by John Conroe
“What’s the deal?” I asked as the lord marshal clattered away.
“Jella said to corral it but leave it till you got here,” Hemppe reported. “She’s a might curious.”
“Alright, let’s move up. I want to see this beast,” I said.
We walked forward, armed and alert, Welton following five or six spans behind on Tipton.
The street had a bit of an arc to it, rounding to the right, and as we proceeded, more houses came into view.
The neighborhood around the Knife and Needle is heavily populated by my people, although there are plenty of regular merchants, tradesfolk, laborers, and their families living in it too. Despite the lack of regular constabulary patrol, there is almost no crime in my area. We don’t allow it.
On the far side of the arc was a single building that had three shops in it, one selling clothes, both new and old, a spice trader, and a bootmaker’s place. Next to that was a multifamily dwelling and then another just like it, the space in between forming the gloomy alley that Hemppe had mentioned. Across the street, on the inside arc, were four small cottages, all in a neat row. The third cottage from where we were was the Newberry cottage. Lapped plank siding, a real slate roof as opposed to cedar shingles or thatching, and window boxes that Ash had built himself. The windows had heavy oak shutters that were currently closed up tight, as was the reinforced oak door. A slim shadow crouched on the roof near the chimney, short bow in hand, watching the dark alley.
“Wait here in case it comes this way,” I directed, moving forward on my own. I stopped in front of Ash’s house, facing the alley. “What’s up with this thing?” I asked, never taking my eyes off the shadows. Before Jella could answer, a deep growl rumbled in the dark. She was forced to speak over it.
“It did that when I first climbed up here.” My teacher’s voice drifted down from above. “It keeps circling this house, so I decided to just wait here. Yawl is directly behind it, one building back.”
“She hasn’t killed it yet?”
“She tracks it, but she won’t close with it,” Jella said.
“Scared?” I asked, incredulous. Yawl was a woldling killing machine. I’d never seen her shy away from tackling one.
“No,” Jella said, a note of bewilderment in her voice. “It’s like she simply chooses to let this one alone. It avoids her the same way.”
Weirder and weirder. The growl had deepened while we were speaking. Now it rose in volume.
“It’s moving up to the alley entrance,” Jella reported. For the twenty thousandth time, I wished I had Drodacian night vision. But I was stuck with what I was born with, so I settled for taking her word.
Curious, I stepped forward, toward the threat. The growl actually got softer. I took a step back. It got louder. I took two forward and it dropped right down to just a dull rumble.
“You don’t like me near the house?” I asked it. “Why?”
Most people would think me daft for talking at a Crafted monster with the brains of a wild animal. The common person thinks woldlings are just unthinking, vicious beasts, incapable of reason. Granted, they are exceedingly aggressive and prone to battle rage, but they do learn the commands of their Lashes and they have a pack structure with alphas in charge. And this one had shown more thought and cunning than almost any other I had come across.
At the sound of my voice, the growls stopped altogether, replaced by a soft shuffling sound that told me it was drawing even nearer. I took two more steps, axes held lightly by my sides. The distance from me to the mouth of the alley was at least ten spans, too great for a woldling to leap, plenty of room for me to maneuver.
Fighting a woldling one-on-one is generally a bad idea for most soldiers. The beasts are fast and strong, and armed with long, cruel claws and bone-crushing teeth. Heavy infantry troops rely on the protection of their layered armor and shields, which work great when they fight as a unit. But without a shield wall, they are too weighed down to fight a beast as agile as a woldling. The monster will just circle the soldier, looking for a chance to attack from behind. Once it gets it, the infantryman will be lying face down with a beast on his back that weighs as much as two men. Not good odds of survival.
A cavalry trooper has the speed and strength of his mount but if the horse isn’t well-trained or experienced, the results can be disastrous, again due to the agility and power of the woldling. But RRS troopers are all trained to fight one-on-one, using a spear, sword, or like Urso, an axe. It’s all about room to maneuver. Close quarters, inside a building or in thick forest, favors the beast. An open street like this one favors the well-trained, appropriately armed fighter. And I’m proud to say that under my watch, that training had reached even higher levels. All of my people could fight a woldling and win. I had personally killed tens of them.
So, I was confident yet still wary. Movement in the shadows focused my attention, a flash of fur in the streetlight.
“Well, come on then. Let’s have a look at you,” I said softly.
Amazingly, it listened, or seemed too, moving forward, becoming visible. Urso had been kind. It was a fucking mess. One arm, the right, hung almost to its knee, the left coming to the middle of its thigh. The eyes were uneven, like the bones of its skull had been malformed, and one orb looked larger than the other. The lower jaw jutted forward, the top one pulled back, teeth protruding in all directions. And it seemed wounded, one ear torn to shreds, not fully healed, and four raking claw marks on its left shoulder, like it had been in a fight. The dark brown fur was patchy and uneven, its shoulders lumped with a hump over the right side.
I had never seen its like, not in any of the thousands of woldlings I have witnessed. But I had seen sketches in old books. This was a throwback, a woldling made not from any age of child, but from an adult human, something not seen in centuries. Not only did children transform into better, more refined woldlings, but adults died more often than not during the change. The survival percentage for an adult male had been something like eleven percent.
A horse neighed, and I immediately recognized Tipton’s distinctive sound. I didn’t look around, but the woldling did—and immediately it straightened, standing upright, its focus completely on my horse and his rider. Actually, based on the angle of its gaze, just the rider. Those eyes… as deformed as they were, they held a clear intelligence that was as foreign to the woldlings I knew as its misshapenness was.
It stared at the boy on the horse and I swear I saw recognition in those red orbs whose glare softened visibly. Above and behind me, I heard Jella take a soft breath, the only nonspeaking sound I’d heard from my deadly teacher the whole time she’d been there. She saw it too.
Suddenly the clatter of multiple hooves came from back up the street, followed by Kiven’s deep voice giving orders. The woldling crouched, snarling as men and horses thundered up behind my men, horse, and young charge.
“What are you doing?” Kiven demanded. “Shoot the damned thing—it’s right there!”
“So is our captain, in case you missed that,” Cort said behind me.
“Give me a crossbow!” Kiven ordered and the woldling immediately backed away, arms coming up to protect its face. The fur on its limbs was even patchier than on its body, with blotches of mottled skin showing through. The oil streetlamp on the corner illuminated its right forearm briefly before shadow covered it.
Immediately I spun around, back to the beast, waving my arms as I stepped forward, putting myself between the creature and the crossbow that the lord marshal was aiming at it. “NO!” I yelled but Kiven ignored me and pulled the trigger, the bolt flashing through the air, its sharpened steel head a making it a silver streak in the lamplight.
Another flash came from my left and above, smaller and white, and impossibly it clipped the bolt in midair before glancing off and sticking into the wall of the middle storefront across the street.
The sound of a heavy bolt hitting flesh and the roar of the woldling filled the night. The beast leapt past me, moving muc
h faster than its deformities would have suggested, angled toward the constables and away from my men. It hit the line of lawmen and tore through them and bounded off into the darkness.
Jella swore and jumped off the roof, landing easily despite the four-span drop, then took off at a sprint after the woldling.
Chapter 9
“—then it tore through my men like paper, killing one outright and wounding two others, before it disappeared. But we’ll find it, Your Majesty,” Kiven finished, standing like me, at attention.
Unlike me, he’d been given a full opportunity to report the night’s events as he saw them. King Helat nodded and turned his death stare on me. He said nothing for a full ten seconds, my mind counting them automatically. The others in the room, Colonel Erser, Neil Slinch, and Brona, stayed silent as we all waited.
“I have relied on your judgement for years, Savid, often against the counsel of my advisors. Time and again, you have proven them wrong… until tonight. By all accounts, you knew a woldling was scouting the city, allowed it to enter without sounding an alarm, failed to kill it when presented with a clear opportunity, and your… teacher actually interfered when someone with guts actually tried to put it down. Unless I’m misinformed?”
I had seen others in this position before and even been in it a time or two myself. Foolhardy was the recipient who immediately launched into excuses, denials, or counterallegations.
“Your information is correct, Your Majesty,” I said, staring straight ahead as I had since arriving in the king’s private audience chamber.
I had my eyes locked on one of the crossed war spears on the wall behind him, focused on the tip of a razor-sharp spearpoint. On the edges of my vision, I could tell he was now frowning. He waited, giving me time to step off the ledge and hang myself, but I didn’t take the invitation.
Another ten seconds ticked by, then five more. “Perhaps you’ve finally lost your edge? Happens to everyone eventually. Perhaps it’s time you sought an alternative to your current situation?”
“As you say, Sire,” I responded, only because his tone required some kind of answer. I kept mine even and steady. I could feel his eyes boring into me, actually feel it. More seconds crept by and then he sighed.
“Alright, out with it,” he said. “Why?”
“The woldling was different right from the start,” I said instantly, staying at attention. “He actually showed some skill at eluding Jella. He was careful about the city. Then when he entered Haven, he went right to the heart of Shadow territory, right into the middle of the worst people he could face. And just before the lord marshal shot his nephew through the shoulder, I saw his Ranged Recon tattoo on his forearm.”
Brona sucked in a breath and next to me Kiven shifted, his head whipping around to stare my way. My frontal vision showed the king’s hand coming up to forestall any outbursts from the lord marshal. Neil Slinch, whose eyes had been a bit excited by my predicament, frowned.
“How?” King Helat asked.
I held up my right arm and pulled my sleeve back to expose my forearm, or more importantly, the tattoo on it. It was almost as clear and defined as the day I got it, or I should say night that I got it. The same night that we had graduated Despair.
The image is of a cloaked man, his face hidden by his cowl, kneeling, left hand on his folded knee, right hand outstretched, holding a Recon short sword, blade pointing down. Under the figure are the Drodacian words “Schotang ewali, keanni ewali.” Loosely translated, “If I speak of it to you, I must kill you.”
“Our graduation tattoos. Of the twelve who received it, only me, Cort, Soshi, Drew, and Ash were left alive after the war.”
This time, both the king and the head of his intelligence service joined Kiven in stiffening in shock.
“You are certain?”
“We designed it as a group, Sire. I added the words. To my knowledge, no other class has Drodacian hunting language in their tattoos.”
“That would mean that he was changed by the Paul,” Neil Slinch said, “and survived it.”
“And retained an enormous amount of his intelligence and personality,” I said. “He knew Welton on sight… I saw the recognition in his eyes. And he wouldn’t leave the area around his house where his wife was bolted in, despite all the Shadows who were surrounding it.”
Kiven started to speak but stopped when the king’s head whipped his way. “But it… he… attacked Haven constables?” King Helat asked.
“After he was shot. Jella’s arrow moved the bolt enough that it hit his shoulder, not his heart. But I’m guessing he has a woldling’s temper if not its intellect.”
“She actually shot a bolt in midair?” Erser asked.
“Clipped it, Colonel, but yes.”
“And now he’s out there somewhere, loose in the city,” King Helat said, frowning.
“Jella and Yawl are on him. I said he showed skill at eluding her, not that he could actually do it. I suspect someone is waiting nearby to tell me where he is.”
The king studied me for a moment, then nodded. “Do it. Step outside and see if you’re right. Then get back in here.”
I spun and stepped out of Helat’s private chamber, thinking I needed to head toward the castle’s main entrance. Instead, just outside the door, I found the king’s newest page, Brent, who snapped upright as soon as he saw me. “They’ve tracked it to the wharves near the river bridge. I was told to tell you that Jella says it’s inside one of the warehouses there, actually one of your family’s.”
I noted that he used the pronoun it. Which meant that either none of my people had seen what I saw, or that they were keeping it quiet. My money was on the latter. Jella, at the very least, has much better eyesight than I do, and so does Soshi, for that matter.
“Excellent, Brent. Exactly what I needed to hear.” I spun around and headed right back inside.
Slinch was talking as I entered, but he stopped as soon as I opened the door. Erser looked thoughtful, the king was frowning, and Kiven was stony-faced. Brona shot me a tiny smile and a nod before smoothing her own expression clear.
“Well?” King Helat demanded.
“It’s holed up in a DelaCrotia warehouse on the wharf. My people are all around it, waiting.”
“If your information is right, it has implications,” the king said. “You’ve had longer to think about this than the rest of us… what do you think it means?”
I took a breath and marshalled my thoughts. “I think, sire, that it’s a message from the Paul, although maybe not exactly what he intended.”
He glanced at Slinch and Erser, then looked back my way. “Explain.”
“Take one of your enemy’s best soldiers and change him into one of yours. Then send him back to wreak havoc and sow fear.”
“Saying to us, look what I can do,” Slinch said, nodding.
“Exactly. Only, he picked the wrong soldier. Ash came home but didn’t tear into the city. Instead, he scouted it carefully, cautiously. Then he sought out his family, checking up on them,” I said, glancing at the lord marshal before continuing. “He only acted like a true woldling when he was injured. Now he’s holed up, away from most of the citizens of Haven and out of sight. I doubt that’s what the Paul had in mind.”
“You think the Paul chose him out of all the other Shadows because he was the leader?” Slinch said.
“Leader, survivor, last man standing. Or maybe he caught the entire murder and tried changing the whole lot of them and Ash was the only one to live through the… treatment.”
“I actually hope that’s the case,” Brona suddenly said. “Because if he chose just Ash, then he’s got a Crafted taint with a very high survival rate, and that’s horrifying.”
“What?” Kiven asked her, suddenly focusing on the conversation.
“If he can pick one person, one adult person, and be sure they’ll live through the infection, then he has a weapon he can release on any nation that will turn the population into crazed killing machines,”
Slinch said.
There was silence as that thought wove its way around the room.
“That’s if Savid is even right,” Kiven suddenly said.
“True, but Captain DelaCrotia has a very high credibility rate, don’t you think, Lord Marshal?” the king asked, pinning him with a stare.
Kiven stiffened for a second, then reluctantly nodded.
“But we need absolute confirmation, and we need Ash Newberry,” the king said.
“Alive, Your Majesty, if at all humanly possible,” Neil added.
“Yes, alive. Well, Captain?” Helat asked, looking at me.
“On it, Sire,” I said, coming to attention and saluting.
“See to it,” he dismissed me. As I turned to leave, Brona gave me a wink, a little smile on her face. Her message was clear, at least to me—well played.
Chapter 10
“Where is he?” I asked Jella.
She shrugged and waved at the warehouse. “Somewhere in there.”
“Helpful,” I said.
“Listen, he’s your friend and it’s your warehouse.”
“He’s what’s left of my friend and it’s my family’s warehouse, and might I remind you that he’s fought at your side for years. Also, I haven’t been in there in years,” I said, my words triggering memories. I had played in the recesses of the building as a kid, but the last time I had been in here was several years ago, on leave from the Squadron, drunk and looking for a place to crash—with Ash.
The memory of that night was fuzzy, but I recalled entering through an unsecured roof vent, Ash stumbling through the opening and almost falling to the floor six spans below.
Walking the perimeter of the building, I nodded to my people who were spaced around the building, torches and lanterns lighting the dark corners of the waterfront. On the east side of the building, I saw the long, mast-like crane support that we had climbed that night long ago. This time, it was much easier than I remembered, no doubt more to do with sobriety than any skill I might have gained in the last years.