Marsheila Rockwell - Legacy of the Wolves

The lycanthrope began the pass again, and Andri recognized the motions this time. It was one of his father’s own favorites, a ball of fire tinged with silver and imbued with holy power. But the werewolf’s magic didn’t seem to be working.

Whatever the reason, Andri took the lapse for the boon it was and pressed his own attack. As the lycanthrope tried again and again to call the fire into being, Andri moved in. He feinted toward the werewolf’s hands. As the creature drew away to protect them, Andri crouched low, reversing his stroke and slicing at the lycanthrope’s knees, which had been his true target all along. Only the beast’s preternatural speed allowed it to avoid the blow, as it danced back just out of reach of the silver blade.

Andri had been prepared for that, though. Uncoiling, he sprang forward, bringing the tip of his father’s sword up and scoring a long gash along the werewolf’s abdomen. The creature whirled away, clutching at the wound with one hand, while Andri positioned himself so that he stood between it and the bed.

The werewolf brought its hand up, staring at its own blood curiously. It looked at Andri and grinned again, then thrust its tongue out between its fangs and lapped up the scarlet liquid as if it were water. Andri could not suppress a shiver of revulsion.

There was a hissing noise behind him and Andri risked a glance over his shoulder. Miraculously, his mother, awash in her own blood, was still alive. She was trying to speak, but all that came out of her ruined throat were breathy gasps.

When she saw she had attracted his attention, she tried to lift her too-pale hand and beckon to him. Andri half-turned toward her in spite of himself, unable to deny his mother’s call.

It was a mistake.

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye, but before he could react, the werewolf hit him square in the midsection, sending the young man hurtling over his mother’s bed where he landed facedown with a sickening splat on the eviscerated body of Inulda, his mother’s halfling nurse.

Gagging, Andri scrambled away, swiping at his face with both hands to get the woman’s blood and bits of her masticated flesh off his skin.

His back against the far wall of the bedroom, Andri looked about wildly for his father’s sword, knowing he was doomed without it. It lay where it had fallen, near the foot of his mother’s bed. The werewolf ignored both the sword and him as it turned back to the priestess.

The creature reached out one claw, stroking her cheek in a lover’s caress. It trailed its claws down across the shredded flesh of her throat to her sternum. Its hand hovered there, over the hollow between her breasts.

Andri crawled slowly toward the foot of the bed, each measured movement a torment as he prayed that the creature would disregard him, while every fiber of his being screamed at him to hurry! But he knew his only chance lay in a surprise attack from behind-a blow that would destroy any hope he had of becoming a paladin. Followers of the Silver Flame did not stab their enemies in the back, no matter how abhorrent those enemies were, or how vile their crimes.

So be it. For all he cared, the attack could consign him to eternal damnation in the pits of Khyber. Just so long as it kept that detestable thing from defiling his mother.

What seemed like hours later, he finally felt his hand close around the hilt of his father’s sword. He stood, grasping the hilt in two fists. Then, with a roar of rage he could no longer contain, he lunged and drove the blade into the werewolf’s back, just as it began to dig its claws into his mother’s chest, reaching for her heart.

Howling in agony, the lycanthrope collapsed onto the bed, covering Chardice’s body with its own.

Pulling the sword free, Andri rushed to the side of the bed and heaved the werewolf’s body off his mother, unable to stand the thought of it touching her. As the lycanthrope fell to the floor, it began to change, its fur retracting to leave smooth, tanned flesh and the bones of its face reforming themselves into a familiar, and much beloved, countenance.

“Andri …” his father managed, then he coughed once and his eyes went dark. And Alestair Aeyliros, famed lycanthrope hunter, was dead, slain by his own son, with his own blade.

“No,” Andri whispered, shaking his head in horror, even as all the clues fell into place. His father’s sword. His path of destruction. The full moon shining in the bedroom window. “No, no, no, no, no!”

He sank to the floor beside his father’s body, fighting back tears.

Andri had begged his father to see a priest after he returned from the Burnt Wood, but Alestair had stubbornly insisted that he was fine. The chances of the werewolf he killed there being a natural-born were so slim as to be nonexistent, his father had said, and, since infected lycanthropes hadn’t been able to infect others with their curse since the Purge, he had nothing to worry about. Besides, he’d chewed belladonna as soon as he’d killed the creature, just as a precaution. The pyromancer had laughed at Andri for worrying.

And now he was dead, after having killed at least five people himself.

Oh, Father .

There was a sound from the bed, and Andri looked up in amazement.

Not five. Not yet.

He left his father’s corpse and went to his mother’s side. Her face was white- so white -and her lips were turning blue. Her hand, when he grasped it, was already cool.

But, somehow, she was still with him, still hanging on. Still trying to speak to him, to give him one last message before she died.

Andri bent close to hear her.

“Is … dead?” she wheezed, her eyes wandering and unfocused.

“Yes, Mother. But … but …” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her who her attacker had been. But as she looked up at him, her eyes cleared, and he realized she already knew.

“Good. Now … kill … me.”

Andri drew back, appalled.

“What? What are you saying, Mother? Why? I can’t-”

“Andri!” she said, the forceful tone costing her as blood began to trickle from the corner of her mouth. “Have … to. Can’t risk … what he did.”

“No. No!” His tone was pleading, whining even. He didn’t care.

She couldn’t be asking him to do this. She couldn’t .

“Use … sword.”

“No! I won’t. I can’t!”

Chardice drew in a shuddering breath.

“You will … if … love me.”

“I’ll find the belladonna, I’ll get a priest, anything! Just not this. Anything but this!”

His mother’s eyes filled with tears.

“Don’t send … soul to Flame … with this stain. Please.”

She had always ruled his life with a velvet glove of guilt, and Andri had never been able to deny her anything.

Now was no exception.

With a leaden heart, he bent to pick up his father’s sword. Then, his eyes caught in his mother’s gaze, he plunged the silver blade into her chest.

She gasped once, a small sound of pain. Then she looked up at him, smiled, and died.

He was still standing there, his hands wrapped around the hilt, when a pair of guards came pounding into the room, swords drawn. One of them, a new recruit he’d done some training with, took one look at the carnage and vomited all over the floor.

The other leveled his weapon at Andri.

“Drop the sword.”

Numbly, Andri did as he was bade. He’d driven the blade into his mother’s body so hard that it pinned her to the bed, and stood quivering once he’d released it.

“Now back away. Slowly.”

Andri complied, raising his hands to show he meant no harm.

“Stick out your hands.”

He did so, his grief-fogged mind not immediately comprehending why they were clapping manacles on his outstretched wrists.