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Even if she had tried to defend herself, she was outnumbered. She was surrounded at once by forty werewolves on all sides. Behind them were forty people. All wore the harnesses of silver. From behind them stepped a single man, a single man that Aein knew and recognized. She fell down on one knee in sworn fealty.
"My Lord Arnkell," she said. "You survived."
His glance no longer carried the warmth and approval it once did. Instead, he looked down upon her with disgust. "And so you survived, too."
A coldness wrapped itself around Aein's heart and she realized how wrong she had been about this man.
"My survival does not seem to please you," she said.
"I heard you came to the swamp to find a cure," said Lord Arnkell. He motioned at the people and creatures around him. "Is it true?"
The voice inside her screamed to play the fool. And so, she bowed her head and said, "Alas, I found nothing."
"Really?" he sneered. "And yet, I hear that you, like me, do not transform."
"Who did you hear that from?" she asked, taken aback.
Lord Arnkell motioned the men and women around him. "Do you think there is anything which happens in my stronghold which I do not know of?"
She looked around at the company he kept. She saw where all of his followers fell on the scale. Most were courtiers, politicians whose bark was always worse than their bite. How empowering, she thought, that their words finally had some teeth to them. They probably would have signed up for this transformation willingly in order to invade the Haidra kingdom. There were also some soldiers, those of the lower orders who were easy to control and hungry to move up the ranks.
She squared her shoulders. "There was a dish which was served on your wedding night by Cook Bolstad—"
"That traitor has been dealt with," he replied.
How could he have known Cook Bolstad was the traitor, she wondered? Cook Bolstad was the one who instructed her to gather the mushrooms and his book was hidden beneath the flagstone. She had told no one save Lars, who had been trapped in the swamp for the past two and a half months.
"He had a book with a cure," she continued. "It was the black mushrooms with the white flecks which caused this transformation. White mushrooms with black flecks will change everyone back again."
"I learned the same from him!" said Lord Arnkell. "As I have promised my followers, the white mushrooms with the black flecks shall be our redemption!"
And it was in that moment that Aein knew for certain he was a liar. The veil lifted from her eyes. This man she had swooned for. This hero she had worshiped and admired. He was lying. The berry cure was in her shirt, but she'd be damned if she healed any of his army just so that they could follow him easier.
"I found none in the swamp," she stated.
Lord Arnkell nodded with sadness, but she knew enough truth to see that it was a mockery. "That is because they do not grow in the swamp," he replied.
"Then where do they grow?" she asked.
"On the Haidra lands! On the lands of my enemies! My bride brought those cursed mushrooms with her to my wedding feast, and the cure is there, too! If they will not give it to us, we shall take it!"
His plan came into crystal clear focus for Aein. He was responsible for all of the murder and destruction. Cook Bolstad had said he was a bad man. She thought it was why Cook Bolstad had taken it upon himself to poison the stronghold. Now she understood that Lord Arnkell forced Cook Bolstad to prepare the dish and that this, all of this, was so that he could declare war upon the Haidra stronghold. What better way to invade a neighboring kingdom than with an army of werewolves?
He motioned to a man to bring forward a silver breastplate. He turned back towards her. "I would have you back in my service..."
"I cannot," she stammered. "I must continue my search for the mushrooms."
He cut her off. "You refuse to take on the yoke of service? To obey the commands of your sworn lord?"
There was menace in that statement. She realized it would take very clever thinking to stay alive. She hoped the gods would forgive her lies. That they would look upon this moment and see that her lord was a tyrant, not a protector, and that by foreswearing her allegiance, she was refusing to serve one who would harm his own people.
"I must find the cure..."
"You must find the cure? We are going to the Haidra lands to seize the cure!" he stated. "Unless, of course, you are in league with those who want us to remain in this form forever."
"What?" she asked. The werewolves around Lord Arnkell began to growl.
"Are you a collaborator with Princess Gisla?"
"What?"
"We know you are a deserter. We know that you are weak minded and abandoned your friend to the border..."
"You left him for dead! I warned you and you did not even send reinforcements!"
And that was when Aein realized she had overstepped and fallen directly into the confession Lord Arnkell was looking for.
"Tie her to that tree!" he called.
"What are you doing?" she cried as two men stepped forward and grabbed her elbows, frog-marching her to the trunk. She shouted at Lord Arnkell, hoping someone would hear her. "You were the one who commanded Cook Bolstad to make that dish! You were the one who tricked me into bringing the mushrooms back!"
"Gag her and cut out her tongue if she utters another word!"
Aein clamped her mouth shut. She knew that he was not lying. He turned back to his army of man and beasts. "This was a curse brought down upon us by the Haidra household and I have captured the Haidra bitch!" He went over and kicked one of the female werewolves in the ribs. The animal whimpered. "I shall deliver her and all her minions of evil sent to her father's door. He shall see what hell he unleashed. We shall take over his lands and his people and WE shall reign!"
The men and women around him raised their swords with cries of lust.
Lord Arnkell turned back to Aein. "And you my dear? There is a pack of unharnessed werewolves coming for you right now. I told those traitors you would be here. I told them to come and find you, that you, my pretty warrior-girl, would have a cure for them. We shall just leave you here until the dawn, for before sunrise, my girl, you shall feed their pretty bellies." He turned back to his crew. "A fitting end for the traitor who brought the curse down upon us!"
Aein struggled against her ropes and screamed out, but the gag muffled her voice.
She watched Lord Arnkell's men take her two horses. They dumped out her supplies, taking her weapons and armor. They took her hatchet for cutting wood. They took her bedroll. They took everything—everything except for the berries hidden between her cleavage. And then she saw something which made her heart stop. She had missed one of the berries. One of Lord Arnkell's men dumped her bags and picked it up. Like a joke, he threw it up in the air and caught it in his mouth, chewing it happily.
They would know, she realized. The moment he changed into a werewolf, he would know something was different and he would think back upon everything for some clue. They would know. They would figure it out. They would come back.
She struggled again, but no one paid her any attention. With laughs and jeers, Lord Arnkell's army faded into the darkness beyond the light of the campfire. But before he left, Lord Arnkell looked back at her with pure hatred dripping from his eyes. Quietly, so that no one else would hear, he said, "I told you I knew everything."