Sigrid’s Bane

1092

“Most people don’t know this, but Werewolf bloodlines are incredibly important.” Sigrid, only 14 years old, said confidently. “We can mate with humans, but it's better to bite them and have them undergo their first transformation before having children.”

The man sitting opposite her appeared to be bored with life in general, but for some reason, he seemed interested in her company. He was one of 3 guests of honor to attend her brother Thorstein’s wedding. He was incredibly pale, beautiful, and didn’t look a day over 25, but Sigrid knew this was a lie. Vampires never looked their true age.

“Could you repeat your name please?” She asked.

“My friends call me Evaristus.” He replied, his eyes flashing red. Sigrid knew that usually indicated a shift in mood. “But it’s not exactly the name I was born to.”

“May I know that?” She was feeling bold. The truce between their people hadn’t long been established, both her parents had warned her not to push her luck, and here she was… pushing it.

“Perhaps if we become true friends one day, I may share it with you.” He blinked and looked away. “Names hold power. And I am not sure I wish to give such power to a pup.”

Sigrid felt the hair on the back of her neck bristle.

“I don’t like being patronized.” She snarled at the Vampire. “Especially not by a bloodsucker!”

He raised his hands in surrender. His face was a picture she couldn’t find meaning to, with a strange lopsided smile and laughing eyes.

“I meant no disrespect, Lady Bane.” His eyes were magnetic. “I am old; over 4000 years to be honest with you. Sometimes I take that for granted.”

Sigrid felt her jaw drop. She should have been embarrassed but couldn’t muster the faculties to pull herself together. Vampires grew more powerful with each passing year.

“Your name, it’s a bit much, do you mind if I call you Evo instead?”

He laughed. “You would be the first. Oddly, I don’t mind it. Please do.”

She still felt dazed. She didn’t know she had such aggression in her, least of all to someone so old and obviously powerful as the Vampire seated opposite her. The joyful wedding music had disappeared into a buzz in the background.

“We were having a good conversation before I insulted you.” He ventured, pulling her back to the present. “Tell me more about your people.”

“Well we don’t live 4000 years, that’s for sure.” She blurted out.

“How long do you live?” He leaned in, his elbows resting on the table between them.

“Well, that is where it gets interesting.” She started. “Where the bloodlines and relics play a part.”

“Please continue.” His voice was like silk, his eyes drawing her in.

“Well, anyone just bitten, they count as the first generation. On average they can live to about 300, maybe 400 years if they transform often. If they marry into a multigenerational line and bite into the family Moonstone, they can live longer.”

“How much longer?”

“That would depend on how many generations the family has held their Moonstone. Each one accounts for another 300 years or so.” She took a sip of mead before continuing. “Every generation also gains more control over the transformation itself. By the 3^rd, you can implement the shift any time you want. However, my grandparents perfected partial changes. My grandmother loved walking around with just a mane during winter, and frequently grew her claws to garden.”

She could feel the width of her smile trying to break through her face. He ventured a small chuckle in reply and the sound was like music to her ears.

“So, what does this mean to your brother and his bride today?”

“Well, Thorstein is 7^th generation. Gudrun is 4^th.” She said, looking over her shoulder at the happy couple. “Later, when they Bite and Blood our family’s Moonstone, they will be guaranteed over 2000 years together, providing they don’t get themselves killed of course. Their children will then add to it, as will theirs, and so on.”

“What about your parents, don’t they get the extra years?”

“No, sadly not.” She sighed. “It is difficult to explain fully, but it locks in with the generation they contribute. Thorstein is the 7^th contribution; they were only the 6^th.”

“That seems rather complicated, but I think I am following so far.” The Vampire had a small frown between his eyes. “And what about you?”

It was her turn to frown. “What about me?”

“Well, if you marry into a family with a ‘younger’ Moonstone, won’t that take years from you?”

“If I decide to bite their stone?” she pondered. “Perhaps. But it’s not the done thing. Couples always bite into the oldest stone available between the 2 families.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Evo nodded. “What of Gudrun’s family stone? You say she’s 4^th generation, what happens to that?”

“One of her siblings will inherit it. She has plenty and 4^th generation is still very powerful.”

“Would you say your family is currently the most powerful Werewolf line?”

“Yes.” She answered, pride laced the word, yet she felt only a small amount of shame.  “Werewolf kind only discovered the power of Moonstones 7 generations ago. It was a Bane ancestor that figured it out.”

“Aren’t there other families out there who also have at least that many generations invested?”

“There were at least 2 others, that we know of, on record.” Her eyes looked off in the distance. “One family stayed in Norway… they may still be alive, but father says there hasn’t been word from them for some time. Another family migrated with us and helped establish Kievan Rus, but their Moonstone got destroyed… their family line perished before mother and father were born.”

“That’s terrible.” He said, not sounding sincere. Sigrid noticed this, but like the music, any alarm bells that should have rung faded into the buzz in the back of her mind.

“What I don’t understand is the line, ‘to Bite and Blood’ the stone?” His eyes flashed red again. At least his interest appeared genuine.

“The basic principle is to bite down hard, till your teeth break and the blood flows. Both Thorstein and Gudrun will do this later. It is the blood infusing the Moonstone that grants the enhancement of power. They will then take ownership of it and affirm their place as the new Alphas of the family.”

“So, they will be entrusted to care for it?” Evo asked.

“Yes, shelter it, guard it, and present it to their children upon their weddings to transfer power all over again.”

“And if I were to bite it, and infuse it with my blood, what will happen then?” The question sent shivers down her spine.

“You don’t mean to marry a pup such as myself, do you?” He enthralled her, but the idea of marrying a Vampire made her shudder instinctively.

“No. I promised myself a long time ago I would never marry again.” His tone suggested a good reason behind his words, but he continued before she could think to question it. “I was merely curious.”

“I don’t think that has ever happened.” She replied, hoping to end the line of inquiry. “I have no answer for you.”

“What will your parents do now that they won’t be the Alphas anymore?” He looked over towards them, his eyes narrowed.

“They will wait till I am married, and then likely travel the world as a carefree couple I suppose.”

Evo leaned back, smiling at her. “May I attend your wedding?”

Her laugh was a bark. “That won’t be for another century! At least. Thorstein and Gudrun must conceive first, and it takes Werewolf couples forever to mature enough to manage this. Once that’s been done, my brothers will be first in line to get married.”

“Well, if time has told me anything, there is a chance I will be around for that.” He rose, looking over at his companions. “This has been most illuminating, thank you.”

“Before you go…” She said, turning her head towards his waiting companions, one appeared to be a child. They had pained expressions on their faces as though they had smelled something horrible. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to continue.

“Why’d you sire a child into the Vampire fold?” It was too far, but to her surprise he answered.

“I didn’t. My lover lost a child as a mortal. She turned every abandoned orphan she could to fill the hole it left inside her, and it was never enough.” His voice had grown very sad. “When the others found out, she was put to death, alongside almost every child she had turned… except for Dante over there. He was the weakest of the bunch, and a little odd. He was left as a reminder.”

“A reminder of what?” She asked, unable to stop herself.

“That there are rules for our kind. A reminder that human children can be prey but not companions.”

She shuddered. “I didn’t know Vampire society had rules.”

He smiled at her one last time, then left her company without another word.

1096

It was the day after her 18^th birthday and one she would never forget. Her brothers had been fighting and holding back the Polovsty tribes, but their raids grew bolder and more frequent as the months passed. Normally, humans didn’t stand a chance against a pack of Werewolves, but they appeared to be getting help from somewhere and returned stronger with each new raid.

In the morning, they had said farewell to Gudrun who was visiting her family in the North, by the afternoon, the alarm bells started tolling in the distance. The raiders had drawn close, and their village was next. She found her parents outside their home, their claws already out. She took her full Werewolf form in preparation to join the fighting with them.

The bell grew louder and more frantic; smoke from distant fires obscured the sun into an early dusk.

“We should get going.” Her father barked. Her mother nodded and they completed their transformation. They were a formidable sight to behold in full Werewolf form, she felt tiny in comparison.

Together, the three of them sprinted towards the commotion. When they arrived, the carnage made Sigrid heave inside. Blood had stained the earth black, limbs and chunks of flesh littering it like grim, wet leaves on a rainy autumn day.

A howl, Thorstein’s, echoed into the night. It sounded tragic and her parents went sprinting off, she tried to follow close behind.

They were so focused on Thorstein’s howl that they didn’t notice her getting tackled by a child moving impossibly fast.

No, not a child, just a Vampire with a child’s face. She tried to recall his name. It was without a doubt one of Evo’s companions from the night of Thorstein’s wedding.

She kicked him from her, lashing out with a set of claws that scoured his face deeply.

He just took it, the blood oozing darkly from his cheek, watching her with his head tilted to one side.

She stared back at him as she found her feet, snarling and bearing her teeth. To her dismay, the lacerations she had inflicted on his pretty little face healed up almost instantly.

No time to waste Sigrid!

She lunged at him, and he at her. She delivered several powerful blows, each bit of damage healing up before she could deliver more. She had no idea if she was having any sort of impact, or if Vampires even grew tired in a fight, but she gave him everything she had to offer; slashing and biting with all her might. It was as the sun finished setting that he sent her flying with a shoulder blow so powerful it took the air from her lungs.

“Dante!” It was Evo’s voice. “Get to the thick of it… Sicario won’t be long. Don’t waste energy on a pup. I need them alive remember.”

Dante! That’s his name.

He ran off as instructed. In the distance, she could hear her mother’s howl. It sounded bitterly sad like she was singing a song of heartache and loss.

She had just managed to catch a breath when Evo kicked her hard in the face, sending her backward with broken teeth. Hitting the ground winded her again, and she lay gasping like a fish out of water. Evo knelt beside her, opening a bag strapped over his shoulder.

“By now, your parents will have discovered what is left of your brothers.” His tone was calm, as though this was an everyday conversation. He pulled a head from the bag, it looked like it had been savagely removed, with droplets of blood trailing down strips of shredded skin. She recognized the smell instantly.

“Thorstein! No!”

Her mind reeled at the revelation, narrowing her field of vision. The blood from her broken teeth had pooled in the back of her throat and she rolled over to vomit violently.

He pulled 2 more heads from the bag. She didn’t have to look to see who it was, their scent, as familiar as her own, was all she needed. All 3 of her siblings, powerful 7th-generation Werewolves, were dead. The Vampire invited into their home under the banner of truce was now parading their demise before her eyes.

He had a bemused look, as though they were but trinkets, dangling from braids that had just been fashioned that morning.

He stuffed them back into the bag, masking their scent from her, and pulled her forcibly to her feet.

“Come little one, the night is still young.”

“I will kill you for this!” she spat at him, swinging violently. He let the blows land where they may and then laughed at her as she huffed and grew weaker, almost collapsing at his feet. She hated his touch as he held her upright.

Begrudgingly, she let him lead her towards a gathering of tents. Nothing remained of her brothers’ militia. In the distance she could see Polovstian men walking through the battlefield, stabbing anything that stirred with life.

Her parents were huddled over the headless bodies of her brothers, surrounded. He threw her at their feet and they both cried out her name in relief, hugging her close.

“Sicario!” Evo called. “Do you have the stone?”

The other pale man who had been at Thorstein’s wedding stepped forward.

“I do.” He looked at Sigrid’s family and wrinkled his nose. “Evaristus, not that I care for dogs, but I thought we were keeping most of the family alive?”

“That was the plan.” Evo nodded. “Once we subdued them, Dante and I left to finish off their troops. The Polovsty had other ideas.”

Sicario rolled his eyes. “Leave it to mortals to stray from a well-laid plan. And they call us savages.”

“The stone?” Evo said, holding out his hand.

“Oh.” Sicario started patting his pockets theatrically. “Here you go. Not that there is much left for us to control.”

“There’s plenty,” Evo said quietly as he took hold of it. “It may just take a while to get it back up to full power.”

Her parents snarled, their hair bristling visibly.

“Careful,” Evo warned them. “Every last man is armed with silver. They won’t hesitate to end your life.”

Sicario took it as his cue and called for Dante to help him. They removed the silver chains from her brothers’ bodies and bound her and her parents. The blood on them was still warm.

“Now that you are the only child remaining, this stone should go to you, right?” Evo stated casually.

Sigrid didn’t say a word, but his statement was true. He didn’t bother waiting for a reply. He first dipped the stone in each of her brothers’ blood, even Thorstein’s, then put it between her teeth and slammed her jaw with a powerful upward blow. The cracking of her already broken teeth sent a jolt of pain through her skull. The metallic taste of her blood did nothing to mask the taste of her brothers. She felt some of it draw into the stone.

What he did next was pure sacrilege; he put it in his mouth, first sucking the remaining blood from it, relishing the taste, then bit it. The snap of his tooth was loud in the quiet of the night. His blood oozed thickly into the stone, and it glowed. It had never glowed before.

Then, everything changed for Sigrid. The sense of hate and vengeance that had filled her entire world seemed to melt away. It was replaced with a fierce sense of protection, and a sharp spike in power. Her wounds, usually quick to heal anyway, closed almost instantly.

“What’s happening to her?” Her father cried out aghast.

“I’m not sure, we’ve never done this before.” Evo shrugged as though the moment was nothing. “But you do feel different, don’t you Sigrid?”

“Yes.” She breathed. “I feel stronger. I feel like…”

“Like what?” His tone was curious.

“Like I am going to live forever.” Her parents gasped at her words.

“Anything else?”

She was shaking her head; the tears that had welled in her eyes fell from her lids. There was something else, but she didn’t want to say it.

“Come on.” He urged.

“No!” She yelled at him.

“What is it, Sigrid?” Her mother asked, her concern focused on her only remaining child.

“I cannot say it out loud.” The truth felt like it was filling her past capacity; like a dam in the middle of the rainy season.

“Let it out my darling.” Her father urged gently. That was all it took, that last gentle nudge filled with love.

“Like I have to protect the stone.” She then raised her eyes and stared at Evo with a hatred she knew could never be satisfied. “And him with it!”