Haken: A Capacity for Violence Part 1

Forge master Haken ignited the spark of rebellion, instigating a war between the werewolves of Haven and their oppressors--the human military holding the pack hostage while performing cruel experiments on them. After the events of Werewolves 1: Haven Rising, Haken was nowhere to be found. What happened to him between the events of Haven Rising and his reemergence in Werewolves 3: Evolution's End?

A Capacity for Violence

Chapter 1

The weight on Haken's eyelids seemed like an insurmountable obstacle at first, lifting them a herculean task that dwarfed even his long days slaving over Haven's forge. He felt a surge of adrenaline when the lashes finally fluttered apart, revealing his surroundings in streaks of greys and whites. If he'd been able to summon the necessary breath, he would have cried out in victory. 

There was someone moving above him, and in his delirium he saw what he wanted to see.

  "Razor?" Haken croaked in a barely audible whine that sounded more like grinding sandpaper than the voice of a man. He could see her now—the forge mistress herself standing above, looking down on him with pity. He'd seen that expression on her face once before, and for the moment those memories became the present. 

"I've got them, Razor," he said. "The flowers. It took me all night…" 

Foolish of him to give in to his affections. Foolish Haken. Haken, the Brute. Haken, the lone follower of the old ways. The Great Spirit had determined that he was to suffer and he'd accepted it gladly up until now. He was a blunt instrument suitable only for the molding of metal, not the soft, supple flesh he imagined as he lay awake at night, listening to lonely waves beat against Haven's shoreline.

Alone. So very alone.

"Doctor," the vision of Razor said. "He's awake!"

That's strange, Haken thought. That's not Razor's voice at all. He tried to focus his vision and, failing that, his mind. He wasn't in Haven. No. This place was new.

"Damn. His adrenals are off the charts! I've never seen data like this!"

That must be the doctor. The world was slowly spinning back into focus. He only needed a few more minutes. That was all.

"Stop looking at those bloody machines and do something! He's breaking free!"

She's not Razor at all. Just some human nurse. 

His mind was still hazy and he didn't entirely understand what was going on around him. All he knew was that he was growing angry. He didn't realize that he was almost free until the second restraint flew across the room and his leg shot up, striking the nurse in her chest. She flew across the room, slamming into the opposite wall—limp as a rag doll, bright nurse's scrubs weeping red where Haken's hind claws pierced her fragile human skin.

A sudden cold sting bit at his neck and he jerked backward, eyes darting from the nurse to the doctor who dared to defile his body. His eyelids suddenly felt heavier. It was difficult to even keep himself upright, but he still had enough strength to grab the doctor by the neck. Force him to talk.

"Where am I?" he asked, his voice a deep rumble escaping his cavernous chest. "What are you doing to me?"

"You're in a…a safe place," the doctor stuttered. "You were hurt. Blacked out!"

Haken groaned as his vision doubled. He renewed his grip on the doctor's neck, lest his weakening body turn traitor and release the man as it fell into lethargy. He shook his head. "You never answered my question. What are you doing to me? What did you stick me with?"

"Just a sedative," the doctor whimpered. "It won't hurt you. If you move too much, you'll tear your wounds open again!"

"Heard that before." Haken's mind wandered to memories of Williams's military camp, over the bridge to the east of Haven. The never-ending experiments. White-hot agony as he was torn apart again and again, much to the delight of the men in white coats. Men not unlike this one.

The doctor slipped free of Haken's grip and tumbled to the floor. This was it. This was the end. More cutting, more experiments. His revolution failed and now all that remained was an eternity of torture at the hands of the humans. The sedative did its work and as Haken fell back into the icy cold of oblivion, he began to dream.

Two Months Ago

The revolution began by fire and claw, its measure reckoned in the accumulation of torn and mangled bodies. Dried gore matted werewolf fur flat against rippling muscles. The flowing rivers of blood might have been human or werewolf—in the end, Haken hadn't been able to tell the difference. Everyone bleeds, and it was finally time to remind the humans of that fact. And then, suddenly as it had begun, the battle was over and he woke up in purgatory, awaiting judgment. 

How had it all gone wrong so quickly? 

Days of imprisonment stretched into weeks as Haken endured General Rivera's prison.  The damage he'd taken during the fighting had healed to a point, but his ravenous metabolism burned through what remained of his final meal and started eating away at his insides as wounds were closed and organ damage slowly mended. 

He was famished, but food never came, only the hateful face of Rivera gloating at his failure. She laughed when Haken tried to lunge through the transparent barrier of his cell, laughed as the electrified panel sent shockwaves through his body that briefly stopped his heart. When it finally started beating again and he opened his eyes, the general was gone, leaving in her place a juicy slab of steak.

Just out of reach. 

When a trio of soldiers came an hour later to remove it, he no longer had the will to do more than growl at them. He would wait and hold his strength in reserve. He prayed, and two days later the Great Spirit heard his call.

An ear-piercing alarm sung a song of freedom and Haken's cell door flew open of its own accord. He stepped through, tentatively at first, gaining confidence as he went.

As he stepped through the open door, he half expected a bolt of electricity to punish his boldness, but there was no pain, only the sound of the alarm and the distant footfalls of running men receding further into the building. What was happening? Where were the soldiers? 

He stepped into the stairwell at the back of the room, slowly climbing until his progress was barred by a thick steel door. Shots rang out in the distance as he slipped his claws into the small gap between the door and its jamb, wrenching with all his might. The door flew free and he nearly fell along with it—that was it, his last reserve of strength finally depleted. He was slowly starving, but he wouldn't die this way. He was a warrior and he'd die a warrior's death.

"There!" a voice carried over the sound of the alarm. In the distance a man pointed at Haken. "He's over there!"

This is it, Haken thought. Today I die in battle.

"That's not him," another soldier yelled, pulling the first man away, running further down an adjoining hallway. "Williams comes first—everything else is secondary!"

Colonel Williams? The traitor he'd cut down with his own claws along with the help of the youngling? He couldn't bear to call the man by his werewolf name anymore. That man no longer had the right to call himself 'Elan.' How was Williams still alive? 

Haken lurched in the opposite direction. There was no honor to be found in dying at the hands of enemies who had no interest in him. Maybe this wasn't the end, after all. He started to round the corner into a hallway leading away from the soldiers when a runaway cart covered with medical supplies flew down the corridor ahead and ricocheted off the wall, striking him in the chest and knocking him backward. There was no doubt about it—he was weak; starving would do that to a wolf.

Two figures raced past while he regained his feet; they were unaware of his presence as they careened down the hall to the left at a breakneck pace. One of them was a hulking brute whose physical size put Haken to shame. He felt a brief sting of envy until he realized who he was looking at. Williams. The man was still bubbling over with an unnatural patchwork of skin and fur, bulging with tumorous musculature no man or wolf had ever seen before. 

The colonel had not earned this strength on his own, but through the sacrifice of his pack. The subjugation of the Haven wolves and their torture produced the experimental serum that flowed through his veins. The other figure was eclipsed by Williams's bulk—who was running alongside him? The colonel's pup? Surely not. Not after what happened during the battle…

Haken wasn't sure why he followed—he was surprised when he found his feet carrying him after the betrayer—but follow he did, all the way to the end of the line. The hall ended ahead of them and Williams stared through the glass pane—the only remaining vector for escape. He never looked back before leaping through, shattering the thick safety glass with a single meaty fist as he flew, the smaller wolf following directly behind. They hadn't even seen Haken. It was like he was nothing, completely beneath their concern. Haken, the small. Haken, the defeated. He would show them. He'd show them the power behind his conviction!

Legs coiled beneath him, Haken prepared to spring after the two fleeing wolves. He wasn't sure if he wanted to join them or tear them to pieces, but in the end, his intentions didn't matter. What did matter was the barrage of bullets tearing through his back, ripping their way through and rattling around in his chest. Hollow points—vicious things. He nearly collapsed on the floor, but he wouldn't provide Rivera and her soldiers with a trophy to experiment on. They'd have to scrape his remains off the cold asphalt below. No experiments then; that would be for the best. 

He leaped through the window, tumbling in an awkward spiral of limbs and fur toward the ground below. He closed his eyes and prayed as the wind rattled in his ears.

It would all be over soon.