Night Tale - Chapter 7
"Why do you want me to kill your brother?" I asked Vulnar.
"To break the thread. Our fates are intertwined. Some force makes me to do same that he does."
"You don’t want to be a blacksmith?"
"I do not want to be a murderer!" Roared Vulnar the Black. "When I was ten, I accidentally killed my father with a hammer blow. And this wasn’t the last such accident in my life."
"And so far you haven’t been accused for it?"
"The villagers would have fed me to dogs long ago, if they hadn’t been afraid of White Vulnar. They know that he still bypasses the village only because of me. I'm his second shadow. I know how to deprive him of his power. How to kill him."
"Vulnar, I told you that I come from the werewolf hunters kin. Killing them is my duty and calling. Before I met you, I didn’t take the history of my family seriously. The wolf's heads in the dining room were in my eyes only moth-eaten trophies of grandfathers. Now I look at it differently."
"I know all about you. When I realized who I was, and realized that I didn’t have my own destiny, I decided to change things one day. I began to forge my own destiny. I made a hammer and covered it with the strongest of the runes. I found a piece of heavenly iron and worked on it day and night. I gave it the form that I saw in my dreams that came to me on a new moon. The rest of the time I dreamed only my brother's dreams, full of blood and howls of the wind."
"Under the blows of the Hammer of Fate, the ingot of the heavenly iron took its new shape. He looked like a rune amulet Wolfsangel - "wolf's hook". With the advent of the Wild Hunt in our lands, people began to paint it on every door."
"And when I thrice reheated the Wolf’s Hook in the furnace and dropped it three times into the thawed water of the mountain keys, in reflection I saw you. And your noble ancestors, hunters, who swore an oath to destroy the evil that is hidden in the night."
"There's something you need to know, my friend," I said to Vulnar. "One of my ancestors has taken an oath, and for this we all bear punishment. We are cursed by the greed of Count Otto Wolfbane, who demanded a reward for the extermination of the Black Forest Pack. Our coat of arms was spoiled with the mark of shame. From now on we serve as mercenaries, regardless of the call of the heart. Those of us who try to act contrary to fate, become victims of enemies or circumstances."
"Now that I know that the past of my family isn’t a heap of dusty manuscripts, I have to seriously think about the curse. I want to help you with all my heart, but I can only do it for a payment. Otherwise, I will die without doing anything.
Vulnar nodded. My words didn’t surprise him and didn’t anger him. Probably, and this he saw in the mirror of the mountain waters.
"I'll offer you your payment, Hunter," he said. "I'll fix the wing of your iron bird so that you can return to your place and time. And I will put in your weapon the power to kill people like my brother. Silver bullets are enough to kill an ordinary werewolf. However, this isn’t enough for the Master of the Wild Hunt."
In the hands of Vulnar the Black, metal come to life. He called himself a shadow of the great master, but I couldn’t imagine art more refined than his.
He took my gun, the usual revolver gun "Becker". He covered it with runic engraving. He made cheeks of silver with scenes of wolf hunt and protective signs on the butt.
Under the barrel, he attached a metal tube with a tight spring and an iron case. In the case he placed a coil with a steel cable taken from the plane. The cable was attached to the shaft, embedded in the tube.
On the shaft Vulnar placed the Wolf’s Hook of the heavenly silver. And the spring in the tube began to speak so that the Hook thrown to it through and through struck a board two fingers thick, bogged down on the other side.
"Your weapon is ready, hunter," said Vulnar. "I gave him the name. The Wolf Killer. I carved the name on it. Now it will become stronger with every soul sent in the caves of the dead. And it will be harder for you to deal with it. Remember this and use it wise."
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6