Adair and Riada were a snoring heap just outside the fire's glow. The cracked, bloody skeletons of two whole chickens lay next to them, stuck with feathers. Sara and Felix remained awake, sharing a bottle of blood from Sara's bag. Its taste was nearly unrecognizable after preservation and storage in the cellar below the granaries. Felix sloshed it around in his mouth before swallowing, knowing he should drink, but feeling nauseous.
After hearing the tale of the vicious madwoman who deserted the Templars and absconded with a noble maiden, the villagers offered the hunting party all the help they could give. Columer rode ahead, hoping that he could reach the next town ahead of their quarry to put them on alert.
"If all goes to plan," Sara said as she corked the bottle. She took another chicken from the villagers' bag and tossed a leg at the dogs, who devoured it and clamoured for another piece, whining and wagging their tails. "We should find them by tomorrow evening."
Felix nodded, tearing a leg off the chicken. He got up and left the ring of orange firelight to where the twins slept entangled, Riada's ribs rising as Adair exhaled.
"Hey," Felix knelt carefully beside them, out of arms reach.
There was a pause, and then Riada stirred. She detached her brother's arm from around her shoulders, and pushed herself up onto her knees, curiously watching Felix with one tired amber eye through mats of dirty hair. She moved, and the Templar jerked away reflexively, dropping the leg on the moss between them.
Riada froze. Felix felt embarrassed when he saw that she had lifted her hand to take it.
She picked up the breast off the ground and sat back on her haunches, starting to eat. Her unsettling eyes did not leave his.
"Did you think I would bite you?" she asked after a moment.
Felix's eyebrows shot up in surprise. He had forgotten the twins were capable of putting together sentences, let alone in such a civilized tone. Riada broke the meat in half, almost tenderly laying the uneaten part in front of Adair's face. She chewed the rest of her half, flicking the bone aside and looking back at Felix.
"You would have bitten Sara earlier today," Felix said.
"She hurt Adair."
"But he would have bitten Columer, when he tried to take the towel."
"And does it never occur to Templars that one can ask for things?" Riada wrapped her arms around her knees.
Felix struggled to find an answer, and then changed the subject.
"You can talk to me like this. But earlier today, when tracking, you were..." He searched for a polite way to say it, and then gave up. "Wilder than the hounds."
"The speaking comes and goes, if you asked me which way to go earlier today I could not have told you, only howled and led." She flicked hair out of her eyes, to no avail. "I was a well-read little girl once."
The surprise must have shown on his face. Riada tilted her head.
"They tried to wipe our memories after they cursed us, like you. But the spells must not have worked together."
"Were you once to be a Templar?" Felix realized. "Why did they do- do this instead?"
"The witches," Riada finally grinned with her broken, rotting teeth, again the cruel experiment Felix had met with Marius in the cave beneath the castle. "Very hard to track."
"Felix?" Sara called from the fire.
Felix got to his feet, and then looked down at Riada.
"One more question," He began. "What are you going to do with Shal when you catch her? And why was Marius so afraid of you hurting Ella?"
"Why should Marius be afraid? It was him who made us what we are." Riada laid back down beside her brother.
Felix went back to the fire, sitting down beside Sara.
"You shouldn't be so kind to them." She tossed the chicken bones into the fire, watching them crackle. "They will tell you what they are if you listen."
"I haven't been on a mission with them before," Felix said. "What do they do when they-when they get their reward?"
Sara gave a humorless laugh.
"I was like you when I hunted with them the first time- giving them extra food, talking to them. Then, I saw the end of the chase. The quarry was a deserter from the Templars, travelling alone. They tore him apart. I still hear the screams."
She looked at him sideways.
"Wasn't Sung your friend?"
"She was," Felix admitted.
The other Templar shook her head.
"I am their handler now. I am with them every time."
She stood up, looking back at the twins.
"We should go to sleep."
***
The world was lighter in the morning, and the grey horse moved clumsily among the old trees. The ground was too full of roots and holes here to gallop or even canter, and there was no choice but to lurch forward at an awkward walk-trot.
Shal licked her lips and blinked in the sun. She last had blood two nights before, but she was already starting to want more. She felt the sort of thirst that came before one's mouth dried out with parchedness- a constant yet subtle discomfort.
Ella was still in front of her in the saddle, smelling more like a human now that all her perfumes had worn off. Her flaxen hair was tangled and stuck with twigs and brambles.
The girl's body exuded heat and life. Shal looked up at the sky.
It was clear and painstaking blue, the exact reflection of the lake she could see through the trees. The horse plodded out onto the bank, and Shal's heart sank. The lake was too deep to cross, yet so wide going around it would take all day. She hadn't heard the trackers since the close call in the village, but she had no doubt it would be soon.
"What- what are you doing??"
Ella was dismounting. She lifted her skirts, running to the edge of the lake and kneeling down, dipping her hands in it with a laugh.
"We don't have time to stop." Shal dismounted as well, pulling the horse up to the edge of the lake where he gratefully bent and began to drink. "This will set us back enough without—"
"Five minutes." Clear water was running down Ella's chin. "You look thirsty."
Shal opened her mouth to answer. Ella splashed her.
"You--!" Shal's hand shot out instinctively, knocking the girl back into the water. Instead of crying out as Shal expected, Ella sat up, laughing, wiping the water from her eyes.
"I'll get you for that." She splashed three steps back into the lake until the water was past her knees, turning around and flicking another handful of water at Shal.
"You're going to be freezing tonight--" Shal sloshed out in the water as well, trying to keep the surface below the tops of her boots.
Ella caught her off balance, and Shal cursed as they fell together back into the water with a massive splash. The girl was still laughing.
"Honestly, Templar," she said as they sat up. "Do you ever smile?"
Shal looked at Ella. Her blonde hair was longer when it was wet, and stuck to her face, and her skin sparkled in the sun as the water trickled down. The oversized dress was soaked and clinging to her slender frame. The neckline was weighed down, exposing a graceful collarbone and the side of one white breast.
"Come on," she said finally. "Let's get moving."
She sloshed to her feet, shaking water from her hair. Ella got up and grudgingly followed her to the bank.
Shal froze.
Her hand went to her sword as her eyes focused on a bush thirty feet away, rustling in the opposite direction of the wind. Ella was wringing out her skirt, unawares until Shal shushed her forcefully.
"Shal." Ella whispered. "What is it?"
It seemed to happen in slow motion. The blightwolf was as big as the horse, and it was lunging forward with yellowed teeth bared.
Its fangs sank into the horse's rump, and the gelding screamed, bucked and bolted, knocking Shal back into the water. Her head ringing from the contact with its hooves, she rolled to her feet, though the world was spinning around her.
The blightwolf's teeth were bloody and stuck with bits of the horse's flesh, but it did not pursue the larger animal. It bounded once before reaching Ella. Suddenly the girl was twenty feet away from Shal, screaming wordlessly as the blightwolf dragged her by one leg, its teeth buried in her calf, shaking its head viciously.
The blightwolf let go of Ella's leg as Shal rushed it, guarding its prey between both paws. It bounded over Ella towards her.
The monster's teeth stuck in her shield, and Shal buckled beneath the weight of it. She found herself on the ground again, the wolf's paw landing beside her head, the size of a dinner plate. It snapped at her face, and Shal plunged her sword into the blightwolf's chest. It yelped and rolled off her, but was then on its feet, limping but nowhere near dead.
Shal staggered into a standing position, gripping her sword tightly. The wolf lunged again, but this time she stepped to the side, bringing her sword down on its skull.
It fell, but there were three more stabs before it stopped moving. Feeling dizzy, Shal looked to where Ella lay sobbing uncontrollably. She ran over to the girl.
"We have to bind this, you're losing too much—"
Blood.
The metallic scent filled Shal's nose, blocking out almost all other scents. She looked down at the girl's leg. It was mangled down to the bone, the flesh nearly ripped completely away from one part. Hot blood was gushing out, flowing over the rocks, making them slick and red.
Shal knelt slowly, staring. Three thoughts crossed her mind at once, entirely involuntarily.
She'll be dead in a minute.
They'll smell this a mile away.
That's my food, wasting...
Shal ripped the bottom hem off her cloak, wrapping it around Ella's leg.
The blood soaked through immediately, making the black material glisten. Ella still cried, and Shal held her breath, her hands shaking.
She looked down at them, turning them over slowly. Her palms were warm and red, bright red.
"Shal..." Ella sobbed.
Her face was so pale. All the blood was leaving her.
Shal felt as though time had slowed down.
She had to breathe, and the smell of blood nearly overcame her.
She knew it was too late. Ella would never reach Haugr, and it was not the wound in her leg that would be the final blow. The girl passed out, lying unconscious in the red puddle forming around her. Shal closed her eyes.
I should get this over with.
But no matter her thirst, and no matter how much blood trickled over the rocks to swirl in the water, useless, Shal's body would not obey her mind.
Someone was walking over the rocks. Shal's heart flew into her mouth.
There was a blinding white light, and nothing existed anymore.