Lidia and Minsc ran forward, but the wolf-creature ran swiftly, finding its way forward effortlessly in the darkness. The creature only went another hundred feet or so, and the recently deceased man's body rustled as upon the dried undergrowth; without the sound and the short distance to travel, its pursuers would have been lost.
As it was, they found themselves in front of a yawning mouth of a cave. What little light they had was quickly swallowed by the darkness within it.
But suddenly, unexpectedly, a small point of light opened up about two hundred feet distant, and the wolf-creature cast a large, distorted shadow upon the wall as it hunched over its prize.
"Shut your eyes, Boo!" Minsc said, gently stroking the small animal on his shoulder. "This is no sight for hamsters to witness — we shall have to charge blindly on!"
"Our specialty," Lidia said. "But step carefully. This lair might have traps for prey."
Evidently, however, whatever they had pursued believed in fair fights. The cave, wide enough to allow fifteen to walk abreast, was furnished more like a home, rather than a mousetrap. The stone floor was covered in deer hides, while a long, shallow divot along the wall held water, almost like a trough. The water carried fragments of where ice had been broken, though it was beginning to freeze over again. Nearby, bunches of herbs were hanging upside-down, strung up along the wall by thin pieces of leather cord. Nearby, a small rock served as a kind of table, with a few coins upon it.
If the only alternative was sleeping outdoors, Lidia thought, this was comfortable by comparison.
Minsc said to the hamster, shading the small creature with his hand, "Trust Minsc to know when you can look!" He turned to Lidia. "Poor Boo, the sight of blood does disturb him so."
As they cautiously moved further into the cave, the creature within did not move from its place. Instead, the shadow on the wall shifted into the shape of a lean, well-muscled woman. A raspy voice echoed down the wall:
"Man-things! Curse you and curse the world! Can a wolf not enjoy her last meal in peace?"
The silhouette's owner stepped into the light of a small oil lamp, and the dead man was at her feet, the first of his limbs beginning to be torn away.
They'd later learn that this wolf-creature was not a werewolf, but instead a wolfwere, a term that often caused more confusion than it resolved. Not helping matters was that werewolves and wolfweres hated getting mixed up with each other, and tended to make their displeasure towards the ignorant known with violence.
The most important difference between werewolves and wolfweres, however, was this: while werewolves were humans infected with a usually moon-related curse that caused them to transform into wolves, wolfweres were wolves that could assume the shape of a wolf, a human, or somewhere in between.
Right now, this wolfwere was closer to the human end in appearance, wearing a woman's face, shape, hands, and feet. Still, the marks of wildness and rough living were everywhere on her. Her matted, short, brown hair was sticking up everywhere; it had likely been weeks since it'd seen a comb. Her amber eyes, not quite human, were ringed with dark circles. She smelled like dirt, blood, and wet dog. She wore nothing, but everything between her wrists, ankles, and neck was covered in thick brown fur.
"Boo, you shall have to cover your own eyes," Minsc said, moving his hand over his own face. "Erm, I am sure you are quite handsome, ma'am, but—"
"Bah, of course I must bend to man-things' sensibilities in my own home." The wolf-woman dipped her hands in a nearby bucket of water, then threw a robe over herself, wrapping a rope around her waist with small, nimble fingers.
"It's your wolves that have been attacking the village," Lidia said, holding Azuredge at her side, but at the ready. "We need answers."
"My wolves? Hah! No longer, fool. The pack has fallen under the fell magicks of the Shade Lord. Your hunting has gone awry."
Lidia recalled the shadows that the wolves had accompanied. "So some kind of undead did this?"
"It matters not what you call it. He has taken my pack for his own, and for that he shall pay." Her mouth curled into a snarl, exposing a set of blood-stained teeth that were mostly humanlike, except for longer, sharper incisors.
A silence passed. From the darkness at the caves' mouth, the wolves' unearthly howls echoed, traveling farther than they ought to. The wolf-woman said nothing, folding her arms and pacing back and forth.
Lidia asked, "What happened here?"
The wolf-woman finally said, after a long silence: "This false and unholy darkness began only a short time ago. The ruins to the east have long been a place of foreboding to my pack and I. We had no desire to tread the ground of the fallen temple. It was holy ground once, though now it is fouled.
"Some weeks ago, muted rumblings were heard beneath. We paid little heed to them, until at high noon the skies darkened and the shadows deepened. The pack gathered so that I might calm them. I thought it to be an eclipse. It was not.
"The Shade Lord came among us then. He dominated my wolves, my children, with a glance. I changed form and leapt at his darkness," she said, swiping at an invisible foe with a hand curled like a claw, "but he merely laughed. 'Anath,' he said, 'Bend to my will. You shall be the means of my revenge.' He walked amongst the terrified wolves and killed them all with a touch. Once they were all dead, his darkness reached out to the corpses of my children and animated them as shade wolves. Numb with terror and sorrow, I ran.
"I've hidden these last few weeks from the shades that once were wolves and from the darkness that creeps out from the temple. I will hide no more." She gestured to the dead man. "I will feed one last time, so that I have the strength to face the Shade Lord."
"What is this Shade Lord after, do you think?" Lidia asked.
Anath's amber eyes flashed with anger. "He wants only to kill and those he kills, be they man-thing or wolf, arise as shades in his army."
Suddenly, Azuredge flared a brilliant blue. High-pitched growls and yelps passed through the blue-black darkness outside, followed by distant shouts.
"My corrupted kin are on the move," Anath said. "Go and contend with them, if you must."