The Stench Of Death

Cold sweat trailed down my back.

My hands were shaking in fright as I watched the man sitting on the floor in front of us.

He looked battered, broken and completely devastated. He was sobbing, while one of the village women gave his daughter some wild fruits to eat.

According to him, he had watched his wife and other daughter burn to death right in front of his eyes. 

He had managed to grab his other daughter and escape the rogues, only to spend hours roaming the woods for water to drink. They ended up at this waterfall and found our cave.

 "Does this mean that the Malefic has absolute control over all of us? The Alpha King has endless troops and warfare at his fingertips. How is it possible that he lost to some crazed rogue?!" Someone exclaimed.

The man shook his head. 

 "First, the Alpha King did not lose because there was never a fight. That coward surrendered when he found out about the slaughter going in in several human villages, and the rogue soldiers were already infiltrating werewolf colonies. If he had decided to go into battle with the Malefic, there would be senseless deaths. And, even if the Alpha king wanted to fight, he couldn't, because doing so would trigger a mass genocide all over the seven packs. All orchestrated by Malefic."

 "But how? Isn't the Malefic supposed to be a lunatic? Some meat-headed monster that only knows how to kill? How did he get such a huge army of rogues and war strategies to force the Alpha King into surrender and capture?"

 "I don't know. But I curse him! I curse the Alpha King, I curse all the other Alphas who could not protect us. They are all watching their own asses, while we burn and die!" The man wailed. "Is it because we're human?! I curse them all!!"

The man's shouts turned into pure hysterics, and a couple of people surrounded him to shut him up.

I was so shaken by what I had learnt. 

This was a real war.

 And if the Alpha King was captured, the other Alphas and troops could not retaliate. Instead, they would protect their packs while the exposed human villages got razed down and humans died left and right.

No one was coming to help us.

We were on our own. 

Anger razed through me. 

The Alpha King was a fool. Did he think allowing the Malefic to capture him would fix anything? Rogues do not have conversations. He just doomed us all. 

No, the seven packs were heavily protected and safe. But we humans? Canon fodder.

Because of these power-hungry werewolves, my little brother was dead.

 Now, my mother and sister might be too. The man was right.

 I curse them all.

Shaking with anger, I tied my brother's bloodied necklace around my neck, and sat beside my mother, taking Lilac into my arms. 

She was finally asleep after screaming nonstop.

 "We'll figure it out, Scarlett. We can head out into the wilderness, I'm sure no rogues will go in that direction." She said softly. "Maybe we'll have a little burial for Cyan… and… and all the other people we lost…"

She tried to hold the tears, but they poured out of her green eyes like a waterfall. 

At that moment, I realized how much I looked like her. 

Life had been cruel to her. My father had died of an illness while she was pregnant. By the time we gathered enough money to get him into werewolf territory for healing, it was too late.

Now, Cyan too.

I blinked back my own tears, lips trembling. 

 "I won't let you get hurt, mother. You and Lilac. I promise. You are all I have left in this world."

~

It was night again, and we had lowered the fire into nothing but glowing embers. 

A couple of villagers had fallen into a fitful, nightmarish sleep, but a few were awake, jolting each time a blood curdling howl ripped through the night. 

I was one of the few.

I moved to blow the charcoal to give off more heat in the bone-cold and moist cave, but another howl sounded. 

This time, it was close. Far too close.

My eyes widened.

 "Wake everyone up, we have to leave, they can smell us!"

 "The waterfall masks our scent. They are just passing, let's wait for them to pass." A young girl in the corner whispered fearfully.

I shook my head, about to insist but my voice drowned in the vicious growl that suddenly echoed throughout the cave, reverberating through the stones and my bones. 

My heart sped up, blood roaring in my ears when I whipped around to see a large wolf with wet, matted fur stalking into the cave.

Its eyes were orange, gleaming with hunger.

 "It's the rogues!" 

That was enough to jolt everyone awake. 

In a split second, the cave descended to hell. Screams and shrieks echoed as people scrambled around, looking for an escape. But the only exit was blocked by the werewolf, which was howling repeatedly, no doubt signaling more rogues to come for us.

My knees were frozen.

In seconds, gigantic male bodies burst through the waterfall and into our cave, splashing water everywhere. 

Others in their wolf forms lept in, baring iron fangs and drooling from their snouts. Blood dropped off them like they had been bathing with human guts all day, mixing in with the pool of water at their feet.

The stench that came with them.

The stench of death.

Someone vomited a short distance behind me.

 "Humans!" One of the rogues roared, smashing his blade against the cave wall. "So this is where you pests have been hiding? I'm going to slit your throats one by one—"

 "You demon!!!" The man from earlier exclaimed and charged at the rogue with a pathetic-looking knife.

I gasped. 

I had no idea if grief had driven him mad, but there was no way anyone in their right mind would charge at a werewolf, not to mention, an unhinged rogue.

The rogue easily caught the man with one meaty hand and crushed his skull within his fingers in one second, splashing brain matter all over the cave. 

Some of it got on my dress. 

With a laugh, he threw the lifeless body to one of the wolves, and it promptly sank its fangs into his body, ripping out his limbs one by one.

A little girl started to cry. His daughter.

I felt dizzy from the scene. But I knew I needed to get mother and Lilac out of here immediately.

 "Anyone else feeling brave?" He sneered, face twisting into ugly menace.

 No one said a word. Instead some people pissed on themselves out of terror. 

 "Kill them all. I want to paint this cave red!!!"

The other rogues roared and charged forward with murderous intent. 

I went into fight mode immediately. 

I grabbed a glowing wood from the fire and stepped in front of Mother just in time to poke the hot wood straight into a wolf's open mouth.

 It squealed and leapt back, growling and snarling viciously.

My heart was almost giving out, but I was glaring, daring it to attack again.

 "Wait." The leader of the rogues commanded, and they all froze. 

He was looking straight at me. 

 "Well, well, well. We have another brave human. And this one is actually pretty." 

A sharp-toothed smile split his ugly face.

If my bladder were not empty, I would have pissed myself.