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Sam

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I can see their fire past the trees and brambles, and now I'm beginning to catch their voices, mumbling their way around songs that they can't even remember all the words to anymore . This is even worse than I feared.

Sliding quietly through a thicket, I get my first good look at them. Fewer than a dozen, all in Lupus or human­form, except for an ancient metis in a blanket by the fire. They're gathered on a flat promontory which overlooks the Pass and affords a broad view of the wastes which form the fro zen northernmost stretch of the Plain of the Apocalypse. At the peak of the promontory, facing the wastes, sits a great hulking brute, perhaps the only Ahroun in the lot. His jaw has sunk to his breast, and his snoring would rattle Gaia's bones. All the rest are lolling about the fire like a pack of moon calves.

When the wind turns, I get a snoutful of fumes from that cauldron they've all been dipping their jacks into. Luna only knows what they could've found around here to brew it from, or how long they've been knocking it back.

"Gawds above, but I am bored!" howls a particularly obese specimen.

"You say that every damn night, Gorbuc!" his mates snap back at him.

"Well, I'm bored every damn night! How long have we been here, anyway?"

"Longer than your sorted knob can reckon," wheezes the old one, "an' we'll be here 'til them Wyrmspawn out there makes their move! Now either say something useful or shaddap!"

"Leastways if one of us was a Moon Dancer these here night watches wouldn't take so long to pass," sighs a round-faced pup .

With eyes thin as razor slits, the old one hisses through clenched gums, "I. Am. A . Moon. Dancer."

"So let 's have us a tale, then, eh?" I say, tossing my words into the center of the fire . Give 'em a chance, I'm thinking; this may not be as bad as it looks. But the pack breaks into some of the most pitiful wails you ever did hear .

"No! N ot again!"

"Spare us!"

"For the love of Gaia!"

"He's takin' a deep breath - somebody stop "im quick! "

But no one actually makes a move, and the elder gathers his breath and starts.

"Well, seems there's this 01' Silent Strider, see, an' he's been strid in' all day long, an' he stops at this here farmhouse fer to put 'is paws up fer the night. . . "

"Is this the one where the farmer's daughter turns out to be a faerie changeling?" I toss in.

Legends of the Garou 3

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" 'Course it's that fookin' one!" bellows the one they called Gorbuc. "'S the only fookin' one he fookin' knows already!"

"Hold on, Gorbuc. Shut your hole for a minute," mutters a husky she-wolf, her gaze swaying back and forth across the pack. "Who was it said that, now?"

For a moment the pack is quiet, looking stupidly from one to another.

'''s the bloody fomors done snuck up on liS at last!" cries a lanky hatchet-faced ape, staggering to h is feet. "To arms! Battle stations!" He clears the fire and a few of his fellows in an impressively awkward bound and dashes into the thicket a few yards from me, where, with the aid of some dinging undergrowth and a low-hanging branch, he executes a triple somersault and lands in a gasping heap.

"Now why'd ye go and get poor Colin riled like that, F1ameback?"

"Yeah, prob'ly just some banshee having us on ... "

"If the Wyrmspawn was comin', Burle'd see 'em from miles off."

"Who're you foolin'? Burle'd sleep through the bloody Apocalypse!"

"He sleeps with one eye open, you know ... "

"Sure. And I'm a fookin' Celestine, ye didn't know?"

"If you don't believe it, go over there and see for yourselves."

"Nah, that's all right."

"We'll take your word for it."

Awen help me, but I may be too late to do any good here at all.

"Anyway, the War Council's so far away that this pass ain't doin' anybody any good . Us least of all! What is it we're to be doin' here? What would the bloody fomora get by takin' this pass?"

"An easy victory, for one," I say with my own mouth as I step into the firelight, "and a clear uncontested march straight up the Council's backside , for another."

Teeth are bared, feral fur stands on end and homid hands clench into fists. Every bloodshot eye on the promontory turns upon me, all save for Bude, who keeps sending those deep rumbling snores rolling out across the broad empty wastes.

"You want a story?" I say, my voice soft, but my posture challenging. "Here's one: Seems there was this Silent Strider, an anruth of course, and he had been charged by the War Council with patrolling all the border watches, making sure they were on their guard, that they were alert to any enemy action and ready to take care of it when it came ."

"We don't need no stories!" growls Gorbuc. "Who bleed in' asked ye, anyhow?"

"You did - with your hearts, if not your tongues . Now, in every camp he passed through, this anruth saw

Garou strong and bright and sharp, breathing the full­ness of their Rage and keeping it honed against the stone of frequent conflict. But as he moved out toward the Great Wastes, where even the Corrupter's minions are loathe to tred, he found morale low and supplies rare. Athros wise in war had fallen to bickering over old tribal quarrels, and unbloodied c1iaths with too much time between their teeth would devise any excuse to be at their fosterns' throats. Worst of all, though, were the outposts.

"Here, even the pride of the tribes themselves had fal'len by the wayside, with lone isolated packs tending to hated duties or wandering aimlessly around some half­remembered mission. Hardened warriors grew soft from want of battle, and keen eyes rolled in slumber. Purpose was lost, and sloth and resentment crowded in to fill its place. The Litany was sung no more, and old ways were forgotten.

"One lookout post, far beyond the reach of the War Council and the company of the Changing Breed, the anruth found held by a pack composed entirely of kina in of one of the truest and most noble tribes of Garou who have ever walked in the ways of Gaia . Here, he thought, stagnation can surely have taken no root, for those of this lineage are nothing if not Lovers of the Ways.

"But the Corrupter had learned much of subtlety during this long war, of how holding back from conflict could serve Its purposes better than open assault. Using I ts absence as Its weapon, It fanned the dark flames of discontent in the hearts of this noble pack."

For the most part, my audience has hardly stirred, regarding me through dull and bleary eyes. The face of the old metis is folded into a twisted toothless scowl, and the one they called Flameback glares at me from beneath bristling red brows. What little attention of theirs I do hold, I hold only by virtue of the fact that mine is the first new tale to reach their ears since they came to take this post. But that is not enough. More than their attention must be drawn from them tonight, and more than words must rouse them.

"What the Silent Strider saw filled his heart with sorrow. The pack had degenerated into a foul mockery of the tribe that had nurtured them. The claw which cannot find flesh to rend will curve too long, tearing at the very paw which wields it . So was this Strider taught in his youth, and so did he find it to be at this cold and lonely outpost. Left without an enemy into which it could sink its fangs, Rage had turned in upon itself, devouring its tail and the heart in which it lived. Wis­dom had fled at the heels of tradition, and tongues which had once spun threads of silver were set to shoveling slag."

As I speak, I pace slowly around the fire. The younger ones turn their heads to follow me, but Gorbuc and a few of the alpha-types resentfully pretend to ignore me.

4 Werewolf Storytellers Handbook

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"The Harano held them in its grip, and Gaia's greatest gift to their tribe they squandered like spoiled pups!"­and here I kick their pot of foul grog into the firepit.

The flames flare up, tempers but a half-step behind. Steam billows into homid eyes, and sparks arc into lupus fur. My audience erupts into a stamping, slapping, roll­ing mass of ire and oaths, but the first part of my task is accomplished: the fabric of their minds has unraveled enough for me to grasp the dangling threads and leap with them into the safety of a nearby tree.

"Aargh! Wha' the -!"

"Grab "im, quick!"

"Where's he got to?!"

"I'l! braid the bastard's guts for a girdle!"

They have forgotten what it means to have a Galliard among them. Their re-education begins now. Spreading my words to surround them, I continue: "'You'll have to catch me first!' taunted the anruth. The pack, unused to any foe but each other, fell upon their fostern in their anger. "

"Watch where the hell you're flailin', Gorbuc!"

"Shaddap! Outta my way, then!"

"Be still, all of you!" snapped F1ameback. "He's play­ing us for fools here!"

"I knew it! AI1 them fookin' Striders is Wyrm fetid!"

"Yes, they had figured out the old Silent Strider's secret." Drawing the threads of their fears together, I weave them into a dream beast, vile and monstrous with many heads bearing the faces of the pack itself. If they must be blind to any foe but each other, then this is the best way to reach them with the truth .

But I must open their eyes so that they should see the true Enemy. To this end, I embel1ish the beast with the most unsavory aspects offomori and Black Spiral Dancer, red eyes rol1ing with madness and jaws dripping with green froth . Let them think that I am the corrupted one, revealing my true form. Let them see me as the Enemy, for if I can turn their Rage from one another to me, then perhaps I can turn it across the wastes to its rightful targets.

"Rumor had proved true, and the Enemy had strode into their very camp in guise of Garou!" So saying, I unleash the dream beast in their midst, pulling the tale and the told together as one.

"Red Rage ignited the pack, swel1ing them into the half-form and whetting their appetite for slaughter. The hoary metis croaked out the Anthem of War and was joined by the pack. The challenge was returned by their own voices, twisted into the Song of Mockery.

"They spread themselves out, the better to surround the thing, but with its many heads it met their gaze from every direction. 'You think the Striders to be Urrah, and so this one shal1 be!' it spat. 'Forsake the Ways and join those who would vanquish you! It's not such a great step to take from where you now stand.. .'

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" 'Begone, Corrupter!' barked the old one. 'Tempt us not with your empty threats and shallow promises!'

" 'You would bite me, you fangless charach -spawn!? Thenjoin your miserable parents in Erebus, mule!' With a roar the beast leapt at the old one, shearing hairless skull from twisted spine and bathing its mock-mule face in arterial spray.

"What followed might have been described as a flower of Berserk ravage - were there any to see it from above - as the Urrah-beast bloomed petals ofGarou flesh. A cliath drunk wi th self-loathing slashed at her own image, which seemed a reflection in a rippling pool of gore. Some sought their rival's visage; Flameback's jaws locked upon the throat of the Urrah-Gorbuc, and vice-versa. Full fell the blows, as of mallet to drumhead, deep the growl of anger and high the scream of agony.

"But the Corrupter's tactic had backfired, you see. To mock with their own faces those who already hate them­selves is but to fan the flames of rage. The pack that held this outpost had been only a step away from slicing each other to ribbons; now they were provided with the very targets which their last shreds of loyalty and purpose had denied them.

"For that is both the strength and the weakness of creatures of rage such as ourselves, difference between­" and there ends the tale of my dream beast, for a wiry hand closes about my snout, and long sinewy limbs pin my arms to my sides.

"I got 'im!" My captor's bark is shrill in my ear as I am flung back into the circle of firelight. "I got the sneaky bastard, I did!"

The pack crowds close around me, all Crinos now, but whole and unbloodied by any fight. Eye and fang flashes red in the fire .

"Colin! Now who'd've thunk that!"

"Good work, laddie! I knew ye had it in ye!"

"Nearly did us all up a treat, but for you!"

"Wyrmsign."

"Do 'im! Do the fookin' Urrah git!"

Colin stands over me, his narrow chest heaving. Flameback steps up to growl in his ear, "G'wan, Colin. Throat 'im . And don't you be feeling that you need to stop at that, neither. Serve him right, it would, for messing about with our minds the way he's done!"

Colin's head lowers, locking my gaze with his own, and a gapped and snaggled grin slowly works its way across his face. "Ain't never throated anyone afore ... "

"Wyrmsign!"

"Gawds above! Lemme do it!" Gorbuc bellows, stomp­ing forward. "Bloody New-Moon ain't got the Rage in 'im to scratch a bloody flea!"

Flameback surges to intercept him . "Back off! This here is Colin's catch!" But before the two archrivals can stare each other down, Colin has me.

Now I can die here, and that would be fine if this pass could be held indefinitely. But not even the Silver Pack could prevail for long against the hordes that must eventually sweep through here; time is the most that can be hoped for, time to alert the War Council , time for the tribes to regroup . My death now would serve none but the Wyrm .

A wily old Stargazer once taught me a trick for just such an occasion, a trick of stretching and twisting and shifting, and this trick I now try. But I am not a wily old Stargazer; the best that I can manage is to shift Colin's jaws from my throat to my ­

"I SEZ WYRMSIGN, Y A BLOODY GREAT MOON CALVES!"

Colin's jaws are suddenly slack around the chunk he was about to tear from my shoulder; all ears jump stiffly to attention; all eyes turn to the one they call Burle .

He stands upon his promontory, glowering at our antics, with one beefy arm pointing in the direction of the wastes. From one end to the other, the horizon has begun to blur with great clouds of dust. We are all on our feet faster than can be told.

"This is it!" snaps the metis, a sharp new strength in his voice . "Make yerselves ready!"

Gorbuc, his broad face suddenly inches from mine, growls, "IfI'm to go down here, then this one falls beside me!" And, between the grog-fumes on his breath and the rage coming off him in palpable waves, I nearly agree .

"No he don't, Gorbuc," Flameback says evenly. "Some­one must carry word of this attack to the War Council, or we die for nothing."

"But we decided ... "

"Yes we did," snaps the metis impatiently, "butl'm too old, Colin's too addled, and no one else can be spared. And besides, Gorbuc," he adds with a sly wink, "who else'll know to sing your praises at the victory moot?"

"Now how in the bloody hell is he goin' to do that if he ain 't even here for it?!"

"How about this?" I say to Gorbuc. "You kill the most;" I nod at Flameback, "she kills the best;" and I point to Burle, "and he's the last one standing before the pass is overrun!"

For a moment they all look from one to another, then at me; slowly laughter spreads among them, dark laugh­ter echOing the creak of the gallows and carrionbird calls.

"Right enough, then," says Gorbuc, "but every Wyrm­fetid throat I rip out is gonna have yer stupid face above it! "

"All and good, Gorbuc," I say, giving him what I have been told is my most infuriating grin.

"So is the bloody pleasantries all bloody done with, then?" Burle grumbles, shouldering the largest broadaxe I have ever seen. He snorts derisively and sonorously. "'Right, pups! Let's get tore in at these slugs!"

Werewolf Storytellers Handbook 6

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