LAIR OF THE WULF- a Barbarian in Chicago- part 2

The World Watches

As the entire world watched, aghast, the Indian leader, Wulf Gott, approached the camera. His face was flecked with the blood of those he had slain, and his face no longer resembled that of a calm, civilized, although powerful youth- he now could have been any of his ancestors. The exultation, and the satisfaction of death-dealing that was reflected in his visage could have been in that of one of his Viking ancestors. He raised his rifle as if it was a broadsword, and brandished it in front of the camera in defiance.

“Attack us again at your own peril!” he rumbled to the world. His jaw was set truculently, his massive fist knotted in defiance. “We did not ask for your attack, you did that on your own, and these casualties,” he spread his arm out over the field of the dead and injured, “are your own doing. Stay away from our free nation, you decadent city dwellers, and we shall not harm you!” And with that, he was grimly silent.

Behind him, however, a curious apparition was entering the glade. A black man, a youth really, but with eyes of shining gold, and wearing but a single eagle feather in a band about his head; clad in the buckskin clothing of an Indian walked towards Wulf and the camera. He seemed to be limned with yellow light, a light that followed him as he moved.

Wulf turned at his approach, and smiled with strong white teeth. “Jafiro- grandfather,” he said. Jafiro laid his lean hand on Wulf’s shoulder in a kind of paternal blessing, and gazed out into the camera. His gaze dominated and transfixed not only those in the clearing by the Ojibwe nation, but indeed the entire civilized world. There was a vitality about him not completely human.

“My grandson, Wulf, and the rest of our tribe, aye- all the children of the Great Spirit, have shown you defeat. A loss you sought yourself, for we wished you no harm. You will destroy yourselves, with your civilized ways that lead to decadence; we wish only to be separate from you. Leave us be. Or else,” he said, his curious golden eyes boring into those of the myriads of viewers around the world, “we will come for you!” He paused, and then a strange expression, that of the street smart kid he used to be on the streets of Chicago, suffused his previously almost godly countenance. He spoke again:

“Yo come up heah shootin’ lead

Ain’t US gonna wind up DEAD!”

And that is where the transmission ended, as Wulf, Trina, Akula and the other braves destroyed the cameras in a hail of bullets at the gesture of Jafiro, the reborn medicine man of the tribe.

Alone again in their beloved northwoods home, the Ojibwe carried the few survivors, including Danny Roberts, General Ronald Williams, and several more back into their reservation homeland. Wulf and Nikan put together a burial detail, readying the many corpses of the soldiers for an honorable burial. There had not been a single Indian casualty!