The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 20: The Unworthy, Part 6

 Inked on the man's shoulder was a tattoo of winged feet. On one hand was a signet ring, bearing that same symbol. Slowly Ammas went about twisting the ring from the stiff and swollen finger. It was an unpleasant business, and if his goal had merely been to rob from the dead he wouldn't have bothered. But there was something peculiar about the ring. 

Once he had it off the man's finger, he was able to examine it more thoroughly. Though it was engraved with the Swiftfoot symbol, he saw now it was not actually a signet ring: rather the engraving was part of a lid set with a tiny hinge, concealing a minuscule compartment carved into the setting. Frowning, he pocketed the ring and studied the writing scrawled on the man's flesh. The straggling letters only formed a single word:

UNWORTHY.

Unsure what to make of this, Ammas drew the twinhooks from his belt again. Lightly he dragged the silver prongs over the dead man's cheek, expecting to see the same burns he had raised on the corpse in Titansgrave.

But nothing happened.

Ammas rose and went to the bodies one by one, testing each for the wolf's blood sickness and finding it in none of them. At last he stood and spoke to Carala. "There's nothing we can do here." Carala nodded, grateful to be leaving, clutching the folio to her chest, holding a sleeve to her nose with her other hand. "What have you got there?" Ammas inquired once they were back out on the street.

Carala opened the flyleaf. The Collected Works of Hedrathua Macil, Years 381-383 of the House of Deyn. "I suppose they were devotees of his as well. See, he even signed it."

"Seems everyone in this city loved him," Ammas agreed. His fingers ran over the ring in his pocket. "Carala, this place is not safe for any of us. If not for what is going to happen tonight, I would say we must flee the city at once."

"But they are not here," she demurred. "Do you really think they're still in Vilais?"

"They're waiting for moonrise just as we are. I think they will indulge themselves tonight, then come for you tomorrow. If you know they were here, I am sure they're aware of your presence as well."

Carala whitened. "Then why not just come for me now?"

"They are as helpless to the moon's call as you are." Ammas hesitated. The amber had receded enough for him not to see an excitable she-wolf but a frightened young woman who had come to rely on him; to trust him, whatever temptations Othma Sulivar might plant in his head. "I think they will come for you in the morning, when you are recovering from whatever happens tonight." He laid a hand on her shoulder. "I will be there to protect you from them. And if the others are willing, so will they."

Slowly Carala nodded. "I don't want them to risk themselves -- "

"They already have. I had planned to have you come with me to the watchtower, but I won't be able to give you my full attention until my preparations are done. We'll bring you to the others, and come this evening they can bring you to me."

"They'll be there when I change?"

"No. But I'll have them stay close. I can summon them if I need to." Carala shook her head, protesting, but Ammas cut her off. "Carala, if it were up to me, I would take you a thousand miles from here and let you run as the wolf in perfect safety and solitude. But the presence of these other wolves changes everything. I must protect others from you, but I must protect you as well. The others have sworn to help with that. Let them."

Finally she nodded. They set off for the Hethraeum at speed. "Ammas," she said breathlessly, hurrying to keep pace with his longer stride. The cursewright paused. "Ammas, about Sarai -- "

"There is nothing we can do for her yet. I know it hurts -- "

"No you don't!" she exclaimed fiercely. Ammas flinched a little. "I still do not know why Tacen or these Swiftfoot people came for me in the first place, and I do not know why they would go for her! But what if it was just because I fled from them? What if they hurt her to get to me? What if whatever they wanted for me, they have done to her? Ammas, I can't -- "

"Carala," he murmured soothingly, "we don't even know if she has been taken. An abbess's gossip is all we know."

"Swear to me," she pleaded, gripping his robes and gazing up into his eyes, the amber blossoming in her irises, "swear to me you'll help her as you do me, swear to me -- "

"I have sworn myself to you, not to her," he said curtly. He remembered how Othma had insisted that if he had pledged himself to one of them he had pledged himself to them all, and wondered if she was more right than he had understood.

She let go of his robes, disgusted. "You need to negotiate a new fee, I suppose?"

Ammas's brows knit together. He struggled not to raise his voice. "My fee is not part of it. If you will remember, I have yet to negotiate whether or not I will even keep my head."

"Just because your father lost his head for being a traitor -- "

At once she knew she had gone too far. She didn't even know why she said it. Her temper lurked so close to the surface; her mood had become more mercurial and strange even to herself as the sun traveled across the sky and the moons veered ever closer to rising. But regret and shame flooded her as she saw how Ammas's face whitened, how his lips turned down, how his eyes blazed at her with an anger she hadn't suspected haunted them.

"My father did not lose his head, and you will not speak so casually of him, Carala Deyn," Ammas hissed, looming over her, his hands on his hips. "Or you can forget I ever swore a vow to you at all, and make do on the streets of this city by yourself."

Even the wolf quailed before that rage, perhaps knowing the power that lurked behind it. It diminished at once, and for a moment Ammas did not seem to know where he was. His hands covered his eyes and he turned away. When he spoke, his voice was thick and choked. "Just come along. Vos and your husband to be will watch over you. Barthim, too, I suppose."

Slowly she followed him, though he would not meet her eyes until they were nearly at the Hethraeum, and the silence between them was as thick and terrible as any she had ever felt.