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Chapter VI

Getting to and shimmying across the rain-slicked tree limb had taken the warden nearly an hour, more thanks to the howling wind that tried to fling him from the tree repeatedly and need to avoid detection through the window he was heading towards than the slippery bark alone.

With an aggravated grunt, he finally managed to open the heavy glazed window into the tower, sliding his thin-bladed dagger through the soggy wooden framing and using it to pry the splintering stuff out so he could reach the catch.

As the window came up on its hinge, water sheeted off of it in a wave, sluicing into his face as he hung upside-down with arms and legs wrapped around the swaying branch.

He narrowly avoided yelping out in surprise and aggravation, as his dagger, slippery with rain wet, flew from his paw while he struggled to maintain his hold and avoid plunging sixty or more feet to a death hopefully just of falling. Worse would be surviving it.

Below, the host were raising their arms as if in supplication, starving creatures reaching towards the sky to thank the gods for rain. Or, in this case, to reach for their meal like a fleshy apple hanging from a dying tree.

The warden clenched his jaw, gritting sharp vulpine teeth as his claws dragged and finally caught in sodden tree bark, tearing strips away to fall away, twisting their way down to join his dagger among the rotting dead.

With a guttural grunt, he used the claw-grip for leverage, pulling himself up by the strength of his wiry arms until he could shift his weight to the top of the branch, instead of hanging from its bottom. Before him, the open window was being slowly pushed shut by the volume of rain sheeting off it like a glass gargoyle-spout.

Another slow, careful movement of aching muscle brought him to the edge of the branch, precariously waving in the wind until he grasped the window frame again, this time with both paws. He gauged his movement, guessing what it would take to roll through the slender window without his weight lowering the branch too far for him to get the footing he'd need.

The fox chastised himself for not bringing his climbing gear on this outing.

Quick trip down road-way to check on my cousin at the road house. Right. Last time I ever plan on a short trip...

The thought brought a pang to his gut, a sharp little pinch of anxiety as his wife's face flashed through his mind's eye. He'd left her there at their forest home, hadn't even bothered to wave as he left. The only reason he hadn't run back to her as soon as he realized the scope of the threat was the knowledge that she'd beat him black and blue for failing to do his duty first. Besides, she knew how to handle herself, and would likely have already fled if the threat came near.

The only real threat to her was being found out by the local witch hunters. They never dared her forest, and for a reason.

His justifications, the mantra, were the only thing really keeping him from losing focus on his work and running home. The thoughts also gave him the moments he needed to rest and clear his head, as his old man had always told him to do before taking a risky shot or a demon-daring jump.

Inhale plan. Find calmness. Exhale action.

Everything slowed a moment in his mind, the falling rain slowing like thickening syrup in mid-drip, and he gave command to his muscles from his crouched position. Uncoiling like a spring, he jolted forward before the branch could bend too far, and used its own strength for momentum as he threw himself at the window, both arms forward and slightly bent inward, just how he'd learned and been taught over years of rooftop chases and tumbling in the forest.

The wind buffeted, and both he and the branch were slightly off from where he'd hoped. His left shoulder received a jarring, numbing hit that sent him rolling awkwardly across the floor of a thickly rug-covered office to thud hard into a desk too heavy for his work-honed form to budge.

He counted himself lucky, as he settled to a stop. He couldn't feel his left shoulder, but on the other paw he was still alive and not lying smashed at the bottom of an undead-besieged hell-hole tower. He'd hit a heavy desk hard enough that he was certain his upper back would be bruised, but on the other paw it was too heavy to make loud noise and alert his quarry to an unwelcome interloper.

All in all, he figured, his acrobatic entry had worked out well. Or well enough. He sat up with his back to the desk, winced, and rubbed at his shoulder, checking it over with deft fingers for signs of dislocation. With none present, he simply waited for the impact numbness to fade, and rubbed at the sore joint as the feeling returned.

As he sat and enjoyed his brief rest, an odd tone echoed up, distant and indistinct, and the warden stood, walking to the window and pressing his back to the wall so that he could listen without being observed, though he doubted the undead were so inclined to look.

Down below, carrying on the wind-whipped night air, a delicate song seemed to lilt along at the edge of sound, too far off to be identified, yet just distinct enough to make him sure it was not just a wind apparition singing over rocks and hollows in the earth.

A strange feeling built in his chest, a sense of dawning dread like ice was being stuffed into a heart already overfull with it. The tone was pleasant, lilting, yet mocking, strange and horrible. As he watched, the host of the dead lowered their many arms as if of one mind, and began to slowly, awkwardly turn themselves towards the southern road, from which the travelers had arrived.

What in the gods' names...

As he peered into the misting rain, a tiny form bobbed in the distance along the road. It was alone, and by his guess no larger than a child, yet something about its gleeful prance set his hackles to rising and compelled him away from the window as the wise muse called Fear told him, deep in his most primitive instincts, that it would come for him if it spotted his silhouette in the window. He whispered a silent prayer to whatever gods still cared that he hadn't thought to light a candle.

The warden put his back to the outer wall of the tower, panting though he'd long since recovered his breath from the climb. A sense of weight, power and fear, pressed on him from all around, putting him in mind of how it felt to be trapped underground, or perhaps buried alive in a deep grave.

Its song was distinct now, though he hoped, against all logical reason, that the undead would fall on the thing and tear it apart just to make the song stop.

"Ring around the rosies..."

The childrens' doggerel spilled through him, leaving shivers in its slimy wriggling wake. Below, he heard the low groans of the horde, somehow horribly resonant with the singer. For long minutes he clenched his eyes shut, praying not to be seen, thinking over and over again that he was silent as the mist, invisible as the wind, unknowable as the void, any mantra that could help him keep from panicking and fleeing the tower in shrieking mind-broken terror.

Just as the pressure of horror in his chest was building to a point he couldn't bear, leaving him feeling as if he was a dam beginning to crack and crumble under the deluge, a soft clear note came from behind the door. For a sick moment, the warden thought the monstrous child had made its way inside, and he gripped the pommel of his short sword, ready to draw it and die fighting.

It was a weak tone, rebounded and warped by stone, muffled by doors and distance, and yet it beckoned him like firelight in the wintry cold, like the voice of a singing prisoner in the depths of a donjon. The warden swallowed his gorge, feeling as if a lump of potato had stuck in his throat, struggling to regain his calm core as he stalked to the door, listened against it a moment, then opened it as silently as he could to gaze out into the hall.

He slid into the hall, carefully keeping his feet low but just off the stone as he stepped, to deaden any sound of his passing. The warden had gathered himself enough not to trust the song, though it was simple and seemed to push back the awful sing-song monster sound from outside. As his wife had once told him, not all beautiful things were safe or good or kind.

Besides which, he reminded himself, his duty was to his lord. At least one of those below was a prisoner, and a dangerous one at that if her presence in this tower was an indicator. The other two would either be in his way or out of it, and the thought made him clench the now-drawn chopping sword.

Just as important, he knew he'd have to find the cipher books that were likely still in the tower somewhere, to send a bird in case his family had somehow not reached the city. He tamped down a growl that seemed to desire an exit of his chest, as soon as he felt it building.

A door opened, the creak of its hinges distant enough that he judged it to be down the stairwell, likely a floor below him in the echoing, cold, dank structure. He reached the edge of a short, small spiral stone stair, and listened. He heard the soft patter of bare footpaws, and the rough shushing of hard-spun cloth.

The song, rough and soft, trailed along with the singer as whoever it was descended a different stair, and when it faded out of hearing he felt his heart clench in panic. Steadying himself with a paw on the outer wall of the tower, he took deep, slow breaths, repeating mantras he'd been taught by rote as a child until he often said them in his sleep.

He could no longer hear the horrid singing of the infernal thing outside, and once he was certain of that, he descended the steps with all the caution of a stalking serpent, testing the air with his snout and finding it filled with the scents of wetness, dirt, soggy wool, blood, and a number of more distant things.

The warden sighted a door left slightly ajar once he'd reached the base of the stone stair, and in a dozen careful steps was at it, leaning his head against the wall to peer inside while giving as little silhouette to whatever was inside as possible.

Inside, a banked fireplace gave shadowy illumination, dappling everything in darkness. For his keen vulpine eyes, however, the shadowy umbra-room was no trouble. The chamber was spartan, clean grey granite walls covered with basic canvas for warmth, the rush mats on the floor un-mildewed, and a simple long table in its center indicating it was no barracks or officer's chamber.

Upon the table lay a crumpled shape, the peaks and rises of its form picked out by the dim firelight. The warden slipped inside soundlessly, his soft-soled boots serving to muffle his passage, and stopped as he saw more closely what he'd initially thought to be a heap of dirty rags.

The warden swallowed as a bitter taste filled his muzzle, complementing the sour smell of infection and medicine that lingered strongly in the room. This was the prisoner he'd seen before, he was reasonably certain. She was less heavily wrapped now, though the bandages looked tighter, better-dressed, and did nothing for her modest as the others had. Arrayed around her on the table were a number of bowls, mostly filled with pink-tinged water and part-way filled with bloodied torturers' tools or bandages.

As he approached, his paw lowered to the leather-wrapped sap he carried. The naked woman, a leopardess he was reasonably certain, stirred ever so slightly to cough, and the sound was miserable, exhausted, like the choked noises of a sobbing, dying soldier. A pain was growing in his forehead, and he rubbed at it, muttering quietly under his breath.

It never gets easier, does it? She's a criminal. Probably death-warranted.

His paw slipped from the sap, and down to his sword, drawing it again, the heavy head of it dipping his paw down as he let it settle to his side, contemplating what to do. He knew damn well he couldn't carry her with him, to wait upon a magistrate's ruling. However, carrying out sentences was neither his duty nor something he wanted to do.

Killing her, however, might be a mercy in this state. Something sour in his stomach told him he wasn't going to enjoy the explanation he intended to demand from the Finder priest.

Silently, he departed the surgery room, leaving the door ajar for fear of it creaking if he tried closing it. Pad-footed steps took him to the long spiral stair that would lead to the main floor, and he leaned his back against the wall to wait for signs his quarry was distracted before he came out in the open.

Timid knelt down next to Tomasj, one paw clutching the scratchy woolen blanket he'd found and thrown on in place of his soggy clothes, as they dried by the large cooking fire he'd managed to stoke.

The black wolf looked so ragged when he wasn't moving, like a dying man wrapped in fine but worn leather and steel armor. Tomasj didn't stir except to twitch his closed eyes, as Timid rolled him onto his side, checking the wolf's skull with probing fingers just to be certain the insensate creature wasn't suffering a cracked skull.

Out of the corner of his eye, Timid glimpsed a flicker of firelight that caught his attention, and he turned, only to find the fire suddenly filling his sight, as his paws clenched, claws digging into the wolf's cheek as the cat tensed up, eyes filled with otherworldly blackness that seemed to blot out his mind, his lungs and mouth as if they were filled with fiery water, burning him and blocking the air.

You have gathered the Three,

Now the Two shall come to you.

One shall be of forest law,

Duty-bound yet goodness-tempted,

He shall feather the winged devils,

His arrows know the way.

One shall be unwelcome foe,

Cruel of heart and weak of soul,

You shall need his darkling heart,

Know him by Her hatred.

When Three and Two are Five,

Seek the Frozen One,

It will know the way.

The sound of a rushing, stallion-wild deluge filled Timid's ears, pushing against his eyes from behind, as the fire suddenly reverted, sending him reeling to his knees as his world wobbled. As he vomited, acidly, he found himself pondering when exactly he'd stood up, and why he couldn't recall it.

An arm wrapped around his neck, as he was spitting the last of his foul mouthful, tightening just enough to make his head feel over-full as he dragged in a labored breath of fright, a blade touching upon the side of his neck. Timid stiffened, and for a moment held his breath at the tightening of his throat, and tried to turn to see his assailant, only to be stopped by a prick of the knife.

"Hold, priest. Don't make me cut you, it's not my goal."

Timid swallowed against the sourness in his muzzle, and the pressure on his throat, letting his paws fall away from the other fur's iron grip, palms shown in sign of surrender.

"I won't attack you, if you just let me go..."

The cat's eyes darted, as the fur holding him locked considered in silence what to do. Timid's eyes alighted on a leather-wrapped bundle pressed up against his hip.

A quiver...Green and brown...Warden!

He swallowed again against the constricting arm, excitement building as a buzzing in his chest, driving out the sickly burning sensation of the vomit he'd just passed. Another companion, or so he hoped, since a bandit likely would have killed him first and not bothered with talking.

The vulpine voice was of average tone, though strong and clear in the way of furs who didn't bother with deceptions of words.

"Priest, you are violating ducal law by aiding an escaped prisoner."

Timid heard the slight hesitation in the fox's voice, the halting that meant he was likely hesitant, that something disturbed him about the situation. The grip around his throat was quite firm, though, telling him this fur was certainly able to kill and willing to do so should his paw be forced.

He waited a few seconds, to see if the warden would expound. When no words came forth, he shifted his head against the iron-hard arm, feeling a hard, metallic shape beneath the cloth rub into his neck.

"If you've looked at her, then you know what your duke likely ordered done. I'm...I'm sorry, warden, but I can't let you take her back."

The fox seemed to take focus on that, and pricked the cat's skin with his woodland cleaver. The chill of the cut made him suck in a breath against the constriction in his throat, heart racing as he hoped against hope the warden would listen to reason, to decency, to something other than an oath sworn to an evil bastard like Casso.

"I've sworn an oath, priest. I'm a man of the law."

Somewhere inside, Timid felt a hardening, a harsh spike of vitriol that tensed his muscles and pushed a reedy growl from his throat as he ejaculated words in a furious torrent that shocked him more than the stalwart warden.

"What worth is a law that lends itself to this savagery?! The dead walk outside, fuck the Duke's law! Help me save the decent folk his army can help!"

The fox was growling as well, the harsh vibrations rolling through Timid's back, just before he felt a sudden gulf between himself and his assailant. A sharp, powerful kick struck him low on the back, bowling him forward to paws and knees as the towel slipped from his grasp, sliding down his back. Brother Timid twisted to face the warden, staring wide-eyed, nostrils flared, at the shadowy fox that stood over him, pointing a slightly curved, wicked-sharp chopping blade, his eyes glinting in anger.

"Who is that woman, and what did she do? Do you even know, father? How can you claim to know anything about her?"

The fox's words were biting, harsh as the rough steel blade he carried, his eyes narrowed in discernment and anger.

Timid's eyes flared wide and he stood, ignoring the blanket as he rose nude to his fullest height, arms to his side and flexed as he growled back his response.

"Because I know her from my dreams! We have a chance to save lives, warden. We can do it, or we can fight over wrongs that don't matter any more while everyone around us dies and comes back to strangle us with their rotting fists!"

The priest watched, anger in his face, as the Warden's eyes shifted. He saw the indecision there, the questioning, and knew he had scored a hit on the lawman's resolve.

Tempted to goodness. You were right, my Lord.

Behind the fox, a shadowy shape rose fluidly from the floor, silent despite its height and the weight of its armor.

...Oh no, damnit...

Timid's paw came up, and the Warden tensed in reaction, as the priest opened his muzzle to shout a warning. He was a moment too late, as Tomasj's arm whipped forward and around, slashing an iron fire poker towards the fox's skull with a whistling, killing strike.

Over a decade of hunting the most crafty of criminals had honed the fox's instincts to an edge sharper than his razor-keen woodland cleaver. He threw himself forward, off his feet, into a forward roll so graceful Timid was momentarily stunned by its circular rolling paw-over-paw motion. A moment later, a stinging backhand from the warden's blade paw spun him around and knocked the nude cat to the stones as the Warden whirled towards his shadowy foe, cleaving blade held low as the mad-eyed wolf howled and charged with all his weight behind the double-pawed overhead blow he leveled.

Tomasj came forward in an enraged fury, his lanky body and long straight weapon giving him reach and power the Warden knew better than to try meeting straight-on. He danced back away from a pair of wind-cutting slashes that would have turned his ribs to mush, then darted in to plant a boot in the wolf's gut. The still-concussed creature staggered back, the wind blown out of him, folded forward and awkwardly raising the poker to parry a pair of rapid cross-body slashes from the wicked cleaver.

Dancing paw-steps were carrying him around the wolf, who turned skillfully but sluggishly, warding him away with heavy strokes of the poker that kept him dodging away, waiting for the injured creature to tire and lose the rage driving its limbs. The fox grinned, hefting his cleaver in anticipation of the kill.

An impact against his legs knocked the smile from his face, as the naked little priest tackled him at the knees, throwing his surprising strength into stealing the agile creature's balance and only advantage.

"Tomasj don't kill him! We need his help!"

The fox staggered, struggling for balance as the tenacious cat wrapped itself around his legs like a lamprey, and raised his cleaver just in time to have it smashed out of his numbed paw by a potent stroke of the fire poker.

Staring into his eyes, the grinning, snarling wolf stalked towards him, raising the poker for a killing strike as the fox finally fell, tripping over the priest and landing hard on his hip.

"You always say this, priest! 'We need her', 'The vision says it is so,' pah!"

Timid drank in the wolf's furious visage, his wide crazed eyes, and realized he couldn't even raise an arm in defense. To release the Warden would mean the fight could continue, likely until one or the other or both were dead. He swallowed against the rushing surge of energy that made his muscles shake, and spoke his words with care.

"Then let Nastasia choose."

A gamble, he knew, and the fox's lack of struggling told him the Warden had gauged Tomasj and knew this was his only chance as well, likely because he judged this 'Nastasia' was the more merciful of the pair.

The crazed witch hunter's head tilted, and he abruptly smirked, releasing the fire poker to drop with a heavy, sonorous clang as it struck the stones. The wolf threw his arms up and laughed his rolling, manic mix of belly-laugh and giggle, as his head fell back to stare at the ceiling.

He coughed, and looked down at the cat wrapped around his legs with a curious quirked brow.

"Your friend...Are all Svalich this mad?"

The priest looked up at him, with a pinched expression of embarrassed worry.

"I hope not."