“The less you remain still, the more it shall sting.”

Crk.

“Mmmmmgh!” Wurhi gave a muffled shriek, grinding down on the cloth wedged between her teeth. Her shattered hand was crawling agony up her arm - consciousness would have long fled had her transformations not inured her to the familiar agony of shattered bone.

Every cruel twist of her broken hand thrust her into violent thrashing that withered all reason. Tight bonds gripped clammy flesh like serpents while her ‘healer’ stoically went about his grim work.

“Hmmmm.”

Crck.

A broken bone shifted, sending white-fire anguish through her body.

“Mmmrgh!” she cried. Hot tears spilled down into her ears from wide eyes.

“Three more,” the voice, near enough to brush her skin, mused with clinical detachment. “You are past the worst of it now. Try to still yourself.” It paused as its owner turned her hand. “Hmmmm. Your flesh does not hold the same resilience as Lycundar’s children.”

Crk!

“Mmmmmmmrgh!”

Hemp rope bit into the Zabyallan’s limbs.

“There. Another set. Interesting.”

Scrtch. Scrtch.

A stylus etched notes into a wax tablet close at hand, though Wurhi could not be sure of its proximity: to her tortured senses, all was a twisted haze. The acrid scent of unknown substances enveloped her while a thick brew bubbled foul vapours into the chamber.

“Even in human form, we lycanthropes would have begun some healing - the newest pack members would have lessened swelling by now. You are an entirely different animal…in more ways than one.”

Crk!

“Mmmmmmmmmmrrgh!”

“Loud.”

The beast-man’s hideous voice resonated in Wurhi’s ears from somewhere in the chamber. Its brutish tone drove her heartbeat to a panicked gallop. “Mmmmmrgh! Mmmmrgh!” she shrieked within the gag.

The creature’s fanged maw - both a smile and snarl as it had crushed her hand - shimmered before her eyes. Or so it seemed. So utterly distorted were her senses that her vision wove all manner of the fantastical throughout the rough stone ceiling. Wurhi squirmed to shake her head but short, coarse ropes constrained her forehead and chin.

“Quiet, my pet,” the voice reproved. “She already moves enough.”

A low grunt answered.

“Alright. One more. …I would bite down, Zabyallan.”

CRCK!

“Mmmmmmmmrgh!” Wurhi thrashed so violently that her skin tore on the bindings. A shriek threatened to burst her vocal cords as fiery pain seared every nerve in her body.

At last, her strength and consciousness drained.

Blackness rose to take her.

Sometime later, Wurhi gasped into wakefulness.

She was now on the move.

Or rather, she was being moved.

The powerful stench of the beast-man burned her nostrils and sent her eyes flying open. She groaned. With lumbering steps, the creature held her beneath its arm as though she were a sack of feathers, transporting her limp form through a downward sloping passage.

Crackle.

A burning clay pot of oil-sodden pine was carefully balanced on a thick cloth held in the palm of its other hand. Murky light and a white-grey smoke played over the walls of the passage, drifting through small air-tunnels in the ceiling.

Wild shapes flickered over the floor, elongating shadows cast by her dangling limbs and the looming beast-man.

An acid-scented cloth bound her broken hand.

Wurhi looked at it.

From the bandage protruded several wooden splints holding her fingers straight. She quietly choked back a gasp. Her fingers would be rendered useless if they healed poorly, and the days of foiling the trove guardians’ devices would be dead to her. At least with that damaged hand.

“Do not scratch at it,” the voice of her ‘healer’ boomed through the passage. “I did not labour to set it straight so you could spoil my work with your dirty nails.”

That voice, though its tones still chilled her veins – now provoked a blood-addling rage. Wurhi’s lips writhed back to a snarl. The rodent within recoiled at his scent but - now cornered - would fight him with the ferocity of any trapped, injured animal.

She looked ahead.

Milos of Crotonia strolled through the tunnel unconcerned, his hands easily clasped behind a back so straight that it might have held an iron rod. A caustic loathing filled Wurhi at the sight of him, yet trepidation tempered the taste of bile on her tongue.

“Do not remove the wrapping, Rat; you might well abhor me at the moment, but my words are to be heeded if you wish full recovery of your digits.”

Her jaw clenched. Every syllable that slid through his teeth tensed her body and stoked her toward a rage-blinded violence. Were she free, she would spring upon him and bite through his throat or, better, that horrid tongue.

Yet, his beast-man’s grip was one of iron - loose enough to allow her breath, but firm enough to serve as an unmistakable threat. A simple squeeze of his steel-thewed hand had shattered her bones. If that powerful arm constricted with its entire terrible strength…

She shuddered, closing her eyes.

No. No, no, no. There would be no rash attack now.

Impulse had brought her into the maw of this filthy son of a bastard. More foolishness would surely drop her down into his gullet. Her eyes flew open, burning with an unshakeable focus. No. Now was not the time for mindless frenzy.

No matter how she hated him - just as she detested Haldrych Ameldan and the Eye of Radiin - all her enemies lay beyond her reach. For now. And there was one matter upon which she and this ‘Milos’ agreed: the earlier actions of these wolves had been brash and foolish.

They had invaded Paradise with a blind charge.

The result?

She could still taste Ameldan’s roasted steed upon her lips.

And now this Jairus, the manticores’ former master, sought vengeance - stoked by the fires of failure and shame. No doubt he would be more cunning this time. No doubt he could taste his own redemption. No doubt it would matter not. In her eyes, The Spirit Killer and Solidblade Knight were opponents that no one should face willingly - not if their heads weren’t addled. They were more than a match for these monsters.

They would destroy the hunt-leader, just as they would destroy this arrogant, self-assured, self-licking bastard before her.

But they would need to be swift.

Her eyes narrowed.

If this Milos erred but once, she would have his throat. Or his tongue or head to stick on a pike like the heads on Cas’ walls. Perhaps the self-styled Merchant King of Zabyalla had not been so wrong about somethings after all. She frowned, wondering if he would merely regrow his head. If his lesser wolfmen proved so resilient, then wouldn’t he be the toughest? He was called ‘Sacred Alpha’, after all. And all his talk of carrying cows was something to consider.

…yet her sword had harmed them, had it not?

She knew not why or how, but such questions mattered little. Her beautiful, wonderful blade had split Berard’s face like rotten flesh. It had scarred even this Milos. Perhaps the gods had smiled on her and granted her these wolves’ very bane…and her boon.

All she needed was to escape and find her sword.

And she was The Rat, the plague of the Merchant Princes of Zabyalla: escape and theft were her oldest companions.

And yet…

She glanced to her hand. The bastard had ordered his beast-man to shatter her bones, but bound them himself. She turned the bandage, examining it. Why break her down just to patch her up? None of it made any sense.

“…why?” Her voice croaked through dry lips, cracked and raw from her screams. “…why fix my hand?”

“You can speak?” Milos glanced over his shoulder. His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Remarkable. I did not use white willow bark or the poppy plant for you, yet here you are, having recovered a great deal. I am impressed.”

“Why?” She struggled to keep the hatred from her voice. “Why break me then fix me?”

“Because, Wurhi the Rat, Berard told me of your other form; you are the first shapechanger I have encountered outside of my pack-brothers. Killing or crippling you would be a loss for my knowledge…and my collection.”

“…collection?” A note of incredulity entered her voice. “You’re going to keep me like one of your beasts?”

“Of course. I boast both slaves and beasts.”

“Why me?”

“Why not you? Training and iron will sculpt flesh as a hand might shape clay, and you are a shapechanger: clay that shapes itself. What could a master sculptor do with you?” He turned away. “Survive your next battle with that injury and I shall see some value in you.”

She glanced to her hand. “I thought you were supposed to punish me or something.”

“I did,” Milos said simply, looking back at her hand. “But you proved yourself well in the arena, under Lycundar’s gaze. Do so again and you will have earned your right to life.”

“With this hand?" she could not fully stop the bite from entering her voice.

“Do not play so sullen with me. What did you expect? You are a thief. And that aside, I have done you a favour.”

“Favour?!” Her anger strained against reason and caution. “You broke my hand!”

“Thus granting you your first lesson.” He glanced to her bandaged digits. “Berard informed me that your transformation is similar to ours…but it involves a great deal of pain, he said. Flesh boils? Bone shatters?”

Her words died on her lips.

“I see I have the right of it,” he mused. “Good. It will make this easy to explain.” He spread his hands. “If you were to transform, would your hand still be broken?”

“What? You know it wou-”

“Why?” he cut her off.

She stared at him. “…what do you mean why? Because…”

“Are you a rat or a jackass? Think.” He pushed. “Use the mind that sets you apart from the beasts of the earth: your bones shatter during your transformation.”

He made a squeezing motion with his hand.

“And yet.”

His fingers relaxed. “When it is complete, your bones are whole once more.” He gestured to her broken fingers. “Why would those be any different?”

“Because…because…”

Her eyes slowly drifted to her fingers.

“We are water.” He turned away. “If you pour water into a vessel, it becomes the vessel. If you pour it into a bowl, it becomes the bowl - yet it is still always water. Just as I am always I, and you are always you. Such is the way of shapechangers, no matter what form they have been poured into. I could separate water into droplets or sop it up with a cloth, but once I pour it into a vessel? It is whole again.”

The tunnel began to widen.

“Contemplate this while you await your next trial: if you comprehend even the beginnings then I shall have great hope for you.”

Wurhi stared into Milos’ back in outrage.

For him to reveal something so invaluable either meant that he was a fool, or that he believed her so under his power, she could never prove a threat to him.

As a lion would ignore a mouse.

Her eyes squinted.

She would live and ruminate on what he said. She would make it her own, if there was any sense to it.

Then she would prove to him how fatally wrong he was to underestimate her.