Treasures of Fantasy - Margaret Weis [112]
“What did the kid say to you in the alley?”
“He warned me the wolves were coming,” Skylan answered.
Zahakis’s eyes narrowed. “Those wolves were like no wolves I’ve ever seen, Skylan. He knew they were coming, which meant he knows something about them. He’s dangerous. I’ve told you that before.”
Skylan glanced over at Wulfe. His hair was uncombed and flopped over his face. He was dressed in rags that hung off his thin frame. His eyes darted about. He kept shifting nervously from one bare foot to the other, poised for flight.
“He’s just a boy,” said Skylan, but he sounded unconvincing, even to himself.
Zahakis grunted. “He knows what happened this night. Find out what it is.”
He started to walk off, then turned back and said grimly, “And keep him away from Chloe! She likes him.”
Skylan was thoughtful as the soldiers escorted him and Wulfe to the compound. His friends were still asleep on board their ship when they arrived, for which blessing Skylan was grateful.
“We need to talk,” said Skylan, and he took Wulfe into one of the empty tents and sat the boy down on a cot.
Skylan lit one of the crude lanterns made from a rag dunked into a dish of oil and placed it on the dirt floor. The light wavered in the breeze from the opening in the tent, the oil smoked.
“I want to know what’s going on,” said Skylan, sitting on the cot opposite. “You warned me the wolves were going to attack us. How did you know—”
“I’m still hungry,” said Wulfe, interrupting. “Can I have something to eat?”
Skylan had the feeling the boy was stalling, but Wulfe did look thin and underfed. Skylan brought back food and gave it to Wulfe, who ate ravenously, tearing at the bread with his teeth and swallowing chunks of it whole. Hunger assuaged, Wulfe slowed down, but he kept eating.
“You’ve wasted enough time,” said Skylan. “Start talking.”
Wulfe pointed to his mouth that was filled with bread.
“I can sit here all day,” said Skylan.
Wulfe sighed and, after a struggle, managed to swallow the large wad of bread.
“I don’t know where to begin,” he said.
“How about when the guards took you to the Temple.”
Wulfe made a face. “Do I have to tell you?”
“If you want to stay with me, you will.”
“The guards took me away,” said Wulfe. “I was afraid. I knew they were going to kill me. You knew it, too,” he added, with an accusing glance at Skylan. “You let them take me.”
Skylan pointed to the tattoo. “I tried to stop them. You saw what happened. Raegar’s god nearly burned off my arm.”
The thought occurred to him, suddenly, that the god had not tried to stop him from defending himself against the wolves. Strange, if Raegar wanted him dead, why hadn’t Aelon prevented him from fighting? Skylan tucked the thought away, planning to return to it later.
“Don’t try to change the subject. Obviously you escaped from the guards. How?”
Wulfe ducked his head. He started to stand up, but Skylan grabbed him and yanked him down. Wulfe flinched. He kept his eyes on the ground.
“I have something bad inside me. The druids called it a daemon. My daemon tries to make me do bad things. Most of the time I don’t pay any attention to it, but sometimes I do because I like what the daemon says.”
His voice was soft and mumbling; Skylan had to lean closer to hear him.
“The daemon told me that the guards were going to kill me,” Wulfe said, barely speaking above a whisper. “The only way to stop them was to kill them first. I was afraid. And so I did.”
“Did what?” Skylan asked, wanting to hear Wulfe say it.
The boy looked up at him. “I killed them.”
“Two grown men, both armed,” said Skylan. “And you killed them. How?”
“I turned into a man-beast.” Wulfe grinned suddenly, a feral grin that showed all his teeth. “When I did that,