The trip here, at least, had been successful.

The rest of it?

Fucking hell, Alphas thought as he ran through the streets, one hand clutching at his shoulder. Darkness reigned in this quiet part of town.

And behind him, prowling, searching, the ultimate predators.

Rome owed everything to wolves, wasn't that how the story of its inception went? Romulus and Remus, raised by wolves. Romulus killed Remus, and founded one of the greatest civilisations alive.

And so, naturally, wolves of the most ferocious nature occupied the capital.

And that wasn't even mentioning the alpha of the pack…

=0=

The shadow landed on the outskirts of the grand balcony that looked out at the city. At night, it was dark, nearly shades of black and white. No torches were lit here, no night markets were open and bustling, no pubs were open and kicking out the drunks. No, not in his territory.

He rose from his magnificent chair in shock, a startled cry escaping his lips before a flash of silver sliced through his throat with inhuman force, ripping straight through his flesh and pinning it to the wall behind.

The servants would run here any moment now. The cloaked figure leapt backward off the balcony in a dive. To anyone watching, it would seem suicidal. After all, the only thing below was brick and concrete.

But the figure curled midair, and in a single movement, clutched at the intricate edges of the parapet, below the edges of what could be seen. By the fingertips alone, the shadow held on to a precious few inches of carved stone, the rest of their body dangling beneath.

And right on cue, the servants arrived, and screamed at the sight of their master, dead.

"How?" one of them asked. He had a deep, low voice, one inclined to be calm. Here, though, was a shade of panic, of terror.

And the shadow let out a low whistle, light and soft, like the distant howl of mountain winds, like the cry of the hunting dogs, the intonation of the north pack.

The servants went instantly silent, and the sound of footsteps creeping slowly away was audible. There was a shuffle and a grunt as they picked up the corpse, taking it inside. Honour was certainly something to be managed, even if the individual was one of the worst when living.

"What does that sound mean?" one of them said. She sounded young. "Why did everyone fall silent after hearing it?"

"Do not stop to wonder, if you hear it again," the man from before said quietly, grimly. "It means Umbra has shed blood."

"Who is Umbra?" the girl asked again.

"Quiet, quiet!" he quickly hushed her. "I will tell you inside."

And Umbra dropped from the balcony onto something soft and grey, nearer to white.

"Good boy," came the quiet praise, from a voice like silk dyed black.

=0=

"Alright," Alphas said, activating the invisibility sigil carved into one of Wreckage's scales. Everyone else in his group followed suit.

"We're coming into Rome now," his voice came from empty air. "Remember, no dragons, no magic."

"I understand the magic, but why not dragons?" Olympiodoros asked. He'd been one of the people Alphas and Omegas had chosen for their group. Well, mostly Omegas. Something about their personalities just clicked. "I thought dragons were common knowledge anywhere."

"What, boy, don't you remember what we were told?" An older, bearded man said, clicking his tongue impatiently. None of that, of course, was visible at the moment. "Rome hates dragons."

"Oh. Right. We don't know why, right?"

Alphas shrugged, before he remembered they couldn't see the gesture. "Probably some old reason. Just keep your dragons somewhere else. Out of sight of the city walls."

They landed near a thicket of thorny bushes, dotted with some trees near the top of a hill. A dirt road ran atop the hill, giving way later to gravel, and eventually to cobble, as it neared the famous city.

Dragons successfully hidden in the bushes, the party set out for Rome.

"What's that sayin'," the bearded man muttered as they walked in a group down the other side of the hill. His name was Stratos, and he had been destined, from the day of his birth, to be a soldier, if the name was any indication. Today, he stood tall, an experienced general in the army, a long scar curving from his chest a little way up his neck. A memento of a fight against one of Myre's own captains before Stratos killed him, blood mixing with the rain on the island the witches had used to live on before Myre found them.

Killbay. A battle that would be remembered as a legend in their civilisations by the future generations. Alphas had been too young to fight in that particular battle, but every retelling left him with shivers as the rain, the blood, the clashes of steel, the ringing of thunder were recounted with the same intensity. Killbay was what had earned Leonidas the position of Commander after the previous Commander, a genius strategist named Exypnos, had died fighting the man thought of as the precursor to Myre's 'Three Generals'. He'd killed Exypnos with a weapon of whirling chains and steel thorns, combining sharp and blunt force in a single deadly onslaught.

But even with morale in the trenches and hope dying like the sunset rays, Leonidas had risen amongst the crestfallen soldiers, and he'd held the flag of the sorcerers, and he'd killed Exypnos in one of the most violent cases of single combat ever recorded, even by the millennia-old standards of sorcerer history, and he'd led them to victory against Myre's forces.

Alphas would forever respect the warriors of Killbay for what they'd fought through. He only hoped he could have that same kind of honour some day.

"What is it?" Stratos was saying, turning to the other members of their group as they walked, their feet crunching on gravel rather than loose dirt now. "Somethin' about roads, remember that much."

"All roads lead to Rome?" Alphas said. "Is that it?"

Stratos slapped him on the back. "That's the one. Thanks, majesty."

"Stratos!" Olympiodoros said, eyes wide. "He's royalty! You can't do that!"

"He said it himself, boy," Stratos replied. "He doesn't want any of that blasted elite respect. Just treat him like any other man."

He jerked a thumb at Omegas, who was walking behind them, chatting with the other two members of their party.

"That one said he wants us to kiss his boots if ne-ces-sary, though, and I'm not too sure if he was joking. You can cozy up to him if that's what you want to do."

Olympiodoros shook his head, flaxen hair whipping around his head in the motion. "I told my mum I'd never kneel to anyone except the gods."

Stratos grinned, and pulled the young man forward so he had Alphas on one side, Olympiodoros on the other, and slung a hand around their shoulders.

"Now that," he said, still smiling, "is the kind of… the kind of… reso-nance for the gods we need. Too little of it these days. Don't know what this generation is up to."

Alphas and Olympiodoros shared a look behind Stratos' back, then looked at him with amusement.

"Do… you mean 'reverence'?" Alphas said, a slight smile playing on his lips.

Stratos shrugged. "Ahn, same shit, really. Words were never somethin' I liked, growing up. Once our teacher told us about these buggers called ho-mo-phones. Didn't understand crap, to be honest. Went home that day and asked me mum what they were. She told me about men who loved men and women who loved women and hatin' 'em. I dunno if she got it wrong either, but our teacher was tellin' us about words that rhyme, or somethin' like that. Still got no idea who's right."

Alphas and Olympiodoros shared another look, and transferred the same thought in that instant. They looked ahead again, and didn't correct Stratos. It was funnier that way.

"Get your gold out, majesty," Stratos said as they neared the gates, metal painted white. The guards, armed with spears, took notice quickly enough. Ahead of them, the gravel turned to cobble. "If I know anythin', there'll be one fee to get in and another fee to turn heads over whatever rules we're breakin', 'cause we'll be breakin' some rules alright."

Alphas nodded. "Right. Thanks for reminding me."

"What? What rules are we breaking?" Olympiodoros asked with sudden concern.

"Look at yourself, boy," Stratos said. " Wearin' some nice clothes, got a sword on your back made of some metal they never seen before. This is a city, an' it's a city of normals. Here, the guards are as bad as the street scum. You go in without the fee that turns heads, and they'll send some friends to try an' rob you once you're in."

Olympiodoros gave a tight nod, and gulped.

"Don't get us wrong, we can take them," Alphas said. "We just don't want to draw attention to ourselves. This is meant to be a quick job, in and out. Any unnecessary attention will only make things harder for ourselves."

Olympiodoros nodded again as they reached the guard's outpost. The guards were dressed in little more than breastplates and iron skirts. Muscular thighs were completely bare, and a red cape flowed from the shoulders. The helmet had a red brush on top.

"Hello," Alphas said in perfect Latin. Even then, the guard frowned. "I have come with a party. We are here to visit your wonderful city. How much to enter?"

"Da hell're you talkin' in archaic for, brotha?" the guard said, in a sentence seemingly composed entirely of slang. "Feller from a hunnid years past lookin' ass."

Alphas, very taken aback, took a moment to respond. "Sorry, this is the Latin I was taught. My great-great-great-grandfather visited Rome in his youth, and brought us back the Latin of the times. My apologies for this difficulty."

"Eh, it's aight, we chill brah," the guard replied. "But you gotta get yoself up to speed quick brotha, or you gonna have trouble talkin' to anyone here. Anyway, price to enter's a silver piece. Each."

As Alphas took out his purse, Olympiodoros noticed the guard looking as inconspicuously as possible at their clothes, their weapons, a look of hunger blossoming in his eyes.

"How many guards?" Alphas murmured, switching back to Greek. Olympiodoros glanced around as nonchalantly as he could, in a pretence of looking at the city and then at the rest of their group, which was a good few steps behind.

"Six," he replied as quietly as he could. Alphas quickly counted out the coins, and handed them over. Six silver pieces for entry. Six gold pieces to turn heads.

The guard raised an appreciative eyebrow, and pocketed them without a word. He waved at the gate, and it began to open, creaking.

"Oh, and before I go," Alphas said, quickly taking out a small sealed pot of ink and a brush. Before the guard could react, he grabbed him and drew a sigil on his forehead, then gently bumped his head against the guard's. Next came a piece of clean cloth, and he began to clean off the ink from the guard's face.

"What'chu do that for, my brotha?" the guard said in alarm. His grip was tight on his spear.

"Apologies," Alphas smiled. "That is how we mark you as a friend, in my culture."

How smoothly those lies rolled off his tongue. A diabolical skill to Olympiodoros, who found it difficult to lie to anyone. He couldn't even say he was a couple of years older than he was without fidgeting, which had led to some very awkward situations in the past, especially with women. The better part of times he'd just been thrown out of the bar for being nothing more than a kid.

The guard nodded, relaxing a little. "Aight, bro. Don't hit anyone else up with that though, for real they gon' get pissy."

Alphas saluted the guard, who saluted readily back, relieved to have some kind of common ground on which to stand with these foreigners. At that point Omegas and the other two, Myron and Lysander, caught up, and they proceeded beyond the gates together.

"Well, that was a headache," Alphas groaned, reverting to Greek again. "To think the language changed that much. I didn't even understand half of it. What the hell are they even speaking?"

"I can't say either," Olympiodoros shrugged. "What about you, Stratos, sir?"

"Don't ask me, kid," Stratos sighed. "Never bothered to get the Latin transfer. I didn't even understand what majesty here said."

"It'll be fine now," Alphas smiled, nodding to the guard manning the gate as they passed. "I got the new Latin from the guard. I'll pass it to all of you once we have some privacy."

"What, what?" Omegas asked. "New Latin? What happened to the old one?"

Alphas sighed. "I'll explain later. Now, we'll need to find an inn…"

=0=

The man with the scar landed noiselessly outside the den. Myre's instructions were, as expected, clear and so utterly comprehensible it would be a miracle to be even three feet off from the destination.

He patted the dragon on the side of its neck, behind the crown of spikes that decorated its steely head. It took the signal and opened its mouth, lighting the sparks within, and a blue glow permeated the darkness of the den.

A knife slithered under his chin, and he froze. His dragon immediately turned on the assailant, mouth still open, ready to deliver a fatal shot.

A long, rumbling growl, from within the recesses of the den, and the dragon too froze. Some kind of primal fear took over, and the dragon shrank away from the mouth of the dark opening. The rider could feel its scales rasping as it vibrated under him with a kind of primitive wariness, pure instinct telling him that even this dragon, one of the most powerful and versatile in the world, was inherently afraid of whatever lay beyond the darkness.

And that notion was terrifying.

"Why are you here?"

The rider turned to face the person who had slipped a knife to his neck. Now they stood perfectly still and ready, the knife in their hand with textbook grasp.

"Myre has a message for you," he replied.

Instantly, the black-clad figure relaxed. The knife stayed in hand though, the blade extended delicately from the wrist outward like a sixth, deadly digit.

"Go on. His exact words."

That voice was a whisper, its possessor the personification of one. It was hard to tell anything about them with that simple, low yet clear tone.

The rider unrolled a scrap of the new material Myre had given him. He remembered the Night Fury again, built of folds, and an involuntary shiver ran down his spine.

"To Umbra," he read aloud. "One last favour that you owe me, of the three we agreed on. The sorcerers come to your city, shadow. I want you to be the barricade they must cross over to reach their goal. Each day that they stay, give them struggle, and let them think it is real. Kill one, perhaps, one of the unimportant ones. You may judge who that is. But you must let them survive, and let them win, in the end."

The rider folded the scrap up again, handed it to the one Myre had called Umbra. They stood, considering it.

From within the cave, a staccato growl sounded, harsh and rough to scrape the air with a sawtooth edge.

And then, another.

And another.

And another.

Those sounds of animosity rose and multiplied, and now the air was filled with the sound of predation and animal terror as the Skrill the man rode backed away, even its crown of spikes falling away in fear of whatever beast the darkness cloaked.

Finally, finally, Umbra raised their head, and looked to the den.

"Alright," said the soft voice. "We are abroad."

And to the horror of the scarred man, who had thought nothing could surprise him anymore, a grey snout the size of an infant Typhoomerang emerged from the shadows, fangs bridged by silver saliva.

And then came the rest of the head.

Those silver-blue eyes would have been beautiful, if they weren't so cold, if his Skrill wasn't shaking under that gaze.

And after the head came the body, and in well-guided instinct, the Skrill shot into the air.

Not a moment too soon either, as below them, iron teeth snapped close in a cage of death, right where they had been.

=0=

"This place is damn nice," Omegas yawned, sprawling on the bed. "Look, they've even managed to make beds like ours, with the mattresses. How do you think they did that, without magic?"

"Now why would I know?" Alphas responded, fiddling with the lamp they'd been given for their room. "You're that curious, ask them yourself. I'm not a Roman."

"I thought you knew everything, though," Omegas looked up at him with a mischievous smile from where he lay on the white sheets. "Right, right?"

"Shut up. Go and call the other four while I get this thing open," Alphas said, struggling to open the hatch to light the lamp. At present, the only light in the room was from a window, and it was fading fast as the sun sank beyond the horizon. It had taken them a while to find an inn with reasonable prices. It seemed the value of the currency had fallen since the sorcerers had last visited the city, some two hundred years ago.

Omegas painstakingly got up and went outside, shutting the door behind him, as Alphas continued to fail at gaining enough of a purchase in the lamp's hatch to gain access to the wick inside.

By the time Omegas came back with the rest of their party, Alphas had given up and set it aside. The moment Olympiodoros came in, he handed him the lamp.

"What?" the young lieutenant asked, confused, but took the lamp anyway.

"Open it up," Alphas gestured to the hatch. "You've got smaller hands than me. You should be able to get a grip on that thing."

Olympiodoros nodded, and began trying to pry it open.

"So, we need a plan," Alphas said, sitting back on the bed with Omegas. Olympiodoros stayed standing, trying to get the lamp open, while Myron and Lysander sat on the other bed in the room. Stratos brought a chair out of the corner and eased himself into it.

"How do we go and find wherever the library was before it burnt down, is the first question," Omegas said. "We need some place to start from."

"Hang on, it was burnt down?" Stratos frowned. "How do we know we'll find what we're lookin' for, then?"

"We don't," Myron drawled. "That's why we sent so many other teams to the places the other riddles led to. Maximizing our chances of success. Even if we don't get anything, someone else will."

Stratos nodded. "Alright."

"Shouldn't we also ask around about the library itself?" Olympiodoros said from beside the door. He was still straining to open the hatch. "Maybe someone recovered some of the documents and put them in other safe places. What we're looking for might be one of them."

"Good thinking," Alphas nodded. "If only your head could open that lamp the same way."

Olympiodoros flushed. "You didn't manage it either."

"Yeah?" Alphas smirked. "Give it to me."

Olympiodoros handed him the lamp, then went to stand behind Stratos, resting his hands on the back of the chair.

"Now then," Alphas continued, peering at the hatch, "we've got an objective. Ask around about the library, and go looking wherever we can go. Anywhere we can't, make a list of and we'll sneak around later."

He fiddled with the hatch once more, then carefully pressed down on a little metal node poking out on the right of the hatch. Immediately, it swung open, and Alphas looked down as a few drops of the oil inside landed on him.

Omegas snorted. "Idiot."

Alphas emptied the rest of the oil over Omegas' head, then set the lamp on the floor beside the bed as Omegas sprang up, yelling, oil dripping from his hair.

"Right," Alphas said, taking the shove Omegas gave him and continuing, unperturbed, "so we have something to do now. I'll take Omegas. Stratos and Lysander, you're together. Myron and Olympiodoros, you both stick to each other. Okay? Let's go."

He looked at Omegas.

"We'll have to clean him up first, though. Anyone have spare clothes?"

=0=

When they met back at the inn again, later that night, no one had any leads except Stratos and Lysander.

"Say that again," Alphas said, taking a bite out of a large piece of beef. They'd decided to debrief each other over food, served by the owner of the inn and her daughters, along with a few other hires. Currently, two of the girls were giggling by the entrance to the kitchen, sneaking glances every now and then at Olympiodoros, who was tearing ravenously into an entire roast chicken, unaware that he was being watched. Everyone else, at least, was eating with some level of dignity.

"There's a stash of documents saved from the fire of the library," Lysander repeated, leaning back in his chair. He'd finished before anyone else, and was waiting for dessert to arrive.

Alphas pointed at each other member of the table in turn. Unfortunately, the beef was still stabbed onto his fork.

"See? See? That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Great work, you two. We'll go and take a look tomorrow morning. One of them might be what we're looking for. What's important right now is to get some sleep. We've been up since early morning. After this, we get some rest."

"Sage words of advice," Omegas remarked sarcastically. He was still a little miffed. They hadn't been able to get the oil out of his hair. "Like that wasn't obvious, huh?"

"Sorry," Alphas said, holding up a hand as he finished off what was left of the meat, "I don't listen to greasy people."

Omegas threw a handful of sliced vegetables at Alphas, who caught a bit of cucumber in his mouth. The rest of it bounced off into his plate.

"Thanks," Alphas said, crunching through the cucumber. "Actually kind of tasty, you should have some."

Omegas looked at him, then slowly reached out for a bit of cucumber.

Alphas shook his head, and picked up a bit of cucumber from what had fallen in his own plate.

"No, like this."

He tossed it across the table at Omegas, and it smacked him under the eye before bouncing away across their table again.

Alphas gave him a bored, half-lidded stare.

"Loser. Can't even catch food now. Even a dog can catch food. That makes you less than a dog."

Omegas glared back now. "Too far."

"You're right," Alphas conceded. "I'm sorry about that, brother of mine."

"Excuse me," said one of the young girls who was waiting on the inn's guests. "Are you ready for dessert?"

The entire table looked collectively at Olympiodoros, who was in the midst of ravaging a piece of chicken breast. He looked up at them, paused in the midst of tearing out one huge bite.

"What?" he said. "I'll be done in a bit."

Omegas reached over and smacked him on the head. "You've got half the chicken left. Let us eat some of it. It'll be over quicker."

Olympiodoros shielded the chicken from their gazes. "No. Mine."

"Food definitely makes you something else, huh?" Alphas remarked as he leaned over and neatly plucked the chicken of a leg. Over Olympiodoros' cries of dismay, he addressed the girl in New Latin.

"Give us a few minutes," he said. "If it's not too much to ask, could you prepare the dessert for us in the meantime?"

She bobbed. "Yes, sir," she said, and scurried off to the kitchen.

Omegas waggled his eyebrows at Alphas, who frowned. "Stop that. It's weird."

"What?" Omegas said, grinning easily now, somewhat more cheerful again. "I can't say anything about what a ladykiller you are?"

"I'll kill you first, then," Alphas responded, taking a bite out of the stolen chicken leg. "You are a lady, aren't you?"

"Oh, shit," Lysander laughed. "Walked into that one, Omegas."

Omegas shrugged. "I'm fine with being a lady," he said. "So long as I'm hot."

The table broke out into chuckles.

By the time the girl came back with a few plates of whatever dessert was on the menu tonight, they'd managed to strip the chicken of its flesh. Bones lay on the plate in a heap, and Olympiodoros was looking a little put down.

"Here you are, sirs," the girl said, picking the dish of bones off the table and setting a long plate of something baked before them. Everyone stared at the little cylinders of bread for a long moment before Omegas looked up.

"What are we supposed to do with this?" he asked in New Latin. "It's bread."

The girl looked at him nervously. "Um, yes. It's bread, sir. With a filling."

Omegas looked back at the bread, then back at the girl. "A what?"

"A-a filling, sir. We baked this batch with jam inside?" she said, ending on a note of unsurety so high it sounded like a question.

Alphas picked up one of the pieces of bread, considering it for a moment, then bit through half of it at once. His eyes immediately widened in surprise, and he looked at it, chewing.

"It's definitely got jam in it," he said after swallowing. "Tastes pretty good, although it's a little sweet for me."

"Is it… to your liking, sir?" the girl asked uncertainly, unable to understand the Greek he'd just spoken. He looked up and back at her, standing behind his chair as she was, and she turned slightly red as she considered his position. Something about the way he had chosen to look back at her was… disconcerting, in a whole new way.

"It's good," he assured her. "Just… do you have anything else less sweet?"

"Oh, of course sir," the girl replied, a little flustered. "We have some with cream, if you like."

Alphas thought about it. "Yeah, sure, I'll have some of those."

Outside, with no warning, a horn was blown, long and loud, echoed across the city in the distance by others of its kind, and the room went deathly silent.

"What was that?" Stratos sharply addressed the girl in New Latin. She looked back at him, pale, eyes wide and frightened.

"The hunt is abroad," she whispered, and then fled back to the kitchen, almost dropping one of the plates she carried on the way. Everyone else eating as well began to scramble to get up and head upstairs, to the lodgings.

"The hell is going on?" Alphas said, grabbing someone's arm. He looked terrified.

"You don't know?" he said in a hushed, shaking whisper. "The wolves. The wolves are hunting."

He tore free of Alphas' grip and fled. Soon, the sorcerers were the only ones left in the food hall.

"You all have your weapons, right?" Alphas said, putting a hand to his own sword and dagger. Everyone nodded. "Good. Be ready for anything. I get the feeling that whatever wolves he was talking about, they're not ordinary."

The door to the inn splintered and crashed open, pieces of wood flying everywhere, and the sorcerers were immediately armed and ready, the path to their sigils cleared in case they really needed to use them.

Where the door had been was now a monstrous snout, grey with patterns of white just above the fangs. A huge black nose the size of a small child's head sniffed the air, long and deep.

Omegas raised an eyebrow at Alphas as everyone stood perfectly silent, unsure of what to do in such a situation. He pointed at the bread and made a throwing motion at the snout.

Alphas sighed inwardly, careful not to make any noise, and shook his head, making sure to wear the most unamused expression he could.

Omegas had seriously just suggested that.

Omegas pointed at his mouth and made a chomping motion, then rubbed his stomach exaggeratedly, grinning the entire time, as though his point wasn't already clear enough.

Alphas just levelled an unimpressed stare his brother's way. He would kiss an Enzare before feeding jam-filled bread to a wolf that size.

Suddenly, the snout bared its fangs, and released a growl that made the air tremble, that scratched at his ears and gave him an itch on the inside of his head.

Holy gods, this was not what they had come to Rome for. He did not want to have to fight giant wolves on the first day.

Without any warning, the snout disappeared, and then something crashed into the building, a huge paw now visible outside the doorway. The entire room shuddered with the weight of the wolf's impact.

"What the hell," Alphas hissed.

Outside, the singular visible paw retreated a little way, and then two of the huge things were visible, grey fur that nearly looked tinted blue in the moonlight, the torches that had lit the street now smouldering on the roads, knocked down and trampled on.

The paws shifted, settled, and for a heartbeat, there was nothing.

And then the wolf howled, and Alphas clutched his ears as the tone of it pervaded the entire structure they were in, the walls and the furniture and the plates vibrating, shuddering, resonating with the call of the pack.

The call of the pack.

That notion set in, and Alphas paled as it was confirmed.

Mirroring howls echoed around the city as the pack heeded the call.

=0=

"This is a lovely situation to be in, then," Alphas remarked, sword in his lap. They'd taken refuge in one of the rooms the innkeeper had given them. A lamp burned, hanging in one corner of the ceiling, lighting the room. This one was Myron and Lysander's, the closest room to the stairs after that of Alphas and Omegas. Taking either the closest or the farthest would be too obvious a choice, which was exactly why they had taken the one closest. It saved time and would delay their pursuers a bit.

At least, that was assuming there was someone actually behind this. Someone human. Someone intelligent. You couldn't use this same ploy on the wolves, they'd sniff you out immediately, but then the wolves couldn't fit in the inn.

Somewhat safer, for now.

"Oh, you're dead wrong there," Stratos said, a large, double-headed battleaxe in hand. "This is one o' the stupidest things I ever had to go through. Giant wolves. In Zeus's name this is ridi-culous."

A snuffle sounded from outside and they all stiffened, grips tightening on their weapons.

The latch to the window was knocked off its hold on the wall as a wolf charged the building again. Dust fell from the ceiling, and Omegas sneezed.

Instantly, silence. Omegas looked around.

"Did I do that?"

The window swung open on its hinges, and cold night air wafted in, dew mixing with the rank of wolf fur. Lysander, nearest the window, lifted a hand up to slowly close it.

The hand was taken at the wrist in a flash of midnight, steel darkened with fire so it shimmered black.

A figure dressed in full darkness, mask and hood over their face so that only the eyes could be seen, slithered bonelessly through the window even as Lysander let out a howl of pain to match the wolves.

Omegas swung his axe, but was instantly deflected with a whirling of the long, thin blade their attacker held. They lifted their head, and a short, shrill whistle sounded that deadened all other noise for a single breathless instant.

And then one of the wolves ripped the wall out. Strong and thick as it was, the building was still wooden.

For the first time, Alphas had a full, moonlit view of the wolf's face. It was just like that of any other wolf he'd ever seen, were it not for the teardrop shaped patch of black, hairless skin at the inner corner of each eye, long teeth so pure white they shone like steel in the blueish light of the night, and those strikingly silver-blue eyes, a gaze so sharp and cold it was arctic.

It bared its fangs at them in the same instant the person who had robbed Lysander of a hand leapt sideways. Everyone sprang out of the way, and Olympiodoros whipped a longsword around in a dark grey fan of deadly intent while Myron went to cover for Lysander, drawing large steel needles from his belt, which alone held a good number of them, not counting all the other stashes on his body. Throwing knives, for all intents and purposes, made of regular steel for being expendable. Indus steel was too precious a material to use on something that might not even be retrieved.

Their assailant ducked backwards under Olympiodoros' swing and evaded Myron's throw with a flawless twist through the air, spinning as they landed, throwing the knife they held in the same motion so it sliced past Myron's ribs, stabbing through Lysander's shoulder and into the wall, pinning him into a corner.

Omegas darted forward while their back was turned, but was forced to instantly back away as the wolf lunged into the room, as much as it could manage, and snapped at him. Stratos moved in the same instant, cutting upwards with the battleaxe, which the darkly dressed attacker avoided with a snap of the head backwards before it cleaved their skull in two.

They dropped to the ground onto their hands, lifted their legs, and kicked Stratos so hard he fell and crashed into the long table by the wall. A candle, a brush, and other assorted items clattered mutedly to the carpeted floor. Stratos was up in a second, fingers curling around the axe as he picked it off the floor again.

Olympiodoros and Alphas rushed the attacker at the same time, Alphas slicing the wolf's nose as it tried to take a chunk out of him, and it yelped, retreating. Omegas saw his chance and, flicking his shield out, went to make sure the wolf stayed where it was. Olympiodoros whirled his sword in a spinning circle of dark grey as he advanced. The small knife that the attacker threw was blasted off course by the pure velocity of Olympiodoros' makeshift shield.

As Alphas swung his own sword, the figure ducked and jumped backwards, Alphas' sword passing over them and clanging into Olympiodoros' in a jarring collision that knocked them both a few steps off-kilter. The attacker rolled under Myron's next throw, lifted into a handstand and then leapt from that position three feet into the air, kicking Myron aside in the half-second at the apex of the move.

Lysander ducked under the first swipe and kicked out, landing a blow on the attacker's knee that they seemed not to feel, hissing as the knife in his shoulder was aggravated by the movement.

The second swipe managed to land.

Lysander died.

The attacker turned around again, pulling the knife from Lysander's shoulder and using it to tap Myron's next attacks off course as they flew through the air. They darted forward, grabbed him by the shirt before he could lift more throwing needles from whatever crevice was nearest, and rolled backwards, taking him down with their boots against his chest, and then kicked out, sending him flying out of the hole in the wall, thudding against the brick streets as he fell from the first floor.

The wolf made to bite at him as he lay prone, dazed, but was painfully distracted by Omegas hacking at its snout with the axe.

The attacker whistled again, a lower pitch this time, before launching themselves at Alphas.

Even as Alphas brought his sword up, horizontal, to block the next strike, he clearly heard the howl.

It started a lot further away than he would have liked, and grew louder with every passing second occupied with fending off this adversary.

More of these things, damn it. More wolves were coming.

And they could barely even handle the human in this enclosed space.

An idea struck him, and he followed up his next clash of defense with a solid kick to the stomach that threw the masked figure backward. Even with all the commotion, the hood still hadn't fallen.

"Omegas, Stratos, Olympiodoros, get out of this room!" he shouted before turning and jumping out of the hole, bracing for the landing. The ground was hard, and he stumbled a little, but he shot off towards Myron within a second of regaining his balance, dragging him up even as Omegas, Stratos and Olympiodoros flew out of the room above him.

The wolf above them backed off, and hunkered down so its nose was level with the first floor. The attacker stepped out onto the wolf's snout.

As the wolf lowered further to set the dark figure onto the ground, Alphas sliced through the back of its foot, as deep as he could. The wolf started, throwing its master off, and they landed sprawling in the street.

In the distance, dark shapes were visible, getting closer.

"There's more wolves coming!" Alphas yelled. "Run, right now!"

They followed to the letter, everyone taking off in the opposite direction from the approaching wolves, running down the road the street led to, each one of them taking different paths from the point where the road split off into multiple other streets.

The wolves bounded after them.

=0=

Stratos was sprinting with the maximum of his ability, battleaxe bouncing on his back with every movement. A wolf pounded down the brick roads after him, the earth shaking with every footfall. Every door, every window, every possible opening that he passed was tightly shut, locking him outside.

Just his luck.

Stratos took the axe from his back and held it out in front of him as he began to slow in minuscule proportions. The wolf would have caught up to him anyway, damn huge as it was. He was just insuring himself against getting chomped. It was a pity he couldn't use magic here. You never knew if anyone was watching him run for his life. Or what the magic could even do to the area if he decided to use it. That would definitely be suspicious.

Stratos skidded, feet locked and bracing against the ground, then took off again down a familiar street. He'd visited here earlier in the day with Lysander, through a crowded market street and then passing by an official building, where Lysander had dragged him in. They'd found the location of the recovered documents from the fire by asking around in that building.

Lysander. Poor kid didn't deserve to die that soon. He'd done a good job.

Here came the building now, firelight flickering through the cracks in the closed windows as someone presumably worked. The wolf, hurtling behind him, failed to stop in time and went rolling, crashing past the street he'd gone down and ending in a heap on the main road, seller's carts smashed and ruined under its massive body.

It'd be up again in a bit, Stratos knew. He continued running.

In the distance, an otherwise flat building with a dome on top, built of marble with pillars supporting the roof of the structure from the outside. A huge wrought iron gate separated the place from the rest of the world. Two brave guards stood at the end of the short paved path that led to the entrance of the building.

Must have thought they were Heracles and Achilles each, to be out and guarding this place while these damned wolves ran mad through the city.

"Let me in!" he roared to them, charging at the gate as the wolf got back up, if the sound of a sea of apple carts falling from the skies above in a maelstrom of wooden thunder was any indication.

They looked at him, then they looked at the wolf, presumably as it began running after him again, and paled as blood and bravery deserted them.

Stratos bared his teeth and raised his hands. The battleaxe brooked no argument.

The bolt that held the gates closed was quickly drawn back, and the gate opened for the slightest of seconds, enough for him to slip through and run onwards inside the building. The guards latched it again and wasted no time in following his lead, right as the wolf slammed into the gates, bending the metal under its weight. It began scrabbling at the walls in an attempt to gain purchase and climb over.

Like hell he was going to wait around to see that happen. Stratos barged through the double doors to the building into warm light and corridors of shelves.

A library, eh? Well that was some of that. That thing. What had the teacher called it?

Something about iron, he remembered that much. The iron in poems and stories.

He eased his grip off the handle of his battleaxe while the guards fiddled with locking the door behind him. This axe was the only kind of metal he needed, iron or not.

"You fellas," he said in New Latin. "Why were you outside with the wolves runnin' about?"

The guards simply looked embarrassed, ducking their heads even as they slid bolts home and put keys in the locks.

"Didn't know they were that big," one of them mumbled. "Never seen one before."

"Do yourselves a favour and stay inside the next time, lads," Stratos told them. He looked around him. "What is this place?"

"Library," one of the guards piped up, turning to him now as his companion slid a key into the last of the locks. "It's an important one. Got historical records and things."

"Oh. Good for you lot, then." An idea sparked to life in his head and he looked at the guards again. "You got them arti-facts?"

The guards looked puzzled. "What kind?"

"Been lookin' for some of that stuff saved from some library fire. Don't remember what it was called, but it burned down a while ago. You two know anythin'?"

"The library of Alexandria?" one of the guards said. "Some of the documents recovered from there are kept here. It's this place's claim to fame, actually."

Stratos smiled contentedly as he considered it. The gods had taken pity on him, if this stroke of divine luck was anything to go by. "Sounds like it. Who's Al-eck Zan-dree-ya?"

The lads looked at each other. One's helmet slipped forward over his face and he went to adjust it back. "It's the name of the place the library was in. Alexandria. Named after Alexander the Great, who conquered the region in-"

"Conkered?" Stratos frowned. "How d'you bash an entire place over the head? Sounds a little far-fetched to me, but I guess anythin's possible."

The guard decided to forgo the history lesson. "Why are you asking about the documents, sir? You don't seem like the type, no offence."

"Now I mightn't have understood whatever you just said, lad," Stratos said gruffly, "but I know that whenever someone says 'no offence', they means yes offence. You want to call me somethin', say it to my face, you hear?"

The guard gave up on attempting to converse with the man before him. "Sure thing, sir."

"Now," Stratos began, flipping the axe around in his hand as he talked, "why don't the two o' you tell me somethin'."

The guards' eyes followed the whirling motion of the blade with tangible fear. They'd forgotten about the huge battleaxe, in truth, as they considered a rather stubborn older man, who, it seemed, had refused to learn what passed for a real conversation these days.

"Where're these doc-uments kept?" Stratos asked, axe handle spinning around his fingertips. "I got some learnin' to do."

"Right away, sir," both guards said at once, eager to please the man with the axe and, they saw now, an extremely powerful build.

It was either him or the wolf, to their minds, and the wolf couldn't get into the library. Nor would it want to.

=0=

"Got any riddles in here?" Stratos asked, throwing another priceless book to the floor while the guards watched him with pure panicked terror. "Any o' that portry?"

"Please, sir," one of the guards whimpered, "just give us the books when you're done."

Stratos picked out another book, riffling through the pages, then tossed it to the guard, who yelped and caught it.

"You got none o' what I'm lookin' for," Stratos complained. "Any portry from that other library? Any riddles?"

The guard who had caught the book got down on the floor, collecting the other books that Stratos had thrown down with a distinct lack of regard. The other one was forced to contend with Stratos.

"I don't know, sir. I'm just a guard. You'd have to ask a librarian."

The bearded man looked around. "Don't see any around."

"It's rather late, isn't it?" the guard tried. "They'll have gone home. Why don't you come back tomorrow?"

"Come back?" Stratos asked incredulously. "I'm stayin' here, boy. There's wolves and whatnot outside."

"Oh. Right."

"Go look for a librarian then," Stratos instructed him. "Might be one or two 'round here. They can't all have gone home, what with the wolves about."

Internally, the guard cursed the wolves for ever bringing him into contact with this man, who'd quickly become more of a pain in the ass than even the wolves. He set off to look for a librarian.

Stratos looked down at the other guard, still picking books off the floor.

"You need any help with that?"

The guard shook his head a little too quickly for Stratos' taste, but he decided to let it slide. Wasn't often you got terrorized by wolves the size of elephants.

"It's alright, sir. You can sit back. I'll handle this."

Stratos grunted, and decided to wait for the other guard to return with a librarian. The guard with him finished collecting the discarded volumes and began sorting them into piles.

"What's the cate-gori-za-tion gig about?" Stratos asked with a little interest. "What're you cate-gori-zin' them into?"

"Alchemy, math, architecture," the guard said with a shrug. "That kind of thing."

"Right."

After a while, the other guard returned, a little disgruntled, with a female librarian, an older woman.

"Evenin', ma'am," Stratos greeted her. "Did the lad tell you what I'm lookin' for?"

"Riddles and poetry, apparently," the woman said. "I'm afraid we don't have any riddles, but there are a few books of poetry."

"If it isn't a riddle, I don't need it," Stratos declined. Then, another thought struck him. "Oh, d'you have any doc-uments in another language? Somethin' you haven't been able to translate?"

The woman frowned. "How do you know about that? Yes, we have one, but it's a little strange."

"What's strange about it?" Stratos said, following her as she went down the aisles.

"The library was burnt down, as you may know," she said. "I see you've been looking at the other books. You must have noticed that some of the pages are a little burnt."

Stratos nodded. He'd seen that. Pages crisp and brittle from being near fire.

"Well, this one is like it was never even near a fire," she said. "It's as soft and fresh as the day it was written on. Some people tell me everything around it burned, but it survived the fire somehow. It's a strange thing."

Stratos grinned, unseen by the librarian. Oh, this was definitely what he was looking for.

The luck the gods had granted him ran out right then and there as a deep growl rumbled through the empty air of the building. Stratos glanced at the librarian as she stiffened.

"You'd better show me this doc-ument right now, lady. Sounds like we haven't got much time."

"Yes, yes, of course." The woman shuddered. "These wolves have terrorized us for too long. Some people say that there is someone who controls them, although I cannot imagine anyone capable of that exists."

"Someone definitely controls them," Stratos confirmed grimly. "I met 'em a while ago. One stinkin' bastard."

The librarian whipped around in shock. "Really?"

Stratos nodded.

"That's… rather intimidating a thought. What did they look like?"

Stratos shrugged. "No clue. All black clothes, a hood and a mask. Great with a knife, if that's anythin' to you."

The librarian frowned as she walked. "It sounds familiar. Ah, here it is."

Behind a flat pane of glass was the riddle. Stratos grinned, lifting the glass off and setting it carefully down on the floor. Unlike books, he couldn't toss this around.

"Excuse me? What do you think you're doing?"

He waved the sheet of sigils at her. "Sorry lady, but this belongs to my an-cest-ors. I'm just takin' it back from you today."

The doors banged open, and the snarl of a wolf was very clearly audible. A soft patter of running footsteps sounded in the now deathly silent library.

Stratos, as quickly and quietly as he could, stuffed the riddle down the front of his pants. The chances of being stripped after death by wolves or whoever controlled them were very low. The least he could do was save it so that when his companions took his clothes off to bury him, they'd find something big.

The riddle, that is. It was a big development for their squad.

Speak of the devil. He would have grinned to himself at his joke (that no one else had heard) if the wolves' master hadn't vaulted over a library shelf, blade in hand, and whirled straight into Stratos, who brought the axe out to meet the knife with a resounding clang.

The librarian gasped. "Umbra?"

Stratos paid her words no mind, just swung the axe in rapid arcs, fingers and hands moving with utmost precision to pass the weapon seamlessly from one movement to the next.

Then his opponent did something sneaky with their hands and the knife, and Stratos found them right up close in his personal space. The axe couldn't do anything here, unless he wanted to risk taking his own arm off.

The thing was, he was completely ready to risk that.

Stratos curled his fingers and pivoted the axe on the point between thumb and forefinger so that it shot around for the hooded person.

Whose hands flowed up to catch the axe before it bit into their head.

Stratos grinned irritatedly, and went to slam his forehead into theirs. In the same instant, they lifted themselves up off the ground, holding onto the axe, and he stumbled forward as a large new weight was instantly added upon his burden.

His attacker (Umbra, apparently, now that he registered what the librarian had said) took that opportunity to kick him in the head, and he staggered backwards, the world looking a little lopsided and shaky. He tried to swing the axe, but it was no longer in his grip, and he got a punch in the jaw for his troubles.

Stratos fell backwards with dark clouds in his vision.

When things started to clear again, he found Umbra sitting on top of him, poised to punch again, and he roared, sitting up and throwing his forehead forward to crunch their nose.

He was rewarded with a hammer blow to the side of the head with the flat of his own axe, and dropped off into dreamland.

=0=

Olympiodoros curved his body to avoid an abandoned stall, jutting out in the middle of the road, presumably left by the owner in a hurry to get to safety. No one in their right mind would stay outside with the wolves roaming outside, unless they were just that stupid.

Behind him, one of the gigantic animals galloped through the streets he'd taken, snarling as it ran.

Olympiodoros activated one of the sigils he'd earned as a lieutenant in the army, skidded until he'd cancelled out the velocity which had carried him to this point, far enough out of the reach of the wolf behind him, then jumped backwards, building up more speed, accelerating with orange burning at his wrist and branching across the back of his hand, until he reached the wolf and the wolf reached him, and the wolf snapped at him with the completely readable intent to bite him in half, at the same time that Olympiodoros slammed his fist, puny by comparison, into its jaw.

The wolf crashed sideways into a wall of something like stone as the sigil did its job, and Olympiodoros heard a deafening crack as its jawbone broke from the force with which it collided with the hard substance.

Whimpering and whining, the wolf picked itself up pitifully, glancing at him with new fear and confusion in its eyes.

It turned tail and fled.

Olympiodoros blinked. Well, he'd gotten the wolf off his own tail, but now he had to be quick and consider his next plan of action. There could be more wolves on the way. No, there were definitely more wolves on the way. He'd bought himself some time by driving this one off, but the rest of the pack would be on the way, and they'd be furious. As well as that, they'd be cautious, and that was the worst outcome, because if they were wary of any tricks he could play they were less likely to get caught in them.

Oh, damn. He'd even screwed up on the magic front, hadn't he? They weren't meant to use magic here. And he'd done that. Even if no one had seen it they would hear the wolf whimpering as it ran from him, and wonder what could ever have hurt one of those monsters.

Well then. This sucked.

A thought came to him, and he smiled now, looking around to see the buildings around him. Considering his position in the city.

He'd go to the gates from here, and get the dragons.

As that idea finished forming, solidified in his mind, he turned, gauging the direction he had to go from here, glancing at the moon, at the stars, to figure out where he was relative to the gate.

He started to run, slowly at first, little more than a jog, then as the urgency overrode the satisfaction of a plan he sped up, passing by a run and heading straight for a sprint.

It wasn't even that smart an idea anyway. Anyone could have thought of that. Making it work was the hard part. He was completely sure that either Alphas or Omegas had tried to get to the gates already. He couldn't be sure if they had succeeded or not, though. He hoped he would manage.

Olympiodoros tore down the streets with mad fervour as the necessity of action set in. As he ran, he jumped, tapping, in that moment, on his ankles, activating the sigils he'd secretly set into the inside of his boots as his feet connected with the ground again. He wasn't permitted to have those sigils, really, since all magic use was controlled by the Bindings, but he'd managed to sneak in one day and add this one to the list of allowed sigils on his name. Any others were impossible, since he'd almost been caught and had to stop messing with the system before he went too far.

Looking back on it now, as he blazed through the city, dark and silent, every step a lightning strike, all the stress and panic of that day seemed completely worth it. This venture was why he'd added the sigils, it was the destiny spun for him by the Fates.

He slowed, leaping up midstep to tap on his ankles again, cancelling the sigils out, and fell, tumbling, when his pure speed negated any ability to slow down, and instead sent him rolling and skidding 10 meters forward. He got up, barely acknowledging the friction burns and the bleeding scrapes on his forearms. He'd been hurt worse in some of his fights.

The gates were right there. He ran to them within the span of a second, and found them locked and bolted. He rattled the gates somewhat desperately, then looked up, wondering if he could scale it.

"Oi!" someone whispered, harsh and low. Olympiodoros looked around to see a random guard frowning at him from behind the window of a barricaded outpost, waving at him to come closer. He looked around to see that no wolves were around, then went over.

"Are you insane?" the guard hissed. "The hunt is abroad. You should be inside!"

Olympiodoros shook his head. "No time for that. Can you open the gates?"

The guard stared at him, the expression accentuated by his helmet. "What in Saturn's blood have you been smoking? The hunt! Is abroad! Get your sorry ass inside, right now!"

Olympiodoros shook his head again. "Sorry, but I have some things I really need to do. I can handle myself against the wolves, just open the gate for me."

The guard eyed him with the most intense scrutiny Olympiodoros had ever been under. It was like a dissection without scalpels, worse even than some of the glares Buzzard could give. At least he was just angry. This guy was judging him.

"Fine," the guard sighed, rubbing some point behind his ear, "I'll come outside to open the gates for you, but if one of the wolves shows up you die first, got it? You sacrifice yourself to give me time to get back inside."

He leaned in conspiratorially. "And uh, give me some of whatever you're on. From the look of you, it's something great."

"I'm not on anything," Olympiodoros sighed. "I am completely within my right mind and under no influence whatsoever. Happy? I used big words no problem."

The guard blinked. "Oh, you're just insane. Welp."

He disappeared from the window, and Olympiodoros was afraid for a moment that he'd been ditched, but then something clicked and he heard a door open. After a few seconds, the guard appeared around the corner. Olympiodoros smiled at how ridiculous that uniform was, but withheld any comments. This was the man helping him, knowingly risking his life in the process. There was no need to offend him. The guard walked up and began fitting keys in the gate.

Olympiodoros frowned as a thought occurred to him. "Hey, tell me something."

"What's up?" the guard said as he worked, metallic clicks and thumps sounding with every couple of motions as every sturdy lock on the gate was rendered inert.

"If I go out of the gate, who's going to protect you if there's a wolf coming for you? You do have to lock the gate again, right?"

The guard froze in the middle of fitting a key, and his head slowly swivelled towards Olympiodoros.

"Man, why'd you have to make me think about that?" he whimpered. "I don't wanna get eaten. I don't wanna die."

He turned back, quickly unlocked the lock the key had been waiting in, and then stepped back, shaking his head.

"Everything else is just bolts. You can open those yourself, just pull on them. I'm going back inside. When you close the gates, put a couple of the ground bolts back and slide one of the bolts between the gates back in place. That's enough for me."

Olympiodoros nodded, then knelt down to undo the bolts that fixed the gates into the ground. Those were relatively silent, small as they were, but numerous.

The guard was walking back, red cape flowing behind him in a fluttering wave of colour, fixing the keys he'd just used in place on his belt, when Olympiodoros shot back the first bolt that kept the two gates closed. It resisted for a moment, so he put more force into it, and all of a sudden it slammed back with a deafening echo of metal.

The guard looked back with wide eyes, fear written clearly on his face, and scrambled for the door to the outpost as Olympiodoros began to hurriedly undo the other bolts, not bothering to mask any kind of sound now. That clang had been heard by the entire city.

The guard came back out with a spear in hand and stood beside him, back to the gate and scanning the surroundings as he tentatively adjusted his grip.

"What," Olympiodoros grunted as he shot another bolt back, "are you doing? Get back inside! I told you I can handle the wolves on my own!"

"You're even crazier than I thought if you actually believe you can take the wolves by yourself," the guard shot back. "Have you seen the damn things? They're monsters! I'm staying with you until I know you're safe. I'll put the bolts back, don't you worry about that. Just go and do whatever it is you need to."

"Why are you going so far to help me?" Olympiodoros asked after a silent moment, wrenching another two bolts back with each hand. "I thought you were scared of them."

"I am, you idiot!" the guard hissed. "But it's my duty to protect the people, and you're one hell of a person, aren't you? You're stupid as a rat if you think you can fight those mutts, but you don't deserve to die so miserably. I'm not like those other fools who think guarding is just opening and closing the doors and making sure the people we don't like can't come in. Guarding the city means guarding its people too. You're a fucking retard, but I'm going to make sure you're safe. Got it? Now hurry up."

Olympiodoros found himself smiling as his fingers reached for the last bolt. This guy was genuinely nice. He liked him.

And then all the world went to crap as there was a deep, rumbling growl, and out of absolutely nowhere, a wolf leaped over the outpost, bearing down on the two men. Olympiodoros abandoned the last bolt and whirled with his longsword out as the guard jabbed at the wolf with his spear. The wolf backed off a little, surprised by the sharp pain, but snarled and snapped at Olympiodoros, who swung his sword so fast it whistled through the air and left a deep gash in the wolf's lower jaw. It started, retreating, then sat back on its haunches and howled for a good, long moment. Olympiodoros ground his teeth in frustration. If the guard wasn't around, maybe he could have used magic again to beat it down. The gods knew nothing else would work enough unless you somehow managed to stab it in the head. And there was a skull in the way of that. Damn it.

"What the hell are you doing?" the guard roared, making him jump. He settled into a low stance with his spear out, focused. "Open the gates and get out! I'll handle it! Just go!"

Olympiodoros glanced back at the gates, then settled into his own pose, sword up and ready in front of him as they faced, the wolf, which was now attempting to circle them in this limited space, between the city walls, the outpost, and a house on the other side of the road. The road itself was wide, but for something the size of that wolf there was no room for any prowling.

The guard looked at him with something approaching surprise, then with appreciation. He grinned and looked back at the wolf.

"Not many people who'd stay and fight with me with a damn great wolf in front of us. Thanks for that. What's your name?"

"Olympiodoros," Olympiodoros replied, eyes tracking the wolf's every movement as it started getting closer to them.

"Never heard a name like that before," the guard contemplated. "Must be a foreigner, eh? My name's Marcus."

"Nice to meet you, Marcus."

"Feeling's mutual. Now let's try and live, shall we?"

Olympiodoros grunted, starting to move his hands in that familiar pattern, raising his hands and bringing the sword to a whirl. Marcus gaped at the move, his grip on his spear slacking a little.

"Focus," Olympiodoros reminded him as he stepped forward with the sword spinning in a circle of animosity, animosity for these goddamn wolves, animosity for their master, animosity for anything that dared to threaten this man beside him, such a kind human being, with anything even close to dangerous. Animosity for whatever disturbed the good in the world, and these wolves were interfering with something for the good of all.

Marcus nodded, finding his grip on the spear again, and returning to the solid stance he'd displayed before.

A low, rumbling growl sounded from somewhere.

And it wasn't the wolf in front of them.

Olympiodoros looked around just in time to see the ivory teeth closing around him like the hand of Thanatos himself, Atropos holding her scissors to his thread at last.

But Atropos, for once, held the wrong thread.

A yank on his collar as Marcus pulled him back, and Olympiodoros watched in something of a daze as those monstrous teeth sheared through him, crushing his armour like sugar. His red cape was stained even redder as what remained of the body fell to the ground, and his blood pooled on the ground.

Literally and figuratively, Olympiodoros saw red.

Orange blazed to life on his hand as he roared and punched the offending wolf in the mouth so hard that those titanic bones, so strong to anything else but so weak before his sigil, crunched on impact. He saw the snout deform before him and the jaw burst open in a spray of shimmering black blood. The top half of Marcus, slimy with silver saliva, slithered out of the wolf's mouth. He was still alive, Olympiodoros saw, but only barely.

The wolf, he knew, was in critical condition. Low whines emanated from its mangled mouth, but he felt no pity.

Only rage.

He strode up to the wolf, and, with another devastating blow to the head, turned its skull into a flat piece of abstract art. Brains and black blood splattered across the floor and all over the walls.

He turned to the other wolf, but it had fled. Deactivating the sigil, he ran to Marcus.

"Dammit, dammit," he swore, kneeling and lifting the head and torso up as gently as he could.

Marcus waved his left hand weakly, signalling to let it go. The other one had been bitten off, and was lying somewhere near his legs.

"You're a secretive man, Olymp… Olympiodoros," he chuckled, a deathly shade to the words. Under the blood on him, he was pale.

"I'm sorry," Olympiodoros said, his breath hitching as guilt caught up to him. "I should have done something sooner!"

"No matter," Marcus said, gazing up at the stars now. "Thank you, Olympio… Olym-"

"Olympio," Olympiodoros said quickly. "Just Olympio. Don't waste your breath on my name."

"Not a waste," Marcus chuckled breathily. "A beautiful name. Thank you, Olympio."

He looked him in the eyes, and smiled, with the most gentle kindness. Olympiodoros would not have believed it possible to see such a genuine smile, especially so close to death.

"I shall be a god now," Marcus whispered, life flaring in his eyes for a moment, blazing, burning like the sun.

And then, nothing more.

Olympiodoros set the body down gently, and walked over to undo the last bolt, opening the gates with a quiet creak. Picking up his sword from where he had dropped it in his bout of violence, he began to dig.

When he had completed, with some difficulty, that shallow grave, he took both halves of Marcus' body, and laid them gently in the grave, offering his prayers to the gods to have mercy on this soul, apologizing to Marcus in between his bouts of prayer for not doing anything sooner. After a thought, he took out a page from the book all sorcerers carried, and wrote as much as he could remember about the underworld, including a little instruction on getting to Elysium, where Marcus deserved to go. He shut the eyes of the cadaver, and took out two silver pieces from the money Alphas had given them to navigate the city in their search that afternoon, which seemed so long ago now. Carefully, he laid the money in Marcus' remaining hand, closing the fingers over it. Hopefully, that would be enough to pay the ferryman.

With his hands and his arms, Olympiodoros swept the dirt back into the grave, burying the body, apologizing all the while for letting such a man die, not daring to wipe away the tears that welled up in his eyes for fear of the dirt getting to him. With the dirt that remained, he made a little mound at the head of the grave, and transplanted as many wildflowers as he could find nearby onto the mound. He turned to go, but then came back, digging in his pouch again. This time, he took a gold piece in his dirt-caked fingers, and set it firmly into the head of the mound, between the flowers so no one could see, and steal this tribute. After a moment of contemplation, he covered it with a bit more dirt, so that even if the flowers wilted and died, the gold would remain unseen.

A final time, he sat and prayed.

When he finally got up again, tears having cleared a path from the wolf blood and grime on his face, he found, from glancing at the stars, that he'd spent a good few hours here. There wasn't a lot of time until dawn.

He went to close the city gates behind him, wolf still smeared on the walls, sliding as many bolts home as he could from between the metal bars.

At last, draping Marcus' bloodstained cape around his shoulders, he set out to where they'd left the dragons.

=0=

When the rider finally returned to report to Myre, he was filling in some paperwork. Requests for various materials from different divisions in his forces, some requests for manpower from Caird, who seemed to have made a full recovery. After a doctor extracted the metal shards from his body, Eurenym's magic had done quick work of the healing. Locating and extracting the metal had been the difficult part, and had taken a decent few days to complete. The healing, on the other hand, was completed within half an hour. Magic was certainly useful.

Myre found a rare, genuine smile creeping onto his face as he filled a sheet of the new material - that Orgoze had called paper - with a letter replying to a king he remembered forming an alliance with exactly two years and four months ago.

Two years and four months ago, Myre and this king, who'd called himself Da Zuorong, had formed an alliance in a region to the far east. Zuorong, under attack from the powerful forces of a larger nation under control of an empress called Wu Zhou, although Myre knew her true name was Wu Zetian, had found out about the services Myre offered, and asked him for a brief partnership.

With Myre's forces backing Da Zuorong, they had beaten back Wu Zhou's invading army, and taken control of a considerably large territory that Da Zuorong had chosen to name 'Zhen'.

Now, though, he was writing to inform Myre that he was going to rename the kingdom to 'Bohai', and was extending an invitation to attend the official ceremony to his "dear friend and trusted ally, without whom even planning this ceremony would not have been possible."

Of course, Myre would attend. Zhen, or Bohai, as it was now going to be called, was an important ally. He and Zuorong had an agreement to provide resources and manpower in exchange for full protection of the nation, to the best of Myre's ability. The king was so grateful for Myre's help that he gave him some things in excess. Gifts of perfume, clothing, and sometimes beautifully crafted swords had accompanied many shipments of the resources Myre had requested, or the squads of men sent his way.

A pair of those swords were framed on his wall at the moment against a sheet of red velvet. The frame itself was made of ebony, and he'd had a pane of glass made just for this. Straight and slightly tapered blue metal, dark at the edge of the blade, was hidden within black sheaths covered with the most fantastically detailed golden inscriptions. The blades themselves had silver inscriptions set into the base. Thick golden thread with a red tassel at the end dangled from the center of both hilts.

It was decidedly a beautiful gift, and Myre appreciated every article the king sent. Every letter he wrote included thanks for whatever present he had been sent that month.

Every sword was perfectly suited for fighting, too, but Myre did not want to risk damaging something so wonderful. He'd framed it instead for everyone who came to his quarters to see.

And now, as he heard familiar footsteps outside, he wiped the smile that had crept up on him off his face at the thought of magic, and instead put on one of the calmer ones, calculated to the perfect essence of control.

The rider stepped in, a look of alarm on his scarred face.

"What was that?" he hissed. "Those things were huge, and even Stryker was afraid of them!"

"Stryker being your Skrill, I imagine. Your tone with me, on the other hand, is, as always," Myre said, setting the letter aside to finish later, hands steepled, "quite refreshing. I'm sure no one else under my control would ever dream of speaking to me so directly."

"Yes, yes," the rider snapped, "have your fun, play with my mind and take whatever entertainment you can get from me. As long as you answer my question, which I will now repeat. What was that?"

"There is a land," Myre began, "far south of here. I'm sure no one else knows of it yet, I find myself the only one to ever visit. After I learnt the language of the people of that land, I began to learn, too, their stories. And they are quite adept at storytelling, even though they cannot read or write. Everything is passed down from the elders to the youth by mouth, and the chain continues. They have done this for the thousands of years that they have existed."

"That's intriguing," the rider said sardonically, "but I quite fail to see how it relates to my question at hand."

Myre shot him a look, and he quieted.

"One of their stories," he continued, "is one of giant beasts that roamed the land, taller than some of the trees you see today, more deadly from pure size than many dragons. The carnivores, even, were not alone in this. Some herbivores exercised a degree of brutality that I was quite surprised to hear. Of course, there are none alive today."

The scarred man listened quietly, nodding along to Myre's words with his eyes shut, those mismatched eyes now hidden.

"Now, the important thing to understand is that these stories have been passed down since that people began living there, in the land far south. When I asked them how long it has been since their people first arrived, they did not know. Most of their estimates, though, landed somewhere between forty and fifty thousand years ago. Oh, don't look so surprised," Myre added as the rider's eyes snapped open. "I'm sure there are some people who have been settled in a place for longer."

Myre glanced at the letter to Zuorong, reading where he'd left off.

"Anyway, these stories are, at most, about that old."

Myre sat forward with a smile that showed his teeth, one hand now resting on top of the other, flat on his desk.

"Consider, then, that this place at the extremity of the south was not the only place such large beasts existed. Surely, there must have been something similar in other areas of the world, yes? Now consider the wolves you saw. How big would you say they were? Bigger than some trees you've seen?"

The rider nodded. "Bigger than some dragons, definitely. Almost an entire man would fit into a single bite. Someone just a bit shorter than you, I'd say."

Myre nodded. "An accurate estimation, I dare say. Some of these giants survived all those fifty thousand years or more. These wolves are one of those breeds, although I imagine they too will die out soon. Umbra simply managed to fit in with the pack, and now look. Wolves bigger than dragons, obeying the whim of a human Alpha. The fear your dragon felt, on the other hand, is something primal. Would you like to know why?"

The rider grimaced. "Finally, the actual point of this roundabout discussion."

Myre laughed quietly. "Your words will never fail to invigorate me. Yes, the point. You see, long ago, when these giants roamed free, they had to co-exist with dragons. And the odds are ridiculously skewed in favour of dragons. Flight, hard scales, along with fire, acid, electricity, or whatever kind of projectile you wish to name. In short, dragons were nearly indomitable in situations like that. The reason I say 'nearly' is because Mother Nature likes to give everyone a chance."

Myre rested his cheek on a fist, his elbow on the table.

"Now, take a guess. What kind of chance do you think the wolves got?"

The rider appeared to contemplate it. "Immunity to dragon attacks?"

"Oh, yes," Myre said, a congratulatory smile on his face. "That is certainly one of the advantages they gained. Another was teeth that could pierce through any scales, insulated skin more durable than what you call 'Gronckle Iron', and bones just as tough and hard."

The rider considered it, then paled as realization sank in. "Back then, we could have…? They're…?"

Myre nodded. "You've figured it out. Yes, you could have lost your dragon back there, without a doubt. Dire Wolves. Nature's answer to those ridiculously powerful reptiles. A natural predator."

He picked the letter back up, and began to write again.

"I wonder how she's doing," he said aloud, seemingly in a moment of distraction. But he did so want to savour the moment that this man would never receive. He deserved to know, by Myre's thinking - and when had that ever been wrong? - but he would never be told by the concerned party. Myre was simply taking the task of revelation upon himself. "What do you think?"

The rider snapped out of his horror for a moment. "She? Who's she?"

Myre looked up, feigning perfect surprise. The fly, caught in his web, not to put it too malevolently. "What, you didn't figure it out?"