Chronowolf; Legacy of Temporal Ruin

Chapter 6: The Wolves in War

"I'm afraid it is too late for that, Chronowolf." Silas's voice was like a coffin nail driven to a dead silence; it made the very room quiver as if the sound of doom was on all three. Anya turned to him, her heart banging in the cage, gurgling thickly and thinly all together through her lungs. What she saw was hell on earth. A horrible glow gleamed in Silas's eyes from the doorway, while a wicked smile curved his lips in mockery of victory. Behind him was a pack of genetically altered wolves, their bodies stretching and reedlike, their eyes glowing with an almost palpable urge, blocking her only exit.

"You are not the sole game player who can play with time," Silas continued, his words dripping with condescension and cold undertone of amusement. "And now is the moment in which you are with me, or are destroyed."

Anya's mind was in a state of revolt and panic. She was trapped, wedged in among Silas's men and the ailing Temporal Core, whose crystal surface writhed with a malignant glow. The woman who had brought her here and had spoken about teaching her about her powers was quiet now behind her back, deep within their hood, a secret in times of adversity.

"I'll never accompany you, Silas," Anya said, her voice shaking but resolute, a rebellious glint in her eyes. "I'll thwart you, no matter what the price."

Silas released a hard, raw laugh, a laugh that rang in the room, mocking her boldness. "Blunt words, Chronowolf. But bold words won't get you out of here. You are outnumbered, outgunned, and utterly alone. And soon, you'll belong to me, body and soul."

He gestured at his pack, a silent command, and they moved on ahead, bodies blurring in a wild dash, their growls a crescendo of killing intent. Anya was flooded with a rush of adrenalin, her senses honed, her body thrumming with the raw, wild power of the Chronowolf. No longer was she Anya, an artist or a stranger. No longer was she anything but guardian and protector, and she would not turn back, not even in the face of insurmountable danger.

The initial wolf sprang, claws out, eyes focusing on Anya's throat with a raw hunger burning within them. Anya swatted the attack aside, her movement fluid and reflexive, a vast step above her original ineptness. Anya lashed back with her claws, her increased power in wolf form rending flesh with a squelching noise, a testament to her growing power.

The werewolf growled, eyes wide with pain and shock, a moment of fear getting the better of the hunger. It stepped back, providing Anya with a moment in which she could observe what was happening around her, a moment of calm in the chaos. The room was a chaos of movement, the air thick with the reek of blood and snapping of the werewolves, a crescendo of brutality. They closed in on her, each one a danger with death in their eyes, their eyes burning with otherworldly light.

Anya knew she could not outrun them in a direct attack. Her powers would have to step in here, warping the chronology tides, to find a way out of death. But the words still reverberated in her memory: the Temporal Core was unstable, and misuse of her powers would unleash apocalyptic consequences, destroying the fabric of time itself.

She looked over at the figure, asking for guidance, a clue, but quiet, eyes fixed on the growing destruction, an observer apart in the midst of chaos. Panic and rage gnawed inside her. She needed to go, and she needed to go quickly, while there was still something.

Another werewolf charged at her, teeth snapping, teeth shining in the faint illumination, a killer in the process of striking. Anya took a step back, her hand moving over the Temporal Core, cold and smooth in her hand. Power coursed over her, a shock of raw power blurring her eyesight, the world around her distending.

Suddenly, time was slowing down, the motion of the werewolves slowing and warping, suspended in amber. Anya saw her window, a breach in the timestream where she could move, where she could turn the balance. Her mind was focused, marshaling power in the timestream, trying to repair the fabric of time, trying to breach, trying to escape this killing trap.

But the power was wild and unchecked and she was letting it go, sand trickling away in her hand. The room was shaking, the walls vibrating, the Temporal Core booming with a foretelling radiance, a harbinger of destruction. The werewolves, even in slow motion, still crept, eyes on her, hunger unrepressed, intent unbalked.

Anya knew she was going to destroy herself, unleash a storm in the timestream, shatter the fabric of space and time itself, and destroy anything in her way. She had to stop and think about something other, something greater, something she could command. But she could not hold back, not yet, not while she could still taste the power on her lips. And yet, even while she pushed on, a scorching pain in her ribcage made her howl in anguish.

One of them was swiftness itself in comparison with the other, having shattered her guard, claws shearing down her flesh and tearing deep, bloody lacerations. Anya howled with pain, her concentration disrupted, power over time beyond her control, the room shattering in a blinding flare of light, a cataclysmic unleashing.

The world around her melted in a crazed whirl, a churning maelstrom of shape and color, a temporal vacuum bursting itself in the room and shattering space and time. Anya was ripped in the churning, her body whirled and spun about, her brain in a crazed reel, lost in the crazed whirlpools of time.

And then, no later than it had taken hold, madness was gone. The glow faded, the shaking stopped, and the room was quiet, a chilly stillness broken only by the ragged gasps of the werewolves, the destruction in their wake.

Silas stood in the chasm mouth, his eyes aglow with a victorious radiance, a hard satisfaction in his eyes. He glanced about the room, his eyes seeking Anya, but she was gone, lost on the storm-tossed seas of chronology, a piece in his master game.

"She's gone," Silas said, a satisfaction creeping over his words, a shadow in his voice. "Gotten lost in the gaps. Just how I intended."

He turned back on his pack, a cold smile creasing his lips, a killer who was pleased with his prey. "And now we have business. The Temporal Core is ours. And with it, we'll remake time itself, bending it to our command."