The Book of the Barghest

CHAPTER THREE

The moon glowed brightly overhead, its face unshielded by clouds in the night sky. Normally the croaking of frogs and the

chirping of crickets would have filled the night air of Lake Pack, but with dead creatures polluting the water and no green

vegetation for a good distance, there was hardly any living thing out here besides the wolves that called the now-devastated

oasis home. Slow movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he shifted his weight, taking a few steps

out of the entrance of the alpha den before looking over his shoulder.

Gar was laying sprawled on her side with her back facing him, but he knew without a doubt that she wasn’t asleep; she had

yet to sleep since the night their pups died. He wouldn’t be surprised if her bloodshot eyes were boring holes in the dirt

walls of the den as she pictured Manta’s face. Part of him wanted to stay, was convinced that his mate needed him now

more than ever, but the other part of him knew that he had already tried everything he could think of, and the only thing left

was to give her some time to process alone.

Besides, there were other problems to attend to now.

He fully exited the den, following the hunched shape of the Oracle in the distance and easily catching up with the shambling

elder. She looked up as the alpha fell in step with her, giving a small grunt and a nod. “It’s time,” she muttered, continuing

towards the beach. While Lake Pack was usually found lounging in and near the water at all times, the spreading illness and

the unwell state of the lake was enough to keep them further inland for now, so all that greeted them was barren patches of

sand and pebble.

The elder stopped at what appeared to be a tightly packed clump of moss sitting on the shore away from the water, and she

picked it up before heading towards the water. With the flick of her head, she threw the moss into the water where the thin

clumps of vegetation began to unfurl and seemingly grow in the water. For a moment, the two watched the moss drift further

into the lake with very little to see, and then — slowly but surely — the moss began to give off a faint green glow, getting

stronger with each passing second until soon the entire lake seemed to be glowing the radioactive green color.

Starbloom had been the Packs’ method of communicating the need for a meeting for as long as the Oracle had lived and

discovered the odd plant, and with watchers from every pack on guard, there was most certainly a wolf from each headed to

alert their alpha of the development right now. The message was always the same: “It’s time to meet. Midnight, tomorrow at

Dawn’s Fountain.”

Whitewave had to admit, he wasn’t ready to surrender news of his certain failure in front of the other Pack Alphas. They

already thought so little of him since he hailed from Sled Pack, the pack of wolf-dogs. Proving his worth as the alpha of a

pack other than Sled had been difficult enough, but to admit he had failed in his duty to them all and quite possibly risked

every one of them being killed? Well, that was simply too much.

~CL1 didn't feel like fixing this one, but anyway, this is the last one I had written.

The Book of the Barghest

PROLOGUE

Thunder without rain crackled in the sky above, dark clouds looming over the cliffside as the dark hound was backed to the edge by the four snarling maws. Even at the edge of death, the hound was smiling a crooked smile as it looked upon its work. The timid mahogany wolf was limping from a deep wound to his back leg. The silver she-wolf that stood next to him

had a gash running down the center of her skull. The slate wolf with striking eyes had a set of claw marks on his stomach. They were already dead, the hound knew, the large golden wolf in the lead, however, had yet to be marked.

“So,” the grinning hound chuckled. “This is how it ends?”

“I told you, Barghest,” the golden wolf snarled, “Your reign of terror on these packs would end with your death.”

The Barghest shook its head. “My ‘death’ will only be the start of a new era of pain.”

“Noon, shut its mouth already and let this be over!” The silver wolf snarled, wincing at the pain in her head as she strained herself.

The slate wolf nodded, still maintaining his composure though gushing blood from his belly. “I agree with Dawn for once. Just kill him so we can all go home.”

Noon glanced at his allies before looking back at the hound, who only laughed at the threat. “Well,” the Barghest said with a cocked head, “What do you say you and I have one last dance?”

Noon took up the offer without a word, leaping at the hound and tumbling until they were both dangerously close to the edge.

The Barghest struggled for only a moment, feigning weakness as the golden wolf towered over it. “This ends today,” Noon snarled.

The Barghest’s grin grew wide. “Oh, I wholeheartedly agree.” It wrestled a paw free, digging its claws deep into the place that housed Noon’s heart. The golden alpha howled in pain, pulling away from the hound before pouncing down on it and slamming the beast’s head into the rocks. A long wheeze followed by a hair-raising cackle emanated from the hound’s maw.

“I fail to see the humor in your demise,” Noon growled, his eyes narrowed. The Barghest’s eyes widened as it continued to laugh in the grave wolf’s face. “You just don’t get it, do you? You’re already dead, all of you!”

With that, the slate alpha wobbled on his legs a bit before dropping to the ground. The others turned back to look at him. “Midnight!” Noon shouted, without a reply from the slate wolf. Noon turned his head to the timid red alpha. “Dusk, get him back to his pack.” The shaky wolf nodded frantically before Noon turned back to the hound. The Barghest’s laugh had been reduced to a chuckle now. “He won’t get far, believe me.”

Noon had lost all patience for the hound, grabbing the beast by its neck and hauling him further over the cliff.

“Die,” the golden alpha growled as best as he could with his mouth full before releasing his grip and letting the Barghest fall to the jagged rocks below. A crack of thunder sounded in sync with the snapping of the hound’s spine as it broke over two of the pointed rocks, one stabbing through its lumbar and the other through its throat. The pain lasted only for a moment before its legs went numb. Impaled on the spikes, the Barghest continued to laugh maniacally. “You … you should have

listened to your oracle,” it howled up to Noon. A sickening tearing sound could be heard as the three portions of its body were slowly and painfully pulled apart, and still, it continued to laugh.

“Rot in the Shadow Seas, monster,” Noon hissed down to him.

“When I come back,” the Barghest grinned. “I’ll escort you there myself. That’s a promise.” The numb sensation in its back legs became something else entirely, and in an instant the hound knew that the back half of its body was gone, falling into one side of the dark abyss below as the rest of it tumbled in the other direction.

“What have you done?!” cried a voice from behind. The golden alpha turned his head to face the elderly, half-blind she-wolf staring down at Midnight’s shivering body. Dusk hadn’t had the strength to take the slate alpha back down to where the members of Pasture Pack were waiting. “Oracle,” Noon breathed, his voice hitching a bit. He knew he was wrong; he knew he had blatantly disobeyed the Oracle’s command, and yet he couldn’t help but hope. He hoped that, for once, the

wise elder wolf could be wrong. “It’s dead. The hound is gone; we vanquished it.”

The Oracle only shook her head, her eyes narrowing in a fit of rage for a moment before quickly becoming a look of mournful disappointment. “No, you didn’t.” Her voice grew quieter and broke as if she were on the verge of tears. “You’ve only doomed us all.

~CL1 was gracious and fixed the spacing.

Oops, sorry.

Forgot you existed since I’m IN A DUNGEON.

Oh goodie, give them here, give them here! I’ll spazz about your spacing another time.

(For sake of rereads, are you okay with me copying and pasting your story to a Pages file of my own?)

- President Loki smells like RANCH

I do care! Now instead of blossoms, you can smell like zesty ranch :D

You must admit, under the circumstances, I've been shockingly nice.

(Oh how I love my Portal references.)

I too reread Waning Unity instead of sleeping last night as a part of my random binge-reading ritual. I made a lot more mistakes than I thought, but there's very little I would change overall (which is saying a LOT for me.) That story was a masterpiece.

I have the first few chapters of TBOB written already, but I don't feel like retyping them to fix the spacing so if I do post them, they're gonna be a lil wonky... Sorry! I haven't gotten to writing the next few chapters yet because my brain decided that I should simultaneously get back to writing several different stories at once.

~CL1 has a headache and probably needs to sleep more.

Sorry, sorry, Olive Dungeon.

Wait, wouldn’t that mean I’m in prison?

I’m not paying any rent until I get some decent food around here. I’ve been eating furniture for months.

- President Loki ):(

Aw, man, I didn’t see your reply when I said “How dare you not reply to me” or something along those lines.

Wooooow, Outlander prequel. That would be fun, honestly, even if it were from her mother’s point of view. It could end with her getting mailed by a cougar :). (Okay, that was crude, I’m sorry.)

I’m not a DEMIgod, I’m a REGULARgod! (Mmmm, good spelling, love that.) a demigod would be someone who has a god as one parent and a human as the other parent, or a human/elf/whatever species that was adopted into the fellowship of the gods and raised as one…

Dang it. I’m a demigod.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- President Loki

Thanks, I’m so excited :)

Right, about the collab… let me make sure that I understand chapter 28 before writing the next one…

So Lume has teeth in the gashes in her throat? Like a… a really long mouth? Rereading it several times has brought me to this conclusion but I just need to clarify. (I can hear the Stranger Things theme.)

- President Loki

I’m finally ✨not back-breakingly busy✨! School’s finished for the summer so I should actually have time for writing :)

Yippee

- President Loki

It cracks me up every time- Laser is definitely my favorite but Frame is close in second

- President Loki

Their ship names are top-notch

Laser, Frame, Fume, Fralume, Lumaser, Lufray

10/10

- President Loki

LOL okay, glad I'm not the only one.

~CL1

CL1, my friend says that she ships Fraser and Lume

- President Loki

I think I’m ready to start it now! I’ll use the character who’s later introduced in A Lone Howl. (This means I have to describe him, SIGHHHHHH.)

His name is Bone. (Go figure!) He’s a very old wolf. Very, very old. Centuries, maybe. And he’s dead.

Yup, he's dead, technically. He’s a critical part in the advancement of the pack in A Lone Howl, assisting those rare enough to be given The Gift (haha, that’s as much as you get to know about The Gift right now! No surprises for youuuu).

His appearance:

He’s basically a walking wolf skeleton. In some places (over most of his head, ears, tail, flanks, lower forelegs, etc.), he has skin and fur remaining, but the rest is washed-out bone. His eyes are oddly intact, despite not having a brain (or any organs, for that matter) to connect to them. His eyes are pale blue, but that’s an unimportant detail. His teeth are longer and sharper than most present-day wolves, and his neck is longer, better built for old terrain where the pack used to live in his time.

Oh, and when he doesn’t have a mission (assisting a wolf who has The Gift), he’s basically a cold-blooded monster. He’s very dangerous in fights, and basically just goes on kill streaks; that’s what having no mind will do for you, ha, ha.

So I was thinking, maybe the coyote pack that your character is from could have a sort of myth about him? Like a, “Beware, the bone wolf monster will rip off your face and eat your hair, yadayadayada, scary, be afraid, don’t leave your tail out at night” sort of thing. (I expect the myth to be exactly like what I just said.)

What’s your character?

- Loki

P.S., sorry that was so LONG.

Ooh, fine, then I’ll make rules!

Rule 1: DO NOT LOOK FOR MY OTHER IDENTITIES BECAUSE HAHA WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT I DON’T HAVE ANY OTHER IDENTITIES! YOU’RE CRAZY, DON’T EVEN BOTHER WITH LOOKING FOR THEM BECAUSE THEY AREN’T THERE!

Rule 2: Refer to rule one

Rule 3: I told you to refer to rule one

Rule 4: You’re bad at listening! Fine. If you must look for my other identities (which aren’t even a thing! Shhh), try whatever you want. You won’t have any luck.

- President Loki

Oh, no you are one hundred percent insane, but aren't we all?

No yeah, I'm big on Star Wars too. Basically, I enjoy most nerdy things hehe.

~CL1

Nice advice. I’m leaning towards a story called A Lone Howl… it’s about a wolf named Journey. What do you think?

- President Loki

Magenta is a good section to post in, so yes, let’s do it there.

I like the sound of New Moon and Waning Unity. Those are my two favorites as of now. My creativity also took a trip to Mexico City so I can’t think of any titles at the moment.

I am NOT doing “Get Help”.

- President Loki is sad because you keep saying that I’m guilty of killing your past self even though I didn’t.

(By the way, why did you go back so far to get a past self?! You could’ve gone back a week ago. Why did you go back so many years?)

Ah so he's inquisitive. That's gonna be fun :)

Name ideas ... spitballing 2.0

Maybe something with the moon?

Phase of the Full Moon?

New Moon?

Or something with the split

Divide and Destroy?

The End of Unity?

Or a mixture of both

Waning Unity?

Phases of Dissent?

Idk, I've done my due dilligance.

Also we need to pick a dye section. I vote magenta since it hasn't really been claimed and so we don't bury Blood War.

... guess I'll work on Lume's prologue. Past me, wanna help?

(I thought you were gone. Just leave me alone ... I'm busy.)

What could possibly be more important than me?

(My first dodo dex story. I'm basing on my singleplayer game.)

Wait, you haven't even written Procoptodon Chronicles yet?? How far back did I pull you from ...

(Whenever you figure it out, could you send me back please -._-.)

No :D

~Classic Lok1 has accepted your cereal bowl of peace, but don't think this gets you off the hook for letting me die.

(President Loki, please get help.)

HA! YOU SAID THE THING! Wait, was Thor: Rag out by the time I wrote PC?

(Yes wha- How young do you think I am???)

Ah, yes, Smart Boi Fraser tries to save the day and then the second he steps foot on the battleground he throws up because of his sensitivity to dead bodies! This is gonna be so exciting!

Good luck to Lume trying to handle Fraser’s pestering questions once he discovers how unnatural she really is. I feel bad for her and I haven’t even written a sentence of the story yet.

Anyways… I like the sound of those ideas! And I can imagine that the now-angry split packs wouldn’t like Fraser all too much, since he refused to go with any of them when they disbanded and didn’t want to ally with anyone. I’m liking the sound of this so far!

Now we need a name -._-.

- President Loki is sorry for hoarding the cereal and is now offering up a bowl of Captain Crunch as a peace offering.

ooOOooo a veggie eater !

This split of the pack definently sounds negative, but each individual group is tight knit so positive, neutralish ground. Lume is a wanderer, so she could definently make her way through the desert. Also, can't remember if I said this in my last post or not, but Lume isn't one of the ancestors in the since she never "lived." She's always been the way she is, so it'll be fun to see that clash with Fraser's logic.

Hmm... aight, spitball time.

1. The splits of the packs have an uneasy peace that starts to break and become more agressive with families being split? Corrupts Lume, makes things worse so Fraser has to try and make peace to keep Lume from causing a mania and letting them all kill each other.

2. You said he's sort of loyal to the desert since that was his home. I'm assuming his split has left the desert then, so maybe the splits come to a truce to fight another threat.

Actually, combination of those two - Split packs grow so agressive to one another that they eventually get confrontational. Lume gets corrupted and causes hysteria, making the splits violent to each other and pushing it further. Smart boi Fraser figures out the dissent is what's turning Lume and has to get the packs to unify to uncorrupt her and stop the bloodshed?

~Classic Lok1 is just gonna get some Lucky Charms since you're gatekeeping the Captain Crunch -._-.