For Silver Shards, because she's awesome. Merry Christmas!

The thing about werewolves, Kain thought to himself as he pulled his gauntlets tight around his wrists, is that they were, at the very core of their being, nothing more than overgrown dogs with too much hair and far too much pent-up anger.

The caves that threaded the hills in the southern forest were a complex and stinking system of interwoven caverns and passages filled with archaic mechanisms and hidden traps. The people who had built these structures, hollowing them out of the hillside into the once magnificent temples that they had been, must have laboured long and hard over their creation. Their dedication and vision impressed the vampire lord and the state of neglect into which they had fallen almost touched his black heart with sadness. As it was, with the stench of rabid, mangy dog infesting the air and turning it sour with the scent of filth, he was filled more with a potent sense of revulsion.

The shadow of canine rage stalking him through the corridors gave a sudden snarl of irritation and the sharp crack of rotten wood echoed down the passage towards him as the massive beast slammed itself bodily through another door.

Like so many other creatures in this decaying world, Kain was quite sure that the werewolves were yet another example of a race fallen into depravity and decline. Just as the Pillars and their Guardians had fallen slowly into a miasma of madness and self-delusion, the peoples and races of Nosgoth had long been sinking into the mire of their own apathy.

Decay was everywhere. From the plagues that turned the people's skin to festering sores, to the creeping shadows that had begun to fill Termogent Forest, to the twisted insanity glinting in the half-skull eye sockets of that harpy Ariel. Decay and madness everywhere. Sometimes Kain wondered if he was the only one to see it.

The room in which he had chosen to briefly rest was dark as the grave. His nose told him of rotten wood and stagnant water, layered over with dust and the sharp tang of his own blood. His wounds had already sealed themselves with the dark magic of his new form, but their infliction had left him weakened and in need of feeding. This place had been full of mangy, half-starved werewolves almost from the moment he had crossed the threshold. But Kain's confidence in both his weapons skills and his magics had carried him through the first few hours of dark tunnels and dank chambers in search of lost artefacts and hidden tomes. He had found his way by scent, touch and cantrips that lit the corridors around him with pale, flickering witch-light.

At first the rooms had been mostly bare of anything save broken furniture and rotten tapestries slick with mould. But as he had progressed, attacked occasionally by leaping forms of slavering madness, the walls had started to change from dull grey brick to a kind of golden yellow sandstone that indicated this place had started out life housing a completely different set of occupants. The style of architecture changed too. Doorways became narrower and archways became pointed into alien shapes and patterns that seemed exotic to his eyes.

The walls in the deeper sections had been adorned with murals that retained the outlines of their beauty even after so many years of neglect. They depicted winged forms, faces twisted into hideous cruelty, wielding broadswords and lightning as they swooped down upon fleeing human victims. There were other creatures too, a strange race of dark-skinned figures with long, slender limbs and exotic features, winged as the other ravening beings were, but with halos of light surrounding them. These creatures stood valiantly and defended the land with spears and elegant pikes that sparked with a green energy.

Amongst the incessant hounding of the werebeast inhabitants of this place, Kain hadn't really had that much time to conduct an in depth study of the murals, but they were certainly unlike anything he had ever before seen. And with his aristocratic education, Kain considered himself sufficiently informed to hold an opinion on the topic.

Despite the curious nature of the art and the architecture of the inner sanctums of this place, Kain had yet to uncover any magical artefacts. And after several hours of wandering, what felt like at least four separate packs of werewolves and enough stinking dog-nests to last him the rest of his unlife, Kain had had to admit that he might just be a little bit lost. It had been not long after that admission that the last of his magical energy had fled him, and with it, his ability to cast magical light.

It was perhaps indicative of his current lifestyle that Kain had discovered to his chagrin that he no longer carried with him flint and tinder. As with all nocturnal creatures that maintained their sense of sight, Kain's night vision was still reliant upon there being at least the barest hint of light in order for him to see anything. In this place of utter darkness, bereft of even the pale twinkle of starlight, he was completely blind. No matter, he could navigate the hallways by the scent of dog alone.

And dogs there had been. Werewolves actually, but Kain hardly thought them worth the exalted title. They had come at him in droves the further inside the sprawling labyrinth he had ventured, enough of them that even wielding his vicious battle axes, their fangs and claws had found ways beneath his armour to tear at his flesh. The wounds he had sustained had been mostly minor, and had it not been for the previous hours he had spent wandering this place, he would hardly have thought to be troubled by them. But the hours he had been down here had begun to stretch and far above the world had turned once more to the sun's embrace. The conditions were no longer prime for a young vampire such as Kain.

Somewhere amidst his growing irritation, the ever-increasing thirst for pure, non-canine blood, and the itch of fast-healing wounds, the attacks from the resident packs had dwindled away to nothing. It was in this strange calm that the alpha-were had found him. It had come snarling out of the darkness, a rush of air and fetid breath, crushing him to the floor beneath its vast, hairy weight.

Werewolves were not true wolves in their wolf form. Their teeth were too large and too many, their legs too long and gangling and the intelligence in their fevered eyes was too great for their beastly forms. As Kain struggled for leverage beneath the heaving body, he had reflected that just like the rest of Nosgoth, werewolves were just another perverted reflection of a decaying race.

Just like vampires, he had thought. The difference, Kain reasoned, between vampires and werewolves, was that where one race had devolved into something far less than the original creature upon which it was modelled, the other had risen to something far greater. Where the werewolves had fallen into a form of bestiality that mocked the nobility of their wolf cousins, vampires such as Kain had become elevated above their humble origins into a species that, with its grace, power and deadly beauty, had accurately severed all ties and obligations to the race that had spawned it.

He had pondered that and all its implications as the huge, snarling beast had pursued him tirelessly through the corridors. Weakened from blood loss and a lack of sources from which to replenish himself, Kain had come to the conclusion that meeting this particular beast head-on was not going to be the way to win this fight. Dredging up the very last of his magical energy from a body whose muscles were screaming at him to cease his punishment of them, he had traced his way through the maze in flickering bursts of light and magic. Finally, in a mixture of luck and vampiric abilities, he had come to his current spot of sanctuary hidden in the furthest chamber of a dead-end corridor. Across the other side of the passage, another chamber lurked dark and mysterious, its door hanging open invitingly. Working its way down the corridor in a remarkable show of meticulous care, the alpha-were was systematically breaking down the doors of each chamber it passed and checking each one before moving on to the next.

Kain bared his teeth into the darkness in a snarl of anticipation and hefted Havoc in one hand. Werewolves, he thought, were just another reflection of this dying world. Somewhere along the way, Nosgoth had turned in on itself, consuming its own flesh from the inside and spewing out the waste as plagues and ravening horrors that tormented the land with their foulness. It was like a giant smelting pot. From the crud that entered the mix, once prepared and purified, there would emerge a masterwork of purity and strength.

A finished piece that was outwardly nothing like the dull ores that had created it, and yet sprang directly from their flesh. Kain grinned and ran his hand along the side of the wall to where memory told him the architects of this place were fond of placing their torch brackets. He was rewarded by the soft give of rotting wood that crumbled beneath his fingers and the cold metal of the torch holder. Sliding the metal rod from its bracket, careful to allow it no treacherous sound, he lifted it down and hefted it in one hand. In the corridor outside, he heard the scrape of the werewolf's claws on the paving and scented the fetid rot of its breath. The huge beast paused outside the final two doors and Kain could picture it peering carefully into the darkness of the open portal.

The grin that stretched his lips was full of anticipation as, gathering the last of his magical energy, Kain yanked the door open and cast his cantrip of light. The werewolf's head snapped round from where it faced the opposite doorway and it was then, with the beast's eyes clearly upon him that Kain threw the torch holder.

Somewhere, deep inside the werewolf's brain, a long dormant trigger was tripped and the inner dog registered the stick-like object arcing through the air and away from it. Its own muscles betrayed it then and the giant werewolf was halfway into leaping pursuit of the stick before it could stop itself. That fraction of a second's distraction was all that the vampire lord needed. The werewolf's eyes were still on the tumbling arc of the torch holder and so the last thing it ever registered other than that fatally tempting length of metal, was the mocking tone of the vampire lord's voice.

"Fetch, boy..."

The trouble with werewolves, Kain mused to himself as he cleaned the blood from Havoc's blade, was that they really were too damn predictable.