Seeing that her spell worked, Maleva ignored the werewolves and knelt to tend one of the fallen archers. Darrow saw that she was bleeding, but he had seen no one strike her. In the instant before he turned to run away, he saw a gash appear on her cheek. At the same time, he heard the moonlion roar in pain.
Darrow ran back to Rusk. Sorcia followed his lead this time.
The bodies of two dire wolves lay torn apart on the ground beneath the moonlion, as did the broken human figure of a werewolf called Mandor. Darrow knew that a dead nightwalker always reverted to the form of his birth, but the sight still shocked him.
The surviving wolves continued to harry the moonlion, as Rusk sang more prayers to Malar. Magical power surged into the Huntmaster, and his body rippled with unholy strength. His remaining hand had grown huge and clawed. Razor sharp talons curved from his thick fingers.
Darrow needed his human shape to warn Rusk of what he'd seen. With a searing effort, he willed himself to transform. It was much harder when he was frightened, but his message couldn't wait. The pain left him on hands and knees, even after he had a human mouth.
"Maleva is here," he said, pointing back to the archers. "She's taking the lion's wounds on herself."
Rusk spied his nemesis, who was healing herself after reviving the archers who had survived. The foresters fled now, leaving the cleric alone to support the moonlion.
"Then give her some of her own," growled Rusk. "Don't be a coward!"
"We tried," said Darrow. "She is warded."
Rusk nodded almost absently. "Let's see what we can do about that."
He cast his own spell, jabbing his hand toward Maleva. Darrow saw no effects of the spell. Maleva continued with her own chanting, and her wounds vanished under the white glow of her palms.
With a curse, Rusk tried again. This time his spell caused Maleva to start and raise her hands to defend her face. She took a cautious step back and turned her head from side to side. The spell had taken her sight.
Rusk laughed with cruel satisfaction. "That should make things more interesting."
He cast another spell upon himself before running toward the blinded cleric.
"Follow me," he said.
Darrow obeyed, and Sorcia followed also.
By the time Rusk reached Maleva, the cleric had dispelled the blindness, but now her clothes were steeped in blood. She reeled from the effects of her sympathetic wounds, and a glance back at the melee confirmed for Darrow that the battle was finally turning against the gigantic moonlion.
When Maleva saw Rusk charging her, she raised one hand and held her holy symbol in the other. It was the same gesture she had made before destroying the other werewolves.
"Selune, send-" Rusk's clawed hand gripped her throat. He lifted her as easily as he might a ceremonial cup before a valediction.
"Oh, Maleva, the years have not been kind."
The cleric struggled in the werewolf's grasp.
"No, do not speak. I will remember you as you were, with your fiery hair and unquenchable passions." He sighed. "You believed in me, once."
Maleva's struggles grew weaker as Rusk maintained his grip. Her lips formed the words, but she had no breath to sound them.
"What is that?" asked Rusk, cocking his head. "How shall I treat with the Black Wolf? Alas, Maleva, you were right about my failings. It took me years to accept the truth. Now I realize your young favorite is Malar's chosen vessel-but he will not take my place. No, he is the very implement of my redemption!"
Maleva's head lolled, her eyes seeking the moon. Selune rode high behind her, swelling near to fullness. Rusk turned her head to face him, lowering her body to the ground and relaxing his stranglehold just enough to listen for her dying breath.
"How can it be?" he said. "I knew you would ask. The answer came only recently, in a vision from the Beastlord. Yet our time is fleeting. It would be better if I showed you."
As Maleva's eyelids fluttered and closed, Rusk bent to kiss her, whispering obscene invocations to his god. Where their lips met, silver light welled from Maleva's mouth. Rusk sucked it forth, drawing it into his own mouth, where it congealed and dulled into a sooty cloud.
Sorcia and Darrow watched as their master drank the cleric's life. As they had witnessed at the death of Fraelan, Rusk's body surged with stolen power. His already exaggerated muscles swelled and ripped with unholy strength as the last wisps of energy trickled down his throat.
For a moment, Rusk gazed tenderly at the lifeless body beneath him. Then he rose and turned toward the battle.
Six ruined bodies lay beneath the moonlion, and more limped away or slumped on the ground beyond the melee. The remaining wolves circled from a more respectful distance. They were growing tired.
"Now we finish this," he said.
He rushed the moonlion, only this time it was no feint. As the lion's jaws gaped wide, Rusk thrust his monstrously clawed hand up under its chin. His arm sank deep into the lion's throat, and hot blood gushed down over his body.
The lion shook its head violently and smashed him with a monstrous paw, tearing long strips down Rusks's back, but Rusk dug deeper still into the lion's throat.
Heartened by Rusk's lead, the pack swarmed over the moonlion's body to support their leader. Darrow leaped into the fray, but he was too late. The giant beast vanished in a flash of silver light. The period of its summoning had ended, depriving them of their kill.
Darrow resumed his human form and sat on the ground. He watched Rusk walk among the wounded and the dead, granting healing where he could, a quick death where he must. When Rusk was finished, Darrow counted fifteen survivors and seven dead.
Those who were still fit to hunt ran off to track the archers to their homes. Without their cleric, they were sheep for the slaughter.
"He's culling the weak," whispered Sorcia in Darrow's ear. As usual, she had crept up silently. "How was it that you were not among them?"
"I could ask the same of you," said Darrow. "You do a good job of running just behind the leader."
Even as the words left his mouth, he realized the danger of angering Sorcia. She might be smaller than he, but he was certain she was far more dangerous in every way.
To his surprise, she smiled as if at a child who had just learned a simple lesson. "You are becoming good at that yourself," she said. "It's a good place to be when the leader makes a mistake."
"We won, did we not?" Darrow indicated the fallen cleric.
In the distance, he could hear the howls of the pack as they brought down their prey. Their revenge would go on for hours.
"What did we win?" asked Sorcia.
"Territory," said Darrow. "The cleric can no longer turn the woods folk against us."
"But weren't we going to the city?"
"Of course," said Darrow. "Anywhere we roam will be our territory, once the night of the Black Wolf has come."
"I think a parrot bit you. Your mouth is moving, but all I hear are Rusk's words."
"Don't you believe the prophecy?"
"I know you don't," she said. Darrow gave her a dark look, but she was not cowed. "Except for Morrel and perhaps Karnek, none of the strong has any illusions about this so-called prophecy. It's just an excuse for whatever mad scheme Rusk really has in mind."
"That's not a very loyal thing to say," observed Darrow.
"I wouldn't say it if I thought you didn't already know," she said. "He talks to you more than anyone these days. What does he expect us to accomplish in the city?"
Darrow hesitated before answering, unsure how much he should say to Sorcia. "I'm not sure," he said. "I know he wants to find Talbot Uskevren."
"To kill him?"