Marsheila Rockwell - Legacy of the Wolves

“So, he’s to be my personal manservant? My bodyguard?” Ignoring Andri’s dark look, Ostra dropped his hand and turned to Irulan. “No? My cook, then? I could use a good cook-Leata always burns the meat.”

Irulan frowned, taking her seat once more. After a brief hesitation, Andri followed suit. “Aeyliros is not the gift. His services are. He’s come to help us prove the shifters are not behind these murders.”

“Ah.” Ostra’s twitch grew into a smile that was not entirely pleasant. He turned his bright gaze back to Andri. “Flamekeep has sent the shifters an advocate, then?”

“I am an advocate for the truth,” Andri said. Ostra was trying to provoke him. And very nearly succeeding.

Ostra’s smile widened to show pointed teeth, and Andri realized that the old shifter was enjoying himself. And he was just getting started.

“Real truth doesn’t need advocates, paladin. It is like the sun, the moons, or the earth upon which we tread. It abides without regard for the smallness of the beings who try to comprehend it. To think that one could be its sole possessor or its chosen defender is, indeed, the height of arrogance.”

“Hrazhak!” Irulan spat the word out at the old man before Andri could respond. She came to her feet angrily, and much to Andri’s surprise, she had shifted , her claws now twice as long and thick as they had been. He half-rose from his own seat, looking from her to Ostra and back again, confused. Hrazhak was a shifter game, he knew that, played on a sort of combined obstacle course and battleground. Which, he supposed, was not too different from this conversation.

“Peace, child,” Ostra responded, holding up both hands, palms out. “I will not challenge your hero further.”

The camp leader gestured for Andri and Irulan to resume their seats and took one himself. He called for wine and waited until they each held a short-stemmed glass before pouring out a small libation onto the dirt floor. Though Irulan did the same, Andri noted that she had not yet retracted her claws, and when she tossed the drink back, he could see that the hackles on her neck were still raised. The shifters finished their wine nearly simultaneously, then bent as one to slam their glasses upside down on the dirt floor, as though it were some sort of contest. And perhaps, given the hrazhak , it was.

Ostra grinned at Irulan and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then turned his deep, intelligent gaze on Andri once more.

“Now tell me, child of the moontouched, how you are going to help my people.”

Andri blinked, startled by both Ostra’s words, and his imperious tone.

Child of the moontouched . Did the old shifter just deliberately misunderstand Irulan earlier, or was he referring to Andri’s past? Andri guesses it was the latter-he had a feeling that there was very little the camp leader did not understand.

Well, then. The best defense against insinuation was candor.

“I think the question is: How are you going to help them? There’s nothing I can tell you about this matter that you don’t already know, but I think that the reverse is not true.”

“Meaning I have information about these murders that you don’t?” Ostra asked. “If that were true, don’t you think I’d be using it to free my people?”

“Not if that information implicated them.”

Both Ostra and Irulan glared at him. Andri raised his hands, palms out, as the shifter leader had done.

“But that’s not what I was referring to. Based on everything Irulan has told me and everything I’ve learned through questioning both witnesses and the families of the deceased, I’m not convinced your shifters are behind these murders. The arrests seem far too convenient. It’s as if someone with a grudge against shifters is either committing these murders and framing them, or is taking advantage of someone else’s misdeeds and making sure the blame is laid squarely at your feet. If that’s true, then it’s likely you know who the culprit is, even if you don’t realize it.”

Ostra considered this, idly clicking his claws together as he thought it through.

“If someone has a grudge against my people, then why is he targeting the citizens of Aruldusk? Why not just kill shifters?”

Andri paused. He’d been thinking about that, and though he’d told Irulan the killer could be a lycanthrope, werebeasts were few in number and most avoided civilized areas at all costs. Especially in Thrane. And a lycanthrope-a werewolf-was the last thing he wanted to have to face, and not just because they were deadly, cunning foes who were nearly impossible to track.

But perhaps there was another solution to this mystery.

Ostra’s appearance had given him the idea. Maybe the killer was a shifter, after all-not a blond or white-haired one, but an old one. Perhaps the tuft of fur Irulan had found did not belong to some rare albino shifter from across the Bitter Sea, but to an elder of the tribe. Not Ostra-Andri would have sensed the evil about him the moment he laid eyes on the camp leader. But a compatriot of his, one who had, perhaps, been driven from the tribe for some transgression?

It was an avenue worth pursuing, at least, though a tiny voice inside him-one he’d been trying to ignore from the moment the Keeper had summoned him-pointed out that Jaela Daran would not likely have chosen him for this task if she didn’t believe a lycanthrope was involved. He shied away from that thought, like a skittish horse from a telltale hiss and rattle. There had to be another way, another enemy he could face without having to become what he most hated-his father.

With a casual shrug, Andri laid out his idea, careful to keep his voice neutral, to keep from betraying how desperately he wanted-needed-this to be the answer.

“Maybe killing them is too easy. Maybe his feud is with the entire community, and his revenge will only be complete if the tribe is completely destroyed. What better way than to have you branded as murderers and driven away from your home? Once word spreads of what’s happened here, no city will ever welcome you again. Your tribe will be splintered, scattered to the winds, forced to purge the name of Aruldusk from their history if they have any hope of blending into society again. That, or they will have to return to the Reaches with the shame of their failure here as their only legacy.”

Ostra’s lips pulled back to show teeth, but Andri pushed on.

“Why settle for your deaths when he can have your dishonor?”

The shifter leader rocked back in his seat as if Andri had struck him. And, in a way, Andri supposed he had. In a culture with such a unique and fierce sense of honor, the thought of a tribal member intentionally bringing disgrace not only to himself, but to his entire clan, was an offense so egregious that to even mention it was to risk blood insult, or worse. It was, in a very real sense, blasphemy.

“You dare?” Ostra snarled, and even Irulan looked furious. Or perhaps she was just angry that he had not conferred with her before springing this theory on Ostra. Either way, Andri knew that his position had just become extremely precarious.

“Forgive me, Ostra. I mean no offense to you or your people. But with so many lives in peril, and perhaps the very existence of your tribe, we have to be willing to look at every possibility, no matter how unsavory.”

Andri’s smooth words and calm tone seemed to mollify the old shifter somewhat, but the paladin knew he’d better end this quickly.

“Is there anyone you can think of who might feel that he’s been wronged by the tribe? Anyone unstable or vindictive enough to sacrifice his own honor for the sake of vengeance?”