Night of Wolves (15 page)

She smiled at him, and whatever daze she’d been in crumbled.

“Lay ’em the other way,” she said as Jerico put the first down. “More room. Ugh, so much blood. You got a needle for stitches?”

“Something like that,” Jerico said, closing his eyes and putting his hands on a man’s chest, lined with eight vicious cuts. Where his fingers touched skin they glowed with white light, and after a quiet moment, the light plunged within, smoothing over the flesh and knitting torn muscle.

More and more came in, crowding the small inn. Dolores guided them to corners, and she wrapped blankets across those Jerico healed. The sobs of both healthy and sick echoed upon the walls.

“Jerico!” a boy cried out. He glanced that way, saw Perry kneeling over Jacob Wheatley.

“Close your eyes and be strong,” Jerico whispered to a woman who had lost her arm. He’d closed the wound and wrapped it with a bandage, the best he could do. Walking to Perry, he stopped a moment, a dizzy spell coming over him.

“He stayed back ’cause I couldn’t keep up,” Perry said, glancing down at Jacob. “You’ll help him, won’t you? I don’t want him…him…he can’t die. It’ll be all my fault. My fault!”

Jerico knelt to examine the wounds. His back was bleeding, but it appeared to be from shallow slashes that would only prove fatal if they became infected. The bite on his chest, however…

“Be with him,” Jerico prayed, his hands on the rupture. The blood felt hot on his fingers. The light bathed over them both. Slowly, the change unseen through the light, the skin closed into a long, angry scar. When finished, Jerico leaned against the wall and gasped. So many. He had never been the greatest at healing, and facing so many wounded, so many clawed and mangled people…

“Come on,” Dolores said, offering her hand. He took it and stood.

“I have needle and thread,” she continued. “Save those beyond all but Ashhur. The rest, well, they can do with a bit of stitching for now.”

“Thank you,” he muttered.

They triaged the worst, Jerico praying at their sides to close gaping wounds while Dolores moved about, sewing shut minor cuts and applying tourniquets when it was clear the limb was lost. By the time he was done, there were forty men, women, and children lying on the floor in blankets, with the lesser wounded staying in various rooms, including Darius’s. Seven died, and quietly Jerico took them behind the inn for eventual burial.

They cleared out every piece of furniture but for two chairs, and Jerico sat in one beside Dolores, looking over the many. They were crying, sleeping, or staring into the distance. Dolores had had to force all family members out. In some ways, that had been the worst. No matter how often Jerico told them there was no room, that they had to leave, they still sobbed, still clutched at their loved ones as if they might never see them again. Breaking that up felt wrong, but he knew it must be done.

“Jerico?”

The paladin glanced up to see Darius standing at the door. He gestured outside, and Jerico nodded.

“Will you watch them?” he asked Dolores.

“Go on,” she said. “You have much to do, but don’t push yourself. Hate to find you on my floor with the others.”

Jerico stepped carefully among the bodies, then followed Darius outside. Daniel had returned, though his men were still hurrying about the town. Things had calmed down, but only a little. It seemed like everyone had a task set before them, and that kept down the bulk of the panic.

“So what’s the story?” he asked.

“Patrols to both directions,” Darius said, and Daniel nodded in agreement.

Jerico sighed, wishing he was a cussing man. He knew plenty that felt appropriate for the situation

“Where’s Jeremy Hangfield?”

“Taking stock of our supplies,” Daniel said. “We got lucky. With everyone preparing to move out, most had gathered up their belongings and brought them into town already. Because of this, we got plenty of food to live on, at least for a week or two. If they plan on starving us out, it’ll take time, time I doubt they have. Sir Godley will notice something is up, if not one of the other towers.”

Jerico caught sight of a man in black robes approaching, and he raised an eyebrow.

“That your friend?” he asked Darius. The paladin turned, and seeing the man, bowed on one knee in respect.

“Pheus, you’ve returned to us,” he said.

“I have,” said the priest, glaring at Jerico. “Two wolf-men accosted me on the northern road.”

“How did you escape?” Jerico asked.

Pheus gave him a look of such contempt it chilled his blood.

“I killed them, of course.”

“We’ll need all the help we can get,” Darius said. “And the question is, do we hunker down, or try to punch through their circle?”

“They’ll harry us for miles,” Jerico said, shaking his head. “No matter which direction we go, it sounds like they’ll be watching. Our best chance now is to protect ourselves and hope someone notices our isolation; the traders they attacked last night, perhaps.”

“What about sending off a boat for aid?” Daniel asked. “Down south to the nearest tower, or better yet, to the Citadel?”

Jerico winced, and he saw both priest and paladin of Karak look his way. Darius’s eyes revealed nothing, though Pheus was clearly amused.

“The Citadel is no more,” Jerico said. “We will get no aid from them.”

He turned to leave. A hand grabbed his shoulder, and he spun, his hand reaching for his weapon. Darius pulled away, and he looked at the mace with a mixture of betrayal and anger.

“I wanted to thank you for what you did in there,” he said, gesturing to the inn. His voice lacked what conviction it might have had, though. Jerico released the handle of his mace and nodded.

“We’ll gather everyone into a few places to sleep,” Daniel said, glancing between them. He clearly felt the tension in the air, and he pushed on to change the subject. “Will make it easier keeping watch. Need to get our food into safe places too, so they can’t destroy it. Oh, and last of all, we need to stay off each other’s throats. Times before a battle can make even the kindest men turn to ogres. Let’s all remember that, eh?”

“I have wounded to attend,” Jerico said. “Excuse me.”

He returned to the inn, feeling both furious and embarrassed by that fury. Darius had meant no insult, yet he felt hot under the collar anyway. It was just the way that priest stared at him, with a mocking glint. No doubt he’d cheered when the Citadel fell. No doubt he expected Darius to feel the same way. Did he?

“Any news worth sharing?” Dolores asked him, keeping her voice low so as not to wake the sleeping.

“No,” he said. “What hope we have is little.”

She frowned.

“Out in the back,” she said. “Will you take care of ’em?”

He sighed. His temples throbbed, his forehead ached with every heartbeat, but still he nodded.

“Might be the only chance we have to bury our dead,” he murmured.

“Don’t you talk like that,” Dolores said. “Not where they can hear. Thought you smarter than that.”

Jerico accepted the berating in silence, then left the inn once more.

At Jeremy’s mansion he found a shovel, and he brought it with him to the inn. There was plenty of open space behind it. Normally the people of Durham buried their dead at the corners of the fields, returning them to the ground that allowed them to prosper. There would be no such act, not with the wolves closing in. The ground was soft enough, and he dug the first of many graves. After he was done with the second, and the sun had started its descent, coloring the sky pink, Darius arrived. The dark paladin watched for a moment, left, and then returned with another shovel. Jerico put the bodies in, and Darius covered them up. This they did until the seventh, and both stabbed their shovels into the ground and leaned their weight against them.

“I’m sorry about the Citadel,” Darius said.

“Are you?”

Darius sighed, and he looked away. When he looked back, he knew for certain his answer.

“Yes. I am.”

Jerico gestured to the graves.

“Hundreds of my brethren died. I saw them in a vision, granted to me by Ashhur. No one will dig them graves. No one will gather before them to mourn. The dead tore apart their bodies and cast them to the dirt. Who deserves such a fate? Who would hate us so?”

The Voice of the Lion,
Pheus had said. Darius knew that name, though he had never met him. The fabled prophet of Karak, his priest since before the Gods’ War. Eyes of blood and fire, and never the same face. He was a relic of a more fanatical time. At the Stronghold, Darius had been taught to honor him should they ever meet, for none were supposed to be closer to their deity. And now he had brought low the Citadel. Would Jerico understand? Could he? Were they truly at war, and Jerico an enemy he had befriended?

“I fear whatever answer I might give will offer no satisfaction,” he said.

“You’re probably right. Every part of me wants to leave, to go to the rubble and see it for myself. I don’t want to believe it. I might never, really, until I see the wreckage. How could…how could Ashhur abandon us so?”

The crisis of faith seemed too personal, too close to home for Darius. He turned away and gestured to the setting sun.

“We should go inside and rest. Unless the wolf-men are exceptionally clever, they’ll attack at night, which will be when you and I must stand guard. It’ll be a long night, and following a long day, but we’ll endure. Won’t you, Jerico?”

Jerico stood and clapped Darius on the shoulder.

“Forgive my behavior, Darius. I’m tired, scared, and sad. That priest of yours, when I see him looking at me…I feel more alone than ever. And hated, too. I never should have disrespected you so.”

“All’s forgiven,” Darius said. “I’ll be with the wounded at the inn. Daniel’s men are watching Jeremy’s estate. That leaves the tavern for you.”

“Thank you,” Jerico said.

“For?”

In answer, he gestured to the mounds of dirt, the only marker for the seven dead.

“Think nothing of it,” said Darius. “They won’t be the last. Together, life and death, the fate of the village rests in our hands, both yours and mine. Peaceful nights, Jerico.”

“To you as well.”

They split for their respective assignments.

S
he’d always liked the privacy of her room, and that’s what Jessie Hangfield missed most of all. Keeping her bed to herself had required little argument, but three other women slept on the floor. They shuffled, cried, and snored. Every noise bothered Jessie to no end. There were summer nights where even the song of the cicadas could keep her staring at her ceiling for hours. Hearing such inconsistent noises breaking the quiet only reminded her she was not alone, and not yet asleep despite how tired she felt.

Jessie shifted to her side and stared out the window of her room. The glass was recently cleaned, product of a strange delusion that she should tidy up the place before the swarm of guests invaded her father’s home. It was only when the women arrived that she realized how stupid she’d been. A pink talking rabbit could have greeted them at the door, and they still would have thought nothing of it. Their eyes were wide, but seeing nothing. She knew them all, and she felt too scared to ask them of their families.

“Blessed of the light, watch over me,” she heard Lyla pray. Lyla was beside her bed, wrapped in a thin blanket she’d brought from her home. It was the fifth time she’d begun the ritual prayer to Ashhur. No matter that others were trying to sleep. It seemed that ritual cadence was the only thing keeping her sane. She was not that much older than Jessie, with a handsome husband and a newborn babe. No amount of courage could have convinced her to ask where they were, nor ask her to be quiet.

So she shouted it mentally. Shut up, shut up, shut up! It was unfair, absurdly unfair, but this was her room. She wanted to bury her face in her pillow and scream until her lungs gave out, to cry until her pillow could take no more tears. Every noise she heard made her heart stop. Every weird creak was the step of a wolf. Jessie could imagine one leering over her, its mouth drooling, its yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. Tears ran down her face, and she wiped them with a blanket. Lyla began her prayer for the sixth time. Jessie whispered the words along this time, begging Ashhur to let her sleep, to let her forget the day’s horror for only a few blissful hours.