Greg jogged alongside Dolly in his wolf form, out to where Eyal, Isaac, and the rest of the crew were working on the line to Northwold. Some of the workers looked up when he and Andrew passed them, and some even waved at them, before turning back to felling trees. It was raining slush that turned the ground into mud, and the sun hadn’t shown itself for days, but the work was progressing anyway.
There was only the faintest whiff of the Rot in the air.
Andrew stopped when he spotted Isaac and Thoko and waved them over.
“How’s it going?” Andrew asked.
“Porter’s boring,” Isaac said promptly, grinning at Greg. “And the weather is getting on everybody’s nerves, ye know. But other than that, can’t complain.”
“Eyal’s over there somewhere,” Thoko added.
“Yeah,” Isaac sniffed. “He’s keeping an eye on the new ‘volunteers’. Those guys are way more trouble than the werewolves, I tell ye.”
Greg wasn’t surprised. The new “volunteers” were once again mostly prisoners, who hadn’t been given much choice.
“So the boy is fitting in okay?” Andrew asked.
“Kid’s great,” Isaac said. “Weird, but great. Can barely lift a shovel, but still wants to help with the work, when the weather is fine. Porter just sits on his arse and drinks beer, when he’s not needed. Speaking of the devil.”
The kid’s name was Oli, and he had been brought to the crew by his parents just recently, as a result of the rumours that Eyal had spread. He was only eleven, but had been a werewolf for even longer than Porter, kept well hidden by his father, who was the knacker for the villages north of Eoforwic. Oli cheerfully admitted that he had lived pretty much on the carcasses his father had been tasked to take away and that he really hadn’t minded eating carrion. He was very happy, though, that he could roam free now, as long as he stayed near the crews, and didn’t have to hide in the coal cellar all the time.
Whenever Greg saw him, he could absolutely understand the resentment the Morgulon had stirred against werewolf hunters. There was something about the huge puppy with the grey and black and brown fur, the awkwardly large paws, and the one floppy ear that was just too charming. Greg could see that every single worker he clumped past had to smile. His thin tail wagged excitedly when he saw Greg, and if he hadn’t been so large, he could have easily passed for a normal puppy.
Unlike Greg and Porter, he was equally at home in both forms, maybe even a little more comfortable as a wolf.
Andrew and Isaac laughed when Oli walked up to Greg and sniffed him, curious. When Greg shouldered him away because he tried to push his nose up his backside as well, Oli grinned a doggy grin, tongue lolling out at the side, and retreated.
“No butt sniffing, huh?” Isaac asked, smirking. “Don’t worry, he’s tried it on all of us.”
Greg rolled his eyes at Isaac.
“How’s Gavrel settling into his new role?” Andrew changed the topic.
Isaac shrugged. “Pretty well, I think. Not seeing much of him though, cause he got to stick to his crew. Haven’t heard about any issues, though. I reckon Ruadh is finally working out.”
Ruadh had been the second new werewolf who had hired on with the Lackland Company. Porter had been the first, and it had been surprisingly easy to convince him once he had seen that Greg had survived his meeting with Duke George Louis. Afterwards, Greg had been free to go with his brothers. That way, at least a couple of werewolves had been willing to talk to them, but only Ruadh had actually signed up. He had been a hunter and had gotten bitten a few months before Greg. David had sniffed him out. Ruadh didn’t get along with Porter, though. This had led to Gavrel forming a crew of his own quicker than originally planned, like Eyal’s crew mostly made up of Wayfarers.
“To what do we owe this visit, anyway?” Thoko asked.
“Duke wants to make sure everything here is going smoothly,” Andrew explained. “Since Greg and I are going to be away for a while.”
“Oh?” Thoko asked. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” Andrew said. “Officially, to see if there’s anyone around that stretch of the woods worth sending here, but mostly because mother finally wants to see with her own two eyes how Greg’s doing.”
“Seems rather pointless, looking for werewolves around Deva,” Isaac pointed out.
“Which is why we’ll be going to Courtenay,” Andrew said.
“Oh, I see how it is,” Isaac quipped. “Leaving us peasants for your cosy country get-away.”
“Absolutely,” Andrew said, grinning. “Until the winter is over.”
They didn’t get to hear what Isaac thought about that, because Oli was running towards them, growling and barking. The young werewolf went past them as if somebody had set his tail on fire, vanishing behind the trees. Greg stared after him for a second, and then he, too, caught the distant splatter of hooves in the mud. He took off after Oli and hoped that Porter had gone into hiding as well. Dolly ran alongside him.
When the trees closed behind them, he realized that Thoko and Isaac where jogging after them, as fast as their heavy boots allowed it in the mud. They had barely made it out of sight from the aisle the crew had cleared when a group of riders appeared. The foremost one was a priest of Mithras, recognized easily by his red robes. He was followed by a dozen guards – not just any guards, but the elite Uronian Guards which only the Inquisition could send out. They, too, were impossible to mistake, for they carried the banner of Mithras before them.
“Well, shit,” Andrew muttered.
Eyal arrived just as the priest – or rather the inquisitor – reined in his horse, which was already snorting nervously. No doubt it could smell the werewolves just barely hidden out of sight.
“Who’s in charge here?” called the priest.
“I am,” Eyal said. He sounded a lot calmer than Greg would have been in his place. “How can we serve the Church today, Monseigneur?”
“We have received word of a witch who is protecting this camp,” the priest said. “She is to be handed over immediately, or we will search this camp and take those hiding her.”
Eyal didn’t blink. “You are certainly welcome to search our camp,” he said. “But I’m afraid you have been misled. There is no woman here.”
“So you are saying that there is no heathen witch, black as the devil, protecting your workers? Make no mistake, we have talked to the Duke of Mannin, and he, too, has told us about a dark-skinned girl wearing men’s clothes among you. He said her name was Thoko Banda.”
Next to Greg, Thoko was taking a few involuntary steps away from the inquisitor. Andrew held out a hand.
Behind the inquisitor’s back, Anshel was giving Eyal signs, probably to tell him that Thoko had gotten clear.
“There was a girl by that name, yes,” Eyal said. “But she left us at Eoforwic a while ago, and I have not seen any magic from her.” He spread his arms. “Please, have a look, Monseigneur.”
The inquisitor wasn’t stupid, unfortunately. “You six,” he said, pointing at the soldiers to his right, “search the forest. The rest of you, search the camp. Double rations for the man who brings me the witch.”
Andrew cursed. “Greg, get Thoko out of here. Oli, go with them. Isaac, help Thoko.”
Greg crouched as low as he could and he took off, as soon as Isaac had hoisted Thoko onto his back. He didn’t wait to see what else happened, but he could hear Andrew ride forward, calling to the soldiers.
“Be careful,” he warned them. “There’s a werewolf in the area.”
Greg could only hope that that would give them pause. Thoko was hanging on with both arms and legs, painfully tight, and Greg thought he could hear her crying.
Oli only followed them a few hundred yards, before he stopped. Greg would have preferred it if the kid had put some more distance between himself and the Inquisition, but he couldn’t slow down – and even if he could, he wouldn’t have known how to tell him without changing shape.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Greg ran until even the supernatural strength of his wolf form began to falter, and each breath felt like he was breathing acid. They were miles and miles away from the railway, and probably any other human being, too.
He slowed down to a walk, circling back, his breath coming in painful bursts.
“Are you going back?” Thoko asked, her voice shaking a little, but she loosened her death grip on Greg’s neck.
Greg nodded.
“What if they’re still there?” Thoko whispered. “I can’t go back yet, Greg. I can’t go back to the crew at all! If they return in a few days, and they find me... They’ll kill everybody. Not just me.”
Greg nodded again. He would have liked to reassure her that he just wanted to find Andrew again. That was the most annoying part of being wolf, that he couldn’t talk. He would have liked to tell her that she could come with them, all the way to Courtenay, hide there, as long as necessary.
“Why would the duke tell them my name?” Thoko asked, sounding forlorn. “What if they go after my mother, too?”
Greg could only guess that the Inquisition had pressured the duke and that Thoko had been the weakest link, the one the duke had felt would be the smallest loss if he hung her to dry.
“I guess your brother warned me about him,” Thoko muttered after a while, sounding bitter. “That he wouldn’t hesitate to turn somebody over to the Valoise.”
It’ll be fine, Greg wanted to tell her. There was certainly enough room for her mother as well at Courtenay. She could even bury her father there, bury him in purified earth, as safe from the Rot as a burial in the ground could be in Loegrion.
But he could only carry her onwards.
It was getting darker, though it was hard to tell if that was because of the time of day or if the snow clouds were yielding to darker rainclouds. Greg forced himself to pick up the pace again. Better if he got Andrew and Thoko out of this forest tonight. And if the Inquisition was still there, well, then they’d find out just how hard it was to kill a werewolf.
The priest and his entourage were gone by the time Greg reached the camp, the fire grilles set up around the tents, and Oli and Porter on their guard, while the workers were eating dinner. At a first glance, it looked as if everybody was still there. Andrew sat with Eyal and Isaac at the biggest fire. All heads went up when Greg walked in through the breach in the fire grilles.
Carefully, a little unsteadily, did Thoko sink to the ground. She stumbled when she hurried over to Eyal, and he caught her before she could fall, wrapped his huge arms around her.
“How...” Thoko began and stopped herself. “Did they... Is everybody...”
“Nobody here was harmed,” Eyal reassured her. “It’s all right. They searched the camp, but they didn’t find anything they could use as an excuse to kill anybody. It’s all right, Thoko. They’re gone.”
“What if they come back?” Thoko whispered.
Eyal held her even tighter, his face full of grief. “Come, sit down,” he said. “Andrew has a suggestion to make.”
When he let go of her, Isaac stepped in to hug her as well. Andrew offered her a smile while running a hand through Greg’s fur.
“If you want to stay, you can,” Eyal said when Thoko finally sat down at the log next to the fire. Greg laid down behind her on the ground.
“We’ll never send you away, I want you to know that. We’ll do our best to hide you.”
Greg could feel Thoko shudder, and she bowed her head. “But it would be dangerous,” she whispered. “For all of you.”
“It’s already dangerous for all of us,” Eyal pointed out.
“You could come with us,” Andrew said, “to Courtenay. Mother will find a place for you somewhere within the household. It’ll be a lot harder for the Inquisition to find you there.”
“What about my mother?” Thoko asked softly.
“Bring her too,” Andrew said, shrugging.
“For – for how long?”
“As long as it’s necessary,” Andrew said. “It’s not all the way north of Mannin, but it’s still a place where the arm of the Church rarely reaches. The house is barely staffed, too, so nobody will bat an eye when we bring in more people.”
When Thoko didn’t say anything, Eyal handed her a bowl of stew. “Eat,” he said. “Take some time to think about it. There’s no point in risking the journey back in the dark, anyway.”
Greg groaned softly. He would have liked some food as well, and he would have liked to eat it with a spoon, not straight from the bowl.
He jumped when Andrew threw his clothes at him.
The three of them left long before dawn the next morning, Andrew on Dolly’s back, and Thoko once again on Greg’s. There had been a lot of hugging, and even Eyal had shed a few tears. He had made them promise that they would stop by Gavrel’s crew to warn them and say goodbye.
Thoko was very quiet when they left that second camp. Andrew made some attempts to draw her out, but when it became clear that she wasn’t in the mood to be cheered up, he let her be.
Greg could have turned human again, and they could have all walked, but he didn’t, and for once he didn’t mind that he couldn’t talk as a wolf. Because while Thoko wasn’t speaking ten words a day, keeping her distance from Andrew and wearing her silence like armour, she often ran a hand through his fur. At night, at the campfire, she would lean against his flank, and even bury her face in the thick mane around his neck. Greg was pretty sure that she simply forgot that he wasn’t a giant dog or a very strange horse, or some other animal after all. He didn’t mind. At least he could offer a little comfort to her this way.
“It feels like losing even more of my family,” Thoko said, out of nowhere, when they stopped for lunch the next day, and Andrew looked up from stoking the fire.
“I mean, they aren’t really my relatives,” Thoko continued, brushing her fingers through Greg’s mane over and over in an absentminded motion. “Just...” She broke off again.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment, running a hand across her face. “This is stupid.”
“Not at all,” Andrew said. “You lost your father, and now you’re losing the people who took you in afterwards, and helped you find a purpose again. There’s nothing stupid about this.”
“Some people would say I should be grateful for being alive and having even more people who are willing to help me,” Thoko said, still not looking at Andrew.
“Some people are idiots,” Andrew said calmly. “And also probably didn’t have their parents murdered by the Inquisition.”
There was a long silence, and for a moment Greg thought Thoko would retreat back into it. But then she whispered: “Thank you. Thank you,” she repeated, “for risking your life for me.”
Andrew smiled at that. “Not much of a risk,” he pointed out. “Not if you compare it to everything else going on. The Inquisition doesn’t even know what you look like. All they have is a name and the fact that you are black. Use a different name, and they have nothing. Asides, they’re looking for a witch, and you aren’t, are you?”
“No,” Thoko said softly. “But what difference does that make? It’s not like the Inquisition never uses trumped-up charges.”
Andrew shrugged. “They do,” he admitted, unperturbed. “But this isn’t like that. They truly believe that you are a witch. They’ll be looking for you in places where unsanctioned magic users get their supplies, question herbalists, and maybe even use alchemy to find somebody who actually carries the stink of magic. None of which will do them any good, since you aren’t who they think you are.”
“Father was a healer, though,” Thoko said quietly, pulling up her knees and wrapping her arms around them. Her back was still leaning against Greg’s flank. “If they find that connection, they might find people who remember me, get a better description. And they might guess that Eyal warned me somehow, widen their search area.”
“Did you keep any of your father’s equipment?” Andrew asked.
Thoko shook her head. “We couldn’t. The Inquisition took it all, piled it onto his pyre. I found a copper amulet, when – when we took – took him down...”
Greg shuddered when her voice broke and she made herself even smaller. After a moment, she pulled a slightly deformed pendant out from underneath her clothes and stared at it.
“It was supposed to be a protective charm for me,” she said softly. “But there’s no magic left, after it burned in the fire for so long.”
“Nothing they can use against you then,” Andrew said, gently.
“Should I throw it away anyway?” Thoko whispered. “It’s not exactly a forbidden symbol, but if they find it on me while I’m with you...”
Greg shook his head.
“If they find it on you, while you’re with us, they’ll need something more solid than a bit of copper,” Andrew said. “Since you’ll be in the company of the highly respected Baron of Courtenay, famed werewolf hunter. How old are you, anyway?”
“Almost twenty,” Thoko said. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Got a dress?”
“What?”
Andrew grinned. “Don’t worry, we’ll find you something suitable, for your mother, too. Then we call you lady so-and-so and claim you’re Nathan’s bride-to-be. Or mine. Or David’s, if you prefer. Then the Inquisition will have to bring something really solid to bear if they want to touch you. Your mother can pretend to be your handmaiden.”
Greg huffed, a little amused at the crazy idea and a little annoyed that Andrew hadn’t even mentioned his name, though in Thoko’s place he’d probably have picked David. At least he was the heir.
“Yeah, not you, Greg,” Andrew said. “We don’t want any attention on you.”
Thoko jumped when Andrew addressed Greg as if she only now remembered that he was there.
Andrew continued as if he hadn’t noticed: “Actually, David is out, too. He’s too highly eligible, being the heir and all, somebody is bound to take an interest if word gets out that he’s engaged. We’d have to present you in court, at the very least.”
Thoko shuddered, leaning a little away from Greg, and poked around their small fire with a stick. “I – I don’t know how I feel about that idea,” she finally said, which Greg thought was rather diplomatic.
“Greg thinks I’m crazy,” Andrew said, grinning. “I know that face, even on his other face.”
“Is that so?” Thoko asked, and turned to look at Greg. “What, you don’t think I could be a lady?”
Greg tilted his head and frowned, because, wow, that wasn’t just misconstruing what he had said, but words he hadn’t said at all, too.
“Na,” Andrew said. “I bet he just thinks you should be his lady. But seriously – is there anyone? A fiancé, or a husband even, or anyone else who might object?”
Thoko shook her head, and after a few seconds relaxed back against Greg’s shoulder. “I have no idea what mother would say to this,” she said after a while. “There’s no one else, though, no.”
She tugged at one of her braids. “I never – I never thought I’d have to marry to save my life,” she said quietly.
“Not marry,” Andrew said. “Just pretend to be engaged. And you don’t have to, obviously. It was just an idea. If we protect you, we have to claim you as one of our own. And that means we either make up some kind of family connection or make you a servant of the household. I figured you’d prefer the former, and making you some sort of distant cousin would be too easy to verify for the Inquisition if it comes down to it. But if we claim you’re a lady from some southern province, the sheer distance will mean that disproving our story would take ages.”
“I – I’ll have to think about it,” Thoko said.
Andrew just shrugged, and finally handed over bowls of food.
“Do you want to pack up alone, tomorrow?” Andrew asked. “Or do you want us to give you a hand?”
Thoko shook her head wildly, sending her braids flying. “No, I – Mother will help me,” she said quickly. She ate a few spoons full of stew, and added: “When were you planning to leave for Courtenay?”
Andrew shrugged again. “We weren’t in a hurry,” he said. “Take a day or three to get everything ready ourselves, rest the horses, all that. Now I’d say, the faster we leave, the better.”
Thoko nodded. “We’ll be quick,” she said.