The Lupine Curse: A Tale of Netherway

Up in the highest, strongest limbs of a willow tree sat two Crowshead peasants. Their legs dangled in the open air. Droplets fell from the drooping branches. The midnight sky was filled with stars hidden behind dark storm clouds and an amber moon to distract the eye from it all. The peasants’ skin showed through the tatters of the coarse linen they wore; torn bottoms of pants and tunics that were little comfort against the early autumn wind.

Crowshead was built on a cliff, stowed away from the rest of the Moonlands. The road leading into the village cut through a steep hill. At the end of the village’s cliff, near the tip with the old willow, a large river rushed below, through a valley bordered by ridges lush with trees.

The two peasants looked down at the river, unafraid. Years of climbing the tree and perching on the limbs taught them they were safe. Behind them were two rows of cottages--merely a dozen or so, with thatch roofs, oaken doors, and stone walls, a few glowing with candlelight. Most of the Crowshead villagers would not leave their cottages after sunset, or even burn any candles, but the impending storm had put a spell of sleeplessness upon them all.

Deidre looked at Fenris, touching her upper lip lightly with numb fingers, a habit she had developed since she was old enough to feel insecure of the disfiguration there. “Hasn’t been a storm like this in years,” she remarked. Her eyes were big, implying innocence, but life in the Moonlands for peasants—especially orphaned ones—meant growing resilient as soon as time would allow, and there was a callousness behind her stare.

Fenris was a year older, but not as quick to learn; his childhood softened by a mother’s care. Gazing at the storm cloud, he murmured, “Do you suppose the gods are angry at us?” Up here in the dizzying heights of the branches it seemed they could climb over the clouds and meet the gods who sprinkled droplets onto them. Then he met Deidre’s blue eyes that, sometimes in the moonlight, appeared to be violet. “They seem to be speaking in tongues of lightning these days.”

“I never know what to think of the gods,” Deidre replied. Her breath warmed his face which had gone red and cold from the night’s chill. He smiled at that, and she smiled back, but it was far from genuine. “They haven’t done me any good,” she mumbled.

Fenris continued to stare at her, his eyes trailing down to her harelip. It was the first thing anyone noticed when they looked at her; a mark of Siflos—the same god who created the Leors, the races of satyrs and half-bats and men whose bodies weren’t entirely one creature or another. And although time had healed most of her own mark to a faded, pink scar, she was still cursed in the eyes of others.

“Well … I’ve done you some good, haven’t I?” he offered as he inched closer to her.

She looked at him with an eternal trust, and lifted his arm to put around her shoulder. “Of course,” she said, letting her head fall into the soft skin of his chest.

When her wet hair pressed through his already soaked shirt, Fenris closed his eyes.

He remembered how his mother’s warmth instilled that same comfort. She would nuzzle her head against his chest like a wolf with her cub. It was safety; it was home. The thought made him grin. There was a rush of old love with an ensuing ache of loss.

He sniffled, and blinked until the tears went back. It had only been a month ago that she died.

Then Deidre came out with something that they both knew, but had not heard. “If you don’t find a way to earn coin or lend a hand, Boran and the rest of Crowshead will put you on the road. They can’t afford another beggar.” She wasn’t sure if it was the right time to speak the truth that’d been burdening her since his mother’s death. Then again, she wasn’t sure if there was ever a good time for something like that.

“Have you seen me begging for anything?” Fenris shot back, more aware of the emptiness in his stomach than he’d ever been. It had been tempting. But he made himself survive off what he found while foraging in the woods around the village. But after an encounter with a shadow cat and nearly losing his skin for a handful of mushrooms, he couldn’t even bring himself to do that anymore.

Deidre softened, afraid she had pushed away her only companion. “I didn’t mean—” she sighed. “All I meant to say is that you should help out the others when you can. Katherine needs help looking after Timothy when she’s doing other chores, and … ”

Fenris let his attention to the conversation trail off, too saddened to say anything, and too angry to listen to her. He watched the rapids rush beneath him, seeing his father’s body swept away after it smashed against boulders the size of giant’s fists. That image was always there, fresh. It still slightly surprised him he didn’t do the same after his mother died. Something had kept him from jumping, but gods know it wasn’t an empty stomach, and he’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t stepped to the edge before. Perhaps it was blind hope that kept him away.

“I don’t need someone to take care of me,” he said softly, not sure if it was true. His voice was thick with memories.

A silence passed as Deidre suspected where Fenris had gone to in his head. “You’re right, that’s exactly what you don’t need. You need to learn to take care of yourself,” she said, “not a reason to be thrown out onto the roads with only the clothes on your back. You can’t relax while you’re searching for another home, but here … you can let the world go on until you’re ready to leave. Boran will help you earn enough to eat if you become his farmhand.”

Deidre was wise, and more practical than Fenris, or anyone for that matter, gave her credit for.

Fenris grimaced, tore a leaf from the branch and watched it fall. Boran is no father, just big enough that people looked to him as the head of the village, he thought bitterly. He was thoroughly annoyed, now.

“I hate this little spit of land, Deidre. I don’t know how you can bear being here. They’ll curse you and point at your lip just until they need you for childbearing and the sick. Then it’s all coaxing and pulling. Curse this damned village!”

Fenris would’ve shook his arms angrily had it not meant losing his balance and falling off. Instead he shivered, and shook his head. “Sometimes I think I should just leave anyways. Find a new life. In a city somewhere. A blacksmith’s apprentice, maybe. I hear Westwind is good.” He shrugged, not knowing a single thing to do with blacksmithing, nor city life; knowing better that his words were as empty as he felt.

Deidre looked mournfully at the waters below, hearing the thunder getting louder. You wouldn’t survive, she thought. I would go with him if he left, but for the sick and the newborns, well, who else would weave those spells? But she didn’t wish to see him in a blacker mood, so she kept these things to herself.

Westwind rose up in her mind: tall grey castles with large houses of carved wood and statues of the divine in polished marble, some as pale as snow and others a faded and cracked grey of stone. The high-peaking mountains on either side of the city port, swaying with massive ships and small fishing boats. Mages, scholars, and craftsmen walking about the paved streets with content stomachs and minds full of luxuries, academics, studies. It seemed whenever she thought of those places, all she could do was shake her head and think, It’s just a dream.

The rains let loose volleys of frozen arrows, so the two companions left the tree for the shelter of someplace warmer. The first home was only a few paces from the willow. Just beyond it was the road, waterlogged and muddy, which split the rows of cottages apart. Fenris’ cottage was at the end of the left row, looking just as humble as the rest, except with an aura of loneliness and a faint odor of death.

When they were in front of his door, their bare feet were caked in mud, and tears stung at the edges of Fenris’ eyes. “We have to go inside,” Deidre said, gently nudging her friend. Fenris looked longingly at an empty stable to the far left of the row of cottages behind them. The slanted roof was not enough to shield them from the storm, though they had been shared the comfort of the dry straw in there for weeks now.

After Deidre’s mother passed years ago, two villagers were married. It was just her luck that they decided to take that home as their wedding gift, without her consent, of course. ‘Hares shouldn’t live in houses, they should live in holes with the rest,’ was what the husband said to her as he threw her out of the cottage. The gods had been vigilant in that, though, for that man lost his wife soon after.

Her father hadn’t been there to defend her, not since the first time he swaddled her in his arms, nearly dropping her the moment he saw her face. He wasn’t seen again after that day—the day of her birth. He was a talented warlock. There were whispers that he’d had elf blood in him, too. Though if he did, Deidre had gotten none of it, or at the very least it did not show in her face. Her ears were as round and plain as any human’s, and her eyes did not glow the way theirs did.

Lightning flashed, and for a moment the heads of their shadows went beyond the edge of the cliff. He pushed open the door. Musty air greeted the two of them. Deidre stepped in first, seeing memories clutching Fenris, holding him in the doorway. When a gust of wind whipped his back, the warmth coaxed him on. Fenris trod into the empty cottage, shaking.

He pulled the latch over the door.

They let darkness befriend them while the details of the room became less obscure. “There should be some firewood and kindling, there, by the table. And steel, though the flint may be too old,” he said, realizing how exhausted he was. He could feel his feet becoming heavier each step.

A meager stack of three logs were by a table set for ghosts. The wooden plates were empty, save for stale crumbs.

Before long Deidre had a fire going. The sound of crackling, spitting wood was overwhelmed by the steady downpour upon the roof, cradling them in a dark and steady sound that encouraged rest.

They made idle talk of dreams while the flames melted away trepidations of the future.

Fenris nestled his chin onto his knees. “My father once told me stories about Portsworth. He said it’s where the Sun and Moon-elves find peace. Even some of the Leors are welcomed there, because of all the trade. Did you know that you can take a ship to the Runelands from there?”

Deidre nodded. Another dream they shared. Portsworth was as finely erected by expert builders and architects as it was covered in snow. The waters of that seaside-city were often too frozen for travel during winter; a reminder of what lies across Morros’ Division. “And what would your trade be, Fenris?” she asked, knowing the answer, but asking anyways to help him shoo away darker thoughts.

“A blacksmith, for certain,” he said dreamily.

“Oh? Not an apprentice of the occult?” she continued, grinning wanly.

“Take a long, good look at me Deidre, do you think any practitioner would find use for a peasant? The academies only take in the elves, anyways. The magick is in their blood. Of all the knowledge your mother passed down to you, I’d thought you would’ve known that.” His tone was light, but his words hit her just the same. Practical alchemy and basic spellweaving was one thing, higher magick was quite the other.

Deidre hid the pain in her face. Fenris didn’t seem to realize how much sadness she felt when her mother was mentioned. Perhaps she was just better at hiding it. He was new to being an orphan. “I hear they accept humans more often nowadays,” she said. And she had indeed heard it during one of her runs to Gods’ Rest, a city just half a day’s walk away. “They say it’s because some elves are mixing with humans. The new races may not be the prettiest of folk, but they’re—”

Lightning flashed so close that the inside of the cottage erupted with light just from the two windows. The thunder followed, rumbling the hard-packed ground of the cottage. “That was close,” Fenris breathed, chest heaving from fright. “There could be a fire.” He looked around his home worriedly. There were a few books on a desk, a satchel, and corroded farming tools in one corner. Suddenly he wasn’t worried for them.

Then a long, lingering howl echoed in the valleys. Something eerily human was in the calls. “Gods, I’ve never heard one so close before.”

Deidre saw his fear with eyes just as wide and looked at the windows uneasily, expecting a massive wolf’s head to fill one of the windowpanes. She trembled. She realized Fenris had inched over to her, and was now clutching her tight.

She wasn’t certain for whom he was hugging her for.

“Gods favor us in this dark hour, before the light.” Deidre whispered the prayer, then closed her eyes, trying to remember all the tales of the Cursed. Were they useful? Were they true? Are the creatures as big as they all said? She tried to pray, but each thought was interrupted by the roar of thunder, or the thought of that beast.

Fenris hesitantly let go of her and went to the door. “What are you doing?” Deidre cried at him instantly. “It’s not safe!” She wished for his warmth again.

“If it’s coming for Crowshead we’ll be dead anyways sitting here. I’d rather know and die running.” The moment he drew back the latch, the door was thrust wide open from the fury of the storm. Howling winds filled the cottage while rain pierced Deidre repeatedly.

His body, illuminated by lightning in the doorway, weak before the unforgiving storm, was already burdened by that sight. He trembled, and it was all she needed to see.

A shadow was walking on hind legs, sniffing the air at the peak of the hill above Crowshead. Even from that distance, Fenris could see its eyes smoldering with a demonic, cold fire. Instantly all his worries were forgotten, and instead replaced with a fear that paralyzed him. The storm wasn’t so worrisome; he no longer noticed his hands and toes had gone numb and his chest seemed frosted over. Those eyes were looking at him.

Fenris fell back into the cottage, clutching the door and steadying himself. His mouth moved and he whispered something to the gods.

Deidre was pressed into a corner, clutching her knees.

“It’s coming,” he said.