Extinction

When the transformation was complete, a naked human youth stood where the animal had been. Were he a drow, Ryld would have guessed his age at about twenty, but humans matured faster than that. The boy was probably no more than a dozen years old. His hair was black and tangled, his hands and feet as filthy as those of an urchin from the Stenchstreets.

"What sort of creature are you?" Ryld asked.

The boy uttered a word that Ryld didn't recognize, speaking one of the languages of the World Above. Seeing that Ryld didn't understand, he switched to Low Drow.

"A blend of wolf and human," he answered. "I shift between the two."

"Wolf?"

"The furred animal that walks on four legs," the human replied.

The weapons master nodded.

"Where is the other wolf-human?" Ryld asked it. "The gray one."

He kept a wary eye on the structure and surrounding forest, furious at himself for having let his attention wane a moment before.

"There's no one here but me."

"Liar," Ryld spat. He stepped forward, menacing the boy with his sword. "Is the larger one your parent? Is that why you're trying to protect it?"

"I have no parents. They were killed in a hunt the year I was born," the boy explained. He not only stood his ground but glared back at Ryld, showing an amazing amount of mettle for a mere boy. "They were killed by your people."

Ryld considered that and said, "Is that how you learned to speak Drowic? Were you a slave?"

"My grandfather was, but he fought back."

"The gray wolf?" Ryld guessed. "That's your grandfather? Where is he?"

"He's not here," the boy replied, glancing into the forest in the opposite direction of the little building, though too casually.

The look told Ryld what he needed to know. The lie was as transparent as glass.

The weapons master reached down and grabbed the boy by the hair.

"I see," said Ryld. "Let's go talk to him."

He half-dragged, half-marched the boy to the shelter.

Pausing just outside the door, he held his sword to the chest of the squirming boy and called, "If you want the boy to live, show yourself. Give me some information and I'll spare his life, and yours."

There was no answer from inside the shelter, save for a low groan. As it sounded, the boy twisted in Ryld's grasp, trying desperately to squirm free. Ryld hurled him to the ground and slammed a boot into his chest. He raised his sword, too furious to care about getting information any longer.

"Stop!" a male voice gasped. "I'll tell you. . whatever you want … to know."

Ryld looked up and saw a human with gray hair and a beard that hung to his chest, leaning in the doorway of the shelter with a dirty blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His face had a haggard expression, and his right calf was bruised and swollen to twice its normal size. The foot below it was a shredded, bloody mess, as if it had been impaled on spikes, then torn free.

The boy screamed something at his grandfather in a language Ryld didn't understand, but his gestures made it obvious he was urging the old man to flee.

The gray-haired man?he looked several centuries old, but was probably less than fifty?glanced down at his ruined foot.

"Run?" he asked the boy?speaking in Drowic, obviously for Ryld's benefit. "How can I?" Then he met Ryld's eye and asked, "What do you want … to know?"

"The priestesses of Eilistraee," Ryld said. "Do they have a temple in this wood?"

The boy suddenly stopped squirming and looked up at Ryld.

"You're not part of the hunt?" he asked.

A grim smile appeared on the older man's face.

"He's not. Or he wouldn't be asking." Then, to Ryld, he said, "Let my grandson go … and I'll tell you where the temple is."

Ryld removed his foot from the boy's chest. Instantly, the boy sprang to his feet. He stood warily, hunched over slightly with arms bent as if contemplating a shift into wolf form.

The gray-haired man chuckled, then waved at the boy.

"Yarno, leave him be. You can see by the look in his eyes. He's an enemy of the temple. And the enemy of our enemy. ."

"Is your friend," Ryld completed.

The old man nodded and asked, "Have you any healing magic. . friend?"

"Answer my questions, first," Ryld said. "And I'll see about healing you."

The old man surprised him by chuckling.

"Not for me," he said. "For you. Your wrist."

Ryld glanced down at the spot where the boy had bitten him. The boy's incisors had broken the skin, and a trickle of blood ran down the back of Ryld's hand.

"It's only a scratch," he said.

The old man shook his head.

"Tell him, Yarno. He. . he doesn't know."

"Tell me what?" Ryld asked, suspicious.

"We're werewolves," the boy said. "Most of the time we shift forms because we want to, but whenever there's a full moon we become wolves whether we want to or not. We can't control ourselves when that happens. We attack everyone. Even our friends.

When we wake up in the morning, we don't know what we've done."

"Your family is cursed?" Ryld asked, not bothering to inquire as to what a "full moon" might be.