The night I left my country I dreamt of the wolf.
We fled when the fires started. The fortress that had been our home, our prison for generations glowed in the heat of rebellion. Anger and hatred lit the torches, marched their feet to the gates to a chorus clamoring for retribution. There on the drawbridge across the dry moat demands made by fathers and brothers for the release of a people enslaved by one who once had called himself Salvation were met with indifference. Illumined by torchlight, he stood above them, Lord of the Castle, Lord of the Wald and the Dark Lord of Hell itself. Implacable. Immoveable. No beseechement touched him. None in his family had ever relented. Once our people reached these lands, we were theirs. Those of us who watched in hope for freedom or at least for the staus of human to be granted to us felt a cold fear pour over us. The nights were always cold but this was not the same. This chill was wet with an unnatural breath. The longer we stood there waiting the more we began to dread. A whisper came from the back of the crowd, barely audible. "He won't do it. He will punish us this time. He will kill us." The whispering grew as the tension on the bridge tightened; perhaps the men felt the same thing.
Fog curled around our feet like snakes in a pit. The clear starlit skies grew cloudy. A great winged lizard emerged from the clouds and seemed to swallow the full moon whole before melting into a shapeless form. Someone fainted. The Dragul raised his arms abruptly. "Silence!" He demanded. His voice reverbarated across the courtyard, all was silenced under his frightful gaze. The cold snapped small twigs in the trees above our heads. The snow owls populating the woodland obeyed his command, nothing alive made a sound.
The Dragul's stearn countenance softened as though he were chastising errant children. "My people, my children, have I not cared for you these generations? You do not sleep in the dirt as animals. You do not fight battles that alone belong to me unlike those sheep in English Europe... and yet," He paused looking at the faces as though he were committing them to blessed memory, "and yet, you stand before this fortress that has harbored you from the Turks," his voice grew more impassioned, "buffered you from his European appeasers who would sell you back to him though they have not right to trade flesh." Palms to the parapet, he leaned forward, "This has been your home for generations, a home I have brought you to and given you... and this..." He crossed one hand oveer his heart while the other swept over their heads, "This is how you repay me?" He bellowed rage.
En masse the men took one hasty step backwards.
The Dragul's voice was soft again. "Paid with treachery? With the demands of idlers?" His expression demonstrated sorrow.
But it was insincere. I had seen this tactic before; tried to get out of the crowd of women in the village proper. But I was engulfed.
"Children, I brought you from Ottoman slavery, little better than what you had suffered at the hands of the Babylonians and yet you stand here and demand to be let into the wild wicked world because I ask only of you that which I would ask of a child born of my loins." He beat his chest with closed fist. "Such selfishness. Such ingratitude. You ask me freedom dear children... you know not of what you seek." His face suddenly hardened. I knew what would come would be a horror I'd not witnessed before. "Then freedom you shall have!"
The Dragul threw his arms wide into the air and shouted but one word... " ". A horrible metal on metal sound came from the drawbridge before the unmistakeable crack of splintering wood. The drawbridge collapsed under the weight of the village men. Man and torch fell into the dry moat which unfortuntely was not completely dry. A sound like air being sucked from a large tube stopped the women from running. Then the screaming began and suddenly the torch glow began to spread around the castle. The moat was alight.That broke the spell Dragul had cast; some women ran for the moat as though they could save their men. Others ran for their homes as if they could hide from his wrath in the huts that barely kept the Wizard Winter from their feet. The rest of us took to the woods. We ran for our lives. When that fire consumed its human course it would feast upon the old fortress. Captor and captive alike would burn in a fire set by man's foolishness but fueled by the devil.
There have been in the past, seven revolts. This, the eighth would be the final rebellion... for no flame would spare flesh. The men who fell to the bottom of the moat were lost. The women who sought to spare them were lost as well. From these he would feast. Those who ran to their homes to hide, waiting for the chance to appease thier terrible master would be further enslaved. We who ran from these cursed woods would be hunted to be certain. But we had a chance to escape, to regroup, to fight again. We had to live to fight again. The new castle, high in the nearly impassable craggs of mount , was not as invulnerable s the Dragul had thought. To live, to escape and seize the opportunity to avenge the dead and release ourselves from his power is the life mission of every romi born under his dark star.
These thoughts kept me moving into the dark dense forrest even though all I wanted was to corral and comfort what remained of my people. But it was too late for the foolish who would not learn from our past mistakes. Once I had found my way through the village and came to the open courtyard, a forrest of another kind, I was again reminded that dragul and the Devil are brothers. 10,000 spikes were planted here when we came from the Ottoman. The iron spikes are weathered and brittle from decades in the elements. At one time, these artificial trees wore human foliage until the carrion crows stripped them clean. tattered clothing and dusty bones crumbled at each base were all that remained of those trees. This is the scene that turned back the last Turk when he saw his Ottoman colours there. The sight cowed the less bold European Lords who wanted to annex this sinister kingdom, the Teutonic Lords in LAuenstein mocked his ingenuity but never came back. As formidable a statement, this field of broken souls did not prevent the Dragon form losing his kingdom to treachery and rebellion. When he began to set his own people on the spikes and we began to outnumber them, they petitioned him for the only mercy he could be trusted to give. And he began to set us upon the spikes.
Those of us who built his grand castle in the peaks could not tloerate him any longer. Near the front of the macbre barrier, along the edge of teh encroaching forrest, I found the freshest corpse. My father, our unofficial leader, hangs here as an example. While the dragon thinks this symbol encourages obedience, within my own heart it breeds contempt. Never before had I dared to take anything from my father for fear that I would become a target. I know that if I take anything now, He will know I live. He will send his minions after me as well as the others. But with this in my possession, I will be first target. terrifying screams rise from the darkenss behind me. The dragon did not wait to hunt those foolish enough to stay in the vilage.
I say a quick prayer committing my soul and my father's to whatever god would give us mercy. I hear branches snapping around me and more screams from the village. Carelessly I grab the medallion hanging around my fathers skeletal neck. The metal is not so weak from the elements to come away easily. I yank. Father's remains slide to the ground in a clattering heap. Tears well keeping pace with the bile that threatens to choke me. there is no time. I feel the ground vibrating with the approach of a greater evil than I have seen yet with my own eyes. There have only been unverified stories; stories I do not wish to verify now. I shove the medallion between my breasts and corset for safe keeping. Before dashing into the woods, I pick up y fathers sword that lay in the dust at the base of his post. It is heavier than I remember. The blade can't be very sharp. it will have to do, for without it I am defenseless against what ever thing he has sent for me. Bolting into the woods, I remember too late how dense these trees grow.
The ground pitches sharp rocks up between trunks just before falling into narrow but deep crevices among gnalred and tangled roots. It amazes anyone that the Ottoman was able to get the the gates of this kingdom. it will amaze me if i do not lose my life to the treacherous terrain. These trees apparently grow on air. There can not be enough soil to root in, yet they are here. As I scramble up a craggy rock wall that has risen behind some trees, I here a sound that chills my blood. Despite inhospitable terrain, these trees are old and large, small but as though made from iron. And behind me, they were snapping from a force I could not imagine. Using both trees and knotty rock to acsend the wall, I found myself atop a ten foot ridge which, on the other side, plummetted into ravine nearly as deep as the castle tower was tall.
More trees snapped behind me. There was no where to go but down. Turn and fight the unknown foe or flee down a ravine that would likely claim my life... not good options. Gripping my father's sword, feeling its weight and it's strength, I know that I can not weild it among these trees. The medallion, heavy against my flesh, may be magic. There is too much at stake to rely upon maybe. Tightening my grip on the tree i have been using for balance atop the rocky perch, i turn toward the ravine. Despite the gloomy darkness, I can see some shadowy outlines of trees. If i propell myself downward and can catch hold of them I can descend quicker than picking my way along a route that may feel safer than it is. Another tree snaps behind me; I don't have time to wait.
Launching myself from the crag, I hear a nerve shattering howl; rock clatters against rock and tree; something scrapes what little smooth rock can be found. I have almost taken flight, the first patch of ground i hoped to make contact with was further than anticipated. I fear i am lost to the netherworld. My hair is caught, my flight stopped painfully but successfully. The sword nearly slips from my grip. As I am brought back to relative saftey, the backs of my legs scrape against rock and exposed roots. Another howl... perhaps of triumph... pierces my senses. That which howls holds me in its grasp. With my hair fisted in its grasp, I am powerless to do more than dangle like a marionette. My own weight, slight as it is, paralyzes me. I feel roots beginning to tear as my senses fade into a dark fog. Without warning, it turns me and stares down its long doglike muzzle at me. A scream is frozen half way down my throat as our eyes lock. I smell its drool and dank fur. This is a thing of legend and nightmare come to life. And my life is its to do with as it pleases.
Before I succumb to terror, it threw me back into the woods from whence I came. Crashing into a tree trunk, my breath leaves me as my fathers sword falls with a metallic ring ont othe forrest floor. It leaps at me with a scream before rearing back and clawing the air above its head. Something has frustrated it. that is the last impression I have of the living legend before my eyes close. In my near death, i dreamt of the wolf.
Never have I seen such a thing. Never had I believed that such a creature could exist. After all, how could a wolf be a man? Or a man be a wolf? Yet, there it had been... teeth, claw and fur, standing on two feet with a human grip. It's exesitance demands on e accept the stories of a creture created by the Dragul to subjugate the massess, obeying his every command. it is his hunter, his army, his playtoy. It is a thing of nightmares. Of Hell itself. Somewhere, in a cold room of stone and steel the Dragul wove a spell to bring to life a monster...
