The Garou are Gaia's fangs, made to fight the Wyrm—the cosmic enemy, the principle of rot and ruin. The Wyrm spreads through the spirit world with its army of Banes and unclean spirits, and slowly kills the living Earth through pollution and extraction. Before your First Change, Clay's pack slaughtered the Banes and mercenaries that guarded the empty pipeline that rises over the winter woods, but now they're paralyzed by despair, convinced that the Apocalypse has come and gone, that Gaia is dead and the appearance of life is only the quiver of dead nerves. You turn the possibility over in your mind. Is there still a chance to save this ravaged world? If so, what weapons can the Garou wield, if Rage has failed?
As you consider what "Glory" might look like in this fallen age, a strange smell draws your attention. It's the dead horse in the snow. Sometimes, fomori—that's the name you learned for when a Bane possesses a person or animal—sometimes fomori rot quickly after death, consumed by the putrescence of the Wyrm. Other times, Clay's packmate Scarper has to roll the corpse up in a rug and take it to a pig farm his ex-girlfriend owns. That's always a hassle. But though this horse's fanged teeth have disappeared and it now looks like an ordinary dead horse, the flesh smells…sweet and strong. As if it still held some power within it.
The Litany—the laws of your people—tell you not to eat the flesh of humans. This monster was never human, but still you hesitate.
Damn the Litany! It has failed, and now the world is all but lost. But I have won, so now I brush the flies away and eat.
I'm still worried about the horseman. I want to make sure he's all the way dead. Mortals ruined this world, and I don't want one slinking off to cause more trouble.
I won't eat the dead. I offer the proper prayers to whatever spirits still watch over this place, and thank them for my victory.
I don't want meat, I want information. If there are more of these creatures, they might attack the communities nearby. I study the dead rider for clues that will help me protect people.
Next