Betrayal at Falador by T. S. Church

sweet scent from the wound sickened her as she embraced the warm corpse.
    The matron noted a slight smile on the face of the girl as she slept. It was the first sign of any happiness that she had seen, and she prayed it heralded a recovery.
    “Run and inform Sir Amik, Elise!” she barked. “I think she might be waking.”

    The warmth of the wolf made her sleep. She was exhausted and hungry, but she knew she was safe.
    “Wolf Cub” was what they called her when they found her some hours later—“Kara-Meir” in their language. A dozen hardy dwarfs led by the master forger Phyllis had set off from the mountain to investigate the flames from the village. They were dour folk who rarely mixed with the humans who lived in the shadow of the mountain, but they knew how hard life on the edge of The Wilderness could be.
    She had woken to see them standing over her, their ashen faces wrinkled in concern. They had talked for an hour amongst themselves, speaking in a language she could not understand, forcing her to drink a hot liquid that made her cough and splutter but which restored feeling to her chilled limbs. The dwarfs had ventured as far as they dared, unwilling in their small band to confront the likes of Sulla and his Kinshra, for it was a rescue mission, not one of war.
    Master Phyllis lifted her up onto his own back, her bare arms clasped about his neck, taking comfort in knowing that they had not failed—not entirely—that they had rescued at least one innocent from the ravages of the wild.
    Outside, in the courtyard, the sound of hooves clattering over stone could be heard, followed by the white mare’s neigh of celebration now that she was home and safe.
    In the ward, Kara-Meir’s eyes opened as the smell of clean linen and a warm fire blazing in a hearth reminded her of something she thought she had forgotten. It was the smell of happiness and people, bringing back memories of her family in their cabin and of her happy youth, before the time of Sulla.
    She knew then, as she had known all those years ago when Master Phyllis had taken her from the mountainside and adopted her as his own, that she was safe.

THIRTEEN

    The man was dying. He wiped his lips and saw with wide-eyed shock that the back of his hand was coated in blood.
    “When?” he stuttered. “Who has done this to me?”
    He sank to his knees, an invisible force draining him of his strength. Somewhere a door slammed.
    “It will not be long now, my lord,” a woman’s voice murmured behind him. It was his mistress, a slave girl he had taken years before and for whom he had developed a true fondness.
    “I am not ready...” he murmured through blood-stained lips, his hand outstretched in a plea for mercy he knew would not be granted.
    “You were ready a long time ago!” a harsh voice snapped, rejoicing in the sight of a dying man. It was Sulla. He had orchestrated this man’s murder as only Sulla knew how—totally without pity, using a loved one as the instrument of death, corrupting someone who had been trusted.
    The dying lord of the Kinshra noted Sulla gesture toward his mistress. She looked despairingly into the scarred man’s face, his grimace the closest thing to a smile that he could manage. His blank white eye shone with an inner delight. He was revelling at the spectacle.
    “Do it!” he told the woman. “Kill him!”
    “Is the poison not enough for you?” She bowed her head in fear, looking with genuine sympathy to her dying master. “He will be dead shortly as it is!” Her voice broke into a wail at the thought of what Sulla had made her do.
    “Not soon enough!” Sulla growled. “And poison is too easy for him. I want him to know that I now possess everything he treasured in life!”
    “Do as he says!” the dying man cried out. “Kill me, but only if it frees you after this day!”
    Sulla nodded.
    The woman stepped forward, a pillow grasped tightly in her hands, her knuckles white from the grip. With a cry she forced it