Tal pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Then he turned west and headed to Stormweather alone.
Chapter 11
Summer, 1371 DR
Darrow did not escape the People of the Black Blood. He had run less than five miles from the lodge before the wolves dragged him to the ground. In the panic that seized him upon first seeing his pursuers, he dropped his useless sword and begged for his life. His screams for mercy did nothing to save him from the ripping claws of the werewolves. Nor did his blubbering pleas stop the hungry mouths from feasting on his body. Only as his lifeblood seeped into the soft ground of the Arch Wood did salvation arrive.
It came in the form of a silver wolf. The three-legged beast chased the other predators from the kill, then sat beside Darrow's dying body and looked down into his face. As Barrow looked up at the big wolf, it shifted back into the form of Rusk, the Huntmaster.
"The Hunt is over," he declared. Then with a chant to Malar, he pressed his burning hands on Barrow's gaping wounds and sealed them. He cast spell after spell, until at last Darrow could breathe.
"Why?" Darrow whispered "Why did you save me?" Rusk chuckled deep in his chest. "Because I have use for you."
During his first month among the People of the Black Blood, Darrow was everyone's servant. He fetched wood and water, cleared the fanged circle, and scraped the hides of deer and boars for crude tanning. If someone told him to do a task, he made himself useful.
At night he huddled in a corner of the lodge while most of the pack roamed their territory. A simple smoke hole served as a chimney for the fire pit, which was flanked by two rows of rough-hewn timbers supporting the sod roof. Various pack members had carved their names or marks in the wood over the years. Others with some talent had engraved scenes of humans and wolves hunting together. One depicted a passionate embrace between a dire wolf and a woman. Darrow found the image at once revolting and compelling.
The Huntmaster's inner sanctum was divided from the rest by an old tapestry depicting scenes of wolves and humans hunting and living together as an antlered god held his cloak to form the night sky above them. Even when Rusk was away, Darrow did not dare part the fabric to peer inside.
When the werewolves returned to sleep away the daylight, Darrow went outside to perform his chores alone. He hated the smell of the lodge when the pack was there. The smoke stung his eyes, and the odor of so many dirty bodies reminded him of his father's pigsty. Even as a boy he knew he wanted nothing to do with farm life, and this was far worse. He was living among monsters.
Soon he learned that he had become one of them.
After his first transformation, Darrow was sick for days. He remembered little of what occurred those three nights, but the days were full of exhausted cramps and bloody retching. No one tended to him in his misery, not even Rusk, who had saved his life. He was too afraid to ask questions, and no one offered any answers.
"At least I'm still alive," he told himself. But he did not know why or for how long.
A few days after his change, Rusk answered one of those questions. He led Darrow a short distance from the lodge, where they sat on a grassy knoll.
"Tell me about the Malveens," he said.
Darrow nodded, eager to be useful. "What would you like to know?"
"Everything," said Rusk. "Start with what they want with Talbot Uskevren."
Despite Rusk's interest in Darrow, the other werewolves did not accept him as one of their own. Even as the days grew long and the nights warm, the pack spoke to him when necessary, but never in anything approaching the rough camaraderie they enjoyed among themselves. They were a community unto themselves, albeit a savage one. Among the men and women were a few children. They frightened Darrow more than any others, for they had never known a life apart from the Hunt. How much more monstrous than their parents would they become?
"What do you and Rusk talk about?" asked Sorcia one day.
Rusk had not forbidden him to tell, but Darrow sensed it was best not to reveal too much. "The city," he said.
Sorcia must have detected his reluctance, for she let the subject drop. "Rusk usually leads us throughout the forest this time of year," she said, "but now all he does is talk with you and pore over those scrolls. What's in them, I wonder?"
"I wouldn't know," said Darrow.
That was the truth. Rusk had never shown them to him, and he had never asked about them. Unless Rusk was secretly illiterate, Darrow could not imagine what was taking him so long to finish them. Perhaps they contained spells the Huntmaster could not comprehend, or maybe he did not like what he read in the scrolls.
Sometimes Rusk spent hours watching the night sky through the clearing above the fanged temple. He rose before dusk to observe the long shadows that fell from the teeth, comparing their patterns to drawings in the Black Wolf Scrolls. Whatever he saw there often sent him into a quiet rage. The other People could smell his displeasure and avoided him at those times, and Darrow soon learned to discern the almost imperceptible sourness. Before his transformation, Darrow would never have detected such a faint odor. Now it was almost overpowering, a warning to stay clear of the Huntmaster.
It was increasingly clear that Darrow's submissive behavior had planted him firmly at the bottom of the pack hierarchy. Ronan's bullying the night he was transformed was only a harbinger of the abuses that followed. They pushed past him at the lodge entrance and stared him down around the fire when he dared to speak.
Sometimes Darrow looked up to see Rusk watching him after another member of the pack had cowed him, and he felt ashamed. Other times, Sorcia shook her head as Darrow stepped aside for Ronan or one of the other big night-walkers.
Despite the hazing, Darrow tried to feel like one of the pack. His routine shifted gradually from day to night, when he would sit around the fire working leather and fur, cutting tough strips for laces, and sewing his own rough clothes. The lodge held communal tools for cutting firewood and repairing the building itself, but the People had few personal belongings.
The exceptions were weapons and mates. Most of the females chose a single male companion, though a few remained independent or concealed their affairs. At first, Darrow assumed that Sorcia was Rusk's mate, but she never entered his sanctum, and he never saw them go off alone.
If they had been partners, it would have soon become obvious, for there was no modesty among the People. As many as four or five pairs would copulate among the sleeping pack some mornings. Darrow turned his back when it happened, but the lovers' moans made him restless and keenly uncomfortable. When at last he fell asleep, he dreamed of stealing into House Malveen, taking the key, and opening the gate to Maelin's cell. When they escaped together, she could prove her gratitude without the coercion of a cell.
He knew it was unrealistic to dream about rescuing Maelin. He realized Radu would have slain her the day he returned from disposing of him among Rusk's pack. Still, he held her image and the thought of her rescue as a sort of talisman against despair. If he could dream about a selfless act, then surely he had not become like the monsters that surrounded him.
After another month of learning to stalk his prey and throw a spear, Darrow brought down his first stag. When Morrel slung the carcass over his own shoulders, Darrow thought it was a friendly gesture, but the werewolf carried it back to the lodge and claimed it as his own. When Darrow protested, Morrel sent him spinning to the ground with a powerful backhanded blow.