Shadow and Memory

Part 1

Slowly, Wulfric opened his eyes to look around himself. The light was dim, but his amber eyes were able to see better than most in low light and he peered around. He was in a cell of some kind, dingy stone and old soil that smelled dank and unclean. There was no natural sunlight, only the dim orange radiance of a lamp somewhere outside the cell. He looked up, squinting forward. His cell was secured with iron bars, and he could see another cell on the far side of the corridor but the bars there were rusted through and the door hung loose and open on one hinge. He tried to move only to find he was restrained with manacles and chains. He didn't tug at them, the clinking of their movement was sure to give away that he was awake. Wulfric couldn't break solid iron, if he assumed his bestial form it was possible he could tear out the mountings where the chain was fastened to the stone, but the cuffs were too tight for his larger wrists in that form and he didn't want to think what would happen to his bones and flesh if they suddenly ballooned outwards in too-small iron manacles.

Judging by the lantern out in the hall there was some guard posted outside his cell, he doubted a lit lantern would be wasted on an unconscious prisoner. Idly he wondered why their attackers had left them alive, surely it would have been wiser to kill him and be done with it? Then again, he had known Vadens to be curious and greedy on the subject of magic. Any magic of real power was strictly controlled and concealed by the mage's guild which dominated high learning. Perhaps they had thought his shapeshifting some trick or power granted by an artifact, rather than by his birthright, and hoped to steal the power from him. Their mistake.

The beginnings of a plan formed in Wulfric's mind. The princess was almost certainly a captive here with him, but he was sure they would not have harmed her. She was far more valuable as a prisoner for that. There was no way that these men were acting alone, they had to be mercenaries hired by some rival noble to interfere in the business of his employer. The girl would be held for ransom, or as leverage for some complicated political backstabbing for sure. Hired thugs would not dare harm their employer's prize. If he could reach the princess they might be able to escape from this place, but first he would have to get out of this cell.

Wulfric's broad, triangular ears flicked a bit as he listened for the faintest sounds outside his cell. He could hear steady breathing, the occasional quiet movement. So there was a guard out there, somewhere. He looked down to his manacles again, moving as gently as he could to keep the chains quiet, putting the manacles down on the floor, and then he changed. His body rippled, flowing smoothly from one form to another. His clothing was replaced by shaggy fur of greys and blacks and browns, the coat of a timber wolf. They had not seen this form, they would not know about it, they had only seen the hulking beast halfway between man and wolf, not the form of a true wolf.

His hands replaced by canine paws, Wulfric simply stepped out of the manacles. He stretched his back and shook himself out a little, who knows how many hours of sitting hunched on a stone floor had left him sore and stiff. He shifted back, once again becoming the young man, standing up in the cell. He examined the bars in front of him, frowning as he looked them over. They were old yes, but quite sturdy. In his stronger form he could possibly break the pins holding them together and force his escape, but the noise of such a method would bring the whole place down upon him. As he was thinking of some other method of escape, he heard one set of footsteps out in the hall coming closer. And, his heart leapt at the sound, the jingle of a keyring.

Wulfric moved fast, climbing the wall of the little cell, then reached out to brace his feet on the far side, suspended directly across the ceiling over the door. Someone would have to peer through the bar doors and crane their neck up to see him there. To any casual observer the cell would seem quite empty. The footsteps drew nearer. Any moment now the guard would look in and see the cell was empty. Then, Wulfric's assumption held, he would enter the cell to investigate and Wulfric would drop down atop him and subdue him.