The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 20: The Unworthy, Part 4

 "They sent us down here, just three of us. Orders from the chapterhouse. It wasn't supposed to be anything -- anything real. Just making sure. Making sure it was safe down here." 

Clumsily he reached for the pitcher of water at his bedside. Carala stepped forward, pouring a cup of water for him, passing it to Ammas, who held it up to Myrdin's lips. Gratefully he took a long sip and fell back onto his bedding. "It was Kupper's first command. Just commanding two of us but you'd have thought he'd been named a marshal." Myrdin broke into a racking, coughing laugh. Frowning, Ammas peeled back his coverlet and saw his chest was heavily taped and bandaged. Some of bandages were bloodstained, as if he were still trickling from his injuries.

"What were you making sure of, Myrdin?"

"Don't you know? Aren't you from Talinara?"

"The orders weren't clear."

Myrdin sighed. "Swiftfoot. The ones who kidnapped the Princess Carala. They have an office in Vilais, a small one. They said she might be held there." 

Ammas's eyes grew wide. Behind him Carala gasped, one hand clutching his shoulder. Myrdin didn't notice. 

"Thray was angry about it. I saw him and Elder Nocentius arguing. Thray said it was a waste of time, that there were already men covering the Reaches. Didn't matter. We never even got into the city. They fell on us, three of them, one for each of us, like they'd been waiting. There was a drover coming down the road or they'd have killed me too. They carried Kupper and Pattick off on their shoulders. The drover didn't believe me, the sisters don't believe me. But it's true, I swear before all the gods it is, it's true." Myrdin clutched Ammas's hands in both of his and began to weep openly. For a moment he looked even younger than Casimir.

Ammas's mind was racing. He could feel Carala's hand on his shoulder, warm and quivering, the fingernails ever so slightly sharper than they should have been. Unthinking he reached for it, squeezing. Thray's anger; a token expedition of unseasoned witch-finders sent to Vilais; the Throne knowing that Swiftfoot was more than it seemed to be: he had no idea what any of it could mean. But for the moment all that paled into insignificance. "Myrdin, where is Swiftfoot Carting in this city? Do you know?"

"In Eastshore, on Barrow Street," he murmured. "Will you go there? See if you can take these monsters down?"

"Myrdin, I will do everything I can. I promise you that." Ammas released Carala's hand, frowning at the young man stretched out before him, who was now smiling a little, his eyes closed. Deftly Ammas tugged from his belt his twinhooks. "Let me know if this hurts, would you, Myrdin?" Lightly he traced the silver prongs along an exposed swatch of Myrdin's forearm.

At once Myrdin cried out in pain, his fingers clutching blindly at the bedding, something hot and emerald flaring in his mild brown eyes for a moment. Carala stumbled backward, one hand covering her mouth. For a moment she could smell the wolf inside Myrdin, as powerful and eager to roam as her own was. Ammas didn't draw it out. Quickly he tucked the tool out of sight. "My apologies, Myrdin. I'll speak to the Abbess, see if she can't get you better quarters for your recovery."

Carala gripped him by the forearm as he stepped out into the hall. "Ammas," she hissed. "What are you going to do about him? He's going to change tonight, isn't he? I could smell it on him."

Ammas looked at her curiously. "What do you think I ought to do, Carala?"

"Me? Why do you ask me?"

"He came on your behalf. Maybe he was tricked into doing it, but wasn't he trying to be as helpful to you as myself or Denisius?" Ammas watched her thoughts play across her face, wondering who would answer him: Carala or the she-wolf, and if their instincts really might be so different from one another's.