V:
"So that shape-shifting woman gave you that bourbon last night?" Beckett prodded "Seems to me she's trying to help us". It was nightfall and Altan and Beckett who were joined by a couple of castle guards armed with halberds, were trudging through the woods to the hunter's hut where they expected Shani's brother (or just Shani as Altan expected) to strike next. "Help me, you mean?" Altan replied. "Forgive me for being so untrusting of her but I have a feeling she could be bribing me to her side if she is the werewolf".
"Afraid she's gonna bite you and turn you?" Beckett said, chuckling. Altan smiled and said, "No no, it's another superstition that a bite will turn you, like how you believed silver was the only thing that would kill one of them, There are a few exceptions however".
"Do go on," Beckett replied, interested. "Your teachings may prove to be useful and I'll be thankful for them if the time comes for me to use them".
"You're just bored of walking and want fairy tales!" Altan exclaimed, a mischievous grin on his face "How old are you anyways? You're younger than any king I've seen...". Beckett opened his mouth but Altan interrupted with "Don't lie now! I'll be able to tell!". "Able to sniff out lies too huh? Be you another werewolf as well?".
The two laughed heartily. "Oh yes!" Altan replied, "The whole town is one too! The guards and I are cornering you to slaughter you and feed our young!". The Guards joined in with their laughter and the nomad and the king had realized they found friends in one another. They all shared jokes about the beasts but when Altan howled as a jest, another howl was returned to him.
The group stopped dead in their tracks. "Beckett, guardsmen... was that you?". "No" Beckett replied, his hand already on the handle of the sword on his hip "It was further away...".
"By God!" One of the guardsmen exclaimed. "It came from that way, where we are heading, where the hunter is!". Almost as if on cue; a great horrified scream came from deep down on the path.
"Questions about monsters and your age can wait, the beast has already struck!" Altan told them "Quickly, Quickly! We have to catch that thing!".
The men sprinted as fast as they could down the path till finally, they came upon the hut. The sight they came upon shook Beckett and the guardsmen to their core. Surely enough there was the Werewolf. The white fur barely clung onto its long, slender, and bony body. Its horrid face was digging into the body of the hunter that lived there's intestines, greedily eating up whatever organs it found.
The Albino Werewolf stopped its feeding and dropped the mangled corpse. It sniffed once and immediately swung its head in the direction of the men, its red eyes locking onto Beckett. The werewolf bounded towards him but the guardsmen (to Altan's amazement, as he had only seen such guards run away at the sight of horrors like this) jumped in front of him to defend him. They thrusted their halberds at the beast and Altan and Beckett himself joined in on the offense.
They swung and poked at the beast, pushing it into the attack radius of each other but it was too fast for them to lay a blow on it. Eventually, the beast got fed up and took a stab from a halberd to grab the guardsmen whom he then grabbed and tossed into a nearby tree. "Guardsman Leo!" Beckett yelled to the last standing guardsman "Help up William!". As he said this he was blocking and dodging out of the way of the beast's claws.
Altan eventually was able to get another blow on the beast. While it was busy attacking Beckett he cut open the Werewolf's legs with his sabers. However, a werewolf is one tough son of a bitch and this only angered the monster. So the pissed-off werewolf slammed his fist into the side of Altan's head and knocked him down to the ground.
Beckett yelled at the Werewolf "Away from him you creature!". The Werewolf turned to Beckett and glared him down. "It's me you wish to kill, so come and strike me down! In return I will give you the finest form of steel in all of Fjorde!" Beckett called out, pointing his sword at the beast.
"How...noble..." The Werewolf replied, its voice hoarse and raspy like the tearing of paper and the scraping of a fork on a plate mixed together. Beckett stood still, his face showing a steadfast look but on the inside, he was frightened for his life.
He ignored his fear and charged. He was able to get in a few cuts on the monster but eventually, he caught Beckett's sword arm. He picked Beckett up and tossed him down as hard as he could behind him. The toss dislocated Beckett's arm. Doing his best to ignore the pain, Beckett reached out to grab the sword with his non-dominant hand but the werewolf simply stepped on it.
The beast laughed and it was a sound you wouldn't be able to listen to without shuddering for an hour straight. He pushed his foot down harder on Beckett's hand, breaking a few of his fingers. But before the Werewolf could deliver the killing blow on Beckett, a miracle you could only get from having God in debt to you occurred. A bird, a tiny albino bird. A hawk to be exact, flew right into the Werewolf's eye. It was Shani.
As Altan came to he saw this and smiled, thankful he was wrong. Shani tried digging deeper into her brother's head but instead, he pulled her out and threw her down onto the ground. He raised his foot to stomp on her but before he could, Altan-with one of his swords- sliced open a deep cut in the Werewolf's back. Altan quickly crouched down and, with the other sword, chopped off the foot that was going to stomp on Shani. The Werewolf howled in pain (of course it did) and quickly scrambled off into the woods.
Altan looked down at Shani to see her in her human form on the ground. She was bruised and bloodied so he reached out a hand to pick her up. Shani only slapped it away and said "You idiot! Check on Beckett first!". Altan quickly nodded and went to go help up Beckett who was face down in the dirt but still conscious.
When he was back up on his feet, Beckett immediately ran to his Guardsmen who were recuperating near the tree where Guardsman Leo was tossed into. Seemingly ignoring his own, Beckett checked Leo for injuries. Altan walked up to Shani who was staring curiously at Beckett and said to her "Guess I owe you an apology for not trusting you?".
Shani looked at him and simply replied "No worries you had a valid reason". With that, she ran off to help Beckett with Leo. Altan simply shook his head, Cleaned the blood off his swords, and sharpened them on his silver glove, the cuts the swords made into the glove quickly faded and Altan chuckled. "Yeah, you better stay in good condition" A worried look appeared on his face "For the sake of my soul and mind..."
