by Jim Galford
The cart stood in the middle of a wide road that, though filled with snow, was packed from enough passings to be recognizable as more than a field. To either side, the land was less distinguishable, with rolling hills for as far as she could see, all covered with a thin layer of snow. Small bushes and stunted trees appeared occasionally from the snow, standing out against the white blanket everywhere else.
Ilarra turned in the cart, looking toward the direction they had come. The road wound through the hills as far as she could see. Judging by the location of the mountains on her left, they had gone roughly south from Hyeth, and no small distance, based on the peaks she could see. Ilarra’s initial guess was a day’s ride, which had to have been wrong.
Raeln continued gesturing furtively until a belabored groan from Greth brought him to a stop.
“I’ve been trying to get him to say something…anything…for days,” the shorter wildling admitted. He rubbed at a freshly-healed cut along his muzzle. “We waited almost a week in Hyeth before his mother told…I guess ‘told’ is the wrong word…pointed us on our way. That is one bitch I wouldn’t cross. My father would have loved to meet her. They’d have gotten along fabulously.”
Raeln’s furious glare did not so much as slow Greth’s words. Ilarra, on the other hand, felt her blood go cold, seeing Raeln so close to trying to kill the man. Speaking about his mother like that was a sure way to get beaten soundly.
“I know a country healer who might know what the Turessian did to all of you back there. Your father agreed it was the best plan anyone had, so he packed us up and sent us on our way. As for him…he’s doing about as well as you.”
Ilarra stared off toward the north, unable to see the trees that would be the edge of Hyeth’s woods. “Why do we not have horses?” Ilarra asked, looking around.
“Undead ate them. We couldn’t find any left in Hyeth.”
“How far have we gone?” she asked, pressing a hand to her head. The village had dozens of horses…that they all had been massacred was difficult to imagine. “I know of no other villages near Hyeth where your healer might live.”
Greth shook his head. “No village. She lives in the middle of nowhere about a week’s journey from Hyeth. Only thing out this far are a few farmhouses filled with some foul-tempered furless. We should arrive sometime tonight. You’ll love her…she’s patched me up a bunch of times when I got into scrapes with the Altisian troops and the occasional wild animal.”
“A week? I’ve been unconscious for a week?”
“Two. You forgot the time we stayed in Hyeth.”
Ilarra groaned. She felt a little under the weather, but anything that could have kept her down that long without killing her had to be magic of some sort. If her father could not find its source, that did not bode well for some country healer who might be little more than an herbalist who had delusions of being something more.
“Thank you for trying to help,” she said to Raeln, squeezing his hand as much out of thanks as to pull it away from examining her. Touching him also helped snap him out of the furious glare he had been directing at Greth. “And thank you for not killing him.”
“Me?” Greth asked, laughing. “I damn near saved everyone’s lives. When the Turessian dropped, the zombies went crazy, but all your warriors were so worried about you and the other wizards they nearly got themselves killed. If I hadn’t been there, the corpses would have been chewing on the living before anyone realized they were moving. All I had to do was walk away and you’d have been corpse-meat.”
Ilarra looked quizzically at Raeln, who reluctantly nodded. Apparently there was some truth to Greth’s story.
“And since your brother,” said Greth with ill-concealed disgust in his tone, “won’t tell you what your father said, let me sum it up for you. Don’t use magic and go find a cure. Simple enough when you’re willing to talk. It’d take the big idiot an hour to say that with all his hand-waving.”
The orders Greth gave her made no sense. She felt ill, as though she had caught a severe cold or something similar. What that had to do with her using magic was a mystery. “Did he say why?”
Greth shook his head and said, “No. I overheard him working with one of his apprentices, though. They tried to work on figuring out what the poison might have been, but it was well beyond them. Worse yet, when they used magic, they all got very sick. They traced it back to a well that stunk something fierce. Makes me understand why the gypsies all drink wine instead of water, though I doubt that’d be enough to kill whatever got dumped in that well.
“Your father wanted to send runners, but I volunteered in the hopes of getting myself out of there. I hadn’t counted on getting stuck with the two of you. I kind of expected a firm boot in the tail and I’d be on my way.”
“Then why not leave us? You know Raeln would have stayed with me.”
Greth opened his mouth to answer, but then shut it and pointed to the southwest. “The healer should be over that rise. Small cottage near the foothills. It’s far enough from anything important that she gets left alone when Lantonne and Altis go at it,” he explained, ignoring her question.
In an attempt to relieve herself of any dependence on Greth, Ilarra slid off the wagon…and promptly collapsed face-first in the snow. She pushed away Raeln’s hands and tried to stand, but her legs were shaky—and not entirely from the cold and too much time lying down. Her strength had faded as it might with a severe fever, but she felt fine other than a knot in her stomach and the weakness itself.
“There’s more,” Greth noted, coming over to kneel beside Ilarra. “Your sire…father…said to check the skin near your heart.”
Ilarra clamped a hand down on her shirt and glared at the man’s suggestion. “We are miles from any privacy. I have no intention of disrobing so that you…”
“So I can what?” he replied skeptically. Greth looked past her to Raeln, then back to Ilarra. “In case you missed it, I barely consider elves to be sentient. I hardly care about seeing your chest. No fur, no interest, my father used to say. I tend to agree. Unless elves have hairy chests—which a dwarven friend assured me they don’t—why would I care?”
Ilarra pulled herself upright using the edge of the cart to steady herself. Grabbing the cloak she had seen in the bed of the cart, she draped it around herself and used it as a shield as she glanced down the neck of her shirt.
From the neck of the shirt to about the top of her left breast, Ilarra’s skin appeared as pale as it always had. That changed abruptly directly over her heart, where the skin was dark and thin wavy lines of a similar color spread out toward the rest of her chest. A film of something oily covered the skin there.
Covering herself, Ilarra straightened her cloak and looked between the two wildlings with her. Raeln watched her with unchecked worry, while Greth appeared as neutral as a stone. “I feel fine,” she insisted without being asked. “We will go see your healer and concern ourselves with whatever she has to say. I refuse to worry until I know what this is and how we can get rid of it.”
Greth nodded and stood up. He went to the cart and shuffled the bags of food and water that had lain beside Ilarra, then began dragging it on down the road, forcing Ilarra to stand on her own.
Raeln took longer to rise, and when he did, he gave Ilarra a nervous stare. Then, after glancing off toward Greth to be sure he was not watching, Raeln pulled the neck of his own shirt down to reveal a patch of skin that appeared raw and burned. Only a few hairs remained there, as though his flesh were as diseased as Ilarra’s.
“The bond,” she murmured to herself, realizing that for as bad as the effects might be on her, she was actually splitting them with Raeln. His resilience might be all that was keeping her upright. That added a new sense of urgency, as any disease that could do that much damage to them both was certainly not something she wanted to risk dealing with if Raeln were injured or otherwise weakened.
Covering himself again, Raeln motioned for Ilarra to continue after Greth.
> *
That evening, as the sun disappeared behind the mountains, Ilarra stared off toward the south where a small cottage had come into sight, nestled among hills that concealed it from the road. How Greth had ever found the place once, let alone repeatedly, she could not imagine.
They had been forced to leave the cart behind more than an hour earlier, and the wildlings had taken much of their supplies along with them. Ilarra had insisted on walking without aide, though Raeln refused to leave her side the whole way, making her more self-conscious than she would have liked.
The farther they got from the road, the harder the journey became for Ilarra. Her legs were the first to burn with strain, and then her lungs began to ache as she pushed through the shallow snow toward their destination. Clutching her cloak tight around her throat, she struggled to continue despite the pain and throbbing in her head and chest.
“We can take a break here,” Greth said suddenly, stopping among a few sparse trees. “It’s still early enough that we can wait until everyone is ready for the last half hour of walking.”
Ilarra wanted to push on, but she could not even find enough breath to argue for several seconds. Once she managed to, there was little point in arguing at all.
Clearing some snow beneath one of the trees, Greth set down his pack and looked around at the trees nearby. Smiling to himself, he motioned toward a deeper section of woods to the west. “Pup,” he said to Raeln, “fetch some firewood. We’ll warm ourselves before we set off again. The elf looks like she needs it.”
Raeln marched up to Greth, towering over him in a clear attempt to intimidate the smaller man. Greth did not so much as blink, staring back at Raeln until he snarled and walked away, heading toward the west.
“Your big brother needs to learn his place,” Greth said after Raeln had gotten nearly out of sight. “That attitude will get him killed in some lands. My father would have torn him apart for that little stunt. ‘Show a fang and lose a tooth’ he told the pushy males.”
Ilarra practically collapsed where she stood, then dragged herself over to a nearby tree. Using it for support, she sat there, gasping for air with her heart racing so fast she thought it might leap from her chest.
Watching her for a minute, Greth soon came over and sat down in front of Ilarra, studying her with those cold eyes. Had she not grown up among wolves, Ilarra might have thought he meant to kill her. Then again, this was Greth, not Raeln.
“Do you want me to tell him how bad it is, or will you?” he said at last. “When you said you were fine, the pup seemed to believe you. I know better.”
“I am fine.”
Greth sniffed and smirked knowingly. “Yeah…maybe. What I do know is that you smell like death, and when walking and talking meat smells dead, there isn’t long…”
“I’m clearly not dead.”
To emphasize his point, Greth stared at her and sniffed loudly. Then, freezing, he sniffed more naturally, his ears perking in alarm.
“What is it?” Ilarra asked, but Greth’s eyes were wide and searching the woods. Before she could utter another word, Greth slammed his hand over her mouth, holding her jaw closed.
“Raeln?” asked Greth, his voice low. “Raeln, get over here right now!”
The woods where Raeln had gone remained silent and still, lit only by the rising full moon. He could have gotten far off in the minutes since Ilarra had last seen him.
“Is your brother an idiot or can he be trusted to follow my lead?” Greth asked even more softly, putting his muzzle close enough to Ilarra’s ear that his whiskers tickled her. He eased his grip on her jaw.
“I can trust him…he might not know to listen to you,” she answered in a whisper.
“Good enough,” the man replied, drawing his sword slowly.
Still in a crouch, Greth moved low along the ground, barely making a sound as he slid through the snow. He inched toward the hills to the southwest, keeping his weapon ahead of him.
“Get it!” came a shout from somewhere past Greth.
Human men emerged from the dark around the trees, easily numbering ten or more, though Ilarra could see little in the shadows. Every one carried spears and a bow, and before Greth could defend himself, six spears and nearly as many bows were aimed at him.
“Bugger me,” muttered Greth, standing slowly. He tossed his sword in front of him and raised his hands. “Bandits?”
The nearest human spat at Greth’s feet, raising his spear to point it at Greth’s chest. “Hunting bear,” the man explained, eyeing Greth warily. “Killed some of our cows, so we’re trying to drive it off. We don’t take well to animals—or strangers—sneaking around the woods.”
Greth smiled sheepishly, raising his hands a little higher.
“We’re just going to see Mairlee,” he explained to the men around him. “She knows me. Got something we needed her help with. You really don’t want to be a part of this. Also, we’re not bears.”
The man with the spear looked down at Greth’s sword in the snow before leaning to look at Ilarra. “Some wildling running around with weapons gets caught next to some elf girl who looks hurt and has no weapons,” the man noted, getting approving grunts from the others. “I’d say you’re the bandit, wolf. Explain yourself and we’ll decide if we gut you. No one’ll fault me for killing a bandit, even if I hang your pelt on my wall.”
Greth turned his head slightly to peek back at Ilarra and answered, “We need the healer. We were attacked night before last. I got bit, but we thought she’d be okay. Looks like she’s changing now, so we have to hurry. I might have an hour, she might have two.”
“Changing?”
“Yeah…did you think I’m actually a wildling?” asked Greth, lowering his hands. “Look at my clothes, you idiot. I’m an elf. Damned werewolf attacked us. You’re lucky I still have control over this or I’d have ripped into the lot of you.”
In unison, all of the human men took a step back, likely without even realizing they had done so.
“No were’s in these parts,” the spokesman insisted, though his spear wavered nervously. “You’re lying. You had a third person with you, too. I can see the tracks from here.”
Greth pointed off in the direction Raeln had gone. “He’s completely lost himself to the beast,” the wildling explained. “He was the first to change and the first to lose control. We barely managed to get away before he went crazy. The hope was to reach Mairlee before either of us got too far along.”
“You’re telling me there’s a real werewolf in those woods?” the human demanded, sounding more skeptical. “I think you’re just a wildling bandit.”
Greth pointed up at the rising moon, nearly full, and shrugged, saying nothing further. Ilarra knew the legends as well as these men likely did, and while few believed in such creatures, everyone knew that they supposedly stalked their prey during the full moon. Greth’s claims were pushing his luck, but he had legends on his side.
“We’ll check it out and kill him if he’s really turned,” the man finally announced, getting far less enthusiastic looks from the others. “You lead the way, wolf. Show us the werewolf. If you lie, we skin you as a bandit.”
“And if I’m telling the truth?”
The men eyed Greth warily, most of them looking genuinely uncomfortable. Ilarra had never heard tales of a werewolf negotiating and they probably had not either. Legend or not, the dark had a way of making stories seem far more deadly than they should have been. That same lie in the daytime probably would have gotten Greth skewered before he could finish saying it.
“I’ll take a few of you into the woods, but not the whole group,” offered Greth, clearly trying to sound reasonable. “We need someone to stay with my sister here, in case the werewolf comes back.”
The spokesman of the group shook his head and brought his spear closer to Greth. “Not a chance, bandit. Two of my boys will carry her along. You show us where the werewolf is,” the man insisted.
Greth gave Ilarra a sidelong
look of misery and quickly smiled at the men again. Motioning them toward Ilarra, he waited with feigned impatience as two of the burlier men helped her to her feet and put her arms over their shoulders to support her. As soon as she was upright, Ilarra could see Greth’s eyes dismiss the men helping her and he watched only the others as threats.
Saying nothing, Greth began walking quickly through the crunchy snow, following Raeln’s tracks through the sparse trees in the open space between hills toward the thicker trees. The entire group followed him, six men with spears keeping close to Greth the whole time.
Ilarra wanted dearly to plead with the human men, to explain that she and her companions were not a threat. She had no idea if that would help or hurt their situation, and after Greth’s stories, she had to assume the ranchers would kill at least him if she spoke up. She kept her mouth shut, nervously watching the men. They seemed genuine, though deep down, she worried they might be bandits, like they accused Greth of being. She had never dealt with a situation so delicate and honestly wanted to hug Greth for even trying to find a way out of it.
“We’re close,” Greth said as they entered the trees, sniffing. “For all the dangers of what I’m becoming, the sense of smell is a nice change.”
“Keep moving, wildling,” prodded one of the men, poking Greth with the tip of his spear.
Shooting the man a warning glare, Greth continued into the trees, with Ilarra and her assistants at the rear. She was certain she could have walked on her own, but she recognized that Greth wanted her to remain as weak in appearance as possible.
Perhaps a hundred feet into the woods, the trees grew denser and darker. Soon, even the moonlight barely made its way through the tall pines, forcing all of the humans to slow their pace to keep from running into anything. Twice, Ilarra saw Greth’s gleaming eyes look back, checking on each individual human. She knew full well that Greth could see much better than any human—or elf—in the dark, as Raeln had proven many times to her over the years.