Wolfbreed (3 page)

Seventeen, Manfried thought her age, perhaps eighteen at most. The same as his sister.

In response to the light, she stirred, raising her face from the floor to look at him.

“Please, some water.”

Under the dirt, the face that looked up at him was smooth, unscarred by time or labor.

She had to be of noble birth. It was the only explanation for such unmarked hands, face, and skin. Even his sister, who had married well, had hands that were hard from maintaining a small house that wasn’t landed enough to afford servants.

“Do they provide you with nothing?” Manfried muttered more to himself than to the prisoner. She appeared beyond hearing him. Her eyes were unfocused, their unusually deep green hue reflecting into a void that was invisible to him.

Her left leg trailed behind her, and that ankle was caked with blood and rust where a gray-black metal manacle had rubbed it raw. The blood was awful, and the stench worse, the foot swollen with infection and turned at a nasty angle. At some point she had broken the bone, and it looked as if she had collapsed in an attempt to walk toward the door.

The sight was so appalling that he never once considered the fact that he had never heard her cry out in pain.

“By Christ,” he cursed, “is the Order not the Hospital of St. Mary?” Even an unrepentant pagan should not have her wounds fester without succor.

The manacle was connected to an iron chain that seemed more of a weight to anchor a drawbridge or lower a portcullis than something meant to restrain a girl half Manfried’s size. Despite its weight, the chain was taut, leading back to a massive staple in the cell floor. Just tripping with that weight could have broken her ankle. As mortified as the flesh was, and how weak she appeared now, it could have happened days ago.

Manfried considered himself a hard man. He had never been one to wince at pain or blood. Pitched battle held no terror for him. But this?

This
was not how women were treated.

They were Christians here; they were supposed to be better than the idolaters, better than those who sacrificed their women and infants to their demonic gods, better than those who preyed on the weak, pagan and Christian alike, only to aggrandize themselves.

But he wasn’t looking upon the acts of a Christian.

He had no name for this kind of obscenity, but he was certain that it was at the hands of these half-pagan Prûsan brutes. His disdain for them flared into full-blooded hatred.

“Hold on, I’ll get you some water.”

Manfried forgot his orders. He might be a soldier serving the Teutonic Order, but he was also a human being.

ergeant-at-arms for the garrison of the Hospital of St. Mary of the Germans in Jerusalem at Johannisburg, Günter Sejod, awoke to a bell ringing. It took a moment for him to realize what it was.

The prisoner!

The other soldiers in the barracks were already stirring as Günter erupted from his bed and ran, dodging the other beds. In his head, he simultaneously prayed to Jesus Christ and to the old god Perkûnas. He pleaded to both that it was not the cell door, that it was some mechanical failure. Perhaps a rat gnawing the bell cord or maybe it was accidentally pulled by a weak-bladdered subordinate unable to hold his water until Prime.

“No,”
Günter whispered as he stepped out the doorway.

Across the hall from the barracks, a niche was set in the wall with a series of bell ropes. This one for the general alarm, this one to call Compline, and this one to sound the opening of the cell door in the lowest levels of the keep.

The latter rope still moved, jerking up and down, causing an asynchronous clanging above him.

This was no accident, no animal gnawing the fibers.

Someone had broken Landkomtur Erhard’s silver seals and had started opening the door. Günter grabbed the rope that signaled the main alarm.

Lord Christ, Father Perkûnas, have mercy on us all …

Günter had the feeling that he prayed, as always, to deaf gods.

he door was almost more than one man could open by himself. Manfried had to lean his whole body back to get it to move. It took several minutes just to open it wide enough to walk through and let some light in from outside.

He set his lantern down just beyond the threshold. He knew better than to bring a canister of flaming oil within reach of a prisoner, no matter how weak. With the same logic, he had already set aside his sword, his keys, and the ornate silver dagger that the sergeant had presented to him on Landkomtur Erhard’s behalf.

The dagger was distressingly worldly, despite being engraved with Latin from the psalms. He knew that other men here, probationary brothers who wished to emulate the warrior monks of the Order, were distressed at being given such an ornate weapon, despite their vows to obey the dictates of their superiors in the Order.

Manfried didn’t care a fig for its ornateness, or the precious metal. What bothered him was that silver made for an inferior weapon. He might have cared enough to raise the issue with the sergeant if he had expected to see battle. However, that seemed so unlikely that they could have armed him with a sausage, for all the difference it would make.

No lamp, no dagger, no sword—the only thing he was going to bring into the cell was a tin cup of water.

With the door open enough, he reached down and picked up
the water. Bending over, he saw what made the door such an effort to move. Something had caught between the flagstone and the lower edge of the door. It had scraped across the stone, leaving gray-white markings. Some sort of soft metal, lead perhaps. He stared, wondering what to make of it—

“Please?”

The voice had regained some of its strength. And it appeared that she could focus on him now. She gazed at him with shining green eyes, and he could see that she was actually quite a lovely creature under the filth. Tears had washed tracks of pure white on her cheeks, and as she pushed herself up, she folded her arms across her naked breasts.

Seeing that, Manfried thought that she might be afraid of him. She might think he was here to abuse her.

“No.” He shook his head and held out the cup. “I brought you some water. See?”

She sniffed, as if he might have put something evil in the water. But then she smiled. Her teeth were small, white, and even—a sure sign of noble birth.

“Thank you,” she whispered, holding out her hand for the cup.

He had to take a few steps forward, because the chain on her leg wouldn’t let her reach that far. In fact, when she shifted her leg, the broken foot remained stationary. He winced, even though she showed no sign of pain.

When he reached her, she took his hand in hers. The joy he saw in her smile was absolutely glorious.

“Manfried! By all that is sacred, get out of that room!”

Hearing Sergeant Günter’s voice filled Manfried with a barely containable rage. He spun around, arm still held by the young girl. “You pathetic, heathen bastard, treating a woman—”

The rage lapsed into confusion as he saw six soldiers in the hall, beyond the door, all clad in full mail and helmets, weapons bared. The soldiers milled about, looking confused, as if they weren’t sure
about why they were present. But in the sergeant’s face he saw something he didn’t expect.

Fear.

Her grip tightened on his arm, above the wrist. He dropped the cup and looked down. She pulled him toward her, as if she wanted to say something. She placed her other hand on his chest and smiled up at him.

“Manfried, get out of there n—”

The hand on his chest pushed him away, and Manfried felt a sudden shocking pain that took the air out of his lungs. He grabbed his shoulder as he fell to his knees …

But all he felt was an empty mail sleeve.

Next to him, the woman stood, tossing aside Manfried’s naked right arm.

Manfried felt his life spill out of his wounded shoulder. He dimly heard Günter screaming at his men, followed by men grunting and metal screeching.

He stared up at the prisoner, uncomprehending.

Muscles rippled under her pale flesh, tensing like cables as the flesh itself twisted and turned dark. Her hands twisted and bones stretched as fingernails became claws. Her face twisted and her pretty white-toothed smile grew into a red-furred muzzle.

But the lupine demon still looked at him with the same green eyes.

He choked out, “I was only—”

Her forearm shot out, stealing his voice, his consciousness, and what little remained of his life’s blood.

eal the door!” Günter screamed again. “Seal this damned door!”

Three men were already trying to push the banded door shut. A
fourth joined them as the metal screeched against the silver seals wedged at its base. It moved a finger’s breadth. Then another.

Beyond it, the creature turned toward them and it almost seemed that its monstrous face was grinning at them. The red-furred thing stood in the center of the cell, hunched behind where Manfried’s body had fallen.

“Don’t panic!” Günter yelled in a voice that was near panic itself. “That chain is too strong for it to break. It can’t reach us.” He spoke more from hope than from knowledge. The manacle on the creature’s leg was banded in pure silver, it was supposed to prevent her from becoming this … thing.