Chapter 8

A reply that was on the lips of his brother died when a man's shouts overcame the general chatter of the room. In the opposite side of the tavern a fight had erupted, with two drunken men with bright red faces hurling insults at each other. One of them had the ragged appearance of a local farmer, while the other, a younger man, betrayed his participation in the war by the large scars that marred his face.

In the quiet that follows the moment when a group of people notice there's gossip to be made the men's shouts made clear the purpose of their argument. "The lord is just protecting what is ours!" said the young soldier. "Unlike those damn bastards who would sell you off to their friends in the isles! They would tax you until you had no choice but to sell your own daughter, you fool!"

"Are you hearing yourself? Who do you think is selling us off to their friends? Your lord promised to give these lands to those heretics in the south! They will destroy our churches, take our produce and burn us at the stake!"

They weren't alone in their tizzy; five of their companions joined the shouting match, which only served to fan the flames even more. From one side came a punch, which was met with expected hostility, and soon the seven men were brawling. The other patrons took their jugs and moved to the side; the less adventurous escaped outside to avoid the entire situation. There were some nervous laughs as there always is, and grave nods when their arguments found sympathy with some of the other folk of the town. At the bar, the innkeeper and his wife were shouting at some of the men to stop it, worry etched over their faces. Olivier and Roland stood up abruptly and took Alix by her shoulders, and tried to find a way outside.

It was midway through their pushing through people that Alix caught a strong scent, the black foretelling of a great disaster: something was burning. She urged on, and they made it outside just before the screams started. The patrons poured out of the building, rushing through the small opening and out the back with desperation in their faces. But there had been many people left inside, and as they tried to make their way out some of them tripped and fell, causing others to suffer the same fate. Seeing this, and as the outline of the flames began to be seen from outside the tiny windows, Olivier and Roland and some of the men outside ran back in, looking to assist the people inside.

The fire quickly ate through timber and thatch, and began to emerge towards the sky at the back of the building, gasping big breaths of black smoke. Alix screamed for her brothers, but their names came out in big guttural barks. They came out quickly carrying two younger men, their faces covered in sweat and grime.

"Let's find Lothar," Roland said as they laid the exhausted and coughing men on the ground. "Let the villagers put the fire out."

But the hunger of the flames was great, and as it engulfed the inn its sparks caught on to the nearby stables. Screams from the villagers as they tried to help to stop the spread mixed in with the panicked sounds of the horses, which were struggling against their reigns to escape the fire. From there, those who stayed behind to help found themselves fighting a losing battle: the buildings in the centre of the village were close together or divided by elaborate wattle fences. It hadn't rained in weeks, and so the main street itself presented a perfect sacrifice for the raging inferno.

It happened almost imperceptibly, but there was a shift in the town when it became clear that the fire would destroy everything on its path. The panic became almost like a rabid disease, turning once compassionate eyes into the desperate gaze of those who are thinking how they will come out on top of a terrible situation. There were those helping the injured, and those who ran back home to save anything they could before it was too late. Alix saw three of the men who had started the brawl running behind the inn, carrying their cloaks and scabbards and even a lance with them.

Olivier and Roland led her up the street in a scene that seemed all to familiar. They were heading to a crossroad at the upper side of the town. It was one she was acquainted with: one of the paths led back to the forest, while the other seemed to take the traveller through country roads into the next hamlet. From the latter a man with a horse and two mules emerged. An expression of relief washed over his face when he saw the three of them; his attire and the bags on his animal companions left no doubt that this was Lothar.

"I saw the fire from the blacksmith's house, are you okay?" the man said. Olivier and Roland explained to him briefly what happened, while Alix hid behind them. The presence of yet another stranger irked her, specifically one that seemed to smell of perfume and order, like a herald of the city that came to pry the forest and the wolf out of her. As afraid as she was of what she'd witnessed, when confronted with the idea of completely forsaking it, her mind dissolved in a million questions. Her brothers, however, eventually presented her to their benefactor, who regarded her with a warm smile.

"I last saw you when you were two years of age, you've grown so much!" he said.

"Something happened to her and she can't speak," Olivier said with a frown. "I believe a change of airs will probably help her."

"I dare say, a young woman like you going through so much in such a short period of time…" Lothar agreed. "My wife will be happy to take you in; she has always wanted a female attendant. It's too lonely at home as I'm often away."

Alix felt something in her rebel at the idea. As the herald of the city brought his offer of civilization closer, she imagined the forest trees trembling ominously, like a warning. It was then than a young girl came running their way, and behind her they could see her mother and her younger brother.

"Don't go that way, good man!" the mother stopped to say as she caught her breath. "I've seen the horses and the banners of a troupe of men coming from the south – I imagine they saw the fire and it made them curious."

"Are they soldiers?" Olivier asked.

"They are carrying spears and swords, they are, but they're not here to help – they were going into the houses, killing anyone who got in their way!"

"Mercenaries," said Lothar under his breath. "Although in this time and age there's neigh a difference between the soldiers and them."

The woman, feeling she had done her duty to warn her fellow Christians, nodded and excused herself to continue her path back to safety. The merchant looked at the two brothers with a grave look in his eyes and said, "it's better we make our way north now. Let's put some distance between these rascals and us. In the morning we can try to bargain for two horses so we can leave this land quickly."

Both brothers nodded and the group started walking. The news had replaced Alix's reluctance about going to the city with worry for the innkeepers who had treated her so well. She wanted to go back to warn them of the danger, to make sure they had got away from the fire and the mercenaries. She stopped suddenly, and with her newfound strength, she disentangled her hands from the grips of her brothers.

"Alix, what's wrong?" asked Olivier. "We need to go now, we don't know when the mercenaries…!"

"I need to save the innkeepers" Alix said in a growl. The strange sound felt threatening to the two young men, who only heard an animal that was ready to attack. They took a step back, almost instinctively, and regarded their sister with a look of bewilderment and confusion. It was as if they couldn't recognise who that creature was.

And like that, the spell that made Alix think she was back to being a human broke, and the sound of howling broke from her chest. The wolf was calling for the hunt. They couldn't recognise her because she wasn't quite the sister they had left behind, and would never be again. She turned around without another look, hoping they would understand that their paths would never cross again. Even if they were to insist on pursuing her, she was but a swift shadow moving in the night; no man would've been able to race her on their own two feet.

She ran back into the burning village. She found the streets empty except for a few marauding chancers who were trying to steal from the wreckage. They covered themselves in their cloaks, hoping to obscure their faces from the jeering light of the fires, and silver glints could be seen protruding from their hands, where they carried a knife for their own protection. They were well-built, young and scarred; mercenaries or soldiers, she couldn't tell, but they were certainly not from the village. She paid them no mind, silently evading them as she returned to where she had arrived two nights before.

The inn was almost gone; the only way to recognise it was by virtue of where its remains were placed. The gigantic flames had died down as their fuel was consumed, yet still some smouldering pockets remained. The heat drove away the chill of the night, and made it comfortable for those who had forsaken their cloaks inside, like she had done. She walked around the building, examining the remains in search of a familiar figure. Near the back of the inn she found the half charred body of one of the soldiers, perhaps the one who had started it all, and next to him there was his unsheathed sword. She took it for herself before moving on to the backyard and the stables.

A cry was heard, an echo dancing around in the crackling silence. She knew where it had started, and who it belonged to. She leaped into one of the stables – one of the few still somehow intact- to find a woman cradling the injured body of her husband while two men leered and jeered at them.

"Let's just throw them into the fire," said one of the mercenaries. "That'll be a laugh!"

"Please, I've given you everything I have, please just let us go," the innkeeper's wife cried. Her face was bruised and stained in sooth and blood; it was obvious that like her husband she'd also been at the receiving end of some brute's temper tantrum. The innkeeper was unconscious, but his laboured breath revealed he was still alive.

"Oh come on, old hag," the other mercenary laughed as he kicked her, "you know you haven't given us everything."

Alix didn't need to hear any more. She approached both assailants from behind; her movements were smooth, silent, and her sword heavy as it cut across. She heard the crunching sound of bones and felt the vibration as the flesh of the man's neck gave way. The blade was stopped by his vertebrae and cartilage, and she quickly changed directions, leaving the body to crumble to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The second man, surprised by her appearance, tried to brandish his spear, but could do nothing as she tackled him and stabbed him ferociously in the face.

Raspy breaths sighed once, twice, and then died down. The corpses still were spurting blood as she turned around to look at the innkeeper's wife. The commotion had caused her to faint. She approached them and laid both spouses next to each other, and stole the corpses' cloaks to cover their unconscious bodies. She was sure their injuries were not bad enough that they wouldn't survive the night, and so she left them.

By then the fire around the barns had been dying down as the flames moved to another part of the village. Like the Ripper visiting every house as the plague struck, the fiery angel rested on one place before moving to the next, taking its time of leap up the timber and hay in the buildings to satiate its hunger. The flames weren't any concern to her: it was what went under their mantle what moved her to walk back into the main street. More mercenaries were roaming the village, and armed with her sword and newfound strength, she looked forward to hunting them.

She heard a familiar howl pierce the night.