Return To Crossroads

Zas was making ready to return to Crossroads late in the afternoon. A thought occurred to him briefly and he decided to go with his instincts.

He tracked down Rends the Gar and upon finding him said in a matter of fact tone of voice, "I am readying to leave for Crossroads once more. I am also planning to enter the Dark Umbra. I am not expecting problems, but should any arrive, I would feel better if you were there to watch my back. The chief was concerned of things that roamed the Dark Umbra. I'm not wanting to find out why, but it never hurts to be prepared. Would you accompany me there?"

Rends had been helping with construction at the Caern when zas found him by a water barrel. He takes a long drink, splashing more water on his face.

"Ya ill come. Them hierarchy folks seemed alright but you never know. Whatll you be doing in the dark umbra?"

Zas filled a waterpouch and caps it as he says, "To be honest, I'm not exactly certain. I just know the ghost of the man-Haggard, told me to find him in the dark umbra at the fortress ruins to see if it would be worthwhile to teach me how to to be more capable of dealing with Hanging Maw. Evidently, them being in our world is difficult."

Zas pauses before he adds, "I'm pleased you find dealing with the restless dead bearable. They certainly seem to respond well to you."

Rends nodded, scrubbing at his face.

"I'll admit, theys might creepy at times. I'd rather not deal with em at all but I think they could be mighty useful allies and we seemed to get along alright. I wouldn't a expected the dead to be so... military. All the stories I'd heard theys just mindless beasts haunting our side."

He pauses, then muses almost to himself.

"And they said theys fightin something. I thought the fight would be over in death, but if theys another front to the war against the Wyrm I'd like to know more."

Zas nods in understanding as he says, "There is much they could offer us, in terms of knowledge...but Garou are not usually sent to the Dark umbra from what I've learned. It is not of Gaia. When our time is over, we are intended to be with her. The underworld is a detour-and the more I learn about it, the less I believe the detour is a good one."

Zas then sips from the waterpouch and says, "As far as them being organized, I too was surprised, but at least some of their kind do haunt us...otherwise there would be no stories. Perhaps the Hierarchy is out to end such haunts, perhaps not-whatever the case is, learning more of them is a good course of action."

Zas then looks at the fading Sun and says, "Are you ready to go discover what we can or do you require time to be prepared?"

Rends do feed his hat and waved the silent strider forward.

"Lead the way. I never leave home without everything I need."

Zas nodded once and then made to head towards the town of Crossroads once again. The trip was pleasant as a warm stiff breeze provided the two Garou with a strong tail wind and the prodigals arrived to the town just as Luna's half shadowed face broke over the trees and the earliest stars twinkled and burned overhead.

The two werewolves avoided the eponymous junction of Crossroads and instead struck off due north and east, over some cleared fields, as they made their way toward the ruined Spanish fort.

The place was unchanged, all crumbling clay and bits of stone. Aging trees and obstinate scrub bushes grew thick and tangled, half-choking the low stone walls from view. Zas B'ul and Rends-the-Gar pushed on, the early evening calm and still before the impending onset of the cold night.

"So, the wolf men have returned."

A woman, clad in fraying cloth, stood on tip toes atop one of the old broken down walls. Her spine was ramrod straight, and she might have been there all along. Though her face was all but hidden under a clotted and stained mask of cheap fabric, angry eyes the color of mud glared out from under a wild mane of wavy jet hair. One of her callused hands gripped a sharp steel pitchfork that caught the glint of the moon.  

Blanca Maria tilted her head, troubled brown eyes becoming troubled brown slits. Zas realized she wasn't standing on the cracked brick wall at all: her long-nailed feet were suspended a few inches above the tumble-down masonry.

"Let us avoid any surprises. Are you here on some fresh errand of the spectres or have you come on business of your own?"

"Haggard told me to return if I was interested in learning a new gift. As I've said before, we have no alliance with spectres and therefore we have no need or desire to do their bidding. Our purpose in returning is to seek out further knowledge."

The Silent Strider then gazed intently at the woman as he says with a small bow and a tilted head, "I think I owe you an apology-when last we spoke I mistakenly considered you to be a spectre. I see that I was wrong and apologize for such insult. "

"You crave knowledge, but I can smell Oblivion on your clothes and in your pores, it clings like the perfume of a faithless lover." The stained scarf over Blanca Maria's face creased, and Zas realized she was smiling. "You may not be a foot-soldier of Oblivion, but it sure loves you, just the same."

The refuse pit stood off a few yards away, the gaping opening half-obscured by tangled bushes and long grass. Among these stood a man, swollen skin pudgy and discolored. He approached the Garou, the brambles and branches unmoving as he passed through them. Haggard turned his sunken watery gaze on Blanca Maria first.

"No reason to be rude, Maria. If they want understanding, we should do all that we can." The stricken wraith turned to nod toward his guests. "What do you wish to know? I cannot guarantee I have an answer, but in the spirit of mutual cooperation I will do my best."

The Philodox says to Blanca Maria with little indication as to his intended inference, "You are interesting to me as well."

Zas looked to Rends to see if he planned to speak first but then turned to Haggard when he couldn't discern his Alpha's intention. "When we last spoke, I inquired of learning a means to better withstand the assaults of the dead. You gave instructions to meet here when I could so that you could see if it was worth the trouble to try and bestow upon me such knowledge. I come now to honor that. I believe my alpha may have other questions."

Bill Haggard nodded, multiple chins of loose gooseneck flesh flapping slowly as they echoed the expression. "Ah. I can alter your spirit permanently, yes. This will make you difficult to harm by wraiths, on either side of the Shroud. However, I do this as a token of good faith, to protect you from the slaves of Oblivion and the slavering mongrel wraiths of the frontier. If you cause trouble for us, or other members of the Hierarchy, we will be forced to rescind our arrangement. I am sure you understand." Plump bluish pale skin shuddered as Haggard craned his neck to the side and coughed silently, not bothering to cover his mouth as pale strings of sputum flew out into the weeds.

Blanca Maria had not moved from her eerie perch. "Know that there are ways of overcoming our gift, skinchanger, and none of them are pleasant or neat." Blanca Maria slowly scraped her thumb along the razor edged point of her pitchfork, drawing a bead of blood that gradually trickled upward in defiance of natural law. "As long as you do not hinder the Hierarchy, our alliance will stand."  

Haggard had regained his composure, dabbing at his oxygen deprived lips with a rough handkerchief. "What she is trying to say is that the Hierarchy has little interest in the land of the living, and there is no reason why we cannot co-exist within our own territories. I think an alliance should be fairly easy to negotiate; what do you say, werewolves... do we have an accord?"

Zas looks to his alpha before speaking recalling their conversation about negotiations earlier.

Zas angles his head to the side as he says, "Such a gift is precious and should not be squandered. It's not that I don't agree to your terms but would you clarify what you mean when you say hinder? I want to be certain not to violate such an agreement or have miscommunications as we nearly had during our initial conversation.

How for instance will I know who is with the Hierarchy and who is not? I am not like you...I do not see such things as clear as I would like. Is their some mark or banner you wear that I could readily identify?"

"We do not wear badges of office, though if a wraith comes to you claiming to be of the Hierarchy, he must have a good reason to breach the Shroud and defy the laws of the dead..." Haggard waved his hand vaguely. "Use your judgement, as you would among the quick."

Blanca Maria gave a short, bitter laugh. "That is some advice, wetlungs. I say this, Zas B'ul of the werewolves: by our armaments you will know us." The Grim Legion commander deftly whirled her pitchfork around, bringing it to a stop mere inches from the Silent Strider's nose. Cold eyes smiled above a stained cloth mask when he failed to flinch at her aggressive movements, and she continued, her voice low, almost gentle. "See, the weapons that will pierce the souls of our enemies. It is fresh whispering steel, forged in the fires of hades. It rends corpus and flesh alike."  

"As for what I meant when I said, 'do not hinder us,' what does it sound like? Don't give aid to our foes, don't meddle unnecessarily in the affairs of the dead, and most importantly of all, stay out of my way." Zas could tell by the strained tone in the wraith's voice that she was doing her best not to sound hostile or savage, but the attempt was largely futile.

Zas looks intently at the dead woman and then to Haggard and is about to speak again when a strange breeze blows and the philodox goes silent. His eyes begin to darken as his posture changes to an aggressive stance and he quickly takes on the Crinos form as he howls to Rends in first tongue, We have been deceived! Hanging Maw spoke true! They speak lies!

The Silent Strider then let's out a deep low growl towards Blanca Maria as she wields her weapon mere inches from his face and then with a heated glare looks at the woman.

"Goddamnit!"

Rends explodes into crinos, giving a savage roar as he surges forward faster than mortal eyes can follow.

*I ain't leaving empty handed without at least trying!*

He thinks to himself, grabbing for the pitchfork with a quick motion.

Bill Haggard's eyes flew open in shock as the Garou transformed, his features diminishing into the long shadows of night as he receded into the deadlands, shaking his head in silent frustration.

Crimson blood streamed down Blanca Maria's neck, flowing out from under her mask and drenching her workshirt as Rends hurled himself at her. The hulking grey crinos grasped at the haft, and after a moment of initial resistance, tore it from the wraith's cold dead hands. The Garou stumbled back, his mind flooded with feelings that were not his own. Rends-the-Gar glimpsed bewildered, anguished nonsense, gnawing dissolution and howling loss. The feeling was akin to holding a fetish, but the spirits contained within this deathly weapon were not whole; they were broken and wounded things, incapable of thought but wracked with pain.

Blanca Maria snapped her head around to look at Zas B'ul and then back at the stunned Rends, a look of drunken glee filling her blood-crazed eyes. "Oh, your anger, it is perfect, just... heavenly."

Zas snarled an oath of vengeance and hurtled claws first at the Hierarch. The philodox tore into the spirit, ripping into her body, which seemed hard and cold, like slate. The Silent Strider gouged out deep wounds in her chest and shoulder before the wraith vanished from sight even as fires erupted around the crumbling ruins, burning streams devouring the undergrowth as sparks caught in the trees.

The Get of Fenris only regained his senses when he felt heat on his face. The undergrowth around them glowed, alight with flames that Rends could smell, and he knew this was no mere ghostly corpse-fire. It was meant to be a pyre. Blanca Maria tore out of the smoke like a hellish vision of the grave, her body caked with blood that was swiftly drying and clotting in the heat. Behind her was movement- leering ghastly faces swirling in the choking air as the Grim Legion came forth from the dark umbra.

Snarling as he wrestled down the emotions that were not his own, the alpha weighed his options in an instant. Realizing they were suddenly outmanned, he made to signal the retreat. He took a deep breath to howl the command, then caught himself as a wave of haunting terror surged up his arm from the pitchfork. He growled, pushing down the raw sickening well of emotions bubbling up like puss from a blister. He could feel his arm spasming from the torment of the souls inside the weapon.

He looked up, eyes locking on the hellish visage of Blanca Maria and her ghoulish lackeys. Hatred boiled up in his chest, this time a hatred all his own. Rage filled his eyes, and he bared his fangs as he gave a great bellowing roar, furious beyond all reason that he had been taken in by someone willing to use such a horrid thing; to create something from the desecrated souls of men and women who should have been resting in peace. Blanca Maria stared back at him, blood pouring out and drying in a constant flow of sickly scabs, but even in the haze of the smoke and his Rage, Rends the Gar could see her eyes. She was enraptured, nearly orgasmic in her ecstasy as she held her hands up to him, beckoning her legion forward or summoning him he didn't know. Something inside him snapped, and he charged into battle with the unliving.

He was faster than any of the ghosts before him; closing the few yards between himself and Maria in the blink of an eye. Apparitions stood to either side of Maria, drawing their own ghastly weapons as Rends slammed the pitchfork home up into the chin of the first, lifting and slamming the ghost into its companion with the violence and momentum of the thrust. The first ghost still stuck to the end of the weapon, so Rends the Gar whirled around the ghost and flung it into the cohort advancing on him. He screamed as he flung the foot soldier, his own Rage concurrently at war with the fear, despair and hatred springing up from the weapon he wielded. He wheeled on Maria, raising the pitchfork for a final strike.

She stood before him, showers of blood pouring out from her veiled face to pool at her feet. As the blood expanded to the fire's edge, the flame shifted to a deep blood red, darker and richer than any mortal fire could be. She was laughing, deep from her chest the sound scratched and clawed out of her throat. Her eyes finally focused in again, and she pointed a sanguinous finger at Rends'. He could see her smile even behind her veil.

"You don't understand us, fool! With every moment yo-!"

She cut off as Rends grabbed her wrist in one claw, twisting her arm back as he raised up his other arm, then stabbed the pitchfork down into her chest.

Black bile shot out of her mouth, trailed by a high keening scream. Rends ducked out of the way of the bile, letting it soar past his face to hit a tree. It sizzled and hissed there, burning through the thick wood in a moment. Maria reached up, grabbing the pitchfork and slowly pulling it out of her chest as the scream gathered power, pounding into Rends' soul with a crushing weight of hatred and anger. He felt it crashing into him like waves on a shore, wearing him away and dragging him down into the depths of submission as surrender engulfed him.

Then like a seaside cliff, the scream crashed against a wall inside him and shattered, impotent. He answered with his own scream as he tore the weapon free, beating his free hand against his chest and raising the weapon again.

"I UNDERSTAND THIS! I AM FENRIR! THERE IS NOTHING MORE!"

A final battle cry tore forth. The forest shook in terror of the two screams, and the two fell into each other in a maelstrom of ephemera and claws and Soulsteel. Righteous with the renewed vigor of pride, Rends the Gar was a blur of furious stabbing, raining blows down on Blanca Maria as she did her best to ward him off. She managed to get a few hits in, but before the raging tempest of a Fenrir roused to anger, she could do little to stave him off for long.

Rends lunged, plunging the pitchfork deep into her belly, lifting her off the ground like so much hay. He slammed her into the ground, once, twice, three times, puffs of soul stuff leaking out from her in bursts with each blow. The laughter was gone from her face now. As Rends pinned her to the ground through her belly, she stared blankly up, eyes dumb and disconnected. Black tendrils seeped up from the ground around her, wrapping her in a loveless embrace. A cold alien music haunted the forest, welling up from the void that was swallowing Blanca Maria. Rends felt a touch on his shoulder, then looked back to see Zas shaking his head.

"That is not a place for us. You cannot follow."

It was then he realized he'd taken a half step towards the black void, as if to follow the rapidly vanishing ghost to her destination and continue the fight. Rends pulled back, letting the void take her and the pitchfork. Chest heaving, he looked up and saw the remaining Legion, Haggared now again at their head. The fires had died down to a more natural color. The dead stood silent, weapons still raised as Haggared and Rends met eyes. Darkess swallowed Maria, and the music died, leaving the forest in an unnatural quiet. Rends stood tall, clenching his fists.

"You will not expand your reach any closer to Nacadoches. It is protected. The living fear the dead, but if you cross me I will make the dead fear the name Rends the Gar!"

He held the ghost's eyes, staring into them with fiery intensity, claws twitching for more violence.

Zas stood trembling in anger as the ghostly horde began appearing before them. His fury unsatisfied with the beating he'd given to Blanca Maria, grew all the more poignant as more dead continued to fill the area.

The philodox held his ground to see if his Alpha would sound a retreat due to the two Garou being outnumbered, but the thought quickly vanished as the Get of Fenris surged forward with a mad lust for for the fight and serving as a strong reminder of why Zas had asked him along to begin with. The Silent Strider needed little urging to end the wicked and foul dead that plagued this land. The bitter deception of the Hierarchy combined with the savage assault his alpha began to unleash only further stoked his rage. Zas B'ul plunged into the forefront of the horde that drew too near the Fenrir, heedless of the searing heat.

His jagged claws tore clear through the corpus of the first fool to draw near, a skeletal shrieking thing hefting a jagged hay knife. His sharpened fangs bit deep into the lifeless things neck, and Zas could feel bones snapping and and the bitter taste of ectoplasm splashed across his tongue. The Silent Strider snarled as sharp pain exploded in his side as the wraith swung the sword into his ribcage.

The black furred Garou let loose a howl of agony, but the Silent Strider did not wait for another blow to land on him. Wordlessly, he asked for a boon from the spirits before plowing through the legionnaires that had begun to gather around him, snapping at their calves and heels. The wound he'd taken began to heal, but the heat seared his paws and fur, and dry, parching smoke burned his lungs.

Heedlessly, the Silent Strider circled back behind his alpha and concentrated his efforts on creating dozens of multiple gray tentacles that rapidly burst through the ground and entangle and halt the advancing blood thirsty wraiths. The fighting around him drew to a momentary lull, but the maniacal laughter of Hanging Maw echoed amid the screams of the ghosts and the crackling flame. The philodox looked to see Rends beginning to follow after the quickly dissolving remnants of the Grim Legion commander and made to stop him. Rends seemed to stir from his reverie even as a volley of cruel black arrows flew through the air out of the burning pyre that burned around them- the Skeletal Legion, Haggard's crew, had appeared, their bloated or emaciated shapes distorted in the billowing smoke.

At his Alphas words Zas looked on at Haggard who had reappeared bringing several more wraiths with him and spoke to him in a bestial snarl full of malice, "We Honor our words Wyrmbringers! Come near us and we will hound you unto Oblivion!"

Bill Haggard had his hand raised in signal, his eyes black pits of fury. "You come seeking gifts, Zas? You come to us with questions?! Here is your answer!" The choleric Hierarch dropped his hand, and a volley of cruel black arrows, some of them aflame, tore through the smoke; but none of the barbs found their mark. The Garou were gone- both had slipped into the umbra, escaping the flames and the spiteful dead... at least for now.

It was close to midnight when the Garou emerged from the umbra, stepping out of a brake of trees on the edge of the highway. The stretch of road between Nacogdoches and Crossroads was quiet and empty, and the only sounds were the wailing cries of shriek owls and the muffled scrape-crunch of their own footsteps. The two werewolves said little, but continued moving south. Ahead, a figure jumped and leaped in the road, his jerking movements fast and silent. Zas realized the man was performing a dance, though it was not one he was familiar with. Philodox and ahroun approached cautiously, and as they did so a gale of familiar, nigh-hyserical laughter tore through the cool night air. Hanging Maw performed his last stomp with his back facing away from the Garou, and he glanced back at them with unconcealed delight. Rends heard the alien strains of Oblivion scratch his ears, and the dead chief gave them a careworn smile over his shoulder. Zas addressed the spectre:

"The Hierarchy are deceitful, as you say. We-"

"HahahahaAHAHA! I know what you have done!!" Muscle warped as lupine bones swelled beneath the Indian's old leathery skin, stretching and tearing it away amid wicking flares of ghoulish flame. Shaking himself free, Hanging Maw looked down at the two homid-form Garou. Now black and red warpaint, smeared in the shape of writhing coils and horned serpents adorned his face, neck and chest. The paint seemed to have been applied on top of existing wounds, and where there was no flesh visible the thick pigment had just been smeared on exposed bone. "You have helped Maria on the downward road, courtesy of her own miserable weapon. You have atoned, and more."

The spectre held up a hank of hair, dark, long and streaked with blood. There was no doubt that it had once belonged to Blanca Maria. In sign language, the dead Garou motioned for Zas to assume the warform. Wordlessly, the philodox complied, and when he was done Hanging Maw braided the ghostly trophy into Zas' hide. It was not so different in color from the Silent Strider's own coat, but like Hanging Maw, the braid smelled unmistakably of the grave. Satisfied, Hanging Maw turned towards Rends-the-Gar.

"And you, Pale-skin, perhaps you are not as unfailingly blind as the rest of your ilk." A long rotten tongue shifted limply, a dribble of ectoplasm escaping from mismatched fangs as Hanging Maw cocked his heavy head to look at Zas and address them both. "Continue as you have, making ghosts, and I will follow as best I can, making their first deaths true." And then the apparition was gone, vanished into the darkest depths of the umbra.