The Vilkaas

THIS IS NOT FINISHED. I WILL ADD TO OVER TIME, BUT THE CONTEST WAS ABOUT TO END, SO I HAD TO POST IT BEFORE I FINISHED IT.

Welp, this is kinda bad and disjointed. I was not functioning properly when I wrote this. Oh, well. I guess enjoy it anyway? XD

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Light and shadow danced on the cracked, dry ground.

There were no clouds in the sky, only dust.

Galen Alarick's life consisted of very little.

Dirt and dust.

Fear and pain.

Loneliness and the wilderness.

However, his life hadn't always been so dismal.

Seven years in his past, he and his five friends were protectors of a small village. It was only their first night when the featureless man attacked.

He was alone.

He was silent.

Swift.

Ruthless.

Galen watched as each of his friends died by the hand of the dark, featureless man and he ran.

Fled into the forest.

The man didn't pursue him, only watched him through invisible eyes.

Now thirty, Galen had become a tougher, more dangerous version of his scared twenty-three year old self.

In the seven years he had wandered, he fought bandits, animals and the occasional Wilderkin. He taught himself to survive, to fight and to forget his past.

______

Galen appeared to be asleep, propped against the bole of a thin, dusty tree, but the slightest sound would wake him instantly.

Of course, the thief didn't know that. He crept closer to the prone figure, dagger out. His feet crunched in the sand, threadbare shoes kicking pebbles. The thief thought he was being quiet, but Galen had already woken and was watching the man's every move, his pale silver eyes hidden in the shadow of his cowl.

The thief was so close now, Galen could have knocked him off his feet, but he waited.

The man raised his knife, ready to bring it down. However, he never did.

As the thief brought the point down, Galen's hand shot up and caught his wrist. The sudden movement knocked back his cowl, revealing his long, white-blond hair and startling silver eyes.

Galen stood, slightly shorter than the thief. That didn't stop him from delivering a powerful blow to the thief's chest and knocking him to the sandy ground. Without saying a word, he deftly snatched the knife and dropped his booted foot onto the thief's chest.

Galen quickly rid the man of the rest of his weapons, tossing them back towards the tree. He roughly yanked the thief to his feet. Frightened by Galen's quick reaction, the thief hightailed away as fast his thin legs would carry him.

During the whole interaction, Galen hadn't said a word. He hadn't spoken for seven years, not since the featureless man. He was dangerous and silent, earning himself a reputation among the thieves and Wilderkin, people living among the rock and sand.

Galen didn't belong to the thieves, the Wilderkin, or the Villagefolk. He was the silent wanderer.

There were rumors he was a spirit or ghost, as he seemed to appear out of nowhere, and disappear just as fast.

In truth, he was a Vilkaas, the wolfkin.

There were very few Vilkaas left, they were often hunted for their fur. Of course, Vilkaas were not human. In their dominant form, they looked human. In their secondary form, they looked like enormous wolves.

In wolf form, Galen was black and silver, standing five feet at his shoulder.

He was one of the last Vilkaas.

Hunters didn't seem to understand they were more intelligent than normal animals, killing most of them off. Galen, however, could keep himself alive.

Alone in the sandy, rock-filled landscape, Galen spent every spare minute honing his combat skills. And every day that he remembered the featureless man, how he had run, guilt chewed at his heart until he smashed the memory again.

It always came back.

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Galen quickly strapped his sword onto his hip and adjusted the daggers on multiple daggers on his opposite hip, boot and sleeve. Quickly examining the thief's weapons, he dropped them into the threadbare bag he carried. He would trade them to the Wilderkin for food.

The blood-red light of the sun had barely touched the cracked plains when Galen set out again, his back to the shimmering sun. He flipped his cowl back up, his dirty cloak provided good camouflage in the sand. He was barely visible in the blowing sand.

_____

The red ball of a sun was high in the sky when Galen heard them.

Thieves.

They were ahead of him, hidden behind a boulder, waiting for him to walk into a trap. They were unaware of who they were attempting to trick.

Thinking quickly, Galen turned to his right and walked around the rock. The thieves were facing the left, waiting to ambush him, they weren't expecting him to come from the right.

Galen feet barely made any sound on the hot sand. He rounded the corner of the stone, silver eyes taking in the dirty, ragged clothes on the thieves' backs.

There was a loose rock beside him; he lifted it and threw it at the line of odoriferous men.

It smashed into the backside of a particularly large man.

The thieves erupted into chaos. The large man howled angrily, swinging around to see what hit him.

When he saw Galen, his silver eyes shining in the shadow of his cowl, the thief went still. The rest of the men turned. Their rough voices grated on Galen's ears. They howled curses at the sight of his shimmering figure.

"What do you want with us, Draugur?"

Galen's silence and mysterious manner had earned him that name, meaning 'Ghost.'

The cloaked silhouette didn't respond, only turned and continued the way he had been traveling before. The thieves stared after him, muttering about nasty spirits.

Galen's face was expressionless as he walked. Over the years he spent alone, the guilt of fleeing from his friends when they needed him ate at him, leaving him a silent shadow of his former self.

He was well aware of this, but made no action to change it.

He chose not to speak, chose not to feel.

Galen traveled on as the sun began its descent into the hazy distance. He was headed for the Wilderkin's largest hideout, the Hulinn caves. There, he would seek a night's rest and trade anything he had gained over the year he had last been there.

He was widely forgotten over the year, but there were a few people who wouldn't omit him so easily.

Etan, Hulinn cave's warrior, held a grudge against Galen. The Vilkaas had defeated him in combat in less than a minute and Etan never forgot him.

Galen avoided the mountain of a man if possible.

The Wilderkin were short-tempered and not a race to be trifled with, but they usually excepted Galen. There were only a few times when he was thrown out because of something he did.

The sun was nearly gone when Galen arrived. The last blood-red rays illuminated the lone figure standing before a crack in a stone cliff.

He knew there were people watching him from hidden pockets in the rock far above his head. Galen could practically feel their eyes on him. He knew they would let him in. They all recognized him when they saw him.

As he traveled farther into the crevice, Galen saw several people gazing down on him from their homes carved in the rock.

There were several cave mouths along the ground as well.

Galen turned and entered the largest of them. He didn't even flinch as two men stepped out from the darkness, brandishing gleaming silver spears. They could only see him as a shadow against the light, Galen knew. He could see them clearly, his silver eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. He touched his right fist to his upper arm, a sign the two men had learned.

Instantly, they recognized him.

"Draugur," one of them said. "welcome back."

No one knew Galen's actual name. No one had spoken his name in all the time he spent in the wilderness.

Galen said nothing in response to the man's greeting and continued past them as they melted back into the shadows.

He swept past several people, all of them at least a foot taller than him. Galen stuck out among the Wilderkin; they wore furs and talked loudly; He was the opposite.

Galen's legs protested as he walked out of the darkness; he was weary from his travels. He blinked in the sudden light that stung his corneas. The dome he entered was pock-marked with holes, some letting in light and some leading to trading stalls or cave inns. Galen entered the nearest hole in the rock.

The man sitting at a desk inside frowned at the cowled silhouette.

"Draugur." He growled. "What have you got this time?"

Galen produced the thief's weapons, dropping them on the desk.

After examining them briefly, the trader grunted.

"I'll give you five flatbreads for them," he finally said.

Galen shook his cowled head, holding up eight dirt-stained fingers. The trader growled again. "Six."

Now Galen held up seven and a bent finger. They were haggling.

The trader nodded in satisfaction and expertly wrapped the flatbreads, handing them to Galen. The trader glanced down to store away the weapons. When he looked back up, the shadowy figure was already gone. He uttered a curse. Once again, he had lived up to his earned name.