Laughter of werewolves echoed from every direction in Avenna. Laughter, considered to be tickling even for the resilient individuals, seemed to have lost its ability to infect others with joy. It, however, swept the entire capital city.

As far as Maester Rudolph could tell, there was hardly any normal human being in Avenna. He did not know how a crowd of ten thousand people looked like but seeing the same number of werewolves settling around the castle premise gave him a little idea of it.

Packed and chaotic.

In the time of dusk, everything which could make him feel disconnected to real life amplified themselves. The sky was getting yellower instead of usual black. Had this evening been untouched by Wutke, there would have been a massive parade in the city with the bride and groom in the gold chariot. Rudolph would have been somewhere in the crowd on a horse. Event then he would have felt uncomfortable. Royalty experience was not meant for him. Also royalty threats weren’t.

Instead of waving his hands to kill werewolves, he would have been waving at the excited crowd. Then, his waving would have gone unnoticed but now his hand motions were all that mattered.

With the sky looking down at him, he also looked at the sky. He could see full moon through the yellow clouds. He presumed the light in the ground was only coming from the moon. And the light was dimming.

The yellow sky had darkness taking over it but the sight did not resemble to night. It did not resemble to anything he had ever seen but he was too busy to draw comparisons.

Still his mind found plenty of time to worry.

Doors and windows which he had sealed with sorcery were becoming thin and he had already added as many layers he could. The sheet of pain triggering light had also weakened in the course of hours whereas the number of werewolves had increased. He assumed it was not very away from being incapable of being able to stop anything.

Maester could still see some werewolves jumping backwards after being hit by the current running on the wall. The earliest ones to scratch the walls either had severed or burnt arms. Despite the chances of being hurt, the werewolves did not back away from the wall.

In the meantime, Maester Rudolph had been hand picking his kills - selecting the werewolves which wore the elements he had control over.

Beasts wearing necklaces got strangled on them and those wearing bracelets got their wrists severed.

Because majority of people couldn’t afford wearing jewels, Rudolph didn’t get to kill more than fifty werewolves.

He refused to believe he had given up hope. His actions, though, did not speak of his mind. He had to dive deeper into his consciousness in order to bring back his sinking enthusiasm.

I hate coming to this castle. He sighed in disappointment. Rudolph gazed at his own feet and felt his fingers tightening inside his shoes.

Maybe his body was giving him the last chance to get motivated but Rudolph believed he had already done whatever he could do. He reminded himself there was a slim chance of his survival since Nortze had promised he would come to help him once the family was safe.

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Although he had faith in him, he pretended the promise had never happened. He just cared of the unsaid vow of his part.

Rudolph threw stunning waves at the werewolves. The werewolves near him got knocked backwards whereas those behind felt the ripple of energy getting lower. Beasts at the end couldn’t even tell they had been attacked.

Most of the sorcery he knew had turned out to be ineffective for the werewolves that had arrived despite of the full moon.

He hurdled the waves from both of his hands in every direction. Werewolves on front fell and the creatures, behind, stepped over the unconscious ones, creating a grave for them.

Rudolph stopped attacking them as he noticed a sudden increase in the size of werewolves. Their howls also became roars and their strength doubled along with their size.

What happened? Rudolph sweated.

Some droplets of sweat trickled to his eyes. He kept looking through it till he could no more see. He had to rub his for cleansing his vision.

When his sight got rid of constant blurriness, he saw some werewolves leaping high at the far end of the pack. They cart-wheeled in the airin place of their regular jumps.

Rudolph narrowed his eyes and detected some soldiers in armors man-handling the werewolves. They were the biggest soldiers he had ever seen. And the strongest too.

He gazed around as he saw more soldiers coming out of thin air. Everywhere his eyes could reach, he was seeing the huge soldiers slaughtering the beasts. Rudolph saw Saer as he gyrated at the battlement.

Saer was exactly where he had teleported from. Although Saer had come empty without Gervase, he found himself more inclined towards the blackened ring around Saer's finger but his question surprised himself, "Did you bring these soldiers?"

Saer pulled the pair of femurs from his back which he had tied as an arsenal, "They're armors."

"Where is son Calajhan?"

"A hundred of these soldiers should be enough for these werewolves." Saer dusted off the question.

"You couldn’t save him." Rudolph said, "I was thinking why the size of werewolves might have increased."

Saer walked away.

"Where are you going?"

"To Nortze."

"Go to the gallows first."

"Gallows?" Saer's eyebrows lifted all the way to his forehead.

"I don’t imply any insult here."

"What else can be implied on what you just said?"

Rudolph thought for a while then told him why he wanted Saer to go there. Saer could not repudiate him after hearing everything.

"Go." Rudolph said.

The mercenary ran to the trap door and held its doorknob.

Saer left his ground, falling on the floor on his buttocks. He grasped his clutched arm, demanding an explanation from the Maester.

"Every door and window outside the castle is charged with current." Rudolph answered.