The werewolf slipped between the iron gray roots, walking into the ring. His bare feet tested the ground with each step, toes flexing in the lush grass. "Nice place you got here. I'd heard the rumors, but to see it, well, it's really something. Jerold must have blown his top," Blaez said with a smirk.
"Miss Raven was generous with her time and gifts," Cesare said simply, continuing his cool appraisal of the boy's stance and movement. The scars had changed the boy's fluid movement; muscles didn't heal like skin.
Blaez nodded at Cesare's words, his own eyes looking over Cesare with the same calculation. "You've gotten better. I never thought you'd get so good so fast."
A tight, razor slash of a smile crossed Cesare's face. "If I hadn't gotten better, I'd be dead."
Laughing, Blaez looked around, eyes straying jealously over the beautifully woven tapestry of wolves. "Looks like you came out okay. I know people that would kill to have this kind of place." There was a hunger in his eyes that set Cesare's teeth on edge.
"Gut them, and maybe the Fates will gift them one." The words drew the conversation to a quick, violent end. "Let's see what you got," Cesare said, balanced and ready.
Wariness entered the wolfs eyes as he looked around the fence at Cesare's students. Usually they left after Cesare had finished with the group, today they stood silent and ready, fingering wooden weapons. Eager to see how their teacher would fair and ready to tear apart the interloper if it went sideways. Or at least die trying.
But that wasn't the reason for the wolf's hesitation. No, it was more than that. The last time they'd tangled, Blaez had been maimed, disfigured, and shattered. Everything burned away, leaving only ash and corroded steel. His bones were seared with fear, a terror Blaez associated with only one man, Cesare.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Blaez said, avoiding Cesare's knowing eyes.
"You have two choices." Quiet and intense, the air dimmed at the corrupting touch of Cesare's words. "You can trust me or you walk. I can't teach you if you doubt my word, and I won't pour my time into helping someone who questions every order I give. If you want to go, go, but if you want to train, that's the last time you'll question me."
Tentatively, Blaez snapped a jab out, feeling for the distance. Gliding alongside the punch, Cesare's hand darted out, piercing into the wolfs side, stinging ribs. The boy's body clenched down around the pain.
Anger tightened Blaez's face. Grounding his back foot, the wolf rammed a knee forward, hoping the closeness would hide the move. Shifting alongside the knee, Cesare sunk an uppercut into the boys stomach, tossing him back into a gasping, stumbling shuffle.
All pretense of holding back fled as the wolf's feet bounced across the grass, his mouth set in a grim line. Darting in with quick jabs that had been all but blurs only months before, the wolf came at Cesare with a vengeance. But Cesare had changed in ways as radical as the wolfs.
Without thought or feeling, submerged in the predatory nothingness that was the moment, Cesare slipped bonelessly around the punches. With each useless strike, anger etched lines on Blaez's face. Cesare punished the wolf for every attack that missed, taking full advantage of the Sen's blessing. Bruises bloomed along the boy's arms, torso and face as he was taken apart.
Part of Cesare held back, analyzing the boys fighting. He'd always known Blaez was good, but now he could quantify it. Trained from an early age, the boy knew how to fight, and it showed in the crisp punches and snap that marked his kicks. Blaez had benefitted from the best instructor's money could buy, with the kind of support a homeless kid could only hope for. But hand to hand wasn't the focus.
Blaez was a werewolf, his training was focused on enhancing the Kveldulf. That was the real power of a werewolf, and they poured their attention into that one gift. Blaez knew he had an ace card, and so he'd never taken hand to hand seriously. Why fight with his fist when he could change into something that could dismember a tank?
For him, hand to hand was what you used when you didn't have a weapon. The boy didn't see his fist's as killing weapons. Killing and fighting were different things, while the werewolf's instincts pushed him to kill, his hand to hand was all about fighting.
Stepping back, Cesare signaled the end of the fight. Lost in his anger, Blaez surged into the sudden opening, his punch signaling the onslaught. Snatching the hand in mid punch, Cesare rolled the boys wrist, popping it out of place as the boy screamed in pain. Twisting, Cesare thrust the boy to the ground, knee flashing up, smashing into Blaez's mouth. The boy hit the ground with a thud, dazed and dribbling blood.
Looking at him, Cesare went over the fight. This wouldn't work. Blaez was a werewolf, not a vampire, or an akatharton. His power was in his Kveldulf, not the human illusion. Training him like a human would get the werewolf gutted. No, he had to train the boy to be a deadlier werewolf, not a stronger man.
Slowly the boy came around, cradling his wrist with his other hand. "When I say we're done, we're done." Avoiding Cesare's eyes, the boy struggled to his feet, spitting out a stew of blood and spit.
Blaez smiled at Cesare with a bloody grin. "Again?"
In another time and place, Cesare might have liked him. Blaez liked to fight, and there was no quit in him. Dripping blood and with a broken wrist, he was ready for another go. He was all balls without an inch of brains between.
"No, I got what I wanted." Taking a deep breath, Cesare met the werewolf's curious stare. "I want you to change into your Kveldulf."
The world held its breath while the wolf stared at him. "You're fucking insane," Blaez said in a wondering tone. "The last time I gutted you like a pig. Unless you didn't catch it then, I'll let you in on a secret, a werewolf in full form isn't the picture of self-restraint."
Cesare remembered the homicidal eyes that had gleefully danced when Blaez gutted him with an unholy howl of victory. "I can't teach you to win as a human. We both know you'll fight in full form. That means, I have to train that form."
Blaez looked around, fear and respect warring in his eyes. "No one trains that way." The wolf muttered, a slight flush rising on his face. "When we change, it's like being submerged in a maelstrom of agony, need, insanity, and desire. I'm both more and less in that form. I lose bits of myself the longer I spend in Kveldulf, spend too long, and the Occidere Rabidus will have its hooks in me."
It had to be hell to have a part of yourself that was supremely powerful and treacherously dangerous. They had a nuke ready and waiting for anything stupid enough to step up, as long as they were willing to risk insanity. Riding them hard was knowing it would be your family that put you down if you stepped off the edge. How would you train something like that?
It hit Cesare, the sheer, brutal truth of it. The werewolf had never been trained in its real form. None of them had, it was too dangerous. Instead, they'd trained around it. Giving them training in hand to hand, weapons, tactics, hoping against hope that some of it would stick in the Kveldulf. If every Na'wal was dealt with the same way ... No wonder they lost so many to the Occidere Rabidus.
"You have the same choices I gave you earlier," Cesare said quietly, leaving it in Blaez's hands.
The only reason the boy was here was because he had nowhere else to go. If Blaez went into the arena as he was, he'd be meat in minutes. Backing out and taking the disgrace wasn't an option, Blaez would rather die than dishonor his family further.
But would he rather go mad? That was the question. Everyone said they'd die for this or that, causes, lovers, friends, and family. How many of them would lose their sanity? How many would walk into a sanitarium to have their frontal lobes creased in a lobotomy to save a friend? Dying was easy, torment was a price no one wanted to pay.
"It's the only way," Blaez asked in a near whisper.
"There's probably another way, but I don't know it," Cesare said simply.
Blaez nodded in understanding. Hesitating, the wolf pulled off his sweats and tossed them to the far corner of the fenced in ring. Taking a deep breath, the boy's body clenched, ripples running over muscles. Skin tightened and broke, lines of blood spider webbing over flesh, the small breaks widening into trenches as slabs of meat fell to the ground, leaving wet red muscle and white subcutaneous tissue.
Bones cracked and broke under immense force, tearing muscle and tendon, meat reforming into monstrous shapes. Its face shattered outward, bony shards forming a long muzzle. Grizzled fur spread across its body, new muscle growing into heaping masses as its body leapt up higher and higher. The freakish growth's soundtrack was Blaez mewling moans of agony.
Teeth tore through gums, ragged and long, their jagged spurs lacerated its mouth. Ropy scars stretched across its chest and face, skin turning tan and leathery, glistening with blood and drool. Scything claws split fingers in violent sprays of blood and flesh, disfiguring digits into living weapons.
Seconds became an eternity of torment for the werewolf. Being this close, Cesare could see the trapped, naked horror of its tortured eyes. What was it like to lose yourself in a dark mirror of your tortured grace? To know as fact, that soon you'd be insane by all but the loosest definitions. Did it make it better or worse that the change of mind happened as the body was torn apart and remade in an orgy of agony? Did that pain shield the mind from the feeling of creeping insanity?
Cesare could see the moment the change stopped, felt it in the air as reality stopped twisting and jerking under the unrelenting eldritch forces that plucked along its length. But it was the eyes that held Cesare.
Wolf and man glared out through yellow panes of hate. That was the problem. A man was a reasoning thing, instincts submerged under thousands of years of rules, regulations, boundaries, wants, and needs, converging into a cross wired nightmare of contradictions. Apologetic sadists, we turn ourselves into victims for the cruelty we couldn't show the world. A wolf was simple, elegant, and unashamed.
A wolf killed for food or fun, a human needed a reason. Wolves protected and killed for the pack; humans were driven by self-interest. A wolf was in the moment, humans were stuck in the past or the future, having only a passing understanding of the now. The two sets of instincts were in constant combat, seeking dominance over the meat they shared.
A base growl pulsed through the air, pulling Cesare out of the rush of thoughts. Blaez was gone, only the wolf glared out of the eyes of the nine-foot-tall monster of scars and hate. The last time he'd faced this thing, it had gutted him, and he'd set it on fire. Blaez had his reasons, but for the wolf it was simpler. Dominance, mating, territory, these things needed settling, and the wolf had done what any wolf would do to settle them, it had fought.
A deep, menacing growl thrummed from Cesare as burning scarlet instincts flared to life. Cesare wasn't human or wolf, the two natures intertwined into something wholly different. The last time he'd locked with the werewolf, it had ended with them crippling each other, that hadn't settled the issue for the werewolf.
Lunging forward, the wolf's maw opened as it came for Cesare's head. Jerking himself to the side, the snap of its jaws sent a spray of red tainted saliva across Cesare's clothes. Darting forward, Cesare snatched its ear, twisting the loose flap with a demanding growl.
Instantly the wolf whined pitifully, its aggressive mood warping under humiliating pain. It was the act of a superior to a pup that had gotten out of hand. Cesare couldn't win a fight with the werewolf, he'd be left for dead in seconds, but he didn't have to. This was about teaching, not killing.
Cesare led it by the ear, in that instant when its balance was re-shifting, he body slammed it. Crashing to the ground in a mass of muscle and ungainly limbs, the wolf landed with a bewildered growl.
Crouching next to the wolf, Cesare held its uncertain eyes as anger trembled on the edge of murderous fury. Taking the wolfs ear in his teeth, Cesare let out a low, throbbing growl, dominance threaded with gentle care. Quivering under him, the wolf gave a pitiful growl of protest that changed into a low whine of understanding acceptance.
Backing away, Cesare watched the wolf duck its massive head, a joy that hadn't been there entering its eyes. Wolves weren't solitary creatures, they thrived in packs and struggled alone. Every wolf wanted to be Alpha, but what drove them was the need to be cared for, to be part of a family.
A werewolf could never own that prize. They didn't even understand themselves; how could they understand each other. Fighting against their own natures, they beat the wolf into submission, trying to enslave a wild soul.
The werewolf panted in confusion. With a low, comforting growl, Cesare caressed it's massive head. Shifting his body, Cesare displayed his dominance with the wolf. Rounding its shoulders, it pushed into Cesare's scratching fingers with a growl of pleasure.
The wolf had never been touched with anything but violence. Only ever let out when it was needed, never given the freedom it craved. Cesare growled angrily at the thought, the wolf whining at the sound as it rubbed its head against Cesare's hand.
He would have to deal with the wolf if he wanted to help the man. Their separation was the heart of the problem; it was a limit on Blaez's power. It kept him from being anything more than a blunt instrument of slaughter. Only by getting the two to work together could Cesare train the werewolf.
Drawing back, Cesare cuffed the wolf playfully, the small slap nothing to the killing machine. Yipping in joy, the wolf in a monster's body bounded forward, clumsily reaching for him with jaws that could rend a man with ease. Slipping from its jaws, Cesare cuffed the thing again with another growl, leading it around the ring.
Wolves learn through play. When you caged an animal in the dark without anyone to play with, you created an insane thing that knew only pain and madness. Maybe every werewolf had that as their center, an insane, murderous thing, filled with loathing and hate for the world.
Dodging around the ring, Cesare taught the wolf how to dodge instead of just taking punishment. Slapping, touching, and smacking the monster, Cesare provoked its response. Eager to play, the wolf barked as it bounded after Cesare. Trying to tag him with clumsy swipes, the monster couldn't pin down Cesare's liquid body. With every miss, Cesare gave a mocking bark. With yips of joy, it tried to mimic his smooth, twisting escapes.
Its small legs were never meant for quick changes in direction. Over excited, it tripped over itself, slamming into the ground with a bewildered whine before scrambling up and running at Cesare. Mouth hanging open, spraying the air with red tinted saliva, it chased him across the ring.
Ducking under the monsters outstretched arms, his foot caught its paw for only the briefest of seconds. With all that muscled mass going one way, the slight tug of his foot sent the wolf crashing to the ground again. Scrambling up yipping, it continued the chase.
Hulking and dangerous, the thing was lethal even in play. Strong enough to break bones, temper wedded to claws that opened cars like sardine cans, it was far from a fluffy puppy. Cesare danced with it across the arena, teaching and playing in equal measure.
Coming to a stop, Cesare ducked under it wide swing, stepping close, he laid his hand gently over its muzzle, calling an end to the game. Looking into its feral eyes, Cesare could see the man behind the wolf, a sliver of logic, the light of reason dawning on the wild thing he'd played with.
Rubbing along its muzzle, Cesare crooned a low growl of comfort. Almost a song, it was silky darkness flowing over ravaged flesh, rusty chains biting into new flesh, a baby scorned and the reviling of an innocent that knew no love. Understanding and empathy poured into the wolfs soul, soothing the ragged, homicidal edges as it found someone that understood. Closing its eyes, it obeyed the command, threaded through the low sound. Cesare felt the wolf recede, the man ripping control of the body back with desperate fear.
Stepping away, Cesare watched as great slabs of rotting meat hit the ground. Weeping muscle showed through as excess flesh was shed. Bones splintered and shrank, thinning into weak twigs. Claws retracted with a slurping sound, teeth tinkling against each other as they fell. The face imploded into a mishmash of hamburger and bone shards, reshaping into the scarred face of Blaez.
Pink skin flowed over wet muscle and bone, tanning in seconds as the boy gasped in exhausted pain. Cesare left Blaez gasping on the ground, surrounded by the decomposing remains of his better half. Taking a water bottle out of his bag, he made his way back to the boy.
Crouching next to the mass of quivering, trembling flesh, Cesare waited. A handful of minutes passed before Blaez raised his head, taking the water with shaking hands. Cesare let the boy settle himself, knowing he'd have questions.
"I lost it as soon as it came out. It saw you, and fucking went sidewise on me, ripped control and was out for blood. I … was sure it would kill you. I tried, by Thor I tried, but I couldn't take control. I just stopped trying. It was the Occidere Rabidus, it owned my flesh." Taking a long drink of water, Blaez stared at Cesare.
"I've never held the change that long," Blaez said with a strange mix of fear and pride. "We only change to fight." Staring off into space, the words weren't for Cesare. "Others have tried to hold the form longer, they thought they could tame the wolf by giving it more time. Everyone one of them was eaten by Occidere Rabidus."
Cesare accepted the bottle back from Blaez. "You can't tame a wolf. It's not a dog." Holding out his hand, he helped the werewolf up. "A wolf is a companion, an ally, a friend, not a slave."
Blaez nodded, too exhausted to pay attention to the words, willing to agree to anything if it got him to bed sooner. Turning away from the boy, Cesare met the wondering eyes of his students. They'd been enthralled by the sight of Cesare playing with the murderous werewolf like a puppy.
Shaking, Blaez gripped the fence in a white knuckled grip. The students shied away, they'd never seen the werewolf up close and personal. It was one thing to see a werewolf slaughter something in an arena, and another feel the heat of its body, the spray of drool, and the smell of blood on the air that hung around it like a diseased cloak.
There was a reason Blaez was an elite. The werewolf could kill the entire class. It was a simple case of lethality. Armed with swords, tridents, and knives they were cockroaches ambushing a lion. The wolf would walk through them playing whack a mole, only in this game, they didn't get back up.
It was what separated the elite from the rest. Their power could only be challenged by another elite's. None of the kids in the courtyard could match the frenzied strength of the werewolf. No amount of training matched the gifts woven into the horrors being.
Cesare had pulled out a tie in their midnight fight, but it should've gone the other way. He'd had one shot at stopping the werewolf, if it had dodged instead of coming straight into the cloud, Cesare would be decomposing wolf shit today. Taking his bag, he left the area while Blaez collected himself. That bedrock of imbalance between the supremely powerful and the weak was the core of Umbrae Lunae society.
The gladiators watched, small pockets stopping in the middle of practice, others keeping him in their peripheral vision. No one had ever brought an elite to the training area. It wasn't just a break in tradition, it was the shattering of a belief. The elite were gods, their powers only unveiled at carefully orchestrated events. Gods weren't supposed to sweat, bleed, and work their asses off. Only the Cherries had seen the training, but everyone had known it was happening.
Their world was slowly being torn down around them. Cesare had taken part of their area as his own, stood up against their teacher, and forced Jerold to back down in his own home. Now he was bringing the most powerful students in the school to his area for training. He'd brought Blaez here without clearing it with either the murmillo or Jerold, and neither group had dared to challenge it. That fact was as significant as anything else he'd done.
Cesare watched it play over their faces. He couldn't survive in this school with the way it was. He'd be killed, and those he loved broken. The only way to live and fulfill the dreams of the girls was to change the system. To flay the skin from its mewling body, rip muscle and tear tendon, remake it in his image, and slave it to his will. Those that got in the way or refused to change, would be buried.
Walking past the guards, he acknowledged their respectful nods with an absent minded one of his own. This had been a good step; more would have to come, but the foundation stones were set. Walking through the half empty halls, his mind naturally turned to the next parts of his plan.
Taking the familiar path through the forest, he turned over the ideas that flashed through his thoughts. Coming around the corner, he faced the girl's anxious eyes. Alexandra let out the briefest of sighs, all she'd permit herself at the soul breaking relief that swept through her. Anastasia sagged slightly, taking a brief step toward him before catching herself.
Their subdued reactions were more to soothe his pride than any other reason. How did you show relief without saying how out of his league Blaez was for him? You didn't, and that was why they gave him small smiles and fell into step behind him.
Breaking from tradition, he went to the table. Woven of roots with leaves running down the legs, the fantastical thing was as flat as anything that graced the school. He pulled a folder from his duffel, laying out the pictures and dossier. Taking the chairs across from him, the girls focused on him more than the papers. Formed of roots, the chairs were cushioned in sumptuous green moss that cradled the body.
Standing, Cesare talked as he laid out the paperwork. "The last Sanguine Nativitate of the year, and for the first time in over a decade, Primrose will set itself against the Hive. The last time the two schools met, we lost two of the Thagirion and they lost all four queens." Neither girl reacted, he'd told them the bones of what he knew a few days ago when he'd gotten the folder. They'd had time to come to grips with the fact they'd be fighting something beyond anything they'd faced before.
"This time there's no worry about who we'll be facing." Cesare waited before saying what they all knew. "The Scourge'smade up of juvenile queens. The fights are a way to weed out the weak queens from the strong, it's rumored that if they have more than four queens, they're put into a pit until only four remain. They never injure, they kill. No one whose lost a fight with the Scourge has lived."
Cesare looked down at the blurred picture of a queen, it showed little more than a thin, human like body. "Their abilities are a matter of public record, but that doesn't make them any less lethal. Fast, strong, armored, and hard to kill. Oh, and they fly."
Alexandra's lips twisted with disgust. "My fathers fought the cockroaches through the centuries. He's even engaged in battle with queens a handful of times, each time he came away with savage wounds. His advice was to never engage them one on one. That they were beyond all but the oldest of vampiric lords."
Anastasia stepped into the gap in the conversation without any indication she'd heard the vampire. "My mother always told me to throw my harem at them, pin them down and burn the mass to ashes, if I was lucky, I might hurt it enough to get away. She's fought wars against them when their territories were close. They field massive armies of cannon fodder, but the higher orders are on par with any of the other races."
Shrugging, Cesare looked at the papers. "The queens are the driving force behind the Hive. Cold, merciless, devoted to consuming all sentient life. While the reports I've looked at show a simple combat style, they've shifted that style to consider a person's personal abilities before."
The girls waited, knowing he had a plan, he always had a plan. "Fast, strong, and with a mind impenetrable to anything sane makes any tactics based on their actions impossible." Stacking the papers, he set them aside. "I've gone over everything I can find, and I haven't been able to see a pattern. Usually they follow their standard tactic of closing in for close combat. They are like sharks, strong enough that they don't have to evolve their style. They do come out with something new, but I couldn't find the trigger for the change."
Neither girl offered advice. Stronger, richer, and deadlier than he'd ever be, they were born from families that ruled the shadows of the world. But they weren't the Furies will, they weren't the tactical genius that thrived on conflict, turning every adversary into a step forward. It was Cesare that lead them, positioning them through every conflict with an ease that was the cornerstone of how they seemed to always come out ahead.
"We have to go on what we do know," Cesare said as much to himself as to them. "Alexandra, I've been waiting for the right time to let the school see what you're capable of, and now's that time. I want you to bring your swords with you to practice, lets dust the rust off your skill."
A dangerous smile spread across the girl's face, eyes lighting with mad glee. "As good as I am, I can't guarantee I'll be able to beat a queen."
"I know. That's only the first part of my plan. I can't predict what they'll do, but I know what they are, that opens avenues of attack we can use," Cesare assured the eager vampire.
Turning away from Alexandra's eager eyes, he faced Anastasia. "We've honed your basic skill set which is what we'll continue to do." Her face fell slightly at that. "We have two abilities that still need you to pause and gather energy before using. We need to lock that down so you can call on them at will. A bunch of fancy techniques you can't use in the middle of a fire fight is like having a bazooka in a fist fight."
She nodded looking away in disappointment. Reaching across the table, he took her hand in his. "Your mom isn't the strongest because she can do fancy things with the Ebon Flame. She's strong because she can burn a city down without having to use anything but her will and the flame she calls. The strongest weapon is the one you have with you. The techniques we've worked on are only good for fights we know are coming, I need to arm you for war. Not saddle you with bling to impress idiots who don't know better."
Taking his hand back, he captured their eyes with his. "This isn't reality. We have a time, date, and a set of rules to follow, that's not how you'll fight when you graduate. Shit happens, and the only one you can depend on to save your ass is yourself. These battles are only training for real life. We need to weaponize your bodies. Anything that doesn't translate over to real world fire fights isn't worth our time."
Alexandra nodded soberly, grin never faltering. She was a soldier born and bred for slaughter. There was never any doubt in her mind she'd be killing her way across the world. She wouldn't have it any other way.
Born to rule, Anastasia was different, she wasn't a soldier and hadn't given thought to the dangers that waited. There had always been someone there to fight for her, except in the carefully orchestrated Sanguine Nativitate. That illusion of safety had been stripped from her after the attack. The scars she woke up to every day were reminders that the world hated her.
Understanding dawned in her eyes, as another piece of the puzzle slipped into place. Cesare knew she was still learning what it would take to get what she wanted. He gave her bits and pieces, each part an answer to a question she felt but couldn't put into words. Her soul knew what it needed to be to survive, even if her mind struggled with the way to get there. Both warrior and leader, executioner and savior, life and death, she had to embody it all if she wanted to claim her place beside her mother.