Holger wrinkled his own nose. “All I smell is dung and garbage.”
“Ah, but ye’re no a woods dwarf. Quick, lad, set me doon and let me follow the spoor. But mind ye stay close!”
Holger lifted Alianora back onto his saddle—the child’s father kissed her mired feet—and followed Hugi’s brown form. Frodoart and Odo walked on either side, torches aloft. Some score of men pressed behind the boldest villagers, armed with knives and staves and spears. If they caught the lycanthrope, Holger thought, it should be possible to hold him by main strength till ropes could be tied on. Then… but he didn’t like to think of what would follow.
Hugi wound down the lanes for several minutes. He emerged in the marketplace, which was cobbled and showed a little lighter under the stars. “Aye, clear as mustard, the scent,” he called. “Naught i’ the world has a stench like a werebeast in his animal shape.” Holger wondered if glandular secretions were responsible. The stones rang hollow under Papillon’s shoes.
The street they took off the market square was also more or less paved, and comparatively wide. Here and there were lighted houses, but Hugi ignored the people inside. Straight he ran, until a cry went up at Holger’s back.
“No!” groaned Frodoart. “Not my master’s hall!”
14
THE KNIGHT’S DWELLING stood on a plaza of its own, opposite the church and otherwise hemmed in with houses. Kitchen and stables were separate buildings. The hall was unimpressive, a thatched wooden affair not much larger than the average bungalow in Holger’s world. It was T-shaped, with the left branch of the cross-arm rising in the tower he had noticed before. The front was at the end of the T’s upright, and closed. Light gleamed from shuttered windows; dogs clamored in the stables.
Hugi approached the iron-studded door. “Straight in here the warg fled,” he declared.
“With my master’s family alone!” Frodoart tried the latch. “Barred. Sir Yve! Can you hear me? Are you well?”
“Odo, cover the rear,” snapped Holger. “Alianora, get aloft and report anything unusual.” He rode up to the door and knocked with the pommel of his sword. The blacksmith gathered several men and ran around in back. Hugi followed. More people streamed into the square. By fugitive yellow torch gleams, Holger recognized some of the herders among them. Raoul the peasant pushed through the crowd to join him, spear in hand.
The knocking boomed hollow. “Are they dead in there?” sobbed Frodoart. “Burst this down! Are you men or dogs, standing idle when your lord needs you?”
“Are there any back doors?” Holger asked. The blood thudded in his temples. He had no fear of the werewolf, nor even any sense of strangeness. This was right: the work for which he had been born.
Hugi threaded a way among legs and rattled his stirrup for attention. “No other door, but windows eneugh, each locked tighter nor the last,” the dwarf reported. “Yet the warg ha’ no left this bigging. I snuffed everywhere aboot. E’en had he jumped from yon tower, I’d ha’ covered the ground where he maun land. Noo all ways oot are blockaded. We ha’ him trapped.”
Holger glanced around. The villagers had stopped milling; they surrounded the hall, packed and very still. Torchlight fluttered across a woman’s frightened pale face, a man’s sweating hairiness, a startling gleam of eyeballs in shadow. Weapons bristled above, spears, axes, bills, scythes, flails. “What about servants?” he asked Frodoart.
“None in there, sir,” said the esquire. “The house servants are townsfolk, who go home after dark, leaving only old Nicholas to do for the family. I see him yonder, as well as the stablehands… Get us inside!”
“I’m about to, if you’ll give me some room.”
Frodoart and Raoul cleared a space with well-meant if brutal efficiency. Holger stroked Papillon’s mane and murmured, “Okay, boy, let’s see what we’re good for.” He reared the horse. The forefeet smashed against the panels. Once, twice, thrice, then the bolt tore loose and the door sprang open.
Holger rode into a single long room. The dirt floor was strewn with rushes. Above the built-in benches along the walls hung weapons and hunting trophies. Dusty battle banners stirred among the rafters. Sconced candles lit the place fairly well, showing it empty down to a doorway at the end. Beyond must lie the crossbar of the T, private apartments of Sir Yve and his family. A yell rose from the men who crowded behind Holger. For that doorway was blocked by a form shining steely in the candleglow.