Marsheila Rockwell - Legacy of the Wolves

“Andri Aeyliros, in the name of the Keeper, you are under arrest. For murder.”

They thought he was the murderer.

And as they led him away, he cast one look back at the bodies of his mother and father, and realized they weren’t wrong.

Wir, Eyre 4, 998 YK

As Andri trailed off into silence, Irulan and Greddark sat stunned by the paladin’s story. Irulan found herself swallowing hard as she tried to imagine how awful it must have been for him. She knew how it felt to have both of your parents die. She’d experienced it herself and had seen its effects on Javi. The grief, the resentment, the constant second-guessing yourself, always wondering if it was somehow your fault, if they might still be alive if only you’d done something different. But to know it was your fault, because they died at your own hand? She didn’t know how Andri could bear it.

“So what happened?” the dwarf asked, his voice rough. Though he didn’t show it, Irulan was certain Andri’s tale had affected the inquisitive as deeply as it had her.

Andri looked up from the fire, his eyes haunted. He shrugged. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.

“Obviously, they let me go. They realized I was telling the truth-it simply isn’t possible to lie to the Inquisitors.”

The paladin gave a short, humorless laugh. The irony of a lycanthrope killer being subjected to the same tortures that the lycanthropes had themselves faced during the Purge was not lost on him.

“I wish I could have lied, that it had all been some mad delusion. But it was all completely and horribly true. My father infected with lycanthropy and unable to fight the curse when the moon turned full again. Him killing all those people on his way to get to my mother. Me having to kill him to protect her, and then …”

His face contorted, but the paladin quickly mastered himself and continued, staring blankly into the flames once more.

“But even though the Keeper vouched for me, some people still believed I was- am -a murderer. My parents were extremely wealthy, and people began whispering that I’d just used my father’s rampage as an excuse to get rid of them both and gain my inheritance. Even so many years later, those rumors still haunt me. People talk about me behind their hands as I pass, and some don’t bother with whispering. But the Flame knows the truth-the Flame, and the Keeper, and now you. I can ask for nothing more.”

Andri stood.

“I’ll take the first watch. I wouldn’t want to sleep now even if I could.”

As Irulan watched him disappear into the darkness, the lump in her throat threatened to choke her. Warm wetness cascaded down her cheeks and she realized she was crying. As she tried to dash the offending moisture away, she snuck a glance at Greddark, whose own eyes sparkled in the firelight before he turned away.

The only one who had no tears for the paladin, it seemed, was Andri.

They left the ruins of Shadukar the next morning and headed south into the Burnt Wood. It had once been called the Flamewood, before the Jewel of the Sound had been sacked, but when the Karrns set Shadukar to the torch, they’d also burned the forest from which the city drew many of its resources. Though the trees had started to grow back, and the undergrowth was green and healthy, the skeletons of pines still clustered about the forest edge, like an undead Karrnathi garrison left behind to finish off anyone with the temerity to return.

“So now we’re looking for a whole pack of lycanthropes hiding out in the woods. How big did you say this forest was, again?”

Greddark frowned as he said it, glaring at a tree branch that had scratched his cheek while he was trying to duck under another.

“The Burnt Wood stretches from Angwar Keep to Shadukar, and from Olath nearly to the mouth of the Thrane River,” Andri replied. It was the first thing he’d said since last night’s revelations. If you didn’t count the Nine Miracles of the Silver Flame-the long version. Three times . Irulan had finally relieved Greddark of his watch early, since there was no way she was going to get any sleep with the paladin’s incessant praying.

“That’s what, nearly a hundred miles? And probably half that across? So, basically, five thousand square miles,” the dwarf said, figuring the area in his head. “And we’re supposed to find a pack of werewolves in here-a pack which, presumably, doesn’t want to be found?” He barked out a short laugh. “I’d say that’s like looking for a specific blade of grass on the Talenta Plains, but I think I’d prefer those odds.”

Irulan thought she might have a way to improve Greddark’s odds, but they weren’t deep enough into the forest yet. She led them further in, following a faint game trail, her mare for once tractable and easy to handle. Perhaps the animal sensed Irulan’s relief at being back underneath a green canopy, sunlight dappling her path and birdsong guiding her steps. She was only ever truly comfortable in the wild, which was why she stayed away from Aruldusk-and Javi-so often. The thought brought a familiar twinge of guilt. Perhaps if she’d made the effort to stick around more, Javi would not now be pacing a five by five cell, unable even to see the open sky she loved so much.

Or perhaps, she thought with more than a hint of annoyance, she’d been spending far too much time around Andri.

Returning her attention to the forest around her, Irulan let the reins go slack as she concentrated on the rhythms of life that pulsed all around her. She opened up her senses, accessing the animal instincts left to her by her lycanthropic forebears. Her sight and hearing sharpened, and her sense of smell became so acute that she winced when the wind shifted and she caught the scents of her companions and their mounts. The faintest hint of lavender still clung to Andri, but dirt and sweat predominated, producing a musky, masculine odor that made Irulan’s nose twitch. Greddark, on the other hand, just plain stank .

Beyond them, the fresh scents of spring flowers and new grass, the wet, earthy smell of moss, the too-sweet aroma of moldering leaves and decay. The buzz of insects, the muted scratch of animals burrowing underground, the hiss of scales on bark as a snake wound its way towards an unsuspecting squirrel.

There, in the hollow of that large oak, an owl slept, waiting for nightfall. A clearing, far to her right, held a doe and her fawn, lapping water from a sluggish creek. Over to her left, a mass of hollow rock that could only be a cave. Inside, a great bear, dozing after a meal of rich honey and tart berries.

And there, ahead. What she’d been searching for.

Wolves.

Five … no, six. Four males, two females. But big, too big for normal wolves, or even lycanthropes.

Dire wolves .

Hunting.

They hadn’t scented her small pack yet, but they would.

The only question was, would it be before or after they made their kill?

“Irulan? Are you well?”

Greddark’s voice snapped Irulan’s awareness back into her body, like a rope pulled too taut and abruptly released. She shook her head to clear it, and the slap of her braids against the side of her face sounded loud in her ears, a sharp and painful contrast to the sudden quiet. Only it wasn’t quiet, she knew-the same noises still hummed through the forest, but now that she’d severed the connection with her more animalistic senses, she was no more sensitive to them than a human. Or a dwarf, she mused, as she turned to see him dodging yet another wayward branch.

“I’m fine. Just trying to figure out the best path to our destination.”

Greddark cocked one bushy brow at her. “Our destination? You almost make it sound as if you know where we’re going.”