bed had two mattresses, both thin and of straw. This too Greyback had paid extra for, well as for another blanket, again washed well before the servants had set it on his bed. He had a small chest for his belongings, and his bearskin cloak hung from a peg over a fine new pair of hobnailed boots dripping snow into the rushes.
A small table was on the other side of the room under the closed shutters. A single chair stood by it, he'd ordered the other one taken away, he would not be receiving visitors after all, and currently on the table sat a basin and cloth for washing. A candle, extinguished currently, and a horn cup were the only decorations on the table, while a simple tapestry of geometric design hung from the wall.
Upon the door sat a stout bar and a lock for which Greyback had the only key. He'd sneered at the innkeeper when the man had mentioned that, but seen no tell of a lie in the man's eyes. The room cost half a stag for each night he stayed there, and he'd booked it out for a month already, then handed over another five stags for the extra's he'd ordered, including good meat regularly and hearty food and clean linens.
Fenrir wasn't entirely used to be waited upon. Servants had become less common in the muggle world, since before he'd been born really, and while in the Wizarding World especially in the east some families still had them, it was usually work done by charms or house elves.
Werewolves weren't well suited for domestic service either, and among the clans he'd sometimes been attended by lower ranked pack members, none of them would think to wash clothes often, it was rather useless with the smell of a whole pack of werewolves together after all. It seeped into everything, the cloying stench of old blood, the musk of sweat and urine, the oily fur-smell which was somewhat bitter, somewhat sharp…
Greyback lay back and breathed.
The inn itself wasn't that different from the one he'd stayed at a few weeks ago at Castle Cerwyn. The place was cleaner, the furnishings of higher quality, and the servants more capable.
But he wasn't concentrating on that. Instead he tried to sense the castle further away. He could scent the smoke and the heat of the metal. Not feel it, but smell the red iron as the castle's smith pounded away. He could smell the wood and leather of the soldiers and of the armoury itself, which was in constant use these days due to the great activity Lord Stark had ordered to combat the wildlings.
Herbs and flowers wer next, he could smell the plants in the glass gardens, the greenhouses Greyback would call them. Winterfell mainly grew more exotic herbs there, he was led to understand, rather than anything more useful for actual eating.
Then parchment, poured wax and birds touched the air, wafting down toward him in his room. That would be the maester and raven master.
Last there was moss and stony. The godswood of the castle and the standing weirdwoods.
Something was there though. Something hidden, something coming up from the ground. It was sweet and sour, it was bloody like the weirwood's tears, but it seemed to come from the earth…
Greyback shook himself.
He was being lazy.
With a start he threw himself from his bed and swiftly headed out.
He never got up slowly, never gently. He was a man of action, and either he was at rest or at labour. Now was the time for the later and he had his horse saddled and set off into the Wolfswood. He passed through Wintertown, the unplanned village that had grown up around the walls of the great castle, then out onto the road and over snowy plain.
It was several hours ride to the clearing where his workers saw to their duties. He did not speak, nor whistle or sing. He just rode. There was much to do after all and he had no time for frivolities. He needed to be hard with the men, needed them to obey him, and he couldn't go about larking where they could see him.
The clearing was a small patch of land surrounded by tall pine trees and snow-covered bushes. The ground was covered with a thick layer of snow as Greyback rode up. It had snowed during the night in the forest and the drifts had been steadily getting higher and higher as he rode along. While sometimes the frost had been beautiful, a tiny image of nature's beauty in each flake, here the ground was a frozen quagmire, soggy, churned and then frozen again each night.
The place stank of old blood and new blood. The mud was tainted red in spots where the blood and guts of the animals had stained it, while a large fire in the centre and a rickety smoking apparatus strung between two great trees brought on more strange smells, tangy and sour. Around the fire, there were dozens of wooden poles and racks where the skins and furs of the animals were hung to dry, beyond that in rows were crude baskets and woven barrels where strips of meat were packed with snow and ice for storage.
Rodrick and his brothers had been alarmed by Greyback's appearance at first. The three were boys from one of the villages nearby, only a day's ride from Winterfell, and he'd taken them into his employ. While he could have stolen money the largest amounts of it nearby would be in Lord Stark's treasury and Greyback didn't want to draw attention to himself just yet. Instead he made use of his natural talents and went out and killed a bear. It wasn't that difficult, he was stronger than a normal man and fearless besides and the bear was groggy in its wakening, even before he'd sunk a dagger into its spine.
Greyback had then walked to the village he could smell nearby and hired the first person he saw, Rodrick, to come clean the carcass. By the time he'd got the boy back to the bear's cave the carcass was being torn apart by two wolves, but that just meant more work for Rodrick, for as soon as Greyback saw the wolves he'd sprang on them with a howl of rage, incensed that animals would steal from him.
The affair had continued from there. He had brought Rodrick and his brothers out to a clearing in the woods, then brought them back animals to deal with. Greyback could catch and fight wolves on his own. They sensed a challenger in him and did not flee, at least not before he'd speared one. Bears were more difficult, he'd only killed two of them, while the lynxes he'd found would have been almost invisible without his enhanced senses and years of trained hunter's perception.
Boars were plentiful too, he'd taken ten of them, matching the tusked grunters in strength, flipping them over onto spine-bearing backs and breaking their necks. The hides from the boars weren't worth much apparently, but he'd told Rodrick to deal with it and the boy had bartered a few boar carcasses for additional supplies from the villages for the work.
Greyback had sold the first savaged bear fur for ten silver stags. It wasn't an enormous amount, but it had amazed the peasants he'd hired. No matter, it was their pay for the month and he set them to work to a harsh schedule. They would sleep out in the woods next to their tools, they'd work all day and eat as much meat as they wished. Greyback wanted money, and he wanted it as quickly and conveniently as possible.
Rodrick had stood over the furs and hides, picking one up and putting his hand through a bloody rent in the coat, marvelling at the wound. "These won't sell for much. We might get half, at best I think, of what they should be worth. How did you kill them? It's like some monster clawed them…"
Greyback only sneered at the boy. "Get back to work." he'd ordered, "Or maybe that monster will come for you too."
Rodrick flushed but turned back to his work.
Fenrir had known how to prepare kills, but he'd not seen the methods the northerners used, they had different steps and uses for different parts of the animals, and Greyback had studied the methods, even tried a few smaller animals himself to practice the skill.
For smaller animals, Rodrick and his brothers would hand the creatures like squirrels or rabbits and make a cut in one foot, continuing up the leg and then down the other leg. After that, the skin could be peeled off like a sock. For the larger creatures though the carcass first had to be wrestled into position on a flat surface, then a cut made the length of the body, with the skin opened with specialised tools and then stripped off like a jacket, and finally scrapped with further tools.
In any case, Greyback's own efforts hadn't gone well. He'd ruined one wolfskin when he'd carelessly pierced the stomach of the beast and bile burst out everywhere. That had been unpleasant and he'd ignored the boys in favour of seeking a pond to wash off in.
The bears' skins were worth the most, twenty silver stags each if they were intact and prepared. While the set up in the clearing wasn't as complete as that of an actual butcher or tanner, the boys did well enough. Rodrick and his brothers were busy as he rode in and only Rodrick, kneeling in the bloody mud with a skinning knife in his hand and a boar's carcass before him, looked up.
The others were cutting meat with a hatchet or cleaning skins with a strange flat tool like a chisel. They worked in silence generally, and while slower than some perhaps, they were fast enough. They could only process so much meat at once and Greyback had returned to check on their progress.
The smell of the clearing was a mixture of blood, smoke, and salt. The blood of the animals had a metallic and sour odor, which was mixed with the smoke of the fire and some salt for those meats or hides which couldn't be cooled by the snow. Ice wasn't a long term solution, and although Wintertown had an ice cellar with great blocks cut from a lake nearby, they still salted beef and pork by the barrel. The smell was strong, but for once it smelt like the hunt, rather than like the artificial cloying scent of encroaching civilisation. Greyback was no atavist, but he did love the smell of blood and he smiled as he beheld the scene.
The condition of the bearskins hadn't brought in as much as it might have, had Greyback hunted normally rather than setting himself bodily against beasts. One bearskin was worth good silver. A shadowcat was worth half that of a bearskin, and a wolf half again. Boars weren't known for their value in the hide, but rather in the meat, and Greyback had led two horses packed with meat back to the town not two nights ago.
Initially the skinners tried to barter their way into some of the meat and skins for themselves, but Greyback growled low and they shut up. They were his kills, not these scavengers. He was already paying them a fifth of the takings for the three of them.
Greyback would not tolerate thieves…
There was demand for relatively cheap meat in Winterfell at that time to feed the soldiers and lessen the burden on Winterfell's granaries. There were few hunters out in the Wolfswood due to the wildling threat, but that just meant better hunting for Fenrir. The Stark soldiery were still tramping through the Wolfswood searching for the Wildling band who'd slaughtered the villagers. That had been weeks ago and while apparently they'd caught a few random bandits, the supposed hundreds of savages had yet to appear. The hides and furs saw various uses, some to be cleaned and sold in Winterfell or transformed further there, while others would be shipped south or even to White Harbour, the main port of the North, to be traded further afield.
Two weeks hunting had earned him three gold dragons. Or rather, it would have, had anyone in the area actually dealt in dragons. In total though he'd gotten a half a hundred silver stags, almost half of which immediately went on various consumables, as well as converting it into labour. He brought goods mostly, but he'd also retained the services of the local herbalist to teach him the local plants, as well as retaining a poor merchant's son to teach him to read.
Life here was expensive. Or rather, the normalities of his previous life were incredible luxuries in Winterfell. Perhaps prices would be lesser in a more cosmopolitan place but that was irrelevant for now he supposed.
The lodging was half a dragon, a two new suits of clothes, another half dragon from a decent tailor. Tools he might need himself for carving runes, making potions, or other such magical enquiries were a whole dragon for twenty or more tools in a good leather case. Even a small chest of spices couldn't be found for more than a whole dragon, which Greyback couldn't justify to himself really. Nor the purchase of a horse which might be three dragons or more. Instead he rented where he could, or brought fractions of what he might like to. Instead of a full set of weapons such as battle axe, knives, spear, bow or crossbow, as well as armour to give him the look of the sellsword he pretended to be, Greyback suited himself with a broad, long knife which he wore at his side. It was an ugly thing, but it was meant for ugly deeds.
Books were the worst. You could pick up parchment from any stationers in Diagon Alley for a decent price, or just rob a muggle shop for their thinner paper, but here there was no bookbinder in Winterfell or any such establishment where he might find paper or books to buy. The master of the keep had a library apparently, which Greyback would very much like access to, but that was it. After enquiring with some of the merchants as to the price of books, he found they'd be almost the same cost as horses and turned away in disgust, while he'd found the same when he asked about glass instruments. Apparently there was very little manufacture of such things in the North, or indeed in Westeros.
That may say something about trade he supposed, for the Myrish were known for their glassblowing, or the Tyroshi for their dyes. Greyback did not need every luxury, but he would need some items for his magical experiments when he eventually got somewhere to do them. For that he could do with a patron, but in turn that would need trust, and he knew his looks made him hard to trust in that way.
It all went back to his initial planning, thought Fenrir. He had set it aside for the moment. There could be much he might do, but it needed more resources than he'd have now. He needed money and more money, position or rank, the patronage and protection of a powerful lord, but also the secrecy necessary to avoid inciting unrest which might endanger him. While he might lope through the world killing and biting and eating as he would, eventually someone would bring him to a poor end. As a young man he'd longed for battle and loved the chase, but now having spent decades in struggle and in his fifth decade, Greyback knew the value of stability.
After looming over Rodrick and his brothers a little more for his own amusement, Greyback rode out, following his nose into the forest. Quite soon though he caught a smell he'd not smelt recently.
Iron and oil wafted through the forest, and Fenrir's ears pricked as he heard the rasping sound of someone sharpening a sword. It piqued his curiosity and the werewolf rode on toward it, smelling a camp more distinctly with the scent of fire and the soldiers around it.
The patrol was camped in a small clearing, surrounded by tall pine trees that cast long shadows in the fading light. The men had pitched their tents in a rough circle, leaving a space in the centre for a fire. The fire was low and smoky, barely enough to keep them warm in the chilly autumn air, but they couldn't have found many dry branches with the snows being what they had been.
Greyback pitied them, in a way. They'd likely been tramping round the Wolfswood for weeks in the snow and mud, searching for Wildlings that didn't exist.
The men had gathered around the fire, some sitting on logs or rocks, others lying on their cloaks or blankets. They looked weary and bored, their faces grimy and stubbled, their eyes dull and tired. They wore leather jerkins and mail shirts over woollen tunics, and had helmets, shields, and swords at their sides. Some carried spears or axes, and their sergeant, a portly but broad man with a coat of rivetted plates, was sharpening his sword.
Their clothes and armour were stained with mud and their boots were in poor repair. They were Stark men-at-arms, professional soldiers from Winterfell or the surrounding areas the Starks held directly. Hard bread and dried meat would have been their fare, but Fenrir could smell more food stashed away in their packs. They spoke in low voices which Fenrir couldn't quite hear, but they seemed in decent spirits for all their toil.
The werewolf stepped forward into the light, leaving his horse to graze and snuffle at a bush that'd shed most of the snow from the night before.
The sergeant stood swiftly, his oilcloth in his hand and the whetstone on his lap falling to the floor as he took a stance with his longsword. Greyback just stood there though as the others jumped up as well.
"Wait, I know this one, I've seen him in Wintertown." said one of the soldiers, lowering his blade somewhat.
"I sell furs there." Greyback confirmed, stepping forward into the light more.
"You're the one with the bearskins." continued the soldier, then stepped forward himself, peering through the gloom at Greyback. "Yes, I can see your cloak."
The soldiers calmed down after that and the sergeant invited him to share the fire. Greyback would be there for long he knew, but it was the first time he'd seen them in this section of the woods.
The Wolfswood was massive. It was large and dense, covering more than 300 miles north and west of Winterfell, off toward the mountains. There were a dozen types of tree and animal, and even with villages dotted through it you could walk for a week without seeing another human. There were hills, lakes, caves and rivers through it, and it could probably sustain a reasonable troop of wildlings.
"How do you mean to find them, these raiders?" he asked the sergeant as the men settled down.
"Lord Stark thinks, so I've been told anyway, that there cannot be so many wildlings as were previously thought. We don't know why they struck the village and butchered the people there, but they must have crossed the Wall a few months ago…"
The Wall was an enormous structure of ice and stone which separated the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros from the Lands Beyond, the untamed wilderness of the far north. Supposedly the Wall, like Winterfell itself, had been raised by Brandon the Builder, an ancient king reputed to have used magic and allied with giants to raise his structures.
Greyback intended to visit at some point, but he had other matters to attend to first.
"There's fifty or more companies like mine out in the woods." the sergeant continued, "The Wildlings have been very quiet, but I suppose they let their base nature get the better of them. Or, maybe, the villagers discovered them and the savages wanted to silence them. Some of our bands have dogs, but not enough by my mind to search out the wildlings in these woods. I know Lord Talhart has argued that we should set fires and burn the wildlings out but it wouldn't work with this snow. Maybe we were still in the height of summer."
"A stupid plan." Greyback murmured.
"Aye, well so thought Lord Stark evidently. If you ask me, they're long gone by now. This was no raid, you mark my words, but what they intended I've no idea."
The wildlings of the north would sometimes cross the Wall, apparently simply climbing over it, to abduct women from the northmost districts of the North. Apparently this was something done to prove a warrior's valour, though Greyback had also heard that sometimes more militaristic wildling chieftains would raid specifically to gather supplies they did not have, notably steel tools, arms and armour.
That gave him an idea.
The rest of the evening passed easily. No one was in the mood for extensive conversation, but Greyback passed a few comments on the nature of hunting in these parts, while the soldiers told of how they'd initially had larger companies ride out to search deeper into the Wolfswood, but finding nothing they'd been split into smaller groups and were now searching the outskirts of Winterfell's direct domain.
The sergeant invited him to rest the night by the fire, and Fenrir accepted. He tied his horse to a branch and set himself down near the boundary. He didn't sleep though, he just lay awake watching the stars. The full moon would be soon and he meant to use it to his advantage.
For now though, he would act as a man. He heard the sentry still awake fidgeting and sat up slowly, as if groggy. Greyback made an affected stagger toward his horse, retrieving a waterskin and drinking a draft.
"Can't sleep, friend?" asked the sentry, wandering over. The man abandoned his place quick enough. That was interesting.
"I needed water." Greyback shrugged quietly, "The food was dry enough."
"Aye, the jerky was shit wasn't it?" the sentry agreed, but he quickly continued, drawing closer to Greyback in conspiratorial whispering. "Listen, could you take my watch for a few moments? I need to go piss but the sergeant will skin me alive if he finds out I've left the camp unguarded."
"Of course." Greyback agreed easily, watching the man retreat.
The werewolf looked down at the sleeping guards. Then he brought out his long knife, freeing it with a half-draw before deciding on another action. Instead he came up behind the sentry as the man was fiddling with the strings of his trousers, reaching up and around, then snapping the man's neck with a savage rip up and to the side.
Greyback caught the body as it fell, then grasped it up and hurled the sentry bodily away from the camp. No reason to have anyone else stumble on him before Greyback was ready.
He stepped back into the light. The fire was dying now, but he could still see well enough to do what was necessary.
Which one first?
The furthest from the fire, Greyback supposed. He stepped stealthily over, drawing his long knife. Then he struck!
The man-at-arms woke in blood, struggling half to his feet before Greyback left him, moving onto the next. He drew a hatchet, bearing it in his left hand while his murderous blade was in his right, already dripping with purpose.
Two more men died, but when he struck with the axe the blade bit at the man's mail byrnie. Greyback felt the blade turn, and struck at the man again, this time burying the axe in his skull. He pulled at it, but it was stuck fast and the failure had awoken the others. The sergeant was on his feet, bellowing in rage, drawing his sword and shouting for the others.
Greyback was among them in a heartbeat. He beat aside the rising blade of one man, reaching out with clawed hand and ripping the man's throat out. Then he struck at the others, one of them fumbling with a bow as the sergeant shouted for him to take up a spear instead.
By a hair's breadth the fumbler managed to dodge Greyback's stroke, but in doing so he exposed himself and the werewolf leapt upon him, tackling him to the forest floor and tasting hot blood as he bit at the man's face.
Fenrir rose, the mutilated man struggling on the ground. He would be dead soon enough, there was no need to go further.
He spat out a portion of the man's cheek, the bristles of the soldier's stubble irritating his lips.
"Monster!" the sergeant gasped. "You'll die here! Winterfell!"
Six men were dead, there was only sergeant and one other left.
Greyback met their charge with a road that made his horse scream. He charged forward fast, too fast for the men and bowled them over, striking them at their waists. His knife was gone, he'd dropped it somewhere but he raged against them in the mud, teeth and claws and might against their steel.
His claws scratched across one man's eyes, then he sank his teeth into a throat. That was one of them, and there was only the sergeant. Greyback regained his feet, and the sergeant hauled himself up too. There was resolve in the man's eyes as he looked at his dead men.
Brave, thought Greyback.
With a final, wordless scream the northman charged forward. His sword was bright in the night, a graceful pillar against the night.
Fenrir stepped forward quickly, catching his wrist and squeezing, bringing the man to a halt.
The sergeant breathed hard through grey whiskers, straining against Greyback's iron grip. It was the man's strength against his, and easily Greyback turned the sword. Instead he set the tip toward the man's breast, slowly pushing forward.
The sergeant screamed as Greyback pierced his flesh. Armour and cloth and skin and muscled parted as the sergeant screamed, his hands grippingly the blade, the edges of his own weapon cutting his palms to ribbons as Fenrir thrust into him. The man coughed blood, his hands weakly battering at Greyback's face as the werewolf laughed.
The sergeant died.
When the clearing grew quiet there was only the wolf. The man Greyback had wounded lay dying and the werewolf turned away. The sergeant's dead eyes seemed to follow him as he stepped, the beast settling again within his soul till it slumbered once more. He reached down to where the sergeant had slept, digging through the man's pack till it found it. Red wine, sour and bad, as wines went, but good enough to wash down the taste of men's flesh.
Fenrir sat down on a rock, raising the skin in tribute. They'd fought well, and bravely. He drank as they died, slowly watching as their hearts stilled and any men who still lived slowly faded.
It would be well to make sure Lord Stark kept the idea of wildlings in his mind, Greyback thought. The werewolf could only benefit from the continued agitation of the area, and while he didn't quite know what benefit he might draw from it, it was sure that he would think of something. In the meantime he would put pressure on Stark and the northerners, and that meant he needed to create terror…
With that in mind, Greyback took his knife and set to work. He first went to the body of the sentry, further away from the camp where he'd tossed the man. As he grasped him by the hair the man's neck crunched and splintered, but Greyback thought he could hear breathing. Was the sentry still alive?
He looked down in the light cast by the fire. Yes, there was life in those eyes. There was fear, there was hatred, there was anger, but there was life.
The sentry's breath hissed out as he lay awkwardly, his spine broken and ruined.
Greyback's knife flashed in the firelight. He smiled down at the man and wiped a tear off his cheek. "It won't be the sergeant who'll be skinning you, 'friend'."
-
The room was small and cozy, with a low ceiling and a narrow window. The walls were made of rough grey stone with little flecks of shining quartz. On the floor there were fresh rushes, Greyback insisted on it, he couldn't tolerate the smell.
Just because he was a werewolf it didn't mean he wanted to live in filth… Too many of his kind fell into such traps and it made their enhanced senses a torment.
And besides, the peasants of Winterfell were perpetually covered in mud and dung. Or so he though when he got a whiff of them.
Fenrir didn't like cities, generally speaking. He especially didn't like muggle ones, or dense collections of wizards. Where you got density you got industry and artificial things… They stank. He hated Diagon Alley for example, and took great pleasure whenever he'd been order to terrorise it and blow up a few shops.
Greyback spent a lot of time in the wilds. Some of that was deliberate to be sure, some less so and more than once he'd had to crawl into a cave to hide from Aurors after a wound or a transformation that left him too tired to move, but that was relatively rare.
He could deal with cities. Well planned ones, well-ventilated ones… He couldn't deal with muggle pollution or soot clogging his nose, couldn't deal with the horrid smells of potion shops which had never been cleaned properly, or the harsh smell of solvents or caustic chemicals when they were.
Winterfell wasn't so bad, he supposed. The snow froze most of the bad smells, and the gong farmers were relatively efficient in their work. Certainly, he was enjoying being able to pay to have his clothes washed regularly, so that was an advantage.
The fireplace in the corner provided warmth and light, and a pile of logs was stacked nearby. His wooden bed had two mattresses, both thin and of straw. This too Greyback had paid extra for, well as for another blanket, again washed well before the servants had set it on his bed. He had a small chest for his belongings, and his bearskin cloak hung from a peg over a fine new pair of hobnailed boots dripping snow into the rushes.
A small table was on the other side of the room under the closed shutters. A single chair stood by it, he'd ordered the other one taken away, he would not be receiving visitors after all, and currently on the table sat a basin and cloth for washing. A candle, extinguished currently, and a horn cup were the only decorations on the table, while a simple tapestry of geometric design hung from the wall.
Upon the door sat a stout bar and a lock for which Greyback had the only key. He'd sneered at the innkeeper when the man had mentioned that, but seen no tell of a lie in the man's eyes. The room cost half a stag for each night he stayed there, and he'd booked it out for a month already, then handed over another five stags for the extra's he'd ordered, including good meat regularly and hearty food and clean linens.
Fenrir wasn't entirely used to be waited upon. Servants had become less common in the muggle world, since before he'd been born really, and while in the Wizarding World especially in the east some families still had them, it was usually work done by charms or house elves.
Werewolves weren't well suited for domestic service either, and among the clans he'd sometimes been attended by lower ranked pack members, none of them would think to wash clothes often, it was rather useless with the smell of a whole pack of werewolves together after all. It seeped into everything, the cloying stench of old blood, the musk of sweat and urine, the oily fur-smell which was somewhat bitter, somewhat sharp…
Greyback lay back and breathed.
The inn itself wasn't that different from the one he'd stayed at a few weeks ago at Castle Cerwyn. The place was cleaner, the furnishings of higher quality, and the servants more capable.
But he wasn't concentrating on that. Instead he tried to sense the castle further away. He could scent the smoke and the heat of the metal. Not feel it, but smell the red iron as the castle's smith pounded away. He could smell the wood and leather of the soldiers and of the armoury itself, which was in constant use these days due to the great activity Lord Stark had ordered to combat the wildlings.
Herbs and flowers wer next, he could smell the plants in the glass gardens, the greenhouses Greyback would call them. Winterfell mainly grew more exotic herbs there, he was led to understand, rather than anything more useful for actual eating.
Then parchment, poured wax and birds touched the air, wafting down toward him in his room. That would be the maester and raven master.
Last there was moss and stony. The godswood of the castle and the standing weirdwoods.
Something was there though. Something hidden, something coming up from the ground. It was sweet and sour, it was bloody like the weirwood's tears, but it seemed to come from the earth…
Greyback shook himself.
He was being lazy.
With a start he threw himself from his bed and swiftly headed out.
He never got up slowly, never gently. He was a man of action, and either he was at rest or at labour. Now was the time for the later and he had his horse saddled and set off into the Wolfswood. He passed through Wintertown, the unplanned village that had grown up around the walls of the great castle, then out onto the road and over snowy plain.
It was several hours ride to the clearing where his workers saw to their duties. He did not speak, nor whistle or sing. He just rode. There was much to do after all and he had no time for frivolities. He needed to be hard with the men, needed them to obey him, and he couldn't go about larking where they could see him.
The clearing was a small patch of land surrounded by tall pine trees and snow-covered bushes. The ground was covered with a thick layer of snow as Greyback rode up. It had snowed during the night in the forest and the drifts had been steadily getting higher and higher as he rode along. While sometimes the frost had been beautiful, a tiny image of nature's beauty in each flake, here the ground was a frozen quagmire, soggy, churned and then frozen again each night.
The place stank of old blood and new blood. The mud was tainted red in spots where the blood and guts of the animals had stained it, while a large fire in the centre and a rickety smoking apparatus strung between two great trees brought on more strange smells, tangy and sour. Around the fire, there were dozens of wooden poles and racks where the skins and furs of the animals were hung to dry, beyond that in rows were crude baskets and woven barrels where strips of meat were packed with snow and ice for storage.
Rodrick and his brothers had been alarmed by Greyback's appearance at first. The three were boys from one of the villages nearby, only a day's ride from Winterfell, and he'd taken them into his employ. While he could have stolen money the largest amounts of it nearby would be in Lord Stark's treasury and Greyback didn't want to draw attention to himself just yet. Instead he made use of his natural talents and went out and killed a bear. It wasn't that difficult, he was stronger than a normal man and fearless besides and the bear was groggy in its wakening, even before he'd sunk a dagger into its spine.
Greyback had then walked to the village he could smell nearby and hired the first person he saw, Rodrick, to come clean the carcass. By the time he'd got the boy back to the bear's cave the carcass was being torn apart by two wolves, but that just meant more work for Rodrick, for as soon as Greyback saw the wolves he'd sprang on them with a howl of rage, incensed that animals would steal from him.
The affair had continued from there. He had brought Rodrick and his brothers out to a clearing in the woods, then brought them back animals to deal with. Greyback could catch and fight wolves on his own. They sensed a challenger in him and did not flee, at least not before he'd speared one. Bears were more difficult, he'd only killed two of them, while the lynxes he'd found would have been almost invisible without his enhanced senses and years of trained hunter's perception.
Boars were plentiful too, he'd taken ten of them, matching the tusked grunters in strength, flipping them over onto spine-bearing backs and breaking their necks. The hides from the boars weren't worth much apparently, but he'd told Rodrick to deal with it and the boy had bartered a few boar carcasses for additional supplies from the villages for the work.
Greyback had sold the first savaged bear fur for ten silver stags. It wasn't an enormous amount, but it had amazed the peasants he'd hired. No matter, it was their pay for the month and he set them to work to a harsh schedule. They would sleep out in the woods next to their tools, they'd work all day and eat as much meat as they wished. Greyback wanted money, and he wanted it as quickly and conveniently as possible.
Rodrick had stood over the furs and hides, picking one up and putting his hand through a bloody rent in the coat, marvelling at the wound. "These won't sell for much. We might get half, at best I think, of what they should be worth. How did you kill them? It's like some monster clawed them…"
Greyback only sneered at the boy. "Get back to work." he'd ordered, "Or maybe that monster will come for you too."
Rodrick flushed but turned back to his work.
Fenrir had known how to prepare kills, but he'd not seen the methods the northerners used, they had different steps and uses for different parts of the animals, and Greyback had studied the methods, even tried a few smaller animals himself to practice the skill.
For smaller animals, Rodrick and his brothers would hand the creatures like squirrels or rabbits and make a cut in one foot, continuing up the leg and then down the other leg. After that, the skin could be peeled off like a sock. For the larger creatures though the carcass first had to be wrestled into position on a flat surface, then a cut made the length of the body, with the skin opened with specialised tools and then stripped off like a jacket, and finally scrapped with further tools.
In any case, Greyback's own efforts hadn't gone well. He'd ruined one wolfskin when he'd carelessly pierced the stomach of the beast and bile burst out everywhere. That had been unpleasant and he'd ignored the boys in favour of seeking a pond to wash off in.
The bears' skins were worth the most, twenty silver stags each if they were intact and prepared. While the set up in the clearing wasn't as complete as that of an actual butcher or tanner, the boys did well enough. Rodrick and his brothers were busy as he rode in and only Rodrick, kneeling in the bloody mud with a skinning knife in his hand and a boar's carcass before him, looked up.
The others were cutting meat with a hatchet or cleaning skins with a strange flat tool like a chisel. They worked in silence generally, and while slower than some perhaps, they were fast enough. They could only process so much meat at once and Greyback had returned to check on their progress.
The smell of the clearing was a mixture of blood, smoke, and salt. The blood of the animals had a metallic and sour odor, which was mixed with the smoke of the fire and some salt for those meats or hides which couldn't be cooled by the snow. Ice wasn't a long term solution, and although Wintertown had an ice cellar with great blocks cut from a lake nearby, they still salted beef and pork by the barrel. The smell was strong, but for once it smelt like the hunt, rather than like the artificial cloying scent of encroaching civilisation. Greyback was no atavist, but he did love the smell of blood and he smiled as he beheld the scene.
The condition of the bearskins hadn't brought in as much as it might have, had Greyback hunted normally rather than setting himself bodily against beasts. One bearskin was worth good silver. A shadowcat was worth half that of a bearskin, and a wolf half again. Boars weren't known for their value in the hide, but rather in the meat, and Greyback had led two horses packed with meat back to the town not two nights ago.
Initially the skinners tried to barter their way into some of the meat and skins for themselves, but Greyback growled low and they shut up. They were his kills, not these scavengers. He was already paying them a fifth of the takings for the three of them.
Greyback would not tolerate thieves…
There was demand for relatively cheap meat in Winterfell at that time to feed the soldiers and lessen the burden on Winterfell's granaries. There were few hunters out in the Wolfswood due to the wildling threat, but that just meant better hunting for Fenrir. The Stark soldiery were still tramping through the Wolfswood searching for the Wildling band who'd slaughtered the villagers. That had been weeks ago and while apparently they'd caught a few random bandits, the supposed hundreds of savages had yet to appear. The hides and furs saw various uses, some to be cleaned and sold in Winterfell or transformed further there, while others would be shipped south or even to White Harbour, the main port of the North, to be traded further afield.
Two weeks hunting had earned him three gold dragons. Or rather, it would have, had anyone in the area actually dealt in dragons. In total though he'd gotten a half a hundred silver stags, almost half of which immediately went on various consumables, as well as converting it into labour. He brought goods mostly, but he'd also retained the services of the local herbalist to teach him the local plants, as well as retaining a poor merchant's son to teach him to read.
Life here was expensive. Or rather, the normalities of his previous life were incredible luxuries in Winterfell. Perhaps prices would be lesser in a more cosmopolitan place but that was irrelevant for now he supposed.
The lodging was half a dragon, a two new suits of clothes, another half dragon from a decent tailor. Tools he might need himself for carving runes, making potions, or other such magical enquiries were a whole dragon for twenty or more tools in a good leather case. Even a small chest of spices couldn't be found for more than a whole dragon, which Greyback couldn't justify to himself really. Nor the purchase of a horse which might be three dragons or more. Instead he rented where he could, or brought fractions of what he might like to. Instead of a full set of weapons such as battle axe, knives, spear, bow or crossbow, as well as armour to give him the look of the sellsword he pretended to be, Greyback suited himself with a broad, long knife which he wore at his side. It was an ugly thing, but it was meant for ugly deeds.
Books were the worst. You could pick up parchment from any stationers in Diagon Alley for a decent price, or just rob a muggle shop for their thinner paper, but here there was no bookbinder in Winterfell or any such establishment where he might find paper or books to buy. The master of the keep had a library apparently, which Greyback would very much like access to, but that was it. After enquiring with some of the merchants as to the price of books, he found they'd be almost the same cost as horses and turned away in disgust, while he'd found the same when he asked about glass instruments. Apparently there was very little manufacture of such things in the North, or indeed in Westeros.
That may say something about trade he supposed, for the Myrish were known for their glassblowing, or the Tyroshi for their dyes. Greyback did not need every luxury, but he would need some items for his magical experiments when he eventually got somewhere to do them. For that he could do with a patron, but in turn that would need trust, and he knew his looks made him hard to trust in that way.
It all went back to his initial planning, thought Fenrir. He had set it aside for the moment. There could be much he might do, but it needed more resources than he'd have now. He needed money and more money, position or rank, the patronage and protection of a powerful lord, but also the secrecy necessary to avoid inciting unrest which might endanger him. While he might lope through the world killing and biting and eating as he would, eventually someone would bring him to a poor end. As a young man he'd longed for battle and loved the chase, but now having spent decades in struggle and in his fifth decade, Greyback knew the value of stability.
After looming over Rodrick and his brothers a little more for his own amusement, Greyback rode out, following his nose into the forest. Quite soon though he caught a smell he'd not smelt recently.
Iron and oil wafted through the forest, and Fenrir's ears pricked as he heard the rasping sound of someone sharpening a sword. It piqued his curiosity and the werewolf rode on toward it, smelling a camp more distinctly with the scent of fire and the soldiers around it.
The patrol was camped in a small clearing, surrounded by tall pine trees that cast long shadows in the fading light. The men had pitched their tents in a rough circle, leaving a space in the centre for a fire. The fire was low and smoky, barely enough to keep them warm in the chilly autumn air, but they couldn't have found many dry branches with the snows being what they had been.
Greyback pitied them, in a way. They'd likely been tramping round the Wolfswood for weeks in the snow and mud, searching for Wildlings that didn't exist.
The men had gathered around the fire, some sitting on logs or rocks, others lying on their cloaks or blankets. They looked weary and bored, their faces grimy and stubbled, their eyes dull and tired. They wore leather jerkins and mail shirts over woollen tunics, and had helmets, shields, and swords at their sides. Some carried spears or axes, and their sergeant, a portly but broad man with a coat of rivetted plates, was sharpening his sword.
Their clothes and armour were stained with mud and their boots were in poor repair. They were Stark men-at-arms, professional soldiers from Winterfell or the surrounding areas the Starks held directly. Hard bread and dried meat would have been their fare, but Fenrir could smell more food stashed away in their packs. They spoke in low voices which Fenrir couldn't quite hear, but they seemed in decent spirits for all their toil.
The werewolf stepped forward into the light, leaving his horse to graze and snuffle at a bush that'd shed most of the snow from the night before.
The sergeant stood swiftly, his oilcloth in his hand and the whetstone on his lap falling to the floor as he took a stance with his longsword. Greyback just stood there though as the others jumped up as well.
"Wait, I know this one, I've seen him in Wintertown." said one of the soldiers, lowering his blade somewhat.
"I sell furs there." Greyback confirmed, stepping forward into the light more.
"You're the one with the bearskins." continued the soldier, then stepped forward himself, peering through the gloom at Greyback. "Yes, I can see your cloak."
The soldiers calmed down after that and the sergeant invited him to share the fire. Greyback would be there for long he knew, but it was the first time he'd seen them in this section of the woods.
The Wolfswood was massive. It was large and dense, covering more than 300 miles north and west of Winterfell, off toward the mountains. There were a dozen types of tree and animal, and even with villages dotted through it you could walk for a week without seeing another human. There were hills, lakes, caves and rivers through it, and it could probably sustain a reasonable troop of wildlings.
"How do you mean to find them, these raiders?" he asked the sergeant as the men settled down.
"Lord Stark thinks, so I've been told anyway, that there cannot be so many wildlings as were previously thought. We don't know why they struck the village and butchered the people there, but they must have crossed the Wall a few months ago…"
The Wall was an enormous structure of ice and stone which separated the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros from the Lands Beyond, the untamed wilderness of the far north. Supposedly the Wall, like Winterfell itself, had been raised by Brandon the Builder, an ancient king reputed to have used magic and allied with giants to raise his structures.
Greyback intended to visit at some point, but he had other matters to attend to first.
"There's fifty or more companies like mine out in the woods." the sergeant continued, "The Wildlings have been very quiet, but I suppose they let their base nature get the better of them. Or, maybe, the villagers discovered them and the savages wanted to silence them. Some of our bands have dogs, but not enough by my mind to search out the wildlings in these woods. I know Lord Talhart has argued that we should set fires and burn the wildlings out but it wouldn't work with this snow. Maybe we were still in the height of summer."
"A stupid plan." Greyback murmured.
"Aye, well so thought Lord Stark evidently. If you ask me, they're long gone by now. This was no raid, you mark my words, but what they intended I've no idea."
The wildlings of the north would sometimes cross the Wall, apparently simply climbing over it, to abduct women from the northmost districts of the North. Apparently this was something done to prove a warrior's valour, though Greyback had also heard that sometimes more militaristic wildling chieftains would raid specifically to gather supplies they did not have, notably steel tools, arms and armour.
That gave him an idea.
The rest of the evening passed easily. No one was in the mood for extensive conversation, but Greyback passed a few comments on the nature of hunting in these parts, while the soldiers told of how they'd initially had larger companies ride out to search deeper into the Wolfswood, but finding nothing they'd been split into smaller groups and were now searching the outskirts of Winterfell's direct domain.
The sergeant invited him to rest the night by the fire, and Fenrir accepted. He tied his horse to a branch and set himself down near the boundary. He didn't sleep though, he just lay awake watching the stars. The full moon would be soon and he meant to use it to his advantage.
For now though, he would act as a man. He heard the sentry still awake fidgeting and sat up slowly, as if groggy. Greyback made an affected stagger toward his horse, retrieving a waterskin and drinking a draft.
"Can't sleep, friend?" asked the sentry, wandering over. The man abandoned his place quick enough. That was interesting.
"I needed water." Greyback shrugged quietly, "The food was dry enough."
"Aye, the jerky was shit wasn't it?" the sentry agreed, but he quickly continued, drawing closer to Greyback in conspiratorial whispering. "Listen, could you take my watch for a few moments? I need to go piss but the sergeant will skin me alive if he finds out I've left the camp unguarded."
"Of course." Greyback agreed easily, watching the man retreat.
The werewolf looked down at the sleeping guards. Then he brought out his long knife, freeing it with a half-draw before deciding on another action. Instead he came up behind the sentry as the man was fiddling with the strings of his trousers, reaching up and around, then snapping the man's neck with a savage rip up and to the side.
Greyback caught the body as it fell, then grasped it up and hurled the sentry bodily away from the camp. No reason to have anyone else stumble on him before Greyback was ready.
He stepped back into the light. The fire was dying now, but he could still see well enough to do what was necessary.
Which one first?
The furthest from the fire, Greyback supposed. He stepped stealthily over, drawing his long knife. Then he struck!
The man-at-arms woke in blood, struggling half to his feet before Greyback left him, moving onto the next. He drew a hatchet, bearing it in his left hand while his murderous blade was in his right, already dripping with purpose.
Two more men died, but when he struck with the axe the blade bit at the man's mail byrnie. Greyback felt the blade turn, and struck at the man again, this time burying the axe in his skull. He pulled at it, but it was stuck fast and the failure had awoken the others. The sergeant was on his feet, bellowing in rage, drawing his sword and shouting for the others.
Greyback was among them in a heartbeat. He beat aside the rising blade of one man, reaching out with clawed hand and ripping the man's throat out. Then he struck at the others, one of them fumbling with a bow as the sergeant shouted for him to take up a spear instead.
By a hair's breadth the fumbler managed to dodge Greyback's stroke, but in doing so he exposed himself and the werewolf leapt upon him, tackling him to the forest floor and tasting hot blood as he bit at the man's face.
Fenrir rose, the mutilated man struggling on the ground. He would be dead soon enough, there was no need to go further.
He spat out a portion of the man's cheek, the bristles of the soldier's stubble irritating his lips.
"Monster!" the sergeant gasped. "You'll die here! Winterfell!"
Six men were dead, there was only sergeant and one other left.
Greyback met their charge with a road that made his horse scream. He charged forward fast, too fast for the men and bowled them over, striking them at their waists. His knife was gone, he'd dropped it somewhere but he raged against them in the mud, teeth and claws and might against their steel.
His claws scratched across one man's eyes, then he sank his teeth into a throat. That was one of them, and there was only the sergeant. Greyback regained his feet, and the sergeant hauled himself up too. There was resolve in the man's eyes as he looked at his dead men.
Brave, thought Greyback.
With a final, wordless scream the northman charged forward. His sword was bright in the night, a graceful pillar against the night.
Fenrir stepped forward quickly, catching his wrist and squeezing, bringing the man to a halt.
The sergeant breathed hard through grey whiskers, straining against Greyback's iron grip. It was the man's strength against his, and easily Greyback turned the sword. Instead he set the tip toward the man's breast, slowly pushing forward.
The sergeant screamed as Greyback pierced his flesh. Armour and cloth and skin and muscled parted as the sergeant screamed, his hands grippingly the blade, the edges of his own weapon cutting his palms to ribbons as Fenrir thrust into him. The man coughed blood, his hands weakly battering at Greyback's face as the werewolf laughed.
The sergeant died.
When the clearing grew quiet there was only the wolf. The man Greyback had wounded lay dying and the werewolf turned away. The sergeant's dead eyes seemed to follow him as he stepped, the beast settling again within his soul till it slumbered once more. He reached down to where the sergeant had slept, digging through the man's pack till it found it. Red wine, sour and bad, as wines went, but good enough to wash down the taste of men's flesh.
Fenrir sat down on a rock, raising the skin in tribute. They'd fought well, and bravely. He drank as they died, slowly watching as their hearts stilled and any men who still lived slowly faded.
It would be well to make sure Lord Stark kept the idea of wildlings in his mind, Greyback thought. The werewolf could only benefit from the continued agitation of the area, and while he didn't quite know what benefit he might draw from it, it was sure that he would think of something. In the meantime he would put pressure on Stark and the northerners, and that meant he needed to create terror…
With that in mind, Greyback took his knife and set to work. He first went to the body of the sentry, further away from the camp where he'd tossed the man. As he grasped him by the hair the man's neck crunched and splintered, but Greyback thought he could hear breathing. Was the sentry still alive?
He looked down in the light cast by the fire. Yes, there was life in those eyes. There was fear, there was hatred, there was anger, but there was life.
The sentry's breath hissed out as he lay awkwardly, his spine broken and ruined.
Greyback's knife flashed in the firelight. He smiled down at the man and wiped a tear off his cheek. "It won't be the sergeant who'll be skinning you, 'friend'."
16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Wheew, what a chapter. Almost thought he might turn one of them out of respect for their strength but they were too hostile. if anyone else becomes a werewolf in this tale it will be I imagine one of the boys working under him. If not I hope it would at least be someone by the end of the tale, two werewolves being stronger than one...at least potentially.
Also as usual, you have a great penchant for fish out of water stories and I enjoyed the grumbling over the cost of living in winterfell, I bet his high standards will lead to others making interesting if false assumptions about his background!
I have been enjoying this far more than I thought I would initially. Thank you for writing.
Also as usual, you have a great penchant for fish out of water stories and I enjoyed the grumbling over the cost of living in winterfell, I bet his high standards will lead to others making interesting if false assumptions about his background!
I have been enjoying this far more than I thought I would initially. Thank you for writing.
- Location
- United Kingdom
Glad you're enjoying it. It's somewhat of a challenge to transform a creepy weirdo villain in Harry Potter into someone who actually can be sympathised with by the audience. That will be a challenge for readers too, but I hope one people can actually engage with.
It's just a bit annoying on FFnet where people clearly can't read and don't understand the story sometimes. I don't know if it's a matter of a lack of media literacy for example.
In any case, glad you're enjoying it. There will indeed be more werewolves, though not for a few chapters.
Yeah, had no idea it was Fenrir in the first chapter. Great reveal and character choice in general.
I hope he gets past his murderhobo phase eventually, though. It's in line with the character's m.o but might get boring to read eventually. I kind of skimmed through that part in the last chapter tbh.
I hope he gets past his murderhobo phase eventually, though. It's in line with the character's m.o but might get boring to read eventually. I kind of skimmed through that part in the last chapter tbh.
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- Location
- United Kingdom
I'm glad! It's intended to surprise and subvert the expectation that it's just another generic harry potter insert, it's also why I gave it the generic title.
This is something I'm aware of yes. For the first few chapters such I can present such things, and if you like you can skim over that and just understand that 'fenrirs killing dudes' etc. Some people like action, some don't, that's ok. However, I do have to at least present it at first to establish what's happening. Subsequently, it can be relegated more to narration rather than direct presentation. After all, it would be boring for every few chapters to have 2k words explaining how he went and ate some guy etc. The murderhoboing meanwhile will reduce as fenrir get's a home and isn't a hobo anymore etc. In general thoguh I suppose it's important to have character development. Fenrir is operating on automatic pilot currently, he's trying to accumulate resources, knowledge and so on, he's trying to turn more werewolves or create chaos he can exploit, but he doesn't have a specific or clear idea of what he's doing in the long term. Comparably, as the story develops this would also develop, so he'd be less interested in random acts of violence.
- Location
- United Kingdom
Would note that he's not done that in the fic (though is implied to have done so in canon). I suppose you can take such a stance, but I'd also note that this isn't one of those fetishistic stories about the villainous characters suffering for the amusement and catharsis of the audience.
Arimai
Curmudgeon
Ahh. I read the line of him having his way with the girl in his rampage in wolf form as rape and cannibalism.
- Location
- United Kingdom
This one's a pretty big chapter at 7.5k. However, I've written a bigger chapter which went to 10k just now so that's been interesting. I find it a lot different writing 2k vs 5k vs 10k etc, but I don't think I'd ever do a chapter of 20k or more, as some authors do, I just find it too disjointed. Anwyay, this was up a couple of weeks ago I've written 2 chapters ahead so far for another 15k or so words. This puts me at 45k, so I'm fairly content I've met the challenge even if I am slightly out of the actual goal. It's been an interesting experience and I'll be doing 1 more 1k chapter I think before consider what to do with the fic. The poll and the advance chapters are already up you know where, so if you're interested in either that's the place.
Additionally, I am putting rather more work into this fic that I sometimes have for others, as I'm trying to practive a bit as a writer. As such, comment or feedback on plot, characterisation, theme, description or worldbuilding are all welcome.
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It was ten days till the next full moon, and each night Greyback went out killing.
By day he would scent beasts and carry their carcasses back to his skinning camp, whether on the back of his horse if they were small enough, or dragged behind on a sled. Three more bears he took, a pack of wolves, a dozen boars and six deer.
The later were quick, and he'd not managed to kill many before the rest of them had run off. Predators would fight him, usually anyway, while the boars usually tried to charge him.
It gave Rodrick and his brothers something to do, and Greyback drove them hard. The full moon was approaching, and with it he could feel himself waxing in power as the transformation neared.
By night he went out killing too. This time he hunted men. He left the camp each day after bringing in game and rode out to a high hill where he tied his horse and set down his bearskin cloak with most of the rest of his possessions. Then he sat, as if in meditation, breathing deep of the night air.
By this method he tracked the patrols of the Stark soldiers. He would travel far each night, killing patrols as they slept or murdering those he came across who were still awake during the night.
He had killed eight men first, and that had given him the idea. Then he struck another patrol, and another. He slew several knights riding their warhorses, sending the beasts into flight as he thrust his knife through the weak points of the mail.
There was a larger patrol, some lord with his retinue bearing a sigil of green trees upon a brown field. Their leader was a large boy, his chin bare but heavily built with a thick neck. Greyback shot him with a crossbow, then ran off through the trees, circling back around faster than his pursuers could match him, finishing the young lord off, killing his attendants and leaving their corpses for the others to find.
The night was his. Fenrir ruled it as a wolf and man both. He denied himself the flesh of the dead, he had work to do and had no time to savour it. Instead he busied himself till the early hours of the morning, running merry chases, slaying as many as he could without them seeing him.
There were many advantages to it. Firstly, he had to further confuse the situation regarding his arrival and the destruction of the village. He'd not meant to kill so many, he'd not remembered who he was, but nevertheless, now it was up to him to conceal his involvement, and if he could pin the massacre on the Wildlings, all the better. Secondly, the chaos he was sowing in the Wolfswood would put the Starks and their lords off, it would disturb and concern them and they would be concentrate on these matters and not think to further examine Greyback or his story. The werewolf didn't know exactly how he might use such chaos yet but there were always opportunities. Thirdly of course, he simply enjoyed it, he was a simple man and he liked the rush of battle, and felt it right to indulge his beast if he had the opportunity and reason to.
Greyback had wielded reputation as much has wand or claws in the Wizarding World. He'd built himself up in the eyes of the Wizarding public as a man to be feared and respected. He had no such reputation here, and currently didn't want one. Better that the lords of Westeros didn't know too much about him or his abilities. That would be why he was going to such efforts to trick the North into believing the tale of wildling raiders in the Wolfswood.
He stole horses, weapons, supplies and other gear, and what he could not take he tried to destroy. He wanted to make it seem that there were more of him than there were, and he knew he'd been successful from the brief interrogations he'd made against soldiers he'd dragged off sometimes.
One day though he returned to the skinning camp and found Rodrick and his brothers kneeling before a familiar face.
"To arms! Seize him, men!" Ser Kyle Condon called, surprised by Greyback as he rode easily into the camp. He'd smelled the men, but knew they must be northern soldiers, and had no fear of them. His face brought Ser Kyle up swiftly in surprise, "It's you!" he exclaimed, and ordered his men to stand down.
"Aye." Greyback replied, stepping down off his horse, "It is. Rodrick see to this."
The boy looked uneasily between the werewolf and the Cerwyn knight.
Greyback felt his anger rise. He stalked toward the boy, past the Cerwyn swords and took him roughly by the shoulder, thrusting him toward the bear's carcass on the sled behind his mount.
"And see to the horse too!" he snarled.
They were parasites. Rodrick had brought up higher payment again and Greyback didn't want to hear about it. He already let them keep as much meat as they wanted, and he knew they'd sent some of it back to their village. These were his kills, and he'd already given them a month's wages for the work they did.
The idea of someone trying to take what was his enraged Greyback. He didn't entirely know why, but he wasn't inclined to sit and think about it when there was killing to be done. Not more than a week ago one of the merchants he transacted with had brought up the issue of taxes. Greyback would pay no such thing, he'd assured the merchant, but the man had only shaken his head and said he'd have to take it up with Winterfell's steward if he had such an attitude.
The werewolf was still angry about that.
Ser Kyle gestured for his men to disperse and Greyback looked around the camp more carefully. Several of the poles which would hold skins had been toppled, and some of the stores rifled through. "Is this your doing?" he asked, gesturing to the uproar.
It was clear that the Cerwyn party had come upon the camp and made to search it. They wouldn't have found anything. Greyback had stashed his ill-gotten gains in the hollow stump of a tree he'd found. He had acquired much that might be useful to him, and he now had all the accoutrements of a mercenary including a selection of weapons, a good brigandine, a helm and a shield he'd need to strip the Stark sigil off, or have repainted. He didn't entirely need such things, but it was a uniform that would make people less suspicious of him, he thought.
It was a shame he'd not be able to keep much of the other things he'd taken. Certainly, if dozens of Stark men had been killed in the woods and he turned up the next day to try and sell their armour, he'd be arrested and executed as a murderer or at least a looter. However, stealing the equipment was still important as it was what the northerners thought the Wildlings would do. They wouldn't ever find the stuff though, he'd been throwing weapons and similar in ponds and rivers.
"It is, aye." Ser Kyle replied. The tension in the scene had almost left and now the Cerwyn men were milling about waiting for their knight to finish his enquires.
"And will you compensate me for it?" Greyback asked, "Your men have ruined that hide, look at it!" and he pointed to one skin now on the ground, marred by mud and dirty snow from where the men had trodden over it.
He was moderately angry with the idea of the Cerwyn men interfering with his camp, but in truth Greyback was also playing a part. Who would suspect a man of murders when he appeared so interested in the state of furs?
Ser Kyle regarded the fur, then Greyback. "I will not." he said evenly. "I have pursued reports of camps in the woods and done so in a manner I feel is fair and just. You may speak to Lord Cerwyn about it, if you find my conduct questionable."
That was actually a decent answer, and Fenrir grunted in response. He remembered that Kyle had been polite before as well, a worthy enough man, it seemed given he'd not risen to Fenrir's bait.
"This is good work by them, you know." Ser Kyle said lightly.
"Not good enough for the coin I pay for it." Fenrir growled back.
"All the kills are yours, I assume? I was suspicious at first, especially given the way you fled Castle Cerwyn." Ser Kyle continued.
"I fled nowhere. Your lord gave me no respect, so I had no reason to give him any." Greyback shrugged.
"You may see it as that. I would advise you though that although I don't consider it credible, some have wondered whether you might be a Wildling spy. It seems incredible that a single man might so successfully track and kill so many beasts. How'd you do it?"
Fenrir just tapped the broad knife at his belt and Kyle raised an eyebrow.
"Well, in any case, I'll see that you're left alone. Strictly speaking, some lords might have a problem with this, especially the deer. This is Lord Stark's land, only he has the rights to hunt deer on it." Kyle said, "Wolves, bears, these hogs would all be fine and I know Lord Stark has greater things on his mind at the moment. In any case, be careful. Lord Cerwyn heard of a skinning camp and that naturally that concentrated his attention."
Greyback looked at him in confusion, or at least, his best attempt at confusion. "Why?" he asked.
The werewolf knew exactly why.
"More than fifty men have been killed over the past two weeks." Ser Kyle said. "Some the wolves got to before we did, but others more recently. How much do you know about the wildlings in the woods at the moment?"
"Little enough." Fenrir replied easily, "I've been out in the deep woods hunting, I spend most of my nights out there, I've not been back to Winterfell in a few days. I've come across the patrols, tramping about."
Ser Kyle made a humming noise, drawing slightly closer, "In brief then, as I said many men have been killed. There is talk of running skirmishes across the woods. First it was thought there were hundreds of wildlings, then only fifty, but fearsome and savage ones no doubt, but now Lord Cerwyn says there are hundreds again. We've found none of their dead, but we think they'd carried them off instead of leaving them for us. One of the Tallart sons was killed and Torren's Square's banners are all out in the southern reaches of the Wolfswood seeking vengeance."
"And?" asked Fenrir. He could deceive skilfully sometimes, but it was beyond his abilities to pretend at compassion in that instance. Not when he'd enjoyed his own work so much.
"Many of the dead were scalped." Kyle said, and Greyback saw him suppress a shiver.
The North could be a savage place. But these knights and lords weren't used to it.
Greyback said nothing, he had no desire to reveal himself, but he couldn't deny that he savoured the man's fear.
That night he donned his new cloak. It was best to separate Fenrir Greyback, hunter and mercenary, from the wildlings who were killing the northerners. The werewolf set aside the bearskin given to him as thanks by the villagers and instead set a grizzly trophy on his shoulders.
In his youth, Fenrir had stayed in Britain. He'd walked the ancient woodlands as a wolf, hidden in the slums to evade the Werewolf Capture Unit, he'd fought the Aurors and the Ministry. Later though, when he'd already spoken with the small communities of werewolves in Wales or the hills of England he'd decided to look further afield. Through Massif Central and the sons of Gévaudan to the caves of the bauks in Serbia, further on to single city of werewolves he knew of deep in the Siberian wastes. There was one community though from which Greyback had drawn the greatest inspiration.
The cloak of dead mens' hair flapped behind him as he slew that night.
The Wildesheer were the most violent werewolves in Europe, perhaps the world. They used potions and rituals in an attempt to induce the transformation of the werewolf. Greyback had been sceptical at first when he'd watched them, he'd known that lycanthrope was only affected by a single night each month upon the full moon but then Greyback had watched, amazed, as he saw their teeth lengthen, their muscles bulge, their nails grow and their hair grow into great manes. They scalped their enemies, only the worthy from the ranks of the finest warriors they encountered, showing no distinction between Muggle and Wizard. They would fight trolls and vampires, they'd fought Grindenwald and the Knights of Walpurgis in the old war, only for the world to forget about them. Their ideology was blood and struggle, and a longing for a death in battle. He had hunted with them for three years, learning their ways till he'd departed. He disagreed with their philosophy, for they'd only turn those they considered worthy, and those who had already killed another of the Wildesheer. They were a dying breed, Greyback knew, but they'd curse the sun before they faded away completely.
Greyback had sewn himself a cloak like the Wildesheer used. They claimed it gave them powers of invincibility, and when he'd been with them Greyback hadn't know enough of rune and enchantment to know differently, though he suspected the cloaks did have some sort of power. Of the scalps of twenty men, the ones he'd had enough time to properly skin, he'd sewn the rough garment. He wore it now, luxuriating in the trophy and the dark power it gave him.
There was ancient magic, he knew. Magic the likes of which most modern Wizards had forgotten. Magic of blood and sacrifice. He wielded it now, darting amidst the patrols untiringly, slaying as he went and laughing all the while. Upon his face was a mask of bone-white weirwood, painted now with the blood of the northmen.
He let them see him this time, he wanted it. He wanted their rage and their eagerness.
A dozen men cowered around a weirwood. He stepped inside the sacred grove, long knife in one hand, axe in another. He killed them there, under the eyes of the Old Gods, their blood seeping into the roots of the tree, strengthening it.
He didn't understand the magic of the heart trees yet, but he would in time. Till then he could feel the holy weight around them and made his own sacrifice.
He left the last man alive, cowering among his dead comrades.
"I am Hati of the Ironwoods. I am Moon-Brother, Skin-Walker." Greyback told the man, drawing close with his carved mask. "Tell your lord I and my brothers wait for him in the caves to the north. I will mark the way."
As soon as the man made it back to his camp, Greyback saw movement. Hundreds of northerners were streaming back into the main camp on the outskirts of the Wolfswood. Would Tallhart, full of vengeance, sounded horn and trumpet to rally their men-at-arms, while Cerwyn's troops and Stark followed on.
They followed the body parts. Fenrir had nailed hands to trees to show them the route. There were no theatrics, no feasting, just fel-handed, dour men readying for battle.
If there were counsellors who advised against rushing in, Fenrir saw no sign of them. Tallhart had sworn bloody oaths to hunt down the wildlings, supposedly, and Fenrir would oblige him.
He could feel the change, tugging inside his skin, he could feel his beast, that hungry creature inside his heart.
The moon was coming.
Fenrir killed more men on the march, throwing spears or shooting at horses as the northerners made their way forward. This only enraged them more though and he mocked them as he dodged away from their responses.
"Come and meet your son, Tallhart!" he called merrily, then threw back his head and howled long and loud.
It spooked the northerners, but Fenrir delighted in it.
Energy was surging through him as the moon drew near, just behind the clouds. He could sense its pull, its promise.
Wolves howled on the wind around the army and Fenrir howled with them. His scalp-cloak flew in the carnage as he swung a great axe to and fro. He had no true skill in weapons, and more than once the soldiers cut and stabbed at him. It was enough though to laugh and slay, his healing, his speed, his strength would see him through.
He bled freely, limping back to the cave with a crossbow bolt in the meat of his thigh. He turned, a screaming northerner leaping from his horse with a dagger, sinking it between Greyback's ribs before the werewolf opened the man's throat.
No matter, he could smell the change coming.
Fenrir had scouted the cave weeks ago, not finding a use for it then, but pursuing the old scent of a bear which had made its den there. The smell was of earth and dust and cloying dampness. It was old and dead, the rubbings of fur and droppings mixed with the smell of little birds or bats.
Greyback crawled inside, he knew the layout well enough and he could see, even as his eyesight faded as he lost blood.
This was the edge of death, the tension and the glory the Wildesheer preached. Here was the time of greatest life, when death was closest.
The cave's floor was rough and uneven and Greyback stumbled as he fled. He lay in the quiet, too weak to move.
The weight of the cave bore him down. The weight of the rock above him, Fenrir crawled further, into the guts of the earth, into ancient tunnels where men sheltered from the cold long ago.
A man died at the entrance of the last great chamber. A man throws aside his cloak, his mask. A man rips off his clothing and rips out the dagger stuck in his side, the bolt in his leg. A man crawls, retreats from the jeering soldiers, flees into the darkness.
Eyes watched the man in the darkness, gimlet glimmerings amidst the roots of the world.
A lord in green and brown plate mail strode forward with burning brand. He looked down, then turned to his attendants, "Search them out, there must be more."
He bent to the corpse on the floor, the tip of his dagger forward to inspect the foeman's face.
A wolf snarled. Eyes wide, pupils narrowed to slits, heart burning as it brought the man crashing down, teeth lengthening as his jaw cracked, his skin split.
Fur lengthened as he ate the man's heart. Claws sharpened, piercing the mail and crushing the sinews.
Fenrir Greyback rose again, wounds healed, muzzle dripping with viscera and blood. He was great and hideous in the flickering torchlight, beautiful and terrible he stalked forward, a swipe of his claws sending the head of another Tallhart man flying.
He bounded forward on all fours, crashing against the men. He leapt from one to another, slashing with his claws, leaping to crush men under his bulk or gnawing and gnashing with his teeth.
The werewolf howled again, shattering the ancient solemnity of the cave. The beast strode forth, slaying in all the chambers of the structure, going from cave to cave, springing out of the earth and killing those above on the surface, then clawing his way back into the earth, dragging screaming men with him.
The soldiers bore steel against him, and several knots of Stark men-at-arms banded together at their banner, their commander had a soft look, there was too much fat on him but he wore his mail well and held a longsword as he rallied his warriors.
Fenrir sprang upon him, bringing captain and banner down amidst flailing claws spraying blood and guts in a wide arc. Greyback bit clean through his neck and felt the spurting blood wash over his chest, even while he felt bolts and spears pierce his sides. He rose, howled once more and killed again.
For a time Greyback lost himself amidst the slaughter. He tried to keep hold of his beast, to control himself, but he raced and killed and became more a wolf than man, and in the morning he found himself far from the charnel pit he'd made in the caves.
There was a glorious soreness all over his body and he'd woken naked as he always did the day after full moon.
The werewolf lay there on the floor for a time. The heat from his body had melted the snow around him over night and he looked up into wonderous blue sky. His senses were always more powerful for a few days after the change, he simply felt more, felt greater than a normal man. He breathed, tasting the battle more than a league away, if he judged it right.
Fenrir made his way up to the high hill to see what there was to see, and to dress himself. He returned to the skinning camp to show his face to the boys and see to their work, telling them his hunt that day had been unsuccessful. He heard from them about groups of men passing through the forest the day before.
Greyback followed them. The trail was not hard to find and the detritus of the march toward the caves was easy to see, there were discarded items, some lost on the march, some thrown away when they fulfilled their function like a broken spear.
Had he broken that spear? Probably, he didn't remember, it might have been last night, or it could have been days ago.
He rode on till he heard the screams, bursting through the forest into a wide clearing as the trees thinned on the hillside toward the caves above.
Once again, he found Ser Kyle, the knight's face bloody, his tabard torn in several places, though Greyback noticed they were cuts, not rips.
"Greyback!" Kyle called in surprise, "How do you come to be here?"
Fenrir dismounted, coming swiftly to the man's side, "My boys told me of soldiers in the woods, and I thought I heard horn calls last night. What happened, did you find the wildlings?"
Ser Kyle's face was drawn and tired. There were deep bags under his eyes and he'd seen horrors.
The snow in the clearing was strewn with blood. The remaining soldiers had rallied to here, it seemed to Greyback, and even now some of them stood guard while others rolled on the floor, screaming as they died.
"We found something…" Kyle said darkly, "I didn't arrive till almost dawn, Lord Cerwyn gave me his sternguard to command. He is dead I think, or lost, for no man can say where he is. I find myself in command, but we haven't enough supplies for all these wounds."
"What happened?" Greyback asked again, hiding his glee.
Even here, there were the remnants of battle. The smell of death, of blood and guts, of men who'd emptied their bowels before they'd died, was everywhere. Ser Kyle commanded his hundred and had drawn up wagons in a crude wall while a few women and servants tried to tend to the injured. Greyback regarded them, his claws had clipped a few of them, or perhaps his teeth had been turned by armour and not bitten deep enough to kill.
One man was clutching a bunch of amulets at his throat and praying in a fast, low tongue, while another stared blankly, his hands slick with blood loosely holding a spear.
The camp was a testament to the power and savagery of Greyback's true self, and he looked upon it with pride. Now was time to capitalise on it though.
"I can't get much of sense out of them. The wildling chieftain showed himself, 'Moon-Brother', he called himself. Lord Stark ordered caution for it was clear it was a trap, but Lord Tallhart pushed forward in fury for Moon-Brother had killed his son and Lord Cerwyn didn't want to be left exposed without Tallhart's support, so he went forward too. I was to bring up the rear, but once I got here the battle was already over." Kyle said rapidly, speaking low still to not scare the men. "Moon-Brother, or his folk, the reports are unclear, struck at them on the march and left mocking trophies, men nailed to trees and the like. Apparently Moon-Brother was killed several times, for more than one man swears they saw him stuck with spears or arrows. I think it was many of them, dressed the same perhaps. The messenger he sent to us, one of ours he'd spared, spoke of a bone mask and a cloak of scalps, it would be easy enough to make several of those I suppose but either way, Lord Tallhart apparently wounded him and pursued him, or someone dressed like him, into the caves."
Kyle shuddered, drawing a hand across his face to wipe away the blood, but only managed to smear it across his face more instead. Greyback tasted the air, Kyle was scared, but not actually injured, it wasn't his blood. There was steel in him and resolve.
"After that, it's not clear what happened. Moon-Brother and his wildlings made their ambush, that much is clear. The men speak of monsters surging out of the caves, or from out of the ground. I inspected the ground up there a bit, there's holes down into the cave I guess where the wildlings were hiding, they must have prepared this weeks ago." Kyle said, shaking his head, "Tallhart is dead, a monster ate him apparently, no one knows what happened to Lord Cerwyn. Rodrick Cassel, who led the Stark forces, is also dead. The men speak of monsters, great beasts like a bear or a wolf tearing at them. The battle happened at night, the wildlings wore fur cloaks and fought savagely. Maybe they even had hounds, for I've heard they do keep beasts sometimes."
It was an admirable conclusions, Greyback thought. He'd known no one would believe tales of beasts, or that the tales would be exaggerated in passing. If Ser Kyle gave such a report to Lord Stark, Greyback would have little to fear. The man had his respect, Greyback was realising. He was courteous enough, honourable and capable.
"What can I do?" Greyback asked.
Kyle looked at him in surprise. "I had thought to ask you what you might do, but I hadn't hoped you'd agree."
"There are more important things than furs." Fenrir answered.
Kyle smiled a little at that. "Very well, in the name of the Old Gods and the New, go into the cave and see what there is to be seen there. Find Lord Cerwyn if you can, or bring back news of the dead if not. If the wildlings are there I must know if it, I doubt we could repel another force, the men are terrified."
"And then?"
"If you can find some token of the wildlings all the better. Then I'd ask you ride hard for Winterfell. Lord Stark must know of this. I'll write you a note, and seal it with Cerwyn's sigil. I don't trust any of the men here to ride back, they're scared and many have already deserted. I tried to persuade them, to stay here, told them it was safer, but they didn't listen and I fear they're already being hunted down by the wildlings. You know the woods, you'll be able to get though."
Greyback nodded going up into the cave. He picked his way through the bodies, marvelling at the way blood had sprayed up the walls during his slaughter.
He quickly stepped over the dead, and thrust down with his blade whenever he sensed someone still living. The greater the obfuscation of his doings, the better. He retrieved his mask and cloak, tying it into a bundle with a belt and heading back to Ser Kyle without bothering to check for Cerwyn.
"There were some living in there, on the verge of death, I gave them peace." he explained, handing over the bundle.
Kyle's hand shot up, gripping his arm, "You killed them? They lived and you killed them?"
"I did. One man's face was half open, you don't have a dozen maesters here, you've got camp followers. To even get them down here would have killed them, would you rather then suffer?"
Kyle closed his eyes for a moment and muttered a prayer, "Mother's mercy be theirs… What else?"
"Bodies and more bodies. I couldn't tell much, but I did find these." Greyback explained, motioning to the items he'd retrieved. Though for one of the Wildesheer they'd rather death than be parted from their skin-cloaks, to Greyback they had much less meaning.
Ser Kyle was inspecting the cloak, puzzling over the stitching, lifting a flap and finding bloody skin beneath he froze, slowly lowering the section and swallowing. "Bear this to Lord Stark. Here, my report. By the Gods beg him for aid, we need it sorely."
Greyback promised he would and leapt into his saddle. He spurred the horse on, down the forest roads and through deer trails he knew well. He had done a good night's work here, and with luck he would soon see whether or not the muggles here could survive his bite. If they could, this would be the start of lycanthropy's spread on Westeros.
"Let me pass!" he called up to Winterfell's gates as he rode up. He had more or less killed his horse, but it was only rented anyway. "Tallhart, Cerwyn and Cassel are dead, I have a message from Ser Kyle to Lord Stark!"
The gates opened quickly.
This was the first time he'd been in the true castle of Winterfell. The gates had been closely guarded since the wildling threat had been known, but Greyback didn't have time to appreciate the might fortress. A dozen guards came up quickly, seeing the bloody bundle in his arms. One man in blue-grey plate and a thin cloak demanded the report and Greyback handed it over.
The knight shivered and made to inspect the bundle. He did not take it, only peered at it, then steeled himself.
"Follow me, Lord Stark must hear of this. Hob, Mallin, send for the maester and Steward Poole."
They went on through the castle. Greyback tried to pay attention to the layout, but one disadvantage of the days following the transformation was the sensitivity to stimuli, and he tried to dampen it by concentrating on the floor in front of him and the sounds of footsteps.
The guard captain took him up stairs and down corridors. Greyback tried not to sense the smells around him, they were incredibly strong after the sensations of the previous night. Then they came to a large door, which the captain knocked on, then opened swiftly without waiting for an answer.
A man and a woman were waiting within in close conference. They were both in their thirties and richly dressed, their faces lined with stress, though both were handsome enough.
This was the solar, or parlour of Lord Stark. Greyback was used to them, plenty of the older families in Malfoy's circle had them. It was a place to relax and to receive guests, and Greyback supposed it might have been seen as rude for him to just have dumped a skin-cloak down on Stark's desk. It was a spacious enough room, comfortable in it's furnishings and with many more expensive items than Lord Cerwyn's. He didn't know why there was a bed in the corner, did Stark sleep here sometimes? Strange but he'd slept in some strange places himself too. Other than that a brief glance around met with the table, a high seat carved with wolves, a bookshelf full of tomes, chests and wardrobes, a heart burning gently and a number of impressive tapestaries. On the mantle there was a single blue rose in a pot with a tree on it.
"Lord Stark, Lady Stark, this man bears a dire message from Ser Kyle and the forces in the woods. Lord Tallhart is slain, Lord Cerwyn too… and Ser Rodrick." said the captain.
Was the man related to the knight? Greyback saw some family resemblance, if he looked closely, but he didn't know the folk of Winterfell well enough to tell. Certainly it seemed the guard captain felt more strongly about Cassel's death than the others.
Lord Stark nodded stiffly. He was man grave of face and form with a silvering beard and solemn eyes. "We will avenge him, if it is so, Jory." he said in a strong voice.
Just then another man came in, and two more after him. The first was a maester from his grey robes and chain, a small man with a woollen hood over a balding pate, while the second was more richly dressed, the steward, Poole, Greyback guessed. He did not know the third man, another solemn looking fellow all dressed in black.
Lord Stark motioned for them to join him, handing the message he'd been give to the man in black, "Read it, Ben." he ordered.
The other man cleared his throat, drawing the message out flat on the table.
"Lord Stark," the man, 'Ben', began, "I regret to inform you that we have suffered a heavy loss at the hands of the wildlings. They lured us into a trap by raiding our camps and then fleeing into the caves. Lord Tallhart and Lord Cerwyn led a force of two hundred men to pursue them, but they were ambushed in the dark by a larger number of savages. I brought up the rear and arrived after the battle. Both lords were slain, along with most of their men, as well as Ser Rodrick."
The steward, Poole, swore under his breath and cursed the wildlings to the Seven Hells.
Ben continued, "I have rallied the survivors but many are wounded and in need of care. Through the account of my messenger, the wildlings have quit the caves, or retreated further within to some secret place. I have no way of knowing their numbers or their plans. They have shown no mercy or honour in their attacks, and we fear they will strike again soon. We are outnumbered and outmatched, and we cannot hold this position for long. I pray you only move with a strong force. The wildlings fought savagely and with great guile, digging pits and attacking by night, imitating beasts with howls and fur cloaks. I urgently request your aid, my lord. We need reinforcements, supplies, and medical assistance. We remain loyal and faithful to you and your house, and we hope to see you soon. This messenger can give further account."
The man in black set the message down and the maester swiftly seized it up, going to the window to read it better in the light.
"It is signed by Ser Kyle Codon, a knight of Lord Cerwyn's household." Lord Stark said, "He is a steady man, by Cerwyn's account, I do not believe him prone to exaggeration."
"This is grave news indeed, my lord." Lady Stark said, "The wildlings must have prepared this ambush for some time, if Ser Kyle reports them digging pits."
"The hills in the north are full of caves and passages. It's possible they scouted it some time ago, then made their own excavations to take advantage of the terrain." Poole said, "The Mountain Clans would know more, but we've had no word of them about large bands of wildlings lately."
"There are cave-dwelling clans in the Frostfangs." Ben said, "We've not seen them much, they tend to keep to themselves. We had no news of this Moon-Brother though, only Mance Rayder. I think perhaps Moon-Brother is one of the chiefs from further north, past the Skirling Pass."
"What is this evil thing?" Lady Stark asked in a high voice, nodding at the bundle of the skin-cloak.
"It is as the survivor said a few days ago, Moon-Brother wears a cloak of scalps. This must be it, or something like it." Lord Stark said.
"It is an evil thing!" Lady Stark repeated, "Take it away, let the Septon pray over it for the men's souls, then burn it."
Lord Stark nodded and one of the guards removed the bundle, leaving only the bloody weirwood mask. Then Stark took it and tossed it in the hearth.
Fenrir suppressed a smile as he stared at the blackening wood.
"You are Fenrir Greyback." Stark said to the werewolf, "You have been killing bears in the forest and selling their fur. You lost your memory and were wandering in the woods a month ago. How did you come to receive Ser Kyle message? Did you accompany his force?"
It did not surprise Greyback that Stark recognised him, he had a distinctive face after all and he'd been in Wintertown a bit. Cerwyn would have reported to Stark about him, and he'd hardly been hiding. Greyback explained himself briefly and waited for more questions.
How many did Ser Kyle retain? What was their condition?
What had he seen inside the cave?
Had he heard or seen more of the wildlings in his hunts?
Greyback answered each carefully, and Lord Stark asked for suggestions from his council.
"We must quickly draw back the smallfolk in the Wolfswood." said Lady Stark, "If Moon-Brother and his savages come upon them they will surely be killed."
"No." Ben said, "The first village was the lure. You might draw them back, Ned, but the wildlings wanted to draw out real soldiers. Moon-Brother is clever in his barbarism, he drew in our forces and Ser Cassel. Furthermore, he has clearly prepared for longer than many wildlings if he's garbed his warriors in similar clothing and used tactics like these to disguise his numbers."
"Should we send men in to the caves?" Stark asked.
"I wouldn't. Or, if you did, do it carefully. Call the Mountain Clans to press into the caves from the north, they'll have more experience than any of ours."
Stark nodded and gave orders. The man in black would ride out with hundreds more men and supplied to relieve Ser Kyle while the guard captain rode for the Mountain Clans to warn them. Apparently they had no ravens.
Greyback thought it was all going rather well.
Stark sat after a time, leaning back and staring out the window. "I will call the banners. I will not have wildlings murdering my folk."
"You are Warden of the North, husband. Should you write to the King?" his wife asked.
Stark considered. "I will write him, but any aid he'd send will take months to arrive. No, I will call the banners of Barrowtown, the Rills, and send for men from White Harbour. If this is the start of a great invasion of Wildlings we must be ready, if it is only an enterprising chieftain, I will take him and his head for his crimes."
"If Moon-Brother managed to get a strong enough force past the Wall, the Mountain Clans, and through the Wolfswood without discovery it may be that he can do it again going north. If he is a chieftain of such skill and command that he can retain the obedience of his fellows, even over such a march, and now if he has steel weapons and armour from the force defeated in the woods then Moon-Brother may contest Mance Rayder as King-Beyond-the-Wall." the maester said.
Now wasn't that a thought, Fenrir Greyback; king!
"I must advise strong action here, my lord." the maester continued. "The deaths of two masterly lords and of your castellan reflect poorly on you, regardless of your actions. The succession of House Tallhart will be in dispute. I advise you to bring Lady Eddara here to foster, for she has the legal right to the house after her brother and father's deaths. Leobald Tallhart may cause trouble, but if named as castellan and regent for Lady Eddara, he may be sated. Meanwhile, I would advise you to bring Lord Cley here swiftly, given your friendship with his father."
"I am minded to, though I am grieved indeed at Medger's death." Lord Stark replied.
The maester bowed and left, no doubt doing to send the messages.
Lord Stark looked at Greyback. "You are an unusual man, and perhaps the Gods have sent you here at this time. It is strange indeed, that you would be found at the first village to be destroyed, and subsequently to be on hand to assist Ser Kyle. Explain your movements of the last few days." he ordered.
Greyback just said that he had been hunting. He had been careful to let Rodrick and the boys see him each day, and to visit there early this morning too before visiting the battle site.
Stark only grunted, no doubt he'd be checking up on the story in due course.
"You are not to leave the castle grounds." Stark ordered. "You are a man of unusual abilities and talents, to fight bears with only a long knife. I would have use for a man of such worth. I will give you a purse of silver to stay here, and I will order my guards to be wary of letting you leave. From Lord Cerwyn's and Ser Kyle's previous reports, you may have just been in the wrong place at the right time, but it still seems strange to me, and I know not what to think of it. I know you are no wildling spy, you are too unsubtle for it, and besides I think any man of your cast would be easily recognised."
Stark paused, meeting Greyback's eyes. The werewolf didn't back down.
"There are other men who can fight like you. Greatjon Umber in the North, Strongboar or the Mountain-that-Rides in the south, and Benjen tells me of a wildling calling himself 'Husband to Bears' of surpassing strength. There are bad reports about you, that you have a savage demeanour, that you fled the keep of Cerwyn against the lord's orders, or that you have little care for the taxes and duties of the Realm. I believe a spy would want to seem more friendly… and I think a blackguard would seem fairer. You are a contradiction, but one I cannot attend to now. Will you agree to remain within the walls, to settle your affairs beyond and to come when I have need of you?" Stark asked.
This suited Greyback just fine. He had planned to gain access to Winterfell. At first he'd though to try and sell a wolf pelt to Lord Stark, but he'd not known whether the man (who's sigil was a direwolf) would interpret that as an insult or not, and besides he's not seen any wolves with pelts magnificent enough for the lord of a Great House.
"I agree to your terms." the werewolf said plainly. There would be some negotiation no doubt, but that could come in time.
"Good. Let us-" Stark began, but the door banged open behind Greyback.
"Father!" a young girl's voice rang out as a vision swept past the werewolf. "The servants are saying Ser Rodrick is dead, that the wildlings are marching on Winterfell!"
Lady Stark leapt to her feet, "Sansa! The door is closed, your father is in council! Away girl, back to your Septa!"
Lord and Lady Stark attended to their daughter but Fenrir was struck dumb.
His fingers twitched.
Her hair, it looked so soft.
His claws winked in the firelight as he longed to grasp the girl.
He could see her heartbeat as she stood not a foot from him from where she'd burst into the room. He could see her blood rushing through her neck.
Fenrir felt his mouth water.
Sweat beaded under the girl's ear, he could smell her…
The girl, Sansa, turned. She perceived Greyback as if in slow motion, her deep blue eyes, deep like the sea, widened in fear as she beheld his form. The werewolf could not stop himself from smiling, from licking his lips at the sight of her, tongue running wetly over pointed teeth.
He could smell her nectar, it filled him, heady and powerful. She was roses and frost in the dawn.
Fenrir knew she'd be tender. Knew if he but reached out, he skin would be soft.
He loved soft skin.
Greyback didn't hear the rest of what was said. He recognised a dismissal from Lord Stark as the Warden and his wife harangued their daughter for her impetuousness.
He would remain in Winterfell, he decided.
And when he left, he would take Sansa Stark away with him. The girl would be his, and the werewolf grinned at the thought.
Additionally, I am putting rather more work into this fic that I sometimes have for others, as I'm trying to practive a bit as a writer. As such, comment or feedback on plot, characterisation, theme, description or worldbuilding are all welcome.
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It was ten days till the next full moon, and each night Greyback went out killing.
By day he would scent beasts and carry their carcasses back to his skinning camp, whether on the back of his horse if they were small enough, or dragged behind on a sled. Three more bears he took, a pack of wolves, a dozen boars and six deer.
The later were quick, and he'd not managed to kill many before the rest of them had run off. Predators would fight him, usually anyway, while the boars usually tried to charge him.
It gave Rodrick and his brothers something to do, and Greyback drove them hard. The full moon was approaching, and with it he could feel himself waxing in power as the transformation neared.
By night he went out killing too. This time he hunted men. He left the camp each day after bringing in game and rode out to a high hill where he tied his horse and set down his bearskin cloak with most of the rest of his possessions. Then he sat, as if in meditation, breathing deep of the night air.
By this method he tracked the patrols of the Stark soldiers. He would travel far each night, killing patrols as they slept or murdering those he came across who were still awake during the night.
He had killed eight men first, and that had given him the idea. Then he struck another patrol, and another. He slew several knights riding their warhorses, sending the beasts into flight as he thrust his knife through the weak points of the mail.
There was a larger patrol, some lord with his retinue bearing a sigil of green trees upon a brown field. Their leader was a large boy, his chin bare but heavily built with a thick neck. Greyback shot him with a crossbow, then ran off through the trees, circling back around faster than his pursuers could match him, finishing the young lord off, killing his attendants and leaving their corpses for the others to find.
The night was his. Fenrir ruled it as a wolf and man both. He denied himself the flesh of the dead, he had work to do and had no time to savour it. Instead he busied himself till the early hours of the morning, running merry chases, slaying as many as he could without them seeing him.
There were many advantages to it. Firstly, he had to further confuse the situation regarding his arrival and the destruction of the village. He'd not meant to kill so many, he'd not remembered who he was, but nevertheless, now it was up to him to conceal his involvement, and if he could pin the massacre on the Wildlings, all the better. Secondly, the chaos he was sowing in the Wolfswood would put the Starks and their lords off, it would disturb and concern them and they would be concentrate on these matters and not think to further examine Greyback or his story. The werewolf didn't know exactly how he might use such chaos yet but there were always opportunities. Thirdly of course, he simply enjoyed it, he was a simple man and he liked the rush of battle, and felt it right to indulge his beast if he had the opportunity and reason to.
Greyback had wielded reputation as much has wand or claws in the Wizarding World. He'd built himself up in the eyes of the Wizarding public as a man to be feared and respected. He had no such reputation here, and currently didn't want one. Better that the lords of Westeros didn't know too much about him or his abilities. That would be why he was going to such efforts to trick the North into believing the tale of wildling raiders in the Wolfswood.
He stole horses, weapons, supplies and other gear, and what he could not take he tried to destroy. He wanted to make it seem that there were more of him than there were, and he knew he'd been successful from the brief interrogations he'd made against soldiers he'd dragged off sometimes.
One day though he returned to the skinning camp and found Rodrick and his brothers kneeling before a familiar face.
"To arms! Seize him, men!" Ser Kyle Condon called, surprised by Greyback as he rode easily into the camp. He'd smelled the men, but knew they must be northern soldiers, and had no fear of them. His face brought Ser Kyle up swiftly in surprise, "It's you!" he exclaimed, and ordered his men to stand down.
"Aye." Greyback replied, stepping down off his horse, "It is. Rodrick see to this."
The boy looked uneasily between the werewolf and the Cerwyn knight.
Greyback felt his anger rise. He stalked toward the boy, past the Cerwyn swords and took him roughly by the shoulder, thrusting him toward the bear's carcass on the sled behind his mount.
"And see to the horse too!" he snarled.
They were parasites. Rodrick had brought up higher payment again and Greyback didn't want to hear about it. He already let them keep as much meat as they wanted, and he knew they'd sent some of it back to their village. These were his kills, and he'd already given them a month's wages for the work they did.
The idea of someone trying to take what was his enraged Greyback. He didn't entirely know why, but he wasn't inclined to sit and think about it when there was killing to be done. Not more than a week ago one of the merchants he transacted with had brought up the issue of taxes. Greyback would pay no such thing, he'd assured the merchant, but the man had only shaken his head and said he'd have to take it up with Winterfell's steward if he had such an attitude.
The werewolf was still angry about that.
Ser Kyle gestured for his men to disperse and Greyback looked around the camp more carefully. Several of the poles which would hold skins had been toppled, and some of the stores rifled through. "Is this your doing?" he asked, gesturing to the uproar.
It was clear that the Cerwyn party had come upon the camp and made to search it. They wouldn't have found anything. Greyback had stashed his ill-gotten gains in the hollow stump of a tree he'd found. He had acquired much that might be useful to him, and he now had all the accoutrements of a mercenary including a selection of weapons, a good brigandine, a helm and a shield he'd need to strip the Stark sigil off, or have repainted. He didn't entirely need such things, but it was a uniform that would make people less suspicious of him, he thought.
It was a shame he'd not be able to keep much of the other things he'd taken. Certainly, if dozens of Stark men had been killed in the woods and he turned up the next day to try and sell their armour, he'd be arrested and executed as a murderer or at least a looter. However, stealing the equipment was still important as it was what the northerners thought the Wildlings would do. They wouldn't ever find the stuff though, he'd been throwing weapons and similar in ponds and rivers.
"It is, aye." Ser Kyle replied. The tension in the scene had almost left and now the Cerwyn men were milling about waiting for their knight to finish his enquires.
"And will you compensate me for it?" Greyback asked, "Your men have ruined that hide, look at it!" and he pointed to one skin now on the ground, marred by mud and dirty snow from where the men had trodden over it.
He was moderately angry with the idea of the Cerwyn men interfering with his camp, but in truth Greyback was also playing a part. Who would suspect a man of murders when he appeared so interested in the state of furs?
Ser Kyle regarded the fur, then Greyback. "I will not." he said evenly. "I have pursued reports of camps in the woods and done so in a manner I feel is fair and just. You may speak to Lord Cerwyn about it, if you find my conduct questionable."
That was actually a decent answer, and Fenrir grunted in response. He remembered that Kyle had been polite before as well, a worthy enough man, it seemed given he'd not risen to Fenrir's bait.
"This is good work by them, you know." Ser Kyle said lightly.
"Not good enough for the coin I pay for it." Fenrir growled back.
"All the kills are yours, I assume? I was suspicious at first, especially given the way you fled Castle Cerwyn." Ser Kyle continued.
"I fled nowhere. Your lord gave me no respect, so I had no reason to give him any." Greyback shrugged.
"You may see it as that. I would advise you though that although I don't consider it credible, some have wondered whether you might be a Wildling spy. It seems incredible that a single man might so successfully track and kill so many beasts. How'd you do it?"
Fenrir just tapped the broad knife at his belt and Kyle raised an eyebrow.
"Well, in any case, I'll see that you're left alone. Strictly speaking, some lords might have a problem with this, especially the deer. This is Lord Stark's land, only he has the rights to hunt deer on it." Kyle said, "Wolves, bears, these hogs would all be fine and I know Lord Stark has greater things on his mind at the moment. In any case, be careful. Lord Cerwyn heard of a skinning camp and that naturally that concentrated his attention."
Greyback looked at him in confusion, or at least, his best attempt at confusion. "Why?" he asked.
The werewolf knew exactly why.
"More than fifty men have been killed over the past two weeks." Ser Kyle said. "Some the wolves got to before we did, but others more recently. How much do you know about the wildlings in the woods at the moment?"
"Little enough." Fenrir replied easily, "I've been out in the deep woods hunting, I spend most of my nights out there, I've not been back to Winterfell in a few days. I've come across the patrols, tramping about."
Ser Kyle made a humming noise, drawing slightly closer, "In brief then, as I said many men have been killed. There is talk of running skirmishes across the woods. First it was thought there were hundreds of wildlings, then only fifty, but fearsome and savage ones no doubt, but now Lord Cerwyn says there are hundreds again. We've found none of their dead, but we think they'd carried them off instead of leaving them for us. One of the Tallart sons was killed and Torren's Square's banners are all out in the southern reaches of the Wolfswood seeking vengeance."
"And?" asked Fenrir. He could deceive skilfully sometimes, but it was beyond his abilities to pretend at compassion in that instance. Not when he'd enjoyed his own work so much.
"Many of the dead were scalped." Kyle said, and Greyback saw him suppress a shiver.
The North could be a savage place. But these knights and lords weren't used to it.
Greyback said nothing, he had no desire to reveal himself, but he couldn't deny that he savoured the man's fear.
That night he donned his new cloak. It was best to separate Fenrir Greyback, hunter and mercenary, from the wildlings who were killing the northerners. The werewolf set aside the bearskin given to him as thanks by the villagers and instead set a grizzly trophy on his shoulders.
In his youth, Fenrir had stayed in Britain. He'd walked the ancient woodlands as a wolf, hidden in the slums to evade the Werewolf Capture Unit, he'd fought the Aurors and the Ministry. Later though, when he'd already spoken with the small communities of werewolves in Wales or the hills of England he'd decided to look further afield. Through Massif Central and the sons of Gévaudan to the caves of the bauks in Serbia, further on to single city of werewolves he knew of deep in the Siberian wastes. There was one community though from which Greyback had drawn the greatest inspiration.
The cloak of dead mens' hair flapped behind him as he slew that night.
The Wildesheer were the most violent werewolves in Europe, perhaps the world. They used potions and rituals in an attempt to induce the transformation of the werewolf. Greyback had been sceptical at first when he'd watched them, he'd known that lycanthrope was only affected by a single night each month upon the full moon but then Greyback had watched, amazed, as he saw their teeth lengthen, their muscles bulge, their nails grow and their hair grow into great manes. They scalped their enemies, only the worthy from the ranks of the finest warriors they encountered, showing no distinction between Muggle and Wizard. They would fight trolls and vampires, they'd fought Grindenwald and the Knights of Walpurgis in the old war, only for the world to forget about them. Their ideology was blood and struggle, and a longing for a death in battle. He had hunted with them for three years, learning their ways till he'd departed. He disagreed with their philosophy, for they'd only turn those they considered worthy, and those who had already killed another of the Wildesheer. They were a dying breed, Greyback knew, but they'd curse the sun before they faded away completely.
Greyback had sewn himself a cloak like the Wildesheer used. They claimed it gave them powers of invincibility, and when he'd been with them Greyback hadn't know enough of rune and enchantment to know differently, though he suspected the cloaks did have some sort of power. Of the scalps of twenty men, the ones he'd had enough time to properly skin, he'd sewn the rough garment. He wore it now, luxuriating in the trophy and the dark power it gave him.
There was ancient magic, he knew. Magic the likes of which most modern Wizards had forgotten. Magic of blood and sacrifice. He wielded it now, darting amidst the patrols untiringly, slaying as he went and laughing all the while. Upon his face was a mask of bone-white weirwood, painted now with the blood of the northmen.
He let them see him this time, he wanted it. He wanted their rage and their eagerness.
A dozen men cowered around a weirwood. He stepped inside the sacred grove, long knife in one hand, axe in another. He killed them there, under the eyes of the Old Gods, their blood seeping into the roots of the tree, strengthening it.
He didn't understand the magic of the heart trees yet, but he would in time. Till then he could feel the holy weight around them and made his own sacrifice.
He left the last man alive, cowering among his dead comrades.
"I am Hati of the Ironwoods. I am Moon-Brother, Skin-Walker." Greyback told the man, drawing close with his carved mask. "Tell your lord I and my brothers wait for him in the caves to the north. I will mark the way."
As soon as the man made it back to his camp, Greyback saw movement. Hundreds of northerners were streaming back into the main camp on the outskirts of the Wolfswood. Would Tallhart, full of vengeance, sounded horn and trumpet to rally their men-at-arms, while Cerwyn's troops and Stark followed on.
They followed the body parts. Fenrir had nailed hands to trees to show them the route. There were no theatrics, no feasting, just fel-handed, dour men readying for battle.
If there were counsellors who advised against rushing in, Fenrir saw no sign of them. Tallhart had sworn bloody oaths to hunt down the wildlings, supposedly, and Fenrir would oblige him.
He could feel the change, tugging inside his skin, he could feel his beast, that hungry creature inside his heart.
The moon was coming.
Fenrir killed more men on the march, throwing spears or shooting at horses as the northerners made their way forward. This only enraged them more though and he mocked them as he dodged away from their responses.
"Come and meet your son, Tallhart!" he called merrily, then threw back his head and howled long and loud.
It spooked the northerners, but Fenrir delighted in it.
Energy was surging through him as the moon drew near, just behind the clouds. He could sense its pull, its promise.
Wolves howled on the wind around the army and Fenrir howled with them. His scalp-cloak flew in the carnage as he swung a great axe to and fro. He had no true skill in weapons, and more than once the soldiers cut and stabbed at him. It was enough though to laugh and slay, his healing, his speed, his strength would see him through.
He bled freely, limping back to the cave with a crossbow bolt in the meat of his thigh. He turned, a screaming northerner leaping from his horse with a dagger, sinking it between Greyback's ribs before the werewolf opened the man's throat.
No matter, he could smell the change coming.
Fenrir had scouted the cave weeks ago, not finding a use for it then, but pursuing the old scent of a bear which had made its den there. The smell was of earth and dust and cloying dampness. It was old and dead, the rubbings of fur and droppings mixed with the smell of little birds or bats.
Greyback crawled inside, he knew the layout well enough and he could see, even as his eyesight faded as he lost blood.
This was the edge of death, the tension and the glory the Wildesheer preached. Here was the time of greatest life, when death was closest.
The cave's floor was rough and uneven and Greyback stumbled as he fled. He lay in the quiet, too weak to move.
The weight of the cave bore him down. The weight of the rock above him, Fenrir crawled further, into the guts of the earth, into ancient tunnels where men sheltered from the cold long ago.
A man died at the entrance of the last great chamber. A man throws aside his cloak, his mask. A man rips off his clothing and rips out the dagger stuck in his side, the bolt in his leg. A man crawls, retreats from the jeering soldiers, flees into the darkness.
Eyes watched the man in the darkness, gimlet glimmerings amidst the roots of the world.
A lord in green and brown plate mail strode forward with burning brand. He looked down, then turned to his attendants, "Search them out, there must be more."
He bent to the corpse on the floor, the tip of his dagger forward to inspect the foeman's face.
A wolf snarled. Eyes wide, pupils narrowed to slits, heart burning as it brought the man crashing down, teeth lengthening as his jaw cracked, his skin split.
Fur lengthened as he ate the man's heart. Claws sharpened, piercing the mail and crushing the sinews.
Fenrir Greyback rose again, wounds healed, muzzle dripping with viscera and blood. He was great and hideous in the flickering torchlight, beautiful and terrible he stalked forward, a swipe of his claws sending the head of another Tallhart man flying.
He bounded forward on all fours, crashing against the men. He leapt from one to another, slashing with his claws, leaping to crush men under his bulk or gnawing and gnashing with his teeth.
The werewolf howled again, shattering the ancient solemnity of the cave. The beast strode forth, slaying in all the chambers of the structure, going from cave to cave, springing out of the earth and killing those above on the surface, then clawing his way back into the earth, dragging screaming men with him.
The soldiers bore steel against him, and several knots of Stark men-at-arms banded together at their banner, their commander had a soft look, there was too much fat on him but he wore his mail well and held a longsword as he rallied his warriors.
Fenrir sprang upon him, bringing captain and banner down amidst flailing claws spraying blood and guts in a wide arc. Greyback bit clean through his neck and felt the spurting blood wash over his chest, even while he felt bolts and spears pierce his sides. He rose, howled once more and killed again.
For a time Greyback lost himself amidst the slaughter. He tried to keep hold of his beast, to control himself, but he raced and killed and became more a wolf than man, and in the morning he found himself far from the charnel pit he'd made in the caves.
There was a glorious soreness all over his body and he'd woken naked as he always did the day after full moon.
The werewolf lay there on the floor for a time. The heat from his body had melted the snow around him over night and he looked up into wonderous blue sky. His senses were always more powerful for a few days after the change, he simply felt more, felt greater than a normal man. He breathed, tasting the battle more than a league away, if he judged it right.
Fenrir made his way up to the high hill to see what there was to see, and to dress himself. He returned to the skinning camp to show his face to the boys and see to their work, telling them his hunt that day had been unsuccessful. He heard from them about groups of men passing through the forest the day before.
Greyback followed them. The trail was not hard to find and the detritus of the march toward the caves was easy to see, there were discarded items, some lost on the march, some thrown away when they fulfilled their function like a broken spear.
Had he broken that spear? Probably, he didn't remember, it might have been last night, or it could have been days ago.
He rode on till he heard the screams, bursting through the forest into a wide clearing as the trees thinned on the hillside toward the caves above.
Once again, he found Ser Kyle, the knight's face bloody, his tabard torn in several places, though Greyback noticed they were cuts, not rips.
"Greyback!" Kyle called in surprise, "How do you come to be here?"
Fenrir dismounted, coming swiftly to the man's side, "My boys told me of soldiers in the woods, and I thought I heard horn calls last night. What happened, did you find the wildlings?"
Ser Kyle's face was drawn and tired. There were deep bags under his eyes and he'd seen horrors.
The snow in the clearing was strewn with blood. The remaining soldiers had rallied to here, it seemed to Greyback, and even now some of them stood guard while others rolled on the floor, screaming as they died.
"We found something…" Kyle said darkly, "I didn't arrive till almost dawn, Lord Cerwyn gave me his sternguard to command. He is dead I think, or lost, for no man can say where he is. I find myself in command, but we haven't enough supplies for all these wounds."
"What happened?" Greyback asked again, hiding his glee.
Even here, there were the remnants of battle. The smell of death, of blood and guts, of men who'd emptied their bowels before they'd died, was everywhere. Ser Kyle commanded his hundred and had drawn up wagons in a crude wall while a few women and servants tried to tend to the injured. Greyback regarded them, his claws had clipped a few of them, or perhaps his teeth had been turned by armour and not bitten deep enough to kill.
One man was clutching a bunch of amulets at his throat and praying in a fast, low tongue, while another stared blankly, his hands slick with blood loosely holding a spear.
The camp was a testament to the power and savagery of Greyback's true self, and he looked upon it with pride. Now was time to capitalise on it though.
"I can't get much of sense out of them. The wildling chieftain showed himself, 'Moon-Brother', he called himself. Lord Stark ordered caution for it was clear it was a trap, but Lord Tallhart pushed forward in fury for Moon-Brother had killed his son and Lord Cerwyn didn't want to be left exposed without Tallhart's support, so he went forward too. I was to bring up the rear, but once I got here the battle was already over." Kyle said rapidly, speaking low still to not scare the men. "Moon-Brother, or his folk, the reports are unclear, struck at them on the march and left mocking trophies, men nailed to trees and the like. Apparently Moon-Brother was killed several times, for more than one man swears they saw him stuck with spears or arrows. I think it was many of them, dressed the same perhaps. The messenger he sent to us, one of ours he'd spared, spoke of a bone mask and a cloak of scalps, it would be easy enough to make several of those I suppose but either way, Lord Tallhart apparently wounded him and pursued him, or someone dressed like him, into the caves."
Kyle shuddered, drawing a hand across his face to wipe away the blood, but only managed to smear it across his face more instead. Greyback tasted the air, Kyle was scared, but not actually injured, it wasn't his blood. There was steel in him and resolve.
"After that, it's not clear what happened. Moon-Brother and his wildlings made their ambush, that much is clear. The men speak of monsters surging out of the caves, or from out of the ground. I inspected the ground up there a bit, there's holes down into the cave I guess where the wildlings were hiding, they must have prepared this weeks ago." Kyle said, shaking his head, "Tallhart is dead, a monster ate him apparently, no one knows what happened to Lord Cerwyn. Rodrick Cassel, who led the Stark forces, is also dead. The men speak of monsters, great beasts like a bear or a wolf tearing at them. The battle happened at night, the wildlings wore fur cloaks and fought savagely. Maybe they even had hounds, for I've heard they do keep beasts sometimes."
It was an admirable conclusions, Greyback thought. He'd known no one would believe tales of beasts, or that the tales would be exaggerated in passing. If Ser Kyle gave such a report to Lord Stark, Greyback would have little to fear. The man had his respect, Greyback was realising. He was courteous enough, honourable and capable.
"What can I do?" Greyback asked.
Kyle looked at him in surprise. "I had thought to ask you what you might do, but I hadn't hoped you'd agree."
"There are more important things than furs." Fenrir answered.
Kyle smiled a little at that. "Very well, in the name of the Old Gods and the New, go into the cave and see what there is to be seen there. Find Lord Cerwyn if you can, or bring back news of the dead if not. If the wildlings are there I must know if it, I doubt we could repel another force, the men are terrified."
"And then?"
"If you can find some token of the wildlings all the better. Then I'd ask you ride hard for Winterfell. Lord Stark must know of this. I'll write you a note, and seal it with Cerwyn's sigil. I don't trust any of the men here to ride back, they're scared and many have already deserted. I tried to persuade them, to stay here, told them it was safer, but they didn't listen and I fear they're already being hunted down by the wildlings. You know the woods, you'll be able to get though."
Greyback nodded going up into the cave. He picked his way through the bodies, marvelling at the way blood had sprayed up the walls during his slaughter.
He quickly stepped over the dead, and thrust down with his blade whenever he sensed someone still living. The greater the obfuscation of his doings, the better. He retrieved his mask and cloak, tying it into a bundle with a belt and heading back to Ser Kyle without bothering to check for Cerwyn.
"There were some living in there, on the verge of death, I gave them peace." he explained, handing over the bundle.
Kyle's hand shot up, gripping his arm, "You killed them? They lived and you killed them?"
"I did. One man's face was half open, you don't have a dozen maesters here, you've got camp followers. To even get them down here would have killed them, would you rather then suffer?"
Kyle closed his eyes for a moment and muttered a prayer, "Mother's mercy be theirs… What else?"
"Bodies and more bodies. I couldn't tell much, but I did find these." Greyback explained, motioning to the items he'd retrieved. Though for one of the Wildesheer they'd rather death than be parted from their skin-cloaks, to Greyback they had much less meaning.
Ser Kyle was inspecting the cloak, puzzling over the stitching, lifting a flap and finding bloody skin beneath he froze, slowly lowering the section and swallowing. "Bear this to Lord Stark. Here, my report. By the Gods beg him for aid, we need it sorely."
Greyback promised he would and leapt into his saddle. He spurred the horse on, down the forest roads and through deer trails he knew well. He had done a good night's work here, and with luck he would soon see whether or not the muggles here could survive his bite. If they could, this would be the start of lycanthropy's spread on Westeros.
"Let me pass!" he called up to Winterfell's gates as he rode up. He had more or less killed his horse, but it was only rented anyway. "Tallhart, Cerwyn and Cassel are dead, I have a message from Ser Kyle to Lord Stark!"
The gates opened quickly.
This was the first time he'd been in the true castle of Winterfell. The gates had been closely guarded since the wildling threat had been known, but Greyback didn't have time to appreciate the might fortress. A dozen guards came up quickly, seeing the bloody bundle in his arms. One man in blue-grey plate and a thin cloak demanded the report and Greyback handed it over.
The knight shivered and made to inspect the bundle. He did not take it, only peered at it, then steeled himself.
"Follow me, Lord Stark must hear of this. Hob, Mallin, send for the maester and Steward Poole."
They went on through the castle. Greyback tried to pay attention to the layout, but one disadvantage of the days following the transformation was the sensitivity to stimuli, and he tried to dampen it by concentrating on the floor in front of him and the sounds of footsteps.
The guard captain took him up stairs and down corridors. Greyback tried not to sense the smells around him, they were incredibly strong after the sensations of the previous night. Then they came to a large door, which the captain knocked on, then opened swiftly without waiting for an answer.
A man and a woman were waiting within in close conference. They were both in their thirties and richly dressed, their faces lined with stress, though both were handsome enough.
This was the solar, or parlour of Lord Stark. Greyback was used to them, plenty of the older families in Malfoy's circle had them. It was a place to relax and to receive guests, and Greyback supposed it might have been seen as rude for him to just have dumped a skin-cloak down on Stark's desk. It was a spacious enough room, comfortable in it's furnishings and with many more expensive items than Lord Cerwyn's. He didn't know why there was a bed in the corner, did Stark sleep here sometimes? Strange but he'd slept in some strange places himself too. Other than that a brief glance around met with the table, a high seat carved with wolves, a bookshelf full of tomes, chests and wardrobes, a heart burning gently and a number of impressive tapestaries. On the mantle there was a single blue rose in a pot with a tree on it.
"Lord Stark, Lady Stark, this man bears a dire message from Ser Kyle and the forces in the woods. Lord Tallhart is slain, Lord Cerwyn too… and Ser Rodrick." said the captain.
Was the man related to the knight? Greyback saw some family resemblance, if he looked closely, but he didn't know the folk of Winterfell well enough to tell. Certainly it seemed the guard captain felt more strongly about Cassel's death than the others.
Lord Stark nodded stiffly. He was man grave of face and form with a silvering beard and solemn eyes. "We will avenge him, if it is so, Jory." he said in a strong voice.
Just then another man came in, and two more after him. The first was a maester from his grey robes and chain, a small man with a woollen hood over a balding pate, while the second was more richly dressed, the steward, Poole, Greyback guessed. He did not know the third man, another solemn looking fellow all dressed in black.
Lord Stark motioned for them to join him, handing the message he'd been give to the man in black, "Read it, Ben." he ordered.
The other man cleared his throat, drawing the message out flat on the table.
"Lord Stark," the man, 'Ben', began, "I regret to inform you that we have suffered a heavy loss at the hands of the wildlings. They lured us into a trap by raiding our camps and then fleeing into the caves. Lord Tallhart and Lord Cerwyn led a force of two hundred men to pursue them, but they were ambushed in the dark by a larger number of savages. I brought up the rear and arrived after the battle. Both lords were slain, along with most of their men, as well as Ser Rodrick."
The steward, Poole, swore under his breath and cursed the wildlings to the Seven Hells.
Ben continued, "I have rallied the survivors but many are wounded and in need of care. Through the account of my messenger, the wildlings have quit the caves, or retreated further within to some secret place. I have no way of knowing their numbers or their plans. They have shown no mercy or honour in their attacks, and we fear they will strike again soon. We are outnumbered and outmatched, and we cannot hold this position for long. I pray you only move with a strong force. The wildlings fought savagely and with great guile, digging pits and attacking by night, imitating beasts with howls and fur cloaks. I urgently request your aid, my lord. We need reinforcements, supplies, and medical assistance. We remain loyal and faithful to you and your house, and we hope to see you soon. This messenger can give further account."
The man in black set the message down and the maester swiftly seized it up, going to the window to read it better in the light.
"It is signed by Ser Kyle Codon, a knight of Lord Cerwyn's household." Lord Stark said, "He is a steady man, by Cerwyn's account, I do not believe him prone to exaggeration."
"This is grave news indeed, my lord." Lady Stark said, "The wildlings must have prepared this ambush for some time, if Ser Kyle reports them digging pits."
"The hills in the north are full of caves and passages. It's possible they scouted it some time ago, then made their own excavations to take advantage of the terrain." Poole said, "The Mountain Clans would know more, but we've had no word of them about large bands of wildlings lately."
"There are cave-dwelling clans in the Frostfangs." Ben said, "We've not seen them much, they tend to keep to themselves. We had no news of this Moon-Brother though, only Mance Rayder. I think perhaps Moon-Brother is one of the chiefs from further north, past the Skirling Pass."
"What is this evil thing?" Lady Stark asked in a high voice, nodding at the bundle of the skin-cloak.
"It is as the survivor said a few days ago, Moon-Brother wears a cloak of scalps. This must be it, or something like it." Lord Stark said.
"It is an evil thing!" Lady Stark repeated, "Take it away, let the Septon pray over it for the men's souls, then burn it."
Lord Stark nodded and one of the guards removed the bundle, leaving only the bloody weirwood mask. Then Stark took it and tossed it in the hearth.
Fenrir suppressed a smile as he stared at the blackening wood.
"You are Fenrir Greyback." Stark said to the werewolf, "You have been killing bears in the forest and selling their fur. You lost your memory and were wandering in the woods a month ago. How did you come to receive Ser Kyle message? Did you accompany his force?"
It did not surprise Greyback that Stark recognised him, he had a distinctive face after all and he'd been in Wintertown a bit. Cerwyn would have reported to Stark about him, and he'd hardly been hiding. Greyback explained himself briefly and waited for more questions.
How many did Ser Kyle retain? What was their condition?
What had he seen inside the cave?
Had he heard or seen more of the wildlings in his hunts?
Greyback answered each carefully, and Lord Stark asked for suggestions from his council.
"We must quickly draw back the smallfolk in the Wolfswood." said Lady Stark, "If Moon-Brother and his savages come upon them they will surely be killed."
"No." Ben said, "The first village was the lure. You might draw them back, Ned, but the wildlings wanted to draw out real soldiers. Moon-Brother is clever in his barbarism, he drew in our forces and Ser Cassel. Furthermore, he has clearly prepared for longer than many wildlings if he's garbed his warriors in similar clothing and used tactics like these to disguise his numbers."
"Should we send men in to the caves?" Stark asked.
"I wouldn't. Or, if you did, do it carefully. Call the Mountain Clans to press into the caves from the north, they'll have more experience than any of ours."
Stark nodded and gave orders. The man in black would ride out with hundreds more men and supplied to relieve Ser Kyle while the guard captain rode for the Mountain Clans to warn them. Apparently they had no ravens.
Greyback thought it was all going rather well.
Stark sat after a time, leaning back and staring out the window. "I will call the banners. I will not have wildlings murdering my folk."
"You are Warden of the North, husband. Should you write to the King?" his wife asked.
Stark considered. "I will write him, but any aid he'd send will take months to arrive. No, I will call the banners of Barrowtown, the Rills, and send for men from White Harbour. If this is the start of a great invasion of Wildlings we must be ready, if it is only an enterprising chieftain, I will take him and his head for his crimes."
"If Moon-Brother managed to get a strong enough force past the Wall, the Mountain Clans, and through the Wolfswood without discovery it may be that he can do it again going north. If he is a chieftain of such skill and command that he can retain the obedience of his fellows, even over such a march, and now if he has steel weapons and armour from the force defeated in the woods then Moon-Brother may contest Mance Rayder as King-Beyond-the-Wall." the maester said.
Now wasn't that a thought, Fenrir Greyback; king!
"I must advise strong action here, my lord." the maester continued. "The deaths of two masterly lords and of your castellan reflect poorly on you, regardless of your actions. The succession of House Tallhart will be in dispute. I advise you to bring Lady Eddara here to foster, for she has the legal right to the house after her brother and father's deaths. Leobald Tallhart may cause trouble, but if named as castellan and regent for Lady Eddara, he may be sated. Meanwhile, I would advise you to bring Lord Cley here swiftly, given your friendship with his father."
"I am minded to, though I am grieved indeed at Medger's death." Lord Stark replied.
The maester bowed and left, no doubt doing to send the messages.
Lord Stark looked at Greyback. "You are an unusual man, and perhaps the Gods have sent you here at this time. It is strange indeed, that you would be found at the first village to be destroyed, and subsequently to be on hand to assist Ser Kyle. Explain your movements of the last few days." he ordered.
Greyback just said that he had been hunting. He had been careful to let Rodrick and the boys see him each day, and to visit there early this morning too before visiting the battle site.
Stark only grunted, no doubt he'd be checking up on the story in due course.
"You are not to leave the castle grounds." Stark ordered. "You are a man of unusual abilities and talents, to fight bears with only a long knife. I would have use for a man of such worth. I will give you a purse of silver to stay here, and I will order my guards to be wary of letting you leave. From Lord Cerwyn's and Ser Kyle's previous reports, you may have just been in the wrong place at the right time, but it still seems strange to me, and I know not what to think of it. I know you are no wildling spy, you are too unsubtle for it, and besides I think any man of your cast would be easily recognised."
Stark paused, meeting Greyback's eyes. The werewolf didn't back down.
"There are other men who can fight like you. Greatjon Umber in the North, Strongboar or the Mountain-that-Rides in the south, and Benjen tells me of a wildling calling himself 'Husband to Bears' of surpassing strength. There are bad reports about you, that you have a savage demeanour, that you fled the keep of Cerwyn against the lord's orders, or that you have little care for the taxes and duties of the Realm. I believe a spy would want to seem more friendly… and I think a blackguard would seem fairer. You are a contradiction, but one I cannot attend to now. Will you agree to remain within the walls, to settle your affairs beyond and to come when I have need of you?" Stark asked.
This suited Greyback just fine. He had planned to gain access to Winterfell. At first he'd though to try and sell a wolf pelt to Lord Stark, but he'd not known whether the man (who's sigil was a direwolf) would interpret that as an insult or not, and besides he's not seen any wolves with pelts magnificent enough for the lord of a Great House.
"I agree to your terms." the werewolf said plainly. There would be some negotiation no doubt, but that could come in time.
"Good. Let us-" Stark began, but the door banged open behind Greyback.
"Father!" a young girl's voice rang out as a vision swept past the werewolf. "The servants are saying Ser Rodrick is dead, that the wildlings are marching on Winterfell!"
Lady Stark leapt to her feet, "Sansa! The door is closed, your father is in council! Away girl, back to your Septa!"
Lord and Lady Stark attended to their daughter but Fenrir was struck dumb.
His fingers twitched.
Her hair, it looked so soft.
His claws winked in the firelight as he longed to grasp the girl.
He could see her heartbeat as she stood not a foot from him from where she'd burst into the room. He could see her blood rushing through her neck.
Fenrir felt his mouth water.
Sweat beaded under the girl's ear, he could smell her…
The girl, Sansa, turned. She perceived Greyback as if in slow motion, her deep blue eyes, deep like the sea, widened in fear as she beheld his form. The werewolf could not stop himself from smiling, from licking his lips at the sight of her, tongue running wetly over pointed teeth.
He could smell her nectar, it filled him, heady and powerful. She was roses and frost in the dawn.
Fenrir knew she'd be tender. Knew if he but reached out, he skin would be soft.
He loved soft skin.
Greyback didn't hear the rest of what was said. He recognised a dismissal from Lord Stark as the Warden and his wife harangued their daughter for her impetuousness.
He would remain in Winterfell, he decided.
And when he left, he would take Sansa Stark away with him. The girl would be his, and the werewolf grinned at the thought.
Oh right. This is Fenrir Greyback.
I now hope that when he tries to take Sansa Stark, that he gets killed by Eddard (infected with Lycanthropy by Greyback) and we end up switching protagonists
I now hope that when he tries to take Sansa Stark, that he gets killed by Eddard (infected with Lycanthropy by Greyback) and we end up switching protagonists
Yeah, I think Fenrir is feeling a little too comfortable after his successes. He just eye-fucked Sansa in a room with 4-5 other people. I wouldn't be surprised if that was noticed. Now I'm wondering how he'll hold up against Valyrian steel.
Also liked the possibility of going back over the Wall. While it may be a bit of a cliche for the fandom, I don't think I've seen one where the mc makes his reputation in the south before going back. There's a legitimacy angle there I don't think I've seen explored.
Also liked the possibility of going back over the Wall. While it may be a bit of a cliche for the fandom, I don't think I've seen one where the mc makes his reputation in the south before going back. There's a legitimacy angle there I don't think I've seen explored.