Silvermoon. A Tale of a Young Werewolf. A YA Novel. 12-18 (16 page)

One day I saw a woman dressed in black lurking in the woods. I saw John by the woods at the same time
,
but he lied to me when I questioned him.” She smiled warmly. “The past five years were the best of my life, Jason. I longed to tell you I was your sister, but you were happy to have me as a friend, so I left it at that.”

He thought of their time together, the games inside the schools gym, the fun they had together and he said, “I wouldn’t change the past even if I could, those memories will stay with me forever
, but you picked a hell of a time to tell me, in the middle of a raging blizzard
.”

Her gaze fell as she said, “I have but one regret.”

He knew what it was, but he felt it would be better if she said and got it out of her system. “Tell me.”

“That you were present when I killed John.”

He took a deep breath, he let it out slowly, he thought of the times they had together, him, Yvette, Ingrid and John, the toboggan rides, the snowball fights, teaching John, dear clumsy John, how to ice skate. A single tear rolled down his cheek, he wiped it away with his fingers and said, “What’s done is done.”

Jennifer brought him back from the past as she produced the three sacks. “Let’s eat, then we can be on our way. By my reckoning, the reservoir is behind this mountain and the goblins are situated on the other side of it.”

Chapter thirteen.

Yvette.

They climbed the mountain, which was really a rather high and long, rock face, but it took them the best part of the morning to climb the sheer stone wall, which was preferable to backtracking for a whole day, and then through deep snow. Where they were now, the snow was but a light covering, though the ice-covered rock face was an entirely different matter.

Jennifer found climbing no problem, she led the way, pointing to hand-holds, places where they could place their fee
t. They had no climbing ropes as t
hey hadn’t expected to encounter anything higher than a snow-covered hill, so their position was precarious. Even though this sprawling pile of rock was not all that high, one slip meant death or severe injuries that would take time to heal, even for an elf or a werewolf, but they made it eventually to the summit.

The descent was much easier, the snow was deeper, but it was frozen solid. It was firm enough to toboggan down on the backpack frames, until they hit softer snow and tumbled head over heels, laughing and spluttering as they regained their footing.

They reached the reservoir near to dusk, and while searching for a way onto it they found the inlets filled with deadly ice shards that pointed upwards. The
surrounding
shores were one continuous sheer wall of ice, impossible to descend without the proper equipment. T
o their chagrin t
hey realized they would
have to transverse the lake, a journey that would take them more than a day, but
luck smiled upon them when Jennifer took leave to relieve herself in the descending darkness and stumbled
upon one spot in the middle where they could descend.

The path
, a metre deep depression, into which Jennifer had fallen,
was a wide expanse of firmly trodden snow, a not too steep gradient leading to the lakes surface. It was almost a hundred metres in width as it arrived there, and it rose up sharply on either side. It had been literally carved out of the side of the lake. Yvette said, “This is a goblin trail, in regular use, it seems we are on the right track.”

They walked and half-slid down onto the scarred ice and continued across it, keeping to the trail. The snow swirled around their ankles, stirred up by the gusting wind, which came at them from all directions. The snow on the lake’s hard glassy surface lay in drifts. Strange shapes dotted the vast icy landscape, some large, some small. These random figures had been formed by the wind, one resembled an animal from a far-off fantasy land and another was a spiral that corkscrewed upwards.

They reached the other shore by follow
ing what was a scarred and well-
worn path to an inlet void of ice.

Yvette raised her hand. “Goblin tracks, recent ones too.” She pointed up the snow covered inlet. “This seems to be the way.” She regarded the others, “Do we continue?”

Jennifer nodded. “Just to see how far it is, and how many there are of them.”

They carried on warily along the inlet; they followed the frozen stream, stepping over rocks until they reached the top of a rise. They peered over the edge and into the gloom. Jason turned his head away and Jennifer pulled a face. Yvette shook her head, “Phew, what a stink!”

As she reached the top, Jennifer climbed onto a large rock and peered towards the horizon, she spoke as she gazed intently, “I can see movement amongst the hills, campfires. The goblins are many.” She paused and looked down at them, her eyes wide. “They are in their thousands.”

She jumped down and pointed along the goblin trail of hard-packed snow. “Their camp is about two hours march from here if we follow this trail. According to my information they will have built tunnels, a real honeycomb. In this temperature the earth will need practically no shoring.”

Jason said, “I think we have seen enough, let’s camp in an inlet on the other side, out of this wind and away from the trail. We must leave before dawn in case the goblins are on the prowl.”

They made their way back across the ice and found a secluded spot away from the goblin trail. They finished off what food they had left in their backpacks and retired as darkness came.

Deception.

He woke, startled, it was pitch black. He listened intently, nothing. He turned over and drifted back to sleep.

Huge hands gripped him, it was John, he was shaking him, his teeth bared, saliva dripped from his mouth and onto his face
. My goodness, Jason Silvermoon Longfellow, you are difficult to wake.

He opened his eyes and saw Jennifer staring down at him as she shook him. “She’s gone! Your sister, she‘s gone after the rune stone, the fool. Come on, Jason, get dressed.”

She crawled out of his tent and he pulled on his boots and anorak. He crawled out into the twilight; he walked away and undid his trouser front. He sighed as the pressure on his bladder subsided. He turned and saw Jennifer with her back to him, stringing her bow. She reached inside her back pack and took out several objects. He watched as she fitted the pieces together, then he heard one final ‘click’ and she held up a double-edged sword. She thrust the weapon into his hand. He looked at it, weighing it in his hand, his brow creasing heavily. “It’s a sword, Jason, if we meet any goblins, pretend they are blocks of wood on the chopping block and make firewood of them,” then she added, “Just don’t stand too near me
when you do it
.”

Ignoring the stench, she walked into the midst of them, minus her backpack. Most of them were half asleep, and she shouted, “Where is he, where is your leader, take me
to him or heads will roll,” and approached one ugly female. She
looked up at her and said, “I have news of Princess Reega and her brother Jorgul, take me to your king.”

The female belched loudly causing Yvette to step back from her. “Follow me, runt.”

She followed the goblin woman to a shallow opening carved out the side of the hill. A fat goblin sat there eating fish, chewing noisily, he swallowed the contents of his mouth and asked. “What you got there, Bleggar, dessert?”

As the surrounding goblins laughed, more out of politeness, Yvette said aloud without waiting to be announced, “I am mademoiselle Dubois, I have a message from a dear friend of mine, John, he is it at the college not far from here and sends you good wishes, I only do this because he is a very good friend and he wishes to know how his sister, the princess Reega, is faring. I have travelled a long way, alone, across this desolation and I would like answers as soon as possible.”

The goblin took a drink from a water skin hanging from the ceiling. “You are a friend of my Jorgul. How is he now?”

“He is watching the werewolf at this present time, there seems to be some consternation in the elvin camp, they are running around like the headless chickens.”

He chuckled and said, “Come closer my tiny human, are you hungry, do you like grilled salmon, freshly caught this morning.”

She looked at the fish flapping on the grill over a charcoal fire. She turned to a sudden commotion. The whole camp was in a sudden uproar, she heard cries of, “Jorgul!  Reega!”

She watched as four armed goblins arrived, carrying the stiffened bodies of Reega and John. The four goblins laid the bodies down and a horde of large and small goblins gathered around the cadavers and started to wail.

The king cried “Seize the human!”

Yvette’s escort re
ached out to grab her
,
and gurgled as a razor-
sharp blade slashed through her windpipe
, spraying blood everywhere. S
he toppled forward
and landed with a loud thud
onto her face in front of her executor. Another goblin approached Yvette and stopped, his eyes wide, his mouth agape as Yvette’s body started to swell. “A werewolf,” he cried
,
and tried to move out of range of Yvette’s long-bladed knife, but he moved too slowly, and she cleaved him open from shoulder to thigh.

She cut down the two of the goblins who had brought Reega and her brother, beheading them with two practiced strokes. Her anorak exploded into shreds along with her breeches and the rest of her apparel. Her naked body sprouted black hair, her chest swelled, her jaw expanded along with her skull and her ears sprouted up. She kicked off her torn boots as her legs stretched her to a height of almost nine feet. She grabbed one goblin and bit his head off with her dagger-like incisors and stabbed another in the throat. The others cowered from her, most of them young females. She turned on the king and spat the head out. “Where is the rune stone, give it to me and I will spare your life.”

The king stared at her defiantly. He pointed to the bodies and said, “My daughter Reega set out with a troll to steal the rune stone, it seems she was successful and if you want the stone you will have to fight for it.”

Yvette growled, “After I killed your Jorgul, we searched Reega’s corpse and found nothing, so, where is the stone?”

His jaw dropped, he stood in shock for a few seconds as his people, weaponless, milled around Yvette wondering what to do,
until
the king goblin came to and screamed, “To arms, to arms, Jorgul and Reega’s assassin is amongst us.”

Yvette swung around and encountered a horde of Goblins in all shapes and sizes as they surged
forward with outstretched hands. S
he hewed and hacked at the pack, she severed heads and limbs with her long knife, then she heard a movement behind her, there stood the goblin king with a huge axe in his hand raised to strike her down. He stood there frozen then
reached up slowly to the arrow embedded deep in the side of his neck. He gurgled loudly, dropped his axe and fell at her feet. Yvette turned to the commotion and saw Jennifer at the camp entrance shooting arrows into the goblin horde as it raced towards her and Jason. He held an elvish sword and wielded it with dexterity, decapitating anyone who managed to come near to him.

A squad of male goblins, now armed, rushed towards her. She dodged a spear thrust and disembowelled her attacker, another stumbled over its body and she stamped down and crushed his skull, she slashed at another, beheading him then she stooped to avoid a javelin jab and grabbed a fallen spear.

She ran back the way she came, slashing with her knife at her pursuers. A double rank of goblins charged her with their long spears levelled. Using her confiscated spear as a vaulting pole she leaped over her attackers. She stabbed downwards, piercing skulls and necks, every blow bringing death. She landed behind her attackers and ran on towards Jennifer as she shot her last arrow
,
and she handed her the spear.

Jennifer took it, slipped her bow over her shoulder and stabbed a troll in the belly that had joined the fray. Yvette told them as she stabbed it in the throat with her knife, “The rune stone is not here, it is gone. Someone took it from Reega.”