As the group kept heading south, they encountered no shortage of abandoned cabins and farmsteads. They even ran across an entire village that looked to have been abandoned no more than a week prior to their arrival. They all looked the same, too. They sported the occasional mangled corpse, left in plain view like some sort of ghastly display piece, but rarely ever more than one. Beyond that, the farms and homes lay untouched, ripe crops standing unharvested in the fields and abandoned animals eyeing the greener pastures beyond their fences. The tracks of the fleeing inhabitants always led the same way, too. Ever south, towards the capital. “I don’t like it.” Hood muttered as she wiped the sweat off her brow. “It’s like the wolves are herding them. Something’s not right.” “Maybe they’re trying to spread fear by letting the survivors spread the word of the attacks?” Ulrik suggested, but Hood just shook her head. “If that was their goal, they’d be much better off slaughtering everyone but the occasional survivor and razing their homes to the ground. This is too neat. Too organized. It reeks of some sort of scheme.” “Well, perhaps they…” Ulrik stopped mid-sentence as a change in the wind brought a strange scent to his nose. It was almost like the stink of a demon, but it wasn’t as sharp or as acrid. It seemed somehow warmer, more natural, and while it carried an undertone of blood it wasn’t nearly as strong as the coppery reek that usually surrounded a demon. Peering through the woods, he spotted a faint trail of blood leading away from the road. Motioning for Hood to follow him, he started creeping along the trail. He’d gotten a fair ways into the woods before he spotted the source of the scent. He couldn’t make out more than a small patch of fur through the trees, but it had to be a wolf. It was smaller than any demon he’d seen, and its coat was strangely light, the grey fur speckled with brown and white. It didn’t seem to have noticed him, so he drew his axe and prepared to attack… only for Hood to put a hand on his arm. “Don’t.” She said softly. “It’s not a demon.” “But the scent…” Ulrik argued. “And the grey fur. It has to be a wolf.” “It’s a wolf, yes. But it’s not a greyback.” “Are you saying it’s just an ordinary wolf?” Ulrik looked at the creature curiously. “I though they were all gone.” “Not all of them, but they fear humans more than anything. It’s rare to see one this close to a road. Most of the time you’ll never see them at all. They smell you coming and stay well clear.” “What’s this one doing here, then?” “Looking for something to eat, probably. There’s been a lot of demons coming through here, and they haven’t been eating many humans. I doubt there’s much game left in these woods.” “Is it dangerous?” “Judging by its injuries, I doubt it can even stand. Come on.” The two of them drew closer to the wolf, looking over the beast where it lay. It had a knife buried in its right flank, and the wound was still bleeding slowly despite its age. The animal tried to stand when it spotted the two of them, but its right hind leg folded under the weight and sent it right back to the ground. Hurt and exhausted, the beast settled for growling at them, fear shining in its eyes. “It was probably attacked by the people fleeing through the area. This always happens when the demons start attacking. Anything wolf-shaped becomes the enemy, and the real wolves can’t defend themselves from armed humans, so they always get the worst of it. I need some of your blood, Ulrik. Just a little bit will do.” “What do you need it for?” “I’m going to calm it down and dull its pain, but my blood is too full of demonic energy for this spell. I’d just agitate it further.” Ulrik shrugged and cut his thumb open, letting the blood drip into Hood’s waiting hand. He watched with interest as Hood caught the beast’s muzzle with her other hand before dabbing her thumb in the blood and painstakingly drawing a number of small sigils on its head. “I’ve never seen you use this spell before.” He remarked as the wolf stilled, its gaze turning foggy and dull. “The spell clouds the mind far more than any amount of strong spirits. If I used this spell on myself I’d be rolling around in a stupor until something smudged the sigils.” Hood carefully removed the knife from the wolf’s flank. It wasn’t very big, but the wound it left behind was still rather deep. She carefully cleaned it out with strong spirits, and it was rather telling that the animal didn’t react at all. Finally she brought out a small bottle from her pack and poured some pungent, sticky mixture on the wound, the foul liquid quickly hardening into a tough scab when exposed to the air. “It’s a shame you don’t know any spells to heal wounds.” Ulrik remarked. “Healing is a tricky business, and the old magics are rough and imprecise. Trying to mend a wound with blood magic would be like trying to reforge a broken sword using a sledgehammer. You’d do much more harm than good.” “And your demon magics aren’t exactly suited to healing.” Hood frowned thoughtfully. “That’s not strictly true. I can call on the true name of the Blood Moon to draw all the life from the area around me into my own blood, healing practically any injury at the cost of leaving the land around me rotten and cursed. And If I fed my blood to someone else while it was still bristling with life, I could probably heal others that way as well. Although the gods alone know what feeding on such corrupted energies might do to a man. No, healing is better left to the gods.” Ulrik clasped his holy symbol thoughtfully. “Well, I’m no priest and I’m certainly no healer, but I’ve been a devoted follower of the God of the Hunt for many years, and this animal is clearly a hunter if nothing else.” Walking up to the beast, Ulrik placed his symbol against the wolf’s forehead and started reading a blessing over it. Hood did her best not to draw back as a faint aura of holy power sprang up around the two of them before settling into the wolf. The procedure also smudged the sigils on the wolf’s head, letting it throw off its magical stupor. Drawing on the strength of the blessing, the wounded animal managed to rise to its feet and limp away into the woods. “Do you think it will survive?” Ulrik asked in a worried tone. “Not for long.” Hood replied a little sadly. “Not with people out hunting for anything wolf-shaped.” “A shame. I’ve never seen a true wolf before, and once I got past how much it looked like a demon, it seemed like a handsome beast. Noble, almost.” “There are more of them in the far north, where the woods are deeper and wilder, but even there they’re dying out. Soon enough there won’t be any left. We might have saved this one today, but there’s no place for it anymore. It’s nothing but a relic. A leftover from a time long since past, clinging to life in a world not it’s own.” Ulrik looked at her thoughtfully. “That’s why you wanted to save it, isn’t it? It reminds you of yourself.” Hood sighed deeply. “I suppose. Let’s hope it and its kind can die with a bit of dignity. That’s all old relics like them and I can hope for, in the end.” Ulrik didn’t know what to say to that, so he chose to say nothing at all. The two of them returned to the road and resumed their travels, silently mourning the age of true wolves.