Oh, well, he thought, something to eat and a place to sleep is all I could make use of anyhow.
The esquire lifted a torch ahead of him. He patted Papillon for encouragement and started down the lane.
A woman shrieked.
Holger had slapped his helmet back on and drawn his sword before her cry ended. Papillon whirled about. The people drew close to each other; voices rose. The guttering torchlight threw unrestful shadows on the houses across the main street; their upper stories were lost in blackness. Every window was shuttered and door closed, Holger saw. The woman screamed again, behind one of those walls.
A shutter, fastened with an iron bolt, splintered. The shape that sprang forth was long and shaggy, gray as steel in the thick red-shot gloom. It had butted its way out. As it dropped to the street, the muzzle lifted off the chest. Gripped between the jaws there squirmed a naked infant.
“The wolf!” choked the blacksmith. “Holy Mary, we’ve locked the wolf in with us!”
The child’s mother appeared at the window. “It burst in from the rear,” she howled witlessly. She stretched her arms toward the beast and them all. “It burst in and snatched Lusiane! There she is, there she is, God strike you down, you men, get my Lusiane back!”
Papillon sped forward. The wolf grinned around the baby.
Blood was smeared on her pink skin, but she still cried thinly and struggled. Holger -hewed. The wolf wasn’t there. Uncannily swift, it had darted between Papillon’s legs and was off along the street.
Frodoart the esquire plunged to intercept it. The wolf didn’t even break stride as it sprang over him. Ahead was another alley mouth. Holger whirled Papillon around and galloped in pursuit. Too late, though, he thought, too late. Once into that warren of lightless byways, the wolf could devour its prey and turn human again long before any search could—
White wings whirred. Alianora the swan struck with her beak at the warg’s eyes. It laid its ears back, twisted aside, and streaked toward the next exit. She swooped in front of it. Like a snowstorm full of buffetings, she halted the runner.
Then Holger had arrived. This far from the torches he was nearly blind, but he could see the great shadowy shape. His sword whistled. He felt the edge cleave meat. Lupine eyes flared at him, cold green and hating. He raised his sword, the blade caught what light there was and he saw it unbloodied. Iron had no power to wound.
Papillon struck with his hoofs, knocked the loup-garou to earth and hammered it. The hairy form rolled free, still unhurt. It vanished down the alley. But the child it had dropped lay screaming.
By the time the villagers pounded up, Alianora was human again. She held the girl-baby, smeared with blood and muck, against her. “Och, poor darling, poor lassie, there, there, there. ’Tis over wi’ this now. Ye’re no too mickle hurt, nobbut a wee bit slashed. Och, ’tis scared ye be. Think how ye can tell your ain children, the best knicht in the world saved ye. There, my love, croodle-doo—” A black-bearded man who must be the father snatched the infant from her, stared a moment, and fell to his knees, shaken with unpracticed weeping.
Holger applied the bulk of Papillon and the flat of his sword to drive the crowd back. “Take it easy,” he shouted. “Let’s have some order. The kid’s all right. You, you, you, come here. I want some torchbearers. Don’t stand jabbering. We’ve got to catch that wolf.”
Several men turned green, crossed themselves, and edged away. Odo the blacksmith shook a fist at the alley mouth and said, “How? This mud holds no tracks, nor the paving elsewhere. The fiend will reach his own house unfollowed, and turn back into one of us.”
Frodoart regarded the faces which bobbed in and out of moving shadows. “We know he’s none of us here,” said the esquire above the babble, “nor any of the herders at the gate. That’s some help. Let each man remember who stands nigh him. “
Hugi tugged Holger’s sleeve. “We can track him if ye wish,” he said. “Ma nase hairs be atwitch wi’ his stink.”