From the forest thicket, there is a howl of animals and a blacksmith - it can be easily recognized by the mighty shoulders with swollen veins - so he holds his hammer so firmly, with which he has not parted even before the current threat - silently throws a couple of branches into the restless fire.
They fall into the fire with a crackle, swinging up the ashes from the already burned firewood and a cloud of sparks. A few falls into the dry grass very close by and a younger man, but the features of a face similar to a blacksmith, as well as remaining silent, quickly trample them with his boot. Here, in this place, at this time, and so dangerous, and would not want to survive in a battle with the beast, whose howl sounds closer and closer, to die in a fire.
The howl repeats itself - now it is very close, somewhere to the left, but behind the line of fires - cuts through the silence, as if a knife where someone"s belly. Men - a sword in everyone"s hands, become denser, shoulder to shoulder, the point of blades to the shaky thickets in front. Red corners of the eyes from the darkness, a gnarled mouth and a familiar on previous nights low roar - they know who they are dealing with. The blacksmith does not take his breath away, not letting go of someone else"s gaze chained to him. This is a place for animals in the forest and it is not a bad thing for them to go into human villages.
The wolf is not in a hurry to go out into the light and show itself to people. Smart creature. Too clever for a wild beast disturbed by distant hunters, as they used to think. A clever creature. Does not rush to attack - knows that the forces are not equal and waits. What? What can a wolf wait, who may not be a wolf at all? The fire cracked and sparked. They are all waiting, though they don't know what yet. They wait until the growl is heard from the other side - not on the left, not on the right - from behind. And then the meadow surrounded by lights is filled with screams, growls and vague snorting sounds, but soon everything stops - it doesn't"t pass and half an hour as the last groan stops. And then, either not noticing, or ignoring the hungry, still thirsty and unquenchable stranger"s look, behind the fires, carefully stepping over the bloody bodies, a vague, still difficult to discern in the dark, a human figure emerges.
And the closer to the fire, the more clearly they dance the shadows on a flat belly, rounded chest and gentle female face. A hand with graceful long fingers calls, beckons, and the beast - or is it not quite so? - makes a step forward. The black skin of the Moon"s Son casts silver and gold, when the flame burns him at the moment he jumps. It is led by lunar madness and a sense of kinship and unity, as well as the sweet smell of fresh blood baked under the fingernails of the Moon"s Daughter. There is no one else tossing brushwood into the fire and the fire gradually fades away, but for these two the moon shines brightly enough. An hour before dawn, when the lady of the night, who dominates them, starts to lean towards the horizon, to give way to her daytime brother, two flexible shadows enter the village. They are not seen - no one, even the old guard at the gate - until they tear his throat out. The she-wolf, already fed up, stands apart, allowing him to quench his hunger and his thirst. This is their madness. And this is their payback for other people"s sins.
Two weeks later, a tax-gathering detachment in the village will find nothing but torn, half-dead bodies and vultures. Man is not capable of such an atrocity, and the news of the inhabitants of the carved village will be the first stone to move the avalanche of human hatred and burn the holy fires of the Inquisition. Thus, it will come to the end of a time of grace when men and those who are different from them lived without fear of each other. This will be the beginning of a multi-year war, which will only end with the fall of the last city of the non-people - the city of hope. No one, then or now, was aware of the root cause of the bloody madness of the werewolves, and even the gods - the Almighty and the Almighty - did not have the courage to respond. For the gods, like the rats of a sinking ship, were the first to leave the world orphaned by the disappearance of the last one. For the first time, she descended to his bed when the third moon ascended and measured the end of the fourth hour of that fateful, passionate and moaning night.
Many years have passed since then, and the girl who once wandered into his meadow turned into a young woman, and only he, he alone - remained unchanged. And that"s why it was twice as painful to see the first gray threads in the black scythe - the first message, the first warning from the one that had taken away his brides and wives many times before. And now, as on that first night, he is lying under the sky covered with beads of stars, marking with the edge of his consciousness a distant crunch of branches and such a familiar and native deed.
