Black Hunter

Prologue

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Her laughs almost broke through the clamour of the crowd; the laughing and clapping and the loud music to which many couples danced, but none as rhythmically as Benjamin and his soon-to-be-wife Victoria. The music was played on various string instruments, and the pace was quick. Victoria's black and white dress flowed as she turned and twirled in the middle of the tavern. The other customers raised their mugs and tankards, spilling beer over their beards and shirts as they laughed and cheered, and even the bartender, who was a large, burly man, had put the empty glass which he was cleaning down, the old rag inside it, and joined the crowd.

The first song ended and the second started. The other couples joined the crowd as Ben and Victoria took the light. It was a merry midsummer's eve and a warm one. A few people entered and left through the wooden door, whose creeks and slams couldn't be heard over the sounds of the merry crowd. As the second song, which was longer, ended, Ben and his fiance returned to their seats for a brief rest and a drink. The bartender himself placed a large tankard of mead before Ben and a glass of whiskey before Victoria.
"That was good." Proclaimed Ben as the bartender returned to cleaning his glasses before swallowing a mouthful of mead. "That was good."

Victoria merely chuckled as a small stream of mead spilt down his front before draining her own small glass of whiskey. He drained his tankard right as the third song started. The two rose and had barely begun to dance when the door swung open so forcefully it almost flew off its hinges. A scruffy and bloody man in tattered clothes came stumbling in, fear in his eyes. Before everybody in the crowd had registered the newcomer, something large and hairy shot through the door like a large and particularly heavy cannonball. There were screams, and the music came to a stop as people tried to hide; it was a werewolf.

Ben grabbed Victoria and attempted to run up the stairs and away from the beast, but she let out a scream as they neared the bottom of the stairs and he came to a stop as he would had he been tied with a rope; the beast had grabbed her. He dropped her hand and grabbed a heavy bottle of grog from the bar beside him and hurled it at the beast. It shattered.

The beast leapt at Ben as the latter ran up the stairs and into a room. The door flew open, and the beast leapt towards Ben, sinking his teeth into his victim's arm for a brief moment, causing a pair of streams of blood to flow down Ben's arm. Ben grabbed the nearest object, which happened to be a pouch full of silver, and hurled it at the monster, and it was torn in mid-air, showering the monster with silver. The creature howled in rage and pain as his skin started to lightly smoke where the silver touched it, and leapt through the window, escaping into the night.

Breathing heavily, Ben made his way back downstairs. It was calm, and his arm was aching. The tavern was in ruins; chairs and tables and glasses had been shattered and broken in the struggle, and there was blood everywhere, and several bodies or wounded victims. The bartender, a large knife in his hand, was laying below a broken table that had been split in two, breathing heavily, and quite bloody, and by the bar, he saw her.

Victoria was lying against the bar, her dress wet with blood, and her chest still.