Overview

Written by Warren Ellis. Illustrated by Juan Jose Ryp.

Mature Readers

Warren Ellis cuts loose to unleash his take on the genre fans demanded he assault with full color art from Juan Jose (Frank Miller’s Robocop, Nightmare on Elm Street) Ryp! Wolfskin fuses heroic fantasy in the mode of Conan, the Viking sagas and samurai fiction into a single story of weird history and apocalyptic violence. In what will become the forests of Europe, a village is cut in half by two travelers from the East who came with hate in their hearts and knowledge of gunpowder in their hands. Now, the balance of power has been tipped by a solitary soldier from the North and the Wolfskin, lethal and unpredictable, will decide who lives and who dies.

Wolfskin is taking a bath in a nearby river when he senses someone sneaking up on him. He stops bathing and looks over his shoulder to see a new Noi man. This one is older, dressed in blue, has no paint on his face, and is leaning on a large walking stick. Wolfskin glances over to his other side to see his clothes and weapons on the opposite bank. They're out of reach. He turns back to the man and greets him good morning. He asks if the man is the brother of the painted Noi whose village he has been staying in. The man says he is and asks if Wolfskin will be moving on, heading back North. Wolfskin says he's heading South but the man's brother has placed a thing of honor before him. The man says he likes stories as if inviting Wolfskin to keep talking. Then he says that Wolfskin shouldn't put too much trust in his brother. Wolfskin tells him how his brother had attacked him thinking that he had come as an assassin to kill him. He says that he killed the man's soldiers and now the village is at a disadvantage. The Noi in blue guesses that now his brother has gotten the Wolfskin to stand beside him after pretending he didn't know he was a Wolfskin even though he'd met some before. Wolfskin sees what the man is up to and asks if he came to buy him, scare him or just to see how dedicated he was to protecting his brother. The man asks if he will leave now and Wolfskin asks if his archers will aim a little high if he doesn't fight with all his power. The Noi man says he'd rather have Wolfskin fighting on his side but Wolfskin says he owes him nothing. To get his favor the Noi man offers him sanctuary, coin and women if he'll fight with him but that only turns Wolfskin off. His kind don't fight for money or sex. He does say though that he'll be there at the river in the evening if the man comes back with a better offer. When he looks up again the man has disappeared.

Wolfskin asks his god to give him the last two days over again so he could avoid this whole mess. When he goes over to get his clothes he sees an attractive woman on the bank. She asks who he was talking to but he tells her it is none of her business. Then she asks if the weapons on the ground are his and when he says yes she takes out her own blade. She says that he killed her husband. To that he just replies that her husband tried to kill him first. She doesn't care, she just says that now she'll go hungry and her children will have no father. Wolfskin says that the women of his people can hunt just like the men. The woman replies saying that "everyone knows" that the women of his people are flat chested and scrawny. Then she calls Wolfskin an animal like all Northish people. When he comes out of the water she tells him to stand still so she can attack him, when he won't she tells him to attack her so she can attack him but he won't do that either. He says he won't kill a girl and if she attacks him he'll have to break her bones and that would put her children in an even worse spot. She attacks anyway and he breaks her sword. She asks if he's the one who will save them and he says he doesn't know yet then tells her to make him some food.

Wolfskin goes back to the village and he and the painted Noi man have a talk over tea. Wolfskin wants to know why the brothers split. The Noi man says that when they got to the village and entranced the community with their "magic" the people quickly made them the leaders and would do whatever they were told. They gave up thinking for themselves and just followed like sheep. Anyway, his brother wanted to take the girls and start a dynasty but he did not because he did not think it would be right to force themselves on the young girls, so his brother took the people who followed him to the forest and the painted brother stayed in the village with those who followed him. Neither group really made a choice, they just did what they were told by whichever brother they saw. Then Wolfskin tells the man that his brother had attempted to buy him off. He also tells him that the brother will attack on that very night. The brother says that it will be tomorrow but Wolfskin insists that it will be that night. Not everyone follows rules of war, he says, and his brother already uses assassins. The Noi man is sickened by that thought but Wolfskin tells him there are no rules in war, just how a warrior does his art, and there is no wrongness to it. The Noi man thinks him a peculiar soldier for thinking so much but Wolfskin just says that good soldiers are smart and imaginative. He tells the man again that his brother will attack that night. The painted man says that Wolfskin should take his mushrooms so he can end the fight quicker. Wolfskin tells him that he wouldn't want to see that. The man pushes it more, describing what he thinks will happen, that Wolfskin will become a beast and kill the enemy. This upsets Wolfskin, the way the Noi threw away the lives of his men just to put Wolfskin in his debt so he'd have to fight for him and fight as a beast. He says both brothers are mad and storms out of the tent.

Wolfskin walks into the forest and calls out to the other brother. He says he wants to talk. When the older brother appears Wolfskin asks if he will attack tonight. The brother says he will and asks what Wolfskin wants. Wolfskin says he wants them all to kill each other, so he tells the brother how best to attack. After that is done he says that once the fighting is over he will kill the man's husband himself. The older brother is surprised and asks how he knew. Wolfskin says that he was taught by a Noi and knows that the painted Noi sleep with both men and women. He tells the older brother that everyone needs to stop thinking he's dumb just because he's Northish and a soldier. He says he doesn't care about their sex practices just that it's a stupid reason for a war and he'll kill the other brother himself. Just then children run out into the forest banging pots. The older brother asks if Wolfskin will kill children and when he says know an arrow shoots into his side. The old Noi man says that his spotters saw him hear the arrow before it reached him so this time he blocked out the sound. After that quick explanation he sends men from the bushes to kill Wolfskin. Wolfskin holds his side, the arrow was poisoned. Still he draws his sword and kills three of the men before the poison begins to impair him. His vision begins to blur but he kills a fourth man, starts a fire with sparks of his sword, and then flees into the smoke. The poison affects his mind and when he runs he trips and slams his head on a rock knocking himself unconscious.