nodding distractedly and politely, the close quarters made the hem of his silk robe lap over Lusk’s boot.
Lusk snarled and spun around to face him, half drawing his dagger. Folk sometimes joked about Lusk’s facial markings looking like a jungle cat’s, just as they said Lakini’s looked like a mask, but at that moment he looked truly tigerish.
The folk around them quieted and stared, and Lakini stared herself, too startled to react at first. The halfling looked puzzled, then, as it became clear the deva’s wrath was directed at him, alarmed. He muttered an apology and bowed low to the ground. Lusk looked at his defenseless back as if he’d like to smash the hapless halfling’s spine into the ground.
Truly alarmed, Lakini reached for Lusk’s arm. He jerked under her touch and turned on her, his teeth bared. Still she pulled him away, toward the back passages and away from the harmless creature that had somehow offended him so deeply.
With a snarl of disgust, he sheathed the dagger, shrugged her hand off, and walked away. She trotted after him as a murmur swelled to fill the silence of his wake. The halfling, no doubt thinking he’d had a narrow escape from retribution for some fancied offense, scurried off to rejoin his party.
Halfway up the slope of the corridor, Lusk slowed his pace to let Lakini catch up. Still flushed with anger, he gave her a sheepish look.
“I probably shouldn’t have done that, but the filthy thing touched me. I don’t like halflings overly much.”
He said it as if it were natural to treat the race like toadfolk, defiling all they touched, and as if she’d understand and agree.
She wondered if she would have been able to react in time to stop him if he had tried to kill the halfling. In that first red moment, that had certainly been his intent. If he’d been alone, she suspected, he probably would have done it.
If he’d been alone …
Pieces fell together like a puzzle: the halflings murdered in the woods near Shadrun, and Lusk’s indifference; the gutted body of a halfling thief outside an inn in Cormyr; a dozen, a hundred tiny things Lusk had said over the years, mildly disconcerting in themselves but taken together and considered impartially, deeply disturbing.
“It was you.” Lakini’s voice caught in her throat like a physical thing. She halted in the dark corridor, and Lusk turned back to her. “The halflings in the forest outside Shadrun. The little thief butchered in the alley. It was you the whole time.”
She wanted him to frown at her, to deny it, to call her ridiculous, deluded, even traitorous to make such an accusation. But instead he shifted, leaned against the wall, and folded his arms, smiling at her.
She was horrified. “You’re a deva. We abjure evil and fight for the good. How could you do such things?” Her voice felt ragged, torn by the sharp lump in her throat.
“What good do we fight for?” Lusk retorted. He pointed down the corridor, where the sound of commerce mumbled through the stone walls. “Down there they buy and sell the same goods and lands, back and forth, back and forth. All a hopeless, unrelenting cycle. It doesn’t
His raw anger seemed as deadly as his half-drawn dagger a few minutes before, ready to plunge into the hapless merchant.
“You’re arguing against our nature,” she retorted. “And why hate the halfling? Enough to do what you did in the forest at Shadrun, so near a holy place …” Suddenly her knees felt like water. She felt as if she was going to be sick.
“Halflings are filthy vermin,” said Lusk. “You don’t know, Lakini. You don’t know what they are. Not a one of them is worth saving. Listen,
He took her arm and pulled her to him. She was helpless to do anything but listen. The world had changed, with the dreadful knowledge that Lusk had done these things-could even consider doing these things. She wasn’t ready to live in this new world yet.
“Infection exists in this world,” he whispered roughly, his lips to her ear, his breath hot on her skin. “If a body is not to die, it might fight off its infections. Some you cannot reason away. Some you must cut from your flesh.”
He released her arm, and she didn’t realize until the blood rushed back into it how tight his grip had been.
“If you don’t realize our nature is to carve away evil like a cancer from the body, then learn it now. We destroyed the cancers in Wolfhelm. You should remember that lesson better.”
The werewolves, more of them, five or six at least, had struck at the south gate this time. Lakini beheaded two and watched two boys and a very fierce and muscular girl, who usually was stationed behind the baker’s counter kneading the dough, deal with the rest. The Wolfshelm youth acquitted themselves well, but Lakini was uneasy. These werewolves were small and weak, little more than cubs, and she suspected the south gate assault might be more a distraction than an attack. Beckoning the sturdy baker girl to follow her, she told the rest to watch the gate and keep alert. Then she trotted around the village wall, weapons at the ready.
She was right. The previous attack was a feint, and fierce, full-grown wolves were leaping the wall that had seemed so secure. She impaled one, and the girl clubbed another’s head to a pulp, but many slipped between them and into the streets of the town. Lakini ran down the main thoroughfare, beating on doors and bellowing a warning, the baker girl on her heels, and presently she heard the bell of Chauntea’s temple peal a warning, echoed by the shouts of the villagers in their houses steeling themselves to fight. All down the streets of Wolfshelm, firelight, torchlight, and witchlight glowed between the slats of the windows and through the chinks in the doors. The werewolves that prowled through the lanes and alleys, expecting easy prey, were met with a fierce and desperate resistance.
Lakini heard the scream of a donkey and ran through the maze of streets to the smithy. An amber witchlight shone at the apex of the building, and by its glow she saw Rosebud flailing with a wicked determination at two werewolves that were circling her. She spun about, lashing at one, then at the other, as they tried to sneak in under her guard. One almost managed to grab her leg, but she evaded it and landed a hoof square in its gut. Yipping in pain, the lycanthrope was bowled head over heels. But, recovering quickly, it sprang to its feet and returned to the attack, growling fiercely.
It saw Lakini too late, and a quick slash of her blade liberated its head from its shoulders.
She looked back to the donkey and saw what she hadn’t before: a figure lying on the ground, limp as a bundle of rags. The remaining werewolf made a lunge for it, and Rosebud let out a fearsome bray and circled the body, kicking madly. She was tiring rapidly, however, her reactions slower and slower. Lakini knew it was only a matter of time before the beast would overcome Rosebud and rend her limb from limb.
Lakini stooped and grabbed a handful of dirt, the thick, gravelly clay that defined Wolfshelm’s streets. Waiting until the donkey was clear, she hurled the dirt at the werewolf. The big clot landed hard on the side of its face.
The thing snarled and turned on her, its great yellow eyes full of hate. Standing upright, it might have come as high as her chin, but it crouched, its long, muscular arms outstretched and tipped with wicked claws. A charnel smell rolled off it, befouling the air.
It rubbed at its face and then looked at its hand, rubbing grains of dirt between its foreclaws. It charged her, arms reaching for her like the mandibles of a spider. Rosebud aimed a final kick at the thing, but she was tired and the blow was weak, missing its mark.
Lakini let the creature charge. At the last moment, when she could smell its carrion-befouled breath, she lifted her sword, still streaked with the other werewolf’s blood, braced herself, and let it impale itself on her weapon.
A mouthful of teeth snarled at her, and its spittle flicked her face. It lashed at her, and one of the claws hooked into her tunic, tearing the fabric. She forced the blade in deeper. The beast shuddered and jerked away from her with a force that almost tore the sword from her fingers, but it was the werewolf’s dying spasm, and it slid to the ground.
The supine figure stirred, moaning, and Lakini kneeled next to it. It was the smith, who still clutched the hammer he’d seized to defend himself. With a dreadful feeling of foreboding, Lakini squeezed her hand shut and opened it again, causing a small ball of light to appear on her palm. By its pallid light the man looked as pale as the
