![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Golden Wolf"
May. 24th, 2022 08:25 am"Golden Wolf"
(3/25/1989)
Leaving his car under a tree just off the road, Kwali glanced up. The full moon was red in a cloudless sky, an ominous sign with midnight not far away. It was late March but he shrugged out of his topcoat and tossed it in the back seat of his Lincoln. Despite the cold, he stood there wearing on a light snug tunic and tights of black cotton which left his forearms and his lower legs bare. Often he went barefoot when stalking but he was practical enough to be wearing low slippers. He was hardened to endure worse than a chilly night. Since he had won the right to wear Wakimbe's Claw at the age of sixteen, he had fought tyrants and bandits wherever his task took him. Now, he trotted lightly down the hard dirt road that led into the woods.
Bakwanga Kwali, with his dark skin and his black suit, was almost invisible in the gloom and his tread was so near to silence that not even animals stirred as he raced by. Under his tunic, the ancient talisman burned uncomfortably against his skin to warn him he was approaching supernatural force. He welcomed it. To him, his duty was the most important thing in life. For three hours he had driven up here from New York City, as his captain Jeremy Bane had informed him of the strange killings here near the Catskill Mountains and he was getting eager to finish this. The African warrior stepped to one side and vanished between the trees and among the bushes, still running briskly but in silence. His keen sense of smell had picked up the bitter tang of cigarette smoke. There! He caught sight of a tiny red flare of light as the cigarette was puffed on. The fool. Kwali came closer and saw there were two sentries, if they deserved that title.
Both were Americans, in perhaps their early thirties. They wore the work boots, worn jeans and flannel shirts he associated with country folk, "rednecks" as they were sometimes called in this land. One had a long blonde ponytail and beard, the other had a baseball cap and he was the one with the shotgun. Kwali crept closer, almost within arm's reach and still they had not even suspected death was near to them.
"You think Gina's ever gonna let us sample some of what she's got?" one whispered.
"Aw hell, no. She's the worst tease. The best we can expect is loot from the people she kills. Still, we're doing okay."
"I can't complain," said the one who finished his cigarette and ground it out underfoot. "My trailer's filling up with stuff and I got new tires now. But you got to admit, she's tasty-" He was cut off in mid-sentence as Kwali leaped high in the air and came down upon them. In this case, he did not feel it necessary to draw upon the full power of the ancient talisman he wore. He took on only part of the sacred Black Lion form. In the dark night, two men flew open as a huge chunks were gouged from their throats and chests. Kwali swiped at them as quickly as any real lion, killing them with one blow each. The bodies dropped to the cold dirt. Listening for signs that the brief encounter had been heard, Cat's-Claw gazed down at the massive lion's paws which swelled out from his forearms. He let them shrink back down to become his own Human hands again, then knelt to wipe the gore off on a dead man's shirt.
These men boasted of enjoying loot taken from murder victims. Let them lie where they had fallen. Kwali headed down the dirt road again, barely able to keep breaking into a full run. The talon under his shirt tugged forward, leading him. The African knight made himself slow, slid over into cover of the trees and approached the voices he heard just ahead. Crawling up a small hill, he looked down at a sight that made his blood run hot with anger.
There was a rundown old house painted canary yellow, with a garage near by. The garage had no doors, and two floodlights high on its roof lit the scene. In the garage were two Harley-Davidson motorcycles and parked in front of the house was a red Dodge truck. Tied up in the bed of that pick-up were two small forms. Kwali choked down a growl in his throat. He must be silent. Taking his time, he circled around to where he could see two small boys lying side by side in that truck. One stirred, but they seemed to be drugged. As he got closer, racuous music started blasting from the house and a man came out with a teenage girl by his side.
Kwali watched them. The man was much like the two he had just killed, older and with a beer gut, holding a cheeseburger in one hand. He started singing to the music but the girl shushed him impatiently. She was small, not much over five feet tall, with a mop of yellow hair. The two of them drew near the truck and Kwali crouched unseen in the darkness and held his breath as the man spoke loudly.
"I know you like to push your luck, honey, but honestly, show some sense. Let's dump these brats and move on before we get caught. It's time to start over a hundred miles further north."
"Oh, hush," she said. "I feel like hunting. When they wake up, we'll turn them loose and I'll have some fun. You boys got to remember who's in charge here."
The older man stepped around the truck and Kwali loomed up suddenly behind him, a tall mass of hard muscle from a lifetime of war. Two big hands seized the man and twisted his head around with a soft popping noise. He tossed the corpse to one side and stepped forward to face the girl. His feline green eyes fixed on the one who had captured these innocents and there was death in his gaze.
She did not seem intimidated in the least. As her partner was killed and tossed aside by a giant African from out of the night, Gina McDaniel chuckled. "Well, this is unexpected." She was very young, no more than sixteen, with a slim curvy body revealed by tight jeans and an open denim vest over her bare torso. A tousled shock of butter-yellow hair sat over a freckled face. As she saw Kwali step toward her, she smiled sweetly and stretched, revealing most of her breasts. "See anything you like?" she drawled.
The Cat's-Claw did not trust himself to speak. The talon under his tunic was burning almost painfully now. He stepped forward with a grim determined stride, his big open hands rising.
"Whoa, hold it there, cutie!" teased the girl. "I wasn't asking you out on a date, you know."
With a massive effort, Kwali stopped and spoke. "Are there any other prisoners than those there?"
"Wouldn't you like to know? Listen, whoever you are, you don't know what you're facing. Maybe I'll eat you tonight and hold onto those rug rats for later."
"I should not offer you any chance to surrender. Yet I am required by both the code of Tel Shai and my holy vows to do so. I hope you do not accept it. Do you yield to me and surrender yourself?"
"In. Your. Dreams!" she laughed. "Oh my God, get a load of you. I'm Golden Wolf!"
"And I am Bakwanga Kwali, Cat's-Claw. I will not bandy words with you any longer. Your life is forfeit, I will release your spirit now." With the final word, he lunged forward. Before he could reach the girl, she took two quick steps forward and dove at him. In mid-air, in an instant, her body shuddered and changed. A yellow-furred wolf five feet long pounced on Kwali, who caught it by the throat in an iron grip.
The werewolf's keen fangs tore deep across Kwali's arm, trying to reach his throat but unable. Blood started from the slashes and the African warrior yelled with pain and anger, The Golden Wolfs snapped her jaws shut so close to Kwali's face that saliva hit him. Her blue lupine eyes were near his lambent green eyes and, as they locked, something stirred fear in her predatory heart.
Stronger than any normal Human, even one as powerfully muscled as he was, Kwali sank his fingers deep into her throat. She yelped and struggled, and he flung her savagely down to the ground. A normal beast would have been stunned by that impact, the unnatural she-wolf could not be harmed so easily. She crouched on all fours, eyes bright with killing lust. In the moonlight, her yellow fur gleamed like something precious.
Human or wolf, thought Kwali, either way she is beautiful and evil. He did not seem to notice the bleeding from his arm but that was part of his discipline. He knotted his fists and moved toward her.
Startling enough, the beast opened her muzzle and spoke in the same voice she had in her normal form. "Hey, this is wicked cool. If you live, you'll be a howler now. Ebony Wolf! I love it!"
Despite himself, he felt compelled to answer her. Something in her attitude offended him beyond reason. "No, little fool, I will not be a- a 'howler.' I am given power far beyond your miserable curse."
Kwali drew on the full force of the talon he wore, the ensorcelled claw of Wakimbe himself, who had learned the most potent magick on Ulgor at the very start of the Midnight War. In a rush of gralic energy, he erupted upward to change, bone and blood and sinew, becoming the god his tribe revered.
The Black Lion threw back its maned head and roared.
Bigger than a stallion, dark as night itself, the gigantic beast shook the air with that challenge. Echoes of that roar rolled for miles through the forest and living things froze in terror that they had never known before. As soon as the Black Lion had appeared, its prey fled as fast as four legs could move. Pitifully small before that huge cat, the Golden Wolf hurtled away without a sound. After a long second, the Black Lion snarled louder than a whiplash and glared about with eyes the same green as its Human counterpart. Then it shivered, dwindled and became Human again.
The Cat's-Claw let out a deep unsteady breath. His arm was bleeding still and the werewolf venom burned like acid in his veins. He could not have given chase with an uncertain leg. Looking about, he saw a blue towel on the front seat of the Dodge and he tied it tightly around his wounds. The venom would pass from his system in a day or so, as poisons did to a Cat's-Claw, but he felt nauseous for the moment. He examined the children intently. Both boys had steady heartbeats and breathed evenly. Whatever they had been drugged with, that was a problem for doctors to handle.
Kwali started to go toward the house. Presumably there was a phone there. Once he felt steadier, he would hunt the Golden Wolf again. Their clash was not over. He stopped and stared down next to his foot.
Surprisingly, Kwali snorted and laughed out loud as he seldom did. He had almost stepped on dung where his opponent had been standing a minute before. Despite all the death and fear that night had held, Bakwanga Kwali laughed until his eyes were wet. When she had seen the Black Lion appear, Golden Wolf had been so frightened that she had emptied her bowels.
5/7/2013
(3/25/1989)
Leaving his car under a tree just off the road, Kwali glanced up. The full moon was red in a cloudless sky, an ominous sign with midnight not far away. It was late March but he shrugged out of his topcoat and tossed it in the back seat of his Lincoln. Despite the cold, he stood there wearing on a light snug tunic and tights of black cotton which left his forearms and his lower legs bare. Often he went barefoot when stalking but he was practical enough to be wearing low slippers. He was hardened to endure worse than a chilly night. Since he had won the right to wear Wakimbe's Claw at the age of sixteen, he had fought tyrants and bandits wherever his task took him. Now, he trotted lightly down the hard dirt road that led into the woods.
Bakwanga Kwali, with his dark skin and his black suit, was almost invisible in the gloom and his tread was so near to silence that not even animals stirred as he raced by. Under his tunic, the ancient talisman burned uncomfortably against his skin to warn him he was approaching supernatural force. He welcomed it. To him, his duty was the most important thing in life. For three hours he had driven up here from New York City, as his captain Jeremy Bane had informed him of the strange killings here near the Catskill Mountains and he was getting eager to finish this. The African warrior stepped to one side and vanished between the trees and among the bushes, still running briskly but in silence. His keen sense of smell had picked up the bitter tang of cigarette smoke. There! He caught sight of a tiny red flare of light as the cigarette was puffed on. The fool. Kwali came closer and saw there were two sentries, if they deserved that title.
Both were Americans, in perhaps their early thirties. They wore the work boots, worn jeans and flannel shirts he associated with country folk, "rednecks" as they were sometimes called in this land. One had a long blonde ponytail and beard, the other had a baseball cap and he was the one with the shotgun. Kwali crept closer, almost within arm's reach and still they had not even suspected death was near to them.
"You think Gina's ever gonna let us sample some of what she's got?" one whispered.
"Aw hell, no. She's the worst tease. The best we can expect is loot from the people she kills. Still, we're doing okay."
"I can't complain," said the one who finished his cigarette and ground it out underfoot. "My trailer's filling up with stuff and I got new tires now. But you got to admit, she's tasty-" He was cut off in mid-sentence as Kwali leaped high in the air and came down upon them. In this case, he did not feel it necessary to draw upon the full power of the ancient talisman he wore. He took on only part of the sacred Black Lion form. In the dark night, two men flew open as a huge chunks were gouged from their throats and chests. Kwali swiped at them as quickly as any real lion, killing them with one blow each. The bodies dropped to the cold dirt. Listening for signs that the brief encounter had been heard, Cat's-Claw gazed down at the massive lion's paws which swelled out from his forearms. He let them shrink back down to become his own Human hands again, then knelt to wipe the gore off on a dead man's shirt.
These men boasted of enjoying loot taken from murder victims. Let them lie where they had fallen. Kwali headed down the dirt road again, barely able to keep breaking into a full run. The talon under his shirt tugged forward, leading him. The African knight made himself slow, slid over into cover of the trees and approached the voices he heard just ahead. Crawling up a small hill, he looked down at a sight that made his blood run hot with anger.
There was a rundown old house painted canary yellow, with a garage near by. The garage had no doors, and two floodlights high on its roof lit the scene. In the garage were two Harley-Davidson motorcycles and parked in front of the house was a red Dodge truck. Tied up in the bed of that pick-up were two small forms. Kwali choked down a growl in his throat. He must be silent. Taking his time, he circled around to where he could see two small boys lying side by side in that truck. One stirred, but they seemed to be drugged. As he got closer, racuous music started blasting from the house and a man came out with a teenage girl by his side.
Kwali watched them. The man was much like the two he had just killed, older and with a beer gut, holding a cheeseburger in one hand. He started singing to the music but the girl shushed him impatiently. She was small, not much over five feet tall, with a mop of yellow hair. The two of them drew near the truck and Kwali crouched unseen in the darkness and held his breath as the man spoke loudly.
"I know you like to push your luck, honey, but honestly, show some sense. Let's dump these brats and move on before we get caught. It's time to start over a hundred miles further north."
"Oh, hush," she said. "I feel like hunting. When they wake up, we'll turn them loose and I'll have some fun. You boys got to remember who's in charge here."
The older man stepped around the truck and Kwali loomed up suddenly behind him, a tall mass of hard muscle from a lifetime of war. Two big hands seized the man and twisted his head around with a soft popping noise. He tossed the corpse to one side and stepped forward to face the girl. His feline green eyes fixed on the one who had captured these innocents and there was death in his gaze.
She did not seem intimidated in the least. As her partner was killed and tossed aside by a giant African from out of the night, Gina McDaniel chuckled. "Well, this is unexpected." She was very young, no more than sixteen, with a slim curvy body revealed by tight jeans and an open denim vest over her bare torso. A tousled shock of butter-yellow hair sat over a freckled face. As she saw Kwali step toward her, she smiled sweetly and stretched, revealing most of her breasts. "See anything you like?" she drawled.
The Cat's-Claw did not trust himself to speak. The talon under his tunic was burning almost painfully now. He stepped forward with a grim determined stride, his big open hands rising.
"Whoa, hold it there, cutie!" teased the girl. "I wasn't asking you out on a date, you know."
With a massive effort, Kwali stopped and spoke. "Are there any other prisoners than those there?"
"Wouldn't you like to know? Listen, whoever you are, you don't know what you're facing. Maybe I'll eat you tonight and hold onto those rug rats for later."
"I should not offer you any chance to surrender. Yet I am required by both the code of Tel Shai and my holy vows to do so. I hope you do not accept it. Do you yield to me and surrender yourself?"
"In. Your. Dreams!" she laughed. "Oh my God, get a load of you. I'm Golden Wolf!"
"And I am Bakwanga Kwali, Cat's-Claw. I will not bandy words with you any longer. Your life is forfeit, I will release your spirit now." With the final word, he lunged forward. Before he could reach the girl, she took two quick steps forward and dove at him. In mid-air, in an instant, her body shuddered and changed. A yellow-furred wolf five feet long pounced on Kwali, who caught it by the throat in an iron grip.
The werewolf's keen fangs tore deep across Kwali's arm, trying to reach his throat but unable. Blood started from the slashes and the African warrior yelled with pain and anger, The Golden Wolfs snapped her jaws shut so close to Kwali's face that saliva hit him. Her blue lupine eyes were near his lambent green eyes and, as they locked, something stirred fear in her predatory heart.
Stronger than any normal Human, even one as powerfully muscled as he was, Kwali sank his fingers deep into her throat. She yelped and struggled, and he flung her savagely down to the ground. A normal beast would have been stunned by that impact, the unnatural she-wolf could not be harmed so easily. She crouched on all fours, eyes bright with killing lust. In the moonlight, her yellow fur gleamed like something precious.
Human or wolf, thought Kwali, either way she is beautiful and evil. He did not seem to notice the bleeding from his arm but that was part of his discipline. He knotted his fists and moved toward her.
Startling enough, the beast opened her muzzle and spoke in the same voice she had in her normal form. "Hey, this is wicked cool. If you live, you'll be a howler now. Ebony Wolf! I love it!"
Despite himself, he felt compelled to answer her. Something in her attitude offended him beyond reason. "No, little fool, I will not be a- a 'howler.' I am given power far beyond your miserable curse."
Kwali drew on the full force of the talon he wore, the ensorcelled claw of Wakimbe himself, who had learned the most potent magick on Ulgor at the very start of the Midnight War. In a rush of gralic energy, he erupted upward to change, bone and blood and sinew, becoming the god his tribe revered.
The Black Lion threw back its maned head and roared.
Bigger than a stallion, dark as night itself, the gigantic beast shook the air with that challenge. Echoes of that roar rolled for miles through the forest and living things froze in terror that they had never known before. As soon as the Black Lion had appeared, its prey fled as fast as four legs could move. Pitifully small before that huge cat, the Golden Wolf hurtled away without a sound. After a long second, the Black Lion snarled louder than a whiplash and glared about with eyes the same green as its Human counterpart. Then it shivered, dwindled and became Human again.
The Cat's-Claw let out a deep unsteady breath. His arm was bleeding still and the werewolf venom burned like acid in his veins. He could not have given chase with an uncertain leg. Looking about, he saw a blue towel on the front seat of the Dodge and he tied it tightly around his wounds. The venom would pass from his system in a day or so, as poisons did to a Cat's-Claw, but he felt nauseous for the moment. He examined the children intently. Both boys had steady heartbeats and breathed evenly. Whatever they had been drugged with, that was a problem for doctors to handle.
Kwali started to go toward the house. Presumably there was a phone there. Once he felt steadier, he would hunt the Golden Wolf again. Their clash was not over. He stopped and stared down next to his foot.
Surprisingly, Kwali snorted and laughed out loud as he seldom did. He had almost stepped on dung where his opponent had been standing a minute before. Despite all the death and fear that night had held, Bakwanga Kwali laughed until his eyes were wet. When she had seen the Black Lion appear, Golden Wolf had been so frightened that she had emptied her bowels.
5/7/2013
