Greg cursed inwardly when he woke up the next morning, still furry and four-legged. On the plus side, he still had all his stuff, and he didn’t feel like he was starving. On the downside, he must have strayed away from his old track sometime at night.

So he might as well go and try to find more water before he tried to retrace which direction he should be going in. It was amazing the things he could smell now. Water? Easy. He found at least a dozen trails, too. Places to come back to, perhaps, once he had figured out how to become a human being who could hold a crossbow.

He was so intent on following the fresh smell of a small creek that he didn’t realize he could also scent old smoke until he was suddenly standing among tree stumps. Someone screamed, “Shoot it!”, and another voice yelled: “Get Eyal!”

Greg retreated back between the trees but didn’t run, frozen in indecision.

“Greg? Please tell me that is you, man,” he could hear Isaac call.

Greg would have laughed if he had been able to. Did he look like he could tell anyone anything?

“Come on, Greg,” Isaac continued. Greg was really surprised when he realized that the voice was coming closer.

“No one’s gonna shoot ye, ye just scared the crap out of us, ye know? Give us some warning next time, before ye show up like the big bad wolf.”

Greg could feel himself starting to shake a little. He was panting like an overheated dog, while he listened to Isaac break through the underbrush. This guy was either the bravest man he had ever met or the dumbest, but the far more pressing question was what would happen once they were standing face to face.

However, when Isaac did break through the underbrush, just a few yards away from him, Greg felt himself relax. He could do this. It was all good, at least as long as the sun was up.

“Oy gevalt,” Isaac whispered, and stopped dead. He swallowed hard and pressed on: “Hi, Greg. Ye gonna come back to the camp with me?

Come on, don’t just stare at me like that, that’s creepy. Ye can understand me, right?”

Greg lowered his head and raised it again.

“That’s a nod, right?”

Greg rolled his eyes but repeated the gesture.

“Right, a nod. Great, we have communication. So, ye gonna come?”

Greg sat down on the ground.

“I take it that’s a no. Why not? Damn it, ye aren’t leaving, are ye? We kinda need ye, ye know?”

Greg thought about it, then shook his head.

“No? No, ye’re not leaving or no, we don’t need ye?”

Greg shook his whole body, like a dog that was trying to dry its pelt.

Isaac narrowed his eyes. “Are ye leaving?” he asked again.

Greg gave the “no” shake.

“Well, thank God,” Isaac muttered. “But ye’re not coming into camp right now?”

Greg nodded.

Isaac considered this. “Fair enough,” he finally said. “Ye gonna wait here, let me get Eyal?”

Greg laid down on the ground, nodded again.

Isaac took a half step closer, paused again, stepped back.

“Just wait here,” he said, and then took off in a hurry.

Greg sighed. He could hear more shouting a moment later, and somebody wanted to know how Isaac could be so sure that it was really him. He could hear more steps, too, while Isaac was still talking, and then he could see Thoko and Smith coming towards him. A little further behind them followed two of Isaac’s cousins, Anshel and Gavrel with their axes, and Dicun, one of the mercenaries, who had his hand on his pistol. Greg got back to his feet.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Smith muttered, and just like Isaac, he stopped in his tracks. Thoko, however, came a few steps closer until she was almost within arm’s reach, putting herself most certainly in Greg’s reach.

“Careful,” Dicun muttered.

Thoko frowned. “I always thought the stories were just exaggerations,” she said thoughtfully as if Dicun hadn’t spoken. “I kind of assumed a werewolf would be closer to an actual wolf in size than a horse. How long will he stay like this?”

“Who knows?” Smith said. “The only one who knows is probably him.”

“He can understand ye just fine,” Isaac interrupted, who was back with Eyal.

“How do you know?” Anshel asked, sounding dubious.

“Cause he answered my questions,” Isaac said. There was a definite note of smugness in his voice. “Yes and no only, of course, but still.”

“Is that true?” Eyal asked, his firm gaze fixed on Greg.

Greg nodded, which for some reason made everybody except for Isaac jump.

“All right,” Eyal said. “Isaac said you’re willing to stay?”

Greg nodded again.

“But you won’t come into camp today?”

Greg laid down and nodded again. He had a feeling that this yes and no stuff would get old really fast.

“So you want to stay right here?”

Greg shook his coat again like a dog, and Isaac helpfully explained: “I think that’s supposed to mean ‘maybe’, or ‘I don’t know’, or something. When he means ‘no’ he just shakes his head.”

Greg nodded along. Sun, he was feeling stupid.

“But you’ll be staying close?”

Yes.

“Right,” Eyal said. “Got any idea when you’ll start looking like yourself again?”

No.

Eyal paused, shrugged, and repeated: “Right. We need to get back to work. And… well, we’ll keep the fires going tonight, I hope you understand that.”

Yes.

Smart choice, Greg wanted to add.

He looked after them when they returned to work, and curled up, trying to go to sleep. Mostly he was bored, and after a while, he got up again and dragged his pack onwards until he could see the workers again. Right on the border of the forest and the clear-felled area, he settled down again. All work stopped on the clearing for a moment until Eyal started shouting, and people hurried to get moving again.

Greg was so bored he almost wished he could help them. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to doze a little. Finally, he realized that this was what he had been waiting for. He dragged his pack a little deeper into the forest and closed his eyes until he felt like a crossbow string when the trigger was pulled and all the strain was released in one violent motion. He staggered around in agony, while his body rearranged itself.

Greg groaned and hurried to get up. His human skin was a lot less tough than the wolf’s hide, and sitting on last year’s fir cones was not very comfortable. He quickly put his clothes on and then leaned against a tree. Somehow, the thought of walking into the camp looking like this was even more awkward than as a wolf.

But damn it, he was hungry, and he didn’t have the energy to go hunting.

“Look who’s back,” drawled Dicun when Greg came out of the trees into the clearing. “Feeling better?”

He was surprisingly relaxed for someone who had been face to face with a monster less than an hour ago. Most of the others were more cautious and kept their distance. They all stared, of course.

Or rather, not all. There were some noticeable gaps in the rows of workers felling trees and digging up stumps. Greg swallowed hard.

“You saved most of us,” Eyal said, suddenly appearing at Greg’s side. “Not all of us, unfortunately.”

Greg looked around, counting, trying to remember how many they had been when they had left Eoforwic. A little more than fifty, he thought. Now he could see just over thirty men. That couldn’t be right, though, could it? The few Rot creatures who had invaded the camp couldn’t have killed twenty workers?

“How many…?” Greg asked.

“Dead? Three,” Eyal said matter-of-factly. “The others left this morning. All of the convicts are gone, and most of the mercenaries.”

“Because of me,” Greg said.

“Probably part of the reason,” Eyal shrugged. “The convicts didn’t want to be here in the first place. But I reckon it was seeing the Rot up close that drove them away. I don’t think you can imagine what it’s like, lying flat on your back, being unable to move, and feeling that foul, corrupted magic engulf you, the terror of it. You want to scream with the pain, but all you can do is wait to die.” He chuckled darkly. “Or wait for a werewolf to walk by, of course. That was terrifying in its own way – seeing you with that torch, like there weren’t Satan’s little brothers walking around our camp.”

He paused, looked down on his feet, and pleaded: “Those of us who’re still here are counting on you to stay.”

“Really?” Greg looked around. “How much money did the duke offer?”

“You know this isn’t about money,” Eyal sighed.

“Not for your family,” Greg said. “But you can’t tell me that everyone else here is after that land grant, too?”

“What were you after when you joined, then?” Eyal asked. “If it isn’t a piece of forest of your own?”

That made Greg laugh. “Werewolves aren’t allowed to own land, Eyal. The duke isn’t going to ignore that, or he’ll have a riot on his hands.”

“So why did you join the crew?”

“I just needed a way out.”

“Away from what?”

Greg sighed. “Everything, Eyal. And everyone, too.”

“So you didn’t know a werewolf could fight the Rot?”

Greg looked at him in surprise. “Why would I have known that?”

“Well, you used to be a werewolf hunter, right?” Eyal shrugged. “It’s just hard to imagine that in the two hundred years since the Valoise came here, nobody ever found out about this.”

“Oh, I bet the Valoise know,” Greg muttered darkly. “I’ve wondered before why they pay so handsomely for all dead werewolves, not just the ones that are threatening their own land. You get exactly the same amount of silver for a werewolf killed north of Mannin, where no Valoise live, as for one killed outside Deva.”

“You’re thinking they brought the Rot to Loegrion on purpose?”

“No,” Greg said. “But I think they do profit from it.” He sighed, and changed the topic: “You guys got any food?”

Eyal hesitated. “Some,” he said. “But we’re running low. I was actually hoping you might be willing to help with that.”

“I guess I could go hunting,” Greg sighed. “Just… lunch first?”

“Actually, I was wondering if you could see what happened to the supplies we were supposed to get,” Eyal said. “But sure, lunch first.”

So after a quick meal, Greg left the camp again, walking along the wide path the crew had cleared amidst the trees. He shot himself a couple of squirrels for dinner. By nightfall, he came across what was left of the caravan that had been supposed to bring them their supplies. For a second he worried that it might have been him who had attacked it, but there were no werewolf tracks around, just the weird, deformed imprints the Rot left behind.

He settled down next to the cart, ate dinner, and fell asleep right after.

The next morning, he tried to find out what had happened to the animals that had dragged the cart, but there was no trace of them. Most likely, the Rot had taken them.

Greg had a good root around the wagon. It looked like the Rot wasn’t interested in sacks of beans and flour, and barrels full of preserved vegetables, salted fish and meat. No cheese, though, which was a bit of a disappointment. He really would have liked something he could munch on right now.

The big question, however, was how he would get it all back to the camp. It would take him hours to walk there, and then the rest of the day to bring the butty gang’s cart back here and get everything loaded. And then he still had to get it all to the navvies.

Greg sighed and stared at the cart. Without the oxen, it wasn’t going anywhere.

Unless…

Could he pull it? Not as a human, obviously. But if he could somehow get himself into the harness, then transform, and pull the cart?

Greg rubbed his face. He had had crazier ideas, even though he couldn’t remember when right now. And it would only cost him a few minutes to try, right?

Right.

“This is insane,” he muttered, while he had a good look at the yoke. Two oxen had pulled it.

“There’s no way you’ll pull this alone, Greg.”

But he took off his clothes, dropped them with the rest of his stuff onto the wagon, and put the yoke over his shoulder. He arranged the harness over himself as well as possible and bit down onto his tongue, hard.

There had to be a better way to trigger his transformation.

But at least this worked. He did turn into a wolf, and he did end up with the yoke on his back. Even most of the harness was in place. So Greg threw himself forward and couldn’t help but wonder whether or not Eyal had meant for him to do this when he had sent him out, all alone.

When he started pulling, first all he did was push out the yoke, since half of it wasn’t attached to anything. He had to throw his whole weight into it and dig his claws into the ground just to get the cart rolling, but once it did, it was actually not too bad. The ground was dry and hard, and the butty gang had flattened a path for their own cart.

This is stupid, Greg thought every time he had to pull the cart out of a pothole. He toiled on, though, until even the werewolf got tired. Better than walking the whole distance two more times.

The looks he got when he reached the camp were worth the whole effort, Greg decided. Isaac’s jaw literally dropped, and the others stared just as flabbergasted. Then a cheer went up when they all realized they were finally getting their supplies.

Still, nobody dared to come closer, until Greg started shaking himself, a little annoyed. Isaac at least got the message and helped him to get out of the bloody harness. Thoko followed a little more hesitantly.

“So…” she asked while fiddling with the reins, “when you turn human again, do you get your clothes back? No? Well, then you’ll probably want these?”

She offered him the trousers he had thrown onto the cart, and Greg took them between his teeth as gently as he could before plodding off into the forest.

Turning human again was still much trickier than becoming the wolf. The transformation itself took much longer, too, and hurt even worse. On the upside, dinner was being prepared when he returned into camp, a little hesitating. Eyal had made his men keep a gap open in their defences, so Greg didn’t burn himself when he walked in. The workers were still keen on not getting too close, though.

Greg wasn’t surprised.

“You going to stay with the camp tonight?” Eyal asked.

“Only if you don’t mind,” Greg said. He would like to sleep in his tent again. It wasn’t exactly luxurious, but better than sleeping on the bare forest floor. It wouldn’t be worth getting his head cut off, though.

“It’ll be safe, right? Moon is waning again, and all that?”

“As safe as it’s going to be, outside of new moon,” Greg sighed.

“Well, then, there you are,” Eyal said. “Just don’t eat anyone tonight.”

“Funny,” Greg muttered.

He retreated to his tent right after his bowl was empty. The ring of silence all around him was getting on his nerves. As soon as the tarpaulin flapped behind him, a whole storm of whispers picked up. He tried not to listen, but he didn’t need to hear them anyway, to know what they were all talking about.

The whispering grew even louder when he picked up an axe the next morning and went to work as if he’d never been gone, but at least the sound of the metal hitting wood made it a lot easier to ignore. He worked right at the head of the trail they were cutting, to keep as much distance to the others as possible, but after a while, Isaac came walking up to work on the tree right next to his.

“So,” the other man said after the first couple of strikes, “ye’re going to work during the day and guard the camp at night? I’m not sure I see that working out so well, long term.”

“I don’t need to guard the camp unless it’s raining,” Greg pointed out. “And I’ll go crazy if I spend the day just milling about.”

“The mercenaries seemed to be doing just fine.”

“Guess they’re used to being bored,” Greg sighed. “Look, if you really want to worry about something, worry about new moon.”

“What about new moon?”

“I’ll be as human as everyone else around here on new moon,” Greg huffed with his next swing. “I’ve no idea what’ll happen if the Rot attacks us then.”

“Well, there’s a cheery thought,” Isaac grumbled. “I had just started to think this whole thing would be easy now.”

“Easy, sure. Except for full moon,” Greg muttered. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and lowered his voice. “How okay are the others really with me being here?”

Isaac didn’t answer right away.

“Just – give it some time,” he said, once his tree was coming down. “Save their lives a few more times, ye know? And it might also help, I reckon, if ye would give them a chance to get to meet ye. Ye always keep to yerself, ye know? Like right now. Not really helpful if ye want people to trust ye.”

“Thanks a lot for the relationship advice,” Greg grumbled. Though maybe Isaac had a point. Making friends had never been his strongest suit. “I’d just rather not get my throat cut.”

Isaac paused, put down his axe, tilted his head to the side. He looked almost a little angry. “Was that a reference to schechitah?”

“No,” Greg said. “Because I have no clue what that is. I just really don’t like getting killed.”

“Oh. Okay then.”

“What is schechitah?” Greg asked.

Again Isaac took his time with an answer. “It’s the religious method of my people for slaughtering animals allowed for eating,” he said, just as Greg thought he had asked something insulting. “It’s the only way of producing meat that we’re allowed to eat. It’s why Eyal asked you to find the supply cart rather than send you out hunting. The meat on there is from one of our own.”

“I see,” Greg said. “Why would I make a reference to that?”

Isaac shrugged. “For Schechitah, the butcher cuts the animal’s throat in one motion, all the way to the bone, and then lets all the blood run out. Cause we don’t eat meat that still has blood inside. Or any blood at all, ye know.”

“I see,” Greg repeated, though he wasn’t sure he really did.

“There are more rules, but anyway, we hear a lot of, well, jokes about it. And insults. And the Mithrans like to take our traditions, twist them into something as wrong as the Rot, and use it to make us into villains, even monsters. Not so much here in Loegrion, luckily, but still.”

“I don’t really know anything about your traditions,” Greg said. “But if I start sounding like the Mithrans, feel free to punch me.”

They went back to felling trees, but Isaac’s words had reminded Greg of something.

“I’ve got another question,” he said after a moment. “Tell me if this is insulting, but – why do the Mithrans call your people the Moon Worshippers? While everyone else on Loegrion calls you the Wayfarers?”

To his relief, Isaac burst out laughing. “They’re idiots, that’s why. Wayfarers is what we call ourselves. Don’t call us Moon Worshippers. Ye see, the Mithrans worship the sun, yes? So their whole calendar, all the months and holidays and stuff is all about, ye know, astronomy and how the sun rises on the longest day of the year and the shortest day of the year, and stuff.”

“Yeah, sure,” Greg said. “It’s a solar calendar.”

“Fancy. Well, we don’t worship the sun,” Isaac went on. “So our months start when the new moon rises the first time. You might have noticed that we stopped work early last time that happened?”

Greg nodded, wiping some sweat from his face in the same movement.

“So, yeah,” Isaac continued. “The Mithrans have their months based on the sun because they worship the sun, and since their way is obviously the only way to do things, they figured that since our months are based on the moon, we must surely worship the moon.”

He turned back to the work, and added: “So, since we’re talking about the moon phases – how many werewolves really are rabid, and how many just get killed cause it happens to be full moon?”

“Nobody knows,” Greg said. “My teacher and I talked about it a lot, but really, nobody is keeping book.”

“So ye’re saying ye hunters don’t know? Even when ye’re killing them, ye have no idea whether ye’re dealing with, well, someone like you, or a mass murderer?”

“How could we?” Greg asked. “Or rather, how could they? They just get hired.”

“So they never, I don’t know, try to talk with the werewolf?”

Greg laughed. “No, Isaac. You see, a hunter only gets paid when he can present a – well, a dead werewolf. Cause otherwise, they could just start killing random people and claim they’re werewolves, you know? And people used to, when the Valoise first came here. But anyway, that means the majority of hunters only really go out around full moon.”

“Isn’t that like the most dangerous time?”

“Not really,” Greg said. “On full moon, you’re just dealing with a wild animal. A really big, rabid wild animal, but still, just an animal. Any other time of the month, well, you risk dealing with a human mind. A possibly crazy human mind, but all the same, someone who might be making plans, avoid traps, outthink you. Someone who might come after you with a strategy and all the strength of the wolf.”

Greg shrugged. “Well, and on full moon, all werewolves are the same.”

“I’d still have thought that ye would – I don’t know, at the very least prioritize the murderous ones.”

“Sort of,” Greg grunted, swinging his axe again. “My father always said that a village doesn’t bother alerting the Valoise over someone who is just passing through. Usually not even about a few killed sheep. They most certainly don’t scrape together a bounty. If they make the effort, you can assume that something bad happened, though I’ll admit, sometimes it just means a lot of livestock has been killed.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The Church will call a hunter on any werewolf they hear about, so with those bounties, you never really know. Sometimes they’ll outright say that it’s a precautionary bounty. Father doesn’t take those, but others will, of course. Still, I reckon that more of the crazy ones are killed than the others. How many there are of either, I really don’t know.”

Greg did try to follow Isaac’s advice during lunch and sit at the big fire in the middle of the camp. He didn’t think it made much difference, though. Nobody was eager to talk to him, and when he spoke to them, people just flinched back.

So after lunch, he fled back to the work of cutting down trees. At least that way he could pretend that he had wanted to be alone.

Things didn’t really get better over the next couple of weeks, but on the upside, nobody tried to kill him either. The weather remained dry, and as a result, the Rot stayed away, too. So he didn’t even have an opportunity to “save their lives a few more times.”

“Ye look almost disappointed,” Isaac pointed out. “I thought ye would be happy that we all survived new moon.”

“Starting to feel a little useless,” Greg admitted. “I mean, considering the danger I’ll put everybody in in a couple of weeks.”

“Last full moon was fine.”

“Last full moon was bloody lucky,” Greg sighed. “If I had walked into camp just a few hours earlier, before sunrise and not at noon, you might all be dead now.”

“You were fine every single night I’ve seen you.”

“Yeah, well. Ever heard people speak about the three nights of full moon? Technically, only one of them is the ‘real’ thing, but trust me, it doesn’t make that much of a difference, not from a werewolf’s perspective nor from a hunter’s.”

“Yeah? So what is it like, from a werewolf’s perspective? You never talk about that.”

“Can’t, really,” Greg said. “I don’t remember most of it. Full moon is a complete blur, and the nights before and after are not much better. It’s fine if I can keep calm and stay human, but...”

“So… like sleepwalking?”

“I have no idea what sleepwalking is like,” Greg said. “But I’m pretty sure sleepwalkers don’t have this irresistible urge to kill everything that moves.”

“Probably not,” Isaac agreed easily. He paused, and added: “Tell us another story, then.”

Greg was about to ask who “us” was supposed to be when he realized that they had an audience. It looked like Isaac had been right, and the others really were interested in hearing more. Greg sighed and turned back towards the fire. He didn’t feel like talking about what it was like to be a werewolf, but he asked: “What sort of story?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Isaac said, waving vaguely. “Something about werewolf hunters, maybe. I bet ye know some good ones.”

Greg didn’t feel like talking about his family and their hunts either. Then he had another idea.

“Have you ever heard the story of the Morgulon?” he asked. He was relieved when the other people around the fire shook their heads. He thought about the story for a moment, and finally started:

“So, it all began about, oh, thirty years ago. There was a circus in Deva, one of those travelling fairs that show acrobatic acts, jugglers, clowns, trick riding, animals, and an assortment of oddities and freaks from around the world. Their last act was one of them. They would roll in this huge cage made of massive steel bars, covered with a cloth, so that the audience could only see the bars here and there, but had no idea what was inside. They would dim the lights, and the announcer spoke of this terrible, frightening monster, the most dangerous creature in all of Loegrion: The werewolf. And how they had caught this most special of monsters, a werewolf who hadn’t been bitten but had instead been born, a werewolf since birth.”

A murmur went around the campfire, and Greg grinned. “They called it the Morgulon.

“They would take off the cloth, and there, in this huge metal cage, there was this tiny little girl, four or five years old, wearing nothing but another piece of cloth.”

Greg smiled wryly. “Anyone want to guess what she transformed into?”

“A wolf, I guess, right?” Isaac asked.

“Not quite,” Greg said slowly. “Have you guys ever seen a young puppy, when they’re barely old enough to walk, and they still have those huge, floppy ears? Paws that don’t quite fit their bodies yet, and they just sort of stumble around?”

Isaac nodded, just like the others. Greg thought he could almost see the understanding dawning on their faces.

“Yes, she transformed into a puppy,” he said. “Golden eyes, huge paws, floppy ears. Papers called it the cutest thing on earth. She was so cute, in fact, that people started complaining about the cage. To which of course the circus people had to say that letting a werewolf run around free would be illegal, and that the little girl would be killed if they did let her go.”

Greg paused. “She had never hurt anyone. Probably never been outside that cage or at the very least the circus. Spent every single full moon in that cage. But she would have been executed all the same. People started questioning the whole law that requires a werewolf to be killed on sight. So the Valoise couldn’t think of anything better to do than to ban the whole circus from performing in Loegrion for five years. They let them travel through the rest of the Empire, though.”

“What happened to them?” Isaac asked.

Greg smiled grimly. “They came back, after five years. There’d been some really bad attacks in the meantime, whole villages getting destroyed by packs of werewolves, and, well, the little girl wasn’t quite as young anymore, you know? Nine, ten years old now, and still cute, and all that. But... There was this young man, a priest of Mithras, a real fanatic. He saw the show, and he didn’t think it was cute, not at all. He set fire to the cage, and half the circus in the process.

“Now, some say, she died in that fire, but the one who set it, the fanatic? He was convinced that she made it out. He became a hunter, just so he could kill this child who had never hurt anyone in her life.”

“But he never got her?” Gavrel asked. He sounded surprisingly hopeful.

Greg smiled. “No, he never got her. Nobody did. You see, this guy, he hired other hunters, at first. Sent them after her, and when they had no success, he tried himself. People thought he was mad, eventually, because he seemed to be the only one who ever saw her. He swore blind she killed his wife, almost ten years later. The man eventually was mauled to death by a werewolf, and his daughter swears it was her, the Morgulon. The daughter is still hunting her, but even though she’s a much better huntress than her father ever was, she never caught up with her.

“The Morgulon became this legend – the werewolf who couldn’t be killed, who could smell every trap, escape every hunting company. She became sort of a joke among those hunters who don’t believe in her. You know, somebody loses something, and people go ‘hey, the Morgulon was here again’.”

He could have told some more of the legends about the Morgulon, but the others seemed to have heard enough. Only Isaac remained seated next to him, fidgeting with his sleeves.

“I got another question,” he said. “But, I mean, ye don’t have to answer, ye know? I was just curious – does yer family even know?”

“That I got bitten? Yes. That I’m still mostly all there? I don’t know. I tried to send a letter from Eoforwic, but I don’t know if the kid I gave it to actually posted it.”

“Ye can try again in Sheaf,” Isaac suggested.

“Like I’ll enter the city,” Greg sniffed. “That’s crazy, Isaac.”

“But no one would know ye’re a werewolf, right?”

“Seems a little risky to count on that, don’t you think?”

“What do ye think they’ll do, when they find out? Yer family, I mean?”

Greg sighed. “Well, legally, they have to try and kill me, no matter if I’m one of the dangerous ones or not. Which is why I didn’t write anything about where I am or where I’m going.”

The weather was starting to get nice and warm now, which raised the risk of both a forest fire from their protective ditches and thunderstorms. Greg ended up staying at the camp until the day before first night of full moon once again. He was so relieved when he came back to the camp and found everyone alive, he didn’t even mind all the new stares he got. Isaac told him that he had kept the whole gang awake by going past it several times, and howling.

A week later, they broke through to the environs of Sheaf, farmland mostly. It wasn’t exactly safe, but safe enough that another crew, which had started at Sheaf, had taken care of the work. Eyal called for a feast that night, and declared: “Tomorrow, we will claim our reward.”

“Yeah, well, I won’t,” Greg muttered to himself, while everyone around him cheered. He thought he had spoken too softly for anyone to hear him, but Thoko behind him asked: “What do you mean, you won’t?”

Greg jumped. He wasn’t used to people coming this close anymore.

“Well?”

When she didn’t look away, Greg ran a hand through his hair. “The whole point of me coming here was to get away from human settlements. I’m not walking straight into Sheaf, no way.”

“But – I mean – full moon is just over,” Thoko pointed out. “It’ll be safe for everyone.”

“Not for me,” Greg gave back. “All it takes is for one member of this crew to get drunk and spill something, and it’s my head on a pole.”

“I thought they’re only allowed to kill werewolves in wolf form,” Isaac chimed in.

“Not if there’s a reliable witness who can attain to the condition of the werewolf in question,” Greg sighed. “And since there’s a doctor in Deva they can ask, and, oh, this whole crew… well, they don’t even need to wait for full moon.”

“But nobody here would say anything,” Isaac insisted.

“Right,” Greg muttered. “And you can guarantee that they’ll all stay sober too, and won’t gossip at all about how they were the very first who made it through ten miles of total wilderness, right?”

“Well… I guess not,” Isaac said. “But, I mean, that wouldn’t really count as testimony, would it?”

Greg rubbed his face. “Look, just bring me some fresh food, maybe some candied fruits, okay? Hell, I’ll give you money.”

Thoko and Isaac exchanged a look.

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” Thoko said. “We’re not taking your money.”

“Fine,” Greg sighed. “Whatever.”

He got up and walked over to his tent. Could he keep that, or was that too conspicuous? But who would see him here, in the forest?

Only they weren’t in the forest anymore, not really. There was now a line running right through the trees, all the way from Eoforwic to Sheaf. Greg had to admit, he was a little impressed with the work they had all accomplished in the last months. Twenty-two miles from Eoforwic to Sheaf, and their team had done the hardest part, by far: ten miles of rot-infested forest.

And Sun, he really, really wanted to go into the town. Sleep a night or two in a real bed, take a hot bath, get some food that wasn’t cooked in one huge pot. And hell, if it were just him alone, he would have gone. But with the whole crew in tow? Thirty-two people, who knew what he was?

It was just way too dangerous.

“We could go together,” Thoko said behind him. “Actually, we could pretend we aren’t even part of the crew at all – that we’re, I don’t know, running away together, or something. Like that story you first told us. We could leave right now, get there hours before everyone else. Even if someone spills the beans that we had help from a werewolf, nobody would suspect it’s you.”

Greg hesitated. “Why do you want me along so badly?”

“Because I don’t think you want to stay behind. Also, I don’t think it’s right that you stay behind. Plus, we really want you to stay with us until we start work on the line to Mannin. And I don’t think you’ll do that, if it means not leaving the forest at all for the next, oh, two or three years, even for new moon.”

She was probably right about that, he probably didn’t have the patience.

“All right,” he finally said. “But we have to leave right now.”

Thoko grinned. “Okay. Let me just go and tell Eyal, and we’ll be off.”

“I didn’t know you even had any women’s clothing,” Greg noted when they set off.

“I have to, don’t I?” Thoko said. “Can’t go into the city in men’s clothing, can I?”

“Right,” Greg just said.

They didn’t speak much for the next few hours until the first hint of pink appeared at the horizon, and Thoko pointed out: “We should probably get our story straight. Just in case.”

So they spent the rest of the way coming up with increasingly unlikely reasons why they were going to Sheaf. Thoko had a great sense of humour and it was a lot of fun, though their eventual “official” version was rather boring. Greg hoped that they wouldn’t need to say too much anyway. If he was lucky, then the fact that he was travelling with Thoko should stop the guards at the gate from looking too closely at him.

It might have worked, possibly, if they hadn’t shown up at the gate so early in the morning, and coming from the wrong direction, too.

“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Greg muttered darkly to himself. Thoko kept glancing at him nervously, something that was really not making them look inconspicuous.

They each had to surrender their right arm, and then the guards pushed a contraption like a branding iron at their skin, only made of silver.

They started with Thoko, who of course didn’t flinch and finally stopped staring at Greg. Instead, she gave the guards her sweetest, most serene smile. Greg tried to look as if he was annoyed by the whole procedure because he would never be able to keep up a smile once they started on him.

It was bloody hard not to flinch and pull his arm away when they turned over to him. His left hand cramped into a fist, and he ground his teeth together as hard as he could, doing his best not to grimace with the pain when the silver touched his skin. He was pretty sure that a hot branding iron would have been less painful.

There was no way not to flinch.

“Do you get a lot of werewolves up here?” Thoko asked, just as the silver touched him, batting her long black lashes at the guards.

“Not really,” said the first guard.

“Can’t never be too careful,” said the other guard, and poked Greg again, without really looking at him.

“It must be a scary job, then,” Thoko continued. “Protecting the whole town from the Rot and the werewolves?”

“Oh, well, that’s why there’s a whole garrison of us,” said the guard who was still trailing the silver over Greg’s arm. “You should drop by, miss.”

When Thoko actually started giggling he finally let go of Greg’s arm, and didn’t look all that closely at the result.

“Well, that was fun,” Greg muttered, as soon as they were out of earshot.

“Are you all right?” Thoko wanted to know.

“Can’t feel my fingers,” Greg said and glanced down at them. “And it hurts as if someone held a candle to my arm. But I’ll be fine, yeah, as long as the silver doesn’t pierce my skin. Thanks for keeping them distracted.”

“If they had seen your face they never would have let us go,” Thoko replied with a smile. “Now, how about some breakfast? I’m starving.”

“Sounds good. Do we even know how long we’ll be in town?”

“A week, I think”, Thoko said.

“They’re giving us a whole week?”

That earned him a strange look from Thoko.

“Course,” she said. “If they work us to death, their railway will never get built. I wouldn’t be surprised if Eyal tries to make up for the people we have lost, either. Now that we have proven that it’s possible to survive the forest, that should be easier.”

“Oh joy,” Greg sighed.

They found a public house that did a decent breakfast with bacon, sausages and eggs, and strong tea for a reasonable price. Greg wanted to find himself a hotel afterwards, but Thoko wanted to wait for the rest of the crew. They ended up walking through the small mining town nearly all day. Thoko was hoping for a store that offered colonial goods, to find something she could treat her hair with since she planned to redo her braids while they were in town. Greg could never be bothered to do much with his own curls, and instead just shaved his hair down to stubble regularly.

It was nicer than Greg had expected, to be with Thoko. Sheaf certainly was not a jewel of a town.

“Well, there they are,” Greg said when they found the place where Eyal, Isaac, and the rest of the crew were already celebrating. “I think I better get going.”

“Oh, come on,” Thoko sighed. “Just for a few hours, okay? We don’t bite, I swear.”

“I might,” Greg muttered darkly, but Thoko just laughed and dragged him along.

“There they are!” Isaac was already yelling, “Gather round, you two, it’s time for rewards!”

And then he threw a bag at each of them. “I hope you don’t mind that we already divvied up the spoils.”

Greg was a little bit surprised that they were paying him at all, though he probably shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t bad payment, either, but he could have made the same sum on just a couple of werewolf hunts with a fraction of the effort.

The party was already starting, and just as he had expected, there was a lot of beer flowing. It didn’t take long for a crowd to gather around the crew of navvies either. Word had already gotten around that it had been them who had done the dangerous stretch through the forest, and people wanted to hear how it had been done.

Greg stuck it out for a couple of hours, but when he caught the line: “You have no idea what monsters we had to deal with to get it done,” he beat a hasty retreat. It was just a matter of time until someone spilled the whole story.

Sheaf had just one decent hotel, so Greg got himself a room there. If this was his one week of feeling human, then he was going to make the most of it. So he had a hot bath and the softest bed he could get, and then he ordered some more food, just because he could. He had his clothes cleaned overnight, and slept in late the next morning.

The food at the hotel was pretty good, so he ate lunch there, too, keeping an eye out for the rest of the crew. Apparently, though, they were staying someplace cheaper. Only when he finally left the hotel did he see a familiar face.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Smith greeted him.

With him were two men in sombre suits, and Smith continued: “This is Greg Feleke, our crew’s werewolf hunter.” He winked at Greg, and added: “These two gentlemen are the engineers of the Sheaf side of the operation.”

Greg exchanged handshakes with both of them, and was promptly asked: “You wouldn’t be related to the famous Bram Feleke?”

“My father,” Greg replied and felt himself sweating slightly. But it looked like his family had kept everything about him under wraps because the engineer continued:

“An actual professional hunter. You wouldn’t be interested in jumping ships, by any chance, young man?”

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Greg said. “But my father does not approve of abandoning a contract before it’s concluded.”

“Of course,” sighed the other man.

Greg hurried to get away from them but had to admit he was also relieved. He hadn’t expected the matter-of-factness with which Smith had lied to his colleagues. Or maybe not lied, but at least omitted a rather important fact about him.

Perhaps it was time to find out why Smith had joined this particular crew.

Greg shrugged to himself and buried his hands in his pockets, ambling down Sheaf high street. The town was fairly small, with a rather quaint centre that certainly predated the invasion of the Valoise. He could pretend that Mr. Higgins was walking by his side, spouting facts and dates and information like leaking ductwork. Greg guessed the town had been fairly wealthy, back before the invasion and the Rot, and even the layer of soot from the new steel mills, which was covering the city, couldn’t quite hide the beauty of the old buildings.

However, more noticeable than the buildings that were there were those that weren’t. There was, for example, no church of Mithras next to the market place, and the old Loegrian hóf that sat where Greg had expected a church had not been destroyed. In fact, it looked like it might even be still in use as a place of worship to the old, native gods, not just a market. Greg couldn’t see an Imperial Magistrate either. When he asked about that, people glared at him with so much hostility that he hurriedly explained that he was with the Lackland Company and only wanted to avoid the Valoisian officials.

The publican of the inn where he had sat down to have a drink gave him another long look but finally explained: “It’s up at the garrison. They’re scared to come into town, I wager. You aren’t with the crews from town.”

“No,” Greg said. “I’m with the forest crew.”

“You don’t look like a navvy.”

“I’m not,” Greg said and repeated the lie Smith had already used. “I’m their werewolf hunter.”

“Oh. Well then.”

Greg had no idea what that meant, but when he went on to ask for a post office, he was given correct directions.

The small mail station had only the words “Post Office” at its wall; somebody must have over-painted the old “Royal”, but nobody had bothered to add the word “Imperial.”

The painting of the Roi Solei inside was hung crookedly directly over a single torch. This was a common sort of resistance: The torch was the cheapest kind available, giving up thick, sooty smoke that quickly covered the painting. The Mithrans could hardly complain – fire was sacred, after all.

Greg spent a half-hour chewing on a pen, and finally put down: “Dear Mother and Father,

I hope you are all in good health, and I apologize for not writing more often. I will try to do better.

On positive news, I have found work and managed to avoid the factories. I guess you could call it a kind of cultivation. In any case, it happens at the fresh air, which suits me just fine.

The less positive aspect of this development is that I do not come into town often, and cannot say when my next letter will reach you.

I hope David, Andrew, and Nathan are all right. Please give my regards to Gustave. I miss you all.

Love, Greg.”

It was certainly no feat of literature, but it shouldn’t give too much away either, Greg hoped, so he closed the envelope and paid the fare.

That done, his plans for the week were pretty much exhausted, and he found himself a little at a loss about what to do next. Sheaf only had one small theatre that doubled as a music hall. Greg considered it, even though he already knew the play currently staged there, but he didn’t much fancy going alone. Beyond this, entertainment in Sheaf seemed to consist mostly of drinking, gambling, and ladies of negotiable affection.

No wonder the Valoise had little interest in this place.

Greg shook his head at himself. Sheaf wasn’t the problem. He would have been quite happy to sample the products of the local breweries with David and Andrew, or maybe cheat some unsuspecting folk out of a few coins with Nathan. His older brothers all didn’t care much for the theatre, unless it was comedy, but one of them was usually willing to humour him, and all three of them were happy to go to the music hall, even if they were more interested in seeing some acrobats or jugglers before the main act. His mother Imani was game for anything, from Valoisian sacral music to even the really bawdy amateur plays, and would drag Bram along if he was in town. With Mr. Higgins, he used to watch ancient classic tragedies, and visit exhibitions of the marvels of modern science. Gustave would join any activity that didn’t involve a sermon, but especially loved horses and any sport that involved them.

Sun, but he missed them all.

Greg had dinner at a small pub at the border of the new town, where the steel mills stood and the workmen lived and had just decided to return to the hotel and call it an early night when two of the mercenaries sat down opposite from him. Greg was pretty sure that he had never spoken more than three words to them before, and couldn’t remember their names either.

“Evening,” the older one of them greeted.

“Good evening,” Greg said. “Could you tell me your names again?”

The man paused, then smiled wryly. “Randal’s the name. This is Pate.” He nodded to his younger companion. “Eyal says you’re gonna go back into the forest with them.”

“Them?” Greg asked.

Randal shrugged. “Our contract was terminated by the company. Not surprising, after the rest of the unit ran and took the convicts with them. We sort of failed completely at this job.”

“So, why are you asking?” Greg wanted to know.

“Eyal asked us to join up as navvies. But I’m not going back in that forest without you.”

“I’m going back, yes.”

“All the way to Mannin?”

“Probably,” Greg said, shrugging. “Let’s get this line built, and then we’ll see about the long one.”

“Fair enough,” Randal said. “Guess we’ll see you in the forest, then.”

Greg stared after the two of them and ordered another beer. When his glass was empty, he got up and walked deeper into the new town, to where he had last seen the rest of the gang. He found them quickly. Somehow, sitting at one long table with Isaac, Eyal and the rest of their family just made him miss his own even more, but this night, he stayed.

Greg had no idea how or when he made it back to his hotel room the next morning. What he did have was a splitting headache. But at least he was alone in his room. He vaguely remembered the girls – and some boys – who had descended on the navvies like a group of vultures, as soon as it was clear that they had money in their pockets. The last thing he needed was to drag someone back to his room while drunk, and then possibly turn on them.

At least the hangover was susceptible to the werewolf healing, and it didn’t take long for the headache to fade away. He ended up back at the new town because he had no idea where else to go. Isaac looked like had only just gotten up when Greg found him.

“Want to go find some lunch in town?” Greg asked.

Isaac just groaned. “Bite me.”

“Very funny,” Greg gave back, “I guess I’ll see whether I can find Thoko then.”

“No, Mr. Touchy,” Isaac sighed. “There’s no way ye can tell me this is natural. And if ye are this awake and fit after last night, I think I really wouldn’t mind becoming a werewolf.”

Greg laughed, mostly because he had no idea what else to do with that statement.

“Well, let’s go find Thoko,” Isaac sighed.

Thoko was halfway through the process of braiding her hair up again, something Greg hadn’t thought was possible to do alone. She was scowling at the tiny mirror in her room in concentration and told them not to distract her.

They still ended up with quite a big group: Isaac, Anshel, Gavrel, Benesh, and Mendel, Pate, Randal, and Dicun, a couple of others whose names Greg couldn’t remember. It was more fun than he had expected. They did end up at the small theatre and music hall, where a group of old men was playing folk songs of the region. His father would have liked it. After the performance, they all returned to the new town for refreshments, which, unsurprisingly, consisted mostly of beer. Thoko joined them for dinner, bathing in the compliments for her artful new braids.

Greg was more careful tonight. After the crew had somehow managed not to spill the beans yet, it would have been rather embarrassing if he was the one who got drunk and couldn’t keep his mouth shut. There were, of course, hundreds of rumours floating around. Especially Dicun and Pate had a lot of fun in telling a new story to every single person who asked them about the journey, coming up with increasingly dazzling tales of their own heroic exploits.

Greg was a little amazed when he realized that the less gullible fellows within the audience believed that they had simply been lucky. He sat at the corner of their table and was mostly watching and listening, and sometimes struggling not to laugh at the tall tales Dicun came up with. As far as all the strangers knew, he was the resident werewolf hunter of the crew.

It took him a while to realize that he was being watched, too, from one of the corners of the room. There was a man sitting there, in even more threadbare clothing than the other labourers, nursing a single pint of beer all evening, from the round Dicun had stood everyone in the room. Whenever Greg looked over there, the guy seemed to be engrossed in his glass, but from the corner of his eyes, he could see that the man was staring daggers at him.

He got so unnerved that eventually, he asked one of the locals: “Do you know that guy over there?”

“Him?” said the worker. “That’s old Porter. Can’t tell you much about him. Lives just outside town, he says, never has any cash on him. Does odd jobs around here for food or some copper pennies.”

Greg looked over to the guy again, who was now getting up rather hurriedly. “How long has he been around?”

“Couple of years now, I guess. Since they pulled up the new city, I reckon.”

“Thank you,” Greg said and dropped a silver coin onto the counter. “Keep the change,” he added and pushed through the crowd after the old man. He made it to the door just in time to see Porter run around a corner, surprisingly spry.

Greg took off after him and hoped that he was right about the guy. Otherwise, he would probably feel pretty damn stupid once he caught up with him. If he caught up with him. The old man could certainly haul.

Luckily, though, Porter was stopped a couple of streets later. Apparently, he had stumbled into a group of workmen who had taken their drinks outside one of the pubs and were very much not amused.

Greg walked up to the group and tried to find the leader, or at least the most pissed off guy in the group.

“Sorry about that,” he said to the blond man who was almost foaming at the mouth. “He’s with me. Here, get yourself a new round.”

He flicked two silvers at them and grabbed Porter’s arm. The clinking of the coins distracted the strangers long enough that he could drag the old man away, despite the way he struggled. Porter went so far as to snap after his fingers.

“Go ahead,” Greg said. “Bite me. I think you’ll be surprised by the result.”

That did stop Porter from struggling. For a moment they stood in an alley filled with shadows, staring at each other.

Then Porter seemed to realize: “You aren’t even armed.”

“No,” Greg said. “And I’m not here to hurt you, either.”

Porter freed his arm with a yank. He muttered darkly to himself, and eventually asked: “How did you know?”

“I didn’t know until you ran,” Greg said. “I’d never even have noticed you if you hadn’t stared at me like the devil incarnate.”

“Well, they say you’re a hunter.”

“Sort of,” Greg said. He was beginning to wonder if this was a good idea. Would the gang be okay with a second werewolf on the team?

“How can you be sort of a hunter?”

“I don’t hunt to kill,” Greg said. “I want to bring you to my boss, alive.”

“Why?”

“You can fight the Rot, can’t you?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Greg sighed. “You’ve heard that they want to build a railway? All the way from Eoforwic to Mannin?”

“And then they go and say us werewolves are mad,” Porter grunted. “That’s insane.”

“But if it works, there could be some gold in it for you,” Greg said. “All you got to do is hire up with the right gang of navvies. Protect them from the Rot, and they’ll keep you fed. Pay you, too.”

Porter huffed. “Try the other one, it’s got bells on it.”

Greg sighed, gripped his arm again, and dragged him out onto a bigger street, which had streetlamps on it.

“Look here,” he said, and held out his palm for Porter to see, then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a silver and closed his hand around it for a second. Porter tried to retreat when Greg opened his hand again, but stopped when he put the coin away and held out his hand.

“What,” was all Porter managed.

“So, you interested in meeting the boss?” Greg said, and rubbed his hand, to get some warmth back into it. “I’ll stand you another pint.”

“Food, too. Hell, I won’t promise anything, but I got to see this man who thinks it’s a great idea to have a werewolf on crew.”

“That’s fine,” Greg sighed.

Of course, now he had to find out where Eyal had gone to, and hope that he was sober enough to hear him out.

Luckily, though, the gang hadn’t moved, and Eyal was still sitting next to Gavrel, listening to and shaking his head at Dicun, who by now was standing on top of the long table. When Greg waved at him, he got up and came over.

“Is there maybe a quiet corner where we can talk?” Greg asked. “I’d like to introduce you to my – colleague here, Mr. Porter.”

“Never mind the Mr.” Porter chimed in. “I’m just Porter.”

Eyal eyed the old man with interest, but no hesitation, as far as Greg could tell.

“Just Porter then,” he said. “Interested in joining the railway, Porter?”

“Dunno.” Porter looked around at the crew again, fidgeting a little. “But if you wanna give me the spiel, I’ll listen. This young fellow here promised me a beer and some food.”

So the three of them sat down in a corner of the large taproom, and Eyal explained to Porter the job and its rewards again. Greg wasn’t sure how much the old man even listened. He seemed pretty fixated on the plate and glass in front of him.

When Eyal finished, Porter let his gaze trail through the room again. “Do you need an answer right now?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Eyal said. “We’ll be moving out at the end of the week, but if you want to think about it longer than that, you’re welcome to come find our camp at any time.”

“And what are you going to tell the company?”

“I don’t believe in bothering the bosses with the itty-bitty details of day to day operations.”

Porter huffed. “Be careful,” he grumbled. “Rumour is, the duke doesn’t like werewolves very much.”

“Who does?” Greg muttered to himself.

Porter looked at him again and ran a hand through his dirty, matted hair. Greg guessed that it had been brown once, but there was so much grey in it now that it was hard to tell. Probably a natural effect of age though. Other werewolves’ eyes changed, right after their first full moon, and often their hair took on the colour of their wolf coat, too. Greg ran a self-conscious hand through his own curly black hair. He had cut it down to stubble at the hotel the first night in town. He’d been bloody lucky that his physical appearance hadn’t changed at all. Porter’s obviously hadn’t, either. Was that a sign of a sane werewolf, that their appearance didn’t change permanently?

“Think he’ll do it?” Eyal asked once Porter had left.

“Not sure,” Greg said. “I just – well, when he ran from me, and I realized what he is, I just thought you should meet him.”

Eyal nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right, I think. However, now you’ve been the one who spilled the secret.”

“Who is he going to tell?” Greg gave back. “The guards? He might as well cut his own throat. And after all the work Dicun has done here, no one is even going to believe him anyway.”

“Fair point,” Eyal said.

Greg didn’t see anything of Porter again, even though it was nearly new moon, and they were as safe as two werewolves inside a city were likely to get. Therefore, Greg wasn’t surprised when they moved back out without the old man. Their new job was to build a bed for the tracks, which meant hours and hours of digging to even the ground, either by filling in holes or shoring up embankments, all to create a firm substrate for the tracks to go on. Suddenly, Smith the engineer, was everywhere on site, taking measurements, giving directions, and often picking up a shovel himself, to show them how something was done.

The work was still backbreakingly hard, and wasn’t made easier by the fact that Eyal had decided against taking on new people in Sheaf.

“We’ll keep it in the family for now,” he explained.

A family, which now consisted of everyone who had stuck it out with them, not just Eyal’s actual relatives. Each one of them had proven their ability to keep their mouth shut, and Greg felt safe in their company. They apparently did too, because they didn’t even mind that Greg was starting to practice his transformations just out of sight. He was slowly getting better at controlling his shape-shifting. As long as the moon was half or fuller, he no longer needed to hurt himself to become the wolf, and while the moon was just a crescent, he was getting fairly good at becoming human again.

It was a rather dry and warm summer, so Greg only had to defend the camp from the Rot during one single particularly heavy thunderstorm, before they emerged on the other side of the forest again. Another crew of navvies had already set up a water and coal station right at the edge of the trees. Smith said that the newest steam engines, which the Valoise used, had special compartments to bring their own water. If they had some of those, they wouldn’t need to stop on the way to Sheaf at all.

Now all that was missing were the actual tracks.