Previous Post Silver Aegis #9 “The Legend of the Ü-Wolf!” Desmerelda turned the spigot to the small cask. A dark, aromatic liquid sloshed out into the goblet she held. When full, she handed it to Scott and went to demurely wait behind her father’s chair. “Try the wine, please: we make it ourselves,” Rajko, king of the Stavrosos clan entreated. Scoggins drank, “This is excellent.” “Thank you. It is from the grapes that grow wild here in the forest. We Stavrosos are truly blessed to have a home that provides us with such a bounty. Unlike our lives in the old country.” “Where was that?” “Austria. In the province of Lienz, more exactly,” Rajko’s face turned solemn, “it is there where our story must begin: “The Stavrosos, while not embraced in Lienz, were at least tolerated. For generations we were allowed to live on the outskirts of society. From town to town we traveled, but most often we made camp near Castle Räuberischer, home of the ruling family of the area. It was here there was the most opportunity for us. Or to use the young people’s way of speaking, the most marks.” The admission drew an embarrassed gasp from Desmerelda. Scott Scoggins merely nodded. “In my day we called them rubes.” “Ah, so you are somewhat familiar with the life of the Traveler, friend Scott?” Rajko grinned knowingly. “I grew up on the streets of Parodiopolis during the Depression. Sometimes the only way to fill your stomach was through the grift. But this is your story, King. Please continue.” Desmerelda couldn’t help but smile to herself at the confirmation of part of her reading, but was also perplexed. Could it be true that this stranger had been alive so long ago? He would be older than father, older than even Widow Magda! But his robustness and (Desi admitted) handsomeness belied his apparent age. What other mysteries were there to this man, Scott Scoggins? Rajko, oblivious to his daughter’s musings, continued his exposition, “The fortunes of the Stavrososes turned truly dark with the ascension of the tenth Baron Von Räuberischer. Jäger Von Räuberischer was a brutish, vengeful man, with little patience and even less mercy for the Romany.” Flashback: Jäger, in full hunting regalia, watches as two of his servants tie a boy no older than nine to a tree. Over the frightened howls of his family they tear away his tunic, exposing his back. “Please, your highness! Do not hurt him!” his mother cried. “Silence! The brat was caught poaching on the Baron’s grounds, and the sentence for such a crime is flogging!” “But he is just a boy, and it was just a small rabbit! Please!!” “Well, I suppose I could be persuaded to show leniency,” the man noted, rows of pointed teeth appearing as his lips pulled back in a half snarl, half leer. He poked the woman’s extraordinary décolletage with his riding crop, “Bring yourself, bathed and perfumed, to my lodge tonight. I am in need of company, and there is no one there but the hounds to keep me warm. HAHAHAHA!!” Scott sat bolt upright in his chair, “What a monster!” “Indeed. Baron Jäger treated people, especially those to weak to defend themselves, as his own personal playthings. His subjects had it hard, but it was we Stavrososes that bore the brunt of his evil inclinations. Until one fateful night, when his callousness would cost him most dearly…” Flashback #2: a narrow roadway through the forest near Castle Räuberischer. It is as dark as pitch, and a steady rain buffets the carriage that bears Baron Jäger towards his ancestral home. There is a bump, and a scream, and the wagon comes to a halt. “Your highness,” his coachman calls back, “We have struck someone!” The baron and his servant clamber out to see. The coachman’s lantern finds their victim, an old woman, her body bloodied and mangled, moaning in pain. “Oh, its one of them,” Jäger says dismissively, “what are you doing in my forests, you hag?” “Please,” the gypsy woman whispered, “help me.” The baron turned to his servant, “Back to the carriage, Gunter.” “Sir? What about her?” “What about her? She was obviously up to no good (why else would someone be out at this time of night in this storm, alone?) and old enough to be near death before she fell under my wheels,” he looked down his nose at the woman, “Leave her for the wolves.” “What Baron Jäger did not, could not, know, was that the gypsy woman had been in the forest for a reason. She was a witch who had gone searching for certain ingredients that could only be harvested under those conditions for them to work. “Devil’s Foot Mushroom,” Desmerelda explained, “must be picked between dusk and dawn, and during the last Sabbath of the spring, or it loses its potency.” “Or so the stories say,” Rajko added, “Regardless, the witch woman did not need mushrooms or potions to do what came next. For it is fact that a witch can curse a man with her dying words, and that is what she had done to the baron. Flashback #3: The old woman, her voice quavering, “Jäger Von Räuberischer, with my last breath I curse you. Your inner self will be exposed for all the world to see, a slave to your base appetites, never knowing peace as long as a Stavrosos walks the earth to recall the torment you have brought us.” Several nights later, with the coming of the full moon, the particulars of her vow are revealed: the handsome young Junker doubles over in agony. The seams to his silken robe shred as his muscles begin to swell. Bones break and reknit, making his limbs long and ranging. His spine curves, his jaws distend. Ears, teeth, and nails grow and become pointed. As he tears away the scraps of his clothes, his exposed skin becomes covered with thick, coarse hair. It was his eyes that transform last, the final sign of his humanity gone as they change from those of a terror stricken man to ones possessed by a feral, rapacious beast. “AAAAWWWWÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ!!!!!!” the werewolf howled, before crashing through the window of his bedchambers and down to the ground below. It does not take long for Baron Jäger to find an outlet of his animalistic rage, and it was no coincidence that it was the Stavrosos encampment. The wolfman was not subtle, attacking horses, overturning wagons, disrupting campfires. The gypsies’ screams filled the night as Baron Jäger, muzzle matted with gore, arched back and added his voice to the cacophony. “AAAAWWWWÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ!!!!!!” Rajko paused uncomfortably, “Upon reflection, the woman could have phrased things better.” “For decades the werewolf hunted my ancestors, striking on the three nights a month when the moon was full,” Desmerelda took up the explanation as her father paused to drink, “The Stavrososes could not kill the beast because of its magic nature, and when they tried to run, away from Lienz, to elsewhere in Austria, even to Italy, it would eventually find them. It was not until the First World War that my people would find deliverance from the curse. “The Stavrosos found and rescued an American pilot named Ronald Chaney who had crashed his plane in the forest they were camped in. For weeks they nursed him back to health, hiding him from enemy soldiers. While he was with us Mr. Chaney heard the story of Baron Jäger. A noble man, Chaney promised to help. He used his family’s fortune to bring the Stavrosos to America, and gave us a large tract of forest to call our own.” Rajko nodded, “The Chaney Land Trust allows the Stavrosos use of the land in perpetuity, provided a majority of the clan lives on it. And for nearly a century we have done so, operating our carnival in relative peace. For four generations, we were safe.” “When did the attacks resume?” Scott asked. Desmerelda cast her eyes downward, “Three months ago. A boy named Pietro had left camp to go into town. He was found the next morning, his throat torn out. The second victim was Aida, a widow. She was taken from her cottage during the night. A-and, yesterday, there was Chavi…..” the girl sobbed and left the room. Both men watched her go with concern. “My people are upset, and understandably so. The police have been no help. They ask us if we had any wild animal in the circus that had gotten loose to cause the trouble. Pfah!” Rajko spit on the floor derisively, “Some of us, who know the story of the curse, have taken their families and left.” Scott was ready to ask another question when he was interrupted by the blaring of car horns. The two men of action rose and bolted for the door to see the source of the disturbance. To Be Continued: a fight, a special guest star, some more backstory, and….a clambake? Out soon.

The style, the flashbacks, Desmerelda's inner thoughts, the Widow Magda! It has it all. Keep it coming.