Prince of Wolves

by Dave Gross

  I uttered a Varisian vulgarity. Azra gave me an inquisitive look, and I asked, “Do you think they could have tracked me all this way?”

  She nodded without hesitation.

  “We should move on.”

  She shook her head and pointed at the wagon.

  Closer to fire, she signed. She went to bring Luminita closer, and I fetched the wagon. It was not as heavy as I’d expected, and I pulled it to the side of the fire opposite the altars. Once wagon and donkey were nearby, Azra studied the area while weighing a fat pouch in her hand. I couldn’t tell what she was looking for, but she saw me staring and signed, Wood. Plenty of wood, before pointing to a spot beside the fire.

  I fetched all the firewood from inside the wagon and went back for the bundle tied to the side. I was about to jog over to a small stand of trees a couple of hundred yards away when Azra stopped me with a hoot and shook her head. She beckoned me back to the fire where she poured out a line of gray ash in a circle maybe twelve feet in diameter. She stopped just short of completing the circle, leaving an opening of about two or three feet. There she set up one of the stools from the wagon and sat outside the circle, directing me to sit beside the fire, inside the circle.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  Wait, she signed.

  “For what?”

  Dark.

  They came shortly after moonrise, from all sides. The hell of it was, I knew they came for me. I’d put the woman who’d healed me in danger.

  Luminita was the first to sense their approach. She stamped and brayed, but she did not flee. Maybe she knew she could not escape, or maybe Azra’s charm continued to make her docile around beasts like the wolves and me.

  By the time I saw the glimmer of their eyes outside our fire’s light, Azra rose from her seat and stood in the gap of her ashen circle.

  I talk, she signed, pointing at me. You talk, she signed, sweeping her finger to indicate the intruders.

  I watched her hands and translated in my biggest voice. “Do the Sczarni respect their promises?”

  “You know them?” I whispered to Azra. She ignored the question.

  One of the wolves came closer, padding just inside the firelight. He was a big silverback, with eyes so pale they reflected the color of the flames. He stretched the way wolves do when they rise from sleep, head and forepaws low, hindquarters high back. Then he sat back, his canine body transforming into a long human figure that rose from a squat to stand over six feet tall. Big as life and naked as the second he was born, Dragos stood glaring at me. He was slightly less hairy as a man, a trifle more gray. He looked like a white, grizzled version of Vili.

  “You know why I have come, hellspawn,” he said. “Azra knows I respect her territory. Now you tell her what you have done to earn the vengeance of the Sczarni.”

  “I told her already,” I said. “Vili attacked me and my...party.” I had almost said “friend” and choked on the word. He and those with him killed all the others. If you want blood for blood, you’ve had more than your share already.”

  “Devil bastard, you killed my son. My son! I will rend you to pieces and feed them to my family.”

  I had a dozen good Varisian words to say to that, but Azra interrupted with a howl. One and one, she signed to me. Inside circle.

  “Seriously?” I said to her. “You want to make me fight him?”

  You have teeth, she signed, glancing at my boots. She must have seen me replace my silvered knives there. She pointed to herself and the wolf pack. Agreement.

  “I get it,” I said. She couldn’t break whatever territorial arrangement she had made with the Sczarni werewolves. To do so would put the villages under her protection at risk. Even I had to admit that my life wasn’t worth risking hers.

  She signed again, and I nodded as I understood her message. “You and me, old man, in the circle,” I told Dragos. “But if any other wolf tries to enter, she’ll kill you both.”

  Dragos glanced at Azra, one bushy eyebrow raised. His expression seemed less offended than impressed. He bowed toward her, somehow making the gesture graceful despite his nudity.

  Azra signed some more. I translated with some embellishment.

  “Two more conditions, she says.” I avoided Azra’s indignant gaze when she heard my altered version of her message. “I can’t leave the circle either. And if—when—I put the old wolf down, the rest of you must swear to forgo further vengeance.”

  “She did not say that,” said Dragos, calling my bluff. “Blood calls for blood, and Azra knows it. If a thunderbolt should fall upon me before I kill you, if the earth should open up and remove my teeth from your throat, my people will let you run until the next moon. That is the law of vengeance.”

  Azra gave me a look that told me I was out of time. The pack crept up for a closer view. For a second I wondered which one was Malena, but then Dragos walked through the gap in Azra’s magic circle. She closed it behind him, dropped her pouch of ash, and wove a sinuous pattern with both hands. The circle blazed silver. A translucent wall of light rose up to surround me, the fire, and Dragos.

  He lunged forward, shifting as he blurred across the circle. Before I could touch the handle of my knife, he knocked the legs out from under me. I hit the ground hard. He slid to a stop at the edge of the circle. Where his fur brushed the barrier, it wilted in a sizzle of holy power.

  I feinted to one side but rolled the opposite direction, across the campfire. It wasn’t hot enough to give me another attack of the big and uglies, but the move tricked Dragos. He shot past me, snarling and trailing ribbons of saliva from his jaws. I caught a whiff of his rancid breath as he passed. Then I was on my feet, my big knife in hand.

  He feigned a leap, but I anticipated it and retreated around the circle. I left a good couple of feet between me and the barrier. Having seen what it did to a werewolf, I had no desire to test its powers on hellspawn. Even if it didn’t hurt me, I wouldn’t want to be outside the circle, where all the pack could have a go, according to Azra. I think the werewolves knew that, even though I hadn’t translated that part of her message for them.

  Dragos transformed again. One second he was a huge timber wolf. The next he was a man-wolf, six feet tall in a crouch, hands become razor-sharp claws. His arms had at least two feet of reach on my knife. I regretted never taking the boss up on his sword fighting lessons.

  The werewolf’s muscles tensed for a leap, but I knew he wasn’t as reckless as Vili had been. I kept low to receive his charge. He came across the circle like a reaper with two scythes, the first claw sweeping toward my legs. Instead of tumbling over it, I leaped forward, stabbing at his other arm. His long claws raked my shoulder, but I shoved the blade deep into the nook of his elbow. I got a good twist in before he wrenched his arm away. He meant to take my blade with him, but those wavy edges aren’t just for show. They cut a pretty red blossom out of his flesh on the way out, exposing a raw white iris of sinew beneath.

  Dragos roared his fury. I had a feeling that was bad for him, so I made it worse. I blew him a kiss and tipped him a wink. He rushed me like a bull, and this time I rolled back, kicking up at his belly as he flew over. It was a bad angle, but there was enough force behind the blow to send him sliding partway through Azra’s barrier.

  Divine energy seared through the pelt on his leg and hip. The blast left angry red flesh that bubbled and withered in a flash. He scrambled back inside, yelping like a kicked dog. I was there first, waiting with a kick to the face.

  That was stupid. Shifting instantly back into wolf form, he caught my right ankle in his jaws and savaged it back and forth. For an insane instant I thought, I just had that fixed! Dragos’s transformation soothed his own wounds. Still hairless, the flesh of his burned leg looked weeks healed.

  I kicked his head with my free foot. The second shot caught him in the eye. He flinched enough for me to drag my wounded leg out of reach of those teeth. His canines were longer than my fingers.

  Scrambling up, I favored my injure
d leg but could still stand. My defensive crouch was lopsided, so I left it that way. I passed my knife to my right hand, hoping draw his attack to that side. He’d shown himself to be a canny fighter, but I was betting on his anger overwhelming his sense.

  When he hesitated and retreated a few steps, I hedged my bet. Maybe he wasn’t as furious as he was letting me think. I passed my knife from hand to hand—a stupid thing to do usually. At the same time, I shuffled side to side, feigning a flinch when I stepped right. I saw in his eyes that he’d caught it, so the next time I made a move, he rushed forward.

  As his jaws opened to envelop my right hand, where he expected me to catch my big knife, I kept it where it was and instead pulled one of my backups from my sleeve. His jaws clamped hard on my forearm, but I had thrust deep into his maw, my throwing knife slicing the vulnerable interior of his throat. The instant his jaws snapped open, I shoved deeper inside, twisting as hard as I could. He bit again, his teeth rasping against the bone of my forearm and killing the sinews of my wrist. My hand was dead inside him, but I kept pushing it in from my shoulder. It was agony for us both, but only I could howl.

  His body convulsed. I wrapped my legs around his chest and squeezed tight. His claws raked my back, but my patched jacket blunted the attack. His left paw was as dead as my right hand, and I dropped my knife and bent his good leg back. He could eat my arm, but he had nothing left to strike me with.

  A big grin creased my face. I let my jaw crack out of line and welcomed the pain as I saw the wolf’s eyes widen. I opened my jaws and pressed them hard against his throat. He struggled, and I increased the pressure, but I did not bite through. It would have been so easy. I wanted him to know I could do it.

  I held him for long seconds, sinking my teeth a little deeper each time he moved. Gradually he relaxed his limbs. Finally, still gagging, he opened his mouth wide. I took my mouth from his throat and sat back, still straddling his chest. Tenderly, I removed the limp ruin of my arm from his mouth and looked down at him.

  He averted his eyes and coughed. His bloody throat spasmed, and his body transformed again, this time more slowly than before. From wolf to hybrid to man, he lay there on his back, head turned away to avoid my eyes.

  “I killed you,” I said in that hoarse voice that stays for an hour after I open wide. “I can kill you again, any time.”

  Dragos said nothing.

  “Abandon your revenge.”

  A grimace twisted his face. Tears he could not shed for his own injuries now diluted the blood that smeared his face.

  I bent close to his face and screamed, “Swear it now!”

  “I will,” he whispered, his voice rougher than my own.

  “Tell them all!” I yelled.

  “I forswear the life of my son!” he cried. “There will be no more acts of vengeance.” The last word stretched into a painful whimper as his body dissolved once more into wolf form. Whatever healing the transformation granted him must have been spent, for his wounds remained raw and moist.

  I looked up to see all the wolves around the circle bowing low, their heads upon their forepaws.

  “The rest of you,” I shouted. “Swear it!”

  A few of them whimpered, but one raised its head and howled. It was a black-pelted, green-eyed female, and I had a feeling I’d seen her before in other clothes. A couple of others followed her lead, and then as one the pack raised their snouts and sang to the moon.

  I looked at Azra. She remained standing calmly at the gate she had closed in her magic circle. She nodded at me. I took that as confirmation of the wolves’ oath, but she had a queer look on her face as she looked at me. Was it fear or surprise? It could have been something else entirely. I wasn’t sure how much I liked it. Whatever it was, she made another sinuous gesture with both arms and waved the magical barrier away. The glowing walls vanished, but the silver border still glimmered in the moonlight.

  I stood up, hoping I didn’t look too shaky. My limp hand passed over Dragos’s muzzle as I rose, my own blood dripping into his bleeding mouth. He lifted his snout and licked my knuckles.

  A dog licks the hand it cannot bite, the boss once told me. At the time he was describing the rebellion in Sargava, but the words had stuck with me.

  The black female padded inside the circle. I stepped away from Dragos, thinking she was going to him, but she came to me and licked my hand as he had done. One by one the others followed, each tonguing my hand before moving back to lie down, eyes away from me.

  Only the female met my gaze. She shifted into human form, and there stood Malena, as I had guessed. Her naked body was leaner than I’d imagined. I could see her ribs and sharp hip bones through her pale skin. She knelt and kissed my uninjured hand. Behind her, Dragos whined in protest, but he hadn’t the strength to resume his human form. His voice would not be heard again tonight.

  “It is as the Harrowing foretold,” said Malena. “You are the Prince of Wolves.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Hedge Maze

  Upon leaving breakfast, ostensibly to return to the library, I strolled once more around Willowmourn Manor. Once out of sight of Casomir, Tara, and Felix, I performed the first of my planned experiments for the day. Removing the bit of meat I had saved from last night’s supper, I sniffed it, detected no objectionable scent, and took a bite. It was perfectly savory lamb meat.

  Some force tainted the food and drink inside the manor, but not outside. And inside, the effect seemed to apply only to me, not to Tara nor, presumably, to the house servants. If the putrescence was an omen of Urgathoa’s displeasure, then I was the only one who displeased her. There was no one else I could trust, not inside the manor.

  Before returning to the library, I followed approximately the same course I had taken on my walk the previous morning, only this time with a slight detour to the far side of the stables. From the nearby paddock, the groom called out commands to a horse he was leading through its paces. I approached and leaned upon the paddock fence as though to observe his work, but when he looked at me I glanced toward the nearby stable to emphasize that we were out of sight of those within the manor. He was a clever fellow and took my hint, coming near me as he continued to call out to the horse.

  “You are Anneke’s father, are you not?” This close to the man, there was no mistaking the familial resemblance. He had undoubtedly heard gossip about my ruse with the chambermaid last night, and I would have to smooth it over to make him cooperative.

  “It is dangerous for you here,” he said, ignoring my question. He sketched the spiral of Pharasma over his heart. “It is dangerous for all of us, but you still have time to escape. Take Anneke with you. She is a good girl. She will serve you the way you like.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said, wincing at the implied offer to prostitute his daughter. “The incident with Anneke was all a charade. I promise upon my honor that I did not interfere with her. Now tell me, what is this danger?”

  He shook his head and made the common Varisian warding against the evil eye. He would not put a name to the source of his fear. “It comes at night. You must go before then. I beg you, take Anneke with you.”

  “How can I believe you if you won’t explain the nature—?” He glanced over my shoulder, and I turned to see a sour-faced Felix approach. I turned back to the groom and pointed to the hedge maze, asking him banal questions about its age and how many gardeners were required for its maintenance. He caught on at once, but he did not have the knack for obfuscation. I hoped that Felix would fail to note the apprehension on his face.

  “Your Excellency,” said the butler. “I hope Bogdan is not troubling you.”

  “On the contrary,” I said. “It was I who interrupted his work. Thank you, Bogdan.”

  The groom knew a dismissal when he heard it, and he returned his attention to the horse with an expression of obvious relief.

  “Perhaps Your Excellency desires admission to the library,” said Felix. “I wish to ensure that you are not kept wait
ing while I attend my other duties.”

  “Most thoughtful of you, Felix,” I said. “I shall fetch a few things from my room and meet you at the library in ten minutes.”

  “Very good, sir.” He bowed and departed, passing near enough to Bogdan to whisper a reprimand. As the butler turned away, the groom’s gaze implored me to do as he begged. I turned away and followed Felix into the manor.

  If I have learned nothing else from my time as an active Pathfinder, it is that when a common fellow warns you of danger, it is wise to heed his advice.

  Of course, I did not overlook the terms of his warning. If I had until nightfall to escape this unnamed peril, there was still time to perform my second experiment, conclude my investigation into your likely next stop, prepare my travel bag for a hasty departure, and perhaps even confirm my suspicions about the nature of the curse on Willowmourn. If by remaining I could overcome said curse, I would be glad to do so, but if the theory taking shape in my imagination was correct, the source of the evil was not something that I wished to face without the assistance of several men at arms, a proper mage or sorcerer, and at least one senior cleric of Pharasma.

  In my room, I donned the most durable of my garments and folded my heavy woolen coat into my travel bag, which already contained my necessaries. I covered them all with this journal and my book of spells. When Felix saw that I meant to carry the bag into the library, I addressed his suspicious countenance by remarking that I wished to copy certain passages from Galdana’s books into my own notes. I might have gone so far as to invite him to count my books before and after my visit, but there is a limit to how far I will accommodate an inquisitive servant.

  When Felix locked the library door behind me, I consulted that forbidden tome of Urgathoa, Serving Your Hunger. At first I could not imagine why I had found it among your other materials, and I still wonder whether it was you or my forgotten self who placed it there. In light of new evidence, the book’s title alone was almost sufficient evidence to confirm my suspicions that Casomir or Tara, or both of them, and perhaps some of the staff, were worshipers of Urgathoa.