It was an orc. Louis had never seen an orc but he had heard stories. In the fairy tales of his childhood, an orc was often the villain. A warrior race that dwelled in the badlands, thirsty for battle and bloodshed.
This orc matched the descriptions in these tales. Seven feet tall and broad-bodied, with muscled limbs like oak branches and skin a mottled olive green. His body was dressed in ragged animal furs, held in place by large, leather belts. His head was bald but his chin bore a thick, black beard, knotted into a short plait. Fat, white tusks protruded from behind his lower lip, lending his mouth a permanent snarl. A snarl he directed at Louis.
He closed the gap in only a few strides. Louis gripped his knife, but the orc levelled a wooden crossbow at him.
‘Drop it.’ His voice rumbled like thunder. Louis did as he was told.
* * *
It was all over in a flash. Louis and the other men were rounded up like cattle. The bandits tied their wrists and ankles together and sat them down at the roadside. A few of the men tried to resist, but they were quickly mollified by the sight of a blade.
Louis’s eyes darted around the cluster of prisoners, trying to see if anyone was missing. He didn’t know the group well, but it looked like everybody and none of them looked badly hurt. Although he couldn’t see his brother.
‘I can walk by myself, thanks. You only got my arm.'
Louis turned to see Warwick shrug off the grip of a bandit. He was clutching his bleeding arm but otherwise unhurt. Louis couldn’t help feeling a little gratified, since his brother had inflicted the same injury on him only yesterday.
A few other bandits hurried over, hands on blades, and Warwick reluctantly submitted to being escorted. They tied his arms and were even nice enough to bandage his wound before planting him down beside Louis.
Now the confusion was over, there turned out to be only a handful of bandits. The convoy probably outnumbered them, but it was too late to put up a fight now. Most of them were men, not orcs. Dirty, ragged and wild, but men all the same. It looked like the orc that had captured Louis was the only one. It was this orc who watched the prisoners while the others raided the carts.
‘You could stop this,’ Warwick hissed at Louis.
Louis glanced at the orc. He was leant against one of the nearby rocks, eyes on the horizon rather than the prisoners. It seemed he relied on intimidation alone to keep them in line.
‘What can I do?’ Louis whispered back.
‘What can you do!?’ said Warwick. ‘You’re a werewolf, remember?’
A few of the men stirred around them, unsure if they’d heard correctly.
‘Keep it down,’ Louis hushed him. ‘And no I’m not.’
‘Whatever you are, you can turn into a wolf.’
Hearing his name, the wolf in Louis’s mind awoke. Louis pushed it back. ‘I’m not doing that again.’
‘You could get free of your bindings and set the rest of us loose.’
‘They’ll kill me before I get the chance. If I could kill this wolf, these bandits definitely can.’
Warwick paused. For a moment, Louis thought that was the end of it, but then Warwick said, ‘Then let them see the change. Let them think you’re a real werewolf. They’ll be too scared of getting bitten to fight.’
The other prisoners were getting restless, listening to this strange conversation, and the orc had noticed. ‘What’s going on over there?’ he grunted.
The orc’s eyes met Louis’s. Seeing his fear, the orc knew at once who was causing the disturbance. He unsheathed his sword and approached.
‘Do it now!’
The wolf was getting very excited. With every step the orc took towards him, Louis’s determination not to set it free faded. By the time the orc stopped in front of him, yellow eyes glaring down at him, Louis was thinking about it. And that was enough to let it loose. Like a sneeze, his mouth and nose thrust forward into a snout.
‘Ha! Now yer for it,’ said Warwick.
The orc froze. So did Louis, anxious over how the orc would react. And in this moment of hesitation, the rest of the wolf leapt forward.
It happened faster than it ever had, in one fluid motion, almost as if it were leaping out of Louis’s body. Fur spread outwards from the snout, flowing across his eyes, ears and head. It travelled down his back and across his arms. He began to shrink, and his wrists thinned enough to come loose from their bindings. His arms spun round to his front, where he planted them on the ground, leaning forward onto all fours.
‘Uhh…’ murmured the orc as he stepped backward. ‘Boys!’
A few bandits looked up and caught sight of Louis. Still snarling, foaming at the teeth, he stalked towards the orc. As he stepped forwards, his legs slipped easily out of their bindings -and his trousers- letting his long tail come swishing free. Keeping his eyes on the orc, Louis grasped the collar of his tunic in his teeth and ripped it clean off his body. Where once was a man, there was now only the wolf.
The rest of the bandits hurried over, only to hang back once the saw what was happening. Some of the prisoners yelled in surprise and fear, while Warwick cheered. The orc was still transfixed, locked between fight or flight. As he raised his blade, it was clear he’d made his decision. So Louis let the wolf make his.
He leapt on the orc and, with a bloodlust that was quite unfamiliar to him, his teeth locked around the orc’s throat. The taste of blood filled his mouth. The orc thrashed and spun, trying to shake Louis loose, but his jaw was like a vice. He tried to yell for help, but the other bandits just stared. He swung his sword, but struggled to aim in his panic.
Then, his sword connected. It cut across Louis’s back. Though it was shallow, it was enough to make Louis react. He pressed his paws against the orc’s chest and leapt free. And when he landed, the orc’s throat was still in his mouth. Clutching his neck, the brute fell like a stone.
In that instant, Louis’s body snapped instantly back to his human self, as if he had just released a held breath. The force of it knocked him off all fours and splayed naked onto the earth. He spat the bloody remains of the orc’s throat from his mouth. He felt sick.
If the bandits wanted to kill him, now was their chance. But they had just seen a man become a wolf and then turn back into a man. And that wolf had killed the biggest, strongest member of their clan. They wasted no time in running back to their horses and getting as far away as they could. But Louis barely noticed. He’d forgotten they were ever there. He was still looking where the orc had been.
The orc was definitely dead, yet Louis imagined the orc still standing there. Looking at his hands, wondering what had just happened. The imaginary orc looked at Louis, before nodding in understanding and walking calmly over to him. Louis felt a surge of strange sensations. The smell of sweat, the thrill of adrenaline, the allure of wide open plains, the harshness of leather and fur. After an instant, it passed, but there was now a new permanent resident in Louis’s mind.