Behind him a carriage was barreling forward, drawn by a pair of roans, two men in the bucket. The one at the reins the wolves knew as Lord Marhollow's servant. The tattooed giant beside him, grinning ferociously and crouched to leap from the cart, they knew as Jossel's killer.

There was little time to make sense of any of this, for the carriage was rumbling closer to them like a thundercloud; the rider nearly on top of them and seemingly crazed. Carala's strange fugue seemed to end and all of a moment she was writhing like a snake in Syerre's grip, a touch of her own wolfish strength emerging, fully aware that her struggles were making it almost inevitable that Denisius would ride down the two of them, crushing them under his mount's hooves.

In the end Syerre could either release Carala or be ridden down herself; she sprang aside just as Denisius passed above them, her prisoner leaping in the opposite direction. With a liquid speed even his brothers would have envied, Denisius gigged left at just the right moment, sparing Carala in a wide berth and knocking Syerre aside, who howled in outrage, Ammas's dagger slipping to the ground. Carala swept it up at once and rose to her feet, staring in wonder at Denisius, and looking frantically to see what had become of Ammas.

Unsurprisingly, Barthim had taken the cursewright's safety on himself. The carriage veered so close to the watchtower's outer wall that she feared it would shatter upon it, but just as Denisius had done Vos tugged the reins at the last moment, breaking aside at an angle so perilous two of the wheels left the ground.

For a flash she had a glimpse of Casimir, huddled in the back and staring at the proceedings wide-eyed. When he saw Carala clutched Ammas's dagger in one hand, he gave her a grin nearly as huge as Barthim's. There seemed to be nothing to do but grin in return, even though she could hear Syerre choking on dust and snarling furiously at Denisius as he rounded her in a tight circle, his steed tossing its head and snorting at the fallen she-wolf. Every time she tried to get back to her feet, either on two legs or four, Denisius reared his mount forward, kicking at her, knocking her back down, until she was thoroughly winded, her eyes wide and staring enough to show the whites as she panted for air, tongue lolling on the ground.

Korl stared at the approaching horses, his gold-green eyes huge and shocked. A paralysis had gripped him at seeing Syerre, the fiercest she-wolf he knew, ridden into the dirt by the fat little lordling not one of them had feared. They had not scented them. They had not heard them. They had no way of knowing that the charms Ammas had distributed among them shielded them as effectively from wolfish senses as they did from the fear-soaked totems he and Casimir had strewn on the edge of the forest.

He could not mask another werewolf, and he did not wish to mask his own scent, but in his gentle smile the cursewright saw the bait he had made of himself bear splendid fruit. Barthim the Beast roared as grand a prayer to the Hethmar as he knew as he launched himself from the carriage's bucket, knocking Korl asprawl and freeing Ammas from his grip. His enormous hands were wrapped around the wolf's throat at once, one of them gripping its muzzle and clamping it shut so fiercely three of his fangs cracked, the lower hinge of his jaw wrenched out of joint.

"You will be biting no one today, master wolf!" Barthim cried joyfully, now laying into the creature with powerful blows to the chest and belly. Korl whimpered through his aching snout, pawing uselessly at this mad giant, struggling to throw him off. Before he could make any headway at all, Vos descended from the carriage, sword drawn, and buried it in the wolf's ear without a word.

Barthim looked up, his hands soaked with blood, kicking himself up to his feet as the wolf writhed dying on the ground. "That was no fair match, Vos Sneakblade. I had the beast well in hand."

"Didn't want to see you scarred up," Vos grinned, and Barthim roared with laughter.

Were there no other wolves present, Ammas might have joined in with the celebration, but he knew well enough how quickly things might get out of control again. With a sneer he hurled himself past Denisius, seizing the she-wolf Syerre by the scruff of the neck and throwing her back against the tower wall, pinning her to it.

Casimir half-stepped from the carriage and Ammas roared over his shoulder, "Stay there!" Meekly his apprentice shrank back, the she-wolf panting and trying to catch her breath, her paws swatting at his robes. She didn't yet have enough strength to do much damage to him, but the fury in her eyes concerned him. And there was the third one to think about. "Vos, Barthim, leave off your foolishness until we're in the tavern and find that last wolf!"

Almost as chastened as Casimir, Barthim bowed and set off. But Nashal was nowhere to be found. That was worrisome, but they still had this last one in their control. Ammas suspected she might be the most dangerous of the three of them. It wouldn't do to let her remain in her wolf shape. One hand still on her throat, he fished through his belt for his twinhooks, grasping it and plunging the silver crescent into her head just below her ear.

Immediately she howled in agony, paws scrabbling at him hard enough to shred his robes at the chest. Ammas was chanting again, his words low and guttural and somehow brutal, an enchantment spilling from his mouth. Already he was aware how painful this could be, but seeing the way the she-wolf before him screamed, writhing as if she were on fire, he was deeply grateful he had never had cause to use this particular incantation on Carala. The enchantment was one he had used long ago, when hunting werewolves who had gone so wild they spent most of their time in the shape of the wolf, having come to prefer it to their human shape, even considering it their true shape. He had never felt a resistance such as he felt now, and he supposed it was one more thing that set these ritual wolves apart from their less magical cousins.

Before their amazed eyes the she-wolf was vanishing, hair shedding and shrinking into her body, fangs receding into normal human teeth. But her eyes remained wolfish and hateful, even as the rest of her became the sly dancer who had threatened Denisius in Fathoms Gate. Now she was naked and crusted with blood and dirt, no more alluring than a rabid beast tied up at the end of a hunt. Blood leaked down her jawline onto her naked shoulder from the prong in her cheek. The Swiftfoot emblem was clearly tattooed on one shoulder.

"You come from Gallowsport," Ammas hissed.

"Yes," she snarled. "And that is all you will ever know, cursewright. Swiftfoot will crush you like the filthy snake you are."

"Tell me what Swiftfoot is," Ammas demanded. "Tell me how you came to be. Tell me why you want Carala, and this will be over painlessly. Or help us, and I will cure you as I will cure her."

"Cure, there is no cure," Syerre shrieked, jeering laughter frosting her words, her greenish eyes glaring at them with utmost loathing. "We are blessed by the champion of the white moon, we serve Saya, we are the purest creatures in the world. Let her join us. Saya wants her. Saya wants her above any other. Do what you wish with her, cursewright. Sooner or later she will come home to us."

Ammas drove the silver prongs deeper into Syerre's flesh. She howled in agony, but the howl spiralled into another mocking laugh. Carala stepped forward. Ammas was alarmed to see a trace of amber in her eyes, but he could not gainsay her in this. She had more right than anyone to demand answers of this creature.

"Why?" she insisted, stepping close enough to smell the blood trickling from around the prongs, reeking of the wolf's essence. "Why do you want me? And where is my sister? What have you done with Sarai?"

Syerre's strange wolfish eyes turned to Carala, drinking her in almost lustfully. "Saya desires you. We all desire you. As we desire all the children of that monster on the throne. It is only through us you can be cleansed of what he is. The same goes for dear Sarai. You know it, too. I smell it on you. I smell it in the hunt still on your breath. I smell it in the hunger you have for this creature. He can be yours, his heart, his flesh."

Syerre's gaze roamed over Carala's head, her breath panting even as she writhed in the agony of the silver, blood sheeting one side of her face to drip down her neck. With a pained smile she stared at Casimir. her expression no different than Carala herself had worn on her wolfish face when stalking first a hare and then a stout buck. "And the boy. He can be yours. Your cub. So young, he'll never know he was anything but the wolf -- "

Roughly Carala shoved Ammas aside and swept the skymetal dagger across Syerre's throat. Bright red blood gushed forth in a shocking spray. Syerre's face never lost its look of hunger, though Ammas fancied a trace of surprise surfaced in them as she understood just how thoroughly her offer had been rejected. Wordlessly she slumped to the earth, already half-dead. The silver prong remained buried in her cheek, Ammas having lost his grip on it in his own surprise. After a moment the smell of burning flesh rose from that cheek, accompanied by a thin stream of smoke. The she-wolf was dead.

Before Ammas could even begin to make sense of what had just happened, Carala crouched down over the dead Syerre, plunging the dagger into her chest over and over again, snarling in a voice that was almost purely wolfish, her amber eyes bright with tears. He heard her growling Sarai's name, and Casimir's, and Denisius's, and his own. Swiftly Ammas took her by the wrists, stopping her from further defilement, meeting her furious amber glare.

"Your sentence was just," he said softly but firmly. "But butchery is not."