Darrow was surprised by this news. "They don't actually-"
"No," laughed Brigid, "but the result's the same. You do what they say, and they put your beast to sleep, so you don't chase the other sheep around the pen."
"What they don't realize is that the Black Blood sets us above the herd," said Morrel. "We're the hunters, and we have no lords among men. The Black Wolf is a state of being, when you have no master but Malar."
"So Rusk is the Black Wolf?" asked Darrow.
"Maybe," said Morrel.
Sorcia snorted and walked away.
"It depends whether you mean he's reached that state or whether he's the Black Wolf of prophecy. Not everyone believes the Black Wolf Scrolls are the word of Malar."
"But Rusk does."
"Yeah, I think he does."
A draft came into the lodge, right over the place where Darrow usually slept. He tried to ignore it for a few nights, but it grew stronger. He peered up at the root-tangled ceiling but saw no hole. He felt the incoming air with his hands and guessed where it originated outside. Bundling himself in furs, he went outside to patch it.
After sweeping away the snow in several places, Darrow finally heard a murmuring sound through the sod roof. A glimmer of red light shone through a hole. He was nowhere near the fire pit, so he peered inside.
He was above Rusk's sanctum.
The sound he heard was Rusk's voice, chanting low and steady. Darrow smelled smoke and tasted incense in the air. He knew he should cover the hole and go away, but curiosity overcame his fear. He put his face right against the hole and shielded it from the light with his arms.
Below him, Rusk sat cross-legged on the floor, illuminated only by the glowing coals of a black iron brazier. His naked body gleamed with animal fat, though his silver hair fell loose about his shoulders. Where he had lost his arm, an ugly worm of flesh clung to his shoulder.
A congregation of skulls looked down on the ritual from their places on the walls. In the darkness, the skulls seemed to float around the Huntmaster. Darrow noted the skulls of deer, wildcats, boars, owlbears, and other monstrous beasts of the Arch Wood-there were even the skulls of humans and elves.
"Great hunter," intoned Rusk, "hear my plea. Great Malar, show me your wisdom and will."
As his prayer ended, flames rose from the brazier's coals. Rusk thrust his hand above flames, clutching a scrap of parchment.
"This is the path of the moon and its shadow. Show me a sign, if it marks truly the night of the Black Wolf."
The flames rose, and licked around his fist leaving parchment and skin unburned. When they subsided, Rusk set the parchment aside before holding his hand once more above the fire.
"Do I remain your fit and worthy vessel?"
The flames surged up again, but this time Rusk howled in pain. Every muscle of his body stood out in his struggled to keep his hand within the fiery oracle. Darrow imagined that the consequences otherwise must be fell indeed.
When the flames withdrew into the brazier's bowl, Rusk gnashed bis teeth and shook his head against the pain. Tears streaked his face as he glared down at the ruin of his left arm.
After a moment's reflection, he asked again, "Am I no longer the Black Wolf?"
Again the oracle's fire burned him. Darrow watched as the hair on Rusk's arm wilted and the skin turned angry red.
Again Rusk thrashed against the pain, his hair forming a wild halo around his agonized face. His eyes were closed tight for many seconds, but then they snapped open in sudden realization.
Still, Rusk hesitated before asking the next question. Darrow guessed that only negative answers came with punishment.
"Mine remains the chosen spirit of the Black Wolf?"
The oracle crackled, but the fire remained in the bowl.
"Yet another is now the vessel?"
Yes, the fire hissed.
Rusk paused again before asking the next question. Judging from his tone, Darrow imagined he hated to give voice to the question more than he feared a burning no.
"Has my infirmity made me an unworthy vessel?"
The oracle said, Yes.
Rusk sat quietly for a moment. Then his body began to tremble, imperceptibly at first, then more and more furiously until he risked taking his arm from its place before concluding his spell.
At last his fury subsided, and Rusk invoked the name of Malar, thanking the Beastlord for his oracle and chanting the words that returned the brazier's flames to dull red coals.
He spun to face the darkness. Darrow could no longer see his face, but he continued to listen. Eventually, Rusk spoke.
"He took my arm," he growled. "He stole my fate!"
He sat silently so long that Darrow was about to slip away when he heard another voice in the room below. It was even deeper than Rusk's, but with a hollow sound of dry stones.
"You allowed him to defile the chosen vessel," said the sepulchral voice. Darrow could not identify its source.
After a few breaths, Rusk replied. "Mine is still the chosen spirit. The flames ordained it so."
Again, the voice paused before answering. "Without a fit and worthy vessel, the spirit is powerless in the world."
"How can I heal this wound? The scrolls do not say."
"It is beyond your power," said the voice. "Your body is forever despoiled in the eyes of Malar. That is the price of your foolishness."
"There must be a way," insisted Rusk.
"There is," whispered the voice. "You hold the power already. The secret lies within the scrolls."
"Where?" said Rusk. "Tell me-"
A lump of snow fell past Barrow's cheek and through the hole. It barely made a sound as it hit the floor of Rusk's sanctum, but it was enough. Rusk turned to look where it struck. Before his gaze turned to the ceiling, Darrow scrambled away from the hole. He ran down the sloping roof to the woodpile and filled his arms with split timbers.
He entered the lodge and took the wood to the fire. When Rusk pushed aside the tapestry and emerged from his sanctum, Darrow looked up as nonchalantly as possible. Rusk watched him place the logs on the fire, then returned to his sanctum.
Darrow breathed a sigh of relief until he felt the melting snow run down his leg. His furs were caked in snow from where he had lain on the ground.
"Tell us all about Talbot Uskevren," said Rusk in the tone of one asking a cleric to read a sacred fable.
The lodge fell silent, and all eyes turned to Darrow. In private he had told Rusk everything he knew about the object of Stannis Malveen's revenge, but he had not expected the Huntmaster to ask him to repeat it to the entire pack.
He took a deep breath, hoping this was not the prelude to punishment for his spying tendays earlier.
"I watched him only in public, usually at the playhouse," he said. "Everything else I heard from Stannis Malveen, who learned it from someone close to Talbot Uskevren."
This claim of sources was a ritual among the People. The legend of Yarmilla the Huntress, who went out hunting bears with a switch, began with such a long citation of bards who had passed the story down throughout the years that many made a jest of it by singing the names as quickly as possible.
"He performs in the playhouse and practices sword-play," began Darrow.
"We have heard these things before," said Rusk. "Tell us about how he guards his secret. Tell us the gossip your master shared with you."
Darrow was surprised, but he could hardly refuse. Much of what he'd heard from Stannis was so trivial that he would never think to repeat it. He composed his thoughts before going on.
"He quarrels with his family, especially his father. So does the older brother, whose name is Tamlin. There is a sister, too. Her name is Thazienne."