A river ran north along the road, probably towards the Hafren. Its quick-flowing waters almost drowned out the sound of hooves on gravel, but it wasn’t a deep gorge. On the other shore, the trees stood densely, their leaves hanging into the waves. The dense undergrowth made Nathan itch to reach for his crossbow. Anything could hide in those shadows.

To his other side, the morning sunlight flooded over pastures and fields, separated by hedges and overgrown little walls. And in the distance, just barely visible, more trees. Up ahead, Nathan could see some kind of mill making use of the water’s power.

Nathan had used to think it was a landscape made for werewolves, back when he had come here for his very first hunt. There had always been a lot of them in the area, hiding in the forests, killing livestock and spreading the curse. Of course, these days he knew that the lowlands had likely been shaped in part by the werewolves’ presence.

This was some of the best farmland in the country, despite the fact—or possibly because—it had never been treated alchemically. The rich fields ran almost all the way to the Hafren, despite how overcome the big river was with the Rot. And only werewolves could keep so much land safe. Elder werewolves, to be precise.

As he neared Rosie’s old village, there was a subtle change to the landscape, so minor that Nathan didn’t even notice at first. Not until he came past the carcasses of not one, or two, but three dead sheep.

There were no other animals out to graze on the wide pastures. There were no people working the fields, either. It was spring and all the farmers should be busy getting the summer crops planted. Yet the only movement Nathan saw were the bees and other insects buzzing from blossom to blossom.

And the flies, circling over the bodies like a black cloud. Nothing else had fed on the meat, and the stink was eye-watering.

Nathan had rarely seen anything like this. Spreaders had little interest in livestock. Other types of mad werewolves sometimes went on mindless killing sprees when faced with a herd, but they didn’t stop until nothing was left alive. But here there were three dead sheep, killed right along the roadside. That looked deliberate, both the number and the placement of the bodies.

And that was scary.

Sometimes, rarely, there appeared a werewolf that wasn’t mad like spreaders were—or maybe, it was better to say a werewolf that wasn’t mindless in the way the other mad ones were. They still possessed a human-like intelligence. They could still plan and reason and problem-solve like the next person, but there was a malice in them, a cruelty and hatred for the living—and always that same strange desire to spread the curse—that made them a different kind of monster altogether. Harder to kill, and even worse to face alone than a regular werewolf.

If Nathan was right, it was no wonder the people of Rosie’s village had turned to any werewolf hunter they could find. And no wonder those hunters had preferred to go after Rosie. This was dangerous. David would hesitate to go after this one, even if it were the two of them.

It would fit Rosie’s story, too.

Nathan swung the crossbow off his back and spurred his horse, staring into the dense trees on the other side of the river. The creature might be right over there, waiting for the right moment. Might even be waiting for him to reach the village, so his corpse would be found as easily as the dead sheep. The smartest monsters appeared to thrive on the terror they spread.

He needed to find the circus act and find them fast. Either that or find himself lodgings for the night. If he was right about what kind of creature was haunting the area, then a tree would offer poor protection. Especially with it being half moon.

Monsters like this could climb.

The gates to the village were closed, even in broad daylight. That probably meant that the villagers hadn’t all been murdered yet. But then Nathan spotted the place where the river he had followed all day entered the village underneath the wooden palisades, and felt a little less optimistic.

“Hey!” he called. “Anyone alive in there?”

A man’s face appeared on top of the palisade, next to the gate. Blond hair, blond beard, a simple cap adorned with what Nathan guessed was a single silver coin. Unlikely to do much against either the Rot nor a werewolf, but it probably made the man feel better.

“Nobody’s allowed entrance!” the villager yelled back.

“Yeah, I figured. I saw the dead sheep along the road. Looks like you’ve got a bit of a werewolf problem? Want some help?”

Nathan barely understood the growled reply. “Another hunter?”

The man didn’t sound happy about that, and Nathan nodded to himself. The only kind of werewolf that made a beleaguered village more weary of hunters than happy to see them were the total bastards who enjoyed punishing farmers for hiring help.

“Two of my colleagues should have arrived here a couple of days ago!” Nathan replied. “A big guy named Bart and another one named Roy. They still in the area?”

It wouldn’t surprise him if the circus act had run and not stopped yet at the prospect of the danger here.

The man up on the palisades spit down to the ground. “Those clowns? Gave us a big lecture on how killing werewolves is illegal and how we should have gotten ourselves a crown warrant first. Threatened us with the watch! As if those cowards would show their faces out here!”

“So are they still in the village?”

“Went to check out the old sawmill where the old bitch and her husband was killed the other night. Paid Jimmy to take them, he returned the same day. Haven’t seen them since. But we had a bunch of animals killed since then, so I reckon the bastard in the forest found out about them.”

Nathan’s heart sank further.

Big Bart and Little Roy wouldn’t really insist on the crown warrant, would they? There was no way they could wait until some judge had signed one. If this was what Nathan thought it was, they needed to take advantage of whatever chance they got.

David would back him on this. He better.

Nathan turned his horse around, then looked back. “Thanks!” he yelled over his shoulder.

Hopefully, he’d find the circus act while the sun was still up—not that it afforded any safety against this type of werewolf. Rosie had described for him both where her grandparents had lived, and also where she had been bitten. He’d start with their home.

He just had to keep his wits about himself. Stay sharp. Keep the crossbow at hand. Don’t shoot either Roy or Bart. Don’t get killed.

The path swung around the village. With open fields on his left and the palisades of the village to his right, he felt fairly secure, but soon the river was back, and the forest crowded in from both sides. A crop of fast-growing pines, not the dense wilderness of the Savre shores, but still, a dizzying interplay of light and shadows. And he was riding a horse he was barely familiar with.

Nathan patted the gelding’s neck. He hoped the animal would warn him if something came at them, but it was no Bairn nor Dolly he could trust blindly.

A bird flapping its wings made him jump and almost raise his crossbow. Nathan cursed. He’d never understood David’s aversion to hunting alone. His one solo trip around First Camp had been a walk in the park compared to this.

All he had asked for was a spreader. Simple, no moral quandaries. In a way, Nathan supposed he had gotten his wish. He just hadn’t anticipated that he would have to outwit anything smarter than a dog.

He should better check the gelding’s hooves, as soon as there was a good opportunity. Rest the horse, too. Maybe eat something himself. And he should probably name the nag? Or just call it that.

“Nag. Or Hack. Crock. Or I just call you horse. Not your fault you’re no Bairn.”

And then a thought came to him and he grinned. “I’ll call you Sore. As in sore throat. Because you’re hoarse.”

It was a shame that neither of his brothers was around to hear the joke. But that was fine. He’d tell them when he got back to Deva. He just needed to get them both back there alive.

At the next deserted pasture, he directed Sore into the middle of the open grass area. He took the saddle off and checked the hooves, the leg and the coat, then allowed the horse to graze. He sat down in the grass, but didn’t take the snaffle off and held onto the reins, his spear resting against his shoulder and crossbow ready at his knee.

He gave Sore two hours to graze and doze as much as the horseflies would let him. Nathan himself swatted at the gnats out for his blood, and dug into the provisions the good captain had provided him with. Hard tack, cured meat, a bit of cheese. Fletcher apparently expected him to be on the road for a while. Or he had never heard about scurvy.

The thought made Nathan pick some sorrel from the field.

“I’ll end up being a better horse than you, Sore,” he informed the gelding.

He could almost hear Andrew’s dry, “You’re an ass, not a horse.”

Sun, how he wished his brothers were here. If he got out of here alive, he’d never make fun of Andrew’s weight again.

It felt surreal, sitting in the bright spring sun, with nothing but Sore and the insects for company. His eyes kept drooping even as he tried to be watchful. But nothing moved, except for some birds high in the sky.

“No rain. Not for a while at least. Should be safe from the Rot.”

The sense of serenity faded as soon as he was back in the saddle. The pasture bordered onto more forest—this one broadleaf. Even this early in the year, the foliage was dense enough that Nathan kept craning his neck and still didn’t see much. Every rustle in the trees, every bird taking flight, every breeze shifting the leaves made him jump.

When he reached the sawmill, the unease intensified. The water wheel turned idly. It hadn’t been long enough for the house and workshop to fall in disrepair. Only the garden in front of the house had been trampled. He could see all that, because there was no wall protecting the mill, not even a fence surrounding the vegetables that just poked out of the ground.

The scent of death lingered in the air, even though Nathan could see where the bodies had been taken away. Was that the Rot?

But he didn’t even have a headache.

He craned his neck again, then climbed out of the saddle. The spear he left with Sore, but he had the crossbow ready in hand as he inspected the traces of the fight. There was a large patch of dried out on the road and footprints in the loam of the garden. Human blood, so this was probably where Rosie’s grandfather had gotten his head bashed in. Unless they had dragged out her grandmother, too.

But no, there was a second patch of blood, right in front of the door. This one sizzled when Nathan touched his silver blade to it. Rosie hadn’t mentioned that she’d been hurt so badly?

Then again, something must have triggered the transformation in her so close to new moon.

The smell of death was stronger, this close to the house. Had the mob killed the grandmother inside and then left her there? It certainly smelled like it.

Nathan straightened up and looked around again. The front door to the little house stood ajar, so he nudged it open with his wooden foot until he could step inside.

The shutters were closed, and he heard the buzzing of the flies just before the new wave hit him, the sickly sweet stench of meat rotting for days. A single maggot in the cone of light warned him of what to expect inside.

He stepped fully into the hut and allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloom, breathing as flatly as he could. He didn’t want to step on the body, or slip on anything.

As a werewolf hunter, Nathan was used to grisly work. He had seen his fair share of bodies in different stages of decay. He thought he was ready for this. But what he hadn’t been ready for was that there were two bodies. Their faces were covered in flies, and so were the gaping wounds on their upper bodies.

There was still enough left of their clothes and their equipment—especially the two silver-loaded crossbows—to tell Nathan that he had found Bart and Roy.