The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 11: Blood on the Old Godsway, Part 2

 When the guard arrived it was on three horses, two riders per steed. All wore the uniform of the Argent Brand, and two wore bronze sergeants' medallions on their throats and shoulders. One Ammas and Barthim knew as Sergeant Lyros, who was a reasonable if unimaginative fellow. The other was a stranger to them both, though Barthim had seen him a few times at the Lioness as a customer. Once all six riders had dismounted, Sergeant Lyros and a solitary subordinate approached the temple, while the other Sergeant began barking orders to the handful of Lioness girls still on the porch. Ammas frowned. Something in the other Sergeant's tone troubled him, but there was nothing he could do about that at the moment.

Lyros frowned, surveying the body in the street, then Ammas as he doctored Barthim's injuries. Bartham was not smiling or joking, as was his usual wont when the city guard paid a visit, but somberly staring ahead, avoiding looking at the girl with whom he had helped teach Casimir his letters. Every now and then a soft prayer to the Hethmar escaped his lips.

"What the hell happened here, Ammas?"

Ammas looked up from Barthim's wounds. Something in his eyes -- maybe just the way they glared from the black paste smeared beneath them -- made Sergeant Lyros step back, one hand going to the stout club at his side. "Before I say anything else," Ammas hissed, "you need to get this place secured. I've got two dead werewolves inside and at least one living one jumping along the rooftops. Get your men over here. You know perfectly well you don't need four guardsmen to secure a brothel, especially one that makes its payments."

The patrolman at Lyros's side seemed unsure whether to be frightened at this information or offended at the cursewright's lack of respect for the Argent Brand, but Lyros wasted no time. "Cayle!" he cried down the street. The other Sergeant looked up attentively. "Send your men over here. This area isn't secure and there may be more to come." When Sergeant Cayle didn't comply at once, Lyros rapped his stick against one of the portico's columns. "Lively, Sergeant Cayle! Those girls aren't going to give you that much trouble."

Normally such an invitation for double entendre would have been irresistible to the Lioness girls, but they were all deeply subdued, and some were weeping. Cayle's three patrolmen hustled to the portico, where Lyros directed two of them to mind the body in the street and keep an eye out for any other attackers. The other two he sent into the temple to confirm Ammas's story.

"You're sure they're dead?"

"I'm sure," Ammas said tersely, making a great show of mopping up Barthim's wounds.

"What about him?" For the first time Sergeant Lyros sounded uneasy. "Is he infected?"

"If you'll let me tend his wounds, then he won't be." Sometimes the latter day ignorance of his trade, even among the constabulary, could come in handy.

Barthim uttered a theatrical but thoroughly convincing moan. On any other night Ammas might have laughed. The Sergeant frowned, casting a critical eye over the marks and blood on Ammas's shoulder. "And you? I suppose a cursewright knows how to treat his own injuries?"

"You suppose correctly."

"That one of the Lioness whores?"

"Lena was a Lioness girl, yes." Ammas had to resist an urge to drive his fist into Sergeant Lyros's belly. Lyros wasn't a bad man, in Ammas's experience, but he didn't have any special esteem for employees of the Prideful Lioness or places like it. The guardsmen Lyros had dispatched to the temple's interior emerged. One of them looked barely a day over seventeen and was decidedly green at the edges. "Well?" snapped Lyros.

The less nauseated guard, an olive skinned woman with sharp brown eyes, answered. "It's secured, Sergeant. There's one dead wolf at the foot of a stair. Looks like a broken neck. Something beat it pretty viciously, anyway."

Barthim smiled softly, though it didn't touch his eyes.

"And?" Sergeant Lyros prompted.

"Well -- there is a great deal of blood -- some piles of fur -- "

"Are there two dead wolves in there or not, patrolman?"

"There is one dead wolf and one -- thing -- fragments that might be a wolf."

Sergeant Lyros scowled and stormed into the temple himself, returning less than a minute later looking white as a sheet. "At ease, patrolman," he muttered.

Ammas kept a few simple bandages on him at all times. Now a few were fixed to Barthim's injuries, at the presence of which the bouncer did not have to fake his relief. With a groan he leaned back in his chair, letting some of the tension drain from his body. "Well?" Ammas snapped at the Sergeant. "Is your investigation concluded? Are you going to clean up that mess? A fine night, when you Silver Swords or whatever you call yourselves allow a trio of werewolves to stalk the Old Godsway and kill a woman."

"Ammas," Lyros replied evenly, "you know I can't ignore this. You're an illegal cursewright and you've somehow drawn werewolves here."

"You're sure of that, Sergeant?"

"No. But it's what I have to assume. I have to arrest you, Ammas."

Ammas snorted and stood up. The patrolwoman went to draw her shortsword, ignoring her club entirely, but the Sergeant put a hand on her arm. With a scowl Ammas drew his skymetal dagger and tossed it to the portico's floor, where it rang on the stones just out of his reach. "I'll disarm. I'll even come into custody. But not with you."

"Ammas, you don't get to decide who brings you to Titansgrave."

"Is Mielle on duty tonight?"

"The Captain-Commander is always on duty."

"Then I'm sure she'll come down here herself. I'll wait." Ammas sat back down and crossed his arms over his chest, watching the street and ignoring Lyros as if he were no more than a nightglow bug.

"Ammas -- "

"And you can tell your Captain-Commander that you very wisely didn't put me into custody until you had determined there were no more wolves abroad tonight because, again you are a wise Sergeant who is hoping to make Lieutenant, and you thought having a cursewright on hand to fight a werewolf and who had volunteered to do it would be a useful thing."

Sergeant Lyros at last sighed and nodded, taking another trip into the temple to get a better look at Ammas's and Barthim's handiwork.