Marsheila Rockwell - Legacy of the Wolves

Andri saw that while the elf hadn’t been gagged, he did sport a new onyx amulet about his neck. Andri guessed it was to keep the cleric from casting any spells, or perhaps to prohibit him from speaking altogether. Whatever the necklace’s purpose, Maellas remained silent, for which the paladin was unaccountably grateful.

While they waited, Andri examined the room, wondering how often it had seen use since the Purge had ended. The thick coating of greasy ashes at the foot of the stake did not look a hundred and fifty years old.

The gallery consisted of five tiered benches. The trio sat at the lowest level, their feet resting on the amphitheater’s floor. Above them, the ceiling was dotted with small holes, which Andri surmised were used to disperse the smoke and convey it to the skies above the Cathedral, where it would mix with the haze from burning incense and silverburn.

Hooded acolytes in plain gray robes guarded the room’s only two entrances, and Andri’s eyes darted from the doorway at the top of the gallery stairs to the smaller one near where they sat at floor level. He wondered which one Xanin would use, and how much longer the new Bishop would make them wait.

Andri glanced over at his companions, trying to gauge their level of impatience against his own. Greddark appeared characteristically stoic as he gazed about the amphitheater with a faint look of disdain, probably thinking his people could have done a much better job carving the chamber. Irulan, though, seemed nervous, her eyes flicking from acolyte to acolyte, sweat beading at her hairline. There was something different about her, and it took Andri a moment to pinpoint what it was-one of her long, looping braids had been shorn off near the skull, leaving a noticeable gap in the intricate headdress. Ah, yes, now he remembered-it was Javi’s totem braid, and she had said she would cut it off and throw it in the Thrane River once he was freed. Andri could only hope she hadn’t also made good on her promise to kill the young shifter afterward.

There was a noise at the lower door, and Andri tensed, expecting Xanin. But instead of the Bishop, yet another acolyte stepped into the room, barring the door behind him. The sound of a second bar being shoved home came from the other doorway.

Andri half-rose from his seat, his hand going instinctively to his hilt. Something wasn’t right here.

The newly-arrive acolyte threw back his hood, revealing himself as a brown-haired shifter with braids like Irulan’s. Then he pulled a silver dagger from within his robes, and Andri realized what was wrong.

With a cry, he drew his own blade and sprinted for Maellas, Greddark at his heels. As the paladin ran, he called argent flame to his sword. Even as he did so, he wondered who had betrayed them. This execution was supposed to have been secret.

He and the dwarf beat the acolytes to the stake and positioned themselves in front of Maellas, weapons raised. Irulan, who’d been a step or two behind Greddark, now stood uncertainly in the no-man’s land between the two groups.

“Our quarrel is not with you, paladin,” the male shifter said to Andri. “We’re here for the moontouched. Step aside.”

Andri shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

The shifter’s face grew grim. “Then you’ll go to your grave knowing you died defending a murderer.” At his signal, the other acolytes-shifters all-drew their own weapons.

Andri reached out to pull Irulan back away from the shifters, but she hesitated.

“Andri, are you sure-?” Then, as she searched his eyes-looking for what, he wasn’t certain-she seemed to reach some decision. “No,” she murmured, answering herself. “Of course not.”

Shaking her head, she moved to guard his left side, while Greddark took his right. The paladin planted his feet, prepared to shield Maellas with his own body, if necessary. The murdering elf deserved to die, because the Church had declared it so. But he would die according to the laws of the Church, and not at the whim of a group of vigilantes.

He knew Xanin would summon soldiers when he found himself unable to enter the amphitheater, but as Andri parried one sword aimed at his head and felt another duck past his guard to score his ribs, he realized they might not make it that long. The shifters outnumbered them two to one. He hadn’t imagined things would end this way when the Keeper had first summoned him and introduced him to the feisty but beautiful Irulan Silverclaw. He wished he’d had the opportunity to get to know her outside of this investigation, then wondered what his parents would have thought of his feelings for a shifter. At the thought of his father, he had a sudden vision of Alestair laughing as he watched his son die defending a werewolf. The image was so strong that he thought he could even hear the pyromancer’s sardonic chuckle.

And then he realized it wasn’t some specter of his father laughing. It was Maellas. Apparently the amulet didn’t keep him from talking, after all.

“Is this what you die for, Andri? Keeping me from death at the hands of vengeful shifters, so I can burn at the stake instead? Why bother? Let them have me. No one would blame you-you were ambushed and overpowered. I know I need to die for what I’ve done, but why does it matter whose hand it is that takes my life? As long as I die, justice is served.”

Andri did not answer immediately, blocking a sword stroke aimed at his knees. As he saw Irulan take a knife in the thigh, he thought that perhaps Maellas was right. Why should anyone have to die simply to delay a murderer’s execution?

No. The cleric might not be able to charm him with a spell, but he’d been influencing his flock from the pulpit for over a century. He didn’t need magic to be persuasive. Andri shook the priest’s words off. He’d been charged with a duty, and he would fulfill it, or die trying.

As if sensing the paladin’s resolve, Maellas pressed him again. “If it is so important that my executioner be an agent of the Flame, then kill me yourself. Are you not the hand of the Keeper? Kill me, and save these innocent lives, shifter, human, and dwarf.”

At Maellas’s words, Andri glanced over to see the braid-wearing shifter maneuvering behind Greddark. Just as the shifter was preparing to plunge his dagger into the dwarf’s back, Greddark spun and sunk his own blade deep into the shifter’s shoulder. Then he primed his blade, and alchemist’s fire ran down the length of the metal, burning the hapless shifter from the inside out. The shifter howled in agony, dropping his weapon and falling to the floor, where he rolled about in a vain attempt to extinguish the flames.

Irulan, distracted by the shifter’s wounding, sidestepped a thrust at her midsection. The movement brought her too close to Maellas, and the werewolf didn’t hesitate. He lunged at her, grabbing a mass of braids in his mouth and hurling her to the floor. Her sword skittered across the stone and then Maellas was on her, his powerful jaws tearing into the soft flesh of her throat.

“Nooooo!”

Andri turned and rushed at the werewolf, his sword raised, leaving his back unprotected. He felt shifter blades penetrating through the joints in his armor, but the pain was as nothing to him as his entire being focused on one thing.

Irulan.

Maellas’s jaws came away bloody as he drew back, preparing for another bite. Irulan’s eyes met Andri’s over the werewolf’s blonde head, and for a moment he was transported back to his mother’s bedroom in Flamekeep, watching as another woman he loved was ravaged by a lycanthrope. But where Chardice’s eyes had held resignation, Irulan’s held only fury. She fought to push Maellas off her, to get her hands ups between his muzzle and her throat, battling to the last. She would never give in to her fate like his mother had. When she died, she would be cursing, kicking, and screaming as death came to claim her.