Return to Canifis

within our realm.”

Castimir relaxed his concentration and the runes in his hand cooled. Slightly behind him stood Gideon Gleeman, both feet back on the bridge.

“I have the King’s Seal,” he stammered. “It demonstrates that we are agents of the King himself, and that our will must be respected.”

The cowled man laughed, a deep and inhuman growl.

“Your will? Oh, that’s good, that is. That’s very funny. Very funny indeed.” He walked toward the jester, who scurried backward. “I wonder if Master Malak will laugh so much?”

“But I wonder if you dare tell him, Imre,” Gar’rth said as he stepped toward the man. Castimir saw that they were of equal height. Gar’rth had always been the tallest of their group, a head taller than either him or Theodore. Now the two stood so close as to be butting heads.

“So Gar’rth chooses to return to us,” Imre said scornfully. “And of his own free will.”

I would hardly call it that, Castimir mused.

Imre lowered his cowl to reveal a human guise. His head was shaven, whilst a small beard ended his narrow face in a point. But it was his eyes to which Castimir was drawn. Greedy and hungry, and very, very dark.

“You are a coward and a traitor, forfeiting our ways,” he said to Gar’rth coldly. “I am surprised that Jerrod was not able to bring you back sooner.”

“Jerrod,” Doric spat contemptuously. “He was lucky to escape with his life! He fled from us, leaving two fingers and his ear behind. And in battle he was beaten by a knight of Falador. You’re lucky we abide by the rules of the embassy, else I’d be stitching a new fur coat, wolf.”

“Calm yourself, Doric,” Despaard commanded. “This is not the way for an emissary of King Roald to speak.”

Imre moved closer and towered over the dwarf.

“Listen to your master, dwarf,” he growled. “We will honour the blood mark, for we have our instructions. However, I have never eaten one of your race before. Should your embassy fail, and your lives become unnecessary, I shall take great pleasure in consuming you. And I shall do so slowly. A leg first, then an arm…”

As he spoke, his voice became distant, as if he was savouring an imaginary meal. He glanced around, his eyes rested on Kara and Arisha. He crouched, and Castimir stepped between them.

“Unless we are provoked,” the wizard warned. “Your own words, Imre. Your flesh will burn as easily as Jerrod’s, and his burned quite nicely.”

“So Jerrod is dead?” Imre asked.

“He lives,” Theodore replied. “But he is an outlaw now, wanted in Asgarnia and Misthalin. He murdered women and children when they were alone and unprotected.”

Imre laughed.

“That sounds like Jerrod. So the legends are true. Such prey is common in the lands across the river. Perhaps Jerrod will never return.”

“Jerrod will be destroyed,” Theodore said angrily. “His crimes are unpardonable.”

“Are you the knight who defeated him?” Imre asked, looking at Theodore’s white-polished armour with a pained expression.

“It was a better man than I,” Theodore said.

“I thought so,” Imre sneered, and then he turned his back on the knight. “But come, we are expected in Canifis.”

“How long will the journey take?” Albertus asked, clambering into his saddle.

“That depends on how fast you ride and how quickly you tire, old man. Without a stop we can do it in a day.”

The embassy rode east upon the road, following Imre and several other werewolves who ran ahead and alongside. The land seemed to be plunged in permanent gloom, and Castimir could not see any great distance. The very shadows seemed to be living things, willing to move only with the greatest reluctance.

The flora was strange to him, as well. Ferns far larger than any he had ever seen. And the fungi, growing from tree stumps, with their purple and pink caps dotted with black spots, made his stomach queasy.

They say fungi grow upon dead things. So I suppose it makes sense that they would be everywhere here.

Castimir blinked and focused his eyes as a faint white shape, seen at the very limit of his vision, rose upward from the ground and vanished into the darkness.

Anywhere else it would be my imagination, but not here.

“Kara?” the red-headed wizard called quietly. “Did you see that? A white shape drifting upward.”

She shook her head.

“Not then. But I have seen what you describe. I am not sure what they are.”

“They are everywhere,” Gar’rth told them. “Since the start of our journey. To a human’s eyes-even yours Kara-they will be barely visible.”

“What are they, boy?” Doric called from behind.

Was that fear in the dwarf’s voice? Castimir wondered. I wouldn’t blame him, for this is a fearful place. Yet the possibility that even Doric could be afraid unsettled him.

“They are ghosts,” Lord Despaard said from the head of the column. “They will not harm you so long as you don’t disturb them.”

Imre looked at Despaard for a long minute before speaking.

“You speak as if you have been here before,” he said. “Is this so?”

Despaard looked into Imre’s eyes without flinching.

“That is correct,” he said. “Several times. Once even so far as Meiyerditch.”

“You are fortunate the Vyrewatch did not seize you,” Imre remarked. “Humans are not allowed outside the walls.”

“Then humans live there?” Gleeman asked in sudden interest. “In our stories, gypsy travellers kidnap children from Misthalin and bring them here to be used for sacrifices. But if you have a whole city of humans, then surely that is unnecessary.”

Imre laughed.

“There are humans in Meiyerditch, although the conditions in the ghettos are barely adequate to sustain life as you know it. The Vyrewatch take who they want, when they want. No, a human from outside Morytania, who has grown up with health and clean air, is worth a hundred such bland souls.”

“But the vampires take werewolves, as well,” Gar’rth said. “That is why human children are sold by gypsies from across the river, so the werewolves can offer them in their place.”

Imre didn’t reply, but it was plain to Castimir that Gar’rth’s words pained not only him, but all their escort.

So the werewolves are victims, as well.

They spoke no more until they reached a bridge spanning an ill-looking stream. Here Imre paused.

“We will rest here for an hour,” the werewolf said. “Remember, do not drink from the spring, and do not wander beyond the escort. The ravenous will attack you if they get your scent, and the blood mark means nothing to them.”

Castimir saw Lord Despaard shake his head as he dismounted.

“Will they be this far north?” the nobleman asked.

Imre shrugged.

“It would be unusual, but not impossible. There was one at your temple this morning, after all. I have never known them to travel so close to the river before though.”

“Then what has changed?” Theodore asked as he lowered himself onto a fallen log, carefully testing it in his weighted armour.

“This is Morytania,” Imre snarled. “Nothing changes. Ever.”

The werewolf and his companions spread out in a wide and uneven circle, some to the east of the river across the bridge.