Marsheila Rockwell - Legacy of the Wolves

Daimana tossed her copper tresses in disdain. “I care nothing for your silver fire, paladin,” she said, her eyes flashing. “If your Church does not see fit to punish this kinslayer, then you must do so. You’ve given your oath, and you owe it to my father.”

Greddark suppressed a grin. The elf woman had neatly trapped Andri. There was no way the paladin would go back on his promise now. Maellas was a dead man, one way or another. He wondered if the Bishop realized it yet.

Andri bowed his head, defeated. “You have my word,” he repeated.

That seemed to satisfy her. She nodded and called her son to her. Lifting the child in her arms, she smoothed back a lock of red-brown hair out of his eyes and kissed his forehead. For his part, the toddler seemed oblivious to what had just happened to his grandfather, pulling on his mother’s clothes and pointing back to the water. He just wanted to play.

“Later,” Daimana murmured, kissing him again and setting him back on his feet. She smiled as he ran off, pursuing a butterfly. Then she looked back at Andri, and her smile faded.

“One of Ostra’s men will lead you to where Lamannia and Eberron intersect, but you will have to find your own way from there. We cannot spare anyone to guide you. We have a funeral to prepare.”

The paladin nodded. “Of course. But I would be happy to perform Pater’s last rites, if you’d like. It’s the least I can do.”

“No,” Daimana said. “You’ve done enough already.”

Andri accepted the rebuke, though Greddark could tell it stung. The paladin held out the necklace of claws, from which he had removed his holy symbol.

“Take these, at least. He should go to the Flame whole.” When she hesitated, her eyes filling with sudden tears, Andri grasped her hand and pressed the necklace into it. “Please.”

Daimana stared at the claws for a long moment then looked up at Andri, her eyes like faceted diamonds.

“It’s not true, what the rogue told you,” she said, referring to Maellas. “The moons’ blessing only removes the veneer of civilization, exposing what lies beneath. Sometimes, that veneer reasserts itself, and the moontouched is much the same as he was before he was blessed. But, sometimes … it does not.”

Whether she’d meant the words as a gift or a curse, Greddark couldn’t tell, but before any of them could fully digest the information, she leaned forward and kissed Andri on the cheek. Then she stood back and regarded the paladin with an unreadable expression, the silver chain held tightly in her fist. “You should go now. And don’t come back. Ever.”

She turned away from him, going to kneel beside her father’s body. The other two werewolves, in their human forms now, were cleaning him in preparation for their burial rites. Daimana joined them, weeping once more as she wiped blood from her father’s chest. Andri watched her for a moment then turned to his companions.

“Let’s go. We still have a long journey ahead of us,” he said, walking past them to his horse.

As Greddark turned to follow and caught sight of the invidious look on Irulan’s face, he thought the journey might be far longer than Andri had bargained for.

It was full night by the time they made it out of the Twilight Forest and back into the Burnt Wood. After their shifter guide left them to return to the werewolves’ lair, Irulan took point, leading them eastward for about a mile before striking camp. After helping Andri secure Maellas to a tree, she climbed up a taller pine to look at the stars and get her bearings.

While she was gone, Greddark started a small fire. Andri took care of the horses before digging bandages out from one of his packs to bind the Bishop’s wounds.

“Why bother with bandages? Why not just heal him? For that matter, why doesn’t he heal himself?”

“I don’t believe he can,” the paladin answered as he measured lengths of clean white fabric and cut them with Maellas’s dagger. “I’ve not been able to heal any of the werewolves harmed by silver weapons-Quillion or Pater. It may not be possible. Perhaps the Flame will not aid those to whom the touch of its sacred metal is anathema.” He shrugged and began dressing Maellas’s shoulder, taking care not to wrap the wound too tightly.

Catching Greddark’s quizzical look, the paladin shrugged.

“We don’t want his blood attracting predators.”

There was a rustling sound from the pine Irulan had climbed, and the shifter appeared out of the foliage, sliding down the last few feet of naked trunk, shedding bark as she went. She landed lightly on her feet and shook the pine needles from her hair.

“So where are we?” Greddark asked. They had exited Lamannia at a different place than they’d gone in, and she’d been hoping to discover both their approximate location within the forest and-more importantly, as far as Greddark was concerned-how long it was going to take them to get out.

“I can’t be certain,” she replied, picking at a few stray needles from her braids, “but I think we’re only a day, two at most, from the edge of the wood, and closer to Angwar Keep than Olath. Ostra’s guide must have taken us to the southernmost boundary of the manifest zone. It probably cut a good three days off our journey. Maybe more.”

Thank the Host! He was getting tired of the trees, oppressive green, and interminable biting insects. The forest made him feel insignificant and, well … dwarfed , and he had to agree with Andri-the sooner they were out of it, the better.

“I also brought us some food, if anyone feels like eating,” she continued, pulling three large blue eggs out of her tunic. At the mention of food, both his stomach and Andri’s grumbled.

Irulan laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said and set about cooking the eggs, adding the last of their salted pork and the caps of some mushrooms she found growing in the shade of a large rock.

After they’d eaten, Irulan drew out a tiny bell and a bit of silver wire from her pouch. Whispering a few words, she set an alarm spell around their camp.

“We don’t need a repeat of the other night, especially now that we don’t have the dire wolf to guard us.”

“Not that he helped much,” Greddark muttered, earning himself an annoyed look from the shifter.

“You didn’t fare so well against the shifters yourself,” she reminded him, before climbing up from her spot by the fire and grabbing her bow.

“I’ll take the first watch, “Andri said, the first words he’d spoken since before dinner, other than a mumbled thanks when Irulan had handed him his plate of eggs. Irulan frowned at him as he stood.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “You haven’t gotten much sleep in the past few days.”

None of them had, but Andri’s short naps had been particularly restless. From the words he murmured as he tossed and turned to the occasional moan or whimper, it was clear that the revelations of Shadukar still haunted his dreams, even if he didn’t speak of them during daylight hours.

“Paladins are trained to go days without sleep, if necessary,” he replied. “I’ll be fine.”

Irulan still looked skeptical, but she finally acceded.

“Just stay within the radius of the alarm spell. I don’t want to be woken up if I don’t have to be.” Her words were gruff, but her concern was obvious. Greddark wondered if the tormented young man even noticed.

“I will,” Andri answered, and by the gentleness of his tone, Greddark realized the paladin wasn’t quite as oblivious to the shifter’s feelings as he might appear. “Sleep well.”

After he had gone, Irulan walked over to where Maellas was, double-checking his bonds and his gag. When the Bishop made a noise, Irulan just grunted.