Nathan took the twelve o’clock west, riding with Bairn in a livestock compartment. He sat on the ground, with a bale of straw as his backrest, both legs stretched out in front of him. The sight of the wooden foot was still a little disconcerting, but he was starting to get used to it. The pain he would never get used to. It was a dull, throbbing ache today, sapping his energy. Not debilitating, but exhausting. He had never understood before losing his leg just how tiring pain could be.

He shifted around a bit, which caused a flare—like a needle, jabbing up the remaining lower leg. Nathan gasped and reached for the bottle of opium tincture, even though he didn’t like the dizziness it brought. Maybe it was the new movement that did it, but the jabbing subsided before he had the bottle open. He froze in an awkward position, leg half propped up. His head fell forwards and he took a few deep breaths, steeling himself for another attack as he slowly straightened out again.

But nothing more happened, so he put the bottle away again and moved the spear that leaned against his shoulder into a better position. His crossbow rested on the ground next to him. He hadn’t bothered with provisions. David had made arrangements for him to get those in Deeshire.

For now, he was travelling in the opposite direction, to get himself some backup.

Secretly, Nathan had hoped that the circus act wouldn’t show, but by the time the train trundled into Northwold’s only station, Big Bart and Little Roy were waiting on the plattform. Both of them looked needlessly surprised when he stepped onto the ramp. Yes, it was a bit slippery under his wooden foot, but he had his trusty spear to lean on. It wouldn’t have been a problem if Big Bart hadn’t been trying to be helpful and in reaching for Bairn’s reins, spooked the stallion.

“Back off,” Nathan growled at Little Roy, who was really working hard at being ever more useless than his companion and trying to take the spear out of his hands. Nathan almost did slip then, but managed to wrench the spear free and regain his balance.

“Five frozen hells, stop trying to help, you suck ass at it.”

At least Big Bart backed up at Nathan’s swearing. He had probably hurt the big guy’s feeling, judging by his face. Not that Nathan gave a damn. He managed to calm his horse, and finally made it onto the safe grounds of the plattform.

“Perfect,” he commented. With both feet on solid ground, he could switch the reins to the hand holding the spear. “Exactly how I wanted to start this off. I’m Nathan Feleke. Yes, I’m the one who got injured at Oldstone Castle. No, I don’t need help. I’ll need even less help if you don’t try to take the spear out of my hands, thank you very much.”

When the two other hunters just stared at him, he held out his hand. “Nathan Feleke,” he repeated. “Hello. Can we get moving? I’d like to reach Deeshire today, and we won’t unless we catch that train.”

He waved at the other rail track.

“Your Lordship,” Roy said, as if he still couldn’t quite believe it.

Nathan sighed. Bart and Roy were part of the reason why city people had such a warped idea of werewolf hunters. The circus act loved to talk to the press and they loved to claim that werewolf hunting was a “noble’s occupation” only sometimes taken by common folks.

“Call me Nathan,” he said. The other train whistled loudly. “Can we get going? Do you have everything you need? I’m assuming my brother’s telegram rached you?”

“Yes, it did,” Bart said.

Nathan started moving before he had finished speaking.

“A suspected spreader,” the large man went on, as if he needed to prove they had gotten the message. “Northern Lowlands. We’re supposed to investigate and take the appropriate steps.”

“Good.” Nathan headed down the platform at just short of a run. The train whistled again. Northwold only had two lines, but they still had to get off the platform, and then onto the other one. It seemed needlessly complicated, but then, people probably didn’t change trains in Northwold often.

They stashed the horses and had the conductor glare at them as they climbed into a passenger waggon. Nathan wasn’t sure if the train would have waited for them if he hadn’t waved the pass David had given him.

“Your brothers won’t join us?” Roy asked as they settled down.

“No.”

“It’s only, one doesn’t hear of the Feleke Four hunting alone.”

Nathan settled into the cushions and sighed. “Of the ‘Feleke Four’ one has retired, one is running half the war effort, one is a werewolf, one is undecided, and one is right here. Why did you think I came all the way out here to pick up you two?”

“Wouldn’t a werewolf excel at hunting their own kind?”

“We barely have enough werewolves to fight the Rot, why would we waste one’s time, doing what a human can do?”

Why would they risk Greg, one of their older, more experienced ones?

But if he told the two clowns about the age-thing, he might as well shout it off the rooftops. Rambouillet would know within a week.

It was a long, long ride. Roy wanted to know everything about what was happening at the palace, which Nathan didn’t know much about, and Bart wanted to know about the war, which he couldn’t really talk much about, either. Switching trains in Eoforwic interrupted the two for a moment, and then they were finally on the last stretch towards Deeshire.

The city had a big recruitment office of the army, to which currently one Captain Fletcher was attached. Apparently, the villages and small towns bordering the northern wilds were prime recruiting grounds for werewolves. Given how much time he had spent hunting werewolves in the very same area, that was somehow both surprising to Nathan and not.

The line from Eoforwic to Breechpoint stopped twice at Deeshire: the smaller plattform sat right outside the western gate, where the line swung south to run around the city. A larger station sat next to the eastern gate. Here, a second, newer line had started construction. Once finished, it would carry the lumber from the forests south of the Hafren to Eoforwic and beyond. Possibly, it would run all the way to Mannin one day, too. Right now, it didn’t even come close to the forests, and mostly carried farmers and their produce.

It would also get Nathan and the circus act within ten miles of the village that had reported the spreader.

Captain Fletcher waited for them at the plattform. Nathan didn’t remember him from Oldstone Castle, but he knew enough about the army to recognize the rank insignia, and how many captains were likely to hang around the station?

“Lord Feleke, I presume?” the man asked, as soon as the three hunters got off the train.

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Nathan could tell he almost bowed.

“My men have prepared supplies for you,” the captain added.

“Thanks. Is there anything else we should know, or did you come to sightsee?”

“No, Your Lordship.” The captain paused again. Nathan reckoned the officer was probably younger than he was.

“I’m no hunter,” Fletcher went on just before Nathan could prompt him again. “But I think there’s something off. The original description I received matched exactly what I was told about spreaders, but when I attempted to get more information from the villagers, very little was to be had.”

“Contradictory, too, huh?” Nathan asked.

“No, Sir. That’s what made me wary. All three villagers I spoke to gave the exact same story, almost verbatim. I still don’t know much about werewolves, but I do know my men only ever agree on how a fight started if they all rehearsed the story.”

“Hah!” So the young man wasn’t entirely inexperienced. “Yes, that is somewhat concerning. Not too unexpected, though. My brother sent us to investigate before taking any action. So I reckon we’ll get on with that.”

The captain’s words didn’t really concern Nathan. Farmers sometimes rehearsed their stories, fearing that the powers that be wouldn’t take them seriously otherwise. Or maybe there really wasn’t a spreader. Maybe it was just a wild dog. Or maybe this was David’s lucky day, and they were about to run into an elder werewolf that had ventured out of the forest and run afoul of a particularly recalcitrant village.

Nathan didn’t care. As long as it got him out of Deva for a week, he was happy to chase will-o'-wisps around the countryside.

Though he would have preferred to do it with a different company.

Big Bart took his sweet time picking supplies, so even though they had arrived at Deeshire with plenty of time, they had once again to hurry to make their final connection. The words “hunters travel light” also didn’t seem to mean much to him.

Nathan felt a little sorry for the man’s horse. Not enough to dampen his mood, though. He hummed tonelessly to himself as they climbed aboard the last train that left Deeshire. It was packed full with farmers returning from the city markets—or possibly from Eoforwic’s and Breachpoint’s more lucrative markets—and Nathan didn’t even bother with trying to get a seat. He stayed right with Bairn.

Night was falling by the time they reached the end of the line. Calling it a station was generous: Just a bit of raised ground, a farm track leading away, thriving wintercorn all around. Not the mingy, deformed little plants Nathan would have expected elsewhere. Even on the field’s borders, where the alchemy tended to thin—if the farmer could afford a treatment at all—only showed bright green rows of healthy seedlings.

Deeshire and the surrounding lowlands—all the way to the Hafren’s shores and King’s Haven—had always been the country’s breadbasket. And a good place for a werewolf hunter to establish himself.

No doubt the two facts were connected.

A cold breeze blew into his face, and Nathan smiled. He spurred Bairn to go as fast as Bart’s horse could possibly follow, his heart beating wild in excitement. Part of him hoped that it was a mad werewolf, a real monster. He was yearning for a good hunt, just him and the beast. Something simple, uncomplicated by moral quandaries. A killer, please, give him one of those.

“Want to bet on what it’s going to be? Two silvers say it’s a killer.”

Roy apparently was losing some of the class conceit. “I’ll take that bet, milord. I’ll say it’s just some spooked kid that killed some livestock.”

Oh, please. Please not.

“Well, that doesn’t leave me much options. Let’s see.” Bart stared up into the darkening sky, as if the first starts rising there had an answer. “I’ll say it’s both. There was a spreader, but it moved on and left a few new bites behind. They just went through their first full moon and killed some sheep and now the villagers got spooked and want them dead.”

“Damn, that’s specific,” Nathan said. “I’ll take it. Again, two silvers, how long until we find tracks? Closest guess wins.”

“Midnight,” Roy said at once.

Bart stared into the heavens again. “Two hours.”

“Okay, then I’ll go with dawn.”

Bart won the second bet about an hour later. They had just lit their torches when a trail parted the field, ran across the dirt path, and down the other side. The tracks could have been drawn with a ruler.

What not even Bart had predicted were the other sets of prints almost covering up the werewolves tracks. At least two riders had followed the quarry.

“Will you look at that,” Nathan muttered. “Great. We’ve got competition.”

So much for simple.

“Do we follow the trail, or do we continue to the village?”

“Trail,” Nathan replied. He suddenly saw Greg in front of his inner eye, running scared and alone across what had to be the least modern area north of the White Torrent. Whoever these other hunters were, they probably wouldn’t stop to check what they were dealing with.

The church had never been driven out of Deeshire, had they?

And it didn’t even look like this was the spreader. The trail was dead straight. Mad werewolves didn’t move like this. Not often, at least.

Damn it, he had wanted something simple. A nice, straight forward killing spree, was that really too much to ask for?

Well, there might be one if the farmer caught them cutting straight across his rye.

As the circus act struggled to keep up with him, Nathan once again wished he had someone, anyone else, by his side. He’d never make another joke about Andrew being too slow if only he could get his brother to go with him next time. Maybe his brother would even be here with him right now, if he had kept his mouth shut a little more often.

Hindsight and all that.

The trail just went on and on, nearly as straight as an arrow’s flight, across the field, a pasture, through a forest, across creeks and roads. The only time it veered off was to avoid trees or other obstacles.

Straight north.

“Your Lordship, do you reckon it’s a sane one?” Roy asked.

“Yes,” Nathan growled. He didn’t reckon. He could tell. A creature in full flight didn’t run in a line this straight unless it was running towards something, right? This wasn’t just one sane werewolf. Whoever it was, they had to be sensing an elder, or possibly something else that drew them into this direction.

An elder would be nice, but if they wanted to win them over, they better save whoever was fleeing towards them.

“Let’s rest the horses,” Nathan growled. Bairn could probably go a while longer, but Big Bart’s gelding certainly needed a breather.

“Bart. Anything you can leave behind? We need to travel light. You’re not going to need a pan to fight some poachers, are you?”

“No, but…”

“But what? There’s an innocent’s life on the line. You’re not going to tell me that some cast iron is more important than that, are you?”

“…no, your Lordship.”

“Good. Then start getting rid of anything you won’t need to fight. We can come back to pick it up later.” Nathan disconnected his own saddle packs. He could fight on an empty stomach, if need be. Worst case, he might have to leave Bart and Roy behind.

After half an hour, they walked on, leading the horses. Nathan wished he had brought his other foot for his wooden leg. This one worked better with the stirrups, but made walking harder.

Still, it wasn’t him slowing them down.

Mithras’s flaming torch, how did these two ever catch up with anything?

As the moon set, he gave up. David would kill him, but goddamnit.

“I can’t wait for you two,” he growled. “Turn around and see what you can find in the village. We have to make sure that there wasn’t a spreader in the area after all.”

With that he took off, as fast as his legs would carry him. Bairn followed him; he needn’t have held onto the reins. He didn’t look over his shoulder as Bart and Roy yelled after him. He could hear them stumble around in the dark, protesting and trying to catch up to him.

“Your Lordship, you’ll never make it at this pace,” Bart protested, panting just from the effort of walking and talking at the same time.

“I can keep this up all night,” Nathan gave back. He could. He had. In the cold, too, with his leg freezing off. Hell, a year ago he would have been jogging all the way.

And while he was terrified at the thought of being too late, of only finding a cold, skinned and headless corpse, he was also glad. So very glad at the wind in his hair and the endless sky above him. This was the moment he lived for.

Let David yell at him when it was all over.