The metallic stench of decay hit Raine's nostrils just as frost began seeping through his armor joints.
"Fuck! Bone-eaters!" The shrill scream came from Josep, the new recruit. Through the thickening mist, six pairs of emerald eyes ignited in the swaying thicket ahead.
"Shield wall! Archers switch to penetrators!" Raine barked, his sword hilt slippery with sweat. Twenty border guards scrambled into formation like whipped tops, their clattering steel and ragged breaths churning the fog.
The first direwolf emerged larger than a warhorse. When Josep's kite shield splintered under its claws, molten fire suddenly surged through Raine's right arm. Before he realized, his fingers were already buried in the beast's throat, black blood sizzling on his leathers.
"By the Holy Light..." Josep gaped at his commander's transformed hand.
Bones slithered beneath Raine's skin. Bronze scales crawled up from his wrist, fingertips morphing into blade-like talons. A second wolf lunged at his exposed back—only to lose half its skull to a backhand swipe moving faster than thought.
"That ain't no paladin's blessing!" Bellowed Brander, the limping veteran struggling to yank his spear from a wolf's ribcage.
Raine tried to respond, but sulfurous bile choked his throat. As his mutated arm tore through the fourth wolf's jaw, a crimson holy symbol flashed between distant pines—Father Oleg, who should've been chanting vespers at the fort, now knelt pressing an inverted silver chalice into frozen earth. Black ooze seeped from its rim.
The wolf pack froze mid-assault. Their eerie infant-like wails rose in unison as they turned toward the priest. Raine's scales vibrated violently, like a thousand needles stabbing his marrow.
"Retreat! Now!" The priest's command carried unnatural reverberations. When Raine hauled Josep upright, the boy's pupils were dilating—wolf's acid had eaten through his chainmail, exposing ribs beneath bubbling flesh.
Brander's hands trembled as he poured lamp oil on the corpse. "Remember? Three casks of holy water went missing last supply run."
Night wind whipped the funeral pyre's smoke into spirals. Raine hid his monstrous hand beneath the cloak. The scales' retreating agony made him bite through his tongue, but colder dread came from the priest's parting gaze: that perpetually benevolent servant of Light had stared at him like a butcher eyeing meat.