“Oi! Oi, you up there!”

The voice ringing through the shadows made Nathan jump.

“Wake up, man!”

Nathan groaned softly. “Shut up,” he muttered. Louder, he added: “The hells do you want?”

“Did you kill that werewolf in the ditch?”

Seriously?

“No! It drowned!”

“What?”

“What a torch,” Nathan muttered, rubbing at his eyes. “Why do you care?”

“Are there more werewolves in the area?” a new voice asked.

“And did you have a warrant?” the first voice added.

Nathan blinked slowly into the dusk. The bare branches stood black against the last bit of colour in the sky, red and orange and pink, and quickly darkening clouds, grey like the exhaustion that had settled in Nathan’s bones. It took him an inordinate amount of effort to just sit up and look down.

Five men stood underneath his tree, two of them holding torches. Four guards and a man in a heavy coat and high top hat.

“You’re the magistrate from Deeshire?” Nathan asked.

“I am,” the man in the top hat confirmed. He was voice number two. “Is the area safe?”

“I sure hope so,” Nathan called down. “Didn’t see any other tracks asides from the bitch in the ditch.”

The magistrate chuckled at the rhyme. Nathan rolled his eyes. It hadn’t even been intentional. At least one of his guards glared at the man, and he added: “Got a warrant?”

“No. Self defence. She attacked me. Ripped off my leg, too. You didn't happen to find it, did you?”

“Find your leg?” The magistrate sounded as if he wondered if that was a joke.

Nathan loosened the rope and swung both legs over the same side of the branch, pulling up his trouser. He wasn’t sure if they could even see.

“Peg leg,” he explained. “I’m Nathan Feleke, by the way. You might have heard of my brother, Lord David Feleke.”

“The name rings a bell, yes,” the magistrate said wryly. “Lord Feleke, perhaps you’ll ride with us the rest of the way? I’m sure you’ll find more comfortable accommodations behind walls?”

Nathan waved at him vaguely. Ride with them? He wasn’t even sure how he was going to get off this damn tree.

“I hope you aren’t in a hurry,” he replied.

“Found your leg, Sir,” a new voice called from behind him. Nathan craned his neck until he spotted a second group, two men and a woman in respectable civilian clothes. They were just walking over from the road. One of the men held the remains of Nathan’s peg leg, held together by only a few fibres of wood.

“Lord Feleke, did I catch that right? Can we ask for an interview?”

Oh joy. The press was here.

“Not right now.”

Couldn’t they at least wait till he was back on the ground?

He had to tie his rope to the branch and let himself down that way, then hop around on one leg to collect his walking spear from where he had tied it to Sore’s saddle, and search for a second stick. Just as the magistrate caught himself enough to order a guard to support Nathan, Nathan found himself a suitable branch to use as a crutch.

“Apicella is the name,” the magistrate introduced himself, once Nathan was able to move around a little better. “You were up there when the monster attacked?”

Nathan nodded absentmindedly. He was searching the ground while there was a little light left. “She could pass as human perfectly. Had a fake silver coin prepared, too, to sell the masquerade. And an amulet… Ha! Found it!”

He had to drop his stick, bent over carefully, then dig the sunburst out of the mud, grab both the jewellery and the brach again while holding on to the spear for balance. The guards crowded around him, but nobody seemed quite sure if they should touch him. Nathan fumbled around until he managed to juggle everything so he could stand securely while viewing his find.

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It certainly looked like real silver. Quite nicely shaped, too.

“So you didn’t know you were in danger until she attacked?” the oldest of the guardsmen broke the silence. “What were you doing up in that tree?”

“Oh, I knew there was a real crazy bastard around,” Nathan replied, turning the amulet around in his hands. “She killed two other experienced hunters,” Nathan added, “left their bodies behind for me to find. So I wasn’t exactly sanguine when I saw a woman alone riding down the road just before sunset.”

“And this amulet didn’t convince you?”

Nathan shrugged. There was no sign of where the silver sun had come from, no helpful engraving hinting at a silversmith. “The fake coin was a good trick,” he said. “But she had that aura… All the older monsters have one, not all of them can hide it. So I dropped a silver dart at her, and she ripped off my leg.”

He put the pendant into a pocket and searched for the coin. He couldn’t find the bloody thing, and he really wanted to know what it was made of.

“Your Lordship?” Apicella asked, following him as he hobbled towards the street.

“I need to find that coin. Perhaps we can find out where it came from. What it’s made of, at least.”

And he needed to pee, and drink something, and maybe see if he had any opium left.

But the coin first.

Apicella clapped his hands, making Nathan jump.

“What’re you waiting for?” the magistrate called to his guards. “Give his lordship a hand!”

The men promptly spread out to search the ground. One of them found the tiny piece of metal in the other direction from the tree, caked in mud. It looked just like any other coin to Nathan, but it didn’t quite have the weight. Anyone who held it would know it was fake.

Nathan closed his fist around it and sighed, then turned to the magistrate. “I’ll need a few minutes. Perhaps, in the meantime, your men can figure out a way to take the dead werewolf with us? I’d like to see if I can get statements from the villages. Maybe someone recognizes her. She wasn’t new—wasn’t unsettled, so I need to know where she came from.”

He barely heard what the people around him were muttering. He was tired, and in pain, and even up in the tree, he would have liked to get a few more hours of sleep.

This was the point in a hunt where you really needed someone like David. Someone to keep you going and on track. At the very least a partner like Andrew who’d argue back if you got stupid—and everyone got stupid after a day of three of no proper rest. Even David.

Nathan had no idea how deLande had done it alone for so long. Maybe she’d just been lucky longer than most. It certainly sounded like her final chase after Morgulon had been pretty stupid.

Stupidly lucky.

Nathan swung himself away, behind a tree to pee, wash out his mouth with water, brush the worst dirt from his clothes. He wanted a bath. He did not want to deal with the press in his current state.

He really needed to start packing replacement legs.

And he needed a better stick.

And…

Nathan took a deep breath and swung himself back. The guards had hacked down a small stem to tie the she-wolf’s body to, but as so many people, they seemed loath to touch the corpse.

One of them did hand Nathan a sturdier, longer stick with a nice fork on the top, that he could wedge underneath his armpit. Could use some padding, but at least he didn’t feel quite as unsteady as before.

“You can touch the body,” Nathan sighed. “It won’t turn you werewolf. Don’t let the blood get under your skin, and all will be fine.”

How many times had he told people that? It seemed so obvious to him.

But people were still scared to just touch the blood soaked fur, even with gloves on. Nathan would have tied the giant wolf to the pole himself, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get up again.

“Just get some ropes,” he grumbled. “You can use mine, from the tree, if you didn’t bring any. Trust me, I’ve cut dozens of werewolf throats and had the blood run down my hands. It’s not a problem.”

How long to the village? And how long would he have to stick around? How long until he got some answers where the mad one had come from? Was the magistrate right, and there’s be a place to sleep there? Was that too much to hope for, to sleep in a real bed tonight?

The reporters sidled over again as Nathan watched the guards work. The two men wanted to see the amulet and coin, while the woman had found the remains of the werewolf’s dress and had questions about the high quality of the fabric.

Not that Nathan had any answers. He let them have a look at the fake silver, then asked himself: “Mind helping me get my horse saddled?”

He had to ask for help to get into the saddle, too, but once he was up, Sore followed his hand willingly. Better than Bairn would, really.

Finally, they were off towards the village. By now it was late enough and dark enough that Nathan really hoped there were no more werewolves around. It wouldn’t have been an issue on full moon, but tonight?

They stopped briefly at the dead sheep, still rotting next to the street. The old guardsman and the journalists kept questioning Nathan on everything that had happened, even as Apicella told his man that Nathan could simply have David write him a Crown Warrant.

Clearly, that wasn’t a satisfactory answer. It probably wouldn’t have appeased Nathan, either. Still, he cursed inwardly as the questions kept coming.

The village really couldn’t come fast enough.

Nathan almost groaned in relief when the palisades appeared in the distance. A few birds circled overhead, but other than that, all looked quiet. Only when they stood almost in front of it could the group see that the gate stood open a crack.

Nathan raised his head wearily, but the old guard was already getting out of the saddle. He reached out to knock or open the gate, then froze in the motion.

“Sirs,” he said, voice suddenly hoarse. His hand shook a little as he pointed at his feet. At the water running out from underneath the wood.

Except it wasn’t water.

Water wouldn’t be that red, not even in the torchlight.

Fuck.