The moon was a cold penny in the sky, a perfect circle accompanied by a myriad of stars. Mist rose up from the wet, forest floor that was strewn with rotten leaves and damp wood. Poisonous fungi had taken the opportunity to fester and conquer certain parts of the ground among the leaves and the wet wood. Loons called to each other on the edge of a distant pond, and they took flight towards the moon.  

Claude padded along the decaying ground, his paws silent through the wet leaves and mud. He whined and winced in pain every step he took, breathing heavily from his dry mouth. He was not able to turn his head and look at his wound. It  would have to wait. Every hair on his body was on edge, and he could not help but fear that the Huntsman and his axe were close behind.

He knew they were not. He had failed. the grandmother had escaped him there would be no justice now for the families of the children slaughtered by the Old Lady.

Through the naked trees was a cluster of rocks, large enough to hide behind. There he lowered himself to the ground using his front paws, growling quietly as he did so. He caught his breath, resting for a minute or two to prepare himself to change. Claude preferred his human form; he had not changed enough to deal with the physical pain, and he found himself dreading the moments when he had to turn.

He let his wild self go, his steel-coloured fur sliding into his skin, long white teeth shot back into his pink gums and his claws sank into his feet. His human flesh covered his bones again and he lay bare on the wet forest floor, his chest rising and falling heavily as he clutched his ribs where the axe had cut into his side. Now that he was human again his skin would start to heal quicker than it would if he was a wolf.

He pulled himself off the ground with a boulder to aid him and he found his clothes between leaf-covered rocks. Groaning softly, he shrugged on his shirt and trousers, pulled on his boots, and threw a cape over his aching shoulders.

It perhaps took him thirty minutes to struggle through the forest. It was longer than usual as he continued to lean on random trees to rest his tiring body. Ten minutes after his last rest he saw the small sprawl of glowing tents on the edge of the restless lake. Wind whipped across its icy surface towards the camp, gently pushing the tents.

Before he could descend the familiar slope he heard a quiet whisper. He assumed it was a child fooling around in the forest, and he headed back into the trees to look for the source. However, there was nothing, except a crimson cloak draped over a small woman. Her hair blew in the cool breeze and Claude recognised the black, soulless, Hunter eyes on the woman’s face.

“You thought you could steal away with my grandmother, try her with your savage laws, and then kill her?” asked Red Hood. “Good thing I shouted for the Huntsman.” She drew her knife. “While you were busy limping back to your ‘gypsy’ settlement I followed you. Didn’t know wolves were that stupid.”

“I am disappointed that I did not take your grandmother,” Claude retorted. “She should be tried for the crimes against our people, as we do with other Hunters like her who unjustly hurt our kind. She killed a group of our children not only a month ago. You fear what you do not know.”

Claude did not miss the brief moment of sympathy in Red Hood’s soulless eyes. It was either sympathy, or the realisation that her grandmother had withheld her act from her - the slaughter of five wolves, none of them over ten summers old.

“That does not matter,” Red Hood told him, trying to persuade herself about the issue. “Your people should die young so they do not breed and fester within this country’s forests. The death of five innocents means nothing to me. I hope God will strike you down where you stand.”

In the distance, a hunting horn bellowed through the forest and over the lake. Loons cried out in disgust at the sound.

Red Hood chuckled, her eyes turning blacker, “Perhaps it will not be God who strikes you down, but us Hunters.”

Her thin lips curled into a smile as Claude turned around to see hundreds of Hunters like Red Hood circling the camp with torches and drawn swords. Every man had a dagger, every second man was armed with an axe.

Wolf children screamed for their parents, and Claude heard the shredding of clothes as his people changed to wolves to defend themselves and each other from the Hunters.  

A Hunter’s voice screamed above the commotion.

“La mort aux loups-garous!”

Claude felt his teeth push their way out of his gums and he saw his nails grow into claws. Anger was what he felt; anger towards the Hunters and the stupid war between wolves and men. He felt guilt too; it was Claude who led the Hunters and Red Hood to the settlement.

The world went dark as he turned around to face Red Hood, to kill her, and he slumped to the ground after her sharp strike with the handle of her dagger.

He awoke to the smell of smoke and ash, flakes and fragments of wood kissing his skin and burning the hair on his forearms. There was a fire crackling in the distance, the occasional shout from men, another scream from the mouth of a child. However, the only thought in his pounding mind was a certain Hunter: Red Hood. He was a fool to have been distracted by her while the Hunters surged the settlement.

Claude stood, tripping over leaves as he did so, and looked upon the smouldering wreck of the encampment. Hunters had sacked the tents and were dragging the contents up the opposite hill, books and anything of value that the wolves had owned; which was not much.

A pyre burned bright in the centre of the settlement and men were throwing bodies into the flames like they were sacks of wheat. The fire burned bright, fifty wolves strong and no survivors to add to the smoking pile.

He was the last wolf.

Le dernier loup-garou.