by Dave Gross
He knew it was unrealistic to dream about rescuing Maelin. He realized Radu would have slain her the day he returned from disposing of him among Rusk's pack. Still, he held her image and the thought of her rescue as a sort of talisman against despair. If he could dream about a selfless act, then surely he had not become like the monsters that surrounded him.
After another month of learning to stalk his prey and throw a spear, Darrow brought down his first stag. When Morrel slung the carcass over his own shoulders, Darrow thought it was a friendly gesture, but the werewolf carried it back to the lodge and claimed it as his own. When Darrow protested, Morrel sent him spinning to the ground with a powerful backhanded blow.
Darrow bristled but stayed down. He kept his eyes low, and Morrel ate the steaming heart when it came off the fire.
Afterward, Darrow grew sullen and sat far from the fire pit. Sorcia was the only one who would come near him.
"How am I supposed to act?" he complained to her. "I do what they say, but they take it away."
"Should a sheep complain of its stolen fleece?"
"I am not a sheep," said Darrow.
"Then act like a wolf," said Sorcia.
Six days later, as four of them were stalking a wounded boar, Karnek cuffed Darrow for making too much noise. Darrow balled a fist and punched Karnek in the face. The lean man laughed and licked the blood from his lip.
Then he proceeded to beat Darrow half to death.
When Darrow could stand again, they resumed the stalk without a word about the fight. That night, after they roasted the boar, Brigid handed Darrow a hunter's portion.
"But I lost," he complained to Sorcia later.
She shrugged. "Yet you fought, little wolf."
Later, she led him out into the woods, running ahead until he chased her. They ran until Darrow's breath came hard and ragged, and she let him catch her. When he grabbed her around the waist, she twisted in his grasp and struck him across the mouth.
He tasted blood and felt a growl rise in his chest. He released her and raised a hand to strike back, but Sorcia swept his legs out from under him, and he fell to the ground. Before she could dart away, he grabbed her ankle and pulled her down beside him.
She rolled atop him and grabbed his hair with both hands, holding his head against the forest floor. Her naked thighs were hot against his chest. He gripped her legs and would not let her go. She opened his mouth with her tongue, and their kiss exploded in his brain. Pleasure arched his back and filled his body with liquid fire.
Her body was incandescent in the moonlight, her beauty almost painfully unreal. Darrow closed his eyes and imagined her with Maelin's dark hair and heart-shaped face. The image galvanized his body, contracting every muscle.
Darrow imagined they lay on the straw floor of a dark cell, the door open beside them. He felt her fingers run over his perspiring skin, scratching lightly over his stomach before peeling away his breeches.
He kept his eyes closed as she tossed aside her own clothes before settling back atop him. Their bodies joined slowly, and she guided him with practiced hands. Breathless, he followed her lead without question.
Afterward, they lay a while upon the ground, watching the sky grow lighter through the trees. When Darrow opened his mouth to speak, she stopped it with a savage kiss. They gathered their clothes and walked back to the lodge, where Sorcia walked away to take her place among the sleeping bodies. There was no question of his joining her. He curled up alone by the wall. He didn't mind it. In his dreams, he was not sleeping alone.
*****
When the High Hunt was less crowded at Midsummer, Darrow thought little of it. It bothered those closest to Rusk the most. Ronan, Karnek, and Brigid wore dour faces for days afterward. They were the closest Rusk had to disciples, and their moods often reflected his.
More worrisome than the lightly attended feast were the rumors that arose in the tendays that followed. Hunters returned from their ranging with stories of an unseen watcher in the woods. Even as they stalked their prey, the People felt the presence of something stalking them. Those who doubled back or laid ambushes found their efforts futile. Morrel joked that it was a ghost from a hunting party the pack had destroyed last winter. The other People repeated the joke until Rusk cuffed one of them for it. Why it offended him, no one understood.
Darrow began spending more time away from the lodge, ranging with two or three other hunters. When they found signs of human intrusion in their territory, they tracked the source. Those they recognized or who showed a symbol of the Beastlord were friends, and the hunters asked if they wanted for meat. If so, the hunters tarried long enough to bring down a stag or a wild boar.
Those who did not revere the Beastlord were given an hour's lead before the hunters followed. Darrow was present for three such intrusions, and none of them escaped the pack.
Any qualms Darrow felt about killing human prey were outweighed by his joy to be alive. Better still, he was a member of the pack, no longer a lackey to the monstrous Stannis Malveen. Best of all, his muscles were becoming lean and hard from ranging the woods. His senses grew keener still, and he could hear every sound in the forest if he remained still. The other hunters taught him what all the new smells meant. Now he could tell when prey was sick or with child, and he left them for more suitable quarry.
Even so, for nights after helping pull down a human trespasser, Darrow dreamed of fleeing down dark corridors. Shadows flew after him, curling around the torches until there was only darkness. Maelin's voice cried out for help, but long before he could reach her, a hideous wheezing sound came up behind him. He fumbled with the key, almost losing it in the darkness. If he could only release her from her horrid captors, his own guilt would be absolved. Before he could put the key in the lock, he felt clammy hands upon his shoulders before falling through the veil of sleep to wake panting and cold with sweat.
He felt the same way after the nights of the moon, when the beast emerged to take command of his body, reshaping Darrow to its own carnal desires. In the mornings, Darrow could barely remember running with the pack, though faint smells and dim images clouded his memory.
"How do you change when you will?" he asked Sorcia.
Some of the nightwalkers could change only during the full moon, or when Rusk evoked their transformation through the power of Malar. Darrow was among the latter, and he envied the others.
"Some were born with the gift," said Sorcia. "They are true nightwalkers. For them, it is as natural as speaking their mother tongue. They learned it so long ago that they can't remember not having it."
"But you can learn a language," said Darrow.
"Just so," she agreed. "And you can learn to change shape when you will."
"Teach me," he said.
And so she did. The lessons began with words but soon left them behind.
The beast was always inside a nightwalker, no matter whether proud Selune rode the sky or veiled her face. Lured out with rage or desire, it would come to the right call. When Sorcia slapped him, Darrow felt the beast snarl. When they ran naked through the forest, he heard it panting in the back of his mind. And when they lay together, even when he closed his eyes to see Maelin's face, Darrow heard the distant howling of his other self deep inside.
By the end of the month of Flamerule, Darrow no longer forgot the nights of four-legged hunting. When autumn came, he could change whenever Selune showed more than half her face. By the Feast of the Moon, he hoped, he would stand as a wolf before Rusk used his infernal spells to impel the change in the weak.
*****
Even fewer people made the pilgrimage to the lodge at Harvestide. All the worshipers from the northern woods arrived, but there were only two from the south. A scowling Rusk emerged from the lodge after receiving them in private.
To lift the mood, Rusk spoke to the People and their worshipers after his opening prayers.
"My journey to the city was not in vain," he said from the altar, "nor was my sacrifice for naugh
t. The Black Wolf Scrolls contain the words of Malar, the Great Hunter. In them I have found the truths the moon worshipers tried to conceal from us. In them, I have found the path to our destiny.
"Our birthright is not limited to the wild. We are the children of the natural world, including the cities shaped by the misguided followers of the weakling gods. The day of our retribution draws near, when the Black Wolf will lead us on the hunt that reclaims our rightful territory from the herd.
"Hear me well, my faithful children, for I speak the words of Malar, and mine is the honor of leading the last wild hunt to break down the pens and fences of the city dwellers. Those who prove strong enough may join us, while the weak we will hunt for our sustenance and our pleasure."
That night, the chosen prey ran fast and far, but in the end he did not join the pack. He cried for Mielikki, Daughter of the Forest. If she heard his plea, it was far too late. Ronan tore out his throat, and the whole pack feasted on his flesh.
*****
Three tendays later, in late Eleasias, Rusk took Darrow and Sorcia ranging to the southwestern reaches of the Arch Wood. They walked in human form, though Darrow had wished for a chance to prove he could transform at will. He had become much better at it recently. It took him less than a minute to enrage the beast and let it come over him.
When they reached the southwestern woods, they found the first signs of human habitation. First they smelled the wood smoke and the unmistakable odor of human kitchens. Soon they spied lone cottages and small clusters of sod houses appeared just within or beyond the tree line.
"Why do they live so far from a town?" asked Darrow. At least in the northern woods, the foresters were within a day's walk of Moonwater.
"No lords to tax them," explained Rusk. "No laws to bind them. Most of them are strong. That is why they make good prey and sometimes good People."
Contrary to Rusk's endorsement, the forest dwellers seemed weak and frightened. They barred their doors at the sight of the strangers and peered at them through the shutters.
"Something turns them against us," grumbled Rusk. "They cannot have forgotten the winters when we fed them."
"You know who it is, Huntmaster," said Sorcia.
Rusk frowned and increased his pace, leaving Darrow and Sorcia 'behind.
"Who is it?" asked Darrow quietly.
"Maleva," said Sorcia. "A cleric of Selune."
"One cleric?" said Darrow. "Why don't we drive her away or kill her?"
"Her home is protected by a forbiddance," said Sorcia. "And Rusk has long decreed that none but he shall take her life."
"A matter of honor?" asked Darrow.
"No," said Sorcia, "a matter of weakness."
*****
They found Maleva's cottage the next night. It stood atop a low hill near the forest's edge. One square window glowed with yellow light, and a thin ribbon of smoke rose into the dark blue sky. Even from fifty yards away, Darrow smelled rabbit stew and wood smoke, as well as the dog lying beside the front door.
"See how close you can get," said Rusk. Sorcia and Darrow looked at him in surprise. "Both of you, from different directions."
"You said she had a forbiddance on the place," said Sorcia.
"That's why he's sending us first," said Darrow, who remembered all too well the way Rusk used him as a trap-springer back at House Malveen. He didn't like it, but he knew Rusk would not tolerate an argument.
Sorcia felt otherwise. "You called Balin a coward for leading from behind," she said.
Darrow blinked and stepped back, expecting Rusk to strike her down. Instead, he merely fixed his eyes on hers and asked, "Which of you will free me from paralysis or heal me if I am struck down?"
Sorcia had no retort for that argument.
"When you wield the power of Malar, perhaps we will discuss my decisions. Until then, you will do well to obey them."
Darrow had already turned away to skirt the hill and approach from the north, where the tree line would prevent him from making a silhouette against the sky. The stars shone in the cloudless sky, and the crescent moon was bright and high.
From this side, Darrow could see neither the dog nor the window. Darrow crept close, expecting trouble only when he reached the building. Thus, he was unprepared when he triggered the ward when still thirty yards away.
Brilliant silver light suffused his body, and an invisible force thrust him away from the cottage. He fell sprawling on the ground, twitching and breathless. The force that pushed him back felt like fire and lightning combined. He couldn't smell or taste, and all his flesh felt numb and useless.
He rolled to his feet and felt briefly dizzy. His vision blurred, then cleared. He looked for Darrow and Sorcia but saw neither of them.
From around the cottage came the dog, barking furiously. It was a big wolfhound with a mottled gray coat. Darrow heard the sound of the door opening, and a woman's voice called out, "Who's there?"
Darrow turned and ran, the wolfhound close behind.
"Call back your dog, Maleva," boomed Rusk's voice. Darrow veered toward the sound, seeking the protection of numbers, as well as Rusk's magic. His body stung and ached from his expulsion.
After a moment's hesitation, Maleva called out, "Here, Shard! Come here, boy!"
The dog broke off its pursuit just as Darrow reached Rusk. Sorcia was already with him, looking no worse for testing the Selunite's ward. Maybe she had simply waited to see what happened to Darrow, first.
Maleva let Shard inside the cottage then closed the door before approaching the three werewolves. She wore a dark blue cloak with the hood thrown back to reveal white hair bound in a long braid. She stopped inside the ward around her cottage, about twenty yards away.
"I see ydu brought a pair of your own dogs," she said.
"Bitch," muttered Sorcia. Darrow noted she said it quietly.
"Won't you come embrace your old friend, Maleva?" Rusk walked halfway toward her but stopped well beyond the magical boundary.
"Go back to your lodge, Rusk. Hunt the animals, and leave the people alone."
"You could come with us," he said. "You could run with me as we did so long ago. There is still great strength in each of us."
"You are wasting your breath, Rusk. If you want to turn away from Malar, I'll go with you to Moonshadow Hall. Otherwise, I'll stay here until one of your pups tears you down."
"But you won't kill me, will you, Maleva?"
"I will if you don't keep away," she said. "Stay in the woods, Rusk."
"Where is Feena? Why does she not come out to greet me?"
"In Yhaunn," said Maleva. "With Dhauna Myritar, well beyond your reach."
"The Mistress of Moonshadow Hall taking your acolyte under her wing? I think not. She never forgave you for your heresy."
"Think what you will," she replied.
"Perhaps you left her in Selgaunt to look after the boy."
"Think whatever you will. Just stay in your woods."
"You think he is the Black Wolf, don't you?"
"The Black Wolf is a myth," she said. "We are too old to believe in such stories."
"You once believed it enough to run with me," said Rusk.
"We were young then. I was a foolish young girl, and you were a much better man than you are today. Stay in your woods, Rusk."
"Perhaps I'll pay them a visit," he said. "There are so many things I would like to tell them both, Feena and this young wolf. But not too soon, I think. Perhaps next summer would be a good time."
Maleva's eyes flashed bright blue, and she raised her hands in prayer to the moon. White light formed on the medallion around her neck.
Rusk pressed the back of his hand against the talisman on his forehead, chanting his own invocation. When he thrust his open hand toward Maleva, a burst of red light surrounded her. For an instant, Darrow could see the smooth, curving border of the invisible field surrounding her home.
Rusk cursed. Whatever the spell was meant to achieve, it had failed.
Simultaneously, a cone of silver light shot from Maleva's palm and covered all three werewolves. Every muscle in Darrow's body cramped at once, and he was forced low to the ground. Before he realized he was transforming, he was in wolf form.
Nearby, Rusk snarled but seemed otherwise unaffected. Beside him stood the white wolf, her vicious teeth bared.
"Go back to the woods, before you lose one of your pups."
She raised her arms toward the moon and called again on Selune's power. Rusk hesitated, then turned to leave. He walked at first then moved more quickly as he willed his own transformation into wolf form. Soon they entered the dark forest, where neither Maleva nor her spells followed them.
Chapter 12
Masks
Marpenoth, 1371 DR
In the months since his expulsion from Master Ferrick's, Tal began his own sword practice. There was no room in the tallhouse, so he used the backstage area at the Wide Realms.
At first he came in the mornings, when the building was deserted except for Lommy and the reclusive Otter. Within a tenday, Mistress Quickly complained that Lommy was missing his cues for opening the trapdoors or lowering the sun and moon from the heavens. One look at the bleary-eyed tasloi made Tal realize his mistake. The arboreal creatures were nocturnal by nature, and Tal had been disturbing their sleep.
He changed his schedule, returning to the playhouse a few hours after a performance. He practiced by himself while Lommy and Otter scampered about the mechanical works in the rafters. He didn't know what the tasloi were doing up there-maybe just chasing each other in play, or perhaps building new gods and comets to drop and swing from the ropes-but he liked the sound of them nearby. He liked to think they were glad of his presence, too.