And she saw Guarinn standing still as stone, his throwing axe gripped in a nerveless hand.
"Guarinn!" she cried, clawing at the ground in desperate search of the bow. "Help him!"
Guarinn never moved… and she found the bow, string-broken, useless. Roulant screamed, a raging curse turned to pain as the wolf's fangs tore at his shoulder. The cry of pain became a chant — her name, gasped over and over in the staggering rhythm of his ragged breathing as he struggled with the beast.
Una gained her feet, running. She flung herself at the wolf's back, dagger in hand. Clinging to the writhing beast's neck, choking on the smell of blood, she struck wildly. Poorly. Hurting, but not killing.
The wolf heaved up.
"Guarinn! Help me! The wolf is killing him!"
The beast twisted sharply, and threw her off. Its fangs dripped frothy red, and behind it, Roulant lurched to his feet, gasping his terrible chant. The wolf turned, leaped at him. Una didn't know which of them screamed, man or wolf. The sound of it tore through the night, a wild howling.
Guarinn Hammerfell stood at the center of a maelstrom of wild moaning and screaming. Guarinn! Help him! Hands clawed at him, shreds of livid flesh falling away to expose bones as white and brittle as ice. The wolf is killing him! Hollow voices accused him, and the foul names — child-killer! murderer! faithless friend! — turned the ice-mist filling his lungs to poison.
A wind rose to pound at him, tear at him, with such violence that even the dead hands, shedding tattered flesh, rattling bones, fell away before it. Howling, screaming, deafening wind.
Roulant! Familiar with everyone who haunted this nightmare realm, Guarinn knew that name had no business being spoken here. He snatched at it, clutched it tight for a lifeline. He was choking, fighting for air, falling… and staggering on the deer trail, his axe clenched tight in his fist.
The wolf lunged again at Roulant, leaping for his throat. In the only instant of sanity he might get before the dead snatched him back into the Spoiler's trap, Guarinn sighted, threw, and didn't miss.
The wolf fell to the ground, its spine severed. Hard and dark, the beast's eyes held Guarinn for a long moment. Then they softened, and the night filled up with silence.
The dying wolf became man. A moment, the man had, and he used it to speak. Only whispered words, barely heard.
"Roulant… are you hurt?"
Roulant ignored the question. "Thorne! You're… dying! No, Thorne. This isn't how it's supposed to be! You said…"
Thorne smiled, shifting his gaze to Guarinn.
"You," Thorne said. "Old friend, you knew I wouldn't survive, didn't you?"
Guarinn heard grieving, Una and Roulant, one sobbing softly in shock and the aftermath of terror, the other offering comfort in the face of his own astonished grief.
"And you killed the wolf. Knowing." Thorne closed his eyes. "Thank you."
Guarinn lifted his friend's hand and held it, very gently, close against his heart until he felt the last pulse, and some time longer after that.
Limping, leaning on Una for support, Roulant knelt beside his friends, the living and the dead.
He and Guarinn and Una knelt together as snow began to fall, listened to dawn-wind singing. It held no echo of wolfish howling. The Night of the Wolf was over, and Roulant saw the peace of it in Guarinn's smile.
The Potion Sellers
It was just after midsummer's, on a fine, golden morning, when the seller of potions came to the town of Faxfail.
Perched precariously upon the high bench of a peculiar-looking wagon, he drove through the borough's narrow, twisting streets. The wagon, pulled by a pair of perfectly matched dappled ponies, was a tall, boxlike craft all varnished in black and richly decorated with carved scrollwork of gilded wood. On the wagon's side panel, painted in a fantastically brilliant hue of purple, was the picture of a bottle above which was scribed, in flowing letters of serpentine green, three strange words: MOSSWINE'S MIRACULOUS ELIXIRS. It was a mysterious message indeed, and startled the townsfolk who looked up from their morning tasks and chores in curiosity as the wagon rattled by.
The seller of potions himself was a young-looking man, with hair the color of new straw and eyes as blue as the summer sky. He was clad in finery fit for a noble — albeit in hues a bit brighter than most nobles would choose — and his dark, crimson-lined cape billowed out behind him in the morning breeze. He waved to the townsfolk as he passed by, his broad grin rivalling the sun for sheer brilliance.
On the hard wooden bench next to the seller of potions bounced a short, swarthy-looking fellow. His look was not nearly so cheerful as his companion's, but then this was only typical. He was a dwarf, and it has often been said that dwarvenkind is every bit as hard and unyielding as the metals dwarves are so fond of forging deep in their dim mountain smithies. This particular dwarf wore a dour expression, his heavy eyebrows drawn down over his irongray eyes in a scowl. His coarse black beard was so long he wore it tucked into his broad leather belt, and his shaggy hair was bound with a leather thong into a braid behind his neck.
"You know, you're going to scare the townsfolk out of what little wits they have with that sour look you're wearing," the seller of potions said quietly to the dwarf through clenched teeth, all the while grinning and waving. "It won't do us a great deal of good if they all take one look at you and go scurrying inside to bolt their doors. At least, not until after we have their money. I don't suppose you could smile for a change, could you?"
"I am smiling," the dwarf answered in a gruff voice. His craggy visage was not quite as warm and friendly as a chunk of wind-hewn granite, but almost.
The seller of potions eyed the dwarf critically. "Maybe you shouldn't try so hard," he suggested lightly, but the joke was completely lost on the dour-faced dwarf. The seller of potions sighed and shook his head. His name was Jastom, and he had traveled with this particular dwarf long enough to know when argument and teasing were pointless. The dwarf's name was Algrimmbeldebar, but over the years Jastom had taken to simply calling him Grimm. Not only did the name slip more readily from the tongue, it also suited the dwarf's disposition far better.
Rumors sped faster than sparrows through the towns narrow streets, and by the time the wagon rolled into Faxfail's central square, a sizeable crowd of curious townsfolk had gathered expectantly. It wouldn't be the largest audience Jastom had ever hawked potions to, but it wouldn't be the smallest either. Faxfail was a town deep in the Garnet mountains of southern Solamnia. The nearest city of consequence — that would be Kaolyn — was a good three day's journey to the north and west. These were country folk. And country folk tended to be far more trusting than city folk. Or gullible, depending upon one's choice of words.
"I suppose this means I'll have to mix more elixirs," Grimm grumbled, eyeing the growing throng. The dwarf opened a small panel behind the bench and nimbly disappeared inside the wagon.
Concocting potions was Grimm's task; selling them was Jastom's. It was an arrangement that had proven quite profitable on their journeys from one end of Ansalon to the other. The two had first met some years before, in the markets of Kalaman. At the time, neither had been making a terribly good living for himself. Even Jastom's brilliant smile and ingenuous visage had not been enough to interest folk in the crude baubles he was attempting to foist off as good luck charms. And as for the dwarf, his gloomy, glowering looks tended to keep potential customers well away from the booth where he was trying to sell his elixirs. One night, the two had found themselves sharing a table in a tavern, each lamenting his particular misfortune over a mug of ale. Both had realized that each had what the other lacked, and so their unlikely but lucrative partnership was born.