Fuck, Isaniel is—
The wolf-man roars inside of him, lunging to tear his lung out of place. It feasts on his organs, muzzle bloody and rank.
No. Basuin leaps from a gnarled root and off an escarpment, boots landing heavy on the forest floor. But he keeps running. No. This won’t be Valkesta again. Basuin won’t let it be Valkesta again.
If he dies, Ren dies, too.
He hears Yaelic before he sees him, the soft whine filtering through his canines and whistling through his snout. The legion encampment is bigger than the others, and Haaman flies up to the canopy, circling the perimeter and scouting. But there is no dramatic entry. No stealth, no magic. This isn’t a game—it’s a reckoning. Basuin comes up behind the watchguard and slices his throat open with the dagger he wears on his hip.
Basuin presses his boot into the soldier’s stomach and rips the legion rifle from his holster. He feeds bullets into the chamber and reloads, gun in one hand and dagger in the other. There will be no mercy here. None.
Haaman drops from the trees once they’ve found Yaelic’s cage. In a flurry of quick movement, they dispatch the soldier who guards Yaelic, splattering blood across the kennel door and leaving entrails slick on the ground. Basuin hears the rattle and the piercing clink of Haaman breaking the lock. The squeak of metal as Yaelic rushes out, white fur dirtied. He runs straight for Basuin, but Basuin holds steady.
“Haaman,” he barks. “Get Yaelic out of here.”
Yaelic whimpers, rearing back on his haunches. The sight of him hurts, makes Basuin want to tear out his own throat, so he looks away before Yaelic’s emerald eyes can soften him too much for the war he brings to this encampment.
Haaman hesitates. “You’re staying,” they say.
Already, the tents of this camp are rustling with movement, soldiers awake and alert. They yell orders at one another, screaming across the clearing they’ve cut out of the woods. Basuin sheathes his dagger to grab the lit torch they’ve set by the watchguard.
“Go,” he commands them. Then, arm aglow and veins pulsing with god magic, he hurtles the torch upon one of the legion tents. The flames swallow the fabric, crackling with red wisps of his magic, and shouts of soldiers begin to swarm the camp. Weapons click, armor rattles, blades swathe along the air. As smoke disperses through the forest, Basuin doesn’t look back, but listens as Haaman’s footfalls disappear under the cacophony of the legion.
Basuin stands at the cusp of the legion’s camp, blood boiling, red magic rising from his skin, body hot as sweat from the burning flames curling over his forehead. Once, Basuin was a warrior feared across the legion. Praised as a war hero. Idolized by soldiers who coveted his strength and his devotion to the military. A perverted sort of worship.
But now, he’s stronger. Basuin opens his clenched fist, spreading his fingers to free his god mark. Now, he is a god.
“There!” someone yells, and bodies begin to run at him. Basuin can’t tell them apart from the shadows. His vision is dark. Everything is red. He moves by instinct alone, blind. But his ears catch everything.
And when he snarls at them—the legion which captured his wolf pup and threw him in a cage—his tongue swipes over sharp canines in a mouth that tastes like spoiled meat. Then, he lunges.
Basuin bleeds them and he burns them. If these soldiers had any gods left, they wouldn’t have a breath left to beg for mercy. They don’t deserve mercy. This is justice for what they’ve done. To Yaelic, to Ren. Clawed fingers strew vocal cords and innards across the forest. Black fur rises along his arms and legs, hackles tense on the back of his neck.
His teeth rip into limbs, canines creating sharp incisions that bloody his maw. Basuin runs through the fires he’s set even as it singes the fur that’s grown into armor over his skin, tackling soldiers to stab a dagger through their eye only to turn and shoot hot bullets through another man’s torso.
Gunpowder fills his nose but he doesn’t gag. He stretches his neck back and howls, bashing the butt of his borrowed gun on someone’s temple until blood sprays across his face. He doesn’t care. This is a frenzy. They locked Yaelic up. Tried to kill him. Not another prisoner of war. Not another Tomaas. This isn’t Valkesta. Gods’s sake, this isn’t Valkesta.
Basuin tears a tent down with his claws that the flames haven’t yet breached, barreling inside. A scream rings out from the corner where a man and a woman sit, cowering away from him. The man’s arms are spread wide as if he can stop Basuin.
“Please!” the man begs, sheltering the woman with his body. “We’re medics! We—We’ll leave! We’ll go back, please. I told them not to take the wolf. I told them it wasn’t—”
“Shut up,” Basuin barks, making them flinch. “You suffer the consequences of your brethren like everyone else. Like I did, like my men did.”
But his claws retract. He curls his hands into fists around his weapons, hesitating. They’re just medics. They’re afraid. Just like little Tomaas, the medic who could barely fire a gun without his hands shaking, making the shot go wide. They had to train it out of him, beat it from his back the way they beat Basuin into form too.
When he blinks and the red recedes from his vision, just an inch, the man’s face morphs into Tomaas’, hair turning to ginger. But it’s not him. Tomaas is gone like the rest of them.
His grip tightens. Medics know how to shoot, too. They’re forced to kill like all the rest. They’re not just medics, they’re soldiers.
Behind him, heavy boots skid to a stop and Basuin whirls around, gun pointed at the medics and dagger braced against the enemy. Their faces all are blank to him, bodies black amalgam beneath the red filling his head.
“Bass?” a familiar voice calls, incredulous. “Captain, is that you?”
His head snaps up, eyes blinking away the bloodlust. There, a few feet away with a rifle in both hands, is Tehali. Her hair is pulled back in red-coated braids. Piercings have been ripped out, ears gored. Blood is smeared down her neck.
“Tali,” he says, voice rumbling into a murmur.
“It is,” she says, dark eyes widening in disbelief. “Captain, what are you doing out here? What are you—” Her eyes sweep over him. “What’s happened to you?”
