Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Chapter 32: Long Is the Night for the Godless, part III



   Fel never had heard a howl like that before.  Even a demon's death cry
paled in comparison to this cacophonous outbreak.  It was unbelievable that
this small girl could produce such a sound.  Rather, it felt like it was
something deep inside of her which howled.  Something so vast, vile and
ferocious that it didn't have any place in this world.  So awesome that it
had to hide, to disguise itself.  But when smelling human flesh, it was
unable to suppress its instincts any longer.  Fel and the other members of
the extermination squad that had been sent out to kill it, they looked way
too tasty to hide away from them.  She wanted to fight them, to hunt them
down and eat them.

   The ashen girl's body burst open and out came the wolves.  Within a few
heartbeats, they were everywhere.  Duchess Viora had been wrong.  This girl
didn't summon the wolves to assault the villages.  She was the wolves.  She
carried them within her.  Which was surreal in more ways than one.  Not
only were there at least ten wolves.  All of them were huge beasts with
black fur, at least as big as horses.  They even wore some strange armor
that seemed to meld with their skin at certain places.  Their jaws were big
enough to break a human's spine with a single bite and their teeth were as
long and sharp as daggers.  No matter how one looked at them, these wolves
seemed to have come straight out of a fucking nightmare.

   Fel ran.  She was an arrogant narcissist, but she still didn't want to
fight this whole mass of beasts all on her own.  So she tried to get back
to the camp.  Fel's running speed was incredible, but the wolves were fast
too.  When she came within sight of the camp fire, she saw that the others
were already fighting against the wolves.  Moreover, they were losing.  The
wolves didn't seem to fear the Vargranian warrior's long spears at all. 
With their terrible bites, the wolves tore off whole limbs and even the
women's heads.  They ripped open their torsos and snapped their spines and
necks.  "Fucking worthless trash!" Fel hissed and turned around.  She would
have to fight her way through this on her own.

   Just then, one of the beasts came leaping at her.  Its horrifying jaws
with the jagged teeth were aiming right at Fel's head.  Fel ducked down and
moved forward, towards the wolf's big black belly.  She slammed the daggers
in both her hands against the monster's underside.  It made a loud
screeching sound and sparks sprayed as metal hit metal, but Fel's blades
weren't able to draw any blood.  Fel swore as she made haste to get up
again.  "What the fuck is wrong with you?  I've penetrated thicker steel
plates than that!" Apparently, the wolves' armor wasn't made out of steel.
This didn't make Fel's job any easier.

   Already, the next gaping mouth came at Fel.  This time, the wolf aimed
straight at Fel's completely unprotected throat.  It came with such speed
that Fel had no chance to jump aside anymore.  She noticed just in time
that at least the wolf's snout was unarmored.  With one dagger from above
and one dagger from below, she penetrated the beast's mouth and shut it
tightly.  The disarmed wolf stared at Fel with its tiny flickering eyes. 
Fel grinned, while breathing heavily.  "What's wrong?  Knife got your
tongue?"

   Her fun was short-lived since already another wolf came from behind and
snapped at her lower body.  Fel jumped while still sealing the other wolf's
mouth with her daggers.  "Trying to bite my ass off, you fuck?" She landed
with her rump right on top of the beast's shoulders.  Fel quickly wrapped
her legs around its head in an attempt to strangle it.  But the wolf's neck
was as tough as steel.  What made Fel's position even more uncomfortable
was that the enemy between her leg constantly shook its head and snapped at
her.  "Don't try to bite my fucking cock!" she screamed, realizing how
ridiculous her fight against these wolves must've looked.

   Just then, a third wolf appeared, rushing towards Fel.  What was wrong
with them?  Weren't there any other people left that they could gang up on?
Fel had neither her hands nor her legs free in her current position.  So if
this beast wanted, it could take a bite right out of Fel without her having
a chance to fight back.  Fel didn't have any body parts that she wanted to
let go of right now, so she decided to let go of her daggers.  She leapt
backwards and landed right behind the wolf that she had been riding until
now.  Now it was three against one and Fel didn't even have a weapon left.
But she had something else: a little blue bottle in her left hand.

   Fel shook the bottle and before Azu could even realize what situation
she's been thrown into, Fel already yelled at her: "Ice blast, go!  Fucking
annihilate them, Azu!" Even if Fel wanted her to just wreak havoc, Azu at
least needed a few moments to find out who her enemies were.  It didn't
take her long to find out that it probably were the three huge growling
black wolves, each of them probably big enough to swallow her as a whole.
Azu breathed in deeply to gather all her magical powers and then released a
gush of snow and ice that completely engulfed the three black
monstrosities.

   "Nice shot, Azu!" Fel yelled with clenched fists.  Where the wolves had
been, there now was a giant mound of solid snow.  Several icicles were
sticking out of it, each of them several meters long.  But after a few
seconds, ominous growling could be heard from inside the white hill.  Azu
gasped.  "It seems like it wasn't very effective..." Deep cracks appeared
all over the snow mound.  A few heartbeats later, it simply collapsed and
the three sturdy beasts came crawling out of it.  One of them still had
Fel's daggers sticking in its mouth, but it didn't seem to be overly
concerned by it.  Did they even feel any pain?

   "Get your shit together, Fel!" It was Calys' voice, although it sounded
somewhat muffled.  Fel turned around and just saw that a sword came hurling
at her.  She grabbed it by the hilt.  It was a Vargranian sword, probably
the weapon of one of the killed warriors.  Fel took a look at the one who
had thrown it.  Calys was nothing but armor by now.  And her armor looked
even more awesome than before.  Her head was hidden under a giant horned
helm and her whole body was covered with frighteningly long spikes that
probably made it hard for the wolves to attack her.  Fel watched as Calys
fiercely punched one of the wolves.  And while the simple fact that she
punched this huge beast was already impressive enough, a blade with the
size of a bastard sword grew out of her arm and stabbed the monstrous wolf.
At least Fel wasn't completely alone in this fight.

   "Nice thinking, Calys!" Fel grinned as she turned around to face her
three bestial enemies again.  They had just finished shaking the last bit
of snow and frost out of their furs.  "Now that I have a sword, I won't be
going easy on you anymore..." Event though it was just a second-rate blade,
Fel had no choice but to use her ace against these resilient opponents. 
The Meluthian Nightmare Style.  When she had used it the last time to fend
off a gang of bounty hunters in Nargath, her sword hadn't made it all the
way through.  She wondered if Vargranian steel would do any better.

   Azu got to watch the otherworldly fighting technique for the second
time. It made her remember why she once had decided to submit to Fel.  The
wolves tried to land their quick attacks like before, but Fel's sword was
always faster than them.  When they tried to jump at her, their legs got
cut off.  When they tried to bite her, the sword slashed their mouths and
their broken teeth flew through the air.  Now they were just a bunch of
mutts who were receiving a beating.  Azu wondered whether the wolves would
turn around and try to get away when they realized that none of their
attacks would ever connect.  But they never got to make that decision. 
Before, their armor had protected them from suffering any serious injuries.
But to a sword that was lead by the nightmares of the forgotten realm
Meluthia, their armor was just a mere nutshell.  Wielding her sword with
both hands, Fel completely cut a wolf asunder, cleaving the armor on the
flanks on both sides of its body.  Then the next wolf's head fell off.  Azu
didn't even witness Fel landing a strike there.  The ugly black head just
fell to the ground and the whole beast collapsed.  Only one opponent left.
The monster probably wasn't intelligent enough to know fear, but it
probably felt pain.  It let out pathetic whimpers as it was hit by over a
dozen of heavy blows, completely dismembering its body.  What was left was
just a huge mess of blood, flesh, bones, chunks of black fur and steaming
guts.  The only part of the wolf's body that still remembered a living
being was its head.  Two daggers still stuck in it.  To both Fel's and
Azu's amazement, the beast was still breathing.

   Fel was completely out of breath herself.  Her body was soaking wet,
both from the rain and her own sweat.  Not only her head, but her whole
body were flushed.  She took a look at the sword in her hand.  About half
of the blade was missing, the remainder was bent in a weird angle.  Fel
laughed in a strange, hysteric way.  "What the fuck..." She dropped the
sword and pulled one of her daggers out of the dying beast's mouth.  "I'm
fighting here with a fever, after being in withdrawal for days!  I can
hardly even piss straight and you still can't land a single hit on me! 
Look at me!  Not a scratch!" Fel showed off her perfect voluptuous body to
the mangled wolf who probably had no idea what was going on.  This was what
it felt like to be alive.  Fel knew it.  She was fucking invincible.

   But she had also used up every last bit of strength in her body.  Fel
still had a big grin on her face when she collapsed in the middle of the
three killed wolves.



   When Fel woke up again, she was in a dry place, but she still heard the
rain falling outside.  Really, why would anyone ever visit the Vargranian
highlands in autumn?  Fel's fever hadn't gone down in the slightest.  Her
throat was terribly dry.  Also, her back hurt.  She took a look on what she
was lying.  Straw mat on stone floor.  Not the most comfortable in any way.
She was covered by a thin blanket that was already completely soaked from
her sweat.

   Fel wasn't alone in the dimly lit room.  As she would've guessed, there
was Calys.  Her armor had reverted to the way it had been before.  She
still hadn't managed to wipe off all the wolf's blood though.  Then there
was Augi.  She also seemed unharmed, but something seemed to cause her
quite some distress.  She stood in the other side of the room with her back
against the wall.  Both her legs were trembling heavily.  Yrin was still
around and three of her soldiers, but they weren't in a great condition.

   Yrin was missing most of her left arm, so she wouldn't be of much use in
any future fights.  Of the other warriors, only one was unharmed.  The
second one had some terrible wounds all over her body and the third one was
clearly going to die any moment.  Her guts were only kept from falling out
by a makeshift suture.  Fel was honestly surprised to see that Lau was
still alive.  But that didn't mean that she was unharmed in any way.  Other
than having some deep scratches on her legs, Lau was missing the entire
left half of her face.  It looked quite horrifying.  Her eye, her ear and
her cheek were completely torn off.  Just a bloody mess remained of the
left side of her face.  Fel wished that someone would quickly bandage her
so that she wouldn't have to look at it anymore.

   Only now Calys realized that Fel was awake.  "Oh, so you're still alive?
I was already afraid you wouldn't be waking up anymore." Fel grinned. 
"Like some puny fever is going to do me in after I murdered all these
wolves.  What happened to them anyway?" Calys sighed and crossed her big
iron arms.  "After we had killed most of them, the rest got away.  So I
guess our job ain't done yet.  Especially since we weren't able to get that
gray-haired girl Viora was talking about..." Fel groaned silently.  Her
forehead felt like it was on fire.  "Don't worry...  I guess she'll pay us
a visit before soon." Calys raised an eyebrow.  "You think so?  Well, I
hope not.  We're really short of fighters right now." - "Does it matter? 
Wasn't it me, you and wizard-girl doing all the fighting anyway?"

   Calys' eyes became furious and she glared at Augi who winced at the
other side of the room.  "Augi?  The only thing she did was making herself
invisible when the fight started!" Augi's knees were visibly trembling. 
"So?  I never claimed that I would know any spells which are good for
fighting!" Calys clenched her fists.  "Shut up!  We only found her after
the fight had ended.  And moreover, she had pissed and shat herself all
over, so she was stinking like hell!" Augi blushed all over.  "It was
scary!" Calys could've strangled her.  "Scary my ass!  I swear, I'm not
done with you!  I'm gonna whip you so hard that you'll wish you never were
born!" Augi winced again, then she stuck out her tongue in Calys' direction
and made herself invisible again.  Calys looked close to blowing up. 
"Damn...  wizards!"

   Fel sighed.  "Let's see if we can do some magic that's useful to
anyone." She shook the blue bottle and brought Azu out.  Those who hadn't
seen the blue girl throwing an ice blast during the fight were quite
shocked to see that there was actually another member to this mission.  Fel
looked at the spirit with tired eyes.  "Good job during that fight.  It
bought me some time to prepare my attack." Azu was flabbergasted.  She
never had been praised in this way by Fel before.  Was it because Fel was
sick and close to losing her senses?  But before Azu could decide what to
think of it, Fel already continued.  "You used to heal wounded people all
the time, didn't you?  How about you make yourself useful here?"

   Azu took a look around.  There sure was quite a number of horrible
wounds.  But it wasn't as easy as Fel made it sound.  "I can try, but I
have used up a lot of my powers during that fight.  And I haven't had
enough time to regain it yet.  Also, my healing powers at the Spring of
Life were a lot stronger since it was a holy place and..." Fel cut her off.
"Just do it or I'll smack your ass in front of everyone." With these words,
she closed her eyes again.  Azu blushed, sighed and then began to do her
work.  At least she was experienced in this kind of task...