Chapter 16-418: More Uninvited Guests (2/2)

“I should kill another ten of you straight off for the blood of the Innocent on your hands.” There were startled snarls as the hands of nearly a dozen of them started dripping fresh blood. “Another five of you are psychopathic killers, but you’ve not killed the innocent, so I’ll abstain. But you ten... I know you now, and I am waiting for an excuse. Go sit down under that tree and don’t say a damn thing, or I off you now and pray for forgiveness later.”

Truth was ringing in my voice, and they Believed me. Their heads lowered, their forms shrank, and they slunk off over to the tree I indicated, trying to stay very quiet indeed.

I turned my eyes to the rest of the werewolves, eight different Great Packs represented. I noted the Borea were there, who had little to no business in North America at all. “Congratulations, you’ve successfully earned my attention again. Given how the last instance of that worked out, I figured you would be wise enough to stay far away from me.”

One of the bigger and more scarred white-furred werewolves stepped forward, lifting a totemic Tool at me, despite the way his ears were curled back. “Where are they?” he demanded.

“Where are what? The rest of the Banes your demon-Possessed bitch queen was feeding souls to in order to strengthen them into invincibility when she finally released them?”

His stance faltered, and the other werewolves all turned their eyes on him. I gathered the status of the Borea had fallen a great deal, and a mere halvyr voicing their shame out loud didn’t help matters.

“The fox-women! You will tell us where they are! We will take our vengeance upon them!”

“Are you giving me an order, little puppy?” I asked, very, very softly.

All of their hairs went up, startling even them. Magic went taut all around them, like a bowstring ready to be launched, humming with so much will and power behind it they couldn’t have gotten spells of their own off if they wanted to.

I was a thought away from killing them all, and they could all feel it.

“This, this is a matter of honor!” was his reply, but it sounded a little whiney-strained for some reason. Circumstances bonuses to Intimidation check, possibly.

“You fed innocent souls to an evil spirit. You turned your claws and fangs upon your kin, and called it testing their strength as you took their lands and territories. You succored a demon in your midst and called her a great queen. You are claiming honor as if it will protect you from the wrath of someone who can kill everyone here in an eyeblink, when all that person sees is a barbaric fool who she is not going to bother inflicting on her friends, who would also chew them to mincemeat.

“You have no honor. It drowned in the blood of the innocent amid the whispers of the Damned long ago. If those two want to find you, they will, and if that happens, the Great Pack of the Borea is going to go extinct.

“You had best hope they never hear of this from me, because they WILL take you up on your death wish, and they WILL kill you all. You are useless parasites and they have no patience for you or your kind at all. Furthermore,” I narrowed my eyes sharply, “you are a very long ways from home, and there is not even a whisper of a ghost of a claim to be your lands.” My eyes slid over to the other Great Packs represented there. “Who allowed these maggots to come here?”

There was some uneasy shuffling among them. A broader, grey-furred werewolf in some derivative of Sioux garb made a gesture. “They claimed a Blood Feud, Lady Traveler. Such things are deeply respected among our people.”

“I see. Very well, then, I ask you this: Do you wish the Borea to become extinct? If you say yes, I can pass their request along, and a year from now, the Curseline of the Borea will no longer trouble you with their Blood Feuds.”

Golden eyes turned to the pale blue of the Borean werewolves, who were crouched and seething with fear and anger that they could not release. My Presence was all around them, ready as tensed arrows, and they could all feel it. They didn’t know what I was going to release on them, but given how easily I had killed those who had eaten human flesh, it would be enough to kill them swiftly.

Every word I was speaking was lined with Truth, and he was trembling at my words.

But not for them. No, they were all twitching at the term Curseline.

Because I certainly wasn’t going to call it a Bloodline!

“We have our differences, but I do not wish them to be slaughtered,” the Manitou Shaman finally told me. “They are great warriors against the Mazed, in their own way.”

“That must be why they beat the rest of you up whenever they can, because they are so good against the Mazed you let them bully you,” I sniffed, and the other Packs bridled... except the Elder Fangs, because they were all dead. I had no use for mortal-eating wolfweres. “Seriously, I will just pass on their Blood Feud to their desired parties, and a year from now, all their territories will be nice and open, and there won’t be any Borea to bully you any longer.”

The utter ring of Truth in my voice had a lot of heads turning the way of the Borea. Cold, cruel, merciless wolfen eyes, in gold and blue and black.

Suddenly, the Boreas realized there was a real chance that they stood an excellent chance of killing off all of their Pack and kin in the next few seconds. They were a brave bunch of sociopaths, but that still made their eyes widen a little.

They were supposed to be the great warriors there at the end times, standing against the unmaking of the world where gods and demons went to war, not slaughtered by a couple of sexy foxwomen!