David was slightly surprised that the howling outside the camp didn’t fade away as the shadows lengthened. He thought it even grew in volume, as if the wolves came closer to the camp’s wooden walls. Thoko had told him about the way Greg had been more like a spooked wild animal on the final night of full moon in Deva, but surely, the presence of so many enemy soldiers would trigger the same violence as a hunter's presence did? David had certainly never encountered a werewolf on any of the three full moon nights who hadn’t instantly, blindly attacked.

He glanced up at the sky again, scarlet red clouds bright against the ink dripping from the firmament. The moon was bright, and so was the evening star.

Just a few more minutes until the sun slipped all the way beyond the horizon and whatever tempering influence it had would be gone. What was Rust doing? He wouldn’t intentionally make the unsettled ones turn in their cages, would he?

Surely, his and Ragna’s presence as wolves was enough to push them over the edge?

If it was them out there. David had to admit, it was equally possible that the elders had simply lost control over some of the unsettled ones.

He got up and leaned against the cage’s bars, trying to catch Fleur’s eyes, but she was staring in the other direction, equally intent on something. Or someone: Just as David was about to call out to her, he spotted the soldiers walking up the path to the tents. They took position right in front of Fleur’s cage—eighteen soldiers, forming three lines, but further apart than firing lines would usually stand. Wide enough for three alchemists to walk between them, scattering some kind of powder onto the ground and onto their boots. It made Fleur sneeze, but didn’t seem to do much else.

Not that alchemy had ever stopped a werewolf.

With the dust spread all over the ground, the soldiers moved aside, nine to the right and nine to the left, until there was an open space between them in front of Fleur’s cage. At once, servants carried up a carpet, then a heavy, high-backed chair, placing it all on the road. David still blinked when the Levant and his escort walked up. The prince took the chair, once again bundled up in that ridiculous fur coat, while his high command and Lord deClare stood around him.

Outside the camp, the werewolves howled. Inside the camp, servants brought grapes for the prince and his entourage to munch on, while they checked their pocket watches and consulted with a priest.

Here to watch the show when Fleur turned and ripped her cell mates to pieces, David realised.

“Are you sure she—” Pettau started, but was hushed by deBurg before he could finish.

The servants finished pouring the wine just in time for the sun to fully disappear behind the horizon; David could tell the exact moment because Alvin’s ghost was suddenly a lot brighter at his side and the howling outside the camp took on a new edge. Fleur shuddered. Somewhere inside the camp, a human screamed, high-pitched and terrified.

Fleur blinked too fast, her face contorting, nose wrinkled and teeth bared—the prince leaned forwards eagerly in his chair and Marshall Soto gestured to an underling—

And Fleur sneezed violently, two, three, four times, before rubbing her nose and turning her back on them.

At the expressions on the pisscoats’ faces, David broke down, laughing so hard the only thing that stopped him from keeling over were the bars he leaned against.

“Sorry,” Fleur muttered, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Well?” the prince demanded, turning to deClare. “How long will it—”

He was interrupted by a howl. A howl so close it had to come from inside the camp, followed by humans screaming and what sounded like tents being torn apart: Ripping fabric followed by metal clanking and wood splintering. And then gunfire that made the howl turn into a whine.

The eighteen Imperial Guards closed up around the prince at once, and their lieutenant was shouting for more soldiers.

David stopped laughing, looking around, trying to see anything but the flickering flames of the torches burning everywhere. How many wolves were there?

How many outside the cages, how many inside?

Curse those damn flames; all he could make out were shadows moving between the tents, people running milling about in confusion. Finally, the alarm was sounded, and the milling about turned to running.

A new group of Imperial Guards came running up the path.

“There are werewolves loose in the camp, Your Highness!” their breathless commander reported, yelling over the noise of the alarms and the gunfire. “I have to insist we move to a safer space, Your Highness!”

The prince stared back with such a wide-eyed expression of shock, David wasn’t sure if he had even heard the words. Then the boy shook himself, visibly collecting himself, and nodded. The guards formed up around him, pushing away deClare and some of the lower ranking officers. Many of them had already reached for their sidearms.

Then the first giant wolf came bounding down the path, running from a hail of bullets, crumbling before the Imperial Guards managed even one volley.

Shot from behind.

The soldiers that had killed the werewolf ran up to the group, closing ranks around their high command smoothly—professional and well-trained in a way the Loegrian soldiers would need another year to reach. The whole group marched off, quickly but orderly, the officers now all shielded against a sudden attack even through the tents by their soldiers.

“Cavalry officer,” deBurg commented.

When David turned to see what he was talking about, the marquis was leaning against the bars, staring at the dead werewolf. It still had one leg wrapped in fabric, including the blood-stained rank insignia.

“What do you reckon, he was on that attack on our supply train?” deBurg added, looking at David.

“Probably,” David confirmed, trying to remember how many men Ragna had said they had bitten. How many had been subsumed into this army?

“Listen,” Pettau whispered, when the howling began anew.

It was softer, distant.

David held the hand out, to make sure of the wind’s direction. No hills to echo the sound, either.

“Port Neaf,” he concluded.

“Are you sure?” Pettau asked.

“Pretty sure,” David shrugged. “You learn to be. Or you don’t live long.”

Not that any hunter was likely to live long on a night like this. He had barely finished speaking when the same, angry yowling started up in two other directions: much louder and answered by gunfire.

David shifted around the cage. “Fleur,” he called out, not bothering with quiet any longer. The Valoise had bigger things to worry about. “You wouldn’t happen to know what the plan is?”

Fleur turned towards him, he eyes too wide and fidgeting. She shook her head. “Ragna and Rust are around,” she said. “But human. I can feel them keeping our youngest ones in check. There’s someone else—I guess it’s Calder? Pushing at all the first timers.”

She closed her eyes. “Someone very angry, too.”

Hardly surprising, given what had happened last night at this time.

“Any chance of us breaking out tonight?” deBurg interrupted.

Fleur shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the plan is.”

“They can ‘talk’ long distance through the howl,” David explained. “But neither she nor the elders out there can becom wolf tonight without turning all the way.”

He let that hang in the air until the healers in Fleur’s cage started backing away. Fleur fidgeted, too.

“So we’re stuck waiting and watching,” deBurg summarized.

David nodded and listened to the guns barking in the distance. Muskets, he thought. Not that he was an expert on guns.

“I wish we actually could see anything,” Pettau muttered.

It was indeed hard to tell what was going on. The cage had one wooden wall, steel-enforced, and on two walls it was closely flanked by more cages. The third side lookied onto the road through the camp, but on the other side were lines and lines of tents, blocking the view. There was shouting and gunshots on two sides, to the north and the east, by David’s reckoning. A cannon roared once, then twice, followed by a silence that seemed to engulf the whole camp, as if it had been wrapped in blankets.

Right until the bomb went off.

David had been staring towards the north, so he saw the light first, blooming where he suspected the northern wall of the camp. The blink of an eye later he felt the sound, like a kick to the chest, sand and dust flying into his face. The tents rustled. Luckily, they were too far away to be hit with any bigger debris.

“That didn’t sound like a werewolf,” deBurg commented.

More gunshots followed the explosion. Gunshots and screams—clearly, the Valoise were fighting more than a bunch of moon-mad monsters over there.

“Sounds to me like there’s a plan,” David muttered. Either that, or Rust had declared a frontal assault on the camp? But for that, there didn’t seem to be enough wolves tearing through the camp? Or had the Valoise secured the camp that well on all sides, in just a few days?

The skirmishes seemed to drag on forever. Everytime he thought it was over, the fighting started up again in a different direction.

“Pssst, Lord Feleke.”

David jumped and looked around wildly until he spotted a man in a Valoisian uniform in the shadows between the cages—but it wasn’t a Valoisian soldier wearing the uniform.

It was Rust.

His eyes were glowing blue when he looked over his shoulder. An inhuman screech went up in the distance. David could only guess that it meant another dead werewolf.

“Quick,” Rust hissed, and a second man in an enemy uniform ducked around the cage. Another werewolf. David recognised one of his convicts. Gary was his name. A thief. Gary busied himself with the lock of the cage. David watched breathlessly, until the door swung open. DeBurg and Pettau both gave him the same wide-eyed look, but when he waved impatiently, they followed him out.

There were more men and women with Rust, opening cages, dragging out prisoners, checking on the imprisoned werewolves.

While deBurg and Pettau still climbed to the ground, Gary was starting on the lock of Fleur’s cage.

“Lord Feleke,” Rust whispered. “Calder will lead you out. Count deVale is waiting for you.”

Calder waved at David briefly, then turned without a word and started walking towards the east.

“What about—” David hissed, but Rust interrupted him.

“Don’t worry about anyone else, Sir! Go!”

David considered arguing, but there was no time. He could only hope that Rust did indeed have some kind of plan as he jogged after Calder until he caught up. They quickly got off the main road, walking right through the formerly neat lines of enemy tents—some of them trampled, some still on fire, all of them abandoned as the soldiers were called up to defend the camp.

They were direly needed, too, because the Valoise hadn’t bothered to secure the eastern part of the camp’s perimeter. They had placed tents almost all the way up to what little remained of Port Neaf’s outer wall. Which was as holey as cheese. Worse, the ruined buildings of Port Neaf’s outer districts offered the newly turned werewolves plenty of places to hide.

Or escaping prisoners.

But instead of trying to fight through the lines of soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, garding the camp, Calder checked a tent that wasn’t smouldering, then waved at David urgently to get inside.

“What are we doing?” deBurg hissed, as soon as the tarpaulin fell closed behind them.

“Wait,” Calder said. “Distraction.”

“What sort of distraction? Do you have another bomb?” deBurg asked.

Calder glared at him, fidgeting nervously. “No. Dominoes.”

“What?” deBurg hissed.

Calder’s face moved, but then he just waved the marques off, looking frustrated.

“How long do we wait?” David tried.

“Until,” Calder growled.

He glanced out the tent, carefully, pulling back again. Walking up and down the small tent, stepping right onto the bedrolls on the ground. David stretched his own legs, in case they had to run in a moment.

What he wouldn’t have given for his crossbow. Or a pistol. A sword.

Any weapon at all.

One last line of soldiers they needed to get past. Duck into the destroyed outer district of Port Neaf, run south, towards the river. Pray to whatever god listened that Calder could protect them from the Rot even in human form.

Or go north right away, hoping the pisscoats didn’t get them.

Instead, they waited around in the dark tent for whatever else this night would bring. David would have pressed for answers, except he wasn’t sure if Calder even could speak right now. He wasn’t the most talkative on an average night, and there was a full moon in the sky.

Nearly full moon.

Time dragged. The Valoise had taken his watch, so David had no idea how long they really hid until the tent flapped, and David had to stifle a scream. Pettau, too, pressed his hands to his mouth as Ragna ducked inside, followed by a bunch of prisoners.

“Good place,” she muttered. “Lord Relentless.”

“Ragna, it’s good to see you,” David whispered. “What’s the plan?”

“Not much longer now,” she replied. “We got three volunteers. They’ll turn and bite soldiers at the heart of the camp, as many as they can. Then Rust and I and everyone else old enough’s going to lean on the victims, push them over the edge. Any luck, they’ll bite even more soldiers and so on.”

“Like dominoes,” David whispered. He shuddered. “You can do that?”

Ragna shrugged. “Never tried. But they’re bitten, aren’t they?”

“Oh, that’s just great,” deBurg groaned. “What happens if it doesn’t work?”

Ragna’s eyes glowed faintly blue. “Then we sacrifice our own unsettled ones from the cages. Run them into the enemy. Slip out in the chaos.”

David shuddered at the thought. He liked the first plan better.

Just a little bit longer. Just a few more minutes. Then they’d see.

When it was finally time to move, there was no signal, no sign. Just Ragna and Calder’s heads snapping up, and the blue glow around their eyes intensifying. Gunfire behind them. Pettau made for the tent’s exit, but deBurg grabbed him.

“Wait for them to call the troops back!” he hissed.

Ragna and Calder said nothing at all, heads bowed, sweat standing on their faces. David felt the magic faintly. Maybe they should have stayed closer to the centre of the camp, or wherever their three volunteers were sacrificing themselves to try and buy them time.

Was it working? David really wanted to know, but he was scared of breaking Ragna’s concentration—or Calder’s, for that matter.

Something was certainly happening in the centre of the camp, and after another breathless minute, a trumpet blew a signal, calling the soldiers back from the perimeter. They jogged right past the tent, boots shaking the ground.

David felt his heart beat high in his chest as he peered out the door, then waved at his companions. Calder pushed past him, eyes still blazing. The tight-lipped elder grabbed his hands and pulled him forwards, the rest of the freed prisoners following them. Ragna brought up the rear.

There were still some soldiers staring at what was left of Port Neaf, the crumpled wall and the ruined buildings behind, the rubble barely visible in the light of a row of torches.

One last line of soldiers they had to get past. They were fully focused on what was happening in the destroyed city, but that was sure to change as soon as the group tried to get past them. And they had guns, swords, bayonetts.

Loegrion had werewolves.

Right on cue, one of them stepped out between two ruins. The defenders fired without waiting for an order, but the wolf had already disappeared again.

David didn’t need Calder’s tug on his arm to start running. Twenty seconds to reload. Twenty seconds to cross the five steps of final distance, sprint through the gaps in the line, pass the ten yards or so of open ground and throw himself into the nearest gap in the city wall. Get out of the way for Pettau to follow.

David’s right knee flared with a sudden pain as he stumbled blindly into the dark on the other side of the wall. His heart did not like this sudden exercise either, after all the days of being barely able to move. But he made it. The pisscoats fired just as Ragna dove at them. She cursed. The blue light in her eyes flickered and she grabbed her arm. The blood glistened even in the dark. David thought he saw fur sprouting over her face.

She groaned, muttered something—a foreign oath David didn’t quite catch, then: “Go! Go, go!”

North, Calder went, ducking deeper into the outer districts of Port Neaf. The street was littered with debris and rubble, and they barely managed a jog, to avoid stumbling in the dark. Wherever the light from the camp fell, the guns could reach them too, so they had to dash from shadow to shadow and pray that Ragna could hold onto her human side despite the pain and the moon and the bloodloss.

Calder stopped, holding out an arm so abruptly, David ran right into it. Before he could ask what was going on, a giant wolf stepped around a ruin, followed by a second one. They growled softly, but Calder just stood there, eyes glowing faintly. The two wolves came to sniff his face, and Calder held out his other arm, too, like a guardsman on the street directing traffic to stop.

David heard the blood rush in his own ears, louder even than the musket fire and yelling of the enemy. Alvin’s ghost stood by his right side, hackles raised in a silent growl, but the nervous tuck of the tail showed his nerves. Or David’s own nerves? How much emotion did a ghost have?

With a soft wine, the two wolves turned away, quickly disappearing into the darkness. Calder dropped his arms, waiting a few more seconds, before hurrying onwards.

David wished he had his crossbow.

He used to have nightmares about this—of being stuck outside, on full moon night, without his crossbow or even a pistol. Getting lost in a forest full of werewolves with no way of protecting himself. He trusted Calder, trusted Ragna.

He still wished for a weapon.

They ran into Boris a little while later. Even in the darkness, David could see the fury on his face.

“Where’s Fleur?” he growled.

“Rust,” Calder whispered back.

So Boris waved them on impatiently, not moving. He did jump when Alvin’s ghost went past him, but made no attempt to follow. David expected him to wait for Fleur and then go with her, but when Rust and Fleur, and a larger group of other prisoners caught up with them, Boris wasn’t with them.

When they left Port Neaf’s outskirts, past the borders of the camp, they found traces of battles, dead and wounded soldiers, fallen by the dozen around the dead werewolves they had fought. There was a huge hole in the wall around the camp, and David thought he could see damages to the gates, too. His heart sank when one of them was opening anyway, revealing a line of cavalry. There was no way they could run away from the horses.