Winter, 1372 DR
The Year of Wild Magic
The pack settled in for the winter. The snow limited their ranging, but they continued to hunt in all but the most violent weather. In case game was scarce, they also had plenty of salted meat and vegetable stores from the northern communities. It was both tribute and thanks for the hunting they had done for the northern settlements in the tendays before the Feast of the Stag.
The werewolves remained in the lodge most days. They tended chores for only a few hours each day, stitching clothes, mending weapons, and repairing the lodge itself.
The pack included only six children under thirteen. They ran with the adults soon after they could walk, and few of them survived to make their rites of adulthood at thirteen. Those who did were strong and cunning. Despite his growing acceptance by the pack, Darrow knew he was still less dangerous than some of these cubs of ten years or younger.
The pack spent less time on work than they did amusing themselves with simple games and stories. Darrow earned more esteem among the pack by teaching them a game of stones he learned as a boy. He carved the triangular grid on several planks to pass around, and soon everyone was playing "Barrow's Stones."
He also found himself a popular storyteller. Even though he had no gift for it, he could reconstruct bards' tales the others had never heard before, and he remembered a few plays he had seen in Selgaunt. He even recalled seeing Talbot Uskevren perform on one or two occasions, though he didn't find the young man remarkable at the time.
"Why did Rusk not bring him back to us?" asked Morrel.
"Have you seen him clap lately?" remarked Sorcia. Since their ignoble retreat from Maleva's cottage, the white elf disparaged the Huntmaster at every opportunity.
Morrel ignored Sorcia. "More importantly, why did he want him in the first place? I know it has to do with the Black Wolf prophecy, but what the hell is that?"
"Don't you listen?" said Brigid. She lowered her voice and mimicked Rusk's resonant baritone. "The Black Wolf will lead us in the wild hunt across all the land to reclaim our rightful territory."
"Enough of that," snapped Morrel.
"Afraid he might hear you?" asked Sorcia.
"I'm not the one mocking the word of Malar," he said. "Rusk knows something he can't tell us yet. It's a test of our faith in him, and in the Beastlord."
Sorcia raised her eyes toward the ceiling.
"What is the Black Wolf?" asked Darrow. "The way he says it it sounds like it's something everyone knows about."
"You know how you learn to change without the moon?" said Brigid.
Darrow nodded.
"That's part of it," she said. "You learn to control your transformations even when the moon is completely dark; you're one step closer to the Black Wolf."
"It's also part of who we are," added Morrel. "Some nightwalkers are really just beasts. They have no code, no community. Most of them are slaves to the moon-they don't have the Black Blood like us. Others are tamed to join the herd. That's what the Selunites do. They cut off your balls to make you gentle."
Darrow was surprised by this news. "They don't actually-"
"No," laughed Brigid, "but the result's the same. You do what they say, and they put your beast to sleep, so you don't chase the other sheep around the pen."
"What they don't realize is that the Black Blood sets us above the herd," said Morrel. "We're the hunters, and we have no lords among men. The Black Wolf is a state of being, when you have no master but Malar."
"So Rusk is the Black Wolf?" asked Darrow.
"Maybe," said Morrel.
Sorcia snorted and walked away.
"It depends whether you mean he's reached that state or whether he's the Black Wolf of prophecy. Not everyone believes the Black Wolf Scrolls are the word of Malar."
"But Rusk does."
"Yeah, I think he does."
A draft came into the lodge, right over the place where Darrow usually slept. He tried to ignore it for a few nights, but it grew stronger. He peered up at the root-tangled ceiling but saw no hole. He felt the incoming air with his hands and guessed where it originated outside. Bundling himself in furs, he went outside to patch it.
After sweeping away the snow in several places, Darrow finally heard a murmuring sound through the sod roof. A glimmer of red light shone through a hole. He was nowhere near the fire pit, so he peered inside.
He was above Rusk's sanctum.
The sound he heard was Rusk's voice, chanting low and steady. Darrow smelled smoke and tasted incense in the air. He knew he should cover the hole and go away, but curiosity overcame his fear. He put his face right against the hole and shielded it from the light with his arms.
Below him, Rusk sat cross-legged on the floor, illuminated only by the glowing coals of a black iron brazier. His naked body gleamed with animal fat, though his silver hair fell loose about his shoulders. Where he had lost his arm, an ugly worm of flesh clung to his shoulder.
A congregation of skulls looked down on the ritual from their places on the walls. In the darkness, the skulls seemed to float around the Huntmaster. Darrow noted the skulls of deer, wildcats, boars, owlbears, and other monstrous beasts of the Arch Wood-there were even the skulls of humans and elves.
"Great hunter," intoned Rusk, "hear my plea. Great Malar, show me your wisdom and will."
As his prayer ended, flames rose from the brazier's coals. Rusk thrust his hand above flames, clutching a scrap of parchment.
"This is the path of the moon and its shadow. Show me a sign, if it marks truly the night of the Black Wolf."
The flames rose, and licked around his fist leaving parchment and skin unburned. When they subsided, Rusk set the parchment aside before holding his hand once more above the fire.
"Do I remain your fit and worthy vessel?"
The flames surged up again, but this time Rusk howled in pain. Every muscle of his body stood out in his struggled to keep his hand within the fiery oracle. Darrow imagined that the consequences otherwise must be fell indeed.
When the flames withdrew into the brazier's bowl, Rusk gnashed bis teeth and shook his head against the pain. Tears streaked his face as he glared down at the ruin of his left arm.
After a moment's reflection, he asked again, "Am I no longer the Black Wolf?"
Again the oracle's fire burned him. Darrow watched as the hair on Rusk's arm wilted and the skin turned angry red.
Again Rusk thrashed against the pain, his hair forming a wild halo around his agonized face. His eyes were closed tight for many seconds, but then they snapped open in sudden realization.
Still, Rusk hesitated before asking the next question. Darrow guessed that only negative answers came with punishment.
"Mine remains the chosen spirit of the Black Wolf?"
The oracle crackled, but the fire remained in the bowl.
"Yet another is now the vessel?"
Yes, the fire hissed.
Rusk paused again before asking the next question. Judging from his tone, Darrow imagined he hated to give voice to the question more than he feared a burning no.
"Has my infirmity made me an unworthy vessel?"
The oracle said, Yes.
Rusk sat quietly for a moment. Then his body began to tremble, imperceptibly at first, then more and more furiously until he risked taking his arm from its place before concluding his spell.
At last his fury subsided, and Rusk invoked the name of Malar, thanking the Beastlord for his oracle and chanting the words that returned the brazier's flames to dull red coals.
He spun to face the darkness. Darrow could no longer see his face, but he continued to listen. Eventually, Rusk spoke.
"He took my arm," he growled. "He stole my fate!"
He sat silently so long that Darrow was about to slip away when he heard another voice in the room below. It was even deeper than Rusk's, but with a hollow sound of dry stones.
"You allowed him to defile the chosen vessel," said the sepulchral voice. Darrow could not identify its source.
After a few breaths, Rusk replied. "Mine is still the chosen spirit. The flames ordained it so."
Again, the voice paused before answering. "Without a fit and worthy vessel, the spirit is powerless in the world."
"How can I heal this wound? The scrolls do not say."
"It is beyond your power," said the voice. "Your body is forever despoiled in the eyes of Malar. That is the price of your foolishness."
"There must be a way," insisted Rusk.
"There is," whispered the voice. "You hold the power already. The secret lies within the scrolls."
"Where?" said Rusk. "Tell me-"
A lump of snow fell past Barrow's cheek and through the hole. It barely made a sound as it hit the floor of Rusk's sanctum, but it was enough. Rusk turned to look where it struck. Before his gaze turned to the ceiling, Darrow scrambled away from the hole. He ran down the sloping roof to the woodpile and filled his arms with split timbers.
He entered the lodge and took the wood to the fire. When Rusk pushed aside the tapestry and emerged from his sanctum, Darrow looked up as nonchalantly as possible. Rusk watched him place the logs on the fire, then returned to his sanctum.
Darrow breathed a sigh of relief until he felt the melting snow run down his leg. His furs were caked in snow from where he had lain on the ground.
"Tell us all about Talbot Uskevren," said Rusk in the tone of one asking a cleric to read a sacred fable.
The lodge fell silent, and all eyes turned to Darrow. In private he had told Rusk everything he knew about the object of Stannis Malveen's revenge, but he had not expected the Huntmaster to ask him to repeat it to the entire pack.
He took a deep breath, hoping this was not the prelude to punishment for his spying tendays earlier.
"I watched him only in public, usually at the playhouse," he said. "Everything else I heard from Stannis Malveen, who learned it from someone close to Talbot Uskevren."
This claim of sources was a ritual among the People. The legend of Yarmilla the Huntress, who went out hunting bears with a switch, began with such a long citation of bards who had passed the story down throughout the years that many made a jest of it by singing the names as quickly as possible.
"He performs in the playhouse and practices sword-play," began Darrow.
"We have heard these things before," said Rusk. "Tell us about how he guards his secret. Tell us the gossip your master shared with you."
Darrow was surprised, but he could hardly refuse. Much of what he'd heard from Stannis was so trivial that he would never think to repeat it. He composed his thoughts before going on.
"He quarrels with his family, especially his father. So does the older brother, whose name is Tamlin. There is a sister, too. Her name is Thazienne."
"Tell us more about these quarrels," said Rusk. "Leave nothing out, and everyone listen well. We will have a new High Hunt this summer, and we must learn all we can about our prey."
"Why go to the city to hunt?" asked Ronan.
"Because it is the will of Malar," said Rusk.
From her place across the fire, Sorcia snorted. A few of the others nodded. They, too, doubted the wisdom of ranging not only far from home but also into the walled confines of Selgaunt.
Rusk counted the disapproving voices with flicks of his eyes before speaking again. "On the night of the Black Wolf, we shall hold a High Hunt for a new Huntmaster."
The rest of the pack murmured and shifted uncomfortably.
"That is all you must know for now."
"We have faith in you, Huntmaster," said Morrel, standing, "but we are too few to venture into the city. Even you, our mightiest hunter, did not return unscathed. Perhaps we should gather the other People."
Darrow had heard tales of other convocations of People of the Black Blood scattered throughout the world. Not all of them wore the form of wolves when they hunted, but all could change shape, and all embraced the truth of the Black Blood. They were the Hunter's chosen, set above the other creatures of the world.
"The honor is for our pack alone," Rusk said. "Malar spoke to me, not to the other pack leaders. His will is clear to me. We will go to the city on the moon after Greengrass, and there we will hold the High Hunt among the gathered herd. But our prey will be no lamb-it will be the Black Wolf himself."
"But…" Morrel stood, struggling for the words. "Are you not the Black Wolf?"
"I was," said Rusk, "and I am. Mine is the spirit of the Black Wolf, but the vessel runs apart from us. We must fetch it back when Malar casts his cloak against the sky."
"But how…?"
"All will be revealed in time," said Rusk. "For now, let us hear more of the new Black Wolf, for soon he shall be our prey."
On the appointed day, Rusk led them south. He took only the best hunters, leaving behind a half dozen adults to defend the children at the lodge.
They made no effort to avoid Maleva's territory. Darrow considered asking the Huntmaster whether he intended to force a confrontation, but he decided it was better not to remind Rusk of their retreat last time they encountered the cleric of Selune. Darrow would be glad never to see her again, but he had a sinking suspicion that Rusk wanted her to face the full strength of the pack.
They took wolf form for speed. Darrow was proud to be among those who did not require Rusk's magical compulsion to transform. It was easier at night, especially under the gibbous moon. Rejoined the cluster of strongest wolves around Rusk, half expecting one of Rusk's favorites to warn him off. None of them did.
Sorcia ran nearby, as did Ronan, Morrel, Brigid, and a few more of the best hunters. Darrow thought Rusk continued to favor him in part to counteract Sorcia's influence. Whatever the white wolf whispered among the rest of the People, Darrow reported to Rusk. Sometimes he worried whether the other pack members suspected his role in keeping the Huntmaster apprised of such gossip. He was certain Sorcia suspected him, but that did not stop her from continuing her subtle efforts at subversion.
They traveled fast, resisting the lure of game trails and fresh scents. Those who traveled out of sight called out their positions. The mournful sound would once have terrified Darrow, but now he found it comforting. It meant friends were nearby. His own voice joined the reply when it was their turn to howl.
By midnight they neared the edge of the wood, running along a wide clearing that ended in a thin screen of trees. Beyond them, Darrow remembered, lay the first of the farmsteads. The muscles in his back and shoulders began to tense, and his mane bristled in anticipation of an attack.
He did not have long to wait.
A huge bird descended silently toward the pack, blotting out the moon and the stars with its passage. It was a gigantic owl with a wingspan over three times Darrow's height. The wolves flinched as they sensed its presence then turned to look at it as it screeched, passing them.
It was the perfect distraction.
A shower of arrows fell among the pack, many sprouting from the wolves' bodies. Darrow felt fire crease his ribs and tried to dance away from it. The arrow had only grazed him, but the pain was sharp and persistent.
"Silver!" he wanted to yell, but all he could do was bark a general warning. It was redundant, as all the wolves could now smell the human scent nearby.
A second volley fell on the nearest cluster of wolves. A wolf called Corvus yelped and thrashed on the ground, then lay still.
Rusk ran for the edge of the wood with four wolves following close behind. Darrow ran after them in time to see five archers retreating from the tree line. They did not panic, nor did they fall back far, for they had an ally.
A lion the size of a cottage covered their retreat.
Its pelt was incandescent, as white as the swollen moon. The moonlion's mane was a brilliant corona, and its eyes were blue flames. Its open mouth looked like a cavern full of swords. With a thunderous roar, it ran toward the oncoming wolves.
Darrow hesitated, cowed by the sight of the colossal beast. Ahead of him, Rusk paused only long enough to see that a dozen more wolves had emerged from the forest. Then he rushed toward the lion. At first he looked awkward on his three legs, but he was still nimble enough to dart away to avoid the monstrous lion's pounce. Even from his safe distance, Darrow felt the vibration as the lion's immense mass hit the ground.
The wolves ringed the giant lion, darting in to bite at its flanks when they dared. Ronan's teeth caught the lion's thigh, and the creature roared as it whirled around to slash at him. Ronan barely escaped the scythelike claws, leaping away as they formed deep furrows in the earth where he had crouched an instant earlier.
Rusk and Morrel took advantage of the lion's distraction, wetting their fangs before retreating. The lion's blood was black under the moonlight. Darrow saw that its tiny wounds closed almost as quickly as they appeared.
Rusk must have noticed it as well, for he broke off to leave the rest of the pack harrying their foe. The great sil-verback rose up on his hind legs, smoothly transforming into human form. He stood naked except for the bronze talisman of Malar.
Pointing at the archers, he chanted a prayer to Malar. Red light flashed from his hand to strike the men. Three of them loosed their arrows, while two stood paralyzed by Rusk's magic.
"You," he shouted at the wolves nearest him, including Darrow. "Kill them all."
Eight nightwalkers and dire wolves broke off at his command, but the archers also heard. They adjusted their aim and shot at their attackers. Two wolves went down, and Brigid shied away with an arrow through her hind leg.
Darrow ran under the legs of one of the men, knocking him to the ground. Before he turned back to bite the man, Sorcia was already at the archer's throat. Her muzzle was dark with blood.
The other wolves had already dispatched the moving archers. Darrow and Sorcia leaped on the paralyzed archers, knocking their rigid bodies to the ground.
"Get away from them!" snapped a woman's voice.
Without daring to look toward the woman, Darrow sprinted out of the way just in time to avoid the searing ray of silver light that washed over the other wolves. Two of them vanished in a red mist, while the other three yelped and ran for the woods.
Like Darrow, Sorcia had not hesitated to flee at the sound of Maleva's voice. After avoiding the initial attack, she turned toward the cleric. Darrow wanted nothing to do with the terrible magic she cast, but he couldn't leave Sorcia to face her alone. He ran close behind, cursing her silently.
They would have hit her before she could invoke her goddess again, but a powerful compulsion made Darrow veer away at the last moment. He saw that the magic had the same effect on Sorcia.
Seeing that her spell worked, Maleva ignored the werewolves and knelt to tend one of the fallen archers. Darrow saw that she was bleeding, but he had seen no one strike her. In the instant before he turned to run away, he saw a gash appear on her cheek. At the same time, he heard the moonlion roar in pain.
Darrow ran back to Rusk. Sorcia followed his lead this time.
The bodies of two dire wolves lay torn apart on the ground beneath the moonlion, as did the broken human figure of a werewolf called Mandor. Darrow knew that a dead nightwalker always reverted to the form of his birth, but the sight still shocked him.
The surviving wolves continued to harry the moonlion, as Rusk sang more prayers to Malar. Magical power surged into the Huntmaster, and his body rippled with unholy strength. His remaining hand had grown huge and clawed. Razor sharp talons curved from his thick fingers.
Darrow needed his human shape to warn Rusk of what he'd seen. With a searing effort, he willed himself to transform. It was much harder when he was frightened, but his message couldn't wait. The pain left him on hands and knees, even after he had a human mouth.
"Maleva is here," he said, pointing back to the archers. "She's taking the lion's wounds on herself."
Rusk spied his nemesis, who was healing herself after reviving the archers who had survived. The foresters fled now, leaving the cleric alone to support the moonlion.
"Then give her some of her own," growled Rusk. "Don't be a coward!"
"We tried," said Darrow. "She is warded."
Rusk nodded almost absently. "Let's see what we can do about that."
He cast his own spell, jabbing his hand toward Maleva. Darrow saw no effects of the spell. Maleva continued with her own chanting, and her wounds vanished under the white glow of her palms.
With a curse, Rusk tried again. This time his spell caused Maleva to start and raise her hands to defend her face. She took a cautious step back and turned her head from side to side. The spell had taken her sight.
Rusk laughed with cruel satisfaction. "That should make things more interesting."
He cast another spell upon himself before running toward the blinded cleric.
"Follow me," he said.
Darrow obeyed, and Sorcia followed also.
By the time Rusk reached Maleva, the cleric had dispelled the blindness, but now her clothes were steeped in blood. She reeled from the effects of her sympathetic wounds, and a glance back at the melee confirmed for Darrow that the battle was finally turning against the gigantic moonlion.
When Maleva saw Rusk charging her, she raised one hand and held her holy symbol in the other. It was the same gesture she had made before destroying the other werewolves.
"Selune, send-" Rusk's clawed hand gripped her throat. He lifted her as easily as he might a ceremonial cup before a valediction.
"Oh, Maleva, the years have not been kind."
The cleric struggled in the werewolf's grasp.
"No, do not speak. I will remember you as you were, with your fiery hair and unquenchable passions." He sighed. "You believed in me, once."
Maleva's struggles grew weaker as Rusk maintained his grip. Her lips formed the words, but she had no breath to sound them.
"What is that?" asked Rusk, cocking his head. "How shall I treat with the Black Wolf? Alas, Maleva, you were right about my failings. It took me years to accept the truth. Now I realize your young favorite is Malar's chosen vessel-but he will not take my place. No, he is the very implement of my redemption!"
Maleva's head lolled, her eyes seeking the moon. Selune rode high behind her, swelling near to fullness. Rusk turned her head to face him, lowering her body to the ground and relaxing his stranglehold just enough to listen for her dying breath.
"How can it be?" he said. "I knew you would ask. The answer came only recently, in a vision from the Beastlord. Yet our time is fleeting. It would be better if I showed you."
As Maleva's eyelids fluttered and closed, Rusk bent to kiss her, whispering obscene invocations to his god. Where their lips met, silver light welled from Maleva's mouth. Rusk sucked it forth, drawing it into his own mouth, where it congealed and dulled into a sooty cloud.
Sorcia and Darrow watched as their master drank the cleric's life. As they had witnessed at the death of Fraelan, Rusk's body surged with stolen power. His already exaggerated muscles swelled and ripped with unholy strength as the last wisps of energy trickled down his throat.
For a moment, Rusk gazed tenderly at the lifeless body beneath him. Then he rose and turned toward the battle.
Six ruined bodies lay beneath the moonlion, and more limped away or slumped on the ground beyond the melee. The remaining wolves circled from a more respectful distance. They were growing tired.
"Now we finish this," he said.
He rushed the moonlion, only this time it was no feint. As the lion's jaws gaped wide, Rusk thrust his monstrously clawed hand up under its chin. His arm sank deep into the lion's throat, and hot blood gushed down over his body.
The lion shook its head violently and smashed him with a monstrous paw, tearing long strips down Rusks's back, but Rusk dug deeper still into the lion's throat.
Heartened by Rusk's lead, the pack swarmed over the moonlion's body to support their leader. Darrow leaped into the fray, but he was too late. The giant beast vanished in a flash of silver light. The period of its summoning had ended, depriving them of their kill.
Darrow resumed his human form and sat on the ground. He watched Rusk walk among the wounded and the dead, granting healing where he could, a quick death where he must. When Rusk was finished, Darrow counted fifteen survivors and seven dead.
Those who were still fit to hunt ran off to track the archers to their homes. Without their cleric, they were sheep for the slaughter.
"He's culling the weak," whispered Sorcia in Darrow's ear. As usual, she had crept up silently. "How was it that you were not among them?"
"I could ask the same of you," said Darrow. "You do a good job of running just behind the leader."
Even as the words left his mouth, he realized the danger of angering Sorcia. She might be smaller than he, but he was certain she was far more dangerous in every way.
To his surprise, she smiled as if at a child who had just learned a simple lesson. "You are becoming good at that yourself," she said. "It's a good place to be when the leader makes a mistake."
"We won, did we not?" Darrow indicated the fallen cleric.
In the distance, he could hear the howls of the pack as they brought down their prey. Their revenge would go on for hours.
"What did we win?" asked Sorcia.
"Territory," said Darrow. "The cleric can no longer turn the woods folk against us."
"But weren't we going to the city?"
"Of course," said Darrow. "Anywhere we roam will be our territory, once the night of the Black Wolf has come."
"I think a parrot bit you. Your mouth is moving, but all I hear are Rusk's words."
"Don't you believe the prophecy?"
"I know you don't," she said. Darrow gave her a dark look, but she was not cowed. "Except for Morrel and perhaps Karnek, none of the strong has any illusions about this so-called prophecy. It's just an excuse for whatever mad scheme Rusk really has in mind."
"That's not a very loyal thing to say," observed Darrow.
"I wouldn't say it if I thought you didn't already know," she said. "He talks to you more than anyone these days. What does he expect us to accomplish in the city?"
Darrow hesitated before answering, unsure how much he should say to Sorcia. "I'm not sure," he said. "I know he wants to find Talbot Uskevren."
"To kill him?"
"I don't think so," said Barrow. It felt good to voice his misgivings. He never dared question Rusk about his plans. "Maybe he wants to win him over."
"Last time he tried that, he came back short-handed."
"Keep your voice down. You've got to stop saying that."
"What about the Malveens? I thought they were done with Rusk."
"Only Radu," said Darrow. "He doesn't like anything that might threaten the family business. It's Stannis who wants to hurt the Uskevren."
"They sound unreliable," said Sorcia. "What do we need from them?"
"I think Rusk plans for us to take shelter there," said Darrow. "And Stannis knows more about the Uskevren. He has a spy among them. At least, he had one. Radu probably killed her last year. He doesn't like loose ends. He prefers to cut them off."
"Aren't you one of those?" said Sorcia. "A loose end?"
Darrow didn't answer, but fear made a knot in his throat until he swallowed.
Sorcia looked at him and smiled.