Werelord Thal: A Renaissance Werewolf Tale (63 page)

“Dear God, please save me. I’ve done nothing
to deserve this. Please God, pity me. I don’t want to die.”

Her hoarse voice faded and fresh tears
dripped. The onrushing knowledge of her inescapable execution
quashed her prayers. She sagged against the grimy iron bars,
muttering that she did not want to die.

The distant sound of a door opening and
slamming hushed her whimpering. Footsteps came toward the cell
block. She squinted when the light spilled into her black misery.
The two men who had brought her to this place were back.

The one with the scraggly blonde hair held
his lantern close to her cell. She held a hand up against the
light.

“Awake and waiting for me aren’t you, my
special girl,” he said.

Altea started trembling. Dreading his assault
she looked around her cell for anything that might help her defend
herself, but there was nothing but a slop bucket.

The blonde man turned to the racks on the
opposite wall and took down two chains. He gave one length of rusty
links to his partner.

He grinned while unlocking Altea’s cell. She
scooted all the way back. The heavy door creaked on its hinges and
he came in. He set down the lantern on the floor and descended on
Altea. She could not hit him because of the state of her thumbs. He
grabbed her neck with both hands and hauled her to her feet. She
screamed, and then the pain from her broken ribs took her breath
away. He slammed her against the bars and started wrapping the
chain around her wrists. Her bound hands were then chained to the
iron grid above her head. The woman in the other cell received the
same treatment.

The rogue in Altea’s cell fetched his lantern
and held it near her face. “You’re the sweetest thing ever I set
eyes on,” he said. He stroked her cheek. She twisted away.

He tucked the lantern into the high window
sill so that it cast light throughout the cell. Taking out a knife,
he slid its point down her nose and onto her lips. The cold sharp
edge terrified her.

“Please don’t hurt me. You don’t have to do
this. Let me go,” she said.

He laughed. “You’re so good at begging. I’d
like to hear you beg more, like you did today. It’s true what they
say. They all beg in the torture room. I’m happy the Jesuit saved
you from the maiden. Now I got something to prick you with. I won
the coin toss and get you first.”

“Don’t hurt me. Go away,” Altea said.

He grabbed a lock of her hair and sawed into
it with his knife. “Something to remember you by. They say you
never forget your first. And you’re going to be my first witch,” he
said and stuffed her ragged chunk of hair into a pocket.

His hand rubbed across her breasts. She
moaned and shut her eyes. He pressed against her and whispered in
her ear. “Your werewolf lover isn’t going to come for you. We’ve
been waiting half the night and there’s no sign of him.”

“Thal,” Altea sobbed, wanting him so badly.
He was the only one in the world who would show her any sympathy
now.

“She calls out to him,” her tormentor
laughed.

“Nice,” his counterpart grunted as he
struggled with his prisoner. She apparently was not as injured as
Altea. She must have confessed more quickly in the torture
chamber.

The man assaulting Altea sheathed his knife
and took her face in his hands. He forced a kiss upon her. She
snarled at his stinking mouth and he squeezed her cheeks with
bruising force. Her chained vulnerability and defiance excited him
in new ways. As a soldier he had violated women when sacking
villages but it had never been like this. The chains enhanced his
sense of power and the privacy of the cell invited him to take his
time. He planned on enjoying himself.

******

Slumped over in a chair, Miguel snored
softly. Vito sat nearby. A single candle burned in the room they
shared. Martin was across the hall in his office, and Tenzo and Jan
were with the other men at the entrance.

Sleep never came easily to Vito, and the
wheezing slumber of Miguel was becoming annoying. But most vexing
was the absence of Thal. Perhaps his lust for the Magistrate’s
stepdaughter was insufficient to attract him, and Vito fretted that
he might never catch the elusive werewolf.

At least he would gain notoriety from the
witch hunt that he had started. The people of Prague had taken to
it with a healthy appetite for condemning others. He recalled his
short encounter with Thal in Mirotice. He should have recognized
him as a supernatural beast more quickly. Then he might have been
succeeded in entrapping the man.

Vito sighed. The reality of Rainer’s loss was
still sinking in. He could hope someday to acquire another man
stricken with the wolf curse. Vito had only begun to explore the
possibilities. God smiled upon any advantage he could find in the
battle against heresy.

A gun fired. The cracking sound thrilled
Vito, who jumped from his chair. Another gunshot vibrated in the
hall. Vito yanked open the door and looked out. Miguel snorted and
came awake.

“Is something happening?” he asked.

A roar shook the sturdy building and men
yelled. Snarls and screams ensued.

“Dear God!” Vito cried as he peered down the
hall. The double doors burst open and a shaggy beast was
silhouetted against the moonlight in the square. Carrying a dead
body, presumably that of one of the outside guards, the werewolf
shielded himself from the blows of the other men-at-arms.

The werewolf tore into the men. Claws slashed
and terrible jaws crunched on bone. The screaming was awful. Two
men escaped the whirlwind of butchery and ran toward Vito. Thal
leaped and pounced on the back on the closest man. A fast crushing
bite to the back of the neck killed the man.

Jan Bradcek raced toward Vito. His eyes were
ablaze with terror. The werewolf landed on his back and smashed him
hard to the floor. Vito fled. He heard the man scream once in agony
and then claws scraped against the floor as Thal launched himself
after Vito.

The chase was short. The wiry Jesuit made an
athletic effort, but Thal’s snapping jaws caught the back of Vito’s
robe at the entrance to the main court chamber. He was dragged back
into the hall screaming.

Thal seized him with his paw-like hands and
stood Vito up against the wall. He snarled with bloody teeth into
the face of the Jesuit who had led Rainer to madness and ruin.

“Think of your soul! I can save you. Come to
God!” Vito cried desperately.

Thal tore out his throat. The soft flesh
offered little resistance to his great jaws. As the man crumpled,
spurting blood across Thal’s slick armor, Thal clawed at him and
ripped away his robe.

Panting and snarling Thal stepped back from
the body and dropped back to all fours. He looked up and saw the
other monk in the hall. The man squeaked and fled in terror.

Thal’s nostrils flared. Another quarry more
important than Vito’s aide was close. Leaving bloody paw prints,
Thal stepped over Jan, thinking it convenient that the man had been
here.

At an ornate door he slapped a paw upon the
shiny handle but it was locked. Growling fiercely he bashed against
the door with all his weight. The bolt on the inside split off the
wall.

When he burst into the room, a bearded man
squealed and cowered in a corner. Thal smelled the other one hiding
under the desk. He leaped across the broad desk. Papers flew in
every direction. He plunged his head under the desk. He chomped
into the Magistrate’s meaty shoulder and hauled him from his
pitiful hole.

“Use the charm!” shrieked Zussek from the
corner.

Martin lifted up the silver box. “Be gone
Devil!” he cried.

Thal let him go and eased back. His growl
remained sinister, but the palpable presence of his mother’s magic
surprised him. Her scent was suddenly in his face and it made him
hesitant to kill. He struggled against this instinctive
barrier.

Although he was shaking hard, Martin was
fierce in his desperation. Holding the box out, he said, “I command
you to go. I hold the charm that your witch mother used to make
you. Go from me! You cannot touch me!”

Anger surged anew in Thal. The magic she had
unleashed had to be stronger than his instinct. He had to believe
that his will even in the werewolf state could surmount this
natural reaction.

Thal batted away the box with a powerful paw.
It hit the wall hard, and Thal attacked Martin with zealous hate.
He bit his arms and legs and face and hoped that the screams would
satisfy his mother’s spirit. And then Thal gripped the throat with
his jaws. Martin squealed but did not last long.

When he was dead, Thal threw back his head
and howled. Zussek shrank into a ball in the corner and covered his
face. Again Thal howled. A great sense of liberation washed over
him. The demands of his mother’s death plea had been met, but it
did not rescind the magic that had consumed his body. He was a
werewolf now and forever.

Rising up behind the desk, he swung his
shining eyes upon Zussek. The quivering professor beheld the
nightmarish man-beast with blood smeared across armor and dripping
from his wounds. The lustrous fur was standing up and his breath
came in great whooshes from powerful lungs.

Zussek wailed and scrambled out the door.
Thal did not pursue him. He had another task more important to his
heart.

Even enfeebled by her injuries, Altea still
tried to thwart the horrid man. Roughly he wedged a knee between
her thighs. He kissed her and licked her and pulled her tattered
clothing off her breasts. He pinched her nipples on her bruised
chest. His hungry moans warped lust out of joint with natural
pleasure.

The cries of the woman chained behind Altea
indicated that she was already being fully raped. Altea squeezed
shut her eyes and prepared to endure the great violation. Sick
dread swooped through her stomach. She would have vomited if she
had eaten anything that day.

“Nasty dry witch,” complained the man in the
other cell. “Hey, finish up with that young thing so I can get on
her.”

“Don’t rush me,” the man holding Altea said.
He opened his pants and pressed his cock against her. She clenched
her body and tried to send her mind to another place, but even the
imaginary places of her bleak world shut their doors on her.

The man in the other cell suddenly cried out.
His prisoner had yanked her chain out of the bars and swung it at
him. He pulled his knife and plunged it into her chest. Gasping and
gurgling she dropped to her knees.

“You killed her!” exclaimed the man with
Altea. He pulled away. “Vito wants them alive. Damn, he’ll be
mad.”

The other man stepped away from the body
toppling at his feet. He was rubbing his shoulder where she had hit
him. “It just happened,” he said.

“I’m not taking any blame,” said the blonde
man. Irritated by the interruption, he seized Altea again.

“Did you hear that?” the other man said.

“Shut up,” the man with Altea grunted. He
pressed on her ribs and the pain made her stop twisting away from
him. The iron bars were cold against her bare buttocks. He thrust
at her vengefully. His hardness shocked her. There was no resisting
it.

Then he froze. A long howl resonated through
the walls from nearby.

“I told you,” the other man said. He looked
down the hall.

“Thal!” Altea cried. Then with searing hatred
she finally looked her attacker in the eyes and said, “He’ll kill
you.”

The threat carried great weight considering
Thal had just murdered everyone on duty in the jail the night
before. Fear replaced his dominating glee. In his moment of
distraction, Altea smashed a knee into his scrotum.

“Ahhhh!” he yelled and blundered backward
clutching his withering genitals.

“Thal!” Altea screamed with all the voice she
had left. Hope flooded back into her heart with astonishing force.
“Thal!”

The other man came into her cell and hit her.
“Shut up!” he yelled and helped his companion.

Altea tried to pull her hands free, but the
grip of the links upon her swollen hands remained tight.

“Thal!” she screamed again.

The blonde man glared at her with murderous
fury. His pants were pulled up now and he meant to assault her in
new ways. Altea’s chains chimed against the bars as she shook them
in a desperate frenzy. Her sudden hope for rescue quailed from the
immediate danger.

“You’re going in the maiden!” the blonde man
yelled. He started unwinding the chains. Once her hands fell free
he grabbed her hair and pulled her out of the cell. She wailed
wildly.

Gun fire blasted in the street. Yelling and
screaming gave way to snarling. A man in the street flopped down to
a window in the cell block.

“Help us!” he yelled. Then he was pulled
backwards.

“Let her go! We have to fight,” cried the
jailer to the man hauling Altea into the torture chamber, but his
comrade was too intent on his revenge.

He bashed into a table in the dark room and
cussed. Altea tried to grab a table leg but her hands were useless.
A fistful of her hair tore out and her tormentor had to renew his
grip. He clamped both hands over her throat and lifted her. With a
clatter, he bashed her across a rack of nasty tools on the wall and
then pressed her into the nightmare box. He held her there with
hands on her throat. Her whimpering sobs pleased him while he
caught his breath.

******

Thal beat on the jail door. It was locked
tonight. His urgent madness masked the pain of his wounds. On the
street his blood mingled with the spattered gore of those who had
opposed him. Bracing his shoulder against the burly door, he pushed
with all his might. His claws scraped across the cobbles.