Nothing at all happened the next day, aside from the fact that the weather took a turn for the worse: It started to snow in thick, wet flakes which melted within minutes, turning the ground into heavy mud. It couldn’t make the work any easier at the huge bridge that was to span the mightiest of the Loegrian rivers.

Lane stared up into the scaffolding and wondered who the architects responsible for the giant edifice were – whoever they were, they had to be made of sterner stuff than the colleagues of Mr. Smith at the Loir-construction: Despite the weather and whatever was happening with the Rot, she spotted an engineering team brooding over blueprints.

She wasn’t surprised at all to learn at lunch that the team in charge was from Mannin. Northerners. You probably either had to be as mad as them to work out here, or have special reason to hate the Empire.

Lane wasn’t entirely sure which group she fell into herself.

Like everyone else, she found herself periodically looking over to where Ragna had settled down in her wolf-shape. The huge, shaggy creature was dozing, but her ears still flicked with comforting regularity. Even now, she was on guard.

Of course, no one knew if Ragna was even old enough, powerful enough, to sense the thing that was hiding in the distance should it decide it wanted to really hide.

Especially if it really was a Rot queen.

“We should have told Morgulon to get moving straight away, when we sent the message from First Camp,” Andrew said at dusk, as they followed the workers back to the dubious safety of the walls.

Lane agreed silently. It hadn’t seemed as urgent, at First Camp, just one train stop from Eoforwic, a place Morgulon could easily reach within a couple of hours. Out here it was a different matter.

But the night passed, and then another day, and somehow, the inaction made the waiting so much worse. Lane thought she could feel Ragna’s mounting worry. Or maybe that was just her own fear.

Or maybe not. Lane woke about a minute before the horn was blown, roused by her own racing heartbeat. She rolled out of bed and was just getting dressed when the alarm sounded outside. Somehow, she had known it would come.

“What’s going on?” she asked, as soon as she ran into the elder werewolf right outside of the communal hall. She was the first one, though she could hear soft curses in the dark.

“It’s moving,” Ragna explained. She was naked except for a blanket she had wrapped herself in. “But it’s not coming for us. It’s moving south. I thought it was trying to circle us, but it just kept going.” The elder took a deep breath. “Calder has no hope in hell to fight this. I need to try and draw it back here. Will you let Eyal know? Tell him to get whatever spell he has ready.”

Lane nodded quickly. She could see the other woman smile, just barely, and then the woman was gone, and a she-wolf was running towards the gate.

“Where’s she going?” Eyal asked, while struggling to fasten his belt. The shirt which he hadn’t properly tucked in had gotten caught in the buckle.

“It’s going after Calder’s camp,” Lane said. “Ragna will try to distract it. You need to ready whatever defences we have. Right now,” she added, because the big man wasn’t moving.

“What if it’s a trap?” he asked. “She shouldn’t have gone out!”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Lane replied. She tried to remember how David had sounded when he had given his orders. “Eyal, listen. It doesn’t matter. You need to get that spell, or – or other trick, anything you have, you need to get it ready right now. Ragna might not make it back here.”

The large man stared at her. “Of course,” he finally said. “Of course.”

And he went, calling for Mr. Kohen. Lane was left behind to explain to the worried men streaming out of their huts what was going on. Just a few minutes later, she found herself up on the parapet, much narrower and much lower than at Oldstone Castle. Made of wood, too. And they had no cannons either.

And no elder werewolf.

It was impossible to see anything out there, in the darkness, so Lane glanced behind herself instead. She could see nothing out of the ordinary down in the camp, either. She stood up on the narrow parapet for over an hour, but all that accomplished was that her feet started to ache and she shuddered with the cold. When her teeth started to chatter uncontrollably, she climbed down to the ground again. She swung by the pub to get something hot to drink to warm herself up, but every seat in there was packed with Digger’s men, so she carried her mug over to see if there was any seating left in the new communal building.

The place was almost filled up, too – the tarps were still up, limiting the space. Some people just sat together, but others were quite clearly praying. Nobody stood behind the lectern, though. When she looked around, Lane noticed a flutter of the tarps, as if something moved behind them. She spotted Andrew and Nathan, who had sat down with two of the younger werewolves protecting the camp.

“Hey, Lane,” Andrew greeted and scuttled over, to make some room on the bench for her. “This is Rhuad, and this is Anthony.”

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Lane knew Rhuad, distantly. He had been a hunter, and they had gone after the same contract at least once, a few years ago. Anthony was barely more than a boy and tried without much success not to stare at Lane.

“Hello,” she said. She had to raise her voice a little over the murmur all around.

“Seen anything out there?” Nathan asked.

Lane shook her head. “It’s way too dark. But no, I don’t think anything is moving out there.”

“Oli should be out there,” Rhuad said softly.

“What?” Lane asked. “Why?”

“He just wanted to have a quick look around.”

“He’s been a werewolf for, what, six years now?” Andrew pointed out. “I reckon he’ll be all right. As long as he doesn’t go too far. Ragna said that whatever is out there wasn’t moving our direction, didn’t she?”

“She also said that if it is a Rot queen, Oli would be its main target,” Lane reminded him. “And she did say she’d try to draw it here.”

“Yeah, I really wish she wouldn’t do that,” Rhuad grumbled.

“Let’s face it,” Andrew said, “that thing is coming here sooner or later. If Ragna can save Calder and his crew by drawing it here right away, that is worth it.”

“The Morgulon is on her way, right?” Anthony asked.

“The officer on duty assured me that they sent for her as soon as they sounded the alarm,” Nathan said. “Apparently, they got a reply, too, so that means the connection wasn’t cut.”

“Great. But did the reply say that the Morgulon is on her way?” Rhuad persisted.

Nathan paused. “Dunno. The officer only said they got a reply.”

Rhuad groaned and promptly stood up. When he started pushing through the crowd to the exit, Anthony seemed to realize that he would be alone with three werewolf-hunters and hurried to follow him.

“You’d think a kid that young would be less scared of us,” Nathan noted.

“Nah, Nathan, it’s just your face.”

Isaac grinned when the three of them looked up, and took the seat Anthony had vacated. “Don’t take it personal,” he added, turning more serious. “Anthony is just old enough to remember what life as a werewolf was like before the Lackland Rebellion.”

“It’s fine,” Andrew said. “We get it, really.”

“Speak for yourself,” Nathan gave back. “I thought David is supposed to be the really scary one.”

Lane wasn’t sure if he was serious or not.

“What was the last hunt David went on without you?” Andrew asked back.

“Lee and Marian,” Nathan replied at once.

“Actually, he's been hunting alone recently,” Lane pointed out. “He took on a contract for the Railway Company for two mad ones that had attacked one of the crews, remember?”

“Right, he did say that.” Nathan shook his head. “I hope the money was worth it. David absolutely hates going out alone.”

“I thought that’s how he started?” Lane asked, a little surprised by this new information.

Andrew gave her a strange look. “Yes, that is how he started. When he was fourteen. You didn’t think he did that because he had a better choice, did you?”

Lane paused. She had just assumed that it had been an act of teen-age rebellion, or maybe a way to prove himself to his father. “Why did he do it?” she asked after a moment.

Andrew and Nathan exchanged a long look, but then, Andrew explained: “You remember the Red Fever?”

Lane shuddered. “Sure,” she said. She’d been just a child, back then, but the bodies piling up in the streets were hard to forget.

“Well, that was the first winter David went out. Because we all came down with it – mother and Greg had it worst, but we all got sick. All except for David, who got away with just a rash.” Andrew shuddered. “Medicine was ridiculous expensive that year, then food-prices climbed, too, and any healer not completely drained could charge pretty much whatever they wanted. And father had been hunting alone for a few years, since Uncle Gregory got killed by a werewolf... People hear the name Feleke and they think of money, but really, we weren’t particularly well off back then. One hunter alone can’t make all that much, unless they happen to be named deLande.”

Lane smiled wryly. She didn’t tell Andrew that more often than not, Wardshire’s income had supported her hunts, rather than the other way around. She just said: “You do have to be more careful when you go out alone.”

There were a lot of large bounties she hadn’t been able to go after.

“Anyway,” Andrew went on, “mother and Greg were dying, and we needed the money . So David stole father’s crossbow, went to the magistrate, and picked the first bounty they offered. Had to compete for it, too, because so many people desperate to feed their families turned to hunting werewolves. It was a bad situation all around.”

“The really crazy thing it that he actually succeeded,” Nathan said. “And then he went out again. And again. Every full moon, for I don’t remember how long, he went out alone and killed werewolves. At fourteen years of age.”

“And you guys are surprised when werewolves are scared of you?” Isaac asked archly.

“Yes,” Nathan said. “Or rather, the surprise is that apparently, they are as scared of us as they are of David.”

“You guys aren’t as deadly?” Isaac wanted to know.

Nathan shrugged. “Can I shoot a moving target? Yes. Will I follow them as long as necessary? Yes. Do I have David’s tenacity and diligence? Absolutely not.”

“What about you, Andrew?” Isaac asked.

Andrew just shrugged.

“Come on,” Isaac complained when no answer was forthcoming.

Andrew bit his lip, and finally said: “If David is your standard, then I’m pretty bad at hunting, Isaac. Mostly because I don’t much care for it. Oh, I can shoot just fine, but I never had that drive to learn how to find my way in the forest, follow a trail, read the wind, build shelter, everything else you need to do. I liked working with the horses, training them, but I wasn’t particularly fond of sitting in the saddle for days on end, and I absolutely hated sacrificing one of my animals to get away myself. It nearly cost me my life a few times.”

He rubbed his neck. “Both Nathan and I relied on David to keep us safe, especially when we started out. That is what did Greg in,” he added. “We forgot how dangerous it is when you just start out and have no idea just how big and fast a werewolf can be. Because David was there to watch out for us. If he had been part of the group of beaters, Greg would have been fine and we’d all be back at Courtenay now.”

“I kinda wish they were both here, actually,” Nathan muttered. “On the one hand, I know that David couldn’t fight whatever is coming any better than you or I, but it sure would make me feel better to have him here.”

Lane thought she saw Andrew shudder, while Isaac said: “Yeah, no offense, but I’d prefer to have Greg here. Though that might just put him in danger, from what Ragna said.”

“Any chance you are going to tell us what you guys have planned?” Andrew asked.

Isaac looked uncertainly over towards the tarps. “I think you’re going to see tonight anyway,” he said.

“But you’re sure it’ll be enough?” Nathan wanted to know.

Isaac looked at them and then back at the wall of tent-linings. He bit his lips, but then nodded. “Yeah. I mean, if the Morgulon is on the way. We can’t hold out forever. No more than a few days, I reckon. But that should do, right?”

They all looked over towards the door, which had opened, but it was just another of Isaac’s relatives looking for shelter from the cold.