David frowned in concentration. The sun had vanished behind the trees, and the ground was parched with the juin heat. He had nearly lost the trail twice already.

“We can try again tomorrow,” Andrew suggested, who was holding the reins of their horses.

“No,” David grumbled. “Just give me a moment. And don’t move.”

There were other hunters on this trail, and he didn’t like what the farmer had said about this werewolf.

“We’ll get this guy tonight.”

“And what if it is him?” Andrew asked.

“It’s not.”

The werewolf they were currently hunting was a mad one, for sure. It had attacked a family inside their home, on half-moon, the typical pattern: some of the crazy ones had this weird urge to spread the curse, breaking into homes and attacking caravans, biting each victim just once, then running away. Mostly right after nightfall, or just before dawn, any day except for the week around new moon.

It wasn’t Greg.

They just had to make sure.

“This is the fourth new moon since he got bitten. Greg could still turn bad,” Andrew pointed out. “And the farmer said this one might be dark-skinned in his human form. How many black guys who are also werewolves do you think are there around Sheaf? It’s all white bread out here.”

“It’s not Greg,” David repeated.

“But –”

“But if it is him, you go back to the hotel,” David said through gritted teeth. “I’ll – I’ll do what’s necessary.”

Somebody had to.

Andrew finally fell silent at that, so David could concentrate on finding the bloody trail again. Not literally bloody, thank –

David took a deep breath. Thanks to nobody. Certainly not to Mithras, who supposedly cursed the first werewolf. Though that curse possibly didn’t create the first werewolf. Some legends claimed human magic had done that, that Mithras had only punished them for their transgression.

And why was he even thinking about religion now?

There. A paw print, finally. He was still on the right track.

“You know,” Andrew said, “if you were on my tail, I’d be scared, too.”

“Funny,” David grumbled, moving faster now that he was sure of the direction.

The werewolf had curled up stark naked between the roots of a large oak. His skin did look quite dark in the low light, but uneven and greyish. As if he’d rolled around in mud, nothing like the warm dark brown of Greg’s skin.

“Well, you were right, just for once,” Andrew said and didn’t quite manage to hide his relief behind the quip. “Now what? We can’t just cut his throat while he sleeps, can we?”

“He did,” David pointed out. “Did it to that family.”

He reached for his crossbow and moved around the tree as silently as he knew how, cursing inwardly. He wouldn’t get a decent target, the way the bastard had wedged himself between the roots. Andrew stayed where he was, also raising his weapon.

Someone has to do what’s necessary, David reminded himself and fired at the peacefully sleeping body. The first silver bolt hit the stomach, and the mad bastard started turning at once.

David had been waiting for that, and his second shot hit right in the eye, as soon as the transformation was complete. The werewolf went down.

“I hate this,” Andrew sighed, when David cut its throat, just to be sure.

“You could have stayed in Sheaf,” David gave back. “To keep an eye on Dad.”

He didn’t feel brave, or glamorous, or good, either, after shooting an unarmed, sleeping creature. But if they had waited, there would only have been more victims. These kinds of spreaders never stopped until they were put down permanently.

“Someone needs to keep an eye on you, too,” Andrew said.

David laughed grimly. “What, you gonna protect me now, little brother?”

“From the werewolves? No. But maybe from yourself. It wasn’t your fault, David.”

“Like hell it wasn’t,” David muttered, and gazed up into the tree, looking for a straight branch he could hack off to tie the dead body to.

“He is seventeen,” Andrew sighed. “He was older than the rest of us, and he knew the danger.”

“No, he didn’t,” David growled. “He thought he did, but he had no clue. And he didn’t have a clue, because we lied to him. We made it sound easy, and grand, and honourable, and we laughed at our near-misses. We never told him about shooting sleeping people in the back, did we? We told him over and over that I killed my first werewolf on my own when I was fourteen, but we forgot to mention how messed up those hunts were, how often I nearly died, and how desperate we were to scrape together the money to pay for a healer for Mum. In Greg’s head, Dad thought I was ready, and that he wanted me out there. Greg saw it as punishment to be left behind, as a lack of trust.”

David took a deep breath. “If we had been more honest, if we had told him that half the time we are little more than well-paid executioners, do you think he would have been so eager?”

“No,” Andrew admitted. “But that’s on all of us. Not just you.”

“More on me,” David sighed. “I could have stopped it. I could have talked Dad out of letting Greg go. But I didn’t. I knew he wasn’t ready, not for that hunt, and I still didn’t say anything.”

“We all had doubts,” Andrew sighed. “We all just told ourselves that it would be okay, that we had prepared him well.”

“But that’s the point,” David growled. “You can’t prepare somebody for something like this! The whole family, starting with great-grandfather Feleke, created this idea that there were tactics and procedures, and if a hunter stuck to them, he’d be safe. And that’s bullshit! Nobody on a battlefield is ever safe, and that’s what the forest was that night.”

“Nathan and I were fine.”

“Yes, because I was standing right behind you for your first half dozen hunts! I all but held your hands back then! You and Nathan had a safety net! Greg didn’t. He couldn’t have, with the way the formation was set up. I should have seen that. Because I had to learn without, too. And I did, I did see it. I just kept my fucking mouth shut because I didn’t want another damn argument!”

He patted the nose of his gelding absentmindedly. “You’d be dead, Andrew, if I hadn’t stood by your side. Nathan would have gotten bitten at least three times. And Greg – well, he’s not Nathan. He’ll never have his woodsmanship. Or your marksmanship.”

“Flatterer,” Andrew huffed. “See that branch up there? I’ll give you a lift.”

David pulled a small hatched out of the saddlebag, and Andrew folded his hands, hoisting him up into the oak tree.

“Thank you,” he grunted, while David climbed on.

“For what?”

“It wasn’t just Mum who was sick that year,” Andrew replied. “Even Dad went down with it. That’s the real reason he let you go alone, isn’t it? Because he was too sick to stop you.”

“We needed the money.”

David paused, trying to fight down the memory of his mother, hallucinating with the fever, covered in a rash, and barely able to breathe. Imani wouldn’t have made it without magic, neither would have Greg, little four years old Greg. And Nathan had been in a bad state, too. The doctors had been at their wits’ ends, and the healers had been charging an arm and a leg in the middle of the epidemic. If it hadn’t been for their high birth, they wouldn’t have been able to find a healer at all.

So he had taken up his father’s crossbow, yes, and gone alone, and nearly died, and gone out again. He had survived by sheer luck and an innate talent that had little to do with all the training Bram and him had gone through.

His father had it, too. Andrew didn’t. Nathan did, but it was nearly offset by Nathan’s recklessness.

Greg didn’t have it.

Experience could replace talent, but you first had to live long enough to gain that experience. Like Andrew, who was now keeping a watchful eye at the surroundings, crossbow held ready.

Maybe they should have taken Greg earlier, not later. Then David could have stood behind him, as he had with Andrew and Nathan... Maybe, if they had crushed his illusions about the job a little harder, Greg would be on his way to university now, or parliament, or even the Imperial court of the Roi Solei at Rambouillet.

“Stop it,” Andrew ripped him from his dark thoughts. “I can almost hear you beat yourself up. Get that branch down and we’ll get the carcass back to the village. And then I suggest a visit to the pub.”

David didn’t say anything but started hacking off the branch they had chosen. He didn’t want to get drunk, he wanted to find Greg and take him to Courtenay before their father lost it and ran to the forests further west, where he would certainly die a pointless death.

Greg’s last letter had spoken of some kind of cultivation, whatever that was supposed to mean. It had come from Sheaf, at the arse-end of nowhere, so that was where they had followed, even though no cultivation happened out here. Even rye barely grew on the stony fields, so all Sheaf had was mines, a navigable river, and factories. And Greg had written explicitly that he had avoided the latter.

Soon, Sheaf would also have a railway station.

Did that count as cultivation?

But Andrew had spent several nights mingling with the navvies who worked from the city, and nobody knew of a werewolf. All they had spoken of was a witch from the south. Dark-skinned, possibly, a woman, certainly. That was the one thing all the rumours agreed on: the crew that did the dangerous bit in the middle of the forest had a woman amongst the workers, and somehow she had protected them from the Rot.

Nathan was waiting for them when they returned to the hotel in Sheaf, pockets jingling with the silver from the last kill.

“He sent another letter!”, he called. “Eoforwic again.”

Their father was already packing.

“When was it sent?” David asked.

“Almost three weeks,” Nathan said.

“Damn,” David muttered. “Even if we find a trail, it’ll be stone cold.”

“Not the point,” Andrew said, and also started to stuff clothes into bags.

“Really? What is the point?” David asked.

“He’s been to Eoforwic at least twice,” Bram replied. “Even if he isn’t in the city when we get there, chances are that he’ll be back again at some point.”

There was a smile on their father’s face, a new energy to his movements. New hope.

“We could follow the path they hacked for the railway,” Andrew suggested. “That’s half the distance the coach road takes.”

However, when they got ready to leave, it was raining cats and dogs, and it was too dangerous to go through the forest. Neither of them wanted to wait it out, so they did take the long way instead.

The crew was supposed to get another week of leave in Eoforwic, but as soon as they got there, Eyal had a long discussion with the heads of the company. They wanted one of the crews from Sheaf, where they had already started with the track-laying, to just keep going through the forest, to save the time it would take Eyal’s men to return to the work-site. Eyal pointed out that it would take them three days at the very most to get to Sheaf’s side of the forest, and that they had the contract for this stretch. The company insisted that if they wanted to keep the contract, they had to be at the trailhead by the end of the week, so their leave was cut short.

Greg only spent one day in town to post another letter, because full moon was once again just around the corner, and he needed to get out of the city. The rest of the group followed a couple of days later, taking the trail they had prepared, while Greg took a nice, long detour as far north as he could. When he came back to his senses after the third night, big clouds were moving in, so he hurried onwards to find Eyal's crew right away, despite the weariness in his bones. He caught up to them just a couple of hours before the gang reached the construction site.

The crew from Sheaf had put down rails right up to the edge of the forest but had then retreated half a mile away from the trees again. All the workmen were staring up into the darkening sky with expressions of worry on their faces.

When Eyal's gang arrived at the trailhead, Smith was hugged by the engineer of the waiting crew.

“You have no idea how glad I am to see you, mate,” said the man. “I was not looking forward to going in there on my own. Especially not with those clouds.”

He nodded towards the looming trees.

“Fear not, Adrien,” Smith said, grinning. “The cavalry is here.”

“You know, there are some seriously crazy rumours out there about you guys?”

“Oh yeah? What’s your favourite one?”

Adrien smiled wryly. “My favourite one? The one where the Rot doesn’t attack anyone working for the Lackland Company, and you’re just hogging this contract cause it pays better. The one I’ll actually believe? The one I’ll believe is the one where you have a witch on your team, from some southern Valoisian colony.”

Greg saw Thoko hurriedly pull the cap lower over her face, just as Adrien added: “If you do, don’t tell me, though. I want to know nothing about any unsanctioned magic.”

Greg shuddered. Unsanctioned magic. That probably was more believable than a sane werewolf protecting everybody.

“And I’m going to squeeze my eyes shut every night as soon as I’m in my tent.”

“You’re coming with us?” Smith asked, a little alarmed.

“They all are,” Eyal said darkly. “Or at least everybody who wants to work with the Lackland Company in the future.”

“They paid us yesterday, so I wouldn’t hope for too many people,” Adrien chimed in.

“Great,” Greg muttered.”What a nice surprise.”

Isaac shrugged. “Nothing Eyal can do about that. The bosses are getting impatient. Reckon we were too successful. They no longer believe that it’s actually as dangerous as it is.” He raised his voice. “None of them ever had a Rot-creature breathing down their necks.”

People of the other crew looked at each other uneasily, but still, there seemed to be at least a hundred of them. Even if only half of them joined up…

Some of them were already sidling over to Eyal’s men.

“You got to have a way of dealing with the Rot by now, don’t you?” someone asked.

“Don’t worry,” Isaac muttered to Greg. “We discussed all this on the way. They don’t need to know how it’s done, just that we can do it.”

“I bet that’s really going to be put their minds at ease,” Greg muttered.

Yet to his surprise, almost sixty workers from the other crew were willing to risk it, despite the little reassurance Eyal’s men were willing to give. From the sound of it, the company had raised the wages again for anyone brave enough to take on the forest.

As soon as they had reached the forest’s edge and were ready to get to work, one of the towering rain clouds burst right above them. So Eyal ordered them all to march to the closest of their old campsites to prepare it for the larger group right away.

Despite his claims that he didn’t want to know the details, Adrien asked: “So that’s all you do. Fire dams. No chanting, no ritual…”

“Nope,” Smith said, grinning. “Just the fire dams.”

And Greg, who was getting ready to leave the camp as soon as he felt like nobody was watching.

“The rest you really don’t want to know about,” Smith added.

Greg slipped out unnoticed by all the new people, as far as he could tell, and began to look for a place to hunker down. Tonight would be a tricky night. It was still very close to full moon, but with all the new people the camp was way too big for him to defend with just a bunch of torches. So he did his best to relax, to calm his nerves, and focus himself. That way at least the human part of his mind would be ready. There was very little he could do to influence the wolf, but he did feel that it was a lot easier to control its instincts when he wasn’t confused or in a panic even before the transformation.

Greg thought he had hidden himself well from the camp, so it wasn’t helpful in his endeavour to calm himself, when Isaac suddenly stood behind him.

“What the hell, Isaac,” Greg hissed. “What are you doing out here? It’s almost dark already!”

“Aw, ye worried about me?”

When Greg just glared at him, Isaac added: “I just wanted to let ye know that Eyal assigned all the fire watches to our people. Everyone else is to stay inside their tents and stay out of the way. So, ye know, ye don’t have to worry so much about being seen.”

“Thanks,” Greg said. “But you need to go back now.”

Isaac gave him a mocking salute, before turning back towards camp. Greg leaned around the tree he was hiding behind and watched him all the way until he vanished through the small gap in the flames which the guard had left for him.

Greg started taking off his clothes as soon as he was gone, took a few more deep breaths, and then found the tightrope in his mind, let himself fall into his other body.

He could smell the Rot right away, and it didn’t take long for the stench to get so thick that the humans had to smell it too. When he could hear the first misshapen things move in the darkness, Greg left his hiding place to start his patrol around the camp.

It was a real shame that Porter hadn’t taken their offer. With the bigger camp, he really could have used a second pair of eyes to look out, and a second set of teeth to rip the bloody creatures apart.

A soft cheer went up inside the camp when he tore one of the bigger monsters to shreds right next to the fire dam, which had nearly eroded with the rain. The guard had pushed logs into the earth, but that didn’t work too well either. What they needed were grilles, lifted off the ground, that would hold the wood but let the rain run through. Or even better, something with a roof. He would have to talk to Eyal about that, if they really wanted to go all the way to Mannin.

He ran around the camp to make sure everything was all right on the other side and had to destroy two more of the smaller Rot creatures. The bloody things were getting pretty brazen this night, crawling almost up to the fires. Greg wished he knew more about them. Did the Rot have an awareness? Did it realize that soon this forest would be cut in half, that the power of fire would propel humans right through its territory, and that there was nothing it could do to stop them? Could it fathom that one day, all its hiding places might be burned out that way? Was it scared to die?

Or was it just a – a thing? A thing that felt no pain, no hunger, no hate or love, no – no nothing?

But if it felt nothing, why did it even move? What incentive did it have, if it could not hate or hunger, to kill so many? Why did it defend itself, if it did not fear and knew no pain?

There had to be something it wanted?

Or was all that destruction just a memory of the purpose, the intent of the original spells whose residue had created the Rot? What sort of after-effect did a healing spell leave behind?

But it couldn’t be that simple, could it? Magic was famously unpredictable, everybody knew that.

Just like everybody knew that the Rot was indestructible by anything but magic and alchemy, and werewolves were good for nothing monsters?

Greg shook his head and the rain out of his fur and continued his rounds. It didn’t really matter, either way.

At least the nights were still shorter than the days. The clouds had thinned sometime during the night, so the Rot retreated as soon as the first light of dawn turned the forest to gold. Greg returned to the place where he had left his clothes, found them soaking wet, and decided to stay wolf a little longer. He curled up in the shadows of a thick brush, hopefully out of sight from the camp. He managed maybe an hour of sleep before Isaac woke him up.

“I brought you some dry clothes,” he said when Greg growled at him in annoyance. “Figured you might want to have breakfast with us.”

Greg groaned again, but that offer was hard to refuse.

“You can sleep some more later,” Isaac said. “We got plenty of bodies now to get the work done.”

Greg managed to return to his human shape within a few minutes, probably a new best this side of half-moon, and put on the clothes Isaac had brought. He was just closing the laces of his one and only pair of work boots – wet and cold and stiff – when the rest of the camp seemed to wake up. From the sound of it, one of the new workers had found the pieces of the Rot-creatures Greg had destroyed during the night.

Isaac grinned from ear to ear at their excited shouting, and even Greg couldn’t stop himself from smiling. He hadn’t realized how many of the bloody things there had been.

Smith came over to them. “Busy night, huh?” he asked, voice lowered.

Greg just yawned.

“Right,” Smith said, grinning.

Before Greg could say anything at all, Adrien came walking in their direction with long strides.

“Just the fire dams?” he yelled. “Just the fire dams? No fire dam did that!”

He pointed at the remains of the biggest creature Greg had fought last night.

“I thought you didn’t want to know the details,” Smith said mildly.

The other engineer looked around, kicking the twisted form of what had probably once been a wild boar, and finally shook himself. “Just – just tell me that this isn’t going to come bite us all in the arse.”

“The less you know, the less likely it is that this will come back to haunt you,” Smith said. “And I promise: There is no danger of any magic misfiring.”

Adrien shook himself again. “This is seriously scary,” he muttered.

“Well, then let’s get to work,” Smith gave back. “The faster we get past the next ten miles the better.”

“Right,” Adrien muttered. “Right.”

“Breakfast first,” Isaac added.

So they all returned to camp. The new workers were sitting together in small groups, muttering excitedly. But so far, Greg couldn’t see anyone who was packing.

Isaac brought him a double portion of yesterday’s dinner with freshly baked bread, which Greg wolfed down. Food couldn’t substitute sleep for long, but at least for the moment, he did feel a little better.

“You look like crap,” Isaac noted. “Get out of here and go back to sleep.”

“You don’t think Eyal will mind?”

Instead of an answer, Isaac waved his uncle over, and said: “Tell him to go back to sleep, please.”

Eyal looked at Greg, shook his head, and said: “Go back to sleep, Greg. We might need you again tonight.”

So Greg left the camp again and found himself a spot that would get a little bit of sunshine, out of sight from the workers. The dog days of summer were upon them and it was already getting quite warm. Greg turned into a wolf again and went to sleep within seconds. When he woke up, it was just in time for lunch. He was amazed to see how far the work had progressed already. He watched the whole crew working together like a well-oiled machine, putting down the floaters first, then the iron rails on top, and then came a second group of men tasked with fixing everything in place with huge bolts and spikes and nails. Every hammer strike fell in sync with the others, and Greg wasn’t surprised to hear people singing in the same rhythm as the blows.

They wouldn’t manage eight miles a day like the Valoise supposedly did, but it was still impressive.

They managed a little less than half a mile a day and missed three days because they didn’t get their supply of iron rails from Sheaf when they were supposed to, which meant that they didn’t quite finish before full moon came around again.

Three days before full moon, it started to rain, not strongly, just an annoying drizzle, barely more than fog often, that just would not stop. Eyal and Smith pushed the men to go as fast as they could and cursed the time they had wasted fiddling their thumps while they had to wait for the iron rails, but there was nothing to be done about that. It was still raining the morning before the first full moon night, with just a little over a mile to go to the edge of the trees.

Greg stared up into the clouds and had no idea what to do. He didn’t have to transform tonight, not if he kept his calm, but there was no way he could keep the whole camp safe as a human, just with torches. And if he did turn, he very much doubted that he could keep his friends safe from himself.

“Just stay until lunch,” Eyal said as if he had read his mind.

“And what about you guys?”

“We’ll keep pushing the line until then,” Eyal said. “And then we’ll march out of the forest, make camp in one of the purged fields, at least a mile away from the trees. Even with the rain, we should be fine. The company’s going to moan about it, but if they had sent us those rails on time, we wouldn’t even be in this situation.”

“Right,” Greg muttered. “And all the new people on the crew? It’s going to be a little suspicious, with the first night of full moon, isn’t it?”

“Nah,” Eyal said. “We’ll just tell them that our protections are weakening and that we don’t want to take any risks this close to the end. Everybody knows that magic is capricious.”

Greg huffed a laugh. “Thoko is going to love that.”

Eyal grimaced. “Has to be done. If anyone accuses her of unsanctioned magic once the job is done, we can still give you a head start and then tell the truth. Though I don’t think they will. Nobody likes the Valoise around here.”

Greg hoped he was right. He had no better idea, though, so he did just what Eyal had told him too.

Did the other workers notice when he was gone? His dark brown skin wasn’t exactly inconspicuous among all the other pale faces. Or was the group large enough that people simply assumed that they had missed him? Or had Eyal told them, too, that he was their werewolf hunter?

Hurrying back right after full moon was beginning to feel routine by now. Nosson, who had taken over cooking duties full time, now that the camp had gotten this large, had even kept some lunch warm for him. Greg ate it hidden on the supply cart, while all around, the workers were milling about. Morale was high; they had already moved the trailhead out of the forest. Now they were pushing to get as far away from the trees as possible, with even more reinforcements from the crew that had prepared the ground between the forest and Eoforwic.

Nosson was in a particularly good mood, telling Greg about how they’d be done in time for his people’s new year and the high holidays. He had extra food for Greg, too, so Greg watched the work from his hiding place for a while, eating and listening to Nosson describing all the festivities he was looking forward to.

Greg wouldn’t be needed for the rest of the job. There were only a few small copses of trees left to pass through, and those were all supposed to be safe. After a while, he dozed off.

When he woke up again because Nosson was shaking him, night was already falling, and the supply cart had moved to the new camp. Greg wondered how he had slept through that.

Isaac and Thoko were waiting for him at one of the fires. People all around were celebrating as if the job was already finished. Thoko handed Greg a plate with a piece of freshly grilled meat that had come from the whole pig that was being roasted over the biggest fire. Isaac wouldn’t touch it. The lamb stew Nosson had prepared was great as well, though, so it probably wasn’t much of a loss. There was plenty of beer, too, and as a result, work started late the next day.

They still made it to Eoforwic just one week behind schedule, which was a small miracle as Smith said. When they reached the new railway station and a symbolic final spike was hammered into the earth, there was a huge crowd cheering them on. There were a lot of journalists and even several artists who no doubt had been commissioned to produce pictures of the event.

Greg probably should have expected this, but he was still surprised when he and the rest of Eyal’s gang were pushed to the front. Duke George Louis made it a point to thank all workers, while the mayor of Sheaf made a long speech to thank especially the “heroes” who had braved the forest and the Rot to connect his city to Eoforwic and thus the rest of Loegrion.

When the big speeches were finally over, there was a feast for all the workers in the great hall of the new central station, which was still under construction. For the rest of the city, a holiday had been declared as well. Greg, Thoko, and Isaac were just about to leave the station to have a closer look at the festive decorations of the new city, when Gavrel stopped them.

“Here you are. The duke wants to talk to us,” he said excitedly. “About the land grant.”

“What, right now?” Greg asked.

“Yeah, right now,” Gavrel said. “The other crews aren’t supposed to know, are they?”

That was news to Greg, but Thoko and Isaac were already following Gavrel to the big building with the mural of King Lackland.

They seemed to be among the last who were ushered into a generously appointed office, big enough that all thirty-two of them fit inside without stepping on each other’s toes, and without crowding up against the huge desk behind which Duke George Louis was already waiting.

“Is that everybody, Mr. Levi?” the duke asked Eyal.

“That should be everybody, yes, your Highness,” Eyal said.

At those words, the doors closed behind them with an ominous sound.

“Very well,” the duke said. He looked around the room. “You have all been promised high rewards, and in return, you promised to advance the line from Eoforwic to Mannin right through the forest. You promised that you would need no sorcery to do so, no ritual, no magic at all. Just vigilance, discipline, and a lot of firewood.”

The duke paused. “Now, you have certainly done what you said you would do, and allowed us to connect Sheaf to Eoforwic. But after talking to several of the men who worked with you the last weeks, I have some serious doubts that vigilance, discipline, and a lot of firewood was really all it took to defeat the Rot. Mr. Adrien Melvin testified that several mornings he found pieces of destroyed Rot creatures right outside the camp, and he even brought some of them back with him. So. Before I’m willing to talk about land and money, I want to know: How did you do it?”

“Your Highness,” Eyal started, then paused again and glanced over to Greg. “Your Highness, there was no magic involved.”

“So you want to tell me that these creatures, of which I saw pieces, simply – fell apart?”

“No, Your Highness. But we did not use magic, unsanctioned or otherwise.” He took a deep breath and added: “We might have – bent – certain other Valoisian laws, though.”

Greg held his breath, just like probably everyone else inside the office. For a second, there was no sound at all audible.

“I see,” the duke finally said. “In that case, it is probably a lucky thing that I am no Valoisian magistrate, and do not necessarily feel obligated to report to them.”

Eyal hesitated again, and finally said: “Your Highness, I also might have lied to you when I said that our whole butty gang is assembled here.”

“I might forgive you even for that. Provided you finally tell me what I want to know.”

“We have another comrade, Your Highness. He couldn’t enter the city, well, because he’s a werewolf.”

This time it was the duke who was obviously lost for words. “You must be joking, man,” he finally said. “How would that even help you?”

“It was John who destroyed the Rot creatures of which you saw pieces,” Eyal continued. “While he was transformed. That’s why we had to leave the forest when it wouldn’t stop raining on full moon. Because he couldn’t protect the camp those three nights.”

“You told the other workers that your protection was weakened.”

“Well, yes, Your Highness. They would have run off if they had known that they were working with a werewolf all along. John works just like everyone else when it’s not raining. The Rot has no effect at all on a werewolf, not even when he looks human. So he could defend us all.”

“You put your life – you all put your lives knowingly into the hands of a werewolf? Of a creature that at best can be described as unstable, as raving mad at worst. And you all agreed with this?”

“At first, only my family knew,” Eyal said.

“But yes,” Dicun chimed in. “We all knew about John after the first time it rained. We’ve known about him for months – we’ve worked with him for months. And he isn’t unstable at all.”

“He’s as sane as the next man, Your Highness,” Smith confirmed. “We all worked with him for more than a week and never would have guessed.”

“What about full moon?” the duke asked, looking a little pale.

“Well, as Mr. Levi said,” Smith went on, “he couldn’t protect the camp at full moon. He’s a werewolf after all. But really, that’s just one night each month.”

“Mr. Levi just said it was three.”

“That was only because the camp was getting too big.”

The duke glared at Eyal. “Explain.”

Eyal sighed. “Your Highness, a sane werewolf like John only has to transform one night each month. If they can keep their head together, they can just stay human the first and the third night of full moon, and he defended the camp with torches against the Rot. But that only works in a fairly small camp, cause killing a Rot creature with a torch is really tricky. Mostly they just scuttle out of the way and come back as soon as his back is turned. And if he does transform on one of the nights of full moon, it’s – well, then he’s a werewolf on full moon night, if you catch my meaning, Your Highness. The rest of the month, even when he looks like a wolf, he’s really not. He’s still himself. We talked to him, and he would nod or shake his head to say yes or no. My nephew Isaac here got so good at interpreting his mimics, he had whole conversations with him.”

“There are other werewolves like him,” Isaac said when the duke glared at him. “He – John found one, right in Sheaf. All the locals knew him, and he wasn’t any different from the other day labourers. We tried to convince him to join up, but he was scared that once the work was done he would be executed.”

“Your Highness, the Valoise have to know about this,” Greg chimed in. “That has to be the reason why the Roi Solei is willing to pay a fixed rate for every dead werewolf, even for a werewolf killed in a town like Sheaf, which doesn’t even have a temple of Mithras. They want us to eradicate werewolves in our own country because if we do, we will never be rid of the Rot. And as long as the Rot is there, people will flock to their temples to beg Mithras for protection.”

“And what is your expertise in Valoisian politics, young man?”

“My father is Abraham Feleke of Courtenay,” Greg said. “I know everything about politics as they pertain to werewolves.”

The duke didn’t say anything for a very long time but didn’t turn his eyes away from Greg either.

People in the small crowd were beginning to whisper amongst themselves when the duke finally said: “I want to meet this sane werewolf. As a wolf. I will see whether your claims of conversing with the monster are true. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is the first day of new moon,” Greg pointed out, before he could stop himself.

“Fine then. You have a week to produce this sane monster. Half-moon. At the new water station at the forest edge. At sundown.”

Greg held his breath. Eyal looked at him, then back at the duke. “Certainly, Your Highness. However, we have to insist that you come alone. Greg here, our own werewolf hunter, will be present, and ensuring your safety. Any more people and John will probably stay hidden in the forest.”

The duke stared at Greg again for an uncomfortably long time, and finally said: “I think I can extend a little trust if there is a Feleke present.”

Greg felt himself breathe a little easier at that promise, but he still followed all the others, who hurried to get out of the room as soon as the door was opened again for them.

“Well, that was fun,” Isaac muttered when they were back in the street, which was lit with so many torches tonight that people felt safe to walk about, despite the fact that the walls surrounding the new city were still only about waist-high.

“I need a drink now,” Smith said. “Anyone else coming?”

It was the first time, as far as Greg knew, that the engineer wanted to go drinking with the workers, and there were plenty of takers. Greg hesitated, though, and sidled up to Eyal.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

Eyal gave him a strained smile. “Thank me after half-moon is over.”

“He’s got to see reason, though?” Isaac piped in.

“We can only hope,” Eyal sighed. “But at least you won’t need to hide until then.”

They followed Smith and his group over to the old city, which was lit up as brightly as the new industrial districts. Tonight, any navvy of the Lackland Company could drink for free in any pub in town, and their crew especially. Dicun and Pate decided to take advantage, to test whether “the whole magical mystical werewolf-healing-thingy” worked for Greg even with new moon coming up.

“If you’re as hungover as the rest of us tomorrow, we’ll know what to expect of the Rot if it ever rains on new moon,” Dicun explained the experiment.

“The kid is only seventeen, Dicun,” Randal pointed out. “He’ll never be as hungover as such old farts like you and me.”

Greg felt plenty hungover when he woke up the next day. He couldn’t even remember where he had ended up crashing last night, or morning, more likely. He was pretty sure that the sun had been coming up.

“Well, you didn’t throw up,” a voice said behind him. “I’m taking that as a good sign for the trip to Mannin.”

It took him forever to realize that it was Thoko talking. She kneeled down next to him and offered him a very dented tin cup. “Want some water?”

“Please,” he groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position to accept the cup.

He had slept on the floor of a room that seemed to serve as kitchen, workroom, and bedroom at once. There was a stove on one wall, a table covered in a sewing kit underneath the single tiny, grimy window on a second, and a single narrow bed along the third. The fourth wall had the door, which Greg guessed led outside of the tiny flat.

The water Thoko had given him was still warm, so Greg guessed she had boiled it first, although there seemed to be no tea. When she noticed him looking around, she sat down somewhat awkwardly on the bed and avoided his eyes.

“Home, sweet home,” she said, still without looking at him.

Greg rubbed his face. “When did we get here? And what time is it?”

“We got here about the time mother left for the factory,” Thoko said. “And it’s past noon.” She paused and added: “There’s a privy outside.”

“Thanks,” Greg muttered and followed her directions.

By the time he returned from the outhouse, he had at least collected himself a little and could pretend like this tiny flat which Thoko seemed to share with her mother when she was in town, or the derelict, stinking privy belonging to it, were completely normal for him.

He still really wanted to have a bath after he had used it.

Thoko was obviously just as eager to get him out of the flat as he was to leave, because she awaited him in the door, asking: “How about we go find some food?”

“Sure,” Greg said. “I could eat.”

“Where did everyone else go?” Greg asked when they were down on the street. Thoko lived in a back alley in the old town of Eoforwic, inside a rundown terrace.

“Eyal, Isaac and their family went home,” Thoko said. “Isaac said something about a New Year’s celebration tomorrow and prayers that need to be said before that. I have no idea where Smith and the others ended up. I guess they found lodgings in the city if they don’t live here anyway.”

“I’m going to have to find a room somewhere, too. And thank you for letting me crash at your place.”

Thoko didn’t quite look at him, but he could see her smiling anyway. “How are you feeling?” she wanted to know.

Greg shrugged. “Like a horse kicked me in the head.”

Speaking of horses. Greg froze. Right across the street, there was what looked like the backyard of a large hotel, where half a dozen mounts were drinking from a trough. And one of them was Dolly.

Greg blinked and looked again, just to be sure that he wasn’t just seeing things as an after-effect of yesterday’s excesses, but there was no mistaking the gorgeous little mare.

“What is it, Greg?” Thoko wanted to know.

“That’s my brother’s horse over there,” Greg said, still staring. He needed to move, to get out of here, but his feet wouldn’t budge. Andrew was here, in Eoforwic.

Why? Who else was here?

He couldn’t see his father’s stallion, or Nathan’s and David’s horses, but that didn’t have to mean much. While he was still watching, a young boy in a servant’s livery took Dolly by the halter and led her away, so they might have already been taken inside the hotel’s stables.

“I’ve got to go,” Greg muttered, and finally started walking again, trying to orient himself while he did.

He needed to find the nearest gate, get himself out of the city. Just his luck that he would run into his family on new moon. Hiding in the forest as a human wouldn’t be much fun. Thoko followed him silently as he rounded the corner of the hotel onto the high street until she was suddenly tugging at his arms.

“Look!” she hissed, but it was already too late. Greg had been so focused on finding out where the hell he was that he hadn’t noticed the four dark-skinned men who had just left the hotel. His brothers and father hadn’t missed him.

Greg lengthened his strides and started running, but he had never, not once in his life, outrun Nathan, and in the heavy work boots he was still wearing he barely managed more than a jog anyway.

“Greg!” he could hear his brother calling. “Come on, man, this is ridiculous.”

The next moment, he could feel Nathan’s hands on his shoulders, grabbing him. “Seriously, Greg, we’re right inside the city, what do you think we’re going to do to you?”

Like anyone inside the city would stop them from doing whatever they wanted, if they just shouted: “He’s a werewolf” first.

But he let himself be turned around, and was surprised when Nathan cuffed him around the ears.

“You bastard,” his brother railed at him. “You nearly broke mother’s heart! What, did you seriously think we’d come after you with silver? That we’d take you down like a rabid dog?”

“You’ve done it to plenty of others like me,” Greg said defensively.

Nathan punched him half-heartedly into the chest. “You arsehole,” he growled. “I should shoot you just for that, you know that?”

And then he hugged Greg, as if he wanted to break every single one of his ribs. “Don’t ever run away like that, you bloody idiot.”

When he let go of Greg again, there were tears in his eyes, and Andrew, David, and his father had reached them. Andrew looked like he wanted to continue where Nathan had left off, but David warned: “Let’s get off the street first.”

His eyes were fixed on Thoko, so Greg hurriedly said: “This is Thoko. She knows.”

David relaxed only marginally, and Greg couldn’t help but wonder if his oldest brother was worried for him, or about him.

“Where are you staying?” his father asked.

“Nowhere, yet,” Greg said.

“Right,” his father said. “The Mills Hotel it is, then.”