Extinction - Lisa Smedman [42]
But something was moving inside it.
Ryld drew his piwafwi around himself and crept closer through the trees. He felt something soft under his boot, and the stink of fresh excrement rose to his nostrils. His lip curled. Even in the warrens of Menzoberranzan, people didn't defecate so close to their homes. Whoever was living in the little shelter was no better than an animal, the weapons master thought, angrily scraping his boot.
He looked up just in time to see a small black shape streaking toward him from the cabin. It was the same sort of animal he'd been tracking-but not the same one. As the beast sank its teeth into the wrist of his sword hand, Ryld's warrior's instincts took over.
He grabbed the creature by the scruff of the neck with his free hand and used its own momentum to slam it into a tree. Dazed, it staggered to the side, shaking its head.
Ryld whipped his sword around in a slash at the animal's throat-but it proved quicker than he expected. His blade slammed into the tree behind it as the beast rolled out of the way.
Yanking his sword free, Ryld rounded on the creature-only to see it rearing up on two legs. It held its forepaws out in an unmistakable gesture of surrender. Its mouth worked, forming words that were half yip, half speech.
"Wait!" it gasped in oddly-accented Low Drow. "Friend."
Ryld hesitated, but kept his sword ready.
"You can speak?" the weapons master asked.
The creature nodded urgently, then it closed its eyes as a shudder coursed through it. Bald patches appeared in its fur and spread, exposing pale skin, and its muzzle shrank and flattened. The quadruped legs rearticulated themselves with a soft crackle of cartilage, and paws transformed into hands and feet.
When the transformation was complete, a naked human youth stood where the animal had been. Were he a drow, Ryld would have guessed his age at about twenty, but humans matured faster than that. The boy was probably no more than a dozen years old. His hair was black and tangled, his hands and feet as filthy as those of an urchin from the Stenchstreets.
"What sort of creature are you?" Ryld asked.
The boy uttered a word that Ryld didn't recognize, speaking one of the languages of the World Above. Seeing that Ryld didn't understand, he switched to Low Drow.
"A blend of wolf and human," he answered. "I shift between the two."
"Wolf?"
"The furred animal that walks on four legs," the human replied.
The weapons master nodded.
"Where is the other wolf-human?" Ryld asked it. "The gray one."
He kept a wary eye on the structure and surrounding forest, furious at himself for having let his attention wane a moment before.
"There's no one here but me."
"Liar," Ryld spat. He stepped forward, menacing the boy with his sword. "Is the larger one your parent? Is that why you're trying to protect it?"
"I have no parents. They were killed in a hunt the year I was born," the boy explained. He not only stood his ground but glared back at Ryld, showing an amazing amount of mettle for a mere boy. "They were killed by your people."
Ryld considered that and said, "Is that how you learned to speak Drowic? Were you a slave?"
"My grandfather was, but he fought back."
"The gray wolf?" Ryld guessed. "That's your grandfather? Where is he?"
"He's not here," the boy replied, glancing into the forest in the opposite direction of the little building, though too casually.
The look told Ryld what he needed to know. The lie was as transparent as glass.
The weapons master reached down and grabbed the boy by the hair.
"I see," said Ryld. "Let's go talk to him."
He half-dragged, half-marched the boy to the shelter.
Pausing just outside the door, he held his sword to the chest of the squirming boy and called, "If you want the boy to live, show yourself. Give me some information and I'll spare his