88 Chapter 16 - Pitchforks, Torches, and a Witch. (2/2)

”Hate who - the werewolf? Because we-”

”Don't hate your Grandfather.”

Arti's eyes rounded, ”Grandfather, are you ok?”

Kenji put a paw on the youth's shoulder, still bound in some thorny vines gifted by the wicked Thorned spirit. But even that spirit was but a mere stepping stone to the past, a shadow of the blazing hot power that lay just beyond the fog of the Furbolg past.

”Child, I do not believe we currently have the strength to defeat the enemy. They will have an army of werewolves and human hunters, a few products of the Witch's evil practices too. We will fail, if we attack as we are.”

”Then why do we attack at all? Our people are still strong, let us turn around and go far away - unless...you couldn't mean Grandfather, the Queen of Thorns...?”

It broke Kenji's heart, yet he nodded. He had found the existence of the Queen nestled deep in the Grandfather's memory, yet it had been presented to him as if a gift from the dead Furbolg. The ghost of his mind sent warmth and reassurances, there was no other way.

”Uncounted years of our own path end now. It is time for the Berserkers to awaken from our slumber, and reign once more as Ruler's of Battle,” for the Furbolgs were not an entirely separate species at all. There was a reason these 'werewolves' were not the type to turn under a full moon, nor spread their curse with a bite.

For they were not werewolves either, but skinchangers. What race they had changed from even Grandfather did not know, but both the Furbolgs and Werewolves had been designed to be weapons of war until they became divided due to some unknown event.

And in the ashes, the Furbolgs had arisen, with the aid of the Queen of Thorns, a cruel goddess who had driven them to a battle fervour that had drowned entire kingdoms in blood. Rejected so that the Furbolg race could live a humbler life, she had waited ever since.

”Today is the day, that I hoped would never come. It seems we Furbolgs can be a people of peace no more. Spread the word, those who would welcome the Queen's arrival may stay. Those who wish to remain true to the land should return, where they might wait out the wars amidst the peace we shall create.”

”It will be as you say. By the time we have arrived all will have given their answers,” lowering his head, Arti withdrew. And as Kenji approached the great swathe of withered forest that was the Witch's domain, he did so with a heavy heart knowing what he had done.

That to save them, he had taken a people who had broken their chains to be free - and driven them right into the mental cage of a creature of war. The Queen of Thorns.