Aneirin wasn't sure what had drawn him to this village, especially not on this beautiful clear night, when by all rights he should have been out in the fields, looking up at the stars, and whiling away his time in his own thoughts. But here he was, on a dusty track from here to nowhere, just outside the village.

The pregnant full moon hung low in the sky, as the evening had just begun, and there was still the sound of laughter and merriment coming from the inn, the twinkling of its fires almost mirroring the twinkling of the stars overhead. He looked up again, ticking off constellations in his head, "the plough, the hunter, the oarsman, Lupus," drawing silvered lines with his mind to join up the pictures in night's blanket.

A wolf howled somewhere in the distance, calling up to moon, his song echoed by a number of others elsewhere in the fields. This struck Aneirin as slightly odd, hearing a wolf on the open plains, but then again, they were moving out of their woodland homes nowadays.

Heading into the town, Aneirin could hear voices and snatches of conversation coming out of it, murmurs of "vicious murders," and "wounds that look like bite marks," all of them "inside the village itself!" A fervent few suggested that this was their punishment from a cruel god for some few mis-deeds occurring in the village's past, while others claimed that wolves were roaming their very streets, searching for blood. Aneirin shook his head. Wolves wouldn't dare come into this village unless they were starving, and there was no chance of that with the abundance of food that he had found out on the plains. He shook his head, and continued along the street, away from the inn, dismissing the tales as nonsense.

Someone hailed him from the corner of the street, and when he looked, he saw a woman, sitting under the eaves of a small building, legs twisted and gnarled underneath her frail body. She asked him quietly if he could spare her some money, or some food. Her milky pale eyes looked blindly up at him, pleading with his soul, until he bent down beside her, took some soft fruit from inside his cloak, and pressed it into her hands. “Bless you, son,” she whispered to him, biting into it, and smiling slightly.

Aneirin smiled and stood up about to walk away, but then she said, “I’d be wary tonight, traveller. The wolf will be back, and he’ll still be hungry. He always is...” Sighing, Aneirin moved on, wondering on her words. A wolf in a village? This was still a strange idea, and it sounded as though she had met it. She probably wouldn’t still be alive if it was hungry enough to invade the bounds of the town. He dismissed her as having lost some of her mind with her sight, and moved on, asking the gods to look after her in her remaining time, still wondering what had drawn him to this village...

"Murderer" Thae thought. "I'm a murderer. I kill people for my own good. I'm a murderer." He was drinking a beer in the overcrowded pub. The crying of pub songs could be heard a long distance away. Everybody was filled with joy, and beer ofcourse. A more sober looking man sat next to him. He had been attracting people with his wolf stories. But it was no wolf that had killed the people. It was Thae.

Thae knew he did it but he couldn't help it. He was a werewolf. A man that would turn into a wolf on times that the lunar power was great. No matter how much he'd resist, his inner wolf would take over. This disease, how Thae called it, had forced him to leave numerous villages and towns for he mostly avoided crowded cities.

"Ahuuuuuuuu!" was heard in the distance. A loud howl. Thae jumped up and walked outside. He vaguely heard the barman say "Oi! Pay your drink, buddy!" but didn't pay attention. He looked up and saw the moon. It was full. Quickly, he pulled his hand out of his jacket. He noticed hair growing on it. It was already too late.

He ran away, into an alley. His left leg was already completely covered in hairs and his right was soon to follow. He had to get out of the village. In a desparate attempt to leave the town, he crawled on his hands, for his legs were already uncontrollable. He only got a few feet away from the last location as he felt that he had no more control over his body.

It was terrible. He could still hear, see and feel things but he couldn't stop them. He lost his control but not his senses. This was strange about Thae. When turned into a lycanthrope, he could still use his senses. It was unbearable to see the bloodshed that his own body caused. He ran through the alleys of the village, in search of a prey when his eye caught a man. His body stormed at the man and Thae wished he could close his eyes.

A cry for payment came from the inn behind Aneirin, and he turned around, to see a hunched figure standing outside it, looking up at the sky, and then hurriedly left and right. It darted off, slipping down a side street.

Aneirin looked up at the sky, casting about for what this mysterious stranger had been looking at. The stars gleamed down, the moon still huge in the sky. Then it dawned on him suddenly. The attacks, bite marks, the full moon, the man dashing out of the inn. It was all linked. Werewolf. The thought flashed through his mind, and he remembered the one time he had caught sight of a werewolf in the undergrowth in a forest. Larger than a wolf, they looked even more fearsome, with high hackles and a dark grey, almost black coat. He could see its long teeth, more like knives than teeth, even from a distance, shining in the moonlight. They were vicious creatures, he knew, and had no wish to get caught by one...

Turning away, he headed off in the opposite direction to where the man had gone. Sometimes discretion was the better part of valour, after all. There came a howl from somewhere behind him, and his hackles rose. He increased his pace and took a turning, followed by another, hoping to escape this creature.

He could feel the spines on his cloak begin to stand on end, the living magick in them responding to danger, as he heard the fast, thumping footsteps. He spun on his heel just too late, as the creature was already flying towards the air. Without time to take his mace out, Aneirin wrapped the cloak around him, spines extending from every part of his body, and braced for the impact.

When it came, it was shattering. The creature barrelled into him and time seemed to slow. The breath was pounded from his lungs, and he saw the stars spiral in the heavens, as he was whipped backwards. But then he hit the floor hard, the spell breaking, wind rushing from his lungs. Trying to force a breath, he lifted his arms, trying to shove the spiny cloak into the werewolf's sensitive muzzle, while at the same time protecting his head. "Please..." he thought, "please"