Solis Invicti
Even as it completed the arc, the nameless man shot forward, reaching forth to seize a horn with the left hand, and then amazingly bending the head back, bone and horn creaking under the surprising force of his grip. Twisting hard, the horn cracking down the middle as the inhuman torque of that grasping hand actually dragged the immense beast to its knees, a harsh glow, a mantle of stars settled itself into an orbit around green and blue hair. The axe in his hand flashed up and buried itself in the neck of the beast, smashing through bone and meat, spraying blood out into the air. The beast bellowed as the axe flashed again, and again, until its neck was nearly severed from its body, falling to earth with a loud groan and lying in a pool of glittering dark liquid that reflected the stars above. The man stepped back, his hands and forearms wet with it, and saw the plants begin to bloom in the blood, flowers and grain bursting forth from the earth. Where the blood had touched him, he could feel the throbbing, pulsing fury of life surging forth, and for a moment watched in wonder as the livid, angry scar on the back of his left hand smoothed out, puckered flesh melting into the gentle pattern of hair and skin that had been there five years before.
Leaving the rapidly expanding patch of explosive spring, he ran towards the barn. Delayed by the bull, for all he knew the wolves had found whoever they were hunting. Too many damn things at once. Always the way… longest night, victory of the day, and every jumped up hobgoblin in creation clamoring for a piece. It has to be the barn. There was no door on the side of the building he was rushing towards, surrounded by the whirling halo of stars and the fury of the bullslayer. His lips under his formerly red and grey beard (rapidly turning a more and more fiery hue of red and gold, the grey stripped from it even as it grew on his face, reaching down his chest like kudzu) curled upwards as he threw his shoulder against wood.
The wall splintered and flew apart as he came through into the barn. The wolves, huge black creatures with eyes like saucers, horrible in their tousled savagery and streaked with the blood of a donkey and a mare they had torn apart with their teeth, were leaping and snapping at a trap door leading upwards, two metal doors with a pull chain that to him seemed a likely place for a hayloft. They turned as shards of wood hurled past their heads to regard him with flickering, sickly green eyes, huge and glowing. Six of them in all, bigger than mastiffs, so dark they seemed to eat light with their black oily fur.
Their tongues lolled out, like flashes of twisted fire, green and awful. Facing them, he brought the bloodstained axe up in front of him just as the closest one leapt, bounding the twenty feet between them with one spring. It came down too fast for him to swing, forcing him to use the axe to fend those massive jaws off as they clashed closed a few inches from his face, hot and blood-reeking breath flowing over him. Hearing rather than seeing the rest rushing to overwhelm him under their teeth and bulk, he spun, throwing the dark wolf away and into three of its siblings. As they scattered for the moment, he managed to get the axe up again in time to bring it crashing down on the head of another, a gout of blood and flecks of brain spraying down onto the dirt floor where the ravaged remains of the mare were scattered. The nameless man found himself grateful for the cold, which meant there were no flies. Another furry body hurled itself at him, and he drove his fingers around its throat with that same furious strength that had nearly shattered the bull’s neck, crushing the windpipe even as the halo of stars around him flared, whirling in their own private constellations. Unable to yelp, the black wolf was lifted into the air and brought down into the bodies of its pack while the axe in the right hand flashed, crashing into a black furred chest and caving in a sternum, dropping it in mid-leap. Used as a flail, the undulating body of the wolf held by the throat snapped, its spine broken, as its hindquarters smashed a packmate into the wall.
Six became three.
Tossing the broken body aside, the nameless man brought both hands to grasp the axe handle, the bloody head to the side of his own. Growling, he regarded the remaining wolves, black shapes of wolf that hunted with another’s will. They growled in return, gathering in a mass at the end of the barn near the door. Snarling, the axe-man stepped forward, hoping to terrify them into leaving. Instead, they rushed forward again, this time as one, no one wolf leading. Recognizing the change, and knowing he couldn’t avoid all three at once, he surrendered to the inevitable and dropped the axe into a swing that gathered power from the twist of his hips. The middle wolf took the axe in the belly as it leapt at him, as the one on the right ripped its fangs across the man’s ribcage tearing bloody holes right through his leather jacket, and the one on the left sunk fangs into his shoulder, bearing him down to the ground. Letting go of the axe, he hissed in pain and drove both of his thumbs into its eyes as they fell, bursting them.
