Krassus bared his teeth (some of them missing) in a crooked smile. "The Gravedigger digs for us all," he said, repeating the mantra from the Book of the Dead. Gregor nodded and was about to ask more questions when he heard Loka call to him from the carriage window. "That your wife, friend? Don't want to let her see this, I reckon," Krassus murmured as he leaned in towards Gregor. The inquisitor chuckled and returned: "Thoughtful of you, Krassus. No, she's my apprentice. I think she should come and see this, actually."

Gregor looked over his shoulder and beckoned for Loka to join them. "This is our line of work," Gregor whispered as he turned back to Krassus. "The lord of Doloureux sent us." He left no window for the gravedigger to question the lie and continued: "What were you planning on doing with those pitchforks? Were you going to hunt the beast down? Do you know who it is or where it makes its lair?"

Taken aback, Krassus merely shook his head. "It's in the woods... somewhere," he added meekly.

"Pity."

Loka stepped from the carriage, swinging the door shut and crunching toward the press of torches, grey fog swirling like river water around her legs. Trunks groaned and the twisted treetops shivered noisily in the night breeze, black and indistinct against the hazy moonlight. She tilted her hat back, in a casual gesture, parting the crowd with a gentle push of the back of her hand. She looked from one to the other, critically, as if daring them to say something, before giving Gregor himself a hard, searching once-over.

"I'll tell you later." was all she said in dismissive answer to his returned look.

"You sure she's not your wife, friend?" murmured the gravedigger quietly.

Loka ignored him and peered over the scene, her lips twisting sourly at the gruesome sight of the carnage. Several bodies, one now difficult to distinguish from another. Rent limbs and ruined torsos. She had seen her share of blood, of course. But there was something obscene about the human midden, torn apart, half-eaten and left to rot.

"Who were these people, that they were on the road at night in such a place?" she asked, "Travelers? On foot? That is very odd."

Her head cocked, birdlike, and she bent down with her legs remaining straight, plucking a broken length of slim silver chain from the blood-wet mud. A fat, golden ring set with some elaborate sigil hung from the loop; the signet of Doloureux.

"...And why did this one wear a ring on a chain?"

Annoyed by Loka's attitude, Gregor snatched the chain and the ring from her hand with a pointed glare and inspected the sigil. He immediately recognized it for what it was before anyone else in the crowd had deciphered it. Meanwhile, Krassus responded to Loka's questions with a stuttering voice. It was obvious he was intimidated and enchanted at the same time.

"We, ah, don't know who they are. Suppose they could be travelers, aye, maybe people who didn't know about the werewolf?" he offered with a helpful smile. Gregor looked at him impassively. "Possible," the inquisitor said while he stuffed the ring into his pocket. "You're not missing anyone from the village?"

Krassus shrugged and shook his head. "Don't think so." His eyes went around the rest of the people present and they all shook their heads. "We heard the noise, gathered in the town square and came here to drive the beast away," one of them said, a short, squat woman wearing a filthy apron. "It was already gone by the time we got here."

Gregor nodded and rubbed his chin. "Well, thank you all very much. We will take it from here. Please return to your homes. Stay inside and lock your doors and windows," he declared authoritatively. The crowd hesitated for a few seconds but a nod from Krassus was enough to convince them to leave and return to the nearby village in small groups.

After a deep sigh, Gregor turned his attention to Loka. He took the ring out of his pocket and held it out for her to inspect properly. "This is the sigil of the House of Doloureux, the rulers of the city of the same name. If I had to hazard a guess, these unfortunate souls were actually sent by the lord to deal with the werewolf problem, but..." He hesitated and looked at the corpse pile again, frowning. "They look woefully unprepared. Either way, what was it you wanted to say to me?" Gregor crossed his arms and shifted his weight, raising his eyebrows expectantly. "I'm expecting something good."

Loka threw up her hands, the fog trailing the motion in swirling, eerie patterns.

"The knights hand you a young woman, and you are miserable," she said, "You find three dead bodies torn to pieces on a road in the middle of the night, you cannot stop smiling! That is what. Now I am here again, helping, actually, and you are miserable again!"

She gestured to the slaughter with both hands, palms up.

"If it will bring you cheer, then tell me about this creature."

Gregor scoffed and frowned. "What the Templars handed me was an unruly witch and a thief," Gregor said and jabbed his finger at Loka's face. "Don't think I don't know what you did back in Maldoror. How else would you get such earrings? I certainly did not have any in my room. On top of that, you stride over here and start asking questions as if you've been on the trail of lycanthropes for years. Yes, you are here to help me, but..." He exhaled heavily, closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. "Look. I applaud your enthusiasm. For now, please let me do the talking."

That said, Gregor straightened himself. "Very well. Werewolves, also known as lycanthropes, are classified as Abominations under the Protection of the Realm act passed by Emperor Domitianus in 734. They have outlaw status and are to be killed on sight. What you see here is the reason. When the moon is full," he explained, looking up at the moonlight between the dark tree branches, "they transform into hulking, man-shaped wolf-beasts, fueled by an uncontrollable urge to kill and feed. It's an unnatural metamorphosis caused by a curse or a virus of some kind. It can be transmitted through bite marks or appear in families as a hereditary trait. This is why werewolves are not allowed to breed and families in which the curse exists have to be put to the sword in their entirety, or measures taken to make sure they will not procreate. Harsh measures, but necessary," he finished, and looked at the corpses again.

"It is wrong for humans to possess powers that should not be theirs," Gregor added after a few seconds.

She folded her arms, giving back with her eyes as good as she got from Gregor's tongue. She didn't deign to defend herself from his accusations -- though thievery was an ugly and unworthy word for her entirely understandable act. But his final statement was too pointed to ignore.

"Why?" she said, flatly, "And who is to say what should and should not be ours? No, I do not know about lycanthropes, or the Protection of the Realm act or what happened in 734, or a hundred other things in this damp country, but I know when things are odd. And this, is odd."

She looked from the torchlit mass of bloodied limbs to the looming darkness of the forest's edge. An owl's hoot sounded from somewhere within the impenetrable shadow. It was impossible to see.

"Have you killed these creatures before?" she asked, "You are surely not going after it in there? Now?"

"Why? Because of this," Gregor said impatiently, gesturing at the mess. "Who's to say that you can control all of your powers? What if this Blue God of yours, even though I seriously doubt his existence, uses your devotion as a... a... conduit to commit atrocities against humans? Gods are said to be unknowable. Even the Templars don't dare to dabble in magic, as far as I know. Either way, I don't want to have this conversation with you now," he snapped. "Yes, we're going after it. Lycanthropy is difficult to diagnose and prove when the creature is in its human form. I want to find it before it changes back. And yes... I have killed them before." Gregor unsheathed his sword and held it firmly in one hand. The mist coiled around its edge, shivering with the faint glow and the power that radiated from the blade.

Loka just glared at him from under her hat, arms wrapped tightly around her waist. The chill fog was beginning to seep through the leather and velvet into her bones, and only the fire of her resentment was keeping her from shivering.

"Fine." she shot back.

The carriage driver cleared his throat awkwardly from his perch, his voice echoing faintly through the soupy, moonlit darkness.

"I'll, um," he cleared his throat again, "I'll just get myself to the village as well, then, shall I?" He reached into his greatcoat and took a dearly-needed swig from a glimmering silver hip-flask, turning his head toward the black wall of the Oakheart wood. "Roost in the barn or suchlike. Anything other'n sit here like a roast pheasant a'waitin' to make a meal for some blasphemous mutt, is what I mean."

Loka sloshed back through the water, gravel and mud to the carriage and extended a gloved hand. The man was handing over the flask before he even knew he was doing it. She took it, tilted it back and swallowed, relishing the burning warmth spreading through her body.

"Do as you please," she said, handing it back up and licking her lips. "He's doing the talking."

She turned back, coat flowing behind her, and followed Gregor as he stepped up the soiled, wet, leaf-strewn embankment and stepped into the pitch darkness of the wood.

---

The moonlight turned to little more than a pale haze seeping through a threatening canopy of shadows, and tiny silver slivers against invisible treetrunks and claustrophobic undergrowth. Insects chirped on every side, and here and there the rustle of some unseen animal bolting away from them set her heart suddenly pounding and her hair standing on end. Gregor's torch illuminated a perilous, vulnerable patch of firelight surrounded by a sea of impenetrable blackness. And somewhere within it, if the Inquisitor's tales were to be believed, lurked a monstrous killer.

Loka ran her tongue against her teeth, trying to take slow deep breaths through her nose. The odd, unpleasant scent was fainter in the thick, mulchy damp of the wood, but the sharp smell of blood still coiled through the looming trees, along with all manner of others, seeping in every direction. She could almost see the trails, floating like the mist all around them. Wet fur. Dung. Rot. Sour water. The heavy perfume of unfamiliar northern plants.

"Gregor," she whispered as quietly as possible, trying to focus on anything at all in the suffocating gloom, "How do you find them?"

Gregor flicked his torch this way and that while he inspected the bark of the trees that surrounded them while they walked. The night was smothering beneath the canopy of the woodland and it was only by the grace of the firelight that he could see. The whole situation reminded him terribly of a particular lycanthropian hunt several years ago -- Gregor didn't care to remember how many -- further north, near Couronnesbourg. The land had been marshier and the trees sparse, which allowed Gregor to hunt by the moonlight that fueled the creature's bestial phase, but still.

Loka's question interrupted his reverie. "Werewolves are... not subtle. The transformation is painful and the unnatural urge to kill, maim and devour is overwhelming. They leave devastation in their wake wherever they go. Help me look for claw marks in the bark, or even trees that have been torn down entirely," Gregor replied in an equally hushed voice. "And warn me if you smell a wet dog."

Loka kept close to the Inquisitor as he slid grimly through the black wood; closer than she had cared to stand until now, huddling within the flickering orange pool of light that seemed so small and vulnerable against the looming dark. Night wind hissed through the silhouetted leaves above them, the branches groaning unnervingly. Something darted beneath the undergrowth to one side, setting the bushes rustling, and she stifled a panicked squeak. But Gregor did not seem afraid. Only determined, resigned. His voice was bleak and steady. His emotion tasted like stone.

At some point she became aware that she had placed her hand on his back without knowing it.

This was not a land with which the Deva was familiar. She had never set foot within a forest, let alone in the black of night. And she didn't like it.

It was like the cells.

She had pushed the memories aside, buried them in color and distraction, flitted through the days as though each was her first and never looking over her shoulder. But now, in that eerie gloom, they came creeping back. Fear was beginning to seep into her heart, and she struggled to quiet her breath as it came in soft, shuddering little gasps. Anything could be lurking in that great, blind shadow. Watching them. Her mind flowed with imagined visions of what the creature that lurked within the darkness might look like, ranging from the comical to the absurd. She shook them off as Gregor spoke.

"Dogs. Yes. I can smell..." she sniffed the air deeply, whispering in a tiny, strained voice, "...Ten."

She sniffed again, eyes darting from one impenetrable shadow to the next.

"...There are too many wolves in this forest." she added half-peevishly.

Gregor abruptly came to a halt and looked at Loka, annoyed surprise on his face. "Are you making fun of me, or can you really smell the wolves?" he asked. There was no telling what witches like her were capable of, so it wasn't outside the realm of possibility. That said... it was equally likely she was just trying to annoy him again. Then again, it was obvious she was afraid -- Gregor could see it in her eyes and hear it in her small voice. Was that humor as a defense or was she being genuine?

"Yes!" she hissed back, still huddling close despite a sudden backlash of resentment at the Inquisitor's anger, "Yes, I can smell them, and all the trees they have pissed on -- It is unpleasant, by the way! I do not know how far. I do not know if one is the... thing." She pointed, following the thin, billowing trails, nearly invisible in the dark swell of fog. "There, there, there and there."

The inquisitor's brief astonishment quickly made way for focus and determination. "Very well, I believe you," Gregor said in a placating tone. He tried to follow her gestures in the darkness but couldn't see what she was pointing at. He was just going to have to trust her talents here. Witchcraft, he reminded himself. Gregor would have to think about the implications of this later.

"Well," Gregor whispered, thinking hard. "Werewolves rip out of the skin of their human selves when they transform. Blood clings to them. How good is your sense of smell, exactly? Does one of them also smell like human blood?"

It was then that he noticed Loka had placed her hand on his back. Gregor opened his mouth to say something about it but changed his mind. Even through the leather of his greatcoat, her hand felt warm.

Loka forced herself to steady her breathing, drinking deeply of the cold, throat-numbing forest air and trying to stay upwind of the redolent torch-smoke which threatened to blot out everything else.

Yes, there was blood, thick and heavy, but it was to one side, and nearer than it should be -- Ah. The bodies on the road, of course, laced with a thin, lingering trace of old fear. The inquisitor had surely been right. Whatever had befallen them, they had not been prepared for it.

"I.. cannot say." she whispered apologetically, "But... There is something. That way." She pointed past him, through the torchlight. "Something different. Not belonging."

Gregor followed where her finger pointed with his eyes and held out his torch. At the edge of the firelight's illumination, he could see two thin birches that had bark stripped from their trunks at eye level. It seemed Loka was right. Gregor gingerly tiptoed forward, his sword at the ready in his other hand.

They walked in silence as Loka's sense of smell took them deeper into the woods. Gregor hoped to maintain as much of the element of surprise as possible, and though the werewolf would undoubtedly see the torchlight at some point, the forest was thick and masked their approach. Every few dozen yards or so Gregor paused to ask Loka if they were still going the right way.

After what seemed like a tense eternity of walking and shallow breathing had passed, they came upon a lair -- a small cave set into the side of a plateau. It was empty, save for fresh blood and human limbs. Gregor cursed under his breath and wheeled around, expecting the lycanthrope to leap out of the forest at any second. "It knows we are here," he whispered.

The stench of the creature's lair had grown thicker as they stalked through the black wood, unable to see more than a few feet in any direction. The waft of rotten meat, the pang of stale urine, a heavy miasma of tortured sweat and the rich, hungry scent of human blood all choked her by degrees, growing unbearable as the Inquisitor drew them to the entrance and they were at last able to see inside. Torn skin. Rancid disembodied limbs. The scuttling of a thousand crawling insects. It was too much. She doubled up with a wet, noxious gurgle, hanging onto Gregor's back, her stomach heaving. She heard him curse, searching the wood with urgent, paranoid alertness, and she straightened up, coughing tightly, breathing through her mouth and darting her fearful eyes across the stark, threatening blackness. A branch snapped somewhere in the dark and she flinched. The presence of the unseen, unknown beast stalking them was as palpable as the senseless fear of a child's nightmare.

"Wood," she gasped, looking around quickly, "A fire. Better we can see."

The retching sounds of Loka's stomach emptying itself in fear and disgust almost made Gregor turn around and say something derisive, but he kept his focus. She was a stranger to all this, he reminded himself. Of course it was revolting. That was precisely why his work was so important. Gregor felt strangely vindicated.

Her suggestion of building a fire was a good one. While keeping his eyes on the darkness of the forest, Gregor backed away and crouched. Broken pieces of wood -- of what was presumably once furniture -- lay scattered throughout the cavern. The inquisitor laid the torch on the floor, making sure that its fire was not extinguished by the wet surface, and gathered the wooden splinters into a pile. He had to grope around with his free hand to do this, his eyes darting back and forth between the night and the cave, while he kept his sword at the ready.

"Help me light it," Gregor hissed and waved the tip of his sword in the direction of the torch. He straightened himself and grabbed the hilt of his longsword with both hands. For a brief moment, Gregor thought he could hear panting.

She thrust the torch into the piled timber, keeping as low as she could. The precious orange light diminished into tiny slivers as it disappeared into the kindling, long shadows beginning to dance across the churned grasses and looming trees. Smoke curled unhurried from between the kindling, and something heavy shifted semicircle in the darkness, cracking slowly over fallen boughs and wet bracken, the wood quivering with a low, guttural growl.

Loka cursed herself for not keeping the carriage-driver's liquor when she had the chance. Urgent and impatient, she found the fire's heart, coaxing it up with an old gesture, the wood hissing and popping as it caught alight. The burning glow spread quickly, the flames leaping and illuminating the treetops as the heaped timber grew rapidly into a crackling bonfire, and in the shadows of the mist-filled wood, two round, mad pinpricks of flame reflected back at them. The growl sounded again, and they grew larger, nearer, gathering speed as the forest echoed with the din of tearing undergrowth, fleeing animals and shattering wood.

And there it was, materializing in the light of the roaring bonfire as it sprang forth from the darkness beyond; the wolfman. Its deep growl escalated into a bloodcurdling roar while it gathered speed and went straight for Gregor. The inquisitor barely had time to dive out of the way of the creature's pounce and could only make out the most glaring of details; large fangs slathered with drool, dark claws red with blood and thick, powerful arms. Gregor dropped into a roll as soon as he hit the forest floor, his right hand's iron grip on the hilt of his sword, throwing his hat clear of his head and into the night. He sprang to his feet in a single, fluid, practiced motion as the werewolf barreled past him and skidded through the bonfire, scattering glowing embers and a shower of sparks everywhere. "Get back!" the inquisitor yelled at Loka and raised his blade in a defensive stance.

Unharmed, the werewolf rose to its full height, illuminated from all sides by the diffuse remnants of the fire. Gregor could see it clearly now. Tall, heavy, black, bristling with blood-wet fur and rippling with unnatural muscle. Wicked, hooked claws. Fangs the size of his fingers. A snarling wolf's head on strong, broad shoulders. Maddened eyes alive with light. Absurdly, Gregor was reminded of one of his lessons at the Academia and a snippet of his teacher's words echoed in his ears, lifted from a distant past; "They are also known as the Gravedigger's hounds..."

Gregor felt the rush of adrenaline surge through his body and welcomed it. His muscles tensed and his heart raced as the werewolf approached, slowly this time, adapting to Gregor's agility. The inquisitor thought back to the last time he had faced off against a werewolf. He had been able to get the drop on it then and felled it with a single blow from behind. Now, the element of surprise was lost entirely, and it seemed like Gregor would have to duel the wolfman. It was a dangerous game for both of them. The werewolf's claws were strong enough to rip through leather, skin, flesh and bone like a hot knife through butter, and they carried the curse with them. That alone was a fate worse than death. Gregor's sword, laced as it was with silver, was like poison to lycanthropes.

The trick, Gregor decided, would be to not get killed and play it safe. The werewolf opened with a sideways swipe that the inquisitor could easily evade and Gregor retaliated with a quick slash that nicked the inside of the werewolf's forearm. The superficial cut sizzled and steamed and the werewolf, yowling, retreated like a child stung by a bee.

It would not let Gregor get away with that twice.

"Get back!"

There was no need for a second warning. Loka was scrambling from the stinging explosion of sparks and burning charcoal before the Inquisitor had begun to open his mouth. The creature was huge. Nykerius had said it was hulking, but the Deva had gleaned no real concept of its actual size, nor of the overwhelming power of its presence. The wolf-thing radiated madness. Blind, burning red rage pulsed from it like a dark sun, a lake-sized aura of violence and hate that she was stunned she hadn't been able to see before now, dwarfing the Inquisitors grey, stony determination. She put her hands to her ears and screamed along with it as it roared in pain from the touch of the silver blade, seeming to shake the trees to their very roots with the force of it. She smelled animal fear in every direction at the sound, even through the smoke and the stench of the abomination's hide and its sickening breath. She smelled her own.

Gregor's eyes were locked on those of the slavering shadow, his feet moving defensively, blade held firmly between them. One huge, dark paw swung like a brutal pendulum and he backstepped, briefly, quickly, angling the blade but holding back the return strike. Conserving himself. Tensed. Patient.

Loka skirted the edges, dragging up the larger chunks of flaming wood in her gloved hands and throwing them back toward the pile, trying to keep the stricken bonfire alive. Her heart pounded and her senses threatened to give way. There was a drumbeat in her head, thrumming in time with the pulse of the lycanthrope's tainted blood. She struggled against it, fought to find her god, the power in the beauty of the fire, of the sliver of moonlight, of her earrings and her painted eyes.

As if sensing it, the beast turned in an eyeblink and snapped at her, the jaws clashing, showering the earth with foul ropes of spittle. She fell backward and scrambled away from it in naked terror as the Inquisitor's blade arced in for another strike. But the great wolf was ready, smashing its tremendous limb backward, barely missing, its claws cracking hard into the trunk of a dead tree, splintering the wood like dried clay.

Loka fought through her panic and the white noise of her overloaded senses. She had to do something. She had to help.

She pulled herself to her feet and darted around to one side over the sea of embers, keeping the broken little fire between herself and the beast. She braced herself on her rear leg, bending the other to rest on the tip of her boot, forced herself to take in a deep lungful of cold, tainted, smoke-fouled air, and screamed again; a high-pitched peacock's call that pealed through the black wood like a bell and vibrated cleanly through the dark wolf's bones.

It flinched and clenched its slavering jaw, keeping its mad eyes on Gregor and his hateful, burning sword. She drew her power and called again, and the echo inside the chaos of its thrashing mind rang twice as loud. The beast's rage redoubled. It swung down at Gregor with both paws, roaring, the blow thundering into the damp earth and showering the clearing with mud and stones.

The third scream was three times as loud. Madness overtook it. It whirled on her, keening like a shrieking gale in agony, hunger and hate.