Marsheila Rockwell - Legacy of the Wolves

Someone was trying to get in.

He tried to sit up and felt his stomach lurch violently in protest, even as the room began to tilt. He turned his head to the side and vomited sour bile onto the threadbare Brelish carpet.

Surprisingly, after he’d emptied his stomach, he felt a little better, even hungry. He wondered how long he’d been asleep. A few hours? It was dark out, and Aryth shone full and fiery through the study window.

Wait. Surely that wasn’t right? The moon known as the Gateway would not be full for another three nights yet.

His second attempt to sit was more successful, and when he found he could stay upright for more than a few seconds without being overcome with nausea, he used the chair and the table legs to pull himself into a standing position. As he did, he felt something sting his neck. He slapped it away clumsily, only to realize it was not some nuisance insect, but a bloodspike.

Greddark .

The inquisitive had drugged him-that would explain the lost time.

But why?

To keep him out of harm’s way, no doubt. Unfortunately, it seemed harm had come to find him anyway, and was even now forcing its way through his front door.

He pulled his sword from the scabbard he’d left hanging on the back of his chair and stumbled to the study door. Greddark had told him not to try and go out once the wards were set. The dwarf had rigged some sort of petrification spell to catch any intruders in the act.

A spell that didn’t appear to be working, judging from the sound of the knob being twisted and torn from the wood.

Zoden arrived in the foyer just as the door flew wide.

A blonde shifter stood there, amber eyes blazing out of the shadows, clothes hanging from him in shreds. At his feet, a gray wolf looked back toward the street.

No, not a gray wolf. A statue.

Greddark’s spell had worked after all.

There was something strange about the shifter, but Zoden’s thoughts were still swimming from whatever had been in the bloodspike, and he couldn’t put his finger on it.

He shouldn’t be so hairy, should he?

Before Zoden could pinpoint what was wrong with the intruder, the shifter stepped across the threshold, activating another of Greddark’s traps. A dozen crossbow bolts slammed into the shifter-six in his chest, two in each thigh, one in his stomach and one in his throat-knocking him back out onto the porch.

With a growl, the shifter pulled the bolts out of his body, snapping them in half and tossing them behind him into the yard. Zoden watched in dread as the bloodless wounds left by the quarrels sealed of their own accord, leaving the shifter angry but unharmed.

Not a shifter.

A werewolf .

Of course. That wasn’t a shadow slicing across his face, but a long snout jutting out from below a sharply sloping forehead. Thick blonde fur didn’t just cover his head, cheeks and forearms, but his entire body, from tufts of hair on his pointed ears to the tip of a bushy tail that lashed back and forth behind him in anticipation. And not even a longtooth shifter had fangs that large.

Fangs that Zoden remembered well.

At the sound of his horrified gasp, the werewolf looked up and caught sight of him. He smiled.

“Hello, Zoden. Time for you to join your brother.”

With a strength born of desperation, Zoden lifted his sword and charged. The werewolf made no attempt to avoid his blow, laughing as the length of metal slid into his gut.

“You’ll have to do better than that, Zoden.”

The werewolf reached out and grabbed the blade with both hands, yanking it from the bard’s grasp. He pulled it slowly back out of his stomach, hand over hand, grinning all the while. When he’d removed the sword completely, he hefted it in one hand, flashing it in the light from the foyer to demonstrate that it was still clean. Then he threw the useless weapon to one side with another laugh.

“Care to try something else? No?” The lycanthrope stepped aside, gesturing to the yard and the open gate beyond. “Then you’d best take my advice -run.”

Zoden didn’t need a written invitation. He bolted past the werewolf and down the front stairs, nearly falling as he struggled to get his leaden legs to move the way they were supposed to. As he headed for the open street, he considered crying out for help, but knew it would do no good-in a city gripped by terror, no one was going to brave the dark to aid a neighbor, for fear of becoming a victim themselves.

He was on his own.

Zoden ran for the Imaradis’ home two streets over, knowing even as he did so that he’d never make it.

The werewolf brought him down before he’d gone more than a dozen paces, leaping onto his back and sending him sprawling, face-down, in the street. The werewolf tore at the nape of his neck, coming away with a mouthful of cloak that he spit out in disgust. Zoden could feel the thing’s hot breath against the side of his face, as the lycanthrope bent close. His jaws dripped drool onto the ground as he whispered in Zoden’s ear.

“You could have died like a man on the rail, but you ran then, too. Now you’re going to die just like your brother did, weeping and pissing in your pants like a frightened child.”

No!

With an enraged cry, Zoden summoned every bit of strength he had left and thrust himself away from the ground, throwing the werewolf off him and rolling onto his back. Unable to stand, he scrabbled backward on all fours, trying to put as much distance between him and his attacker as possible.

The lycanthrope landed lightly on his feet and stalked after him, the moonlight catching his fur and making it glow like fire.

Host! What was he going to do? He had no way of hurting the lycanthrope, and the lingering effects of Greddark’s drug made any hope of flight impossible.

It looked like he was going to be joining his brother tonight, after all.

He almost laughed as the werewolf advanced on him. He’d wanted this confrontation, wanted the chance to prove himself, to claim the hero’s death that Zodal had stolen from him that night-was it only three weeks ago? And now look at him, scuttling across the rutted street like some misshapen crab, his hand and legs tangling in his precious scarlet cloak.

His cloak.

Of course!

He stopped trying to flee and sat down hard on the ground, one hand reaching up to loosen the pin still lodged in the folds of his ruined cloak.

It had been a gift from Zodal when he’d first joined the Throneholders, its head shaped like a tiny wyvern to symbolize their loyalty to Diani. His brother had thought it ironic to have the pin made of the very metal that epitomized the Church Zoden so ridiculed-silver.

The werewolf stood over him now, gloating.

“Get up. Die on your feet like the man you profess to be. Or would you rather do as your brother did, and die on your back like a coward?”

“My brother was no coward!” Zoden bellowed, trying to surge to his feet, the pin grasped tightly in his hand. “He was a hero, facing a death meant for me!”

Still wobbly, Zoden couldn’t quite stand. He stumbled and went down on one knee. Mustering strength from some heretofore unguessed-at inner reserve, Zoden lunged forward and stabbed the silver wyvern deep into the werewolf’s thigh.

Roaring in agony, the werewolf reached down and tore the cloak pin from his flesh, his warm blood spurting in Zoden’s face. He grabbed the bard’s head, one clawed hand on either side, and twisted. Zoden heard a snap that echoed through the quiet street.

As both pain and awareness faded, the last lines of the poem Zoden had been working on flitted through his mind.

“No more cheap honor to defend ,

The bard welcomes his fated end