Marshall Allard was wholly unsurprised when their outriders returned with the report that Erkford was evacuating. Men, and women, children, and the infirm fled north along both sides of the river. A handful of werewolves appeared to guard them on their way north—Allard couldn’t help but wonder how that would go with the upcoming full moon.

The Relentless had to have a plan for that, right?

Marshall Soto grumbled for a bit that he wouldn’t get to nail them down in battle, but he got over himself quickly. He got his crossing over the Lessing after all. And he had a fairly smart idea to raise morale, too.

“How about we stay in the city over full moon,” he suggested. “Make use of the walls.”

“And loot the place?” Allard asked.

“Well, yes, that too,” Soto said, as if that was totally an afterthought. “But I was thinking we need to have some safeguards in place in case we missed one of the bitten ones. I believe we could use the city’s buildings to separate the men into groups. Limit the damage a wolf can do. If one appears.”

That—was admittedly a damn good idea, Allard had to concede.

“That’ll slow us down,” the prince protested.

Soto looked at Allard; when their eyes met, for once, they were in total agreement.

“Your Highness, we would have to shelter over full moon in any case,” Allard said. “We have made allowances for that in all our plans. This is merely going to improve our rates of attrition.”

“And we might sleep in real beds for once,” Soto added.

His Highness glared at them, but dropped the argument. “As long as it doesn’t slow us down,” he said. “I want to be in Deva by the equinox.”

That had seemed like a lot of time when they had boarded the ships. The whole campaign had seemed so easy: poison the dukes, wait for resistance to fall apart, take Port Neaf. March across the Heartlands to Deva, kill whoever resisted, and install the Levant as new viceroy.

They hadn’t counted on a thousand werewolves assailing Port Neaf, nearly taking it, or Stuard’s survival. Let alone on the crazy Feleke and his merry band of monsters.

They could still do it, of course. This campaign was far from doomed. Just more difficult, and costly. And possibly longer than planned.

Allard had a headache, despite the silver in his helmet. When he looked around, he spotted the half-eaten, deformed corpse of a sheep that was moving in the distance. The pasture it was in was a vibrant green, like only the best farmland in Valoise ever got. In Loegrion, it was just another bit of grassland.

The field on the other side of the street had been burned, and there were wolves moving there—way out of range of any guns. Daring them to send the cavalry out. Allard glanced at Soto, and was relieved to see the other Marshall wasn’t falling for the bait.

The monsters would attack as soon as they spotted an opening. Sometimes even without a real opening, trusting in the terror they caused. Sometimes they created an opening, dropping trees onto the road.

Were they reinforcing with the deserters from the Grande Armée? Or was the Feleke letting all those newly created werewolves running wild around the Heartlands? How long did it even take them to become full monsters?

The Levant was looking at the wolves, too, but clearly, his thoughts went into a different direction. “How do they not know how futile their efforts are?”

“Your Highness?”

“We’re trying to understand these monsters. What do they think they are accomplishing here?” the Levant asked. “Do they truly think if they beat us in battle, we will turn tail and return to the mainland?”

“Can a human ever truly know what goes on in the mind of a monster?” Soto replied.

Which was surprisingly philosophical for him.

“But if you had to take a guess?” the Levant insisted.

Soto pursed his lips. “I’m not sure they thought it through at all,” he said. “I would guess it’s quite possible they fight us simply because we’re here.”

“What say you, Marshall Allard?”

Allard glared at the wolves in the distance. He thought of the other name of the blasted Feleke. Did he give an honest answer?

Finally he said: “I would reckon they hope that if they kill all of us, His Majesty will eschew the cost of sending another army.”

The prince blinked. “How would they possibly do that?”

Allard felt the pressure on his head mount. “It depends on how many bitten ones we overlooked, doesn’t it?”

***

Allard arrived with the vanguard at Erkford a day later. The city was deserted, like their outriders had reported.

What Allard hadn’t expected was that it was completely deserted. Not even looters had stayed behind. Just a few stray dogs were still moving between the walls.

That couldn’t be a good sign, could it?

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How had the Feleke managed to get everyone to move out? There was always someone too stubborn or stupid to get out.

Was this a trap? Did he want them here?

Allard shook himself. He was starting to jump at shadows, wasn’t he? The Feleke had absolutely no reason to want them in the city. Especially not on full moon, when the monsters were most dangerous.

They were most dangerous on full moon night, right? Or was there some kind of weakness he didn’t know about? Hadn’t he heard that werewolf hunters went after them especially on the full moon? There had to be a reason for that.

If there was, the deserted city would make a little more sense. Dangle the safety and the wealth of Erkford in front of them, so they wouldn’t try to hunt the wolves down.

Allard sighed. They should have had the Inquisition question the Feleke when they had the chance.

They shouldn’t have trusted a rat like Picot.

He watched for a while as his officers assigned quarters to the soldiers—all within the city walls, in case the werewolves staged an attack unexpectedly. All in buildings with more than one floor. At moonrise, they would retreat upstairs—hopefully leaving any bitten comrades behind.

He hoped Soto’s plan would work. Allard himself took residence in the garrison, where the prince and Soto would join him as soon as the rest of the army got here.

Where they would hopefully be safe from any werewolves, whether they came from their own lines or the enemy.

And there were baths. Proper baths. And water closets. Not something one would find in a minor Valoisian garrison, but the Loggies had a strange obsession with sewers. Well, not really strange, given how the Rot grew if given the muck to fester in.

And thus, the campaign took a short, well earned break. Allard had the rum rations doubled, and gave everyone not on watch time to loot the city. It was a nice change of pace. He didn’t even have to worry about soldiers running off—any man who hadn’t been bitten by the monsters feared what he might become if he deserted.

Those few individuals who did try to run, well, they were probably better off without them anyway.

There was still a voice in the back of his head that kept telling him that this provincial, safe city was a trap. That they were giving the werewolves, and that mad Feleke, exactly what they had hoped for. Exactly what they wanted.

He could hear them all night, howling in the distance. Only once, he heard a wolf closer by, too, followed by gunfire.

The next morning, the sun revealed that Allard’s instincts had been right: Two dead werewolves. Killed with regular old lead bullets. Not even great hits. At least one of them must have bled out.

“They don’t heal on full moon,” Allard noted. “At least not during full moon night.”

“Does that mean we hunt them down tonight?” the prince asked.

Soto grimaced. “We don’t know where they are, your Highness. Some of them have crossed the Lessing with us, sure, but how many? Our scouts reported a larger number of them followed the track of fleeing citizens. They’ll be beyond our reach by now. However, if they’re still an issue next full moon, we’ll ride them down then, Your Highness,” Soto promised.

“You concur, Marshall Allard?” the prince asked.

“Absolutely,” Allard said. “We will place additional sharpshooters on the walls tonight. If they come to us, we’ll be ready. But I fully agree that there’s no point in running after them now.”

He stood on the walls himself that evening, watching the moon rise. Thanks to the long summer days, the sun hadn’t even fully set yet in the west. Allard was looking to the east, looking out over the river. There was just a thin stripe of scrubs and hard grass between the wall and the water, yet it was here where the wolves had died last night, rather than in one of the built-up outer districts.

Without even looking in that direction, Allard knew exactly when the sun set behind him. A whole chorus rose, wolves howling all around. Guns barked, and his personal guard closed ranks around him.

“How is there another one?” one of his lieutenants hissed.

The monster limped out between two buildings, still wearing parts of the uniform of the man it had used to be.

It died in a hail of bullets from above.

That was the only werewolf this side of the river Allard spotted.

Oh, he could see them, moving about on the other side, darting in and out of the shadows the full moon cast. One stayed on the other shore for nearly half an hour. Staring back at them, Allard thought. His soldiers tried, but half a mile was too great a distance, even for their excellent rifles.

Did the werewolf know that? They clearly weren’t as mindless as Allard had thought.

He wished for more light. Then at least he could have studied the monster properly. Maybe memorise the markings.

On the third night of the full moon, the whole pack was there, on the other side of the river, staring up to the gallery. The whole army. There had to be as many as a hundred of them, maybe more. It was hard to tell with only the moonlight.

He hadn’t expected there still to be so many of them. Did that mean the ones who had gone with the refugees were back? Or was their intelligence wrong? Were there multiple groups?

Possibly the werewolves had split their forces, too?

Not knowing made him feel a sense of dread as he watched Marshal Soto salute the prince. His aide held a beautiful white destrier for him. The rest of their cavalry, their lightest infantry, and a token train of supply carts was lined up north of Erkford. Everyone else—the bulk of their infantry, their whole artillery, and most of the supplies—were in the process of crossing the bridge over the Lessing back towards the eastern shore.

Guarded by most of their chasseurs.

Allard answered the salute, then waited for the Levant to get into the saddle. He was the last one over the bridge. Which meant he had a front row seat when the explosion went off.

He couldn’t have said why he looked back again, but he turned his head just in time to see a stark naked man jump into the river from somewhere under the bridge. The stranger had barely gone under when the flash followed, then the thunder. The blastwave nearly knocked his horse over, and Allard right out of the saddle.

Coughing and cursing, he managed to push himself just high enough that he could see over the curb of the road. He half expected bullets to wizz over his head, but no, there was no attack—just a deep rumble from the bridge and the splash of bricks falling into the waters beneath.

On the other side, right across from Allard, stood the damn Feleke. Watching as the whole bridge seemed to buck—a wave went through it as the stones groaned—then the splashing grew louder as the central pillar holding up the arcs crumbled, dragging everything above down with it, ripping a hole into the road that quickly grew wider.

Separating the army.

The Feleke had the nerve to wave at Allard, silver shade shimmering gently in the sunlight. Then he turned around, walking away.

Allard kept his head down until he was out of sight, then carefully rose. Just as an aide tried to pull him fully to his feet, the werewolves took up their chorus again.

Somewhere out of sight, but close.

Allard stared at the destroyed bridge a few seconds longer. It was well done: too far to repair with wooden beams. Then he shook himself.

“We’re moving,” he ordered. “Stick to the plan.”

His staff hurried to pass on that order. A furrier had collected and checked over his horse, so Allard climbed back into the saddle.

He tried to keep his expression composed as he closed up to the Levant, while thanking Mithras in his head that the prince hadn't gone with Soto.

That would have been hard to explain to Rambouilllet, if he had lost the boy!