Between Wolves and Demons: Part Three

by Dragonsfang

It roared and slammed a talon in front of them, black claws digging into the stone and creating gouges in it as it pulled its talon back. Flakes of stone bounced from its dragging talons and nearly hit the quartet in their heads, but blades deflected the stone fragments and dropped them harmlessly around the four.

Kezsia snarled with lupine fury, and leaped back from a smashing blow of a bladed tail that slammed down in front of her. The Beast bellowed and tried to free its tail from the stone floor, but it was trapped in the rock. It snarled low in its throat and glared at the wolfrunner and the beings around her, head low to the ground and wings opening horizontally.

The Beast exceeded forty meters in length, and was unlike Riana and Kezs had ever seen before in their lives. Its head was wolfish, with sharp ears and coldly intelligent eyes, but its muzzle was long and draconic, armed with fangs as big as Gray Isolm. Its neck was long like a dragon's, with spikes running down the spine down to the tail blades, leading into a lithe and well-muscled body; its massive wings were definitely draconic, with heavy gray-black membrane. Its front legs were those of a dragon, armed with hooked talons, and its back legs were those of a wolf, with scythe-like claws curling from each toe. Its long tail was immense and powerful, armed with four blades that could come apart on command. Its entire body was covered in shaggy gray fur like a wolf's, running longer on its neck, shoulders, and tail.

"What is it?" Riana asked, staring at the massive creature.

"I am not an it!" the Beast roared, yanking its tail free of the stone. "And you do not belong here!" The creature lunged at them, swinging its tail again; Riana screamed and leaped back, but Kezs lunged forward and found herself cut off from the rest of the group. T'kil, who was the smallest of the group, roared angrily and dove down at the Beast, raking at its eyes with his talons and bladed tail. He barely dodged away from the snapping jaws, and swirled around the wolfrunner's head, chattering and hissing at the creature that loomed over him.

The Beast lowered its head toward Kezs, growling low in its throat, and moved a single yellow slit-pupiled to her eye-level. The massive eye blinked slowly, revealing two lids: a clear, inner lid, and the furry outer one. The inner lid slowly slid back into the eye socket, and the immense head moved back so that the Beast could talk to the wolfrunner.

"Why have you come to my lair, Wolfrunner?" it demanded. Its voice was low and harsh, as if the Beast had not spoken for a long time, and its vocal cords weren't used to it.

"I have been sent by the humans of this planet to destroy the Black Lupe that has begun to plague this planet with its deadly presence," Kezs said to the Beast. "No one knows anything about this being except that to look upon it means the end. I was told that you could tell me about it."

The Beast lifted its head, and looked over at Riana, Ozzmosis, and Gray Isolm; the wolf was snarling and snapping at the gray-furred tail in front of her. The tail lifted, and Gray Isolm exploded forward, landing in front of her wolfrunner and frothing like a rabid wolf at the Beast. It merely regarded her with narrowed eyes and flicking ears.

"And you expect me to give you information upon a beast that even I do not know about?" the Beast asked, snorting through his slitted nostrils. "You humans are even denser than I ever thought." He turned and lumbered toward another tunnel leading into his sleeping area. He didn't even notice the five creatures that followed him until the Beast turned and saw them. But before he could even say a word, Riana exploded in an unbridled rage at the Beast.

"How dare you blow off a wolfrunner like that!" she snarled. "She has been sent to protect this planet from an evil that can even destroy you, the Great Beast, yet you just ignore her request for a simple piece of information. At first, I just thought you were a stupid bloodthirsty beast, then you spoke to Kezsia like a human being, and I thought you were a competent creature. And then you walk off like the king of the world, denying her of information that you keep hidden away in this gods-forsaken place. But now I think I know the truth about you, Beast. You know nothing about this world, and merely act like you do, only to deny those who ask you for a simple thing such as that. You are as ignorant and dense as the humans that first settled on this world, and called it Neopia."

Kezsia, Isolm, Ozzmosis, and T'kil stared at Riana in disbelief; even Riana looked surprised at her outburst. But what surprised them more was that the Beast was hanging his massive head in humiliation, slit-pupiled eyes clouded by his semi-clear inner lids. Finally, he raised his eyes to them, and turned toward yet another passageway.

"Follow me," he said in a soft voice. They followed the massive creature into an immense dome-like room made of stone, with inscriptions scrawled into the stone sides, and a map carved at human eye-level. Several meters to the left of that map that was a story that ran from halfway up one side of the wall all the way to the floor. To the right of the writing, there was a picture of a black Lupe with flames licking from its body and red pupil-less eyes. Its mouth was open in a silent snarl, revealing long fangs, and spikes jutted out from its thick neck like a dog collar.

"This is the Legend of the Black Lupe, one as old as time itself," the Beast said. He settled down on his belly, curling his tail around his side and folding his wings to his spine. The two humans, NeoPet, wolf and dragonet gathered around the story and drawing, with the wolfrunner leaning a hand on the Beast's shoulder to get a better look at the writing.

"An incident like the one going on today happened hundreds of years ago, when the Ancients first came here. The Ancients were not aware of the dangers of this world, even with their technology and ships constantly scanning the forests and landscape. It was not until one of their own ventured into the Western Woods with a newfound NeoPet, back when there were not as many species. He came back hours later with a tale that no one believed…Until he died merely hours later," the Beast said.

"Like today," Kezsia murmured.

"Yes," he replied. "People began to panic when they heard this, and called upon their most powerful wolfrunner, a young woman named Kisania and her wolf Gray Aisan. The Ancients sent the team into the woods to destroy the Lupe, but, instead, they went to an establishment where the legends were kept, this very cave. Wolfrunner Kisania, better known as San to the Ancients, spent hours looking up everything possible on the Hounds of Baskervilles, an Ancient legend similar to the Black Lupe.

"Three days later, she went out into the woods with faithful Aisan slinking at her side, armed with only her sword and wolf. When she confronted the Lupe, it attacked her and Aisan like a rabid animal. San and Gray Aisan fought the Black Lupe valiantly for hours, until the wolfrunner finally realized that she and Aisan could not fight it alone. She called to the other wolves that belonged to the wolfrunners and the wild wolves of the forest. They came to her, and attacked the Lupe with the fury of a hundred wolves combined.

"But the Black Lupe was not destroyed; it merely disappeared once more into the depths of the Underworld, to await another chance to invade the world inhabited by humans," the Beast concluded.

"What happened to San and Aisan?" Ozzmosis asked, looking up at the Beast.

"The Ancients rejoiced when they found out that San and the wolves had beaten the Black Lupe, or so they believed at the time. They made a statue of the wolfrunner and her wolf and erected it in the main settlement in the central square. The statue remains here in this room, under the sheet where the Ancients put it hundreds of years ago, long after both Kisania and Gray Aisan left us," he answered. He motioned with a wingtip toward the sheet; Kezsia went over to the sheet, and pulled it off of the statue.

It was a massive bronze statue with Wolfrunner San looking up toward the moons, and her wolf sitting on her haunches howling to the heavens. The figure of San was dressed like Kezs was, except she wore a circlet on her brow with a stone set in the center of it. On the pedestal of the statue was an inscription that read:

TO THE BRAVEST WOLFRUNNER OF THEM ALL
KISANIA AND GRAY AISAN
HEROES THROUGHOUT THE SANDS OF TIME
FOR THE DEFEAT OF THE BLACK LUPE
AND SAVING OUR WORLD FROM EVIL

"Did they ever find out how she called to those wolves?" she asked, turning away from the statue.

"Wolfrunner San did not know how she called to those wolves on that day, Wolfrunner," the Beast said. "And it is still a mystery. But it no longer matters. The wolves are too few on this world now, for most of them evolved into Lupes; those that didn't are related to Gray Aisan. Your wolf is one of them."

Gray Isolm lifted her ears and looked at the statue that her wolfrunner stood by. The resemblance does nothing to her real appearance.

"How would you know this, Isolm? Gray Aisan has been gone for perhaps centuries of years," Kezs said.

But her voice lives on in the howls of the wolves today, Wolfrunner. She was the wolf that kept our kind preserved, by not letting us evolve into Lupes, the wolf returned. She yawned widely, revealing her long knifelike fangs, and stood, stretching out from having to lie down for so long.

"If you wish to see some images of San and her wolf, there are some plasfilm documents next to the statue, in that book," the Beast said, tilting his wingtip slightly.

Kezsia turned her head, and saw the dusty, peeling album. She carefully opened it, and saw a thin shiny film that depicted the image of a beautiful young woman with long black hair and gleaming violet eyes. She was dressed in leather boots, leggings, a jerkin over a tunic, and gray cloak thrown around her shoulders. She wore a sword belt around her waist, and Kezs could see the hilts of bootknives in the woman's boots. A silver circlet with a jewel set in its center was on the woman's brow, gleaming with its own light.

She turned the page, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw a massive, yet beautiful, silver wolf standing on a tumble of rocks, ears pricked forward. Its eyes were narrowed and amber in color; its body was in a relaxed position, with its tail hanging down, tip just brushing the ground, and its head low to the ground.

Again, Kezs carefully turned to the next page, and saw the young woman and wolf standing side by side, with the woman's hand resting lightly on the beast's head. They stood upon a cliff that overlooked the forest; the woman's clothing was blown back by the wind, and the wolf's fur was plastered to its muscular body.

The wolfrunner shut the book and turned around, only to see that the others were watching her carefully. "What?" she asked.

The Beast tilted his half-wolf, half-dragon head, and nodded he once, looking down at Riana. "You are right, Neopian. She is like Wolfrunner San, if not the looks, but the way she was sent to destroy the Lupe." Then he looked directly at Kezs. "I do believe that you are a direct descendant of Wolfrunner San, Kezsia, since you are the only wolfrunner left on the planet."

Kezsia stared at the Beast, then shook her head. "That explains nothing. There were other wolfrunners, and it was probably just a fluke that I am one of them. I seriously doubt that I am related to the great Kisania."

The Beast regarded her silently for a moment, then rose stiffly and stretched out his limbs. "I am really getting too old for all of this. Fighting and chewing up humans is not the best thing in the world to do."

"I am sorry to have bothered you, Beast, but you were very helpful to our cause," Kezsia said to it.

"My pleasure, Wolfrunner. I am sorry that acted so rudely toward you before. There have been too many humans around here lately, and I have been uptight from so many of them venturing into my cave," the Beast replied, bowing his head.

"Come on, Riana. We have some planning to do," the wolfrunner said. "Good-bye, Beast." She walked out of the dome-shaped room, followed by her wolf, T'kil, Riana, and Ozzmosis. The Beast watched her go, then looked back at the statue of Wolfrunner San and Gray Aisan.

"She is your granddaughter of many times, San," he said to the statue. "She just does not want to believe it." He snorted dust out of his slitted nostrils, shaking his head a little at the same time. "I really must dust this room every few hundred years. It gets disgusting after a while." He lumbered out of the room, and back to his stone couch, where he settled down for a nap that would most likely be cut short from some wide-eyed human tourist.

To be continued...