Chương 29: The Wolf in the Well

"Mind the third step," I said.

"The centre has fallen out." Corso stepped over the broken tread behind me. A reminder of the boar had settled our brief argument about who should go first, leaving me with the iron bar in one hand and the lantern in the other. A trickle of muddy water followed the worn centres of the steps, forcing us to the sides. Slime covered those too, and we placed each foot carefully before trusting it with our weight.

The lantern showed the same dimensions repeated down the flight: evenly cut steps, smooth stone walls, a straight ceiling three feet above our heads. Whoever had built this had worked with a precision I rarely saw in Varenza. A gentle draught rose towards us, smelling of mould. We followed the water down. We had descended for several minutes before the stairs stopped in a small passage, split in the centre by a narrow drain channel that held more foul-smelling water.

Up ahead I saw the contours of a doorway illuminated in flickers from the lantern I was holding forward. I looked back at Corso and gave a short, tight nod. He returned it, and we followed the right side of the drain to a room about ten feet square. Three further doorways opened from it: one ahead and one on either side. The one on our left was packed with rubble and earth that had pushed inwards from beyond the wall.

As we entered the room Corso swung his lantern and bent down, extending his hand and touching the floor with his fingers. When he lifted them up to the light they shone with dark red.

"Blood." That was when we heard the noises coming from through the doorway on our right, and I saw the door was slightly ajar. Not enough for a human to pass through, and we heard a low growl. Something thin and breathless and close. Corso lowered his voice to an almost whisper.

"An animal. Dog? Something corrupted?"

"Perhaps," I said, my hand tightening around the iron rod.

"Should we—" Corso began in a muted voice.

"Yes," I whispered. Most of me wanted to retreat back up to the daylight, but there was a stubbornness and an overriding urge that steered me forward.

"We need to know." I looked at him, seeing a reflection of my own determined fear.

"Stay close." We approached the doorway slowly, and I handed Corso my lantern before pushing open the door. It opened with surprising ease, even as the rusty hinges squealed painfully loudly in complaint. As soon as there was room for us to enter I moved inside the room, in one quick and smooth movement. Corso was right behind me holding both lanterns up high. The animal was pressed into one corner of the room, lying beside a shallow puddle of stale water.

It looked much like a dog, its coat gray and spiked with mud, ribs showing through. Its teeth were bared. But it was large — much larger than any dog I had seen, and even so I recognised it as only a pup. I could feel my strengthened attributes at work as I took it all in, in a heartbeat, assessing and evaluating. There was nothing about it that seemed corrupted, twisted or wrong, other than its imposing size. One hind leg was bent in a way that I immediately recognised as wrong. I relaxed slightly.

It could not chase us far on that leg.

"Oh," Corso said softly, stepping up next to me. The animal snapped its jaws, and its injured leg dragged on the stone, causing a short yelp of pain.

"So, this is why the branches were broken over the well," I said.

"That is a large dog. Is it corrupted? How did a dog get all the way out here?"

"He's a wolf," Corso said. He took another step forward and lowered himself to the ground next to me.

"They can be found out here, they live in the wild. He's beautiful."

"Don't!" I exclaimed, when Corso moved forward again, provoking another snapping of sharp teeth.

"He's hurt," Corso said.

"The leg is broken. We need to… We need to help." The sound of the wolf's jaws still rang in my ears. This was nothing like the dogs I was used to seeing in Varenza, large and rough and something about it told of violence and strength. I could not imagine its size when grown, and I was still not convinced this was not some corrupted version of a dog, twisted by the distance from the Mandate's influence.

"It will snap your hand off if you try to help," I said. Corso didn't appear to have heard, and again he tried to get closer. This time, the pup launched itself towards him and was nearly upon him, when it fell down again in obvious pain. Its jaws shut on empty air just a few inches from Corso's hand. Corso retreated and something about Corso's movements was… changed, when he moved around the animal. Where I would have jumped back in fright, he slowly and gently backed off, every movement careful and deliberate.

"I shouldn't," I heard him say, mostly to himself.

"He is not going to let me. He will just make the injury worse." Then he paused and thought.

"But we need to help him. He's going to die down here." The wolf pup dragged itself backwards into the corner, panting heavily. A split in its lower lip bled into the foam around its mouth, and fresh drops joined the dark smears on the floor. When it lay down, the lanterns showed the injured leg clearly. The lower limb bent at a sharp, unnatural angle, but the skin was unbroken and no bone showed through. Swelling had begun around the break.

The paw twitched, and from time to time the pup bent its head to lick the injured limb.

"I cannot see what we can do," I said, eventually.

"It will keep worrying the leg, keep disrupting the body's natural healing. At some point, infection or fatigue or hunger will end it. The leg needs to be set, and then splinted, and there is no way to get close to it without getting our hands torn apart." Corso nodded, but not yet conceding defeat, he gestured at the animal." He," he said.

"It's a male. And see, he is so scrawny. His ribs are showing. There's some water here, but he must be starving." Then he took the travel pack off and rummaged around inside, soon coming out with a string of sausages we had planned to prepare over a fire for dinner. A few heartbeats after the sausages appeared, the wolf's nose twitched, and he looked up at us. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Yes, buddy. They are for you," Corso said.

"But you look like you would swallow the string whole, and either choke yourself to death or eat more than you should." He took two sausages and broke each into smaller pieces. These, he threw to the animal, who snapped after them and immediately began to eat. In moments, they were all gone. The wolf growled at Corso, demanding more.

"Enough for now," Corso said firmly but gently.

"Buddy, I know you want more, but you need to pace yourself. I'll be back shortly." The wolf growled again, and Corso took a small step closer and slowly hunched down. This time the wolf did not react with aggression, only watching Corso intently.

"Buddy, we have more. You will get more." He used a soothing low voice, his hand making calm gestures as he spoke. Yellow eyes traced the movements of his hands. He turned to me, then said, "Let's leave the room for now. The smell of the sausages will just drive him crazy, and our presence is stressful. He needs to calm down. We explore the other doorway, and come back later." And with that, we left the wolf pup behind.

I saw its muscles relax slightly as it observed our exit, its nose twitching at the lingering smell of food. Back in the main hallway, we faced the second door and repeated our strategy. I held the iron rod and took the front, and Corso stuck close behind me with the lanterns as we pushed open the door. We entered, and I heard an audible gasp from Corso that could have been my own. This room was… Different.

It was much larger, running perhaps thirty-five or forty feet from the doorway and perhaps fifteen across, but it was hard to tell: our lanterns barely reached the far end, and darkness dominated even as the lantern light fought to fill the room.

My eyes had just begun cataloguing the room (a floor laid with intricate mosaic partly covered with silt, walls where detailed pictures flickered as if in motion, the silhouette, the presence, of a large stone counter at the room's far end, some doors leading out to other rooms), when the room instantly filled with strange sounds. Angry chittering noises and the patter of hundreds of feet approached us, getting louder.

Everything then happened quickly: my eyes picked out small shapes, no larger than a foot, streaming across the floor from the far corner, arraying themselves in front of us. I pushed Corso further back behind me and got the iron bar ready. I heard Corso turn around as he put one of the lanterns down, freeing a hand. Rats. Dozens of them. In moments they were arranged in orderly rows and columns, each holding a small stick, or a splinter of metal that glinted in the flickering light.

A strange organization to it all. The front row of rodents was hunched over and their makeshift weapons were pointed at us; the row behind held their weapons partly lowered, and as I stood there watching, my heartbeat hammered and my mind was racing; I did not know whether to stare in wonder or fright. Their makeshift weapons were sharp and several of the animals bared rows of pointy teeth, but I was confident that they would not pose much of a risk if they attacked.

Just as I was considering whether to threaten them with a step forward or retreat, more rats streamed through the doorway behind us and took up positions along the side walls. I could no longer back Corso out of the room. If I swung at the ranks in front, the rats behind would have his legs. My confidence had depended on all those points coming from the same direction. Somewhere behind them in the shadows, a dull beating began. As if somebody were beating a tiny drum. The word corrupted kept repeating in my mind.

But there was another internal voice raised in argument: I recognised that these rats were more, not less. Corrupted beasts were supposed to be wild, with uncontrolled aggression and minds and bodies twisted near beyond recognition. These animals were not that. The organization, the communication and the precision were exact and considered. There was some kind of intelligence there, and I did not want to swing my iron rod at these animals.

They were not attacking mindlessly, and although I was gripping my iron bar ready to swing, I held off. There is no reason, no need, to attack the rats. Where did that thought come from? Something was strange about it. These creatures, these beasts, were holding weapons and approaching me with obvious intent. Why would I not simply charge them, be done with it? I wrestled with these thoughts and had barely broken free, getting ready to attack, when the beat of the drum stopped.

The sequence seemed to take forever, but in reality only a handful of heartbeats had passed since we stepped into what was at the time an empty room. As I watched the rat army, the centreline of the formation split to create a corridor. Down this corridor, a larger rat approached. Much larger, nearly three feet tall, walking on its hind legs and… clothed? The animal wore what looked like a metal buckler strapped across its torso, and held a dagger in its hand as it approached.

Behind it, another smaller rat followed, holding aloft a straight wooden pin with a small square cloth affixed to its top. They marched forward with determination, tiny shoulders squared and backs straight, until standing only four feet from me. The arm that was holding the iron bar was strung with tension ready to swing, and every attribute point I had was focused on the scene playing out, continuously calculating how to react. Relax, I told myself. This is not an attack.

The oversized rat bowed deeply, then dropped to one knee and placed its dagger-sword on the floor between us. It stayed there, head lowered. Behind me, Corso drew a sharp breath.

"What's going on?" I asked Corso in a low voice.

"How should I know."

"That… That rat is kneeling."

"Yep."

"Towards us."

"Mostly you, I think," Corso said, and as if to demonstrate the point he stepped sideways. His sideways step happened to bring him closer to the rat guards flanking us, but when they lowered their makeshift spears in a single coordinated movement the large rat finally moved, turning his head towards them and gesturing in a sharp motion with his paw. The rats reacted immediately by lowering the tips of their weapons to the ground and taking a step back.

"Huh," Corso said. The large rat, the leader, was again facing me, head bowed low.

"Who are you?" I asked eventually. The rat raised its head and looked at me, but did otherwise not respond.

"Do you understand me?" The animal tilted its head to one side, and then back. So, no. The rat remained on one knee. Its guards held their positions, and Corso looked at me. I had no more idea what to do than he did, but I was the one they were waiting for. Let's… Let's play along. See where this goes.

"Rise," I said, gesturing with my hand at the same time to indicate my meaning. The rat rose to its hind legs, leaving the sword behind on the floor. It squared its shoulders and stood straight, arms perfectly aligned down its body. New World Quest Offered Restore the Empire of Aurelia A past that is forgotten is lost, but what has been lost can be reclaimed. Make the world remember Aurelia. World Quest Step 1 Find the lost ruins of Florentia