Marsheila Rockwell - Legacy of the Wolves

“Right. Like I’d be stupid enough to unmuzzle a rabid wolf. We’re only a few days from Aruldusk. You won’t starve. Think of it as penance-Flame knows, you’re in need of it.”

She turned her back on the priest, whose green eyes narrowed in anger as they followed her. But there was little else the elf could do besides glare-the silver manacles were enchanted to keep him from changing forms, and the chains were strong enough that he couldn’t break them, even with a werewolf’s might. He was at their mercy. Or rather, at Andri’s, since both Greddark and the shifter woman would just as soon kill him now and let the priests in Aruldusk pull their answers from his corpse.

Irulan remarked on the paladin’s forbearance as she laid her bedroll out by the fire.

“Why didn’t he just let the werewolves kill Maellas and be done with it? I’m sure he could have persuaded what’s-her-name- Daimana -to do it.” She said the female werewolf’s name with the same distaste she might reserve for a piece of meat that had gone bad. She didn’t wait for Greddark to answer. “Justice,” she snorted. “As if the Church could deliver that to one of its own. You don’t need a trial to ensure justice. All you need is a sword.”

“I’m not sure his motives are all that noble,” Greddark said, hiding his amusement at her venom. It was probably a good thing she spent most of her time in the woods. Her way of speaking exactly what was on her mind wouldn’t endear her to those who were used to at least a pretense of civility.

One of Irulan’s eyebrows rose. “Why, then? It would be so much easier to just get rid of him here, where there are no witnesses.” She stopped short. “Oh.”

Greddark nodded. Not having witnesses was exactly what Andri was trying to avoid.

“No one in Aruldusk is going to believe Maellas is infected if they don’t see it for themselves. It would be the situation with his mother all over again,” she said, shaking her head. “Poor Andri.”

“We are all forged in the fires of our past,” Greddark said, by way of agreement. It was an old dwarf saying; a favorite of his father’s, judging by how many times the old dwarf had said it the day he exiled Greddark.

Irulan look surprised, then thoughtful.

“Yes, I suppose we are.”

It took Greddark a long time to fall asleep. His hand twitched toward his sword at every frog’s croak and cricket’s chirp. When he was awakened from a fitful slumber some hours later by the frantic ringing of a bell, his first thought was-Host! What did I do to deserve this? His second was-Not again.

As he and Irulan scrambled to their feet, grabbing their weapons, Greddark cast a quick eye over to the tree where the Bishop was tied. Still there. Then he turned his attention back to the forest, just in time to see Andri step into the small clearing they had chosen for their camp.

“Andri!” Irulan’s voice was sharp with reproach and relief. She lowered her sword at the sight of the young paladin. “I told you not to trigger the al-”

“He didn’t,” came another familiar voice. “I did.”

D’Medani stepped out from behind the paladin, her war spikard pressed up firmly against Andri’s back.

“I’ll thank you to drop your weapons now, unless you’ve got another paladin handy to heal this one when I skewer him.”

“Flame!” Irulan swore as she bent and placed her sword on the ground. “What, do we have some sort of magical beacon floating over our heads that only our enemies can see? Here we are, come ambush us?”

“Well, actually, in this case, you do,” the half-elf replied, nodding towards Greddark. “I believe it’s called a locator charm, and it’s attached to my quarry’s back, there.”

Locator charm? It couldn’t be!

Greddark dropped his blade and reached over his shoulder, fingers brushing lightly over his coat. There. He pulled a small spiky object out from the weave and held it up, scrutinizing it in the firelight.

The little metal device was designed to look like a bur, down to its brownish coloring and its carefully-crafted casing of spines. It would be inconspicuous on a traveler’s clothes, overlooked until it was too late. Inside the casing, the “seed” was in fact a tiny Siberys dragonshard imbued with a location spell that was linked to a ring on d’Medani’s finger, which also sported a golden shard. A variation on the standard location spell, the charm linked the ring to the bur so that, once the bur was planted on a subject, the ring-wearer could follow at a considerable distance without worrying about interference from running water, or lead, or even other spells. A powerful tool in the hands of a bounty hunter or an inquisitive, this prototype was the only such charm currently in existence.

He should know. He created it.

D’Medani caught his look of recognition, and gave him a smug smile.

“It’s only fitting, don’t you think? That we use your own inventions to track you down? House Medani has made good use of the things you were forced to leave behind at the Tower-some even think it was a fair trade, Yaradala for the plans to your clever toys.” Her smile grew brittle. “I don’t.”

“Why are you doing this?” Andri asked, drawing the half-elf’s attention back to him. “Your bounty has already been paid.”

D’Medani laughed, a musical sound in the night, utterly at odds with the scene being played out. “And a most generous payment it was, sir paladin. But if I take it and deliver d’Kundarak to my employer anyway, then I’ll get paid twice . One hundred platinum dragons. How could I possibly pass that up?”

The bounty hunter had gumption, Greddark had to admit. Beautiful and smart. Too bad she was on the wrong side.

“So, how about it, d’Kundarak? You, for the paladin. Though, if you ask me, the shifter’s getting the best end of that bargain.”

Greddark’s thoughts raced. D’Medani would have no qualms about killing Andri, and he had no more healing potions left in his pockets. Irulan wouldn’t be able to nock her own arrow or close the gap between them to engage the bounty hunter with her sword before the other woman could get off another bolt, and at this range, the half-elf wouldn’t miss. No, it was better if he complied-he still had the chimes on his bracer, which d’Medani hadn’t seemed to realize earlier was anything more than a rather gaudy accessory. If she thought he was unarmed, he might get a chance to use one, though it would be a shame to see that pretty blonde head explode like the ghost tiger’s had. Not as great a shame as doing time in a Karrnathi cell would be, though-or worse, in Helanth d’Medani’s private dungeons. Yaradala had had good reasons for wanting to escape her father’s overbearing presence, not the least of which was his reputation for cruelty, and even torture. No, the half-elf’s sweet face would be a small price to pay to avoid that .

“Very well,” Greddark said, over protests from both Andri and Irulan. He raised his arms and began walking slowly toward the bounty hunter.

“Turn around,” she ordered. “Walk backwards.”

As he did so, taking each step with care, she continued speaking, this time to Andri and Irulan.

“I see you’ve picked up another straggler. I hope you have better luck with this one than you did with the dwarf, though from the looks of him, he’s as bad as d’Kundarak.”

If she only knew.

Then Greddark was beside her, and she shoved Andri past him. As the paladin stumbled and fell to his knees, she grabbed a handful of Greddark’s hair and pulled him back until her war spikard was pressing into the small of his back, a sensation that was becoming all too familiar. The feeling was only magnified when she released his shock of hair and slapped her manacles on his wrists. An easy task, considering she was at least a foot taller than him. She let his bound hands fall in front of him, and looped the chain that ran from them once about his neck. When she pulled on the makeshift leash, the links scraped his neck raw and drew his hands up to his chest, giving him very little room to maneuver.