Shadow and Memory

Part 2

Wulfric smiled. "Well you're certainly a good shot. I saw that much during the fight back there, I feel a bit better about things knowing you're watching my back."

It was a transparent attempt at flattery, but it made her smile regardless. "Thank you, that was the first time I've ever had to fight anyone before. I was always surrounded by guards or high walls my whole life." She was silent for a long moment. "That... man I shot. I killed him, didn't I." It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and she didn't seem to know how she felt about that.

"Yes." Wulfric said simply, not seeing any benefit to beating around the bush.

She nodded. "I'd thought so." Another long silence. "It was easy." She said suddenly. "I didn't think it would be so easy. I barely felt a thing."

Wulfric nodded. "Killing is surprisingly easy when you're pushed to it, or you have a good reason, or if it's your own life in jeopardy. I've always thought that it comes easily when you know you're in the right. When you're saving someone or protecting yourself."

"It shouldn't be so easy." Carol said softly, a haunted note in her voice.

Wulfric looked back at her, giving her a firm nod. "To some people it comes much too naturally. People like the men we escaped from, who would have killed me the moment they had whatever they wanted from me, who saw you as nothing but an expensive prize to sell off for a quick payday. There are people in this world with no respect for any life other than their own."

Carol nodded. "It seems like it might be too easy to slip into that, and become like them." She muttered.

It was Wulfric's turn to be silent for a long moment. "Yes. It is." He eventually agreed, before they walked on in silence for a while.

They walked on for a few more hours in mostly unbroken silence before they decided to bed down in a slightly larger chamber where the tunnel widened out a little. Wulfric still had a good supply of his trail rations to share with her, so at least they ate decently well on preserved meat and nuts. He spread out a bedroll for Carol before he assumed the form of a wolf and curled up on a patch of moss next to her. He didn't bother asking her to take watch shifts with him, knowing she probably wouldn't be able to stay awake in her exhausted state, and trusting his own sharp senses to wake him if anything stirred in the still tunnels.

Be it luck, or that there simply wasn't anything down here to bother them, Wulfric eventually woke after a good rest, yawning and stretching before he stood up on all fours and looked around. He was about to wake Carol when he turned, frowning to peer back down the tunnel. There was nothing there. He looked the other way and found it equally empty. He could see nothing out of place, but when he sniffed the air... He couldn't quite define it. It wasn't anything that he recognized but something smelled off, there was something in the mix of scents that had not been there when they had bedded down. It was an organic smell, one unfamiliar to him, and it raised his hackles and made him uneasy.

He resumed human form with a little shake, going over to nudge Carol awake. She woke with a groan but got up quickly enough, letting Wulfric repack his bedroll before they set off again, eating on the move. Wulfric did everything he could to control his emotions, not wanting to let his nerves about the situation show. But he couldn't quite help it. The Valdyrkin were an expressive people, and he was no exception, his long ears flicking about and hackles on the back of his neck raising visibly as he glanced over his shoulder back down the passageway.

"What?" Carol asked, picking up on his worry and becoming nervous in response, looking back behind them when Wulfric glanced there one time too many.

He shook his head. "I don't know. Smell something." He admitted. "Probably just some kind of animal that lives down here, maybe wandered near us while we were sleeping."