Blood of the Wolf (City of Chains Book 3), page 1
Blood of the Wolf
By Sebastian Priest
Copyright © 2023 Sebastian Priest
All rights reserved.
To George, Joyce, Cass and Daisy, as well as to Spud and Co.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Andrew "Gimp" Gibson, for being the thing that showed up at my house uninvited and then never left.
Contents
Chapter One: The Wolf
Chapter Two: The Holy
Chapter Three: The Crimson Palace
Chapter Four: The Chain Upon the Guild of Merchants
Chapter Five: The Divide
Chapter Six: The Chessboard
Chapter Seven: The Grandfather Clockwork
Chapter Eight: The White Lies
Chapter Nine: The Far Below
Chapter Ten: The Moneybags
Chapter Eleven: The Silly Season Before the Elections
Chapter Twelve: The Prodigal Son
Chapter Thirteen: The Developments
Chapter Fourteen: The Candour Coupling
Chapter Fifteen: The Turn
Chapter Sixteen: The Baron's Guard
Chapter Seventeen: The Church of Violence
Chapter Eighteen: The Alchemist and the Sellsword
Chapter Nineteen: The Axe and the Physician
Chapter Twenty: The Guild of Dust
Chapter Twenty-One: The Grind
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Apprentice Alchemist
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Book Learning
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Harsh Lessons
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Violinist of the Cache
Chapter One: The Wolf
The howling followed Viktor down an alleyway, echoing across the entire Temple Quarter. His breath came in ragged heaves, his head was pounding, and his arms were covered in sweat and blood. His hands quaked around the handle of his axe. It had been shattered into pieces, the blade completely torn off in those first few seconds he'd been stupid enough to try to fight Olga.
He increased his pace, hoping beyond hope that he'd be able to find a corner and dive around it before the wolf turned the alley and caught sight of him.
He doubted he would be so lucky. The Temple Quarter was a maze of stone passageways and tiny little alcoves that went nowhere. Easy to get lost in, hard to find your way out of. He was going so fast and had so little sense of direction in his panic that it would likely come down to a coin toss if he was even heading in roughly the direction of the Upper Gate.
He had to get back. Either to the Upper Keep or to the Grand Cathedral, whichever one he stumbled upon first in his mad, lost dash for his life.
He almost slipped on a walkway that still had a thick sheet of ice across it and then cursed as he made a turn and realised the pathway ahead was long and straight. Viktor swore a storm that'd make a sailor blush. The executioner barely vaulted over a stupid little raised walkway above the shops in a low street. He skidded down another damned thoroughfare that went nowhere.
The howls came behind him again, and he felt his blood curdle. There was the shouting of people[DR1]. Tired shopkeepers and the occasional night worker slammed doors open and trod the streets, waving torches around. Each muttered or shouted angrily, hoping to glimpse what the ruckus was about.
That proved unfortunate for them. Over his shoulder, Viktor watched one [DR2]lamplighter turn tired eyes to the source of the noise. A moment later, a dozen little shards of exploding wood and glass fragments hurled into his face as Olga burst through one end of a tavern and out the other. Blood was spattered all over her pristine white fur, and she had someone's arm hanging between her teeth.
Four heavy crossbow bolts jutted from Olga's back as if she were a pincushion, not seeming to even bother her. They were leftovers of End's attempts to shoot into Olga’s spine before the younger Blackclad had cut and run.
Even one of those would have been enough to stop a knight in full plate armour in his tracks. They didn't even slow Olga down.
Her fury was directed at Viktor but clearly the animalistic desire to rip and tear had her less than conscientious about anyone that was unlucky[DR3] enough to find themselves in her way. The screams coming from further down told Viktor that the casualty count was likely in the low single digits by now.
He hoped it wasn't any higher, at least.
Her nose twitched once, then she immediately zeroed in on Viktor on the other side of the bloody street. She spat the arm out of her mouth and dashed forwards on all fours, upturning a cart and carelessly bodychecking a woman into a wall so hard that her spine broke.
'Someone call the Watch. Someone call the fucking Watch and the templars!' Viktor screamed, scrambling up a stack of barrels to a higher street.
There was nothing else to do but run. His axe was broken, the crossbow had done nothing and the moment he stopped to try and somehow fight her, the entire street he was in was going to become a bloodbath. Viktor was under no delusions that he would scarce last five seconds against what Olga had become, and he didn't get the impression she would magically calm down and turn back into a woman once he was dead.
The stones cracked underneath the weight of her paws as Olga loped after him. Her muzzle was covered in the blood of an irate butcher stupid enough to get in her way; she had turned him[DR4] into paste, swallowing his entire upper body and his knife in one bite.
Viktor was halfway up the winding pattern of stairs he hadn't realised he'd been ascending when the barrels exploded and a black-clawed hand grabbed the edge of the walkway. Olga heaved herself up and then howled after him, skidding on the ice but having nowhere near as much trouble with it as Viktor was.
A horn blared somewhere, low and long. It was quickly followed by more, and the shouting carried across the entire district now. Someone had finally managed to get to a Middle Watch post and get the lazy fuckers to raise the alarm.
He ascended the grey staircase, taking the steps two at a time and not bothering to count how many storeys he went up. He scaled a disgusting little part of the Temple Quarter that had been built into the side of one of Adelstrad's many cliffs, forming a little neighbourhood built completely on a succession of balconies and ledges.
Finally, he found an end to the staircase and bolted out to his right, almost throwing himself over a balcony railing in his haste to move.
Viktor's head swam. He [DR5]was suddenly all too aware of just how high up he was. The drop to the streets below was as deep as a hundred men were tall.
A disgusting little voice in the back of his head told him the drop would be kinder than what Olga had in store for him.
He pushed the thought away and hastily tore a strip of his hood off, throwing it to the wind. Maybe he would get lucky and Olga would chase the scent.
Viktor started up yet another fucking flight of stairs, then found himself fortunate[DR6] enough to happen upon an old, creaking steam elevator. He barrelled into it and slammed the button for the tallest stop there was, throwing the iron gate closed with both hands.
The old machine began to creak to life just as Olga tore up the staircase after him, immediately snapping her eyes onto him, not fooled in the slightest by the strip of cloth floating away on the wind.
He cursed, digging into his pouch for something, anything to hurl at her, finding only a spare throwing knife he vaguely remembered stealing from Rosh at some point.
He hurled it at her and immediately felt his hopes die when she opened her jaws wide and devoured the knife in one bite, not even remotely bothered as the sharp metal travelled down her throat.
Olga howled and raced towards the elevator, slamming into it hard enough to dent the gate and rock the carriage. He felt for a moment that the ropes holding the fucking elevator aloft would snap; then he'd have an entirely new set of problems that would end quite abruptly once he found his sudden stop at the bottom of the shaft.
Viktor cursed and watched as Olga continued to rage, slamming against the all-too-thin gate separating them.
The carriage trembled under her blows and when she put the first claw through the gate, Viktor had to duck to keep her from severing his head.
Olga hissed and bit down on the rusted iron and the poor fucking gate finally gave way. Viktor cursed as she developed perhaps the meanest grin he'd ever seen and tore the remnants of the gate, now in pieces, off the hinges.
She idly hurled the remnants into the abyss behind her, then she put a hand on his chest and shoved him into the back of the carriage hard enough to break something.
'Hello, Viktor.' Olga smirked a smirk with three dozen rows of teeth, having to bend down to squeeze her height into the tiny carriage.
He hadn't even realised she could speak in this form.
She loomed over him. If he had to guess, he'd say she was easily seven feet tall. Maybe eight. All of that was pure muscle, and it wasn't just her height that gave her a hard time fitting into the carriage.
The metal on one of the walls groaned under the pressure of her grip as she put a hand on it to steady herself. She was[DR7] still mostly human-like, albeit clawed and covered in the same white fur that patched the rest of her.
Olga leaned on her haunches, and he found her glaring at him like she'd found a particularly interesting morsel.
'What's the problem?' she asked finally. 'Don't tell me you're more a cat person.' The slight huff that escaped her told him she was joking.
'I don't... I don't fucking find you amusing, Olga. If you're here to tie up loose ends, then just get it done with and take my head off my shoulders. I'd have done the same for you.'
'Would you now?' She tilted her head at him. 'Here I thought you and I had more in common than that.' She smirked and stared up at something unseen behind his head. 'I'm in the habit of playing with my food.'
'Hmph. Is that so?' Viktor stared at her. 'Would that be out of general principle or because I was about to beat your fiancé into a pulp?'
'Yes,' she answered with a mean look, completely unbothered as the elevator finally creaked into motion and they started to ascend.[DR8] Olga moved the hand that she was using to steady herself, resting it above his head and leaning in uncomfortably close, again managing an impossible smirk for a woman with a wolf's head.
'Don't mistake my meaning, Viktor. Emotionally, Stimlyf means less than nothing to me. That stunted little shit might just be the most irritating person I've ever come across. But he has his uses and you managed to make me angry when you started manhandling him like that.'
'What uses would those be?'
Olga idly started to pick her nails, not even bothering to keep her eyes on Viktor or put a hand up in case he tried something. They both knew that he was formally out of tricks at this point.
'Money gets you a lot of things in this city,' she sighed. 'But there are some things you can only get with blood. Both in the sense of what you're born with and in the sense of what you're willing to spill. You understand my meaning.'
'I'm not sure I do.'
'Don't play stupid with me, executioner,' she snapped. 'It's not a good look on you. The nobles, they run this city. I mean, the Dark Council and the Guild of Merchants can pretend all they want that they have control over their slice of the pie, but everything comes back to the Baron eventually.
'Even the Church only gets so much leeway around here and even then, only because it behoves His Grace to have his pet witch hunters for when he needs to deal with problems like me.'
'And here I was about to ask about that. When the hell were you turned? Hulkreug certainly didn't seem to be in the know.'
'Curious?' she smirked, leaning in closer to whisper in his ear. 'I'll tell you my secret if you tell me yours.' She looked at him with crimson eyes, and he felt like she was staring into his soul.
He shivered. Whether from fear or her impossibly cold breath on his neck, he couldn't tell.
'What secret would that be?'
'Tell me what you did to get that hood put over your head, Viktor.' Olga sniffed at him. 'You have a lot of scents on you. Sand. Blood. Iron. Tears. So many tears.
'I'm not shy to admit that I'm very curious, and that's probably a good place for you to be in right now. Very few people interest me enough to hold my attention for long.'
'Olga, you and I both know I'm not likely to leave this elevator alive, so what I do and do not tell you makes very little fucking difference. I'm not exactly the kind of person for last confessions.'
'Ah, see? I knew you and I had a lot in common. The stubbornness is admirable. You're locked in a cage with an eight-foot-tall werewolf out for your blood, and you still won't give me a rope to play with.' She suddenly grabbed him with both hands and held him against the wall, his feet dangling in place.
'Man after my own heart. I'll be generous and give you something for nothing, then. Stimlyf is merely a useful pawn.' She narrowed her eyes. 'For now.'
'What, you're trying to tell me you don't care for him? Certainly wasn't the impression you offered me when I tried to take his head from him. You looked downright ready to murder me, in fact.'
'I was.' Olga's eyes flashed a little and some drool dripped its way out of her quivering mouth. 'How would you react if someone almost broke what is currently your most useful and most entertaining plaything? I care about Stimlyf the same way a child cares about a toy. It's there to be used for entertainment and then discarded. Though in my case, I'd be more likely to eat him than discard him.
'Stimlyf's resources and his knowledge of witchcraft have suited my purposes well enough up until this point, but if we're levelling with one another, I’ve begun to tire of having to maintain the charade of the lovesick maiden.
'I'm an unashamed killer, Viktor. I came back to this city for war and only for war. Stimlyf is probably going to wind up dead soon. But you?'
Olga pressed a claw into his neck hard enough to draw blood, licking it off her finger and closing her eyes, shivering at the taste.
'You're mean, Viktor. I like that. And impressively intelligent. I like that too. You met my father. You met Lym Erolo. You must know how worthless they both are. Most people in this city are. Would it really be so bad if it got burnt down to the ground?'
'I kind of keep a lot of my stuff here, wench, so yes, probably.'
Far from offended, Olga snickered. 'Funny. I really like that. The thing is, I'm not actually here to burn Adelstrad. I'm here to take it.'
'The Nordlings have been trying for centuries. What makes you think you and your boyfriend are up to the task?'
'It's ironic, your choice of words. Hulkreug said something similar when I left. Can you believe that old fossil actually had the temerity to laugh when I told him I was going to Velmont to train under a knight there?'
'So that's where you were turned.'
'Maybe, maybe not. A lady needs to keep some secrets, and I've already told you far more than even Stimlyf knows.' She smirked again, one pale ear flicking around as something caught her interest.
'By the pitch of this creaking death trap, it seems you're at your stop, Viktor. Temple Quarter, main thoroughfare. I assume you'll be limping back to the templars now.'
Olga released him and backed away as much as the limited space in the carriage would allow. She smiled and gestured for him to pass her.
'And you're just letting me go? Just like that?' Viktor hugged the opposite wall, inching closer towards the door as the carriage slowed down.
'Of course not. It's as I said, Viktor. Almost no one in this city really catches my interest, and I play with my food.'
She offered him a grin truly worthy of a wolf.
'Tell Lauter and the templars what you saw tonight, what you heard, but don't expect that my plans for this city have been even remotely hindered. You've played your part quite exquisitely, actually.'
The elevator slowed to a stop and opened to one of the smaller walkways leading to the Grand Cathedral.
'You'll be seeing me again.'
Olga DeWinter shoved him out of the carriage so hard that he fractured something in the arm he landed on. She licked her lips and almost boredly reached a claw up to sever the ropes holding the carriage in place.
The look in her red eyes was one of complete insanity, and she howled with some deep, primal instinct [DR9]as the elevator rocketed downwards, leaving behind a precarious gap and an even more precarious promise.
* * *
'Hang on, mate,' the gruff watchman with the two lightning symbols on the side of his helmet muttered. 'Almost there.'
Him and one other from the Middle Watch had stumbled upon Viktor's injured form outside the elevator. They had split off from one of the larger search parties that were currently combing the Temple Quarter for injured and any and all signs of the wolf that Viktor doubted would be foolish enough to get caught now.
He found himself being hastily supported with one watchman under each arm as the two men helped him limp through the winding streets.
They entered a higher plaza from one of the smaller pathways in the side streets. Ahead of him in the distance, he recognised the outer silhouette of the grey towers and gates rimming the abyss the Grand Cathedral was built above. Normally he took the lower passages in the partially underground sections of the Temple Quarter, but he'd somehow managed to find himself in the main thoroughfare.
Another five hundred metres of plaza, then the giant stairway in the distance would lead him through the gates to the abyssal sections and to the hanging walkways and bridges. After that, it was a clear run to the cathedral platform.
Viktor gripped his side. He was gushing blood. He hadn't realised Olga had managed to nick him. Or maybe Stimlyf had thrown a stray spell at him before Viktor had beaten his hasty retreat. He couldn't tell.
