Shifter's Scramble

The stench of damp fur and something coppery, something *wrong*, clung to the air like a shroud. Bishop Dark spat, the dark liquid arcing into the undergrowth, a tiny, futile act of defiance against the encroaching night and the even more encroaching stench. The King’s Road, usually a ribbon of dusty commerce, was now a charnel house, littered with the gnawed remnants of livestock and, according to the frantic whispers that had reached him, a few unfortunate travelers. Wolves, they’d said. Big wolves. But Bishop Dark knew big wolves, and this reeked of something far more primal, far more *cursed*.

The magistrate, a portly man whose face was a roadmap of sweat and terror, had practically shoved the pelts into Bishop’s hands. Lynx, marten, a magnificent silver fox – enough to make even a jaded hunter’s eyes gleam with avarice, if he were capable of such things. He wasn’t. Not anymore. But the pelts were good. Very good. And the gold that accompanied them was even better. He’d accepted with a grunt, the words “eradicate the menace” tasting like ash in his mouth. It was always a menace, wasn’t it? Never just a pack of hungry animals driven to desperation by some unseen blight.

He moved with a predator’s grace, a honed efficiency that belied the usual chaos of his life. The moonlight, when it managed to pierce the thick canopy, painted the forest floor in shifting shades of silver and black. Every snap of a twig, every rustle of leaves, was amplified in the charged silence. He drew his favored blade, a wickedly curved thing named ‘Absolution,’ its obsidian surface catching the moonlight like a sliver of the abyss. He ran a thumb along its edge, a familiar, almost comforting sensation. He was good at this. So damn good. It was a shame the Church only saw the blood and the curses, not the meticulous planning, the sheer, bloody-minded dedication.