Chapter 93: The Smell of Victory. (1/2)

I regret everything.

“For the love of all that is precious STOP SNIFFING ME!”

“But it’s so strange…”

“NO SNIFFING!”

“Eep!”

The tiny woman jumps back with a stricken look, but not for long. A man taps her on the shoulder and she turns with a smile.

He is naked.

Regrets. So many regrets.

I agreed to follow the big grey werewolf back to his encampment with the rest of the horde in order to discuss what would follow. I will admit that my unwillingness to negotiate terms with a butt-naked individual in the middle of a statuary of frozen corpses played a big role in my decision. I thought it better to talk while the euphoria of their newfound liberty lifted their hearts.

That was a mistake.

First, my smell is apparently strange to them. It allows me to walk among their numbers without being perceived as an intruder, an advantage that my allies do not share and the reason why I left them behind. The other side of the medal is that they are rather curious. The most daring specimens challenge my personal space to sample the goods and only my unflappable countenance has allowed me to spare their miserable lives. How dare they! I am not a slab of meat! Gah!

And the odd inquisitive wolf is the least of my worries. To be fair there are only a handful of them, they are harmless, and they leave when prompted. The main problem is… Frankly, I should have anticipated it.

Sex is a great activity, in general, a true celebration of life and pleasure. Its practice is somewhat limited by a combination of factors, such as babies which werewolves cannot carry to term, diseases which they are immune to, and social constraints which they are devoid of.

As a result, a great celebration is occurring in the surrounding tents, with no concern given to propriety or, indeed, keeping one’s voice down.

And as if things were not bad enough, they STINK. By the Watcher the situation is deteriorating every time a sweaty, naked, aroused ruffian lifts a tent flap to switch groups! My poor nose!

After an interminable walk, we finally reach the command pavilion. Thanks to my indomitable will, I resist the urge to leave this forsaken place, find the highest tree I can and hug it like a Christmas ornament.

Enclosed space. A central table with a map surrounded by seats covered in fur. A few chests.

A stench like no others, a mix of wet dog, sweaty genitals, and INTRUDER.

I should have taken a perfumed handkerchief.

“Now that we’re—”

“First things first, wear some damn pants!” I hiss.

The man stares at me with his sad brown eyes and I realize the overwhelming gap between us. He has been through a lot in the past few weeks, for sure, while for me fighting for my life while embroiled in cutthroat politics and diplomacy is just another Thursday. Perhaps, for efficiency’s sake, I should cut him some slack.

After he covers his nads.

With a heavy sigh, the new leader grabs a pair of leather pants and pulls them on. They look dirty. He picked them from the ground! They are not even his size! Stop thinking about it too much, Ariane, that way lies insanity.

Pah! Pah pah pah.

“Better?” the man asks coldly.

“Somewhat. You wanted to talk, so talk,” I declare.

Blake gave me leave to negotiate in her name, provided that her bottom line is respected. In that case, it means all of the wolves leaving her territory posthaste. Besides that, I am free to negotiate the terms I see fit.

And now that we are finally settled, of course, he remains silent. I use this opportunity to study this new addition to the list of people I am supposed to pay attention to.

The grey werewolf is interesting. He is not what I expected from an improvised leader, especially not one who was the first to throw himself at his captors. His eyes are too soft and his expression too melancholic for a warrior, though with his square jaw and bulging muscles, he might just cut it. Seriously, I could hammer a steel ingot on those abdominals. And yet, he looks more like the doomed prince of a dying duchy, staring at the ocean from the battlements of his crumbling fortress with only an old butler and a few dogs for company.

I should probably slow down on reading Jimena’s novels. I fear that they might be affecting my judgement.

As I was inspecting him, my interlocutor had been dreamily staring into the distance. His musings are interrupted by someone tossing the tent’s flap aside to get in.

I turn around to see a naked woman, flushed with lust and ambition. Our eyes meet and she bares her teeth.

I deploy my aura, crushing her under its murderous pressure.

“Don’t try me,” I state.

The intruder lowers her head before skulking back. I return my attention to the pack’s de facto leader with increasing annoyance.

“Keep your people under control.”

“We men do not interfere in power struggles between the fairer sex.”

“I am not one of yours.”

“You are not completely out, either,” he calmly observes. His manners are mild and his voice mellow and I find myself lowering my guard.

“It’s the smell. Your scent is…”

Never mind my previous reflection.

“If you tell me I smell weird one more time…”

“My apologies. We obviously started on the wrong footing—”

Understatement of the century.

“—and I propose that we begin anew. My name is Augustus Jennings of the now-defunct Deepwood Pack. Whom do I have the honor of addressing?”

“Ariane of the Nirari.”

Augustus waits some more as if expecting me to go off with ‘high queen of Northumbria, the unwashed, medical doctor’ and so on. When no such thing occurs, he resumes the conversation.

“You are a vampire, correct? A master?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what do you know of our kind?”

“You taste delicious.”

Ah. Oops? Not very diplomatic, Ariane.

“Besides that?” the man grumbles.

“You headed north and split into groups you call packs. Being in one balances the curse, somehow. All was well until a man calling himself Fenris and leading a band called the Black Peak Pack started to subjugate everyone. Now you are more or less united under him, due to a mix of fear and the power of the skalds. Fenris decided to expand south and here we are.”

“Brief, if not entirely inaccurate. You are still missing an important part of the puzzle.”

Augustus looks into the horizon, broody and dreamy.

I roll my eyes. Why does he have to be so dramatic?

“What we know, we gathered from fragments of journals and ancient parchment yellowed by age over the centuries, a thankless task to find the source of the curse and the cause of our torment.”

I don’t caaaaaaaaaare.

“Our dreadful tale begins during the darkest period of the hundred-year war, in the French region of Auvergne.”

Someone please shoot me.

“A mage of considerable power weaved a dread curse, a thing so horrid and devastating that it twisted the very human form which should have remained sacrosanct. As for its purpose, we shall never know, but some suspect that it was used to punish an entire family…” the man continues in a pained whisper.

Why would he assume that I would be interested? I just want to hammer out an agreement and head out. Aaaaaa if only I could just bite him and be done, but a meek leader of werewolves is of no use.

“When the curse was made, our tormentor committed a fatal mistake. In their urge to spread destruction, they forced an instinct on the cursed: we disable our prey then move on to the next one, only to return to finish them off after no one is left standing. This turned against their intention as many wounded recovered enough to hide and thus survive the onslaught, and so our curse has spread throughout the world like a dreadful plague, causing the death of thousands.”

I must look like an attentive audience. That must be it.

“Now, and for the first time in history, we have a chance to turn our lives around, but to do so we must make peace with the curse, with the trapped wolf in our soul, and to do so we must adopt some of the beast’s social habits.”

“I assume you have a point?” I ask, utterly out of patience.

“I do,” the man replies unamused, “it relates to us and the way we work as a group. Many of the rules we follow are taken from the behavior of wolves. That means that we do not delegate authority as a government would. The army arrayed against York is it.”

“What?”

“It. All the remaining werewolves in the northern territories. Three hundred of them, give or take. It will take more than a few of your kind to hold back this tide. I am willing to guide the werewolves of this group north if you give us enough provisions and if you promise not to go after us.”

I widen my eyes in surprise, then I realize I cannot help it.

I laugh. I am being vulgar and my fangs are showing but I cannot stop. This man! What a great comedian!

“Oh dear, how precious. You are simply too much.”

“I assure you that—” he begins.

I move over the table, stopping only a few inches away from him and hit him fully with my Charm. I take the strand of apprehension, the one that is born of the knowledge of what I am, what I did, and feed my aura into it until it turns into a fat worm of terror. My claws dig into the wood below, which creaks torturously.

“You are in no position to demand, boy,” I hiss.

Augustus jumps back with a curse. To his credit, he gets his fear under control faster than I have ever seen. From what I can tell, the curse fights back, somehow. It releases him from my influence with the utmost speed.

I lean back and smile, pretending that his newfound courage is simply me releasing my hold on his emotions. His resistance to my power matters little when bluffs and manipulation can achieve so much.

“Do not think us defeated, vampire,” he retorts as his voice trembles ever so slightly, “we still have—”

“I have the horn, and I can operate it,” I interrupt.

That shuts him up. Good.

“You are the shambling leader of a defeated and brittle band of disposable soldiers. Yesterday you could field dozens of ferals. Tonight, you have none. Yesterday your army had a skald and a warlord at their head. Tonight, well, there is you.”

I sneer. Augustus grits his teeth, but he does not reply.

“You also wrongly assume that I care what happens to the population of York.”

“You do not?” he replies, half-surprised and half-scandalized.

“You may consider them as rivals, of sorts. In fact, the best solution for me now would be to let them suffer so much that our knights must intervene while I wipe you out to the last.”

“You cannot. We will--”

Augustus stops abruptly. I have the horn. I can use it. The terrible artifact is the crux of our negotiations. It places me in a position of strength from which I can demand much with little in return.

“You can no longer stop me,” I observe, “if you fight, I will disable then slaughter the packs. You scatter, and I will pick you off band by band, wolf by wolf, until I have drained every man, woman, and juvenile. We are discussing the terms of your surrender, Augustus. Do not provoke me again.”

The man leans back in his seat, contemplative. He displays no sign of giving up and I can practically see the gear turning behind his distant eyes. I respect him for it, and for not giving in despite the circumstances. If he were not so much of an insufferably stinky mutt, I could see us cooperate.

“You do not smell like a leader. You cannot change or direct the curse like I can either, even with your newest toy, and besides, you do not strike me as another slaver. There must be something we can do for each other that you could not get with just the horn. Why don’t you tell me?”

“Tut tut,” I reply with amusement, “my newest toy is you, Augustus, and as for what I want, why, it is power of course. Let me explain…”

In a few sentences, I describe the context while remaining intentionally vague about the current standing of the participating Houses.

“… best solution would be for me to save my kin in York and bring a long-term solution to the werewolf problem. My victory would be assured.”

The leader crosses his arms, always a bad sign in a conversation. At first, I take it that he is averse to cooperating but soon realize my mistake: he is revolted.

“So, that is what this is all about to you. A political game.”

“Everything is a political game when more than three people are involved, boy. Spare me the theatrics. Now, are you willing to assist me, yes or no?”

“You seriously want us to take down Fenris, Maul and Rolf?”

“Of course not, I do not believe you to be capable of such a feat. I expect you to assist me while I take care of it myself. Do so, and I will help you in returning to your homes, wherever they may be.”

I already made that commitment to Jeffrey. It costs me little to simply repeat it.

“Ariane of the Nirari, my people have suffered a terrible ordeal. They are weakened and wounded.”

Somewhere nearby, a couple screams in the thrall of a particularly intense orgasm.

Augustus winces while I show no reaction. Still annoyed, I raise a finger to interrupt him as is about to resume his impassioned plea.

“You do not know much about my kind, do you?”

“Knowledge is sparse, and for good reasons,” he replies defensively.

I imagine that we do not eagerly share the specifics of our nature. Quite the contrary, in fact.

“Then let me enlighten you in a concise manner. We are arrogant, territorial, and deadly apex predators who do not care in the slightest about your freedom or, indeed, your continued survival. What you are doing is useless, because we are only vaguely aware of the mercy you are appealing to. We do not do charity. We do deals. Give me the incentive I need, and I will assist you, otherwise you are wasting both our times. Am I being clear?”

“Crystal clear,” the man grumbles, his eyes shining dangerously. I will let it go so long as he does not provoke me further.

“It changes little,” he continues, “we cannot stand against Fenris and his groups. They are three times our numbers. Attacking them is suicide.”

“We do not have to defeat the army in battle, we just need a path to those three,” I reply.

Augustus shakes his head, then returns his attention to me.

“I need to think of a plan, Ariane of the Nirari. Would you consent to reconvening tomorrow evening?”

And giving him the time to recover or even split up the packs? Not a chance in hell.

“If I leave this tent without a formal pact between us, I am coming back with the horn and my silver spear. None of you will see the dawn.”

Augustus growls. His eyes shine in the light of the tent’s single lantern as his teeth sharpen. I hiss back with fangs displayed.

With what appears to be a supreme effort at self-control, he leans back into his throne.

Good puppy.

“Has anyone ever told you that you are difficult to deal with?”

“No one who mattered,” I sweetly reply.

Silence.

Augustus twines his fingers and closes his eyes. They flutter against their lids as their owner desperately looks for a way out, while outside, the sounds of revel continue unabated. The werewolves celebrate their newfound freedom with unbridled enthusiasm, unaware of its fragility. Behind the scene, a lone man has shouldered the burden of responsibility. He must complete a deal or the cries of ecstasy will soon turn to screams of horror, and then, silence.

In a way I appreciate his self-control and dedication. I could almost respect him if he did not stink so much. And if he wore pants without being prompted. And if he were not so dramatically broody.

Ah well.

“How well can you use the horn?” he suddenly asks.

“I can convey emotions through it,” I reply with a shrug. The horn is a makeshift blood magic focus, not exactly the most elaborate tool.