Violet Riding Hood

Chapter 6

"What did you say?" Vallery asked, and then the freezing silence was replaced by whispers everywhere.

The proud Sage Sallyahel walked around Catherine and her dead wolf, appreciating the gray fur, the injuries that the axe blade had caused, the shape and pattern of the fangs and teeth and finally the sheer size of the beast.

She did not seem to be impressed at all, and then she took a careful look into its lifeless blue eyes...

"Do you realize, young woman" Sallyahel told Catherine, staring right into her eyes- "That a real Wolf features all black fur and violet eyes? They are so large, that your wolf here would be no more than a midget in comparison! This... this is just a common gray wolf!"

"Impossible!" Catherine said- "We have been living with this beast for generations, we know what we are dealing with!"

"You have no idea what you are dealing with..."

Vallery decided to take a look herself into the eyes of the dead wolf, realizing that they were blue indeed and not similar at all to those violet eyes that she had seen in the forest at night.

"Catherine, I think the Sage is right" Vallery whispered to her friend, feeling a shiver running down her back- "The night when I tried to avenge my sister I could see the Wolf looking at me through the darkness, and those eyes were violet..."

Sage Sallyahel drew out her silvery sword as she faced the confused and terrified people all around her, and before the villagers could react the military forces had descended from their carriages and were taking positions everywhere.

They were armored soldiers armed with a variety of swords and crossbows, also carrying ropes and metallic traps like those used to hunt the largest bears in the wild...

"My husband's name was Alistair" Sallyahel said, all the eyes fixed on her- "He was incredibly handsome, and together we raised two beautiful daughters... We lived in a village just like this, and like Swordhorn, ours was plagued by a Wolf..."

Vallery witnessed how the soldiers set the first trap and concealed it with snow beside the gates of the church, another group prepared a similar trap at the market, the villagers were starting to get alarmed and the Sage continued her narration.

"We were a very happy family, but one December night my friends and I drank too much wine and we decided to hunt the Wolf... It never occurred to us that we might actually find it, but find it we did!"

The story immediately drew the attention of the villagers, because most of them had heard the stories about the Wolfhunter and they were very curious to hear what she would have to say. They did not want to believe that perhaps, just perhaps Catherine had killed the wrong Wolf, but what if...?

"The Wolf ripped my best friends in half!" Sallyahel continued, acting the fight with the sword in her hand- "I could see its violet eyes gleaming in the darkness, it charged at me and then I was lucky to pierce straight into its heart with my silver sword... the Wolf was finally dead, and after that I never saw my Alistair again."

"What do you mean?" Father Novembrus asked, but the meaning was already pretty clear for almost everyone else:

The Wolf was not a wild beast hiding in a cave up in the mountains, like they had always imagined... The supernatural monster was actually somebody living in the village like everyone else, pretending to have a normal life at Swordhorn itself.

"I told my daughters that the Wolf killed their father when we fought it that night, but that story was just a rotten lie" Sallyahel said, finally ending her story- I killed him..."