Rise of the Wolf

by Curtis Jobling

  3

  Condemned

  The cockroach scuttled along the edge of the wall, belly low to the ground, hugging its well-travelled path as it avoided its mortal enemy. Its antennae tested the path in front, searching for any scent that might reveal one of the beasts to it. Noises echoed around the chamber, bouncing down the corridor outside, human voices that cried out in pain or sobbed for mercy, but these alien cries meant nothing to the insect. Darting out to the rim of a tin plate it jumped over the side and to its prize.

  The mouldy crumbs from a crust of bread were a banquet for the tiny creature. It fed hungrily, eating as much as its small stomach could handle, conscious at all times that it was out in the open, visible to its predator.

  A sudden movement from the shadows; large and dark. And swift. The beetle stopped gorging, preparing to take flight. But it was too slow.

  The rat pounced, hitting the metal dish and sending the cockroach spinning on to the hard flagstones, helpless on its back. Scuttling forward, its pink fleshy tail flicking with anticipation of its own feast, the rat bore down on the beetle. Before it could strike, it felt the bare human foot connect with its ribs, sending it hurtling through the air to bounce off the wall and crumple to the ground. It limped away, injured, though not mortally, disappearing into a small hole in the wall. The cockroach seized its chance, grateful for whatever power had intervened. Flicking its wings out from its hard carapace it flew up to the tiny barred window and into the fresh night air to its freedom.

  Drew watched the beetle as it disappeared and wished for all the world he were a bug right now. He stared up at the window, helpless. Even if he could reach it, he still had the stocks firmly fixed round his neck and wrists, pinioning him in their silver grip. He was going nowhere. He settled back down to the floor of his prison cell, leaning his back against the roughly hewn wall.

  The sounds of the shouting prisoners in other cells had put paid to any hope he’d had of sleep. Exhausted and injured as he was, the wailing of men driven mad by years of solitary confinement chilled his blood to the bone. He winced as he tried to get comfortable, the cuts on his back still painfully sore. The silver studs in Captain Brutus’s whip had ensured that these wounds weren’t going to heal in a hurry. These were scars for life, what little remained of it.

  He was amazed that the king had allowed his men to arm themselves with weapons that had been treated with silver. How many of them like Brutus were equipped with implements that could kill a Werelord stone dead? Hector had explained even before the encounter in Redmire that they were outlawed, but Drew figured a privilege of being king was that Leopold could rewrite the rulebook to suit himself. He doubted the other Werelords were aware, and Hector would be foolish to alert them and jeopardize his lucky reprieve.

  There was a noise at the door. Another guard come to put the boot in? Three of them had taken it in turns to work Drew over the minute he’d been delivered to them, beating and battering him with sick abandon. He’d curled up on the floor as best he could, hampered by the wooden frame around his upper body. At least those wounds had already begun to heal – he could feel his ribs knitting themselves back together. Whatever happened now they weren’t going to kill him tonight; King Leopold wanted to save that pleasure for himself in the morning.

  A key turned in the lock. Drew placed the right end of the stocks on to the ground, using it to raise himself to his knees and then his feet as he struggled to stand. They could come in and fight him, but he’d be fighting back. His legs could still kick and he could swing the yoke with some power if need be. He readied himself, gritting his teeth, his heart pumping. Keep the Wolf at bay, Drew, he told himself. Don’t die like this.

  The door opened and the light of a lantern lit up the room. Drew squinted. He saw a figure shimmering in the doorway, holding the lantern before her in a tentative hand, horrified at what she might find. His eyes slipped into focus as he saw Gretchen illuminated before him. She stepped in quickly, and the guard closed the door behind her, locking it.

  She rushed to Drew, stopping only briefly to place the lantern on the floor. Throwing her arms round him, she hugged him tight. He winced, his ribs still on fire, stifling a cry. The Werefox recoiled, looking down to the patchwork of mottled blues, purples and reds on his torso, every inch of his skin alive with livid marks.

  ‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize!’ She stared again at his wounds, tears springing to her eyes. ‘What have they done to you?’ she whispered.

  ‘Nothing I wasn’t expecting,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry; they won’t kill me. Not for a few hours yet.’ He managed a brave chuckle. His black humour was wasted on Gretchen.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said. ‘But I have the king’s ear. You must know – you have allies here, all at work, trying to secure your life.’

  Drew shook his head. He didn’t want to hear such things.

  ‘Duke Bergan, Duke Manfred the Werestag,’ Gretchen continued. ‘They appealed again to the king this evening. If anyone can convince him that your life should be spared, it is the three of us.’

  ‘Gretchen,’ Drew said, and then stopped. He smiled sadly. ‘My lady,’ he corrected himself. ‘You bring hope where there is none. You need to understand – I die tomorrow. It’s what has to happen. Leopold will not allow me to live. He killed Wergar to take the throne. I’m a loose end that needs tying up, and what better platform to make an example of me than when every Werelord from Lyssia is gathered in Highcliff? Please, my lady, don’t dwell on this. I don’t want to hear it. It hurts more than any boot, whip or blade. It breaks my heart.’ He lowered himself back to the floor.

  She sighed. ‘You’ve made quite the impression on everyone, Drew of the Dyrewood. It seems that the great and the not-so-good of the Seven Realms are assembled upstairs, and the last thing that’s on anybody’s lips is this wretched marriage. They’re all talking about you, Drew. I don’t know … I just thought …’ She shook her head. ‘Duke Manfred and his brother, Earl Mikkel, are with Duke Bergan now. They’re good men, trustworthy. And Bergan’s children are here too: Lord Broghan, and Whitley also. I believe you know one another?’

  ‘Goodness, he’s Bergan’s son?’ gasped Drew. His head spun with the implications. ‘Well, that explains a lot. Yes, we ran into one another in the Dyrewood.’

  Gretchen’s brow creased as he mentioned Whitley. She was more than a little surprised to hear Drew describe Whitley as a ‘he’, but she let it go; there were more pressing matters. The Werefox sat down beside him, spreading her green dress about her on the cold stone. She put a hand to his forehead and brushed the hair delicately from his eyes.

  For a moment Drew was transported back to the Ferran farm and his mother’s arms. He closed his eyes, wanting to savour the sensation, the memory. He opened them to find Gretchen staring intently at him with her emerald eyes. She was the most perplexing girl he’d ever met, seemingly calculating yet captivating at the same time. The two had been through an awful lot in recent weeks, but he still felt as if he’d only scratched the surface of who the Werefox was. Right now she seemed vulnerable, far more sympathetic towards him than ever before. But he knew from previous experiences that her mood could change in a heartbeat.

  ‘How is it that Lucas has allowed you to visit me?’ asked Drew warily.

  Gretchen shrugged. ‘He seems very receptive to my requests,’ she said, twirling her red hair with a lacquered fingernail.

  I can believe that, thought Drew. Gretchen was used to getting what she wanted, and he had no doubt that the young prince had fallen for all her charming and wilful ways. Even so, she must have got deep under his skin for him to allow her to come and see Drew.

  As if she could read his thoughts, she continued, ‘I told him I wanted a final word with the “vile creature” who had put me in such peril.’ She smiled shyly.

  Sitting beside Gretchen, Drew realized that he would never discover where this strange, volatile friendship might have led. Where any of his fri
endships might have led. Hector, Whitley … Would they remember him? He allowed himself to wonder what Trent was doing now. Perhaps he hadn’t joined the army as Ma had always feared. Perhaps he was still on the farm, living a life that Drew would never again know. With the lambing season upon them it would be hard work without another pair of hands. Drew clung to the idea that deep down Trent knew he wasn’t a murderer. His heart ached with despair.

  ‘Tell me about Hedgemoor,’ he said suddenly.

  Gretchen was clearly taken by surprise. ‘My home?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We’ve spent the last month squabbling and scrapping, and not once in that time did you tell me about your family.’

  She shuffled closer to him, leaning against his chest. Drew felt thrilled yet awkward at the same time. Why had it been necessary for him to be at death’s door before she’d finally warmed to him?

  ‘Hedgemoor is the garden of the Seven Realms,’ she said, speaking longingly of her birthplace. ‘It’s quite removed from the hustle and bustle of somewhere like Highcliff, or even Brackenholme for that matter. Merrydale reminded me of home and the Barleymow River too. There was a stream,’ she said, smiling, ‘that ran past my bedroom window. As a girl I would sneak out at night and take midnight paddles in its cold waters. My feet would freeze, and the tiny fish would come creeping out of the reeds to come and nibble my toes. I couldn’t feel them as they jostled between my toes and around my ankles, my feet numb …

  ‘My father said my mother used to do exactly the same thing, you know? When they courted, the two of them would take midnight strolls up the stream, trying to find its source, but they never succeeded.’ She laughed. ‘They would return to Hedgemoor, bedraggled and shivering, to a firm telling off from my grandmother and the maids!’

  ‘What was your mother like?’ asked Drew, trying to shift so his chin could rest against her head, but the stocks blocked any chance of this.

  ‘I never knew her,’ she said wistfully. ‘She died when I was only a baby.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Drew.

  ‘You’ve nothing to apologize for. As strong as my mother’s spirit was, her heart was weak. They said it was hereditary, that such illnesses and diseases come as a consequence when cousins, however distant, marry. That, I suppose, is a danger to many of my kind, blue-blooded Werelords, and I think that was the appeal of bringing me into the House of the Lion.’

  ‘How so?’ asked Drew.

  ‘My mother and father were Werefoxes, related, but not closely. Many of the old houses have kept to their own down the years, keeping true to their bloodlines. But one cannot continue this way; the blood grows weak and the children sick sometimes. The Werefamilies marry across races more frequently now, mixing their stock and making for stronger, tougher offspring. It’s the father that dictates the therianthropy of any children from these unions; that’s the way it’s always been. King Leopold will be hoping for some strong, strapping leonine grandsons from me in the near future, I have no doubt of that,’ she said sadly.

  ‘My ma was an angel,’ said Drew, trying to move the subject away from the future and back to the past. ‘I was never so close to my father, never had the connection that my brother had with him. But Ma I could spend hours with, listening to stories about the family, about my pa when he was in the army, her life as a maid, here in Highcliff, about her childhood in the country. She could spin tales like a jester.’ He smiled. ‘Colourful characters from far-flung worlds, faeries, goblins, trolls and dragons! I miss her,’ he said. ‘I miss her so much. Now I don’t even know if she was my birth mother, but it makes no difference to me. The biggest regret in my life is that I couldn’t help her. She died in front of me, murdered by a monster.’

  ‘Oh, Drew,’ Gretchen said, sitting up. ‘I didn’t know. What monster?’

  Drew recounted in more detail the tale that he had told Hector. ‘It came to the farmhouse the night I fled, the night my life changed forever. A big black beast, all claws, tail and fangs. And red eyes …’ He shivered involuntarily, his body betraying him. ‘I still see those red eyes whenever I close my own.’ He pointed to the three scars at his breast, still visible beneath the fresh lacerations. ‘It did this to me. It’s never healed.’

  ‘A Wererat,’ Gretchen said quietly. ‘You describe a Wererat, Drew …’

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘Like Vankaskan?’

  ‘Indeed, but it may not have been him.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I tore at its face, pulled the flesh clean away. I was a monster myself, I was wild – it was the first time I changed. But I remember wounding it in a way that seemed almost impossible to heal, even as a therianthrope. Vankaskan couldn’t hide a scar like that. My poor mother. Brenn, I miss her.’

  ‘You speak so fondly of your mother,’ she said. ‘I envy you.’ The Werefox went silent, deep in thought. She bit her lip, almost hard enough to draw blood.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, concerned at her mood.

  ‘They told us that Wergar had sired you by some wench on one of his campaigns, so your right to be a Werelord was refuted. But if the Wererat came after you then that isn’t true. That’s a lie. Your mother,’ she said. ‘Your birth mother. I think she’s still alive.’

  ‘What?’ he said incredulously, as if hit by a hammer blow.

  ‘Your father was Wergar,’ Gretchen explained, sitting up. ‘So your mother was Queen Amelie.’

  The shock on Drew’s face was clear. Finally he knew where he came from. He was a Werelord.

  ‘Their children died in a great fire when Leopold took the throne,’ she continued, nervously. ‘You would have died also, I suppose, if someone hadn’t spirited you away. Your “Ma”, I guess, if she was a maid here in Highcliff, making it even less likely that you were born in a distant war-infested land. Leopold took the throne, declaring that the Wolves were dead; no more. The time of the Lions was to begin. And I’m guessing he thought that was true at the time.’

  ‘So what happened to my mother? What did he do to her?’ Drew asked, scrambling on to his knees to look Gretchen in the eyes. ‘Where is she?’ he cried.

  Gretchen struggled to find the words. ‘She’s here, Drew. In this castle. The king had to take a bride, had to build his own Werelord legacy.’ She held his face in both hands. ‘He married your mother, Drew. Leopold married Queen Amelie.’

  No sooner had she said that than the keys turned in the lock. Gretchen snatched her hands away from Drew’s face and jumped up as the door swung open. Drew crouched on the ground in his stocks, jaw slack, eyes flitting and blinking with tears as the full realization of what Gretchen had just said began to dawn on him. A figure stood in the doorway: Prince Lucas.

  ‘My dear,’ the boy prince said, holding an elegant hand out. ‘That is time enough. I have indulged you with this wedding present, but we have guests to attend to.’ He smiled at the sight of Drew’s tears. ‘I see you have given this wretched excuse for a man a fine sample of the Fox’s bite, as you’d wished for. Now come, my lady; we have a busy day tomorrow.’

  ‘You are correct, my darling,’ she replied, trying to control her voice. ‘I have said everything that I wish to say, and I thank you for this opportunity to unburden myself. He will not forget it.’

  Gretchen looked down at Drew as he knelt, putting the pieces together as she’d handed them to him. The Queen, Amelie, was his mother? And she was alive! Surely that could save him? Surely she could call upon her husband to show forgiveness?

  ‘My lord,’ said Drew desperately, shuffling forward on his knees across the cold stone paving. Here he was, broken and battered, crawling before the vile boy prince. It suddenly dawned on Drew that Lucas was his half-brother, not that such information would sway the young Lion. If he could have put his hands together to plead he would have done. ‘I need to speak with the queen. May I send a message to her? May I speak with her?’

  Lucas struck him so hard a tooth spun clean out of Drew’s mouth, sending his head recoiling before he clatt
ered to the ground. The Prince shook the back of his hand in the air, willing the bloodflow through it as he nursed it.

  ‘How dare you speak of my mother, the queen, in such familiar tones. If my father didn’t want to kill you himself tomorrow I would run you through this very moment.’ The prince leaned over and spat at Drew as he trembled on the ground, a mess of shock and distress.

  ‘Come,’ said Lucas, snatching Gretchen by the arm and picking up the lantern. ‘We’re leaving.’ With that the two of them strode from the room, the boy prince leading his future wife roughly into the corridor. She looked back, her face contorted with emotion at her shivering friend on the floor, as the jailer closed the door with a violent, ominous slam.

  4

  Dissenting Discussions

  With a drunken clash the two golden goblets crashed into one another at the table in front of Bergan, their bearers cheering as the honeymead showered them. The Bearlord tried to hide his disdain by taking a long sip from his tankard. The king’s guests had gathered within the banquet hall of Highcliff Castle; mercenary merchants, petty nobles and loyal men of office had gathered in the keep, keen to take advantage of this rare show of generosity from the Werelion. Bergan noticed how some brought their wives, adorned in gaudy jewellery and garish costumes, while others left them at home, looking to indulge themselves with whoever they could find at the feast. Three enormous tables ran the length of the hall from the head of the room where the main table was situated. Food and wine from all over the realms cluttered the tables, an over-the-top show of indulgence by the king. Wealthy guests who were held in special favour by Leopold tore at the food, elbows flying and goblets clattering as wine flowed freely. Small dogs lingering beneath the tables fought for any dropped scraps they could scavenge.