The Cursekeeper

The Bannik

Song is, "Beethoven Virus (Full Version)" by Diana Boncheva featuring BanYa.

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Bokovoy Range, Russia, November of 1904

Deep in the white covered mountains of Russia, Dubh's wolf trekked through the shoulder deep snow as he climbed a very steep hill. He'd been on the run for quite some time now, and not just from the Van der Linde clan but from his former ally Apate and his little sister Cahira. His mother was the only one who didn't understand just what Mallacht and he had done.

Dubh slipped and he tensed as his paws lost leverage on the hill. He froze for a few moments before sighing and closing his eyes. A fierce breeze brushed through him and he looked up at the cloudy night sky, watching the thick snow flakes fall. Dubh gauged how much further he had to climb to reach the village of Valok. He only had to reach the top of the hill for his salvation, but leave it to karma to make his last resort hard to get to.

"There's a blizzard, but this isn't so bad," he thought to himself. "I can do this."

Even though his whole body ached and felt stiff from the long uphill journey through blistering winds and freezing snow, Dubh strained to continue forward. He grunted and squeezed his eyes shut before climbing once more. Paw by paw, the black wolf made the ascent uphill, the wind still wailing around him. When he finally pulled himself to the top, he shook his fur before looking down an incline at the silhouette of a village.

The Valok Pack. The town belonged to werewolves and the Alpha was Konstantine Sidorov, Dubh's only remaining friend. He'd been to the pack's village many times in the past and had always been welcomed there, so hopefully nothing had changed. As he walked forward, the wind continued to whistle and howl around him and he shivered. He could really use a soak in their hotspring baths. The snow started to level off and was no longer quite so difficult to go through. Dubh shook himself again to relieve the stresses of his traveling but then he tensed when he smelled something on the wind.

A werewolf.

Dubh sniffed around and his eyes squinted as he pierced through the fog with his sight. He caught movement in his peripherals and he turned his head to see a large, very thick coated white wolf. Dubh relaxed and took a deep breath. "Alpha," he said with a bowing of his head.

"Dubh," Konstantine replied. "It's been awhile."

"It has."

The bigger wolf jerked his head towards the village. "Come. Let us get out of the cold," he said before padding forward.

Dubh followed quickly and soon they got to a small house near the middle of the village's town square. Konstantine shifted into his human form and opened the front door. Dubh rushed in and Konstantine followed after looking around for any signs of life in the village, then he shut the door and grabbed some clothes from the ground. He dressed himself in black trousers, a long white wool jumper and a leather coat adorned with hanging sections of white fur.

"Hungry?" Konstantine asked as he went to light candles to illuminate the area.

"Starved," Dubh replied.

"There's smoked meat and some canned food in the pantry over there," Konstantine said, pointing towards a small, rustic kitchen. "Spare clothes are in the bedroom down the hall."

Dubh rushed over to the bedroom and walked in. He quickly changed back into a human and opened the closet, rubbing himself down to keep warm. He found brown pants and slipped those on before grabbing a long sleeved green button down shirt and putting it on, buttoning it then reaching for a black wool frock coat. After putting that on, Dubh grabbed some brown winter boots and slipped them on his feet, then he looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was black, long and curly and he looked to be in his early thirties. He was handsome with dark brown eyes, but he had a black scruffy beard that needed tending to.