Wolfbreed (43 page)

“Thank you,” Lilly said quietly.

Uldolf shook his head and walked away.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” Lilly asked.

He turned around and looked down at her. “I tried,” he told her. He held up his hand, palm up. “You didn’t leave me much to work with.”

“Oh.” She didn’t realize until then that she had held out some hope that he might have had a change of heart, that he might still have a scrap of feeling for her.

He paced around the stall, and she saw that he had the silver dagger back, shoved into his belt.

If he has that …

“Why didn’t
you
kill
me
?” Uldolf asked her.

I loved you. I’ve always loved you
.

“I told you.” Lilly shook her head. Then she realized that the silver torc was back on her neck.

Uldolf saw her notice and he smiled grimly. “I don’t know very many German words, but I do know the word for silver.” He pulled the dagger out of his belt and held it up before him. “I drove a sword through you once and you don’t even have a scar, but the cuts you made yourself with this dagger are still trying to heal.

There’s a reason the Germans are armed with silver weapons, isn’t there?”

“Y-Yes.”

“And there’s a reason they put that around your neck.”

“Yes.”

“They know what you are.”

Lilly nodded.

“Tell
me
what you are.” He crouched down across the stall from her. She sucked in a shuddering breath, watching the dagger, wondering if he would use it.
Hoping
he would use it.

He gestured with the dagger. “Tell me.”

“They say I’m an animal,” Lilly told him. “A beast that can mimic a human being. They say my true form is the wolf thing you saw, the one that hurt you.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“The monks of the Order,” Lilly whispered. “I was raised in one of their monasteries.”

“You’re
their
creature?”

“I was.”

Lilly told him of her life, such as it was. She told him her memories of the ruined monastery where she was raised, how she had served her masters in the Order. She told him of the villages she had attacked, preparing the way for the Order; how she would slip in with the surrounding villagers and farmers trying to escape the attack, and when the town was shut up for the siege; how she would slip into its heart and tear it out.

Uldolf shook his head.

“You let them use you like that?”

“It was what I was for.”

“Because that is what they told you?”

Lilly nodded.

“If they abused you so, why didn’t you just run away? Leave one of those villages before you started killing?”

“I had nowhere to go.”

“Then where were you going when you escaped from them now?”

Lilly raised her head and looked up into Uldolf’s eyes. He stared back for a long time before shaking his head.

“No, you’re not telling me—”

“I tried to forget this place,” Lilly said. “I tried to force myself not to remember what happened here. I thought it had killed every part of me that felt anything good … But I didn’t forget—”

And I didn’t kill that part of myself. It woke up when I saw you
.

Uldolf turned away. “Stop it,” he whispered.

“When my master abandoned me here, it all came back—so much I lost myself in it.” She blinked back tears. “Uldolf, if we could have been together, without a past—”

“Even if I didn’t remember, you aren’t even
human
. How could you believe, even for a moment—”

Lilly shook her head. “We both did, for a moment.”

Uldolf was silent for a long time. He finally said, “You are cruel.”

“God is cruel,” Lilly whispered.

“Were you telling the truth, that the Order took my family?”

“Yes, I was. I didn’t hurt them—”

“No?” Uldolf whispered. “Why were they taken, Lilly? Why is any of this happening?”

“I didn’t want any of this.”

“But you caused it, didn’t you?”

“I—”

“They want their pet monster back. What do you think they’ll do to my family when they find out we sheltered you?”

“No, your family didn’t know—”

Uldolf whipped around, striking her on the face with the back of his fist, the blade of the dagger he held coming perilously close to her eye. Her skin burned where he struck her, the sharp taste
of blood filling the left side of her mouth. “These are the people responsible for the slaughter of my first family! You think they’ll show mercy to my second one? Do you think innocence means anything to them?
You think you’re the only monster here?
” Uldolf stood up. “You are right about one thing. Your God
is
cruel.”

He is not
my
God
.

“What are you going to do?” Lilly asked, surprised at the sound of fear in her voice.

“I’m going to offer them a trade.”

andkomtur Erhard von Stendal bent over his brother knight Gregor. The man was a wreck, arms broken, skin pale, barely conscious. Even so, he prayed as if his soul was in mortal danger. Gregor was the only one left conscious.

“What happened, Brother?” Erhard asked him.

Two of his fellows had never even had the opportunity to draw their swords. One was dead, neck horribly twisted; the other had bruises and deep wounds on his neck mirroring those on the corpse, but somehow still breathed.

Three other bodies still lay where they had fallen in the road, necks broken, windpipes crushed. The wounds showed the rending of claws that, combined with the position of the men, left no doubt that this was Lilly’s doing.

I trained her too well
.

She would have been a monstrous foe if she had been left ignorant in the woods of her birth. But that wasn’t enough. He had taught her how to be a much more effective monster.

He didn’t know what troubled him more—the fact that she was now back inside the walls of Johannisburg, or the strangely bloodless way she had overpowered six men. Until he had returned her to this place, he had never known her to leave a victim alive. When
they let loose the creature on the pagans, it had torn through the enemy with pain and terror as much a goal as the death she left in her wake. By comparison, what he saw here was dispassionate, almost merciful.

What did it mean?

Why was Gregor alive?

“What happened here?” Erhard asked more forcefully than he should have of an injured man. Gregor blinked up at him, eyes focusing.

“Gregor?”

“Erhard …”

“What happened here?”

“We have sinned. Lord save us, but we are damned for what we have done.”

“Gregor?” Erhard grabbed his surcoat and the injured knight winced.

“Pray with me, Erhard,” he whispered. “May Christ have mercy on our souls.” He closed his eyes and began praying again. Erhard let the fabric slide through his fingers, letting Gregor ease against the wall.

Erhard crossed himself and joined Gregor in prayer.
What have we done?

The dozen men with Erhard now seemed inadequate.

“Halt!”
one of the soldiers with Erhard called out in Prûsan, interrupting Erhard’s prayer.

He turned toward the man. Sir Johann was a minor lord from south of Hamburg, from a family line so dilute that his inheritance consisted of only a title and a horse. Johann was one of many secular knights crusading with the Order who saw Prûsa, potentially, as the seat of a new family demesne. He was also the German in this company with the best command of Prûsan, outside of Erhard.

Johann’s outburst had an urgency that pulled Erhard to his feet, prayer unfinished. Erhard turned toward the focus of Johann’s attention, as did the eleven other men filling the crowded alley.

A young man, eighteen or nineteen years old, stood at the entrance of the alley, by the corner of the neighboring stable. He wore muddy breeches and a linen shirt that was splattered with brown stains that could have been blood. He was missing his right arm, and over his left shoulder he carried a burden wrapped in an oversized leather cloak.

God help us, another body?

The one-armed youth struggled with his burden, half walking, half staggering. A fresh wound cut across the right side of his face, black and purple with dried blood and the bruise underneath.

Günter pushed forward from behind the ranks to stand next to Erhard. “Uldolf?” Günter asked. “Is that you?”

Uldolf
. Erhard knew that name. Uldolf was one of the Prûsan men that the bishop had ordered rounded up. Uldolf in particular, because he was the son of the last chieftain of Mejdân.

Uldolf stopped advancing. “Yes,” he answered Günter and looked around at the mass of soldiers.

Judging by the complete indifference with which Uldolf regarded the dead, and the near emotionless character of his voice, Erhard suspected he had been present for the bloodletting.

He lost his arm during the fall of Mejdân. He has seen this before
.

Erhard stepped forward. “The bishop would have a word with you.”

“Am I your concern?” He swayed a little, and lowered himself onto one knee. When he did, Erhard saw that he held a dagger flat against the top of his burden. The other men, upon seeing the unsheathed weapon, drew their own blades. All except Günter.

“What do you mean, showing naked steel to a knight of the Order!” Johann barked at him. “Speak quickly if you mean to keep your head.”

Uldolf looked up at all of them as he deftly unrolled the body from his shoulder. “Not steel,” he said to Johann. He looked at Erhard. “But you know that.” He stepped back from the body, keeping the dagger pointed at it.

Lord Jesus, please grant me strength …

Uldolf had not brought them another corpse. The cloak fell open as he backed away, revealing a naked seventeen-year-old girl, severely bound and quite conscious. She looked up at Erhard with familiar green eyes. Around her neck was a silver torc.

“Uldolf, my boy, how did you capture her?” Günter said.

“So, am I right? This is what you want? Not me, not my family?”

Erhard found it impossible to believe that he faced her again.

“Lilly?” he finally asked.

“Master,” she answered quietly.

n the stable, when Uldolf had draped his cloak around her and picked her up, Lilly had tried to retreat into herself. Things weren’t supposed to happen like this. She had given up. It should have been over. But Uldolf didn’t give her an escape into death, and the refuge she had in her own mind no longer existed.