Franz Lohner's Chronicle - Wolf Time

An absent-minded man of mysteries, Franz Lohner relies on his bulging journal to keep track of occurrences, intrigues and arguments around Taal's Horn Keep. Sometimes his notes are even useful, believe it or not. The Franz Lohner Chronicles are extracts from that journal.

The wolves are back, howling through the snows. 

Seems they didn’t get the message last time, so Kruber’s out there now, pinning tails to fence posts and loping around in that big, one-eyed pelt he took off the last snarling chieftain that reckoned we were a good bet for a tasty morsel on a cold day. Sienna, not being one with a lot of faith in terms like “Pack Alpha” has staggered off after him – she’s been afloat on a cloud of brandy fumes for a good week now – so I reckon we’ll have fire amid the snows before too much longer. No harm done, as long as they come back in one piece and everyone’s had a good time.

You see, the thing with wolves hereabouts is that you never be entirely sure that they really are wolves. I mean the flesh-and-blood bone-and-spirit type. Wasn’t that long ago we had a vampire lurking higher up the mountains. “We” in the collective sense, of course. Assuming the Helmgart records are correct – and there’s always a first time – his hash was well and truly settled about fifty years back by an angry mob from the villages. Torches, pitchforks and all, apparently. I do like to see the traditions being observed.

Anyway, this bloodsucker rejoiced in the name of Dieter the Unholy, because some folks really do like saying the quiet part loud, and spent near two hundred years victimising the locals. Brave boy, setting up shop so close to a major town, but then he did insist on sending his dire wolves out to do most of the actual slaughtering. Dragged victims – living and dead – back to their master’s cave as provisions, or else as fuel for Dieter’s blasphemous rituals. 

Still, eventually Dieter overreached. One year, when the snows weren’t anywhere near as heavy as the norm, the local priest gave a sermon that set such a fire burning in the blood that the villagers found a mite of courage. The rest, as they say, is all body parts, cleansing pyres and the stuff of history. 

Things is, vampires do have a habit of coming back from the dead, don’t they? What with them being dead to begin with it’s less of a trip than you might think. And with all the magic sloshing around from recent world events and our own little excitement with the Weaves, perhaps old Dieter’s pulled himself back together again?

Can’t have that. Fortunately, we’ve got a priest of our own on the premises these days. I think I’ll toddle off and have a little chat with Saltzpyre. Even if I am worrying over nothing, it’ll give him something to obsess over for a few days, and that means a quieter life for the rest of us.