Moon's Rite

Trouble in the Ringfort

Alistair pulled away from his latest dance partner when the music faltered. The silence after the throbbing drums and lilting flutes was deafening. His caution was echoed across the ringfort as people stopped celebrating to turn their gazes upwards. The shrouded figures lining the top tier revealed weapons and a sense of fear drifted through the people down below. Alistair dropped his hands down to the blades Tony had insisted on filling his sheathes with and felt a surge of grateful relief.

The thought reminded him, however, that he had lost his partner. His eyes scanned the gathering, looking for the cocky Vampire woman until one of the figures spoke out over the silent crowd.

"Hear me friends! I come with news of our salvation!"

A murmur rumbled through the crowd. The man continued speaking in the clear tones and resonating words of a skilled speaker. His hood cast his features into shadow, though the bone mask likely wouldn't have revealed much either. It was the top half of some sort of carnivore's skull, Alistair could tell that much, with an elongated snout and gleaming fangs.

"Too long have we gathered in the darkness, hiding ourselves away in places like this while the Human vermin spread like a pestilence. Too long have we suppressed ourselves, at the behest of those who have inherited power instead of earning it. But no longer. I come to you tonight, brothers and sisters, with a new reason to celebrate. For tonight marks the beginning of a new era!"

Someone in the crowd spoke over the rest. "A new era of what, exactly?" Alistair couldn't see him, but his question earned a murmur of agreeing questions from the crowd.

The newcomer smiled and another set of fangs showed. Alistair swallowed, beginning to suspect this man was the Noble character they had been chasing. His gaze swept the ringfort again, looking for Tony as he listened.

"An era of prosperity. An age of freedom. The beginning of our glorious rise, where we throw off the chains of anonymity and hiding in the dark to take our rightful place in the world."

A woman spoke up, just behind Alistair, her filagree mask shoved up to show her face. Her eyes sparked in distrust and her feet were set for a fight, shoulders thrown back and head high. "You're suggesting the enslavement of the Humans!"

"They are weak and stupid, good for nothing else. It is only their rapidly growing numbers that ever deposed us from our seats of power to begin with."

"But that would start a war! The Vampire Queen and the Werewolf King live in harmony with the Humans. They would never allow you to subjugate the Humans without stepping in to stop you. You think a few Witches and a handful of Fae will help you win a fight like that?!"

The crowds shifted nervously when the man began to laugh. He threw his head back, mouth opened in uncontained mirth. When he had regained control of himself, he reached up to lift his hood from his head. "The Vampire Queen is not fit to rule. It is my sovereign duty to replace her. And as for that wolf whelp with delusions of grandeur..."

A gasp of horror rippled through the crowd as the hood lifted free and revealed the mask hiding the mans' face. It was a wolf skull. But much too large for any average wolf. A pair of Werewolves in the crowd howled in furious grief. Alistair doubted it was the skull of the Wolf King. But it had certainly been someone. Some Werewolf with a pack and a life. The disrespect of wearing the dead like an accessory churned his stomach, so he could only imagine what the wolves felt.

The wolf pair snarled in rage. Some tried to hold them back but they shook off the cautionary hands and charged. A bowstring twanged and an arrow had the pair dodging apart. They made great leaps, clearing the first tier of the ringfort. Another arrow whizzed through the air to bury in the male's chest, up to the fletching, but it was the crack of a rifle shot to the back of his head that had him dead before he hit the ground.