P is for Parade Route Through Werewolf Territory

            I was the only survivor of King Percival’s Premier Parade Through Parseland.  Parseland is the overly-poetic name for werewolf territory.  I have the less-poetic scars to prove it.

            Thinking back, pulling the carriages with elk was probably not the best idea, seeing as how raw elk is the national dish of Parseland.  But I was young then—not a day over twenty—and a salary of three gold pieces for a two-hour jaunt through the woods defending a royal parade sounded like a good deal.

            King Percival spared no expense, hiring twenty of us mercenaries along with his fifteen war-hardened Royal Guards.  Unfortunately, King Grimm of Parseland brought close to fifty of his best soldiers to tear out of throats and eat our kidneys.

            The battle was short yet hard-fought.  We drew our silvered daggers and tried not to lose our throat and/or kidneys.  I left with one throat and—thank Deity humans have two—one kidney.  My fellow countrymen were not so lucky.

            King Grimm perished beneath my dagger in the waning moments of the fight.  I would have been knighted for my service, but King Percival was too busy dying from the lack of a throat.  What a pity.

            I guess it doesn’t really matter now anyway.  The King would probably not have been very keen to knighting a young mercenary transfiguring into a werewolf.  Especially not when said mercenary was on his way to claim the throne of Parseland.