Prince of Wolves

by Dave Gross

  The surviving villagers, covered in the gore of their neighbors, pushed into the vault chamber. Fane and Cezar tore into them, throwing some into the pit, pushing others back into the mob. Much as I regretted the deaths of the freaks, I couldn’t fault the Sczarni. It was well past time for taking prisoners.

  Above us, vault doors snapped open at the monster’s command. Books flew out of the compartments, pages flapping like birds caught in a gale. They swirled around the vampire, pausing one by one as its magic held them still to read their titles. The thing shrieked in triumph as it beheld a large volume bound in quilted fragments of human skin, some still retaining an ear, a lip, or a nipple.

  I raised a throwing knife, but the boss was quicker. He conjured a spell with a riffle scroll. For an instant I saw a translucent duplicate of his hand appear. When it vanished, he gestured at the book before the vampire and pulled it toward him.

  Tara shrieked in protest and turned toward him, but he sent the book flying to Azra and shouted, “She must not have it!”

  Azra caught the book in both arms, still holding her starknife. She raised it to cast another warding spell, but she was too slow. Her body rose up as if pulled by an invisible noose. She flew toward the hovering vampire, which licked its lips with a long red tongue in anticipation of a feast.

  I threw a knife at the vampire’s face, but the silvered blade glanced off its scaly cheek as if it were as hard as marble. The next one I hurled lower, severing the viscera of a lung. The wet organ fell away, and the monster screamed in agony. It would take me five or six more shots like that to kill the thing, if that were even possible. I pulled out the big knife, and as the monster turned to face me, I let it fly.

  The blade cut through the monster’s exposed organs, cutting away several nasty lumps and a long rope of intestines, but not the heart. As the vampire shrieked ever louder and more shrilly, its severed pieces fell to the sunken floor with a sickening splash. The heart remained, and Azra still hung suspended beside the monster, clutching the invisible grip at her throat with one hand and holding onto the Codex with the other. Her feet kicked uselessly in the air. She couldn’t last much longer.

  “Come on, you scabby whore!” I screamed at the monster, opening my arms to show I was weaponless.

  The vampire was too cunning to fall for such a lame taunt. Still holding Azra suspended, it hissed at me as clouds of blood seethed from its eyes. A buzzing pestilence surged out of its mouth to shoot down at me. I raised an arm to cover my eyes, but just then I saw a beam of light tumbling end over end toward the monster.

  The boss had thrown his sword, the damned fool. The hell of it was, he almost hit the vampire. The blade swept inches past her cheek, severing only a few tendrils of her disgusting “hair” before arcing down into the chasm, where it would fall beyond reach of anyone who could wield it against the monster.

  Damned fool that I am, I leaped after it.

  I caught the sword by the grip and hurled it straight up. Desna smiled, and the blade cut straight through the vampire’s heart and went on to puncture its skull. That was more good fortune than I deserved. Naturally, Desna then laughed and sent me three times as much bad luck to balance my account.

  First, my back struck the ragged floor of the sunken platform, and I felt my spine crack. After the first instant of impact, I didn’t feel a thing below my neck. I knew what that meant.

  Next, released from the vampire’s spell, Azra fell beside me. I wanted reach out to her, but my arms were dead, too. She brought her hands up to shield her head with the book, but her body hit the stone with a heartbreaking crunch.

  Finally, the foul rain of the monster’s steaming remains fell upon us both. I saw but couldn’t feel the stuff burning my skin, and I heard the awful popping sound of her undead manikins growing all around us.

  “Radovan!” yelled the boss. I saw him peering over the edge. Behind him, I heard the wailing of the villagers as their minds slipped free of the vampire’s control. Their mute obedience gone, they screamed in terror of the attacking Sczarni.

  “Stop killing them!” I shouted to the wolves. The boss repeated my command in Varisian, and the sounds of battle subsided. Beside me, Azra moaned and stirred.

  “Azra,” I said. “You’ve got to get up.”

  Azra pushed herself up and shook her head to clear it of the stars I knew were exploding in there. She punched me lightly in the arm, but I couldn’t move a muscle. Understanding dawned in her eyes, and she tugged at my ruined jacket.

  “I’m going nowhere,” I said. “You have to climb up like you did back at Virholt’s tomb.”

  Not without you, she signed. One of the bloody little horrors lurched toward her, and she seared it with a flash of light from her palm. It winced backward, but its gruesome body continued to grow. A half dozen more of its kin gathered behind it.

  “Go,” I told her. “Get that book out of here.”

  She hesitated, looking up at the boss, who fumbled with his riffle scrolls, then back at me. She was a smart woman. Neither of us had seen the boss cast a spell that could raise me up out of here before those things swarmed me, and we both knew I couldn’t lift a hand to defend myself.

  “I’m the goddamned Prince of Wolves,” I screamed. “Obey me, and get out of here before it’s too late.”

  There were tears in her eyes, and I’d put them there. She punched me hard in the chest. I couldn’t feel the blow, but it hurt all the same. She kissed me then, tenderly. In its way, that hurt a thousand times more.

  She pushed herself up and spun, a starknife appearing with a glimmer in her free hand. She ran as if up an invisible spiral stairway. When she was clear, the boss flipped another scroll and dissolved one of the nasty undead with a glob of acid. The shot was good for my morale, but I glimpsed the others crawling over my legs toward my face, stabbing and biting away my flesh as they came.

  There was only one thing for it.

  “Light me up, boss,” I called.

  “What?” He looked down, perplexed. I loved putting that expression on his face. Malena looked down at me, too, fear apparent even on her half-wolf muzzle.

  “Give me some of what you gave Dragos,” I said. “Burn these things off of me.”

  “No,” he shouted. “The spell is far more intense than a bonfire. In that small space, it’ll incinerate you, too.”

  “Just do it,” I said. “Trust me.” But suddenly I didn’t trust my own instinct. Dragos had survived a blast, but he’d leaped clear of the point of explosion. I’d survived a funeral pyre, but that was a relatively slow burn, and even that had hurt like hell. Whatever change the fire brought out in me, I had a bad feeling it wouldn’t be fast enough to save me from the heat of a magical fire. Even if it did save me from the manikins and didn’t blast me further down the sinkhole, I’d still be paralyzed. Only I’d also be on fire. Still, it was a cleaner death than the one these undead horrors promised.

  “Everyone back,” the boss shouted. I bit my tongue to stop myself from telling him I’d changed my mind. Azra stood beside him, and for a second I thought she’d stop him. But she only looked me in the eyes as the boss chose his scroll and pointed it at me. I tipped them a wink and closed my eyes as the fire came down.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Prince’s Treasure

  The blast from the fireball hurled us all back from the edge of the chasm, slamming me against the vault walls for the second time in as many minutes. All around me, villagers and Sczarni alike moaned in pain, the sound muffled as though I were listening to a conversation in the next room.

  The lights of our torches flickered in the smoke from the blast. One of the brands flared momentarily as a pocket of flammable gas touched its flame. The world tilted and spun, and through the muted din I discerned a sound like brittle rain. Pages from the tomes pulled from the vaults drifted down like leaves, a few of them flaming from the explosion. I cringed more at the pain of the lost knowledge than at the wound in my shoulder. I smelle
d seared meat, and at last my mind cleared sufficiently that I focused on the immediate problem.

  I scrambled to the edge of the pit. Azra was already there, howling a pitiable, tongueless approximation of Radovan’s name. Her voice sounded distant beneath the pounding of my own pulse. Sulfurous flumes rose up through the gray smoke, choking us with its hellish stench. I found the proper scroll and released a gust of wind to blow it away. Much of the smoke had no avenue of escape, so it remained swirling in the sinkhole until finally it dispersed enough to reveal the figure standing on the sunken floor.

  It was approximately the shape of a man, but it stood over seven feet tall. Its naked skin was the color of fresh copper, still hot from the forge, coiled muscles wrapped thick as a mile of cable around its bulging limbs. From its knees and elbows jutted sharp bones the length of my forearm, and black claws curled from its fingers and toes. Blunt, hornlike protrusions rose from its brow, and tiny spurs dotted its cheeks and chin. The only recognizable features on the devil before us were its eyes. They were identical to Radovan’s.

  I called his name, and he looked up at me. He was standing, and judging by the way his extraordinary musculature flexed as he moved, he appeared to be in perfect health. “Tell me you’re all right.”

  “Never better, boss,” he said.

  I winced to hear him speak the language of Hell. Its harsh syllables sounded like incoherent growls and roars to those unfamiliar with the tongue. Behind me, the Sczarni backed away while making the sign against the evil eye, and the surviving villagers moaned in fear. I saw Tudor crouched among them, presumably released from his bonds by one of the Sczarni. It was plain that the villagers had been freed from Tara’s charm upon her death. I addressed him in Varisian, “Calm your people, boy, and find some rope.”

  A thunderous impact struck the floor beside me. I turned to look up into Radovan’s alien face. I felt the steam coming off his enormous body, almost two feet taller than his normal height. He looked down at me and grinned, and I could not suppress my shudder of fear at those vast and merciless jaws. Fane and Tatiana screamed along with a chorus of villagers, while Cezar cursed with such passion I expected his words to conjure another devil.

  Beside me, Azra swept her hands through a hasty spell, spinning once in a pirouette of astonishing natural grace. She stopped with a starknife in one hand held before her stomach, the open palm of her other hand pointed at Radovan, or what he had become. She frowned at whatever knowledge the spell had given her. She stepped away from him.

  “It’s all right,” said Radovan, dropping to one knee before her. “I’m not mad.”

  I translated the infernal words for Azra. Timidly she stepped toward him. He opened his arms, and after a brief moment’s hesitation, she stepped into them. He held her tight. It seemed unlikely he would suddenly devour her, so I turned to give them a moment’s privacy.

  “Let us not linger here,” I told the Sczarni and villagers in their native tongue. “Gather up all the pages you can find, and pat them out gently if they are still afire. Stack them here, here, and here. Move those torches away first. Afterward, see to the wounded.”

  Hours later, we finished conveying the last of the hidden tomes out of the vault and onto Sczarni carpets outside the mountain cache. I directed the villagers to place them just close enough to the campfire for light, but not so close as to risk burning more pages. The Sczarni erected their oracle’s tent for Radovan, who retained his diabolic figure but could now communicate with Azra via Pathfinder signs. After ministering to the worst injured, Azra joined him in an effort to return him to his usual appearance. How she planned to do so, I could not imagine.

  I tried not to dwell upon the image of Radovan in his fully infernal shape. His description of the earlier transformation did nothing to prepare me for the reality. The phenomenon was unlike any of the myriad supernatural qualities found among hellspawn, and my first thought was that he was more like the shape-changing Sczarni who followed him than any of us had realized.

  At the moment of the vampire’s destruction, my absent memories flooded back into my mind. I was astonished at how closely my first investigations mirrored my second. I had discovered my Pathfinder’s trail, stumbled upon the secret of the riffle scrolls, and even befriended Arnisant by feeding him the meat I could not stomach. The difference was that, upon witnessing the vampire Tara’s head flying out to prey upon the servants, I deduced the house was beset by a demon or undead creature. Intending to hunt for it the following night, I secreted Galdana’s fabulous sword in the same place I had hidden the riffle scrolls I had just learned to create.

  Unfortunately, I had not made the connection between Tara and the flying creature, and when I foolishly brought her into my confidence the next morning, she revealed her true nature. Without my scrolls or Galdana’s enchanted blade at hand, I snatched another weapon from the wall. Casomir came to the defense of his mistress, only to discover that the reason I do not bear the Lepidstadt scar is that none of my fellow students were able to strike me before I wounded each in turn. Distracted by his interference, however, I fell victim to the vampire’s magic. With a kiss as loathsome as the flesh of a swamp toad, she blotted my memory of my first days at Willowmourn.

  After our conflict, Casomir must have ordered the remaining weapons removed from their wall mounts. I felt a surge of scorn as I imagined his fear that I might again face him blade in hand. Upon discovering the absence of Galdana’s sword, he must have trembled even more, but now I understood that Tara had demanded he leave the blade wherever I had hidden it, knowing its antipathetic power would act as her compass to my location. Still desirous that I complete my investigations into the location of the Lacuna Codex, she allowed me to awaken again, coaching the servants to pretend that I had only recently arrived at Willowmourn.

  Reliving those lost memories, I shuddered at the horrible fate that befell the servants, particularly Anneke. Her uncertainty had been my first clue to my missing days. How crudely I had abused her in trying to recover them, unaware of the peril she faced. If only I had been able to save her life, I could have felt blameless in my clumsy investigation. It should be a long time before I could forget her pitiable death.

  Happily, I had more than enough present questions to occupy my attention. Cezar grumbled at his hasty bargain, for we had found no gold within the vaults of Prince Virholt. The Lacuna Codex was only one of almost forty volumes of arcane and historical secrets. It would take me weeks if not months to peruse them all, but for now I contented myself with a brief inspection in preparation for an inventory to catalogue them by type and importance. I began with the Codex itself.

  If anything, Casomir’s boasts had understated the potency of the spells within its pages. While little more than an adept of arcane magic, and that only because of the trick of the riffle scrolls, I had some comprehension of the ultimate magics that mortals could wield. I could not hope to cast them myself, at least not without decades more of study and practice, but I could recognize a gate spell or the dread killing word. The spells within the Codex, however, could annihilate whole armies or sunder the very fabric of reality. Now the tales Malena had recited of the Whispering Tyrant’s triumph over Virholt’s brothers seemed less like an elaborate romance and more like an unvarnished chronicle. Allowing such powers to come under the authority of a creature like Tara was unthinkable.

  I set the Codex apart, trusting that its ghastly binding would keep curious Varisians away from it. Then I had second thoughts and mused aloud, in Varisian, that I had never seen such a potent curse laid upon any book and that I would not touch it myself if I were not such a powerful wizard. The whispers among the villagers and Sczarni alike suggested my ruse would be sufficient, at least in the short term.

  As I turned to examine the other books, I felt a warm touch upon my shoulder. I recognized Malena’s distinctive scent even before I turned to see her face. Between the soft hair that floated beside my cheek and those green eyes, I could see how she had
proven such a danger to Radovan back in Caliphas. He was forever vulnerable to superficial beauty. There are, of course, worse failings in men, and I cannot pretend immunity to the wiles of certain women, but fortunately my standards are higher than Radovan’s. Even if they were not, I was protected from any charms Malena might seek to employ by the vast disparity in our social positions.

  “Can I help you with this task?” she asked. Her Taldane was not at all bad. In fact, it was rather attractive in her Ustalavic accent.

  “Only if you can read Old Varisian,” I said, noting with a certain satisfaction the disappointment in her eyes.

  “Not I,” she admitted. “Tatiana can read a little, but maybe not this Old Varisian. Is it very difficult?”

  “Not once you have learned it,” I told her. “It does not matter. I can finish sorting them once we return home.”

  “Home?” she asked. “To Caliphas?”

  “Certainly not,” I said. “To Cheliax, eventually.”

  “And the Prince, he will go with you?”

  Of course he will, I almost said. But at that thought I had to pause and consider the question more carefully. I had realized in recent days that I might have underestimated Radovan’s connection with the Sczarni, perhaps his connection to all the people of Ustalav. We continued to uncover evidence that he was the distant heir to the last king of the land. While it was preposterous to expect the human lords of the country to consider even for an instant that a hellspawn foreigner might sit among them, Radovan’s claim was the sort of thing an ambitious man—or woman, I realized, thinking of my paramour Carmilla—could use to incite a civil dispute.