Marsheila Rockwell - Legacy of the Wolves

Another movement, behind them and to the left. A second story window above a toymaker’s shop.

Some of the sockets still had eyes, after all.

Greddark slowed his horse, pretending to scrutinize one of the maps while Andri caught up to him.

“Is there a problem?” the paladin asked as he reined in his horse next to the dwarf’s mount.

“You might say that,” Greddark said, pointing his finger at the paper while turning toward Andri. He lowered his voice. “Act as if I’m showing you something interesting,” he said as he glanced surreptitiously over the paladin’s mailed shoulder.

The window was empty.

Andri caught on immediately. “We’re being followed?” he asked, leaning forward and pretending to examine the map. “Is it Quillion?”

“Well, like Irulan said,” the dwarf replied, grinning wolfishly at the perplexed shifter as she turned back to see what was keeping them. “There’s only one way to know for sure.”

The trap was simple. After a quick perusal of his maps, Greddark found a circular junction where the road they were on intersected two others. He would stop there, feigning an injury to his mount with the aid of a tiny spiked ball he kept for just such occasions. Meanwhile Irulan and Andri would seem to press on, following their intended route to a spacious park that backed up to several large, gated estates. Once out of sight, they would double back, cutting through several alleyways to another of the roads that fed into the junction. Greddark, meanwhile, would appear to busy himself with tending to his horse, leaving him seemingly vulnerable to attack. Though it was still daytime, the opportunity to catch him alone and distracted should prove tempting enough to draw the lycanthrope out, especially with the threat of Andri’s silver sword removed.

Of course, Andri’s sword was also the only weapon any of them had that would do real damage to a lycanthrope. Irulan had her single silver-tipped claw, but it was more decoration than dagger. Whether it would actually hurt the creature or simply annoy him remained to be seen. She’d also been able to haggle with one of the camp shifters for a large pair of silver teardrop earrings, which Greddark had helped her melt down and apply to a single arrowhead, but she’d only use the makeshift arrow as a last resort.

Greddark hadn’t anticipated facing a werewolf when he left Sigilstar, and so he had nothing to hand that could hurt one, nor had he been able to find a suitable weapon on the journey here. In Thrane, silver swords-in actuality, steel swords alchemically bonded with silver-were the province of knights, forged by commission. Even if Greddark could have found a weaponsmith willing to make one, he wouldn’t have been able to afford the cost-in time or in gold.

Magic weapons weren’t any easier to come by-at least not when you’d been kicked out of the largest city in the area. Greddark had tried asking around in Olath, but those who trafficked in such items rarely advertised on the street, and even if you could find a seller, transactions were often by appointment only. Not an option when the four moons which were currently full would all begin waning in a matter of days. If they stayed on schedule, Aryth would still be full by the time they reached Shadukar. If not, their job would become that much harder.

So he’d taken the precaution of borrowing a vial of liquid belladonna extract from Andri before they entered the ruined city. He couldn’t coat his own blade with the mixture-since it was neither silver nor magical, any wound from the short sword would heal before the poison could be introduced into the lycanthrope’s bloodstream. No, if it came down to it, and he was forced to fight Quillion before Andri and Irulan arrived, he’d have to remove the stopper and splash the mixture in the werewolf’s face, praying that some of the liquid reached Quillion’s eyes or the soft, delicate tissues of his nose or mouth. With any luck, he might be able to blind the lycanthrope before it tore his throat out. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He wasn’t often lucky.

They reached the junction much more quickly than Greddark would have liked. A long-dry fountain served as the circle’s centerpiece, carved from a single block of bluish-green marble and depicting a merman in mid-leap, seaweed and shells twined in his hair and beard and a trident carried in one webbed hand. The trident was an ancient symbol of the Devourer, and finding the emblem of the god of destruction right where they were about to spring their trap struck Greddark as a very ill omen indeed.

He saw no further signs of their pursuer as they neared the fountain, but the hairs on his neck refused to relax-the lycanthrope was out there, watching them. He could feel it.

Sighing, he put their plan in motion. He sneezed once, loudly, an action that was not entirely a charade-the dust and ashes stirred up by their passage floated in the air and tickled his nostrils with every breath. He could taste Shadukar’s death on his tongue, oily and rancid.

Irulan, still on foot ahead of him, turned to shush him with an angry gesture. If he hadn’t been anticipating it, he would not have seen her drop the ball he’d given her in his horse’s path. Marking where it landed, he shrugged apologetically at her and urged his horse onward, guiding it until it stepped right on the spot where the ball lay.

As if on cue, the horse balked, whinnying in discomfort and lifting its leg off the ground. If Greddark had been a better horseman, the ball of spikes-a trick he’d learned from the Karrns, who used the tiny balls against opposing cavalry during the War-would not have been necessary, but they had to make it look convincing. Hopefully, the spiked ball would not actually hurt the horse, merely lodge in its hoof and make walking uncomfortable until it was removed.

“Something’s wrong with the horse,” he said loudly to Andri, who’d ridden up to see why Greddark had stopped. “Maybe the shoe-I’ll check it out, but you two should go on and see if you can find the lair. I’ll catch up to you afterward.”

“Are you sure?” The paladin frowned, his brown eyes concerned. He hadn’t been thrilled with the idea of leaving Greddark undefended. Frankly, Greddark wasn’t all that happy about it himself, but as the only one of them the lycanthrope had no reason to fear, he was the obvious choice for bait.

“Yes,” he responded, perhaps a bit too forcefully, but Andri did not argue further. He simply nodded.

“Very well. If you should require aid-”

“Scream and you’ll come running? Along with anything else that might be hiding out in this Host-forsaken shell of a city. No thanks.” Greddark swung his leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground. “I’ll be fine.”

The paladin considered him for a moment, then shrugged. He urged his mount onward, motioning for Irulan to continue. The two were across the circle, around another bend, and out of sight in moments.

Greddark led his limping mount to the fountain, Irulan’s mare tagging along behind, whickering softly in complaint. He tied the reins to the merman’s outstretched arm, then sat on the edge of the basin and lifted the horse’s leg to look at the affected hoof. As he made of show of examining the shoe, he pulled out a small knife and dug the spiked ball out of the sole of the animal’s hoof. Perhaps Olladra did smile on him, after all-the spikes had come a sovereign’s width from puncturing the spongy frog and causing the horse real injury.

He heard something-a footfall?

He thought it came from the road behind him, but in this empty, echoing city, it was hard to ascertain the cause or direction of any noise. He pretended not to notice, cooing comfortingly to the horse while he palmed the vial of belladonna. As the glass slid across his sweaty hand, he realized that he was frightened in a way he hadn’t been while facing down the ghost tiger, which surely could have killed him as easily as any lycanthrope.