“I don’t remember a word you’ve ever spoken,” Felsteppe hissed with contempt, but his eyes were wild.
“I remember,” Adrian offered.
Valentine nodded. “I was no there, but I have heard the story several times now.”
“Tell us again, Stan,” Roman prompted.
“I promised,” Constantine obliged, “that the very next time I saw you, I would kill you.”
He saw the man’s throat convulse.
“It has been a long time coming, Felsteppe,” Constantine said. “And you have done naught but add to your long list of evils. There is much—and many—to which you will be obliged to answer this day.”
Then a bloodcurdling howl came from the ruin behind the men as the first true golden rays shot through the tops of the tree branches of the wood. It was not human, and yet it didn’t sound like any dog or wolf Constantine had ever heard. Certainly not the amiable Erasmus.
At Constantine’s side, Adrian’s gaze seemed to search the lightening sky above him, and then his eyes closed and he turned up his face. “My God, Stan, can you hear them? Listen . . .”
The only thing Constantine heard was another terrifying howl, and then a young voice he recognized.
“Garulf! Garulf! No, come back!”
They turned on the road to see Dunny’s strange uncle scrambling over the rubble before the barbican, but the man was not standing erect; he was crouched on his haunches, his hair seeming to have grown down his face. Garulf let out another bloodcurdling wail.
“Piece blood duvenet,” Adrian whispered, his voice full of awe.
And then the air was filled with a symphony of shouts and howls, the very dawn seemed to vibrate, and to either side of the ruin of Benningsgate, all along the crest of the ridge appeared a line of shadows—beasts on both two and four legs, in the shapes of wolf and bear and man.
“Shite,” the leader of the mercenaries whispered in awe. And then he turned to Felsteppe, shaking his head. “No. No. We’re finished here.”
“You’re not finished!” Felsteppe shouted. “I paid you!”
“You didn’t pay us enough,” the man muttered and wheeled his horse around, leading his small band of comrades away in a run.
“As I said,” Constantine began again after Felsteppe was left alone, the wall of warrior monks and stout, laboring men from Clifty Wood behind him, the Brotherhood and all manner of strange, vengeful beasts before him at Benningsgate. “You have much to answer for.”
Felsteppe only stared at him.
Constantine’s brows lowered. “Dismount your horse.”
“You don’t command me,” he said again, his voice strangled in his throat.
One of the twins spoke up, withdrawing a shockingly large sword from his robes. “I shall assist you in dismounting, dastardly foe of Christendom.”
“No,” his twin argued, bringing forth his own weapon with a ringing hiss. “Ishall assist the reprehensible enemy!”
“You killed the last one!”
“Let off, Brother. It was six years ago and my sword thirsts.”
“What ofmysword? Ladislav, I do vow that you’re the most selfish man I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.”
“Yes? Well,you’revulgar and discourteous!”
Constantine strode forward in the midst of the distraction and reached up and grabbed Felsteppe’s leather hauberk, jerking the man from his saddle and onto the packed gravel of the road. The group went silent as Felsteppe skittered backward on his hands and boots, stumbled to his feet, fumbled to withdraw his sword.
The ringing hiss of a hundred weapons answered his.
Constantine only walked toward the man calmly. “You killed my wife. Burned my home. Fouled my name. You separated me from my son—years I can never regain.”
