Wolfbreed (17 page)

Interlude

aster often had the guards take them, one at a time, to be trained, or to be punished. Lilly never knew who they would take, except at night. If the guards came to take someone at night, they always took Rose.

It was never very long, and most times Lilly was awakened when they brought her back. This time wasn’t different. Lilly woke up hearing the boots of the guards and the creak of the door opening. She squeezed her eyes shut even as she sensed the light of their lanterns falling across her eyelids. She froze in place, barely allowing herself to breathe. Always, the best way to avoid punishment was to avoid being noticed in the first place.

She smelled them next; the sour sweat of the guards; the blood, piss, and fear from Rose; and the sour, musky smell that Lilly associated with her master.

She heard the door to Rose’s cell creak open, and she heard the rattle of chains. She could hear Rose quietly crying, and Lilly winced. With tears came beatings. They all needed to accept
whatever master gave them. They were the animals, and if they couldn’t serve men properly, they were no use for man or God.

And when their master decided that one of them was useless, he removed them. Lilly’s sister Dahlia had tried to run away, and master had cut her with silver, many times, and the wounds did not heal. It took a very long time before she had stopped moving. Worse was her brother Ash, who one day simply stopped talking or moving. Master beat him, but Ash didn’t move or react. Eventually, master just had the guards take Ash away.

From listening to the guards, and the bits of their language she could understand, she knew that she had once had two other siblings she didn’t even remember. It was one of the few things she allowed herself to feel sad about. She couldn’t contradict her master, even in her mind, but she could feel regret at forgetting an unknown brother or sister.

She didn’t want to lose another sister. She tried to will Rose to stop crying.
Please, not in front of the guards
.

She risked cracking an eye open, and saw one of the guards standing in front of Rose’s cell, watching her cry. At first Lilly’s heart sank, until the guard knelt down and she recognized him.

Lilly felt the tension ease, because of all the men who kept them at the mercy of their master, there was one who took no joy in correcting them. One who offered them, especially Rose, some small comfort.

Once he was alone with them, he started singing to Rose.

he first week he was at Brother Semyon’s monastery, Erhard von Stendal, province commander without a province, still nursed doubts. He had never once questioned his vocation, but what he had seen here had brought him too close to that point. Even after seeing the charter for his new mission, bearing the
seals of the pope and the Hochmeister, it was difficult for him to see these creatures as the work of God …

In the end, though, it was not for him to say. Duty, fealty, and obedience demanded he follow the path set before him. His reservations amounted to nothing. His actions were constrained by vows more powerful than any unease he might have felt.

The church had declared Semyon’s wolfbreed monstrosities of earthly origin. Fallen, like all terrestrial matter, but—as Brother Semyon had said—no different than Erhard’s horse.

However, my horse cannot speak, and my horse cannot change into a slavering monster and dismember a group of armed men
.

Earthly they might be, but the half-lupine creatures Semyon had imprisoned here were surely born of some primeval wood on the borders of Hell itself.

Only a few hours ago he had seen, for the third time, an eight-year-old child turn into a twisted demonic wolf and kill full-grown, armed Prûsan warriors.

The last demonstration was only with two Prûsans, and it made Erhard wonder if it was due to the relative skill the last child had at killing, or if it was because Brother Semyon only had a limited number of Prûsans on hand.

I must stop thinking of them as children. They are not human
.

“You speak of using these creatures against the pagans,” Erhard asked him. “How, exactly? These creatures must be caged under guard, bound by silver manacles. You train them to show their prowess in combat, but how can we be sure that prowess is not used against us?”

Brother Semyon paused. He had been leading Erhard on a path through a series of gardens to the abbot’s house where Erhard had been taking his residence, having yet no proper convent to attend to.

The house stood near the crumbling monastery where the guards lived, along with the false children they guarded. The
house stood on a bluff overlooking the River Drweca, and seemed to have avoided the violence inflicted on the monastery. Or, more likely, it had been more carefully rebuilt.

The path to the house wound through exotic flowering plants. The perfume of the flowers was as thick as syrup, forcing Erhard’s stomach into slow, uneasy rolls.

Brother Semyon turned to Erhard, his expression showing an unseemly joy at such a brutish business. He tapped his forehead. “With any wild animal, Brother Erhard, the most important restraints are the ones that cannot be seen.”

“Wild animals with the wits of men?” Erhard asked.

“Is breaking a man any different than breaking an animal?” Brother Semyon walked up to one twisted bush that grew in an unnatural spiral. “Or breaking one of these creatures?” He traced the outline of the topiary with a black-gloved hand. “Especially if you begin with an immature specimen.”

He reached up and touched a budding flower that rose out of the surface of the twisted bush. “You bend it where you want it to grow.” He pinched the bud between his fingers, crushing it and releasing a small trail of fluid, red in the glow from the setting sun. “And cut away the things that you don’t need.”

“But those things kill.”

Brother Semyon broke off the crushed flower. “So do men. So do well-trained dogs.”

“Those things are not dogs.”

Brother Semyon turned to face the crimson sunset. “It is simple, my brother; punishment and reward, dominance and submission. If every small sin is punished with an iron fist, they will no longer even conceive of large ones.” He tossed the crushed flower into the wind. It fragmented, the wind tearing the immature petals apart as they drifted down toward the river. “Their masters dominate their every waking thought. They obey us not to avoid pain, but because our approval is the only light and pleasure they are allowed in this world.”

“Brother …”

“They exist to serve us,” Brother Semyon said. “That is all. They serve, or they die.”

he guard who sang to Rose treated them all with something like kindness. The few months he had been here marked the first time Lilly knew that humans could share anything but cruel discipline. He seemed to care for Rose most of all, especially when he brought her back from their master in the deep of the night.

His attention seemed to make Rose stronger. She didn’t cry as much. And when the guard sang to her, Lilly didn’t need to pretend to be asleep. Sometimes she would even quietly sing along.

But, in time, their master found out.

He burst in, radiating such fury that the sharp smell of fresh piss came from several cells at once. The fear was suffocating. However, this time the rage was not focused on Lilly, or Rose, or Holly, or Timothy, or Sage, or Ivy—

For the first time Lilly saw her master’s rage focused on another human being. He shouted fast, and loud, and in the other language the humans spoke among themselves, not the pagan language they used to speak to her. Even so, the syllables burned into her ears so deeply that she remembered them long enough for the sense to follow.

“How dare you interfere with the Order’s work here!”

The guard spoke slower, and was easier for Lilly to understand. “Interfere? I thought Christ called on us to show compassion.”

“Do not presume to speak to me of our Lord. These are animals. Your service here is at an end.”

“Isn’t that for the new Landkomtur to say, Brother Semyon?”

“I am your superior. Do
not
test me!”