“Why couldn’t it be a dragon,” Nathan muttered to himself, goring the creeper he had almost stumbled across with his spear. The thing shivered once and then stopped moving. A single one wasn’t really dangerous right now, and wasn’t that a weird thought?

Nathan remembered all too well the night when he and David tried to follow the navvies’ supply caravan into the forest, to find Greg, the thunderstorm that had surprised them, the way the Rot had invaded his mind and slowed his thoughts to a crawl. The terror he had felt then, right until the foul magic had overwhelmed him completely.

Yet here he was, in the middle of the forest, only a few miles away from the Savre, and a single creeper didn’t even slow him down.

He didn’t want to think about how much gold the navvies had spent just on the helmet he wore right now. He remembered how hard it had been to buy a simple, decorated cap at Eoforwic – how much had it cost the navvies to bribe the smith into selling this one?

At the same time, Nathan was fairly certain that the helmet alone wouldn’t do him much good. Without the magical amulets, he would still get overwhelmed by the Rot. And magic of this kind was even harder to come by than silver, since it was rarer still.

Yet the navvies had given their treasure to him. So he could find Oli, track down the kid before something else did.

Nathan pushed onwards through the underbrush, trying to ignore the pain in his leg. He needed to be constantly on the look-out for more creepers or brutes: They were hard to spot between the dense trees in this part of the forest, and they could rise out of the muddy ground pretty much everywhere. As the navvies had said, Nathan hadn’t seen much of the Rot all night. Only since about an hour after sunrise, the forest seemed to get crowded.

All the Rot creatures were moving in the same direction: Towards the Savre Camp, if Nathan hadn’t gotten turned around. He was sure he hadn’t, though. This wasn’t a city, he didn’t get turned around out in the wild. This was what he was good at.

Nathan scratched the spot where the silver of the helmet rubbed against his skin in annoyance. The navvies hadn’t had the right kind of bonnet to wear underneath, so all he had was a normal woollen winter hat. At least it kept his ears warm.

And he was free of the Rot’s influence even with the creepers around; that was worth all the discomfort in the world.

The only thing that slowed him down today was his bloody foot. Or the lack of it, rather.

Oli had left a clear path in the little remaining snow. If Nathan still had had both his own feet, he could have followed at an easy jog. That had always been the one thing he was better at than even David: Running. He could do it faster than anyone he knew, and keep at it longer, too – or he had been better at it.

The Rot had taken that from him. Walking, or worse, running, on the wooden prosthesis felt like half of him was moving on wet sand or through deep mud, sapping his strength and taking the spring right out of his steps.

Worse than that though was what the doctor had called phantom pain, the agony that still sometimes came out of nowhere, striking a limb that didn’t even exist anymore.

He had thought he was going mad at first. He hadn’t even dared ask the doctor about it, not after Andrew had frowned at him full of doubt. There were no words for the relief he head felt when Lane had said she knew about the phenomenon.

And it was getting better. Not as fast as Nathan would have liked it to, but instead of near-constant agony that even the opium barely alleviated, it now came and went. He prayed it wouldn’t come today, not until he had caught up with Oli and dragged him back to the camp. The ache in the stump itself was bad enough.

Nathan froze when a Rot-brute stepped out from between the trees. He barely breathed, his grip on the axe-handle shifting, as the brute took another step. The monster wasn’t interested in him, though. It had a clear goal, and he wasn’t it.

Nathan waited for the brute to lumber on, in a straight line towards the camp. The Rot clearly knew where it needed to go, unlike Oli, whose trail wavered as if he had been chasing one of the will-o’-wisps. Not that Nathan had seen any of them. No will-o’-wisps, no birds, no living being. The only thing moving out here was him, the Rot, and the young werewolf.

Nathan wished he knew what the kid was even doing out here.

He wasn’t trying to reach Ragna, was he?

Nathan shook his head at himself. No, that couldn’t be it. Oli could sense the elder werewolf. He’d be moving in a mostly straight line if he was trying to get to her, not wave through the forest like a drunken fool.

As much as he hated it, Nathan couldn’t quite shake the nagging thought that the kid was moving like a mad werewolf. One of the seriously bad cases, where an experienced hunter could tell just by looking at the trail that the creature was off its rockers.

Oli shouldn’t be moving like this.

Nathan’s bad leg ached, yet he kept walking, following the tracks which took another sharp turn, almost backtracking. Nathan reckoned that if he turned around and walked in a straight line back towards the Savre Camp, it probably wouldn’t take him much more than an hour to get there.

He took a swig from his water bottle. He had had to refill it by cramming icicles inside – he didn’t trust the small creeks he came across every now and then. The last thing he needed was to drink from a Rot-infested well. He wouldn’t do much good to Oli if he managed to poison himself.

He’d find the kid. He’d find the kid before the Rot-queen did. He wouldn’t fail like he had failed to protect Greg. He’d do this right.

He’d never forgive himself if he was too late and had to kill the boy.

He sometimes whished his family would blame him for what had happened to Greg – especially David. But David seemed determined to shoulder the blame alone, even though there was plenty to go around.

Nathan tugged at his helmet again. It should have been him.

And yet – he sometimes couldn’t help but wonder: What if there was such a thing as fate after all? What if this had all been meant to happen?

It just seemed unlikely that everything had been coincidence – the way Greg had gotten bitten, probably the only way he could have gotten away despite all of deLande’s scrutiny, joining the railway with the one crew who wouldn’t kill him as soon as they found out...

Or maybe that wasn’t such a big coincidence after all. A crew willing to go into the forest without any sort of magical protection had to be made up of some pretty special people. It probably shouldn’t surprise him that they had been brave enough to work alongside a werewolf.

It was still an intriguing thought: That they had been meant to change Loegrion, drive out the Valoise, and bring about a brighter future for hopefully everybody.

Nathan shook his head at himself. Wishful thinking, nothing else. He wanted it to be true, sure. Because if it was, then it wasn’t his fault, was it? Nothing he could do to defy fate.

It still should have been him.

When he reached a small clearing, Nathan glanced up into the sky. It was nearly noon, so he dug some of his emergency hardtack out of his small pack and leaned against a tree to rest his bad leg for a few minutes. The stump was cold – much colder than his good foot – and it hurt. The wooden socket was chafing, despite the doctor’s best effort to make it fit comfortably.

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He wished he had some hot tea, but there was no time to light a fire. All he could do was soldier on and hope he’d reach Oli in time.

Would Lane have been faster? Would she have caught up with Oli already?

But Nathan doubted that. This wasn’t a hard track to follow and while he wasn’t as fast as he used to and not half as quick as he would have liked to be, he hadn’t wasted any time, either, conserving his strength and moving steadily onwards. If he could have brought his horse...

But there had been no way to protect his stallion from the influence of the Rot, so that wouldn’t have done him much good.

He hadn’t walked far after his short rest when he almost stepped into a pile of werewolf droppings. They were still steaming gently in the cold air. The sight made Nathan frown. Oli often behaved a little more wolf-like, but he normally didn’t just take a dump where ever he happened to walk or stand. On full moon night, sure. But not in bright daylight.

On the other hand, Nathan was certainly getting close.

A couple of hundred yards later, Nathan realized something else: There were Rot creatures all around him, so many of them that despite of all the silver and amulets he wore he could feel the pressure on his skull mounting. They were still ignoring him, though there were enough of them to bury him in bodies, magic protections or not.

Nathan only hesitated for a second. He was certainly getting close, so he swung the crossbow from his back. It was loaded with silver bolts, just in case. He really didn’t want to shoot Oli with that, but he might not have the time to switch bolts and he couldn’t take the risk.

He didn’t want to hurt the kid, but Eyal was right: they would be hard-pressed to deal with one Rot-queen. Two? He didn’t even want to think about it.

And there was another issue:

Nathan didn’t care much for politics. He didn’t know half the names of the people David wrote to Lane about, and he didn’t care, either. But he knew – even understood – the fear werewolves inspired in most folks. The Rot and werewolves both. And he was intimately familiar with the leaps of logic desperate people would make, to excuse even the most vile deeds. And this? This wouldn’t even require leaps of logic.

If word got around that werewolves could not only fight the Rot, but become Rot-queens? The most terrible kind of monster? That was exactly the kind of argument a man like George Louis needed to justify stabbing all the werewolves of Loegrion in the back once the land was cleansed.

Nathan shuddered again. Wasn’t his mission the worst proof for it how easy it was to turn on a friend, a child even, if the situation was dire enough?

He needed to find Oli, find him alive, and bring him back. To prove that it was possible, that no more desperate measures were necessary.

There was another small creek ahead, just a little runlet of molten snow. Two huge Rot creatures stood over it, fallen trees that had gotten up again. Nathan might have mistaken them for normal trees if it hadn’t been for the way their branches were caging Oli in, holding him in place, front paws in the water. He didn’t appear to struggle. In fact, he wasn’t moving at all.

Nathan took another step forward before he noted something else: There was a little girl standing in front of Oli, mostly hidden behind the large Rot tree. He knew her, too. The most beautiful girl in the world, her dark brown hair falling in two long braids over her light blue dress...

He wanted to run towards her, but he stumbled. Something was wrong with his left leg – a sharp pain, like from a burst blister, shot through his – Nathan blinked. He wasn’t actually eight years old anymore. And that wasn’t Lucinda standing over there, with her hand on Oli’s forehead.

He couldn’t tell what it was; every time he tried to look at it, he could feel his perception shift: to a slightly older girl whom he had had a crush on when he was twelve, back to Lucinda, then to a young lady whose dress he had admired the last time Imani had dragged him to court – and each time, there was a siren call that told him that he needed to come closer, to take a look – once it was Imani herself, calling out to him for help – but every time he took a step, the pain in his leg brought some clarity. He still couldn’t tell what the Rot creature looked like in truth.

He tried to focus on Oli instead. The kid was in his wolf-shape and completely trapped. Each one of his legs was wrapped in dead vines, and the two trees formed a cage around him that would have stopped him had he been able to move. The Rot-queen had one hand – limb – resting on Oli’s forehead.

When the young werewolf gasped softly, Nathan finally realized that they were fighting after all: The Rot-queen was putting pressure on Oli’s head, trying to push it down – into the water?

Where Oli’s front paws were submerged in it, the dirty melt water of the little creek seemed to bubble and seethe – if that wasn’t an illusion, too. Was that how the Rot was going to corrupt the young werewolf? By making him drink that soup?

Nathan made the mistake of looking at the queen again and took another lurching step closer against his will. It was the strangest sensation. He couldn’t smell the Rot, and he had all but forgotten about the headache from the pressure on his skull. It wasn’t gone, but it didn’t matter now that he had laid eyes on the Rot-queen herself.

But the pain in his leg was new, different, and as much as he hated the feeling, it brought reality back every step he took.

Nathan stared at Oli again. He thought he could see the muscles in the werewolf’s neck bulge, even underneath the thick fur. The kid wouldn’t last much longer.

And there was no way Nathan would be able to free him. Even if had a silver axe, he wouldn’t have the time to bring down those rotten trees before they smashed him to pieces.

Nathan felt his heart sink. There was probably no point in shooting the Rot-queen, was there? And if he couldn’t save the kid, he’d have to shoot him.

He shifted his grip on his crossbow, raising it, but then lowered it again.

He couldn’t do it. Had it been a stranger – or at least an adult werewolf... But Oli was just a cub, whining softly, clearly fighting with all his might.

David would say: “someone has to do what’s necessary.” If David were here, Oli would already be dead. David would just murder the kid and live with the regret.

Or would he? He hadn’t checked Greg over for werewolf bites, back after the big hunt. Hadn’t wanted to look. Hadn’t wanted Lane to look, either. Hadn’t wanted to know.

Nathan stared at the silent struggle again. Oli’s head had dipped a little further towards the creek.

Nathan’s eyes wandered over to the queen on their own accord. This time, he managed to bite his tongue before the Rot-queen could call him forward again – she had looked like Lucinda again. Trying to fool him into coming closer.

“Fool me once,” Nathan whispered to himself and then blinked.

He stared down at the silver bolt. Could he fool the Rot-queen likewise? It wanted him to believe that there was no danger here. Could he make it believe that there was nothing to gain here?

David would probably say it was too risky. The queen would know he was dangerous as soon as he fired his first shot.

But he couldn’t just murder the kid without even trying. And if it didn’t work, he still had his second bolt, right?

He raised the crossbow and aimed carefully, though it was probably the easiest shot he had ever fired at a werewolf. It wasn’t like Oli could move.

But he didn’t want to accidentally kill the boy.

He exhaled, held his breath, pulled the trigger. The silver bolt hit Oli’s shoulder with a dull thud. The cub screamed in an almost human voice and twisted with enough force that the Rot-queen’s hand slipped from his head. Its neck lengthened like a snail extending its antennae to see, while its face still appeared as little Lucinda’s. The sight was so bizarre that Nathan didn’t even feel the need to step closer. One of the queen’s spindly arms reached out to touch the bolt that had buried deep into Oli’s shoulder. Nathan watched with bated breath as the creature gingerly poked the metal while Oli still fought against his bindings, keening.

The Rot-queen howled when it touched the silver and Nathan couldn’t help but smile grimly. Oli stumbled and fell when the vines that had held him in place suddenly let go. The smile was wiped off Nathan’s face when the Rot-queen looked around wildly, sweet Lucinda’s face framed by the braids swinging around on the way too long neck.

Suddenly, Nathan found himself face to face with the creature, and this time he was certain he hadn’t moved his feet. Bloodshot eyes – a corpse’s eyes – stared into his. Unbidden, memories welled up inside his mind: Finding Oli, trapped by the vines and threatened by the Rot-queen, raising his crossbow, shooting. Oli’s scream, then the same motion – raising his crossbow, aiming, shooting, only much faster and at a different werewolf, the same sequence of moves repeated over and over and over.

Every single werewolf he had ever killed seemed to pass in front of his eyes.

And the worst part was: the Rot-queen was pleased with the slaughter. He could sense – a sort of glee coming from it, even encouragement anytime his shot went wide, and a terrible, terrible approval when it got to the point when he had been just a child, learning to shoot.

The Rot-queen would have corrupted Oli, yes, but it feared the werewolves, too. It considered them enemies; it was glad about every single one that lay dead. A picture of Ragna appeared before his inner eye and for a brief second, he knew just where she was, which direction he needed to go to find her – following a second Rot-queen.

A heartbeat later, he fell to his knees, the Rot-queen that had tormented Oli gone. It just sort of vanished between one blink of the eye and the next; Nathan couldn’t see where to. The two Rot trees lumbered away as well, leaving Oli there in the mud. His blood had mixed with the mud; the weirdly bubbling water on the other hand had already drained away. If it had ever really been there.

“Five frozen hells,” Nathan muttered. “That wasn’t weird or anything.”

He waited maybe a minute, to be as sure as he could be, before he hurried to Oli’s side.

“Sorry,” Nathan whispered as he kneeled down. He didn’t dare take off the helmet, even though it probably made the kid even more uncomfortable. “Couldn’t think of anything else to make that thing let you go,” he added.

Oli struggled to get away when Nathan reached out, but didn’t manage to find his feet.

“Hush, kiddo... I’m really sorry, Oli,” he repeated. “Let me see the wound. Think you can walk? We need to get out of here.”