line to show where deer passed between high-reaching trees in their foraging. Lacking a better choice, Una continued along the path.
The wolf had not proven as easy to track as she'd thought, and now she wondered whether she'd ever find him. She wondered, too, whether it would turn out that the beast found her, or was even now stalking behind. She tried not to think about that. All she needed was a clear shot. She'd put plenty of arrows through the straw-butt, she could put an arrow through a wolf. She could free Thorne. She could free them all. But she had little confidence ruling her thoughts, and so, her attention was focused behind her rather than in front when the deer trail ended abruptly at the muddy verge of a shallow stream.
Una and the wolf saw each other at the same moment, and she knew — as prey knows in its bones — that she might have time to nock an arrow to string, but she wasn't going to have time to let the bolt fly.
Guarinn tried to maintain a narrow focus, to shut down all thinking and track like an animal, using only sight and scent and hearing. He measured his success by the nearness of dead voices. At best, the haunting dead were never wholly gone, only banished to a distance he could endure. The protection Roulant had shown him was working, but only just. How fast would the Spoiler's trap catch them if they came upon the wolf?
Soft — a whisper shivering across the night — Guarinn heard the rattle of brush. He stopped, keeping his hands fisted and well away from the axe in his belt while he waited to hear the sound again.
'The wind,' Roulant said, low.
Guarinn didn't think so. That one soft rattle had been a discordant note. When the sound came again, Guarinn knew it wasn't wind-crafted. Nor was it soft now. Something was running through the brush.
'It's Una!' Roulant cried and bolted past Guarinn.
She wasn't alone. Like a dark echo, something else came crashing through the brush behind her.
Fleet, eyes huge as a hunted doe's, Una burst through the brush, frantically trying to nock arrow to bow as she ran. She was having little luck, and even at a distance Guarinn saw her hands shaking, fumbling uselessly at shaft and string.
'Una,' Roulant shouted. 'Here!'
Seeing them for the first time, she redoubled her speed. Relief and joy and — last — panic marked her face when her foot turned on a stone and she fell hard to the ground, the breath blasted from her, and the bow flung from her hand.
Guarinn saw the wolf first. The sight of it — eyes redly blazing, fangs gleaming — triggered instinct. In the very moment the wolf leaped, the dwarf snatched his throwing axe from his belt — and tumbled over the edge of nightmare.
The wolf smelled fear and loved it — the scent of easy prey. He sensed no threat in the smaller male, standing motionless; nor was the young female — struggling for breath, fighting to rise from the ground — any danger. These he could ignore for now. But the third, the bigger male… from him came the fiery scent of a packdefender. He was the danger and the threat.
The wolf hurtled past Una. Choking on the sudden, cold rush of air, she heard the impact of bodies — the wolf snarling and Roulant's grunt of shock and pain.
And she saw Guarinn standing still as stone, his throwing axe gripped in a nerveless hand.
'Guarinn!' she cried, clawing at the ground in desperate search of the bow. 'Help him!'
Guarinn never moved… and she found the bow, string-broken, useless. Roulant screamed, a raging curse turned to pain as the wolf's fangs tore at his shoulder. The cry of pain became a chant — her name, gasped over and over in the staggering rhythm of his ragged breathing as he struggled with the beast.
Una gained her feet, running. She flung herself at the wolf's back, dagger in hand. Clinging to the writhing beast's neck, choking on the smell of blood, she struck wildly. Poorly. Hurting, but not killing.
The wolf heaved up.
'Guarinn! Help me! The wolf is killing him!'
The beast twisted sharply, and threw her off. Its fangs dripped frothy red, and behind it, Roulant lurched to his feet, gasping his terrible chant. The wolf turned, leaped at him. Una didn't know which of them screamed, man or wolf. The sound of it tore through the night, a wild howling.
Guarinn Hammerfell stood at the center of a maelstrom of wild moaning and screaming. Guarinn! Help him! Hands clawed at him, shreds of livid flesh falling away to expose bones as white and brittle as ice. The wolf is killing him! Hollow voices accused him, and the foul names — child-killer! murderer! faithless friend! — turned the ice-mist filling his lungs to poison.
A wind rose to pound at him, tear at him, with such violence that even the dead hands, shedding tattered flesh, rattling bones, fell away before it. Howling, screaming, deafening wind.
Roulant! Familiar with everyone who haunted this nightmare realm, Guarinn knew that name had no business being spoken here. He snatched at it, clutched it tight for a lifeline. He was choking, fighting for air, falling… and staggering on the deer trail, his axe clenched tight in his fist.
The wolf lunged again at Roulant, leaping for his throat. In the only instant of sanity he might get before the dead snatched him back into the Spoiler's trap, Guarinn sighted, threw, and didn't miss.
The wolf fell to the ground, its spine severed. Hard and dark, the beast's eyes held Guarinn for a long moment. Then they softened, and the night filled up with silence.
The dying wolf became man. A moment, the man had, and he used it to speak. Only whispered words, barely heard.
'Roulant… are you hurt?'
Roulant ignored the question. 'Thorne! You're… dying! No, Thorne. This isn't how it's supposed to be! You said…'
Thorne smiled, shifting his gaze to Guarinn.
'You,' Thorne said. 'Old friend, you knew I wouldn't survive, didn't you?'
Guarinn heard grieving, Una and Roulant, one sobbing softly in shock and the aftermath of terror, the other offering comfort in the face of his own astonished grief.
'And you killed the wolf. Knowing.' Thorne closed his eyes. 'Thank you.'
Guarinn lifted his friend's hand and held it, very gently, close against his heart until he felt the last pulse, and some time longer after that.
Limping, leaning on Una for support, Roulant knelt beside his friends, the living and the dead.
He and Guarinn and Una knelt together as snow began to fall, listened to dawn-wind singing. It held no echo of wolfish howling. The Night of the Wolf was over, and Roulant saw the peace of it in Guarinn's smile.
The Potion Sellers
It was just after midsummer's, on a fine, golden morning, when the seller of potions came to the town of Faxfail.
Perched precariously upon the high bench of a peculiar-looking wagon, he drove through the borough's narrow, twisting streets. The wagon, pulled by a pair of perfectly matched dappled ponies, was a tall, boxlike craft all varnished in black and richly decorated with carved scrollwork of gilded wood. On the wagon's side panel, painted in a fantastically brilliant hue of purple, was the picture of a bottle above which was scribed, in flowing letters of serpentine green, three strange words: MOSSWINE'S MIRACULOUS ELIXIRS. It was a mysterious message indeed, and startled the townsfolk who looked up from their morning tasks and chores in curiosity as the wagon rattled by.
The seller of potions himself was a young-looking man, with hair the color of new straw and eyes as blue as
