Choices

Novo had dismissed everyone. He sat in the pavilion, his head in his hands, trying to focus, trying to still the shaking in his old limbs. 

Ferdano’s words were in his skull, worming around inside his brain, torturing him. The Duke betrayed. Bilbalo on the brink of falling. What was he to do? Believe this bedraggled man and turn his army around? How could he possibly disengage from the Great Pack? As soon as he turned his men on the roads south they’d be on him, tearing through his rearguard, slaughtering his cavalry, routing his cohorts. They knew only violence and bloodshed, and the general had seen them put that knowledge to use countless times over the past nine years. He was sick of them, sick of this war, but could Ferdano be trusted? Was it all just a ruse, a cruel trick played upon man and man-beast by powers more ancient than the two of them combined?

Such uncertainties should not be the concern of a general, Novo thought bitterly. It would almost have been preferable to face the werekynd in open battle. At least then it would be over, and Novo would be dead and somebody else would be making all the decision, the decisions that got men and boys killed. The general had had enough.

He stood. At the same time he became aware of a presence standing in the open tent flap. 

It was a werekynd. Novo froze, heartbeat rising, staring at the man-beast which seemed to have materialised out of nightmarish nothingness. It was an ancient example of its kind, silver-backed, its great yellow canines protruding from its jutting jaw. Its eyes regarded Novo with that chilling intelligence always so evident in a man-beast's animalistic gaze. 

“Where is the envoy?” it said in a mangled mimicry of the human tongue. There was blood on its claws, and on its long fangs. Novo feared the worst for his guards. 

“You’re the Beast, aren’t you?” the general said slowly, holding the thing’s gaze, not daring to so much a stray a single finger towards his sword hilt. “You’re the longtooth the Duke bought.”

“One more time, where is the envoy,” the old werekynd growled. Its claws flexed. Novo took a deep breath. 

“You’ll have to kill me before I tell you, Beast. Whoever sent you, he’s no ally of mine. The Duke has been betrayed, and you are being used.”

The longtooth bared his fangs in a snarl, but before he could strike Novo the sharp voice of a young girl cut through the tension. 

“I saw a man ride between no man’s-land to the Great Pack. If he’s the one you’re seeking, he’s gone north to be with your kin. Lot of good it’ll do him. They’ll no doubt gut him as soon as smell him.”

Red had slipped inside the pavilion from behind the longtooth. Novo had never seen a human move with enough stealth to go unnoticed by a werekynd, but then again Ellen Red did many things he’d never seen before. The girl looked furious, though the anger in her eyes was no directed at Duke Lorenzo’s hunting beast, but at Novo. Her bared forearms were slick with blood. 

“Saarl,” she said by way of greeting, not looking at the werekynd. There was no reply – the Beast had already gone, morphing and shifting into its true animal form as it set off once more after its prey. 

“You’ve killed him,” Novo said quietly. “Once it catches him -”

“He’ll be food for old Saarl,” Red said, her voice acerbic. “If he’s not already dead. Those things won’t suffer a human in their presence.”

“The same way you won’t suffer any of them to live, Red? Why does your hatred not extend to the longtooth?”

“Saarl and I have hunted many werekynd,” Red said, grinning a grin that wouldn’t have been out of place on the man-beast’s fanged face. “How do you think I learned the ways of the Tanglewild so fast? To hunt your enemy you must first know him.”

“None of this will bring back your brother –” Novo began, but Red shrieked and stamped her foot. 

“Why are you going?” she shouted. “Why, why, why? We’re on the cusp of the final battle with these animals and Grimbol tells me you’ve given orders to prepare to march south. To withdraw!”

“The envoy you’ve just killed came with news,” Novo said. 

“Good I’ve had him killed then, isn’t it? Peace?”

“No.”

“Then what? Why are we withdrawing when there are werekynd still to slaughter?”

“The only things to be slaughtered if we fight will be us,” Novo snapped, tired of being lectured by a crazed teenager with literal blood on her hands. “What’s become of the prisoner I ordered you to interrogate?” 

“General?” said one of Novo’s aides, sticking his head around the tent flap. “General are you… dear Saints preserve me, the guards!”

“The Duke’s pet werekynd visited,” Novo said, not looking away from Red, who was now simply glaring up at him from beneath the cowl of her hood.

“Apparently the guards didn’t realise he was the one ‘friendly’ werekynd this side of the Tanglewild.”

“We’re receiving reports, sir,” the aide said, trying not to look at the grisly remains he’d stepped on outside the general’s pavilion. “From our southern scouts.”

“Well?”

“It appears… you’re going to want to come and see it for yourself I think, sir.” Novo looked at the man. 

“Bilbalo?” he whispered. 

“Yes sir. Something terrible has happened.”