CHPT 217: The Sleeping King.

Samuel watched the two approach the castle with a newfound level of fear. Among the bowing Lupines, a number of them looked up and watched the duo, pointing out the pair's pack to Samuel. His too, was amongst the number of Lupines. All transformed, surrounding Dolion in the snow.

The two walked in silence for a short time, following old indents that made up the trail of footsteps of a pair of Lupines who did the same before them. He wondered how many times that spot of snow had been painted red when a Lupine was brought before the Reaper's. Not a good thought. Not a good thought at all.

He forced it to the back of his mind and focused on the pair as they took a seat in the snow while the rest of their pack watched from afar.

Milliseconds felt like they took minutes to morph into seconds and even longer to reach the one minute mark. The suspense was enough to drive anyone crazy. The only thing holding them still was the lack of movement from within the castle. They were watching, judging.

Their timeless and predatory gazes froze the entire field— and nobody could even see them. But they knew. Much like how a man in a forest knows when he's being stalked. The way life loses sound, no birds, no bugs, only silence. Like life itself is taking an anxious inhale in wait for that final pounce. Those seconds before death, the Primal Reapers somehow drew them out for a painfully long time, leaving Samuel shaking and wanting nothing more than to run.

He thought it would stay like that forever— the Lupines all still in the snowy field while the horrifying creatures in the shadows of the castle judged them like wild Heralds of their God, Remus. It felt like it would stay that way forever. But then…..it didn't. That inhale that Samuel once felt nature taking vanished as sound and movement came crashing back into his senses abruptly like time suddenly sped up to an almost untraceable degree.

Despite their distance, even Samuel wanted to flee, but all he could do was watch. Watch as something horrifying leap from the castle corridors and landed on the young Lupine even faster.

It was too fast. There was only a flash of darkness bursting from the shadows and then something large in the snow in front of them. Something too large. Landing hard enough to cause a wave of snow to rise like the ground exploded.

As a Lupine, Samuel was large compared to most— even on all fours in the snow he was still a head above most. But whatever towered over the pair of Lupines waiting to be judged, made him feel like an ant. It had to be at least 10ft tall, and it was slouching.

Silence remained.

The beast standing over the pair had its features hidden by the leathery fabric of a tattered black cloak that would've given it an almost ghost-like appearance if not for the creature's inhuman bulk. It's bulging traps and shoulder muscles threatened to rip through the fabric and gave Samuel a brief idea of its monstrous power. Monstrous power that lined every inch of its limbs and translated its strength into the scythe held in its left hand with its blade lying lazily in the snow.

It didn't look metal, in fact, it was bone. Clean white bone made impossibly sharp from being dragged along the black ice grounds of the castle for decades. The length of the bone scythe was mottled with Runes that glowed with a primordial intensity, threatening to make his blood freeze like the rain that fell from the clouds overhead.

WooOoO!

A cold gust of wind graced the snowy glade, interrupting the haunting presence of the Primal Reaper and blowing its drooping hood from left to right. The movement drew Samuel's eyes to the creatures face.

The shadows cast by the hood felt impossibly black and physical in form like a focused cloud of fog. Yet, he could still make out a glowing pair of slitted golden eyes behind something— a sort of mask. It matched the color of the Monster's scythe and was lined with cracks that were dirtied and made worse by time.

His fur rose to points as he looked down and saw that the mask had a snout— a snout and jagged sharp teeth that weren't its own.

It was a skull. And not just any skill. It wore the cracked and beaten skull of a Lupine.

The silence was broken again as the Lupine in front of the Primal Reaper let out an anxious whine. His eyes immediately flew to the young follower of Remus.

He never cared for the innate details of monsters or animals— but he somehow was able to get a story of what was going on in the creature's mind under the scrutinizing gaze of the Primal Reaper.

It's grey wolven fur was smooth against its body— it was a simple thing, but he somehow got the idea of it trying to look smaller. The Lupine's long horn-like ears laid flat against its head all the way to the top of its neck and the long bushy tail at its back curled up around its underside fearfully. It looked like it was doing everything to look as small as possible. The young Lupine was panicking and doing everything it could just not to be. Not to be seen, not to be attacked, not to exist. The sight disgusted him in a way he's rarely felt. He wanted to kill the Lupine himself.

The heat of the Primal Reapers breath escaping from the foggy shadows of its hood picked up. It took notice— even before Samuel.

He watched the chain reaction of events take place after like the falling of dominoes, one point to the next in a timed fashion that depended on the response of each active party.

First, the leading Lupine holding the younger stiffened in an instant like his spine was pulled taught by wires. Steam rose from his shoulders and the snow around him melted. The young Lupine in his grasp whined again and pulled against his handler, trying to lay in the snow and reveal its throat to the Primal horror— wrong move.

WOOSH!

In a flash, the scythe disappeared from the Reaper's side as it ripped through the cold air and sunk through the back of the young Lupine's throat— pinning it to the snowy ground for mere seconds before the monster turned and performed an upswing with the large weapon, causing the Lupine it stabbed through to be thrown back to the castle through the air like a rag doll.

The snowy biome erupted in yelps, whines and barks as the Primal Reaper spun around and jumped after the long dead follower of Remus still sailing through the air towards the castle. In an explosive flash, the creature caught up to it and closed a large clawed hand around its bleeding throat. Chaotic droplets of blood splashed into the snow below.

During its leap, the hood covering its head slipped away, leaving Samuel to see its head from behind and massively thick neck before it vanished with the dead Lupine dinner held firmly in its grasp.

Brown fur— dark brown fur streaked with onyx-black stripes. The last thing he could see was a long feline tail swaying from beneath its cloak.

From within the shadowy corridors, the sounds of crunching and growling erupted immediately. They wasted no time in dining on their cannibalistic meal. Some of them sounded more like Wolves while others made sounds he'd never heard of. Sounds that would keep him awake at night and make him think twice about ever roaming the wilds at night again.

Sounds of otherworldly abominations ripping through fur, sinking fangs into leaking meat, crunching open bones to suck out the fresh marrow and cavernous barks of rage. Rage that there wasn't more.

The horrifying sounds of them consuming their meal ended as quickly as it came. Then, something flew back out of the castle.

It was shredded and doused in blood. A lot of blood.

The Vampires perched atop the castle stiffened and each head rose with loud cringeworthy cracks left to shock the silence. Their long scraggly strands of hair flipped through the air like leather whips, revealing their thirsty eyes. Glimmering blood red eyes in an expansive sea of black.

Samuel felt the air run from his lungs as they all enlarged with the flexing of their cord-like muscles under fluidless skin.

It felt like time froze as the Vampire's jumped from their perches and fell freely from the towering castle with rotted teeth and pearly white fangs bared.

Then, each pair of wings stretched, grabbed hold of the sky and motioned fluidly from free fall into undead predatory flight.

The mass of Vampires closed in on the bloody Lupine giblets in a flash of pale skin, bloodcurdling shrieks and viciously flapping wings that generated wild gusts of wind, causing the snow beneath Samuel's paws to rise and fall in a rhythmic haunting dance.

They were like piranhas with the way they crowded and devoured the remains in a fight for the best pieces until they flew over everyone with blood flowing freely down their mouths and chests.

Their wings blotted out the sun and cast an unwelcome darkness over them. Samuel looked up and found himself eyeing the most dominant looking of the Vampires.

It flew closer to them than the rest and looked over them all with thirst but also an eerie level of intelligence from behind the long draping strands of black hair over its face and chest.

A terrifying thought wiggled it's way into his imagination.

"What's stopping them from attacking us….are Vampires stronger than Lupines?"

The Vampires stayed flying in place overhead for a moment longer, leading Samuel to believe that nothing stopped them. Nothing stopped them from swooping down on them and drinking them all dry.

Then, they left. Flying back to their spots at the top of the castle with a practiced urgency that left Samuel incredibly thankful and careless of the means.

"Fucking bloodsuckers….why do they have to look like that. I hate the BloodStarved" Jack said with a laugh that morphed into a physical shiver.

Jack was right. They did creepy well.

***

Samuel felt like he was breathing normally for the first time in decades after they returned. Even though most were relieved. The Alpha that just lost his newly changed was scathing. He stood shaking in the melted patch of snow as the Vampires flew overhead. Once they left, he let out a yell that turned into a roar with the progression of his shift. Foam spilled from his jaws with the rise of his roar that he aimed at them all. It ended in a mournful howl that almost made Samuel sad. It was like the sound carried emotions directly to his heart. He didn't like it. He especially didn't like it when all the Lupines on the snow joined in support. He had to fight not to include himself.

The pack that just lost their weakest link consoled each other amongst the bowing Lupines while the others shook off the feeling of fear and discomfort brought on by the Primal Reapers and thirsty Vampires.

Samuel was past that for now— as much as he could be at least. He instead focused on the castle. NoxIce Keep. A terrifying sky scraping castle made of black ice. That in itself was enough to turn Samuel's legs to jelly. But he now knew it was much more than that.

It wasn't just a castle. It was an ecosystem. A heartless environment that intertwined and functioned on the blood and bones of weak Lupines. And Remus was at the center of that ecosystem. Sleeping, while his race was honed into razor sharp perfection for a war that would rattle the earth harder than an earthquake.

Soon enough, he'd have to face that ecosystem. He'd have to face the primal judges and learn if they thought of him as worthy….or as lunch.

To nobody's surprise, he'd be facing them sooner than later. Much sooner.

"Alrighty Sammy boy! Let's go face the musty bastards inside the castle! HAHAHA!"