War of the Werelords

by Curtis Jobling

  As he climbed the steps, he wondered how his friends were all faring. Taboo, Krieg, and the Behemoth had all sailed home to Bast in the company of Tiaz. War no doubt awaited them there as the Catlords quarreled for dominion over the jungle continent. The Tigers were in better shape than any, though, with the free peoples of Bast now aligned with them. He wished them well and prayed they would meet again one day. Of Opal, there was no sign, and who knew what had become of Djogo? Those Werelords of Bast who had been defeated, such as Count Costa and the Lionlords, Lex and Luc, had been sent home free men. Drew hoped that this amnesty might appease the Panthers and Lions, but he feared the worst.

  Faisal was back in Omir, taming the Desert Realm, the Doglords and Hayfa a thorn in his paw still as they would forever be. The Jackal knew he had a friend in Drew, though, and if he ever needed him, the Wolf would come running. The phibians of the Bott Marshes had gone back to the water, their chieftain Shoma slain in the river fight, Kholka taking his place in the tribe. The Frogmen were no longer strangers, never again to be hunted or demonized by the people and therians of Lyssia. And the old seadog Figgis had taken the Maelstrom for his own since Count Vega’s demise, the clever Ternlord Florimo joining him as they repaired the pirate ship and returned it to the open oceans again.

  They had put their guest in the highest room of the Garrison Tree, a former observatory that looked out over the north of the city, giving a fine view of the Dymling Road as it cut its path straight through the Dyrewood toward the Redwine and the Dales. A guard nodded, pulling a chain from his pocket and turning it in the lock of the black timber door. Drew rapped the knuckles of the White Fist on the wood, manners always in mind, as Tilly Ferran had always schooled him. The door swung open and he entered.

  2

  THE WOLF HUNT

  ALTHOUGH IT HAD once been an observatory, it was now a library, the books from Redmire Hall having been salvaged from its ruins and sent south. Books on history, geography, the great races and nations of Lyssia. Tomes on language and legend, maps and scrolls as old as Brenn himself, but not a word of magick upon any one of them.

  Hector looked up from where he sat on a bench beside the window, perched upon a cushion, the chill autumn wind blowing through the room. He snapped the book shut and placed it awkwardly on the seat as he rose, the young Boarlord still getting used to life with only one arm. The evil was gone from him, although the scars would haunt the magister until his final day.

  Hector smiled as Drew entered, and Drew returned the grin.

  “An early visit today,” said the magister. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I’m going away for a few days. There’s been an incident in the Dyrewood.”

  “An incident?” said Hector. “That sounds serious.”

  “It could well be.”

  “Would you like me to come with you?”

  Drew smiled awkwardly. “That’s not going to happen, Hector.”

  The Boarlord nodded slowly. “That’s right. You don’t trust me.”

  Drew shrugged. “That may be, but I’ll ask you this: do you trust yourself? Can you be sure that Vincent is gone, never to return?”

  Hector raised his left arm, the limb severed just below the elbow. He didn’t answer, simply staring at it, his face pale and his mind elsewhere. He was thinking back to the events atop the Bone Tower in Icegarden, Drew figured, and the grim events that had unfolded. The Werewolf had climbed that tower intent on stopping two tormented souls, Lucas and Blackhand. The Lion had been slain, and when the chance came to kill the magister, Drew had faltered. It was no necromancer lying before him: at that moment it was dear Hector’s voice that had emerged from the magister’s corrupted body. The Wolflord had made a snap decision. The evil was in the withered, necrotic limb that twitched with a life of its own. Moonbrand had descended and the dark hand had spun from the tower top, disappearing into the night. The Hawks had carried them from the Bone Tower’s summit, beyond the walls of Icegarden and away from the undead hordes.

  “Vincent may be gone, but the scars will remain forever,” said Hector, glaring at his shortened arm.

  “We’re all left counting the cost,” said Drew. “None escaped Icegarden unscathed that night.”

  He had personally carried Whitley’s body back to Robben, declining all offer of help from his friends. He had been unable to relinquish his hold on her, at least until he found Bergan. Upon reaching the Wolf war camp, Hector had been spirited away to the Daughters of Icegarden along with Trent. As the White Bear magisters cleaned and stitched Hector’s wound, others had set to work on the cursed Wolf Knight. Drew’s brother was still on the mend, even now. Drew wondered if Trent would ever be truly healed. He wondered if any of them would.

  Hector looked back at Drew. “So how long do I stay here, Drew? A week? A month? A year?”

  “Are you not happy here, Hector? Is the room not furnished to your liking? I had the books brought from your libraries. I wanted to make it feel like home.”

  The Boarlord’s smile was forced. “It’s a prison cell, Drew.”

  The young Wolf tried to return the smile, but he couldn’t. When he spoke the words caught in his throat.

  “I swore an oath atop the Bone Tower that I would take you into my care, Hector, and I’m not about to break that. It’s not just that you mean the world to me; it’s more than that. We know what happened in Icegarden, we saw the power that you could wield. I can never allow that to happen again. Not on my watch.”

  “So you’re my jailer then, Drew?”

  “Oh no,” replied the lad from the Cold Coast. “I’m so much more than that.”

  Drew hugged Hector and felt the tension break instantly, the Boarlord sagging in his arms, falling into the embrace. He heard the magister sob as he whispered in Hector’s ear.

  “I’m your friend.”

  • • •

  “What’s keeping him?” said Mikotaj from where he sat astride the black stallion, the horse stepping nervously with the hulking Wolf of Shadowhaven upon its back. It whinnied, prompting a curse from the barbarian as he swatted its mane with his hand. “Oi! Quit it, or you and I will have a falling out.”

  “Not fond of horses?” asked Trent Ferran where he lounged in Storm’s saddle, the chestnut-brown mare snorting at him contentedly, pleased to be reunited with her lost master.

  “I wouldn’t say that. Cook ’em right, they can be quite tasty,” replied the White Wolf as the mount protested once more.

  “How do you feel?” Bergan asked Trent. The Bearlord stood nearby, General Harker holding the reins of Drew’s white charger, Bravado, awaiting the captain’s arrival.

  “I’m all right,” Trent lied with a smile. Lady Greta and the Daughters of Icegarden had worked their craft upon him, purging his body of the poisonous Wyld Magick that had transformed him from man into beast. The physical features of the lycanthrope had disappeared, driven from his flesh, but his mind was still tormented by the dark desires that had seized him that night in Icegarden. Those images returned in the form of nightmares, keeping him awake at night when the moon was at its fullest in the sky, leaving him sick with fever and slick with sweat. The monster appeared to be gone, yet some of it remained: heightened senses, an instinctive understanding of how the Wyld Wolves thought. How they hunted.

  “You’ll be wanting to get back to Gretchen in Hedgemoor, eh?” said Mikotaj.

  “When this work is done. Not until,” Trent replied. “What about yourself? Surely Shadowhaven awaits?”

  “It does indeed,” sighed the pale-haired giant. “All in good time, though. The place is a ghost town still, more rubble than city. Nobody’s in a hurry to bend their backs while Icegarden still needs taking from the dead. No, Shadowhaven can wait a little while longer. And besides, it’s colder than a White Bear’s whatnots up there!”

  All four laughed before spying
Drew Ferran, captain of the Woodland Watch, as he marched down the Dyre Road toward them. He had a spring in his stride, purpose to his step.

  “Thanks, Harker,” he said, smiling to the general as he took Bravado’s reins.

  “My pleasure, captain,” said Harker, patting the mighty charger’s flank as Drew climbed up into the saddle.

  “What do we know, then?”

  “One of them was spied by a family of woodsmen twenty leagues south of Darke,” replied the general, his smile now gone from his face.

  “Did it attack anyone?” asked Mikotaj.

  “It went for a boy, but a few well-placed arrows saw the beast away and the boy to safety.” Harker handed a map to Drew. “It’s marked on there, as best we can tell according to Baron Redfearn’s scouts.”

  “We can’t let it bite anyone,” said Trent. “It spreads through the blood, remember?”

  “Don’t fret,” said Mikotaj. “You were bit and you survived, didn’t you?”

  “I was strong,” replied Trent, more anger in his voice than he’d wished, prompting a raised eyebrow from the northman.

  “Do we know if it’s Darkheart?” asked Drew.

  “I suspect not,” replied Harker. “The Wyld Wolf in question had blue woad markings on a mangy pelt. Darkheart’s still out there.”

  “And we’ll find him,” said Drew, never more sure of his words. Those Wyld Wolves that had survived the horrors of Icegarden had fled south to their former homes in the forest, tails between their legs. These were the chieftains of the various Wyldermen tribes that were hidden in the darkest, dankest corners of the Woodland Realm. Some might even return to their people. With the disease as virulent as it clearly was, that could spell disaster in the Dyrewood, the potential consequences horrific.

  “We’ll find them all,” added Trent, passing a dark look to his brother. Drew knew the meaning. There was one, more hated than Darkheart, who had slipped the noose as the war rumbled to a close: Vanmorten. Where the Ratlord was, nobody seemed to know, but that would not put the brothers off his scent. They would have revenge for the monster’s crimes, chief among them the murder of their mother, Tilly, so long ago. The Rat could run, the Rat could hide, but the Ferran boys would find him.

  Trent coaxed Storm forward with a tap of the heels, and Mikotaj’s horse followed, the northman gripping the reins tightly between great, white knuckles. Bergan placed a hand on Drew’s knee before he went after them.

  “You all right, son?”

  Drew knew what Bergan meant. “She should’ve been with us today. She knew these forests better than anyone.”

  “She is with you, son,” replied the duke, reaching up to tap Drew on his studded leather breastplate. “In here. Always.”

  Drew smiled, reassured by his old friend’s comforting words.

  “And how was our guest this morning?”

  “Well,” said Drew, his smile slipping. “It will be some time before Hector is fully returned to himself—if ever. He needs watching. We must remain vigilant, Bergan.”

  “I’m just glad we got him back, almost in one piece,” replied the duke, patting Drew’s leg. “Don’t worry, I’ll watch over him like a Hawklord while you’re gone.”

  “You do that,” said Drew. “We could’ve done with Shah for a task like that. I often wonder where she ended up.”

  “Aye, odd her and the boy just up and going like that, wasn’t it?”

  “And taking Vega’s body with them, too.”

  “Without so much as a good-bye,” said the duke, shaking his head in dismay.

  “Some folk like privacy when they bury their loved ones. Shah will have taken Vega to somewhere that meant something to him, a place dear to his heart. Our friend deserved a fine bed for the long sleep.”

  “He didn’t look all that tired the last time I saw him,” said Bergan, his whiskers twitching as he tried to hide a smile.

  Drew stared hard at the bushy bearded therian. “What in Brenn’s name are you grinning about, old man?”

  The Bearlord of Brackenholme suddenly clapped Bravado’s rump, causing the horse to rear up on its hind legs, kicking at the air.

  “On your way, Drew Ferran,” bellowed the duke, huge chest booming with laughter. “Brenn’s speed my boy! You’ve wolves to hunt!”

  And Bravado was off, kicking up dirt and sending showers of dead leaves into the air in his wake. Drew bent low in the saddle as the others followed, the Bearlord’s laughter still ringing in his ears as they charged down the Dyre Road and into the woods.