Liberation
A tale of witchcraft, transformation, and lycanthropy set in 18th century Bavaria...
In Bavaria in the early 18th century, a woodsman named Hans went forth into the forest one morning to hunt wild boar, leaving his wife Greta behind in their humble cabin as usual. The long-suffering woman watched her husband trudge ahead until the forest consumed him into its depths, the winds sighing in the pines as if the breath of a living thing. A slight smile crossed the corner of Greta's mouth as she turned back to the hearth of the cabin and slid aside a stone in the fireplace to expose a rough wooden box with a pentagram carved into its cover. Greta had a spell to cast that morning, a very ancient and dark one...
Later that morning as Hans pursued wild boar, he felt a sensation as if he was being watched by something predatory and malevolent. He wheeled about just as something jumped out of the underbrush at him, a nightmare of cruel teeth and claws. His gun was knocked from his grasp as Hans grappled with the creature, close enough so that he could smell its foul breath. The animal was wolf-like but larger, and it took all of Hans' strength to keep its jaws from locking onto his neck. Knocked onto his back by the force of the assault, Hans managed to draw his hunting knife from its sheath on his belt, swinging wildly with it and catching his bestial attacker on a foreleg, the large and sharp blade severing the great wolf's one paw.
The wolf howled in pain and broke off the attack, retreating back into the woods. Grateful to have escaped with his life, Hans seized the severed paw of the wolf and stuffed it into his pack as proof of what he had faced. He then cut his hunting trip short, fearing a renewed attack by the mutilated wolf or another like it. He hastened back to his cabin, eager to relate the tale of his near escape and warn others of the danger.
Greta was unusually subdued upon her husband's return and didn't seem to be well; Hans also noticed that the woman also appeared to be concealing her right arm partially behind herself, as if hiding something. "Your arm," observed Hans, "what is wrong with it?"
"I had an accident," replied Greta, moving away from her husband. "It is nothing," she said dismissively, continuing to hide the arm.
"If it is nothing, show it to me!," demanded Hans, grabbing his wife by the shoulder and spinning her around. He gasped as he saw his wife's arm missing its hand, the stump wrapped with a bloody rag. Hans hastened to his backpack to extract the wolf's paw that he had stowed there as proof of his encounter. What he extracted instead was a severed human hand!
Greta's legs turned to rubber as motes of darkness spun before her eyes. Weak from blood loss and dazed from shock, she passed out and crumbled to the floor.
The next day, Hans turned Greta in to the town elders, who promptly tried and convicted her of witchcraft. She seemed strangely at peace as she was bound to a stake to be burned alive. As flames grew around her, some present swore that they heard her mutter words in a strange and long-forgotten tongue. Drawn by the spectacle and gruesome anticipation of seeing a human being burned alive, the assembled townspeople did not notice the approach of a pack of wolves. They encircled and snarled at the humans present, holding them at bay while one of their number braved the flames to rip asunder the ropes which held Greta captive. In the midst of the smoke and the screams of the people, there was later disagreement as to what escaped from the fire that day. Some say that it was Greta, while others saw some kind of feral hybrid creature.
The cry of wolves was later heard in the woods surrounding the Bavarian village, and some who observed the pack from a respectful distance reported seeing one member of it who appeared to limp along with the others despite having a missing paw...