The Spell of the Winterwolf Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – An army is formed

Tarole stirred within his giant wings. It was dark and cold by the fire. He smiled slyly… the spell hadn’t broken yet. His icy claws wrapped around a stick and threw it into the fire and watched as it lapped up the stick and yawned for more. He looked up into the dark sky. There was nothing… nothing at all. He stretched his human arms and began to wake up. He looked around the little camp-site.

“What has happened?” he shouted. The trees looked doubtfully down at the small gathering. If they could talk like they could before the Evil Spirit came, they could have told the truth. But now they had to stand back and watch the human reputation get stained. Tarole and Garion stared at the gory sight. The Wolf was lying on his back, still looking up at the stars that had once lit up for him. His stomach that had been splintered was now a bloody mass and his black blood was spread for feet around him. His hands were turned a pale yellow and his feet were burned slightly from the camp-fire. It started to reek horrendously.
“Are you not going to tell me what has happened?” Tarole asked. An eerie silence echoed through the forest and nothing could be heard except the heavy breathing of the trees. A distant voice began to sing in Tarole’s head. Something about life ending and being left helplessly to die. It was so still and yet the voice was so loud. Then it began to say something about faults and spells and evil things that killed people.  He shook his head and looked intensely at Garion. “Um… your majesty! It must have been the humans that came into camp last night and tried to take revenge on the poor suffering soul. We should avenge them!” Garion gambled on. “Why would they come this close to me? Shouldn’t they be afraid of me? To come this close would only mean foolishness on their part!”
“But the humans are foolish people, sir.”
“Yes, I have to agree with you there for once.” He kicked the Wolf to make sure he was really dead. I’m not sure why for he had every breath of life gone from his formless body. “Those humans aren’t content just to live; they have to get back at everyone in their path! Why don’t they just worry about surviving?” Garion hadn’t seen Tarole so worried about someone’s death. Had this deep magic affected him so much that he was beginning to see death as it was? “Surely it was just their nature. Nonetheless, we should go and kill every one of them!” he said.
“Garion! How could you?! You let them just come into the camp and kill the last Wolf! The last gruesome Wolf! Do you really sleep that deep? Huh? Have you no brains? If you did, I would wring every one of them and throw you to the Evil Spirit!” he went over and clawed Garion until he screamed to even the trees to help. They stood as still as a statue. “I thought you relied on me!” Garion screamed. “Yes Garion! I relied on you and now I don’t! I have a good mind to end that miserable life of yours!” Tarole pulled out his claws and gnawed at Garion until every last exhaling of his breath was done. He laid there, a lifeless creature to be used no more. Silence entered the woods once more. Tarole was alone with blood dripping from his claws. He turned around and sat by the fire and tried to warm his bones. The fire was cold as winter and hot as a volcano. He shivered up tears and began to wipe them quickly from his hairy face. “I must avenge them by myself.” He looked down by his feet. There was a sliver of light shining meticulously. “NO!” he screamed. “It must not end!” and threw himself down on the ground and screeched. If he were going to keep the spell forever, he would have to start now. It must be done, he thought.

So, he set out alone, walking in his own darkness toward the Southern Falls; the home of the many creatures, including the humans. He trudged through mud, leaves, blood, tears, everything that he had made, he was now walking through. He was far from the dark, murky, mysterious caves in the Western Hills that he and all his evil creatures lurked until they had news of some death in the forest. He felt so out in the open here without any form of protection. For weeks he trudged and flew through the woods. One cold, dark day like all the rest, he stopped to take a rest at the bottom of a tree. It was so cold that his claws froze to anything they touched. He scraped his face hoping for some way to keep it warm. It started to rain. He looked up into the dark sky. His wings grew wet and began to leak through to his scaly skin. Suddenly hideous creatures began to crawl out of the dark spaces that hid their horrendous bodies. He sat and watched them. One creature came out of hole in a rock. It was close to four feet tall and was nothing but bones and long fingers. It seemed as if its fingers could reach right over to him. It had claw-like feet and a scaly head that was twice the size of his body. He came out of the hole and began washing his dirty body. The rain fell right off his skin and made dirty puddles on the ground. For several minutes he just stood there and stared into the rain and then crawled back into the rock as quickly as he had come. Tarole shivered and wondered how many of these kind of creatures were in the woods. The rain fell on him and made him burn as if he was in a volcanic mountain. The rain fell close to his fingers and made a shape in the dirt… it looked vaguely of the shape of a great bird. One that was so big it seemed as tall as the trees themselves. Then it just dissolved. Tarole looked ahead and saw a dragon looking creature coming toward him. It looked small for a dragon. “Why are you here?” it said. “I was heading for the Southern Falls,” Tarole answered. “You are the great Tarole that rules this forest aren’t you?”
“Well, yes I am.”
“It isn’t safe here.”
“Why not?”
“Because the humans want to kill you! Don’t you realize that if they kill you, the spell will be broken!?”
“I’m not as strong as I used to be… I lost all my helpers here and haven’t been able to call any from the Great Caves yet. But I suppose there are some here that might want to help me.” Tarole said thoughtfully.
“We would be willing Your Majesty … just one thing though,”
“What is that?”
“If we help you, you have to make us into who we were before the Evil Spirit came. We were happy then and now, well, none of us wants to go anywhere because we look too terrifying!”
“I will think on that. You must get as many as you can together now! We have no time to waste. We have to get the blood of a human… and I don’t care what we have to do to get it!!!”
“Yes your majesty!”

After days of preparing Tarole finally had the army he wanted. Giants, Centaurs, Elves, Dragons, Vampires, and even the scared Kobalos. Tarole looked at the army and sighed. If only Garion had been here to see this. Let’s just hope that these don’t have to same death as he, Tarole thought.  They were ready. Ready to slay the first human they got their bloody hands on.