Chapter 13

When spring came, we resumed our journey north toward my old home and toward the amber suppliers. By this time, both Trudy and Holly had begun to swell, so they sometimes morphed into wolf shape just to be more comfortable. As wolves, they did not bulge as much, and could move more normally. They both reported that this was like having the best of two possible worlds. The only time they really enjoyed being in human form was in the evening when they were involved in sex play.

Rose had crossed over, so she was now capable of enjoying sex with the stamina of a werewolf. She had been on pins and needles the last couple of months; she could hardly wait for her first period, so that she could morph. We all made a big deal of her milestone and had a big celebration. Big Noise formally introduced Rose to sex as soon as she stopped bleeding, and Holly was there to help. Rose spent the next day in werewolf form, since she was so sore between her legs that she hurt to walk when she was not in wolf form. She was teased a lot, especially by Holly and Feather, but she survived so well that she was back for more that evening.

I think that Big Noise had been a little jealous of me with my four wives while he had only one, but he felt a lot better now that he had two women that he could claim as his wives. It did occur to me that we had better be on the lookout for more girls if Griffin and Arner were going to be accommodated. Multiple wives were in the nature of werewolves, but I didn't think that multiple husbands were. Meanwhile, all of the adults were making an effort to impart to the children that sex was not the only thing that adults thought about—especially, we wanted them to understand the obligation that their special nature put them under. This wasn't difficult, but it was important.

The boys were approaching nine years old, so they were beginning to notice the pleasure that sex could bring to the soul, not just to the senses. They were not ready to understand that, fully, but we were working on pushing them in that direction. In consideration for the boys, we adults started looking for female candidates for conversion, especially in the seven to nine years old range.

We had found a couple of orphan girls in the town that seemed to fit the requirements, so they were adopted into the family. They both were aware of our unusual nature and were anxious to join us, so we had a little ceremony where I bit each one to start their conversion. We hoped that Berta and Yipso would become attracted to Griffin and Arner. If that didn't work, we would keep looking.

As we got nearer and nearer to my old home, we noticed a general feeling of dread coming over us. We could not determine what was causing this feeling, but all of us had it, even Berta and Yipso. Under other circumstances, this feeling might have frightened us away, but I felt an obligation to find out what was going on and, hopefully, alleviate the problem. The others were not so anxious to get involved, but they loved me enough to go along with my wishes.

We were stunned when we finally reached my village. The place was a mess. The women's house was almost completely destroyed, and the men's house was not much better. As we looked around, we found a few bodies, most of old men and women, but a few of younger men. They appeared to have been hacked to pieces with axes, as if the attackers had known no compassion. The only building not damaged was that of the shaman, as if the attackers had been afraid to get too close to it.

The attack must have occurred within the last day or two, because the bodies were undisturbed by scavengers. We looked around to see what we could learn, and I looked into the shaman's ceremonial hut. I found a badly injured young man dressed in some of the accouterments of a shaman. He was so near death that he could hardly talk. I recognized him as having been the shaman's apprentice and a good man. I didn't know if I was in time to do any good, but I bit the shaman in an effort to save his life.

I have no idea why it worked as well as it did, but my bite had immediate good results. The shaman's injuries began to heal before my eyes. He also began to shift into wolf form, so I ran to the cart and found an amulet to put around his neck. When the conversion was complete, his wounds were healed, and he looked at me in pure panic. I said, "Calm down, shaman, and think to yourself that you want to be in human form." I had to say this several times before he fully comprehended what I had said, but he suddenly appeared to me as a fully formed human.

His first words were, "It's true! The spirits did no lie to me! I hope that they will forgive me for doubting them! Are you the Vilkatas that the spirits said was coming?"

"Yes, my name is Vilkatas; are you Aklag, the apprentice to the former shaman?"

"Yes, the old man died about a year ago, and I am glad that he is not still around to see what has happened to the people he loved so much."

"What happened. It looks like you were attacked."

"Yes, we were attacked by slavers. They took all of the women and children and all of the younger men whom they did no kill. They killed the elderly as not being worth the effort to enslave. I should have died, but I managed to escape to the ceremonial hut, and they were afraid to come in here."

"You should recover your strength within the hour. You are now a werewolf, just as my family and I are. You are, for practical purposes, immortal and can shape-shift as you desire. I will explain the details as we chase after the slavers. Come and meet the rest of my family. You will be welcome to join us, in fact, I ask you to do so."

I introduced Aklag to the rest of the family, and we prepared to hunt down and kill the slavers. We wanted to rescue the slaves as soon as we could.

Before we left, I asked if the former shaman had made any more of the werewolf amulets. "Yes, he made 32 of them before he ran out of gold. They are hidden in the back of the ceremonial hut, along with the remaining silver and amber."

"How much amber is there?"

"I would guess that there is at least 20 pounds of amber and 18 pounds of silver left. Why do you ask. I never learned how to make the amulets, I am sorry to say."

"Don't worry about that. I'll explain why, later. That large quantity of amber is very important, though. I want to gather everything up when we get back. Right now, let's concentrate on rescuing our people."

We left Holly and Trudy with the children, since we did not want to endanger their unborn children. They were to guard the children and the carts until we returned.

Just to be on the safe side, I had everybody who was going on the rescue mission to wear four extra amulets, in case we might need them. The trail left by the slavers was easy to follow, so we set off at full speed in wolf form to run them down. I was told that there were about 40 armed slavers; they had attacked just before dawn, so nobody had been prepared to fight them.

The slave caravan was moving very slowly, since they could move no faster than the slowest slave in the caravan. I cursed to myself as we passed murdered slaves who had not been able to keep up the speed the slavers wanted from their captives. All of these slaves were walking, because there was not room for carts to operate in the dense forest. I hoped that this would make things even easier for us.

We now had nine adult werewolves in our band, but two were pregnant females back at the village, but seven werewolves were more than a match for 40 slavers. We caught sight of them near mid-afternoon. We stopped long enough to consider our tactics. I warned Aklag to bite to kill, not to wound, since we did not want to convert any of the slavers to werewolves.

There were two columns of guards, one on either side of the column of slaves. We split into two groups, I led the group on the left and Big Noise led the group on the right. Aklag and Jonga were with me, and Orda, Rose, and Elger were with Big Noise. My plan was to attack from the rear, killing as fast as we could. We would meet at the front of the column and come back down, making sure that we had eliminated every one of the slavers. I was sure that some of the men from the village would join the fight if they could, but I was not going to count on that.