The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 14: Below Munazyr, Part 1

 They had watched the temple until well past midnight, waiting for the fat little lordling and his much more dangerous companion to emerge. 

"They mean to wait us out," hissed Nashal to Syerre, who had delivered their terms to the Gallis boy down at Fathoms Gate.

Syerre growled in response. The wolf was just below the surface, and glossy dark gray and black fur covered her lithe form, the dancer's garb long since discarded. There were simple pentients' robes concealed here and there around the streets into which they could slip upon resuming a human shape, as she had done herself only last night. They knew how to plan such assaults, as they were not so different from the tactics they had employed before they had accepted the White Moon's gift. Piotr's assault on the temple the previous night had been foolish hubris, and both he and Jossel had paid the price. Syerre might have called the cursewright a broken-down magician, but they would not underestimate him again.

Still, their nature was what it was, and they could not wait forever. Older, more experienced wolves who could better restrain their hungers might be capable of such a feat, and if they survived in the service of Saya's champion they would be just as capable, someday. But for now the wolf's blood ran hot in them, and both Syerre's nakedness and her scent was driving Nashal to distraction. One hand rested low on the silken fur of her back, and her tail flicked out in response to it. If they waited much longer in the haze of each others' scents, he would take her right here in this ruined countinghouse while the guards patrolled over their heads, and she would eagerly let him, whether or not she still mourned Jossel. Not quite as eagerly as he might think -- there would be biting (ironic, as it was Syerre who had bitten Nashal on a wintry night in Gallowsport just two Yearsend festivals ago), and clawing, and fury before she acquiesced. The wolf's blood was hot in her, but it couldn't conceal the fact that something was wrong.

Andreth was their leader, seasoned and wise, having nursed the wolf's blood for almost six years. The White Moon Made Flesh had blessed him so long ago he could barely remember his human life, and Syerre's woodland scent only mildly drew his attention from the temple below. Clad in unassuming peasant's garb and wielding a simple long blade, he looked no different from any seasoned tavern-brawler. His face was nearly as troubled as Syerre's agitated pacing, though for different reasons. 

Jossel and Piotr had died last night; Einheth a few days ago at the hands of the Captain-Commander herself. Einheth and Piotr had been fools, and Andreth had expected them to go too far sooner or later on some assignment. But Jossel had been one of his most trusted companions. None of them could believe the tattooed giant who guarded the whores was capable of killing even the weakest of them bare-handed, and yet it had happened. Including himself, there were but five wolves in Munazyr now, with Melirra and Korl watching the Peddlers' Gate. Nothing was more important to the White Moon than the safe return of the wolf princess to where she belonged, but eight had been deemed sufficient to the task.

No wolf would gainsay Einheth's fate: he had been barely more than a beast and had proved his unworthiness when he gave into his hunger over a simple beggar, revealing their position to the city guard. Piotr had been set a reasonable task: challenge the cursewright directly while Jossel struck from above. Andreth had proven himself a dozen times over in the eyes of the champion, and thinning the pack was among his duties, whether in the direct fashion he had chosen for Einheth or through a difficult test as with Piotr. But Jossel was another matter. Jossel had not deserved to die; Jossel was pure miscalculation, and Andreth feared that when he was called to answer for that miscalculation, it would be his lifeblood strewn across the white sands. Perhaps the champion would be merciful to him, if he could deliver the wolf princess.

So they had watched the temple all day, with a pair keeping guard over the most frequently used city gate. They had other resources: beggars and wandering minstrels and couriers who would for a few coppers tell them what they needed to know, unwittingly aiding creatures any of them would have been horrified to face under the moonlight. But other than a panicky visit by the simpering Gallis boy to a courier's office, every indication was that he and his manservant were fleeing. Let him inform the city guard if he liked. Nothing he or even his deadlier friend did would halt their rescue of the wolf princess. If they wanted to sacrifice a few guardsmen along the way, so be it.

But no one had left the temple, and Andreth began to fear that Nashal was right: the cursewright intended to wait them out. Ultimately it would be a futile tactic. One courier to Gallowsport and within the month there would be an entire cohort of wolves to batter the temple, or, failing that, terrorize Munazyr until the cursewright had no choice but to give up the princess. But that was a measure so extreme the moon's champion might not approve it, and so Andreth opted for a more subtle approach.

"Nashal," he murmured. "Test their defenses. Second floor, ignore the front doors. For all we know you'll fall stone dead upon touching them."

Nashal nodded, slipped down the crumbling masonry below the window beside them, and staggered across the street, affecting the air of a drunk disappointed by the brothel's closure. The guardsmen -- many of whom were growing bored after a full day of observing precisely nothing on the Old Godsway except the Marhollow lad delivering supplies -- did not notice the wolfish shadow that crept down the narrow alley between the old temple and the Prideful Lioness.

Syerre snorted and turned a glittering eye to Andreth. "It -- oh, gods, damn it -- " Realization was dawning in her eyes.

"She's not there," Andreth murmured. That was what had Syerre and himself so on edge. The fresh, longing scent of a newly turned she-wolf was nowhere to be found. Even here, across the street, it should have been faintly detectable. Syerre and he stared at each other, at last understanding, at last recognizing the cursewright and his damned friends had outwitted them: they had not detected her scent in hours. Hours.

"Call him back," Andreth growled, a trace of the wolf emerging. "We check all the gates. All of them. And we find whichever beggar or drunk missed them and we -- "

Torchlight distracted Andreth from his dark promises. Half a dozen figures were striding down the Old Godsway, led by a tall woman in a long gray coat. Hateful silver glittered on her breast. Words between the leader and her subordinate reached Syerre's sharpened ears.

"No, Lyros, I don't expect we're taking anyone into custody, but if any of them are still here I want their help down at Fathoms Gate. This situation is out of hand, completely out of hand."

A flash like a stroke of lightning burst from the shattered steeple of the old temple. An agonized howl echoed from somewhere near the second floor, and a wolfish blur careened from the graven stonework that circled the upper stories of the structure. It tumbled to the Old Godsway, whimpering and panting, asprawl on its back, clutching its head in its paws. Smoke rose from its fur.

"Great gods," exclaimed the redhaired woman, and she drew a weapon from her waist. "Surrender! Surrender at once! I know you can understand me!"

Andreth knew when the situation was lost. "Go," he hissed to Syerre, and without waiting turned and left the building through the cellar exit the guardsmen had not marked.

But Syerre was not so easily dissuaded. She was already more than half wolf, and in a perfect ecstasy she surrendered to it entirely, becoming once more the shape that had glowered down at the cursewright the night before. Her triumphant howls split the night asunder.

Nashal, maddened with agony from the cursewright's ward, leapt at the redhaired woman, who easily sidestepped. Thunderstrokes ripped from the weapon in her hand, four, five, six, all piercing Nashal's hide and leaving him collapsed in a pool of spreading blood. Before any of her guardsmen could move in for the kill, Syerre leapt upon the one named Lyros, knocking him to the ground and sinking her fangs into his throat, laying it open in a crimson spray.

Mielle Thalia had emptied her pepperbox -- for weeks she would curse herself for doing so -- and so was reduced to drawing a blade from her thigh. But the chance to strike at the she-wolf had passed. Syerre had no intention of giving her life in a pointless assault on these guardsmen. While his fellows tended to the screaming Lyros, she twisted about and nuzzled the panting Nashal.

"Come," she growled to him. Painfully he rose to all fours, and they both darted away, Nashal limping badly, Syerre shattering the night with another howl, this one meant solely to terrify. By the time the Captain and her men had recovered their wits they were long gone, though Syerre was terribly afraid Nashal would not live to see morning.

Mielle Thalia laid a soothing hand on Lyros's forehead as his fellows bound his terrible wound, and wondered how she would tell him he now had to be quarantined until Ammas Mourthia returned to Munazyr. And, perhaps, for even longer after that.

*