Jadwiga calculated the distance from the crypt exit to the nearest defensible position. A minimum of forty-seven paces across exposed flagstone, then up a flight of twenty-two steps to the main hall. Not ideal. She glanced at Olgierd, still half-beast, struggling to pull himself upright. His black claws scraped against the stone. The air outside the crypt, usually still, now carried the distant, growing clamor of an angry crowd.
“We need to secure the entrance to the manor. Immediately,” Jadwiga stated, her voice flat. “They are already here.”
Olgierd managed to stand, his eyes still burning gold in the dim light. Fur receded fully, leaving him pale and shivering. “They will bypass any door, Jadwiga. Grzegorz knows every weakness, every loose brick, every latch. He will have told Witek.”
“Then we must create new weaknesses, and new strengths,” she replied, already moving past him. She ignored his nakedness, a minor detail irrelevant to the immediate problem. “Is there a main defensive switch for the manor’s… eccentricities?”
“A switch?” Olgierd coughed, following her out of the crypt. “It’s more of a… pervasive consciousness. The manor itself is spellbound. It responds to strong will, or… extreme emotional distress.”
Jadwiga considered this. “Extreme emotional distress. Excellent. We have a surfeit of that.” Her gaze swept across the great hall, now visible as they emerged from the cellar. Dust motes danced in the slivers of moonlight filtering through the high, arched windows. A faint, reddish streak pulsed across the sky beyond the glass – the final comet, a malevolent eye observing their plight.
“Borys,” Jadwiga called out, addressing the sentient suit of armor by the main entrance. “Status report?”
The armored gauntlet creaked. “Militia, approximately forty individuals. Carrying torches, pitchforks, and an alarming number of blunt instruments. One Witek Głowacz, visibly sweating, leading the charge. One Grzegorz, providing tactical advice. They are attempting to ignite the north wing’s trellis.”
“A trellis is a poor ignition source,” Jadwiga mumbled, already formulating a plan. “Olgierd, we need to fortify the west hallway. It offers the most chokepoints. Borys, activate defensive protocols. Any furniture with independent mobility, block stairwells. Library, start repositioning to form interior barriers. Focus on heavy, non-flammable volumes.”
The manor responded with a low groan. A heavy oak armoire in the corner shifted on its clawed feet, scraping across the polished floor. Bookshelves in the library, visible through an open archway, began to rumble, their contents shuffling with a sound like a thousand whispers.
Olgierd stared. “You… you’re telling the furniture what to do?”
“It seems more efficient than doing it ourselves,” Jadwiga said, already dragging a heavy, ornate bench toward the west hallway. “Now, are you going to stand there marveling at basic instruction, or assist?”
He grumbled, but his bare collarbones hitched tight. “Assist. Of course. Though I usually just… yell.”
“Yelling is often counterproductive to precision deployment,” she informed him, then paused, listening. A splintering crash echoed from the front door. “They’re inside. West hallway, now!”
Olgierd moved with a speed that belied his human form, intercepting a flying table that had decided to block a window instead of a door. He slammed it against the wall, then ripped a heavy velvet curtain from its rod, knotting it around a statue of a weeping gargoyle, pulling it into position. Jadwiga directed the maneuvers, pointing, instructing, her mind a whirlwind of spatial geometry and structural integrity.
The mob, emboldened by their breach, streamed into the foyer. Their shouts were a cacophony of fear and righteous anger. Witek, brandishing a rusty hunting axe, led them, his face red with exertion. “For Mokradla! For Jadwiga’s soul! Burn the beast and cleanse this blight!”
“A blight with an excellent sound system,” Jadwiga muttered, as the manor’s enchanted gramophone in the ballroom unexpectedly cranked to life, blasting a discordant, ear-splitting polka. Several men clutched their ears, disoriented.
Olgierd, now clothed in a hastily acquired and ill-fitting tunic, stood before the west hallway, his hands curled tight. His eyes flickered, the golden glow intensifying. A low growl rumbled in his chest. Jadwiga noted the signs: accelerated heart rate, muscle tremors, a slight elongation of his fingernails. The curse was gaining strength.
“Stay behind me, Jadwiga,” Olgierd commanded, his voice deeper, rougher. He stepped forward as Witek and his advance guard approached the barricaded corridor. The hunter paused, surprised by the sudden, eerie silence of the polka-less foyer, and the sight of the unyielding nobleman.
“Olgierd!” Witek shrieked, pointing his axe. “Return Jadwiga to us, monster! You cannot hide her with your cursed magic!”
“She is not ‘returned’ to anyone,” Jadwiga called out from behind Olgierd's back, stepping into view. “And I am not ‘hidden.’ I am occupied. You are disrupting a critical logistical operation.”
Witek lowered his blade an inch. The folk murmured amongst themselves, thrown off balance by the sheer flat cadence of her delivery.
Olgierd, however, felt the surge of the curse. His vision blurred, the faces of the villagers warping into grotesque caricatures. He roared, a sound that was no longer fully human, and lunged. He tore through the first line of men, not with claws yet, but using raw mass, flinging bodies aside into the wall. He moved with a brutal, accelerating grace, fueled by a terrifying blend of rage and a primal need to protect Jadwiga.
Jadwiga continued to direct the manor’s defenses, ignoring the fray. “Borys, deploy the velvet drapes! Entangle any targets wielding open flame! Library, release a controlled cascade of the ‘History of Obscure Tax Law’ volumes onto the main staircase!”
The velvet drapes billowed from the upper rail, descending to wrap around torch-wielding invaders, smothering tar pitch and pinning their arms. A cascade of weighty, leather-bound books thundered down the grand staircase, sending several would-be climbers tumbling.
Olgierd moved with ragged momentum, snapping forward on heavy sinew. His fingers elongated, black fur sprouted on his forearms. He was fighting with a desperate ferocity, but the changes were coming faster, more violently. He threw a man against a wall, leaving a deep indentation. Jadwiga saw the primal gleam in his eyes, the edges of a snout beginning to push against his skin. He was losing himself.
Suddenly, Olgierd spun, grabbing Jadwiga by the upper arms. His grip was painfully tight. His eyes, now almost fully golden, burned into hers, reflecting the red comet outside. The transformation was pushing through, but a sliver of human desperation remained.
“Jadwiga,” he rasped, his voice a low growl, barely recognizable. His breath was hot on her face. “You… you must understand. I…”
He faltered, a spasm shaking his entire body. His grip tightened further, his developing claws digging into her flesh. A guttural roar tore from his throat, a sound of pure agony. The golden light in his eyes flared, then dimmed, replaced by a vacant, predatory hunger. His head snapped away from her, and with a final, shuddering surge of muscle, he broke free of his remaining clothes and sprinted into the depths of the manor, disappearing into a shadowy archway, leaving behind only the echoing sound of his escape and a faint, acrid scent.
Jadwiga looked down at the crescent-shaped indentations on her sleeves, then back at the fray. Without Olgierd’s bulk blocking the arch, the men rallied, though the manor’s defenses were still holding them at bay. She calmly assessed the situation. Olgierd was gone, overwhelmed. The manor’s defenses were effective, but not impenetrable, especially with Grzegorz’s knowledge.
She moved to reinforce a collapsing book barricade, pushing a heavy tome on ‘Hydroponic Fungal Cultivation’ back into place. Her mind raced, sifting through the manor’s blueprints, trying to anticipate Grzegorz’s next move. He would choose the path of least resistance, the one that bypassed her visible barricades.
The manor creaked around her, a symphony of shifting wood and groaning stone. The last of the invaders were being repelled from the main foyer by a particularly aggressive grandfather clock that swung its iron pendulum like a scythe. Jadwiga took a moment, listening, trying to pinpoint the true point of ingress.
A whisper of air, a faint scent of old earth and silver. Not from the front. Not from the main passages. From *inside*.
She spun, her eyes darting across the familiar, dust-laden grand hall. There, by the ornate fireplace, a section of the wall had slid open, revealing a narrow, dark passage. And standing in the opening, a silver-loaded crossbow raised and aimed, was Witek Głowacz. His hair stuck to his forehead with soot, grease gleaming along his cheekbones.
“It’s over,” he snarled, the crossbow bolt glinting malevolently in the dim light, pointed directly at Jadwiga’s chest.