Had the brigands taken the chickens and left? Mentally he figured the time it would take Vangerdahast to return to the main trail and bring the old couple back. More than enough time to get comfortable with a fellow seeker of adventure. And perhaps enough time to “let slip” one’s true identity and reap the benefits of that admission.
Kamara shut the front door behind her as Azoun opened the door on the right. As he thought, it was the dining room, with another door beyond leading to the kitchen. The furnishings were sparse but of high quality, probably the salvageable remains of the original Goldfeather stock. A great table dominated the room, and the walls were covered with cabinets, all open, their contents spilled on the floor. In the center of the table, a box of silver flatware, another legacy of the Goldfeathers, was rudely overturned, the knives and forks carving fresh scratches in the deep polish.
The thieves came after chickens but did not stop for the more valuable silver, thought Azoun. Perhaps they were still in the building. He held his breath and looked at Kamara. She hung back from the dining room and was scanning along the hallway. Her muscles were tense, as if she expected an attack at any moment.
Azoun brushed past her and tried the door opposite, which should lead to a parlor or sitting room. The door was stuck, and the young prince had to shoulder it open. Something heavy and wet slid along the floor, pushed out of the way of the door, leaving a crimson streak on the floor behind it.
It was a goat. A dead goat in the sitting room, propped against the door. Azoun had found the missing livestock.
The sitting room had been turned into an abattoir, its old furnishings covered with blood, fur, and feathers. There were a trio of old goats, including the billy goat that partially blocked the door. Their throats had been torn out by crude daggers or teeth. The chickens, great black hens with crimson bellies, had their necks snapped and were strewn about the room. Some had been half eaten, but most had been slain and discarded in an orgy of slaughter. Feathers blotted the sticky pools of blood.
Azoun began to say something to Kamara, something about these invaders being more than mere brigands or even ghosts, when he heard her growl behind him.
He turned and realized what the supposed ghost had truly been. Brigands had never been inside the house. Someone else-something else-had created the bloody carnage in the sitting room.
Kamara growled as her shoulders slumped and narrowed, her jaw elongating into a fang-toothed muzzle. Her eyes went from jade coins to cat’s eyes, as bright and sharp as the claws erupting from her fur-covered hands. Her flesh grew orange fur, striped with black.
Kamara was a weretiger. She dropped her sword and leapt, snarling, at the young prince, paws outstretched, slavering maw open.
Azoun shouted and ducked beneath the leap, desperately bringing his blade up as he did so. The steel raked deeply down her chest and belly, jarring his arm. Then she was over him, carried into the bloodstained room by the force of her leap.
Azoun wheeled and saw the tiger-woman kneeling among the slain goats and chickens. She held her split belly together with one paw, and the young prince could see the slashed sides of the wound he’d made crawling, meeting, and flowing together-healed. Lycanthropes could be only affected by silver or magic. And Azoun had sent his magical support away.
Kamara crouched again, and Azoun’s free hand lashed out, grabbing the doorknob and pulling the door shut in the weretiger’s face. A moment later, the boards above its central crossbrace splintered under the force of her charge, and with a horrible tearing sound, the boards gave way. Cruel black claws batted the air inches in front of his face. Azoun staggered back.
His sword was useless, and he could never hope to outrun the transformed lycanthrope. By the time Vangerdahast returned, the heir to the Dragon Throne would be in the same state as the chickens in the sitting room. Kamara was ripping apart the door and would be through in a matter of seconds.
Then Azoun remembered what he had seen earlier, and he fled from the hall.
When Kamara tore apart the last of the door and sent its remnants spinning from their hinges, she found the young royal’s sword lying abandoned in the hallway. The front door remained shut. Her prey was still somewhere in the house.
There was a noise, the shifting of weight on floorboards, directly ahead. The dining room! Kamara sprang across the narrow hall and into the doorway directly across from her… and caught a thrown steak knife in the ribs. The cut was shallow, but it burned like acid!
Silver! The quivering blade was silver, a legacy of the Goldfeathers.
She hissed, spat, and jarred the blade loose. Two more daggers, crudely thrown but accurate, caught her in the arm. Kamara the weretiger howled in pain and threw herself at her assailant.
Azoun stood at the far end of the table, the spilled silverware arrayed before him. He managed to dig one more thrown knife into her thigh as she vaulted the table. She came within striking distance, and he lashed out with his hand, catching her full in the side of the face with a silver teapot.
Kamara sprawled to one side, wide of her mark. Already a hideous swelling had erupted from where the pot had struck. The knife wounds were not knitting. Blood seeped through her shredded blouse and leggings. Azoun readied the teapot for another attack. It would not be a battle he’d brag about, but it would be one he would win.
The weretiger seemed to recognize that as well. She leapt up, and Azoun raised the pot in one hand and a knife in the other. Kamara snarled, but instead of pouncing on the waiting prince, she leapt for the window, smashing through it to land heavily on the porch beyond.
Azoun charged forward, but by the time he reached the empty frame, she was gone. The young prince saw a flash of something orange disappearing into the trees.
He sighed, retrieved his sword, and checked the rest of the house. There were no robbers, ghosts, or weretigers left in the building. By the time Vangerdahast returned with the old couple, the young prince was sitting on the front porch, head between his hands.
The old couple shouted in alarm when they saw the smashed window, demanding to know what had happened. Azoun sighed and explained. “Your ‘ghost’ was a weretiger who wanted your livestock. So she drove you off, then killed your chickens and goats. There were no real ghosts here, only a hungry predator. I drove it off. It won’t likely be back, but you should get some silver weapons just to be sure. Be careful going into the front room- it’s a bit of mess.”
So warned, the couple hurried into the house. The woman shrieked and then sobbed, and the man made comforting noises.
“I can’t leave you alone for a moment, can I?” Vangerdahast asked softly.
“How was I to know?” the young prince protested.
“You weren’t to know,” the wizard said severely, “but you should always be cautious.”
The pair remained at the old Goldfeather Manor for the remainder of the day. Azoun removed the rest of the shattered parlor door and used the boards from it and some additional lumber to patch up the front window. When they reached Eveningstar, he’d send a carpenter for the door and a glass glazer for the window, compliments of the crown, to make full repairs. Vangerdahast helped the old woman clean away the carnage in the parlor room and dress the chickens and goats. One of the goats made an excellent dinner at the close of the day, and the old woman proved to be an excellent cook.
The weretiger did not return.
They talked late into the evening, the old man telling tales of when he was a lad, when the kingdom was torn apart in the War of Red and Purple. When he started to nod off, the old woman told her guests where beds had been made ready for them, shook her husband awake, and the couple retreated to their own room.
Vangerdahast and Azoun sat by the last dying flames of the hearth fire. Neither moved to put more wood on the waning blaze.
“You’re right, you know,” said Azoun at last.
“Right about what?” said the wizard, his eyes red and tired beneath half-closed lids.
“No one is who he seems,” said the young prince, stretching, “and while I should not be paranoid about it, I should be aware-and therefore wary.”
“A lesson learned,” said the wizard. “The day is not a total loss.”
Azoun rose from the hearthside and went to the door, waving his arm to loosen a bruised and tired shoulder.
