God Within Us

The howls rang over the sleeping woods, spilling from the throats of dozen wolves filled with rage and hunger. The darkness of the night was vast and deep, but even with the crackling fire at his back to spoil his sight, Yesugei saw many eyes glittering over rolling slopes of the hills beyond the treeline.

“More fire! Throw more fuel onto the fire!” he called to the two warriors as they hurriedly slipped on their leather jerkins and maille shirts. “And take up torches - wolves they may be, but they still fear flame as any other beast!”

The campfire at their back gave a woosh of new life as Bykov fed into it nearly all of the firewood, and in the bright leap of light Yesugei saw Tuyaara bringing the horses up from the flatlands where they had rested. Their mounts whinnied and bucked with terror at the coming scent of wolves, though Tuyaara’s whispered Modkhai words calmed them enough for the horses to climb up to the low hill upon which the willow stood, and where their stand they made.

Another chorus of howls echoed, much closer than the last. Yesugei saw black shapes cut across the silver surface of the streams running through the flatland. When the flames swelled to their fullest, he dipped an arrow wrapped in twine into the heart of the fire, and let the flaming shaft fly slow and high over the field below. Where the arrow fell, he saw a brief glimpse of gnashing teeth and dark-brown fur before the wolves scattered back into darkness, though they did not flee.

“Yesugei.” came Tuyaara’s call to his back. He saw she had the horses’ reins still in hand, and looked to him with purpose. Flee, flee while we can.

He opened his mouth to reply when a shout came from Kargasha, and the warrior pointed out towards the woods. Yesugei saw something else moving in the midst of the onrushing pack as it emerged from the woods - a great column of flame, bobbing up and down as it surged alongside the wolves, casting them all in a red glow.

But as the pack and the light drew closer, he saw from the shroud of the great fire emerge paws, a snout, and a single, red eye. Running at the center of the pack as if a noble lord, Yesugei saw the flame was in fact a massive, scarred wolf that towered above the others, its fur was a blazing cascade of crimson, every fiery strand dancing with light. Its form seemed to flicker and warp with the intensity of the flames, casting eerie shadows that twisted and writhed upon the ground like grasping fingers. From its massive jaws dripped molten drool, hissing and sizzling as it met the cool night air, while the ember within its eye socket pulsed with a malevolent gleam.

“Gods…gods above…” gasped Kargasha as he took his sword in one hand, and a torch in the other. “Earth-Mother, give me strength. Lightning-Lord, give me courage. Xors, bring your morning light quicker!”

“Hells, what is that fucking beast?!” shouted Bykov, taking up his club.

“Whatever it is, we cannot outrun it - not in darkness!” replied Yesugei as the flaming wolf bore down on them. Its monstrously-large paws seemed to float above the ground as it ran, leaving a trail of scorched grass and embers in its wake. He drew back the string of his bow as the wolf bounded over the streams its kin splashed through in a single leap, and soon it overtook the pack, drawing nearer…nearer…

Yesugei let the hunting bow twang as he loosed a barbed arrow towards the rushing wolf, aimed for its red eye. The deadly arrow soared for its mark, but as it flew flames suddenly erupted along the length of the shaft, and it scattered into ashes mid-flight. He cursed under his breath, but before he could nock another arrow the flaming wolf drew suddenly to a stop upon a small hill, and its jaws opened wide.

“There he stands,” spilled the voice from the wolf’s burning throat - the voice of a man, deep and dripping with malice. “There he stands - the son of the White Khan…the last of his line. Yesugei…we have found you at last.”

The flaming wolf’s eye fell upon him, and beneath its stare Yesugei saw that within the circle of fire were tiny specks of gold, as many as stars in the night sky. He sensed within the golden stare a strange presence - a will beyond that of the wolf itself - and when he peered deeper into the growing vastness of the wolf’s eye he saw, for a brief glimpse, a face staring back at him.

“My kin have traveled long and far in search of your filth,” snarled the fiery wolf, and its voice seemed to fill the looming darkness all round. “For it is by the gods’ will that we were sent, and by their Chosen: Jirghadai, the Blackwind, the Fire-Kissed.”

The face he saw staring back at him was that of his father’s blood-brother. Within the circle of flames, the Blackwind’s face seemed like a broken mask, and from behind the cracks spilled a golden light which twisted and shone as the Quanli khan’s lips twisted into a smile.

“By what sorcery has Jirghadai sent you?” Tuyaara cried, a knife in her hands. “From what terrible hell do you crawl from, spirit?”

“Sorcery?” it scoffed, its words dripping with contempt. “No, lost child of the Mother Woods, I am not born from any hell of yours, but from the divine heavens above. We are of the cleansing flame, which has come at last to purge the chaff of humanity before the coming of the Harvest. This is the hour of wolves, of strength, for those who are brave enough to embrace it.”

One of the dark shapes around the flaming wolf stepped into the light of the campfire, and Yesugei heard a small gasp come from Tuyaara. For there, etched across the steppe wolf’s face like a cruel brand, was a burn scar in the unmistakable shape of a clawed hand. The scar seemed to pulse with an otherworldly energy, twisting the shadows of the campfire into strange shapes upon the ground.

The flamebound wolf, its gaze fixed upon the cowering figures before it, let out a low growl. The rest of its kin stepped forward into the light; two dozen wolves, all of them bearing the same, ugly mark upon their heads.

“Behold,” hissed the flaming wolf, its voice dripping with malice. “Behold the mark of Gandroth's Kiss - the mark of transformation, of strength, of destiny. We are not mere beasts anymore, but vessels of fire and fury, drifting embers of Gandroth's cleansing.”

As its words echoed through the darkness, the flaming wolf stepped closer, its eyes burning with an unholy fervor. The flames of the campfire danced in wilder and wilder fashion as the wolf drew nearer, and Yesugei felt himself take an involuntary step back from the growing heat.

“We are the chosen of Jirghadai, the harbingers of a new age,” the burning wolf proclaimed, its voice carrying the weight of divine decree. “The deliverance of the steppe-folk is almost complete, but the divine flames hunger for more. They demand a sacrifice of all remnants of the old order, of the weak and the corrupt who cling to the past ways like parasites.”

The red eye fell upon Yesugei once more, narrowing with a predatory gleam. “You, lesser son of even lesser sires, are the last of the old blood, the final vestige of a decaying world. Your line rejected the cleansing fire, and led the proud folk of the steppe to dwell in rot and indolence.

“But the time of weakness is over,” the wolf’s jaws snapped shut, and its lips parted in a feral smile. “And for our deliverance, Jirghadai has said you must die.”

There was a sudden roar and crackle, and the campfire at their backs erupted into a blazing column. In an instant, the willow tree that shielded them burst into a great bloom of fire, and the air filled with a storm of burning leaves. Yesugei brought one hand up to shield his eyes from the singing glare, but as he lowered his hand he heard a snarl over the roaring of the fire all around. A marked wolf burst through the burning curtain of leaves, its jaws wide open to close around his throat. At that moment there was a sudden cry, and then the leaping shape fell to the ground; a longsword buried in its side up to the hilt.

Kargasha ripped his longsword free from the wolf’s corpse, and Yesugei loosed an arrow into the throat of another before it could throw itself at the warrior. Beside them, Bykov gave a hoarse shout as another wolf savaged his maille-clad arm - with a wild swing, his studded club shattered the beast’s skull.

All around them, the wolves pressed in closer and closer even as arrows fell upon them like rain from Yesugei’s and Tuyaara’s hunting bows. Yesugei felt he was screaming, but he could not be sure - in the roar of the flames, the snarling of wolves, and the shrieks of horses, the terrified screams of men were drowned. Slowly, the four of them began to draw back, climbing higher and higher along the low hill, but wherever they went flames were at their backs - the willow tree's branches had become like a cage of fire, and nowhere could they find reprieve from the heat.

Just as Yesugei feathered another steppe wolf he saw the flames grow brighter from one side. Then, with a great snarl and a shake of the earth, the flamebound wolf leapt through the curtain of burning branches and landed atop the stacked corpses of its lesser kin. The flaming beast plodded towards them at leisure, and the fires all around grew more violent, casting them all in an orange glare.

Two arrows, Khormchak and Modkhai, sighed through the air and both turned to ash before they met the wolf’s red hide. The wolf’s red eye passed lazily over the four mortals before it, and then its gaze lingered on the two Klyazmite warriors.

“Kneel, lesser men," snarled the wolf, its words laced with an eerie noise like splintering wood and grinding stone. Seized by its strange magic, both warriors let their weapons fall from their hands, and then they went to their knees with their heads bowed low to the ground as if in prayer.

Yesugei felt his heart sink at the sight, and he saw only despair upon Tuyaara’s face as she beheld the approaching demon. He cast his useless bow aside, then knelt to scoop up Kargasha’s sword from the ground. The blade glowed bright orange by the light of the dancing flame.

"Come, do not hide behind a child of the forest," sneered the Flame-Kissed wolf. "Come to me, lesser son, and show me the dance of the last Qarakesek."