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  “But I wonder if you dare tell him, Imre,” Gar’rth said as he stepped toward the man. Castimir saw that they were of equal height. Gar’rth had always been the tallest of their group, a head taller than either him or Theodore. Now the two stood so close as to be butting heads.

  “So Gar’rth chooses to return to us,” Imre said scornfully. “And of his own free will.”

  I would hardly call it that, Castimir mused.

  Imre lowered his cowl to reveal a human guise. His head was shaven, whilst a small beard ended his narrow face in a point. But it was his eyes to which Castimir was drawn. Greedy and hungry, and very, very dark.

  “You are a coward and a traitor, forfeiting our ways,” he said to Gar’rth coldly. “I am surprised that Jerrod was not able to bring you back sooner.”

  “Jerrod,” Doric spat contemptuously. “He was lucky to escape with his life! He fled from us, leaving two fingers and his ear behind. And in battle he was beaten by a knight of Falador. You’re lucky we abide by the rules of the embassy, else I’d be stitching a new fur coat, wolf.”

  “Calm yourself, Doric,” Despaard commanded. “This is not the way for an emissary of King Roald to speak.”

  Imre moved closer and towered over the dwarf.

  “Listen to your master, dwarf,” he growled. “We will honour the blood mark, for we have our instructions. However, I have never eaten one of your race before. Should your embassy fail, and your lives become unnecessary, I shall take great pleasure in consuming you. And I shall do so slowly. A leg first, then an arm…”

  As he spoke, his voice became distant, as if he was savouring an imaginary meal. He glanced around, his eyes rested on Kara and Arisha. He crouched, and Castimir stepped between them.

  “Unless we are provoked,” the wizard warned. “Your own words, Imre. Your flesh will burn as easily as Jerrod’s, and his burned quite nicely.”

  “So Jerrod is dead?” Imre asked.

  “He lives,” Theodore replied. “But he is an outlaw now, wanted in Asgarnia and Misthalin. He murdered women and children when they were alone and unprotected.”

  Imre laughed.

  “That sounds like Jerrod. So the legends are true. Such prey is common in the lands across the river. Perhaps Jerrod will never return.”

  “Jerrod will be destroyed,” Theodore said angrily. “His crimes are unpardonable.”

  “Are you the knight who defeated him?” Imre asked, looking at Theodore’s white-polished armour with a pained expression.

  “It was a better man than I,” Theodore said.

  “I thought so,” Imre sneered, and then he turned his back on the knight. “But come, we are expected in Canifis.”

  “How long will the journey take?” Albertus asked, clambering into his saddle.

  “That depends on how fast you ride and how quickly you tire, old man. Without a stop we can do it in a day.”

  The embassy rode east upon the road, following Imre and several other werewolves who ran ahead and alongside. The land seemed to be plunged in permanent gloom, and Castimir could not see any great distance. The very shadows seemed to be living things, willing to move only with the greatest reluctance.

  The flora was strange to him, as well. Ferns far larger than any he had ever seen. And the fungi, growing from tree stumps, with their purple and pink caps dotted with black spots, made his stomach queasy.

  They say fungi grow upon dead things. So I suppose it makes sense that they would be everywhere here.

  Castimir blinked and focused his eyes as a faint white shape, seen at the very limit of his vision, rose upward from the ground and vanished into the darkness.

  Anywhere else it would be my imagination, but not here.

  “Kara?” the red-headed wizard called quietly. “Did you see that? A white shape drifting upward.”

  She shook her head.

  “Not then. But I have seen what you describe. I am not sure what they are.”

  “They are everywhere,” Gar’rth told them. “Since the start of our journey. To a human’s eyes-even yours Kara-they will be barely visible.”

  “What are they, boy?” Doric called from behind.

  Was that fear in the dwarf’s voice? Castimir wondered. I wouldn’t blame him, for this is a fearful place. Yet the possibility that even Doric could be afraid unsettled him.

  “They are ghosts,” Lord Despaard said from the head of the column. “They will not harm you so long as you don’t disturb them.”

  Imre looked at Despaard for a long minute before speaking.

  “You speak as if you have been here before,” he said. “Is this so?”

  Despaard looked into Imre’s eyes without flinching.

  “That is correct,” he said. “Several times. Once even so far as Meiyerditch.”

  “You are fortunate the Vyrewatch did not seize you,” Imre remarked. “Humans are not allowed outside the walls.”

  “Then humans live there?” Gleeman asked in sudden interest. “In our stories, gypsy travellers kidnap children from Misthalin and bring them here to be used for sacrifices. But if you have a whole city of humans, then surely that is unnecessary.”

  Imre laughed.

  “There are humans in Meiyerditch, although the conditions in the ghettos are barely adequate to sustain life as you know it. The Vyrewatch take who they want, when they want. No, a human from outside Morytania, who has grown up with health and clean air, is worth a hundred such bland souls.”

  “But the vampires take werewolves, as well,” Gar’rth said. “That is why human children are sold by gypsies from across the river, so the werewolves can offer them in their place.”

  Imre didn’t reply, but it was plain to Castimir that Gar’rth’s words pained not only him, but all their escort.

  So the werewolves are victims, as well.

  They spoke no more until they reached a bridge spanning an ill-looking stream. Here Imre paused.

  “We will rest here for an hour,” the werewolf said. “Remember, do not drink from the spring, and do not wander beyond the escort. The ravenous will attack you if they get your scent, and the blood mark means nothing to them.”

  Castimir saw Lord Despaard shake his head as he dismounted.

  “Will they be this far north?” the nobleman asked.

  Imre shrugged.

  “It would be unusual, but not impossible. There was one at your temple this morning, after all. I have never known them to travel so close to the river before though.”

  “Then what has changed?” Theodore asked as he lowered himself onto a fallen log, carefully testing it in his weighted armour.

  “This is Morytania,” Imre snarled. “Nothing changes. Ever.”

  The werewolf and his companions spread out in a wide and uneven circle, some to the east of the river across the bridge.

  Probably as much to avoid conversation as to guard us better.

  Castimir tethered his yak to a sapling which stood alone and far enough away from the ill-looking fungi that grew nearby. His friends did the same with their steeds, and Albertus’s mule. He wondered whether he should take the time to consult Master Segainus’s books, to see if they contained any insights into the land of the dead. His thoughts were stalled when he saw Albertus stagger after sliding off his horse. The old man groaned and would have fallen had not Gar’rth grasped him under the arm and guided him to sit alongside Theodore.

  The knight gave the old man a look of concern and handed him a water skin. Albertus sipped quietly, his face pale.

  We have ridden hard and far in the last three days. It has been too much for him. Far too much.

  “Let us have some food,” Doric said eagerly as he rummaged inside his steed’s packs. “Cured meats and bread with cheese, and a skin of wine. That would satisfy even the ravenous, I shouldn’t doubt!”

  “Fool,” Despaard said angrily. “Do not speak so lightly of such things. They are creatures driven mad by their hunger, tormented for centuries…”

  He
stopped short, and turned his back on the dwarf.

  An awkward silence fell as Kara and Arisha sat down opposite Theodore. Gar’rth remained standing, as if unwilling to relax despite the loose perimeter the werewolf guards maintained. Doric made a grim face but said no more as he handed out the rations to his friends. Castimir took his with a grateful nod and sat beside Albertus, the old man on the verge of sleep.

  “Tell me, Lord Despaard, if you will,” he asked. “What has made you hate Morytania so? Reldo told me on the journey here that everyone in your society has lost a loved one to this realm.”

  The grim man looked around the group quickly and grunted.

  It is hard for him. He is a man who has put up barriers between himself and the world.

  “Reldo talks too much for an apprentice,” Despaard replied. Suddenly he smiled mirthlessly. “But it is true-or very nearly true-that most of us have lost people to the undying one. For me, it was my father. It happened long ago, and I was only a boy of fourteen winters.”

  “I am sorry,” Theodore said. “It must be hard for any son to receive word of-”

  Lord Despaard laughed, cutting him off.

  “Sir Theodore, you amuse me. More so as it is not your intention. I never received word of my father’s death. No. I saw it. Here, in Morytania.”

  He took a bite of his bread and chewed quickly, shaking his head.

  “It was winter, the worst Misthalin had seen in decades,” he continued. “So cold the Salve had frozen over. The peasants were starving. Neighbour turned on neighbour and some had taken to dressing up as wolves to take by force or fear what food remained. In some cases, where no food was available, they would take the children of the villagers.”

  “Children?” Castimir said in disbelief.

  “Aye, children, master wizard,” Despaard said. “It is apparent to me that you have never starved before. It drives good men mad, and turns the lawful into savages.” He looked Castimir long in the eye and the wizard felt a chill creep down his spine. “Cannibalism. That is what they resorted to when there was no food available. So it was that my father set out with two-dozen of his men, the best of his house. I went with them, for as heir to his titles and land I had to see that justice was done against such evil. We trailed them for miles, and we crossed the frozen river. Some told my father that we should turn back, that we had gone too far, but by then it was already too late.”

  No one spoke as Lord Despaard took a deep swig from his wine skin.

  “He was adamant that justice be done. So we followed them. I don’t know how far we went, but it seemed like many long miles in that snow. Eventually we found him, or he found us.”

  “He?” Doric asked.

  “One of the ravenous, Doric. He stood at the crest of a frozen hill before a dead black tree in as bleak a landscape as you can imagine. We thought it was a man and called out to him to ask if he had seen our quarry, and only when we drew closer did we realise it was one of them, and that our wolf-skin wearing foe had already been found and devoured.

  “Our scout cried a warning but it was too late. There were dozens of them, charging upon us from all directions. My father’s horse was dragged to the ground and his weapon was useless against the vampire. From my horse I shot it, but my arrow went wide. My father’s last look at me was one of contempt, as if I was to blame, as if I had put that arrow in him, instead.”

  Despaard grunted bitterly and shook his head, then he emptied his wine skin in a final gluttonous swig.

  “Then how did you get out?” Kara asked gently as he wiped his hand over his mouth.

  “There was a man, an excellent man. Thomas his name was. He had served my family from before my birth.” Despaard shook his head. “The ravenous had us. They were all around us as those with horses tried to flee, among them Thomas and me. He led my horse, for I am not ashamed to admit that after seeing my father slain, my nerve was lost.

  “Thomas guided me out, but there were too many of them. It is the way they move that makes them so fearful-jaunting, as if they were puppets in the hands of a mad master… they were just so fast. They caught up with us, even on our horses. Then Thomas cursed me and ordered me to ride west, to the river, and he charged into their midst. He cut his wrist with his own blade to draw them to him with the scent of his blood.”

  Despaard sighed and shook his head.

  No one else spoke. Castimir looked at the man in a new light.

  What a burden that must be, to have someone give their life for yours, to live up to the memory of that sacrifice every day.

  “His sacrifice gave me time to escape, although even as I crested the river bank a ravenous attacked me, dragging me down onto the frozen surface. The screams it made were terrible as the ice cracked under it and the water consumed it, boiling without heat. I have never heard a man make such a sound. But that day I was set upon my course.

  “I have left the lands and titles to my younger brother for he has a family and an heir, while I do not. Just my Society of the Owls.”

  Theodore’s mare neighed suddenly. Castimir looked briefly at the animals, tethered together on the sapling. His yak snorted and kicked at the ground.

  Ill-tempered beast! Just you mind my books.

  “And since we have come to know each other so well,” Despaard continued, turning back to face the group, “You may like to call me by my first name. Titles are all well and good beyond the river, where men… and women should know their place. But not out here, not when your life depends upon the person sitting next to you. Here, titles are forgotten.

  “My name is Reinhard Despaard now.”

  Albertus Black sat up with a sudden start, causing Castimir to spill a thimble’s worth of wine.

  Has he seen a ghost? Out here that’s quite possible.

  “Hmm… I drifted off there for a moment,” the old scientist mumbled, then he yawned and pulled his black coat about him.

  “I suppose we should get ready to move on,” Kara said. “Imre will be-”

  “Something is wrong!” Gar’rth shouted. He sniffed the air and looked to the north, his gaze following the stream.

  As if on cue, Imre howled from the east, across the bridge. In an instant his human face was gone, replaced by his true one as he charged toward them.

  “Arm yourselves!” Theodore shouted as the rest of their escort exploded into motion, a dozen werewolves running at them from all directions as the perimeter they had formed contracted.

  Doric drew his wolfbane dagger, and Castimir saw Gar’rth wince at its proximity. Arisha’s pale face was suddenly blanched with fear.

  “Why?” she said. “Why now? Why here would they betray us?”

  I will protect her, even if I have to make the same sacrifice Thomas made for Despaard.

  The horses neighed in terror and strained at their tethers. Horrified, Castimir watched as the sapling was uprooted and the horses bolted past him. Behind him he heard Albertus scream, and Gar’rth shouted a warning. He turned to see the nearest werewolf, only a single stride away.

  No time! The horses distracted me!

  Gods just make it quick for her.

  But the werewolf leapt past him, ignoring him entirely as it pursued the fleeing animals.

  Castimir turned back to where they had sat just a moment ago. Gar’rth restrained Albertus’s horse as it fought desperately to be free of him. A short distance away, Albertus Black himself lay unmoving. Arisha and Kara were crouched above him and his head rested in Gideon Gleeman’s lap.

  The werewolves were chasing after their steeds, yet already the animals were through the perimeter, his yak and Albertus’s mule among them.

  My books! he thought frantically. The knowledge of Master Segainus is in those saddle packs.

  “Help me!” Gar’rth roared. “We are under attack.”

  Castimir looked at the horse that fought to free itself from Gar’rth. Above it the very air seemed to shimmer, as if a wave of heat rose from the ground.

 
But there is something there. Something moving with a purpose.

  The air condensed as a vague figure grabbed at their packs. Theodore ran toward it with a shout. He struck out and his sword seemed to pierce the form. The blade slowed slightly, as if it had penetrated something, but a second later it was repelled.

  “Castimir, your magic!” Gar’rth yelled.

  The runes were already in his hand. He saw Despaard seize Theodore and drag his friend aside as the pebbles melted into the familiar viscous fluid before their inevitable evaporation. His hand burst into flame as he directed the fire to strike their attacker.

  The ball of fire burst above the horse as something shrieked horribly. The air shimmered and the man-like image floated away, to the north, following the stream.

  For a moment, the horse fought on, but Gar’rth was resolute.

  At least we still have one steed.

  A glance at Albertus and he knew they would need it. He lay still, Arisha praying at his side, Gideon shaking his head grimly.

  “A horse ran him down,” Kara explained as Castimir approached. “That is what the werewolves were doing. They were trying to stop the horses from escaping.” She looked down the road to the west. Only two of the animals had been caught. Imre, standing nearby, turned toward them.

  “My yak is gone then,” Castimir said. “Blasted, thrice-cursed animal!” he snapped. “And with it my fire staff and my books.” His heart beat furiously in his chest. His stomach felt tight and icy cold.

  “I’m sorry, lad,” Doric growled from his side. “But you still have your runes?”

  “I… Yes, I have them on me. But the books! If the yak doesn’t come back, they will be lost.”

  “It won’t come back,” Imre said flatly. “If you are lucky the animals might make it back to Paterdomus.”

  Castimir noticed then that Doric had mud all over his front.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I only just got out of the way of the horses,” he explained. “Tried to get to Albertus…”

  “How is he?” Theodore asked as he came up with Gar’rth, the horse led by the werewolf’s strong arm.