As the metals were being smelted and prepared and the design worked out, Hood and Brynjar argued constantly about almost every detail. How the arm should be shaped, where the gold should be placed for the best effect, how much of Hood’s blood could be infused into the metal without making it brittle… After weathering four days of increasingly loud and short-tempered arguments, Ulrik excused himself and took Lumpy with him to buy supplies from a city about two days’ walk from the hill. It was probably a good thing that he did, because over the next few days, as the arm started to take shape, the arguments just got longer and louder. “I still don’t see why you didn’t just let me model it after your left arm. It would have saved us days!” Brynjar groused as he carefully sculpted the fine details of the hand. The thing looked slightly warped and twisted, like a compromise between a wolf’s paw and a five-fingered hand, and the inch-long claws it sported were razor-sharp. The arm was long and fairly thin, but its shape hinted at the wiry, sinewy strength of a wolf. The flowing network of golden veins that ran along the silver-bright surface just made it look even stranger and more inhuman. “I told you, if I just made it a copy of my left arm it might trip me up in battle. When the corruption overtakes me my arm grows longer, my nails sharper and I fight and run like a wolf. Besides…” She held up her hand, looking at the clawlike nails that tipped each finger. “The last time it happened, my hand didn’t revert all the way. In a few years, I’m sure this arm will look a lot more like the silver arm than it does now.” “Fine! If you’re so set on becoming more of a monster than you already are, that’s your business. But that’s as far as I’m willing to go. I’m not putting a holy symbol on this blasted thing.” “It’s my bloody arm, and you’ll do as I tell you! I’ll be fighting Old Fenris his own damn self! I’m going to need every weapon I can get.” “And you think poisoning yourself with holy power is going to help you fight?” “Silver rejects foreign energies, it will keep me from burning. That’s why I wanted the arm to be silver in the first place.” “And what of the gold veins you put on it so you could actually move the bloody thing? Even if the veins don’t touch the symbol itself, enough power will be flowing through them to hurt you.” “So it will sting a bit. I’ve had far worse.” “And then one day you’re gonna scratch your arse and end up burning your left cheek off! I’m not doing it, Hood.” “I can scratch my arse just fine with my left hand, now do as I say!” It was at that point that Ulrik re-entered the forge. He looked between Hood and Brynjar, both of them fuming, with bemusement writ clear upon his face. “I feel like I’m missing some part of this argument.” Brynjar frowned and pointed at Hood. “This stupid little girl…” “I’m more than three times your age!” “Fine then! This senile old bat wants to put a holy symbol in the palm of her hand!” “Will it harm her?” “Not as such.” Brynjar admitted sourly. “But it will hurt. And it will never stop hurting.” “Then do it.” “You honestly think it’s a good idea?” “No, I think it’s a terrible idea. But if you try to convince Hood her pain is worth more than the power to save others, you’ll be arguing until the day you die. And then she wins by default.” Brynjar glared at both him and Hood for a good few minutes, but finally relented. ”Fine. You win! And may Fell forgive me for putting his symbol on this abomination.” Hood snorted. “We both know Fell will be thrilled to have his mark on a piece of work as fine as this, demonic taint be damned.” “You’re probably right. Fine. You win. Again. Let me just put his symbol on here and bless it, and then we can graft the shoulder.” “I’ve been wondering about that part…” Ulrik admitted. “How will you actually fasten this arm to her?” “Oh, it’s simple enough, if you have the knowing of it. There’s some old magic involved, but mostly you just have to peel open the flesh and fuse it with the hot metal.” That night, as Hood and Brynjar prepared to graft the arm, Ulrik decided to set up camp a good ways away from the forge. But even then, he could hear Hood’s muted screams in the distance. Hood spent the next morning testing the strength and range of movement of her new arm, the smooth silver bending and stretching as easily as flesh when she moved. She had forgone wearing a shirt since the skin around her shoulder was blistered and red, and the slightest touch to the tender surface was enough to send flashes of white-hot agony shooting down her spine. Doing her best to ignore the pain, she picked up her sword and adjusted her grip until she could hold it steady without her claws getting in the way. With her face set in a determined frown she started practicing lunges and slashes with her blade. Ulrik was sitting some way away, poring over a map he had gotten in the city. He kept his gaze locked on the rough parchment, trying his best not to look up at Hood as she practiced. It wasn’t because every time he saw that burnt and blistered skin he heard last night’s screams echoing in his head, although that certainly didn’t help. No, the real reason why he didn’t want to look at her was because her shoulder just looked… Wrong. The arm itself was fine, if a little off-putting with its strange shape, and the flesh around the shoulder was just burnt, and he’d seen plenty of burns before. It was the area where the silver met the flesh that he found really disquieting. The way tendrils of silvery metal burrowed and fused into her flesh, and the way those tendrils twisted and moved as she performed her exercises, was almost enough to make him retch. “How’s the arm?” Hood looked up to see Brynjar walking into the room, dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. “It’s very good.” She replied. “It’s stronger than I expected, and once I get used to it I think it will be just as fast and dexterous as my old one, if not more so.” “Good, good. I take it you’ll be leaving soon, then?” “As soon as the burns heal.” Hood agreed. “Although I’m not quite sure where we’re headed. I suppose we’ll just head south and try to pick up the trail from there.” “Actually, I’ve been thinking about that.” Ulrik interjected. “Here, come look at this map.” Hood walked over with a raised eyebrow and looked down on the map of the kingdom. It was covered in ink dots, each with a date written next to it. At a glance, she saw that most of the dots to the south were marked with later dates than those further north. “And this is?” “You said the wolves were probably moving south following in Fenris’s wake, right?” “Most likely, yes.” “Well, there was a bounty office in the city I went to for supplies, and I asked them for a list of confirmed wolf attacks in the kingdom. The bounty offices send information with the mail carts, so the list is about a month behind, but after marking all the attacks on this map and adding the dates, there’s a pretty clear pattern.” Hood frowned and studied the map more carefully. True, the general movement of the wave of attacks was from north to south, but when she looked closer they seemed to curve towards a certain point. Mentally extending the pattern to its conclusion, she paled and turned to Ulrik. “He’s headed to Königsburg! He’s going after the king!”