The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 26: The Wolf of Light, Part 2

 "Andreth," Silenio sneered, apparently unmindful of the panting she-wolf on his back. "I might've known you'd find your way to these things."

"Because I played a little too rough with the tavern girls in Ismene? Your father didn't seem to mind. He certainly found my talents useful. Recruited me for Swiftfoot himself, though we had yet to reach our true potential just then." Andreth chuckled, sauntering from the wicket gate down into the advocates' well. His nostrils flared expectantly. Silenio's men turned their blades toward the advancing figure, though there was a hesitance in their movements: there were simply too many wolves around them (not to mention the one pinning their prince to the ground) to focus on any one of them.

"Your potential is best as a nice new rug for a tavern floor somewhere, I am thinking," Barthim thundered. Casimir was crouched behind him, dagger drawn. "Show us your wolfish fur and I will take great pleasure in stripping it from you piece by piece."

"You have enough to answer for," Andreth snarled at Barthim, and now they could see the gleam of fangs behind his lips. "All of you. Your pet magician most of all. He kept our wolf princess from us. But in the end he brought us a prince as well, didn't he, Silenio?" The snarl became a broad smile, his eyes roaming Silenio's form and the she-wolf stretched atop him. "But you aren't the real prize, your highness. Not at all."

Carala rose, trembling, her eyes meeting those of the wolf before her. More than any she had met since Tacen had first spoken to her in Lady Greythorne's garden, this man was suffused with the wolf. It roamed not only in his golden eyes, not only in the gracefulness of his gait, not only in the roughness of his voice, but in the raw power he exuded in every gesture, with every word. She remembered Othma Sulivar dismissing the potency of the wolf blood in her own veins, how removed the one who had bitten her must have been from the ritual that had created them. That was not true of Andreth. The wolf within her sensed it, rose to meet it, welcomed it.

"Cara," Denisius said, his voice low and trembling. "Cara, please, don't -- "

"Be quiet, Lord Marhollow," Andreth murmured. The black-clad Swiftfoot drew closer to the High Bench where Denisius brandished his sword, side-by-side with Vos, ravenous snarls rumbling from the wolves' throats. "This ceased being your affair long ago. The goddess Saya craves this woman above any other, and she finally recognizes it. Don't you, Carala?"

Closer and closer she roamed to the advocates' well, her amber eyes glazed, fixed on the magnetic creature before her, oblivious to Denisius, to Barthim, to her own brother. The scent rising from Andreth was richer than any she had ever experienced, more compelling than any aroma she had ever tasted, even those she had drunk in the Vilais forest. In those wolfish eyes was the promise of everything Tacen had whispered she might have, if she were only willing to embrace it.

"No more false cures dangled in front of you," Andreth whispered, a hungry smile peeling back to show his fangs. "No more cursewright's tricks, taking things from you to which he has no right." 

That smile, those eyes, became her entire world as she stepped into the well, Silenio struggling and uttering blackest threats against the creature on his back. Under his bluster Carala could smell his terror: the terror of what he would become when the white moon shone bright; the terror of what she already was. 

Andreth stood before her. He was taller than Ammas, and more rugged, his features somehow reflecting the wolf even now, when so much of it was submerged. "I think there is no more need for this," he said, gliding his fingers along the stilling charm that had graced her neck ever since the night she had first met Ammas. Roughly he yanked it back, the fine gold chain shivering into tiny links and pattering on the floor, tossing the charm away as if it were so much trash. 

Carala cried out, sinking to the floor. The charm's soothing comfort was gone, and she was as helpless before the wildness of Andreth's presence as she had been to the bottled wolf essence Ammas had used to diagnose her all those weeks ago. Her fingers curled against the weathered planks of the advocates' well as black fur sprouted on the backs of her hands, thick snarls rumbling from her throat.

Barthim bent to Casimir, hissing as softly as he could. "Cass, you must go. Run from here. There is a door they do not watch. Go. Go back to Ammas's house."

"No," Casimir whispered. His voice was horrified. Desperately he wished to rush forward, wrap his arms around Carala, and whisper to her as he had done in the catacomb.

"Cass, you must," Barthim insisted. "Before they are turning their eyes back to us." Roughly he turned the boy to face him. In Barthim's eyes was a fear Casimir had never thought possible in that face. "Ammas would not be wanting you to be lost. And this is not something the princess would want you to be seeing. Run."

Ammas had never told him that he had to listen to Barthim if something like this came to pass, but Casimir knew the truth without being told. With a final agonized look at Carala -- writhing on the floor, the wolf slowly and sleekly consuming her, the simple Q'Sivari dress tearing away to reveal the lustrous midnight pelt as it grew in -- he darted from the High Bench, seeking one of the smaller doors set into the gallery where no Swiftfoot stood. Their attention was entirely focused on the spectactle in the advocates' well, or on the grown men whom they considered a threat. Casimir knew his youth protected him, but he felt horrid guilt and shame rather than relief. By the time he reached the curving halls of the outer Curia he had begun to weep, and by the time he found himself back on the streets of Gallowsport he had to sit on the ground, giving over to sobs, knowing he would never see Ammas, or Barthim, or Carala, or any of them ever again.

Barthim followed Casimir as long as he could without surrendering the modest safety of the High Bench, but as he suspected the Swiftfoot had little interest in the boy. How many of the wolves were still out in the streets he couldn't guess, but at least out there Casimir had a chance to hide. This place was about to become a slaughterhouse, and while the Beast intended to take as many of these wolves down as he could, he was under no illusions as to his own chances for survival. Perhaps in the end all the Hethmar wanted of him was to buy time for Ammas. While he had no idea what Ammas might do to salvage this disaster, he found it a fine enough death; an honorable enough ending. 

"Vos the Warlord," he hissed in the soldier's ear. "You and good Denisius come back here -- we must be watching this door, make sure they do not surround us on all sides. We might be able to join Ammas down below, if we are not becoming lost."

"Such a waste of time," Andreth sneered before Vos could even muster a word. As his attention wavered from Carala her metamorphosis seemed to falter, and she fell to her side, panting, slick with sweat, fangs champing at the air. "There are no wolves in the archives. Is that what brought you here? You thought we would den like common beasts? I knew your pet magician would come here sooner or later if properly motivated, but then our thickheaded prince nearly stopped him."

"You wanted Ammas to come here?" Denisius said, bewildered. "Why?"

Andreth's eyes glittered. When he spoke his words dripped with a vicious satisfaction. "To find something that would destroy him."

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