Avarice | Sample 10 Chapters

A v a r i c e | O n e

O n e

❝A woman made a mistake;

brought on by a fiery stake.❞

LYDIA'S BODY WAS IN A TATTERED MESS when I came upon it. Her dress was hardly visible from being torn apart and had it not been for the engagement ring on what looked to be her finger, I wouldn't have suspected it was her.

Lydia's right leg had been severed from her body. The lycanthropes that had attacked her had probably heard people coming and took the limb as a sort of snack for the road. Not that they would have needed a snack; with the shape Lydia's body was in, I highly doubted any of the savage beasts were still hungry.

"That is it!" someone shouted from somewhere in the crowd. Across from me a man stepped out from his position behind two tall men. He stepped into the space next to Lydia's body that we had all unconsciously cleared.

I recognized the man who had shouted instantly as our town's drunk. He didn't look drunk right now, but with his reputation, he soon would. Perhaps it was his status and the lack of authority in his tone that had the rest of the crowd ignoring his yells.

Although I wasn't paying close attention to what he was saying, I could hear him yell,"We need to fight back! We shouldn't let these stupid wolves kill our families and friends." Someone apparently had been listening to what the drunkard was saying, because another voice spoke out.

"That is where you're wrong, son," this time it was an Irishman. I'd never talked to this particular person before, but I had noticed him around the kingdom when I was sent to go to the market. The Irishman was a large man and had a beard down to his collar, I noticed. His accent was thick, but understandable. "These creatures are neither stupid nor wolves." The Irishman's voice held the superiority that the drunkard's had not, gaining him an audience. "They are just as clever as us, if not more. They are quick and cunning, and they are hungry for blood. They do not hold inhibitions within them and will stop at nothing to kill. We all know they are lycanthropes by now, do we not?"

Soundlessly, I nodded along with many other people. We'd all suspected that the murders had been because of lycanthropes, although no one had ever proclaimed it so publicly before. At first we'd figured it to be a bear's doing, but after the first five kills, witnesses had said the creatures were more wolf-like. Ten kills and rumors of lycanthropy had spread like wildfire across the kingdom. And now, on the twenty-something killing, I hadn't a second thought about the slaughterer being a lycanthrope.

The Irishman was now also in the space that the rest of us had deemed forbidden. The drunkard stepped back into the crowd, letting the wiser man take over. "We need hunters," he said, his eyes narrowly blazing as he looked around at the crowd. "Lycanthrope hunters," he specified. "People need to step up. I will be at my cottage, and whoever has the guts to join may do so by visiting me there."

The man then turned and left. The crowd parted like the Red Sea for him as he departed before forming back together again.

Anguished sobs could be heard from all around the group. I hadn't seen Lydia's family yet, thank God, but from a distance I could make out the doctors coming our way. There was no need for them in the traditional sense, but now that Lydia had passed they would roll her up in some cloth and carry her on a wooden platform to her family's home where they would present her and ask where the family would like her to be buried.

I felt empty. I hadn't cried yet, although I wanted to. Crying in front of Lydia's tortured body felt belittling somehow. Lydia hadn't been one for crying. She had been strong and brave and far more courageous than anyone I had ever met. Lydia had been my best friend ever since we had been born. She had always been by my side; she had been there next to me through all of the previous lycanthrope attacks and had lent a shoulder to cry on. She had been an avid supporter for all the Irishman had just said, and I was positive that had she been alive to hear his speech, she would have been the first at the step of the man's cottage.