Werewolf Story Excerpt

Lance staggered out of the river.  Duncan was safely draped over his shoulder.  Lance gently poked him.  Duncan responded by coughing up river water.  
“You are an idiot,” Duncan whispered hoarsely.  Lance smiled as he carried his brother into the forest.  
After an hour of wandering, they stopped at a boulder that was being strangled by the tree growing atop it.  Lance felt that this place would make for a nice campsite.
Lance gently laid Duncan down on near where three tree roots merged together as they crept beneath the boulder.  He set about making a circle of rocks to mark the pit for a fire.  After he filled the circle with an armful of branches, he walked over to a nearby rotting log, and punched a hole in it.  Dozens of frightened land crabs poured out of their now-violated sanctuary.  Lance picked up a few handfuls of the squirming, pinching creatures, and casually tossed them into his fire pit.  They crawled up into the branches there, where they cautiously watched Lance start his fire by drilling away at the log with a stick.

Afternoon sputtered, and languished as it aged into dusk.  Dusk arrived in the forest, painting the treetops brown in its dim orange glow.  The innards of the forest were draped in a miraculous web of shadows and amber light.  The light of Lance’s fire held out against the growing gloom, however, providing a small, but bright sanctuary.  
Duncan sucked the last bit of meat free from the last leg of his third crab, and casually tossed the leg into the fire.  He then casually wiped his hand on Lance’s shirt.  
"So, Sage, did you see the look on that goatbrain's face when I tossed him into his own troops?"  Lance boasted.  He felt triumphant sitting by the fire, his smile his badge of honor.
"You are an idiot,” Duncan sighed.
"How come?" Lance asked, unaware of his own naiveté.  I rescued you.  Why are you acting like this?
"You almost killed us back in the castle.”  Duncan snapped.  "Do you know what Vytahk would have done to us if he caught us?"
Lance snorted, and twitched a little in response.
"Why did you have to jump into the river?  I suppose I should have told you that I can’t swim.”  Duncan choked a little, trying to fight back a laugh.  “But, if I told you that, we’d have probably jumped out a window and onto a hay-wagon, instead.”
Lance smiled sheepishly.  “We got out alive, didn’t we?”
“You do have a point.”  Duncan didn’t bother to stifle a laugh.
“And your clothes are dry, aren’t they?”
“They’re not dripping any more, at least.”  Duncan bobbed his head for a moment, trying to decide on what to say.  “Where are we going to go, now?”
“I told you, we’re going home.”
“Lance.”
“Yes, Duncan?”
“You remind me of a friend I once knew.”
“Who?  Have I met him?”
“No, no, this was a long time ago.  He called himself Lugh.  My friend, he taught me how to dream, how to wonder.”
Lance pondered at what Duncan had just said.  Not knowing how to dream?  That was something that Lance found to be incomprehensible.
“This was long before I had met with Queen Ester.  When I asked my parents why the sky was blue, or where the sun went at night, they gave me no answer.  ”
“How come?”  Lance asked.
“They had forgotten how to dream and what it was like to wonder.  When I first met Lugh, he told me why the sky was blue.  He said that the sky was woven from the blue hair of the mother of the sea.  And he told me where the sun went at night.  He said the sun went to his home beneath the earth, a brilliant palace carved out of yellow crystal.”
“So, how do I remind you of him?”
“He taught me how to dream.  After Queen Ester died, I gave up hope.  But when you came, you didn’t give up hope, no matter what happened to you.  You spent all those months in Vytahk’s laboratory and yet you still had the strength to fight him.  You gave me back my hope.  You made me remember how to dream and what it is like to look at the world with wonder in my eyes.  Thank you, Lance.”
“Well, uh, I, uh, don’t know what to say.”
Duncan reached into his pocket, drew forth a silver ring, and placed it in Lance’s hand.
“What’s this for, Sage?”  Lance looked at the ring.  It was heavy and intricately carved.  The ring showed a wolf battling a huge snake.  The wolf had the snake’s head in its jaws, while the snake had coiled much of itself around the wolf’s body.  The ring was icy to his touch.  Lance slipped it onto his left ring finger, and then studied the ring as it glittered in the light of the fire.
“Lugh gave it to me, before he died in battle.  I thought it was only fitting that I give it to you.  He was a warrior, and you’re a warrior.”
“What ever gave you that idea?”  Lance chuckled.
“Well, for one thing, your form was flawless when you hurled Vytahk into his soldiers.”  
Lance laughed.  Duncan leaned on Lance, and closed his eyes.  


Lance found himself back in his forest.  Everything was frozen; yet, he was boiling underneath his clothes.  His breath was coming out in huge silvery puffs.  He called out.
“Tekh?”
He thought he heard a child crying somewhere in the distance.  He started to walk toward the sound.  The frosty grass crunched beneath his boots.  Something else started making the grass crunch.  A black wolf as big as a pony walked beside him.
“Where are you going, my friend?” the wolf asked.
“I’m going to find my brother.”
“You are cold, my friend.”
He ignored the wolf.  He strained to hear a child laughing somewhere in the distance.
“Take my coat, my friend.  I don’t want you to freeze.”  Lance let his tunic fall off, letting the wind caress his fur.
“Tekh, where are you?”  Lance ran toward a cave.  A child, Tekh, perhaps, was crying somewhere in its depths.  Lance entered the cave without hesitation.  The wolf followed him.
The cave was carved out of black glass.  Lance repeatedly cut himself as he made his awkward descent through the cave’s bowels.  He finally stopped to rest with the wolf.
“Take my paws, my friend.  You must find your brother quickly.”  Lance kicked off his boots, and continued his descent, taking no note that he had wolf’s paws instead of hands or feet.
Lance came to the very bottom of the cave.  A soft crying filled the place, as if to taunt Lance.
“Where is your brother, my friend?”
“Tekh is here.”
“Where is your brother, my friend?”
“Tekh is here.”
“Tekh is not your brother anymore, my friend.  Where is your brother?”
Lance could not answer.  The wolf nuzzled Lance.
“Take my soul, my friend, go find your brother.”  Without a cry, a snarl, or a yelp, the wolf leapt at Lance, knocking him down.  The wolf tore open Lance’s belly, and started to crawl inside.

Lance awoke and found himself human once more.  He looked at his hands.  They were clean, and still human.  No sign of blood, no sign of blood anywhere.  He looked over at Duncan, who was sleeping peacefully.
“Can’t sleep,” Lance said to himself.  “Not after that.”  He prodded the embers of the fire, in an attempt to keep Duncan warm, and to keep the shadows at bay.
Suddenly, something else took priority in Lance’s mind.  He chafed painfully in his clothes.  His skin itched as if there were insects crawling beneath it, while his head spun in a hazy funk.  “A swim,” he said.  “Yeah, I think I do need a swim.”  He tossed a handful of twigs into the fire to keep it fed, and left camp.
Lance’s trek to the riverbank was painfully urgent, as he was certain that he was certain that he was going to burst.  His fever was getting to the point where he wasn’t certain if he was going to burst into flames or burst open.  He peeled off his sweat-drenched clothes as he stepped onto the riverbank.  As he walked into the river, he sank to his knees, then his hands.  All of the tiny crabs he ate were marching around in a circle inside of his stomach.  He grabbed at his throat as he began to wretch.  He wanted to scream, but, the only thing that came out of his opened mouth was a puff of warm air.
The moon rose higher in the sky, veiling the entire forest in its light.
When the moonlight touched him, his fever reached a white-hot peak. As his skin grow coarse with stubble, Lance was certain that it was burning off.  As he vainly tried to peel it off, his fingertips throbbed, then sprouted miniature talons, his toes following suit.  He cried out, partly in agony and partly in fear, as he felt stiff hairs surge out of each and every single one of his pores.  Lance clutched his now-furry sides as his viscera boiled inside his bulging torso.  He screamed again as he managed to roll back onto shore.  A tail shot out from where his tailbone used to be.
Lance’s legs surged with unnatural strength as the muscles ballooned beyond human proportions.  He clawed at the ground as his feet stretched and stretched, until his legs were more like a wolf’s hind legs.  His arms swelled into massive, fur-covered limbs.  He watched the veins in his hands dance with an demonic vitality, and watched his hands steadily grow more and more paw-like (like his feet), but saw that he could still flex his fingers even though they were thick as sausages.  And Lance bellowed as his newly sprouted talons grew an extra three inches.
Crack.  Crack.  Pop.  His entire torso began to forcibly enlarge with each thirsty breath he took, and the vertebrae in his broadening back erupted forth like new mountains.  As the muscles in his neck and shoulders expanded in order to conform to his still-inflating torso, he heard something snap.
Lance grimaced as he felt his ears developing wolfish points.  His teeth sharpened and lengthened into huge fangs, while a whiskered snout burst forth from his face to better accommodate the ivory daggers that now lined his mouth, and his entire head reshaped itself into something obviously lupine to better accommodate his new snout.
The beast threw back his head and howled.
Lance was unable to recognize his body.  He tried to give voice to the chaos of thoughts running through his head, but could only muster guttural snarls.  He lifted up his left arm, and found it to be enormous.  He then clenched his fist, which was as big as a human head.
Is this mine?
He unclenched his fist to see his claws.  Like gray razors.
He sniffed the air, and caught the scent of a distant stag.  A low growl emanated from his throat.  The pain of the transformation had given way to an equally painful hunger.  A thread of drool formed at the edge of his lip.  The creature that Lance had become bounded off in search of prey in the moonlit forest.