Chapter Text
The old oak was restless.
Virgil crooned to her and stroked her sweaty bark. He could feel the tree's pulse through the bough on which he perched, a faltering, thunderous rhythm that rustled the thick, fleshy leaves. Pores near the trunk pushed out a sigh that smelled of sap and creeping mold.
'Friend,' Virgil murmured, not in his own language or the common tongue but in the tonal manner of growing things. The oak sighed again and settled with a groan.
Virgil sighed with her. She had been green and splendid in the summer, but with autumn had come the rot. Now her branches oozed red with lesions and her leaves were wrinkled and sloughing their skins. Her lone sapling was still but a thin, naked stick huddled in its mother's shadow, but she would not live long enough to see her baby grow.
Movement on the trail below drew his eye. The same leaves that cloaked Virgil obscured his vision, offering only broken glimpses of the travelers. The setting sun darkened the shadows, stretching them out across the crumbling cobblestones, and the man and his dog seemed to blend into the dappled light. The dog was piebald, splotched in white and gray. The man wore blue so dark it was almost black.
'War dog,' Virgil thought. Mercenaries, then, most likely. The ragged kelpie doll that hung by a frayed cord around the canine's throat and the book in the man's hands hinted that they might be more, but it was the heavy, full saddlebags that made Virgil shift and show his teeth in a smile. Full to bursting, those bags- with food, with coin, and perhaps, if he were lucky, with clothes warmer then his threadbare tunic.
He had not been lucky of late.
Virgil waited until the man and his mount crossed in front of his chosen tree. He crouched low, dagger in hand, and hummed a high command. The oak's pores flared wide as she flexed her branch and launched him toward his target.
The man turned at her roar, hand dropping to his scabbard and sending his book tumbling into the dirt. Too late. The impact lifted him free of the saddle and sent them both into the underbrush. Virgil let his momentum roll him clear, then scrambled back before the mercenary could gather his wits and touched his dagger to the man's throat.
“Still.” Virgil's Common was clumsy, but he knew enough to make his point. “Dog sits.”
The war dog's growl rumbled out low and rolling. “Easy, Pat.” The man's voice was calm enough to make Virgil bristle. “Do as he says.”
The dog settled back on its haunches. Slowly, still growling, its long, armored tail raising dust as it swept back and forth. Its eyes blazed blue, and Virgil snarled back to hide his shudder.
“Saddlebags,” Virgil said, “Dog drops bags. Dog leaves.”
The dog's growling grew deeper. Layering over with static, and Virgil-
-static and screams and sudden silence-
Virgil shook it off and pricked the man's neck with his blade. “Dog leaves,” he said again, “Dog leaves!”
“Pat, it's okay. Go on, sweetheart.”
The dog twisted to sever the ties of the saddlebags with a swipe of its metal claws. Virgil waited until it disappeared around the next bend in the path before pulling the man's sword from its sheath and tossing it far aside.
“Good,” he told his prisoner, “Man lives, maybe.”
His wolf soul was telling him not to take the chance. One hard blow to the temple, and he thought he could reach the bags and scale the oak before the dog returned. The plan had served him well enough before, but this was no ragged pilgrim bound for Mecca. The wolf inside his skin recognized the man as a fellow hunter and wanted the threat to its territory eliminated.
“There is a package in the bags that I must retain,” the man said. Still smooth, still calm, as if he weren't flat on his back with a blade at his throat. “Leave me that and the rest is yours.”
No plea for mercy but an order, as if Virgil were just another dog to command. The dagger's tip dug in deep, sending a rivulet of blood dripping down to wet the thirsty dust.
The man grimaced. “If you kill me he'll never stop hunting you. You must know that.”
And suddenly-
Suddenly Virgil did know it. Not as a firelight story but as a raw and terrible truth.
He remembered.
Another man, another dog. More blood, enough to pool and glisten. Later there had been more men, more dogs. Static and screams and silence. Silence that grew and echoed and settled deep-
His head hurt.
He didn't feel it, when the man below him tensed. The mercenary rolled them both, plucking Virgil's dagger from his hand in the same, smooth movement.
Virgil closed his eyes and lifted his chin, offering his throat to the blade.
'Go deeper,' he thought.
He didn't want to die with those memories in his head. Better to go further, to listen to the mercenary's slow, steady breathing and find within it the sound of the waves on shore. If he was going to remember, he wanted to remember the lake and the twilight songs of frogs. He'd forgotten so much, and it was so sweet to see it now, to imagine that perhaps it was where he would be going.
“You had me, I admit that,” the mercenary said, “Impressive, but I don't think you really thought this through.”
The wolf soul didn't think. It hunted, and Virgil had given himself over to it. Had left everything else behind to walk its trail and he was angry, angry to be awake again, to know-
(-hunted as the dogs had hunted, rooting out the children from their hidden places-)
No. If you must go deep, go deeper.
The lake. Sand drifting down from his hand and into the current. A golden curl that sparkled as it drifted. His mother's scent, melted tallow and ripe plum.
A gunshot.
Virgil would have taken it for a memory, but the pressure of the blade against his skin disappeared as the mercenary threw himself to one side. A hand settled on his shoulder, fingers digging into the tender flesh under his collarbone until Virgil gasped and opened his eyes.
The mercenary's high-boned, angular face was close to his own. He wore glasses, and behind their lenses his eyes were narrow and very blue. “You'll have to die later, I'm afraid,” he said, “We have company.”