The chill was like a bitter old man. Not content in its own misery, it felt the need to choke out the joy of all it embraced.

Giradin had heard the North was cold, but he hadn't expected it to reach through is coat, his armor, and even his flesh to get down to his bones and turn them to ice. He feared his body had become brittle and even shivering too much might cause it to break. No torch or brazier could warm him enough, no matter how long he lingered near those flames.

And yet, colder than the frosty teeth of the northern winds were the eyes of the Elekvazi people. Giradin stood by the side of the road as they shuffled by, holding a censer of burning incense on the end of a short chain in one hand and his seax in the other. The citizens of Elekvaz sneered at him as they passed in two single-file lines, one for men and elders, the other for women and children. Elders spat at Giradin's feet and muttered curses under their breath. The younger men had far too much to lose to dare such a sign of disrespect.

Especially with the local militia so close at hand. The sheriff had, thankfully, seen reason when Fulk threatened to burn him first if the Crows decided to purge the town. He'd agreed to assign his men to helping the plague doctors try their experimental cure.

At the front end of both lines of patients stood two tents with steam creeping out from under the flaps. Though he could not see the goings-on in those tents, Giradin knew that Mu and Shlomo awaited the patients in either one. When the patients walked in, Mu and the few volunteers they'd managed to round up would strip the patients naked, scrub them down, and check for signs of plague. Those who passed that examination were given Mu's experimental elixir.

But every now and then, there would come a patient who didn't pass the test. Giradin knew them when he heard cries from within the tents, followed by a pale, naked form dashing off for cover. Just before Fulk loosed a bolt from his crossbow and the runner fell. By Giradin's count, there had been three runners already.

"You think we don't know what you're up to?"

The raspy voice drew Giradin's attention back to the parade of patients. One such patient was an old man with fleas in his beard and an eye missing. The old man sneered at Giradin, his dagger-like nose curled up at the nostrils and the gaps in his teeth filled with spittle.

Giradin tried to puff out his chest to appear more intimidating. "What we're up to? We're trying to help you people!"

"He's a liar!" the old man rasped. He pointed to Giradin with a long, crooked, bony finger and glanced at the other men around him. Being young men with families to care for, the others around him averted both his gaze and Giradin's. "We know you plan to give us all the plague! Crows are liars! They are unholy demons sent to kill us all!"

Children in the opposite line cringed and hid behind their mothers.

Giradin shook his head. "You're speaking lunacy, old man. Stop frightening people with your wild tales!"

The ragged old man responded with an obscene gesture.

Giradin thought for a moment, trying to think of what Fulk would do. He settled on telling the old man, "Do that again and you'll lose that finger."

The raspy chuckle that followed his words told Giradin his threat had not been believed.

A wooden baton rested against the old man's hunched back, at which he flinched. The militiaman wielding the baton said, "Move along, Rawlin! And shut your noise!"

The old man said no more, but kept his furious face fixed ahead of him.

What seemed like years passed by as Giradin watched the line move along, his eyes searching the faces of those in line for buboes or discolored eyes. Truth be told, none of these commoners really looked healthy. Half of them stifled hacking coughs, and mucus dripped from many a nostril. Their skin was pale, their hair ragged, and their nails black with dirt. Worse yet was their stench, which Giradin could almost taste even through his mask.

When finally, the lines were done, Fulk drew the four of them together.

Fulk looked to Mu. "So, we've treated everyone in town and dealt with the few here who had plague. What's the next step in your plan?"

"Now we wait," said Mu. "We wait and we observe. Every three days we do this again. If no one else catches plague, then I'll know my medicine worked."

"How long do you propose we wait?" Fulk asked.

"As I told Melcher Fitz, three weeks."

"Three weeks?" Fulk intoned, incredulous. "Shit! You can't expect us to do this every three days for three weeks! That's over a month!"

Shlomo shook his head. "No, it's not. A month is usually about four weeks."

Fulk clenched his fist and groaned, "Shlomo, I swear to God..."

Shlomo shrugged. "I'm not mocking you, it's true!"

"I'd prefer to wait longer than three weeks," said Mu. "Just to be really sure. But Fitz won't lend his aid that long. Come on, now, Fulk, we're testing a medicine that might prevent the plague from spreading. Isn't that worth three weeks of this?"

Fulk glanced over his shoulder, his dark lenses scanning the crowds as they returned to their homes for the night. "If we were coming back every three days maybe... but to actually stay here in town that long?"

"We have to stay close to the patients," Mu said. "It's the best way to be sure."

Fulk groaned and hung his head. "Fine! Alright, men... ummm... good work today and..." he rubbed the back of his hood with his gloved hand. "And... umm... oh, sod it! Let's just go back to the inn and clean up. Get some rest."

The four of them retreated to their shared room at the inn. All four men stripped out of their uniforms and scrubbed them down with brushes and soap. Having few options, they rinsed their suits off while holding them out the window, letting the soapy water run down into the filth-filled streets.

Once cleaned up, every man changed into his sleeping clothes and curled up in his bedroll on the inn's cold floor. Giradin rested his head against a bag filled with his belongings and drifted off to an uneasy sleep, still in the icy grip of the chill that had settled over Elekvaz.

Hours later, he awoke to the sound of scratching on the inn's floor, followed by a squeaking sound.

A rat?

He reached for the weapon underneath his make-shift pillow and drew the blade from its sheath. His eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, and he listened for the sound of the rodent's little claws on the stone floor.

But it was not one squeaky voice he heard, it was two.

And soon he realized why, when he saw a grotesque lump of flesh and fur crawl across the inn floor. The creature was only a little larger than a normal rat, but to Giradin's horror, it had two heads, eight legs, two tails, and a lump on its back which almost looked like a third head.

Giradin could only watch in shocked silence as the rodent's twisted form crept across the inn's floor on all eight leggs.

Crack!

The sudden sound and the red splatter caused Giradin to jump, and he thought his heart about to explode.

Fulk held his bloody mace while he lay on his back. "A rat-king..." he muttered. "Shit..."