The Webbing Blade

WOLF

LOU’S HEART dropped right down to his stomach, and he felt all those smells, those sights, the bodies, all overwhelm him for a moment. And he stood stunned, almost rendered unable to understand Sully’s husky whisper, for him to attack with him.

Lou just watched on, beleaguered, as Sully grasped hold of his sword, raised it over his head and, still holding the torch down by his side, rushed into the room.

Lou stood out on the stairs as he listened to the crunch of bone against blade, the slicing of skin, and a few more groans.

And then there was silence.

All sound stopped.

Lou could only hear his own heartbeat thumping away in his eardrums. And then everything rushed right back to him like a torrent of spring water.

He took hold of his own sword, squeezing that ragged material tight, and he rushed into the room, after Sully. And he took it all in, stretched out before him.

Sully slouched slightly, with the tip of his sword resting against the uneven floor of the outpost. His shoulders rose and fell with his breathing, still recovering from the exertion.

The torch lay on the ground, to one side, still flickering away, and the edge of Sully’s sword was bloody. And only then did it occur to Lou to look down at where Sully stared.

There, on the floor, was a cursed wolf, its flanks opened, its ribs showing, several of them cracked now, and its organs spilling out in a bloody garnish. Beneath the wolf lay a skuller, flinching now and again, one eye open as he looked them over.

Sully snapped back to look at Lou, jerked his head in the direction of the skuller and the wolf. And Lou realised what he wanted him to do.

Lou sheathed his sword once again, then padded over the wooden floor, listening to the planks creak beneath him. He stared for a few seconds at the cursed wolf, clearly dead now, its tongue lolling out from between its jaws, and its bright red eyes that all cursed animals had, apparently dead. Even so, he had to look back to Sully one more time, just to check he wasn’t about to get himself bitten.

Sully just gave him a nod, his chest still heaving and sweat running down his cheeks.

Lou crunched his teeth together, determined now that he wasn’t going to be a coward any longer, and he felt for the furry frame of the cursed wolf.

Its fur was still warm when he touched it, and matted with the still-breathing skuller’s blood. He closed his eyes as he prised the wolf off the skuller’s body and then tipped it to one side.

Its corpse landed with a muted thud, and then Lou turned his attention to the skuller.

The skuller had a bite mark on his neck, a little above his shoulder blade, just to the side of his throat. If the wolf had got him a hair’s breadth to the other side then he would’ve been just like his friends downstairs.

A corpse.

But he was still breathing, just. Although Lou noted that each breath he took seemed to be shallower than the last. The skuller could hardly find the strength to speak now. The blood drenched the front of his tunic, and Lou saw that he continued to clutch his sword in his fist, his knuckles white from the strength of his grip, and he realised that the skuller had at least been making some job of fighting back against the wolf before they’d arrived.

Sully arrived at Lou’s shoulder, so the two of them now stood close to the dying skuller, able to hear his croaky, cracked voice. When the skuller spoke, Lou could hear the bloody spittle frothing at the back of his throat. “. . . She,” he said. “She.”