Age of Shadows
The Year 1720
The world was young. No kingdoms had risen, no empire had carved its name in stone. Humans lived in sprawling villages, rough walls of timber and mud, a thin layer between them and the wilderness. In this age, the veil between natural and supernatural had not yet thinned. The world was filled with humans, and the creatures that stalked it were many. Witches stirred cauldrons over open flame, their voices mingling with the wind. And the werewolves, great beasts who wore human faces by day and monstrous furs by night, roamed freely, feared, hated, and worshipped in equal measure.
In the heart of a vast clearing stood a town whose people clung to one family for safety: The Wolfskinners.
They had been given that name not by themselves but by the people they swore to protect, a name shouted with respect, whispered in awe, and sometimes screamed in terror. The Wolfskinners claimed to be the righteous defenders of humankind, hunters ordained by the gods themselves to cut down the cursed half-beasts. Their symbol, a silver blade drawn across a snarling wolf's head, was painted on shields and carved into wooden gates. Children grew up chanting the name, women worshipped and prayed to it, and men swore loyalty under its shadows.
At the head of the family was Halon Wolfskinner.
Halon was a man whose face looked carved from granite, with eyes as grey as winter snow. His words carried weight; his hands carried the blood of hundreds of werewolves. He walked as if the earth bent beneath his boots. But for all his stature, he was nothing but a man with a blackened heart. The townspeople called him their saviour, but in truth, he was something far darker.
He told a lot of stories—stories that spread like wildfire among the townspeople. In his stories, he spoke of crude acts of werewolves, tearing children from cradles, of how they were beasts that hunted farmers in their fields, of their claws that ripped through flesh and teeth that drank people's blood. These tales were told around fires, in market squares and whispered even in darkened bedrooms. And though no villager had ever witnessed such atrocities with their own eyes, they believed Halon. Why, you may ask? Because fear was easier to trust than truth.
The Wolfskinners descended, or so they claimed, from S-class witches, women of terrifying knowledge and strange gifts. But their magic had weakened with each generation. And now what remained was not power but craft. The knowledge of roots, of minerals, of secret potions and mixtures that could rot a werewolf's veins. They dipped their blades in mixtures that hissed when they came into contact with fur. They laced their arrows with oils that made their heart seize and shut down. They sprayed potions that turned werewolves into their human forms before brutally murdering them. It was no divine blessing from the gods that gave them victory, but poison, trickery and lies.
And under Halon's sadistic rule, the family feasted on blood.
For years, the wolfskinners slaughtered. They dragged werewolves into the town square, tortured them until their screams filled the air, before a silver and very much poisoned blade pierced through their hearts.
Their trophies were the heads of their prey hung on gates and displayed as proof of victory. The humans cheered, blind to the truth that the werewolves Halon and his family butchered had not been guilty of the crimes he described.
But the werewolves knew.
For high in the shadowed forest, far beyond the reach of humans, there lived the Raven Pack. And as its head was Alpha Zorac.
Zorac was vast even in human form, with shoulders as broad as an ox, hair black as midnight and eyes like molten amber. In wolf form, he was a specimen of muscle and raw strength, towering above even his strongest kin. But more than strength, Zorac carried wisdom. He knew the old ways, the fragile truce that once existed between human and beast. He knew of the laws of the hunt—take only what you need, kill only to live, never feast on the blood of man.
For generations, his pack abided. Even going as far as to protect the humans from other packs and vampires who targeted them. The Raven pack hunted deer in the Valley, boar in the mountains, and elk across the plains. Some even depended on vegetables and fruits they cultivated from their fields. They steered away from human villages and kept to their side of the shadows.
And yet, still, they died.
When the first of his kin were dragged into human streets, Zorac had thought it a mistake. When more followed, he began to wonder. But when Halon's tales spread like wildfire and he caught sight of the pile of corpses of his clan, higher than the town's gates, Zorac uncovered a chilling truth: No one from his pack had ever broken the peace, but it was a family called the Wolfskinners.
The death of his people had not been born out of justice but from the obsession of a single man, Halon.
The revelation broke something in the Alpha, probably his kind heart.
One cold night beneath a full moon, Zorac gathered his pack—what was left of it. Only fifty of them, but they stood strong, fur bristling silver beneath moonlight, eyes glowing with fury.
He told them of what he had learned, his voice rumbling low and deep, of all the atrocities being done to them.
"We are not hunted for our crimes, but for the hunger of a single man and his family. Halon feeds on lies, and the people feed on his lies in turn. They will never stop. As long as a Wolfskinner draws breath, we will burn."
The pack howled in answer, furious at the evil doings of humans they've been protecting. Their force was so strong that it shook the marrow of the trees.
And so Zorac made his choice.
The Wolfskinners would end.
They waited for the right opportunity, when their guards would lie low. The right opportunity presented itself on the night of a celebration.
Every year, the Wolfskinners gathered to honour their ancestors with a feast. They burned torches high enough to light up the sky, played drums that thundered through the air and raised their voices in a display of triumph. Children ran around with painted faces, their laughter cutting across the night sky. They prepared lavish meals. Meats roasted over fire, and ale flowed like rivers. To them, it was a night of pride, of boasting, of remembrance of the blood they had spilt.
It was on that night that Alpha Zorac decided to attack. He ordered, "Kill every Wolfskinner but leave every other human untouched."
From the forest's edge, they came like shadows, their eyes burning like embers. Fifty menacing wolves surged forward as one, ready to take revenge for their dead families. And so they attacked, their claws and fangs piercing through the skin of the confused Wolfskinners, who hadn't seen it coming, especially on that day. The first cry ran through the air, followed by a second and then after there were only screams.
The massacre was swift, brutal, and unrelenting. Laughter that had filled the compound now turned to shrieks.
The remaining Wolfskinners, now aware of what was going on, rushed to recover their blades coated with witchcraft poison, but the Raven pack did not falter. The Wolfskinners fought—oh, they fought—but one by one they fell, men, women and children.
At the centre of their compound, Halon himself stood, his face twisted with rage and his hands stained with blood. He'd managed to kill some of Zorac's people.
Halon swung his sword in great arcs, his eyes wild, his lips spitting curses at Zorac as he came forward to attack him. Zorac feared no one, and so he faced him head-on.
Wolf and man clashed, a prey and a predator. It was funny how the roles were reversed. Steel cut against fur, and claws penetrated flesh. But no matter how powerful Halon's potions were, he was no god, and his lies could not shield him. With a final snap of claws, Zorac crushed his throat.
The leader of the wolfskinners fell, choking on his own blood.
By dawn, silence lay over the town. The feast tables tables which had been filled with lavish meals, had all been crushed to the ground; the compound now looked like a blood bath. No voice of a Wolfskinner rose to answer the sun. No one would dare to hunt down werewolves again.
The line was broken.
Or so Zorac thought.
In the ruins of that night, amid the charred wood and mangled bodies, there was movement.
A child.
Small, trembling, her face streaked with ash and tears. She had been hidden beneath the floorboards of a storage hut, eyes wide as she watched her parents, uncles and aunties being slaughtered. She saw her grandfather, Halon, fall. She saw her family being massacred right before her eyes, but she refused to scream just as her mom had told her to.
She saw the tales her grandfather always talked about happen right before her eyes.
When the silence fell and the werewolves retreated, she crawled from her hiding place. Her feet stepped in blood. Her breath caught, and her body shivered with apprehension. She cried even though her tears could not summon the dead. She stared at the bodies of the family that had been bustling with joy a few minutes ago. In that moment, a piercing pain shot through her chest and she felt her heart harden.
The Wolfskinners were not gone.
They would never be gone.
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For thousands of years, the tale of what happened that year would twist and turn, carried i whispers, in stories, in warnings told to children who sat too close to the dark. The world changed, villages became cities, cities became countries, civilisation grew, pushing all supernaturals into the dark.
Humans talked of werewolves and other creatures as myths and fiction.
But in the shadow of a generation, a name endured.
The Wolfskinners lived on.
And their feud with the werewolves would never end.