Pawn
#1 of Twilight Legion
"What is best in life?
"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."
-Conan the Barbarian (1989)
The boy went into the woods.
He was small for his age, and he only carried a child-sized pack. He was the son of a hunter, and unafraid of the dark beneath the trees.
His pack contained a few of his favorite books, and a few strips of jerky. By his reckoning, they would be more than enough to carry him to the capital, where he would join the King's Guard and slay dragons.
Or something. The details weren't important. What was important was leaving his hometown behind.
He sang as he walked, songs about the forest and the hunt. It grew dark, and the shadows grew long and numerous. He sang harder, and walked a little faster.
At some point during the night, he glimpsed a light through the trees. He hurried--well, it wasn't hurrying, exactly, since that would imply fear, and he was certainly not afraid--he quickened his pace towards it.
There was a clearing, with a lady in it.
She was sitting on a log, staring into the fire, drinking from a teacup. There was a kettle over the fire, hunter-style, and a tent behind the woman.
The boy considered his options. He could ignore her and pass by, but she might be a threat to the town. He could confront her, but that might be rude. What would father do?
(acquire knowledge)
He would try to find out more about the woman, without being detected, then decide.
He was on her right, and he melted back into the trees, out of range of the firelight, leaving barely enough light for him to avoid stepping on twigs. Working his way clockwise, he arrived at a position off her right flank.
He could see now that she wore *breeches*! Mother said only slatterns and foreigner women wore breeches.
He inched closer. Her ears were strangely shaped: it almost looked like they were pointed. Perhaps she was a foreign slattern who had escaped from a circus.
"Hello, small one," she said.
The boy yelped, and scurried behind a tree.
He waited a few seconds, then peeked out. The lady was looking in his direction, a faint smile on her face.
"I won't bite," she said.
He came out from behind the tree, still under the cover of the wood, one hand on his dagger, as his father had taught.
"Would you like some tea? No, of course not."
He squared his shoulders. "You shouldn't be out here, ma'am. It's not safe."
Her smile grew wider. "And should I be attacked, will a big boy like you defend me?"
She called him a big boy!
"Well," he blushed, "I don't know, ma'am. If you want me to."
"I want you to. Come." She opened her cloak.
He approached, cautiously, his weapon hand on the side away from her. He was cautious, but curious, as boys are wont to be.
Choosing a spot just out of her reach, he sat on the log.
"Suit yourself, small one." She drew her cloak in closer. "I prefer to address people by names, if they have any. Do you have one?"
"My name is Rutneh," said the boy. It wasn't, but it was safe enough.
"Is it? I see. And you are such a small boy to come all this way into the forest."
"I had to." Rutneh says, defensive.
"Had to?"
"I couldn't stay." It seemed so silly, really. "There was this boy. He's...mean. He said I wasn't a real man."
"Why not?"
"Because I didn't want to fight."
"A lot of people mistake willingness to fight for courage and bravery. If you're not fighting for something, but fighting for fighting's sake, all it proves is that you want to fight."
"That's what father said."
"What did you say?"
"I'm not sure." He thought about the confused feeling, the need to prove himself. "I wanted...I wanted to serve the King."
The woman's eyes were large, unblinking. "How?"
"I'm not sure." His blush was almost invisible by firelight. "The Guard? The Rangers? I just knew that if I did, they'd think I was...grown-up."
"The capital is far away."
"I'd make it." He hoped his voice sounds confident.
A brief silence. The lady set her cup down on a convenient rock.
"Why aren't you staying at an inn?" the boy asked, to fill the void.
"Night fell before I reached town, and inns are so expensive, these days."
"I guess so. I've seen people yell at Master Repeek for being a swindler. They were mostly drunk. Is a 'swindler' the same as 'expensive'?"
"From a certain point of view." She stood, dusting imaginary dust off her cloak. "I have been thinking. A boy who would walk all this way into the forest, and more, solely to prove himself-" She squatted down in front of him. "-he must be very brave, have much strength of heart."
Her eyes seemed even larger, her smile a shining arc beneath them. She had a funny smell. It made him dizzy--
"Would you like a present?"
"Why would you give me a present?" It was hard to think.
"Because you are so very, very brave."
"What type of present?" A bow would be nice. He could hunt things with a bow. Take "Can I see it?"
The lady whistled, and a dog came out of the tent, bounding to the side of its Mistress. It gave the boy the once over, sniffing at his clothes, his underarms, his shoes, the fork of his legs. Satisfied, it licked his face--just once--and settled on its haunches between the two humans, tail wagging.
"What's his name?" the boy giggled.
"His name is Rutneh."
"That's my name!"
"I'm sure he won't mind sharing." The lady reached over and tickled the dog's chin. "I found Rutneh some time ago. He seems to be a hunter's dog who has no hunter."
The dog's licks smelt strange too. It combined with the lady's scent to make the boy feel drowsy. "I don't think my parents will let me have a dog--"
"If your parents say you cannot have it, then who am I to disagree? You can bring it right back here, and I will take him back." She smiled. "Would you like that, small one?"
"Well..." The dog waited, patient, wagging, its tail like one of those ticky things rich people kept by their piano.
"Would you like that?"
"Yes." It made so much sense. If his parents didn't like it, the lady would come and explain it to them, and it would make sense to them too.
"Thank you," said the lady, settling back on her haunches. "He is such a large dog, and you are such a small boy. It would be faster if you rode him. Rutneh, stand."
The dog obediently got to all fours, and the boy noted that it did, in fact, have the lines, the strength, he expected of a hunting dog. Then the lady lifted him and placed him on Rutneh's back. The dog looked at the boy and huffed, and the boy wrapped his arms around his strange steed's neck.
"Brasbo," said the woman.
"What?" Rutneh looked back over his shoulder.
"Your parents are probably worried about you. You should get home as soon as possible.
"I...should..."
The dog started to trot, and the lady waved at the pair. "Good hunting!" she called, before they lost sight of her in the woods.
It occurred to the boy that he should return and bid the lady a proper farewell. He started to slide off Rutneh's back, but the dog put on a sudden burst of speed, and he had to cling tightly or fall off.
"Stop!"
The dog softened.
Its pace didn't slacken, but the boy felt a definite give beneath his arms. His legs were also squeezing tighter, and he knew something was horribly wrong. He thought of the stories grandmothers told, of the Fair Ones, and what happened to those who accepted gifts from them. He let the dog go, and leaned to the right, bracing himself for the impact with the forest floor--
Only it didn't come.
He couldn't let go of the dog.
Something welled up in his throat, and he screamed. He threw himself from side to side, trying to knock the creature off balance. It compensated expertly, maneuvering its own weight to perfectly counter the boy's attempts. The shifts of weight had another effect; the boy sank farther into the dog, flesh giving way. He felt a familiar wetness; he had felt muscles before, skin recently divested of flesh, but never with the life's blood still pumping beneath it.
The boy decided that he was being taken to D'neeht, the darkness at the end of all things. Helpless, bound, all he could do was weep, and curse the luck that had bought him to the witch's campsite. He tried to headbutt the creature, but his forehead stuck fast after the first attempt. Also, it hurt.
He could still see along the creature's body, and found the fur that had looked a friendly brown near the fire was turning black. And those patches of dark fur were sharp, drove themselves into his clothing every time they brushed against it. Soon the clothes were hanging on by tatters, and several parts fell off. There was nothing between his Special Place and the fur of the dog's back. The sides of his cloth shoes had worn away, but still held on.
His arms sank further into the dog's neck, its shoulders. As they did, fur crawled up his arms, like he was lowering them into water. He could feel some of the sensations of the dog, now. The tension and release of its forepaws, the strength of them. And most clearly of all, it's desire to consume and kill.
The night whispered past them.
As the creature absorbed what the village boys had crudely called "danglies", he felt panic approaching. In desperation, he released the contents of his bladder, to find that only the forward portion ejected onto the dog's back; his anus had been entirely consumed. All he felt was a clenching of the creature's anus, and the movement of its powerful haunches.
Said haunches were partially composed of his own legs. Despite the new limbs suddenly grafted to it, the dog hadn't slowed. In fact, the boy could feel that its legs were growing stronger, more human, but still bestial, still clawed.
Something crackled along the boy's spine, and he felt a sudden pain down the center of his back. Something pushed it's way out above its rump, while the boy screamed. The dog's rear continued its absorption of the child's rear, his posterior settling firmly into the creature's. He now resembled some sort of strange centaur, only his torso, upper arms, and most of his face free.
Then his face started to sink in.
That wasn't the only change. As the boy screamed and screamed and screamed, his back arched of its own volition, shaking off the last of his clothes, his shoes, his pack, his knife. It began to press itself into the back of the wolf, the black-furred flesh accepting it greedily. As his eyes were pulled in, he left off screaming and turned to gasping. The dark ate his nose, and he whimpered. And then his mouth, and he was silent.
The fur pressed against the child's nipples, then raced up his body as the last remaining portions of his flesh were pulled in and lost forever.
His mind, however, was still intact, and it floated in a void, no mouth to scream with. Then another mind brushed his; something dark and primal. It flowed over his mind and overwhelmed it, and in his last moment, the boy found that even in his own mind, he was not safe.
A change occurred on the dog. Much larger now, it was almost invisible at the edge of the forest, even if someone had been looking for it. Its shoulders grew broader, and something pushed against it, stretching outward into a second head, teeth just as sharp as the first. The two-headed dog shook itself, and padded towards one house in particular. It climbed onto the roof of the first story, and it's paw changed, became more hand-like, to better work a window's latch.
It slipped inside silently, and located it's quarry from among the sleeping children; a straw-haired, somewhat plump bullying boy who had accused a hunter's son of not being enough of a man to fight him.
The creature put the jaws of its newest head around the boy's throat. It gave him just enough time to wake up, to realize what was going on, but not enough time to shout.
The next occupant of the bed stirred at the sound of teeth cleaving through flesh, the splash of warm blood. She opened her eyes and looked at her brother. She saw the head, cleanly separated from the body, the blood, and she followed the shape blocking the light upwards, alighting on the two heads, one with blood dripping from its jaws--
On the edge of the village, the lady stood, a batlike creature dangling off her arm. She spoke directly into its ear.
"--no difficulties in the integration. The Snarf infiltrator seems to have some residual desire to avenge "Rutneh's" last enemy, but that just means it acquired his memories. The fact that it went after some bully instead of its objectives is...somewhat worrying, though I'm sure we can iron that out in later versions."
She paused as the screams started, then resumed dictation into the message-bat.
"Overall, I'd say the test was a success."
ENDF
Twilight Legion: Pawn
by Nequ
2009 Creative Commons By-SA-NC