Chapter 47. Polite Enough to Apologize, Cruel Enough to Blow the Horn

Chapter 47: 47. Polite Enough to Apologize, Cruel Enough to Blow the Horn

I felt Millie go rigid behind me. And I didn’t even dare to turn around.

Those bastards... they really know about everything. Maybe this is the reason why humans are dangerous in both worlds.

"The crystals respond to her," Bonette said slowly. "When the first seal weakened... they felt it."

"They are not simply tools of control, but they are hounds... They are tracking her." She gestured to the kneeling wolves. "This is why they ignored everyone but the princess."

"They are drawn to her..."

"The arrow that killed the hawk," Elsbeth said, her voice hollow. "One of them shot it... They have been posted along the road."

I thought about the little silver-feathered shaft she’d been carrying for two days, and I finally understood why she hadn’t wanted to say it out loud.

Velora hadn’t spoken the whole time. She stood with her arms folded and her gaze fixed on nothing, and she looked as if she’d been carved from marble.

"They turn women into beasts," she said at last, very softly.

Nobody answered.

"My mother was killed in the square... In front of a crowd."

"It was a different way, but..." She stopped.

I can see her mouth tightened, especially as those sharp teeth start showing. But... She said nothing more.

For one brief moment, she looked at me.

There was no hatred in it. There was something else, something raw and bewildered, and then it was gone, and she turned her face away.

And here I thought that she’d finally lowered her guard for a bit at me. But still not enough.

We were about to take shelter, but then... The ground shook.

It began as a faint tremor, no more than a hum in the soles of my boots. I saw pebbles dancing on the ice.

A scatter of loose stones slid down from the cliff and clattered onto the path. The tremor grew, steady and rhythmic, like footsteps.

Bryn went white. "N-no... she’s coming...!"

"That is... Torunn," she whispered.

Elsbeth stiffened. "Torunn Ironmane...?"

"She was one of the first...!"

I had never seen Elsbeth look frightened before. And now... She REALLY looked frightened now.

"She... taught me to hold a sword," she said, mostly to herself. "She taught me everything...!"

GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The roar came from the cliffs above us, a long, shattering howl that bounced off the stone and went on and on, and when it finally faded, I realized it wasn’t one voice.

It was dozens... It was a chorus of wolves and women, screaming and weeping and howling all at once, layered on top of each other until the sound made my skin crawl.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

A few of the Nightclaw riders dropped their weapons and clapped their hands over their ears.

Then it came around the bend.

I’d thought the Frostfang Behemoth was big... but fucking hell... This was bigger, and it’s even worse.

It stood about as tall as a warehouse door, a wolf the size of a house, with a body that seemed to be made of ice that had frozen in the middle of moving.

Its fur was a mass of jagged crystal, each hair as sharp as a needle. Down its spine ran a ridge of glowing blue shards, bright and cold, like a garden of knives.

Its jaws were lined with fangs the length of my forearm, and its breath poured out in thick plumes of frozen mist.

And everywhere on its body, caught in the ice, were shreds of cloth. Gray and silver.

Scraps of a tabard, hanging off the monster like rags on a scarecrow. I can also see a few bits of broken armor... and a shattered pauldron.

A single tear, frozen solid, hung at the corner of one huge, glowing eye.

’A boss fight, huh...?’ I had to say that through my mind.

"Torunn..." Elsbeth whispered.

Sylvara said hoarsely that the tear was only meltwater from the crystals, that it meant nothing... I wanted to believe her.

But still... I didn’t. There’s probably a chance that I can get her back just like with Bryn.

But to make it even worse... On the creature’s back, seated in a carved saddle of white bone, a son of a bitch was looking down at us with a polite, friendly smile.

The asshole was handsome, which I hate, but in a smooth, forgettable way, with neat dark hair and a warm, easy face.

He wore a robe of white fur, belted with a band of gold, and carried a long staff topped with a ball of blue crystal. A small silver horn hung around his neck on a chain.

He looked like a man on his way to a wedding. What a fucking dickhead.

"Good evening, beastwomens," he called, in a pleasant tenor voice. "I do apologize for the theatrics... Please, do not be alarmed."

"I came in peace... as long as we all calm down and lower our weapons, yes?"

Nobody moved.

"My name is Maldric Thorne," he said. "I am the Second Link of the Gilded Chain!"

"Lady Nightclaw." He inclined his head to Velora with perfect courtesy. "A great pleasure to finally meet you."

"Your reputation precedes you... And the enchantress Moonveil, oh~! What an honor to see a beautiful dear like you." He glanced at Sylvara. "I have heard your work is lovely."

His eyes landed on me, and his smile widened.

"Aha... And you must be the little thief of Frosthaven."

My blood ran cold. I hadn’t told anyone about the merchant I’d killed.

Not in that way. But there’s no way that my face can be that recognizable as the killer of that merchant.

"We actually have been looking for you," Maldric went on cheerfully. "A charming bit of work you did there."

"Three of our guards, I believe, and a very promising line of business..." Maldric chuckled. "You will forgive me if I do not hold it against you... I am a forgiving man."

I kept my hand on the hilt of Gate Junior. My fingers were shaking because I really can’t tell how strong this guy really is.

"Like I said... I would very much like to avoid bloodshed today," said Maldric. "I truly would."

"All I want is one small thing." He pointed his staff, casually, at the gray mare in the back of the column. "The white rabbit."

Millie made a tiny sound. "Eek!"

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t think of a single clever thing to say.

The only thing in my mind was a raw, red buzz, like a swarm of angry bees.

Beside me, without turning her head, Velora murmured a single word, so softly that I almost didn’t catch it.

"Now."

Maldric sighed. He had the look of a man whose child had refused to eat its vegetables.

"A pity," he said. "I did so hope we could be civilized."

He lifted the silver horn to his lips and blew.

HOOOONNNNNNNNNNNKKKKKKKKKKKKK!

It was a single, clear, high note, perfect and pure, and it rolled through the gorge like water. It shook the ice off the walls and the stones from the cliffs.

I felt it in my bones and in my teeth.

All around us, the crystals lit up.

Every Wolfkin who had been kneeling in the net of light flared like a lantern. The glowing shards in their chests blazed white-blue.

Sylvara gave a sharp cry and staggered, clutching her staff, and I saw the shimmering web of the Nightfall Veil crack and begin to fray.

A woman near Velora started to scream.

I had been kneeling beside the second Wolfkin, the one I’d been about to reach for. I saw it happen right in front of me.

The crystal in her throat burst with cold fire, and a web of white cracks ran across her skin like ice spreading over a pond. Her eyes, which had been blank and glowing, suddenly cleared for the barest fraction of a second.

She looked right at me.

She was terrified. I had never seen anyone look so frightened.

Her lips moved. She whispered a single word, so softly that I read it more than I heard it.

’Please.’

I grabbed her hand.

I held on as hard as I could. I held on, and I tried to will it, tried to push whatever it was that had worked on Bryn through my fingers and into her, to drag her back... like please! Anything at all!

I screamed at her to hold on. And then I begged.

But... It didn’t work.

Her fingers went rigid in mine. Her back arched, with a sound like a dozen green branches snapping at once.

Her face lengthened, her jaw split, and a scream tore out of her throat that began as a woman’s and ended as something else entirely.

GRAWWWGGGHHHH!

White fur burst along her arms. Her hands twisted, her fingers lengthened into claws, and the crystal ripped free through her spine in a spray of shards.

In ten seconds, the woman who had been crying in front of me became a monster twice my height.

The claw I had been holding slipped out of my hand and hit the ground with a dry click.

All around us, other Wolfkin were changing. The sound was horrible, a chorus of snapping bones and tearing flesh and howls that started out human.

I heard Sylvara cry out that it was too late... that there was nothing she could do.

I stood up.

I don’t remember doing it... I remember that everything went quiet, the way it does in a dream.

The noise of the battle faded into a distant roar, and I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears, slow and heavy.

I had no jokes... I had no time to grin either.

All the nonsense that had been dancing in my head for days had simply burned away.

"Nobody else dies today," I said.

It didn’t sound like me. It was flat and quiet and cold, and it came from somewhere very deep.

Ding.

[Emotional outburst detected. No reward granted.]