Wretch stood alone in Astrid’s office with his back toward her. He was wounded from the previous fight. Not much by his own reckoning, burn wounds over his neck, arms, and legs that had charred both his veil and fur alike, leaving him looking like an oversized mix between a man and a hairless dog. He smelled the part, charred and covered in mud.
It was silent, but he could hear her breath behind him, mingling with the soft purr of Whiskey the cat still circling his feet.
“Look at me,” said the healer.
He did as instructed, forced by the vows he’d made. Turning around to tower over her in the low light of a flickering gas lamp.
She was smaller than he had remembered. Perhaps that shouldn’t have come as a surprise, he had grown more than a dozen inches in his grisly and permanent transformation.
Her eyes bore holes into his. During the last weeks, he had grown accustomed to the looks of others. Fearful. As they should be, for he was dangerous, that was all he was. But her green eyes held no such thing. Was she angry?
“On your knees,” she said with an unreadable expression.
He did as she said, lowering down to her level. Once, they had been the same height. The buried memories of a past life quivered in the graves he had carefully arranged for them.
She took a step closer, the rumble of the infirmary in the distance. That act made him strangely uncomfortable, and he searched for the words to make her relax.
“I… I’m sorry for killing the clerk after the funeral. I’m sure that caused you a bunch of problems.”
Whiskey leapt onto his shoulder, the coarse feline tongue licking a burn under his pointed left ear. Astrid placed a delicate hand across his forehead, his previous boyish features now mixed with those of a monster, leaving him uncanny and unrecognizable, at least in his own eyes.
Behind the spectacles, Astrid's pupils lit with fire. A familiar warmth filled him as his burned skin healed. He knew her blessings as well as anyone, to sprout plants from seeds and to knit wounds, but something else was there now. A soothing warmth that eased a tension within.
“There is no need, I can regenerate it myself in just—”
“Shhh, quiet,” she commanded, silencing him instantly. Instead, the cat’s purr grew stronger as it pressed its tiny body against his head. A lethargy found its way into his being, a sense of weight and belonging. A trick of her new power.
“I remember when you climbed the flowers last spring,” she said. “That mischievous smile you had, those eyes of wonder at a plate of food. Your back next to the captain’s out on the balcony. You always ended up returning to us hurt and wounded, and here you are, covered in burns, our little nervous scout. No matter how you change, I’ll always recognize you.”
Two thumbs traced his eyebrows, or where they would have been, now changed to two furred ridges.
“What happened was the fault of none, least of all you. We were hunters, and he knew the risk. The twins are safe, enrolled in Von Ager’s college just as Edmund wished.”
Wretch clenched his clawed hands even despite the warm, comfortable heat she was flooding him with. His captain's death was the deepest wound Wretch had collected. And the vengeance to make those who took his life pay pushed him forward.
“Wretchy… You’re going to tell me everything, and then I’m going to find a way to break the curse, both the General’s and the one the Gulschaks have placed on you.”
He forced his eyes open despite the soothing spell. Meeting her unyielding gaze as she placed her forehead against his.
“Nov Yanosk will manage this war, even without someone like you.”
Wretch lumbered into the hall of the General’s dogs, wearing only a pair of singed pants and charred fur. All that remained of the clothes he had departed with.
The dogs were formed in a line as he came upon the central hall, getting a stern questioning by Kattla as a scribe detailed the different encounters. Each trio had been sent to battle. His had made it back without losses, most didn’t seem as lucky.
Half.
That’s how many they had lost. Including the man who seemingly was a mass of tentacles. The four-armed Blessed he’d broken on the first night, Yuri the Broken Smile, still remained. The man glanced at him but quickly averted his gaze even under the veil.
It wasn’t strange, this was their role.
“Wretch,” Kattla said as she turned to him with squinting eyes. “I’ve been told you obliterated a Gulschak rich in weaponry. What came of the equipment?”
Wretch glanced at her and at the scribes behind her. One was carrying a stack of different goods. Some of it was no doubt Blessed.
So they prefer giving the spoils to others…
Wretch gestured out with his long arms where he stood, tilting his hound-like head.
“The Gulschak broke the artillery piece as he died. I’ve left nothing on the way here and as you can see…”
He gave a toothy smile and trained his red eyes on the scribes, each taking a step back at his visage.
“I’m empty-handed. Did you expect anything else?”
Wretch felt through his body, he hadn’t lied. Though he had obscured the truth. Thankfully, his vow acknowledged it.
“Get in line,” Kattla said with a groan. “After we’re done, get a new veil. Your face brings dishonor on Nov Yanosk.”
He did as instructed, standing next to Fingers in brand new clothes. The tiny Blessed gave him a wave and whispered a quiet thanks. He returned a simple nod as Kattla gave her last orders.
“Food is here,” she said and gestured to a box by her feet. “Rest while you can. Saint knows I will squeeze out all your usefulness in the weeks to come.”
The thick stone doors of the barracks once again ground closed, trapping them all inside until the next time they would be of use to Nov Yanosk.
In the low light of the gas lamps, all eyes turned to Wretch. There were a few other Firelings amongst them, but none as battle-hardened as him.
“If you’re looking for an answer to how to survive, I might be the wrong beast to ask…”
“You’s strong. Waddles saw it,” the giant said, and Fingers nodded at a furious pace.
Wretch couldn’t help but chuckle at the predicament he had found himself in. The leader of a group sentenced to certain death.
He walked forward to the crate of canned food.
“If you want to survive, use that desperation as fuel and throw yourself at their throat the first chance you’ll get. If you’re timid, it’s already lost.”
Wretch picked up a can between two sharp claws and walked down toward the larger of the rooms, speaking over his shoulder.
“Burn everything for even an inch closer to victory, somehow that led me here.”
Left in the corridor, the other dogs of the General looked at each other until Fingers chimed in.
“Yeah, that’s right, we’re wicked dangerous. Let’s go, Waddles!” the tiny Blessed said and walked forward with a wide stance of inflated confidence, snatched up two cans, and the duo disappeared down the same corridor, leaving the rest of the group to bicker amongst themselves.
The dogs had been ordered to rest. Yet there was anxiety in many of those who remained. Most weren’t warriors, but scoundrels. The kind who only showed confidence when they were the strongest in the room. The true face of war had no doubt rattled some of them because Wretch could hear them shifting in their rooms, some even sobbing between prayers to both the Saint and the Old Flame. Others still sharpened their claws, burning their flame to experiment with their blessings in the newfound light of desperation.
Wretch had to grow as well. He might be the leader of this pack, but the list of people whose demise he lived for included a Pyre. Two whole steps further in the flame’s ascension.
Seated on his hard metal bed, he poured the last of the stew down his throat, ignoring the aftertaste of iron the thick liquid left behind. He was alone, having staved off Fingers after handing the tiny Blessed four of his clawed digits. Well, he wasn’t completely alone.
“See, even Astrid wants to break the curse of that hateful General,” said a voice that was his own.
Wretch turned his gruesome head to the mirror, his own reflection staring back at him.
“She wants us to run,” Wretch retorted. “Leave the hunt, leave the ones that killed Edmund alone. We both know that’s not possible.”
The monster in the mirror drew closer.
“If we were unshackled, we could tear through all these pathetic Blessed in the barracks, grow stronger from their coals. Maybe then we would finally reach Blaze?”
Wretch scoffed, but the monster spoke the truth. He had kindled eleven times already. The right push, and he would finally become a Blaze and receive a new blessing, new strength. That was what he needed.
“What does it matter if we are under vows or not? We get to fight either way. Out there is a field of treasures, coals, and weapons alike, we’ll grow.”
The beast in the mirror sneered. “Vlad’s weapon then, the Gulschak engineer. Show me.”
He wouldn’t let a Blessed weapon lie on the battlefield. That went against the vow to give his all for the war effort. And he wholeheartedly believed there was none better suited to strengthen the vast ranks of Nov Yanosk than him.
He examined his abdomen. An uncomfortable weight could be felt within, the incision from his claws had regenerated without a scar. He’d returned empty-handed, just as he had told Kattla. At least literally.
He drew a claw over his dark and furred skin. Slicing the flesh with ease. The hide was thick, but the claws were sharp enough to cut stone.
It parted the fascia and muscles beneath, sending a jolt of pain that made him lick his lips. He plunged his hand deep into his gut and pulled something out. For the first time, he truly inspected the weapon.
A bloodied hand cannon, that was the best way for him to describe it. In the hands of a regular human, it would have to be used with two hands, but for him in his monstrous form, a clawed finger barely fit around the trigger. A singular brass barrel and intricate gears. With the press of a latch, the weapon folded, exposing the base of the barrel and a chamber for the projectile.
It wasn’t any regular pile of conjoined gears. Had these things been usable by the unblessed kindling, the war would have looked much different.
He let the words come to him, the memories that came when you touched a piece of equipment made by a Blessed or ascended through the Old Flame’s own judgment.
Final Purpose
Through a trickle of flame, the weapon can be discharged, sending a hurtling shot of conjured mass in the aimed direction.
For each shot, the weapon must be reloaded with a coal and a treasured memory.
“Simple, but expensive,” the reflection mused. “But how does one reload with a memory?”
"We'll figure it out," Wretch replied. "But the cost of a coal per shot..."
A single coal was a treasure ripped from the chest of a killed Blessed and used to climb further in the Old Flame’s favor. To use one as ammunition for a weapon that could easily miss was certainly extravagant.
“A last resort, one shot for the moment that really matters. The rest of the coal we find we eat ourselves, grow our own flame…”
The reflection nodded, and Wretch plunged the weapon back into his abdomen, nestled deeply between his organs.
He was fearsome, unrecognizable to anyone but perhaps Astrid. But still, he needed to grow, harvest more coals, and what better place to do so than in a siege surrounded by his dear enemies.