It was Yoshimo's turn to take the watch.
He sat on a blanket, lit a lantern near the dying embers, cleared his mind, and focused on everything around him. This place was as dry as a bone; the very air smelled like the dust that had smeared all of their boots and packs. There wasn't much to see, though his eyes had long adjusted to the dark. Outside of the small ring of golden, nothing was visible.
He was starting to feel the endless night seeping into him, and he half suspected that the others did, too, to judge by their clipped sentences. With every hour that passed without light, his hope ebbed a little, though his will remained unwavering. Generally speaking, Yoshimo's relationship with both the divine and the arcane had always been wary coexistence, but this was enough to make him seriously wish for the intervention of either.
And it had better come soon, for there was a long list of unfinished business he had in civilized parts.
Several ringing howls echoed through the woods; about a mile to the south, he guessed. This did nothing to lift his spirits. The sooner he could get out of this gods-forsaken country and back to Athkatla, the better.
The others had drifted back to sleep in their bedrolls — in this endless dark, what else was there to do? — except for Anomen, who had thrown on his coat of mail and gone for his mace, and now stood staring into the empty dark in the middle distance.
"See something out there?" Yoshimo asked, half-jesting.
"I would be remiss in my duty to the Great Guard if I were idle now," Anomen replied. "The evil in this forest is close at hand."
The howls were far enough away, and they'd heard them plenty of times since the darkness closed around him. But this time, Yoshimo's skin crawled. This time, he thought, the priest might be on to something.
Out of habit, he reached for his bow. It was much too dark for shooting.
If Yoshimo had another moment, he might have been able to arm himself with his katana instead. But in that instant, the lantern-light suddenly winked out, obscured by something dark above it.
In the next, clawed paws and fur — and the powerful smell of dogs and old blood — hit his chest.
Lidia and Minsc raced towards the shouts, away from Anath's cave. The blue light around Azuredge's blade grew brighter, until it started casting shadows upon the ground.
They reached the camp and found it in chaos. Three packs of shade wolves were attacking the camp.
Anomen had raised the holy symbol of Helm towards several sets of glowing, blood-red eyes, and several snarls, denouncing them: "Return to the Abyss, you godless fiends!"
In response, the shade wolves slunk back, but only from his direct line of sight, as though they were considering sneaking around and attack from another angle. One of them was eyeing Valygar, who was fighting off several other wolves at once, his long, curved sword slicing through one wolf's leg in one blow.
Aerie had taken a spot in front of the lantern, hurling every spell she had towards a pack of three wolves that seemed to be eyeing her hungrily. She was the only thing standing between this group and Yoshimo. One had gone straight for Yoshimo's throat, but Yoshimo had thrown up his arm in time. With yells and shouts, he was trying to fend off the wolf with his fists and anything he could lay a hand upon. The wolf responded by tightening its jaws, sinking its teeth further into his right forearm.
Lidia's hand curled around Azuredge's hilt, intending to hurl it at the mass of black fur. The whispers from the axe grew louder, until they almost felt like a scratching inside her mind. The sensation was maddening, and she risked harming Yoshimo if she missed —
Suddenly and without words, she finally understood. She raised the axe high with a shout.
Immediately, the entire camp was bathed in sudden, searing blue-white, a brilliant, revealing flash brighter than magelight.
With whimpers and yelps, all the wolves beat a swift retreat, pulling away and disappearing into the darkened forest beyond.
"Boo, where are all the little blobs coming from?" Minsc asked, swinging his massive arms at something invisible. "You never told me sewer jellies lived out in the forest."
In fact, everyone else except possibly Aerie was seeing nothing but mottled spots. Going from hours of utter darkness to that sudden cold light had been too much. Lidia stayed still for a few minutes while she was dazzled, tuning every other sense towards picking up another threat.
Nothing came. Regardless, they could no longer stay at this camp. As soon as their eyes had recovered, the Company gathered their packs and possessions as best as they could at short notice. But as soon as they set to work, Yoshimo collapsed, falling to his knees before slumping upon the ground.
Lidia took her pack, ran over to him and laid him on his back. She reached for Azuredge again, cautiously throwing a fraction of her will towards it. It glowed, much more gently this time, with a steady white light.
She removed Yoshimo's outer jacket. Immediately, she saw what the problem was.
The wolf hadn't just bitten him, but torn a long, ragged wound into his forearm, which was now spurting blood all over him.
She reached in her pack and found a half-dozen strips of clean white cloth, binding the wound as closely as she could. These proved barely enough as the blood seeped through the first layer of bandages, then the second.
She threw her shoulder under his, taking on some of his weight and rising to her feet. She called over to Valygar, who rushed to Yoshimo's side, shouldering the other half of his body.
"He needs healing, and we need to get him to safety first," Lidia called to the others. "Take what you can for now and leave the rest."
With the party clerics at their front and back, Lidia led the others to the cave's entrance, hoping that at least it would be more defensible than the woods outside, hoping that its owner would not object to their presence overly much.
But Anath was long gone. The only marks of her presence was the smell of wet fur and the small clay oil lamp still illuminating the entire inside of the cave. Any light outside seemed desperate, but in here, it seemed comforting.
They went inside to the end of the cave and laid Yoshimo out onto the skins on the floor. His skin was pale and clammy, but mercifully he was still alert, and the bleeding had finally slowed.
"Saved from the wolves only to be dragged to the den, eh?" he said, with a weak smile. "You have a strange idea of rescue, friend."
"The pack leader lives here," Lidia said. "Her name's Anath, and these were her wolves that were corrupted. I'll explain more later. But for now…"
She turned to Aerie and Anomen. "Let me go first."
"As you wish," Anomen said. "We shall have to work slowly, though."
She focused within herself, and felt the small bead of warmth in her chest. She held her hand above Yoshimo's bandaged arm. "Praeses, alia, fero," she muttered.
In a moment, the skin on her arm split open. Her head swam, and she thought she felt her heartbeat flutter.
She retreated and leaned against the stone wall, willing her sudden dizziness to pass. She shuffled off the right sleeve on her gambeson, keeping the other half on as much as possible to ward off the cold.
Sure enough, a jagged wound had opened on her right arm: thin, and no more than a couple inches long, but blood was spilling out all the same.
She reached into the dark well inside her, focusing on the light that danced on the wall, ignoring the eyes that stared back. The wound on her arm began to close, and her disorientation eased. She shut her eyes for a moment, centering herself, waiting for the essence in the well to stop swirling as its power ceased to work.
Meanwhile, Aerie expended one of her minor healing spells on Yoshimo's wound. Mercifully, he looked a lot better after both spells had been worked. In an hour or so, perhaps, he could be healed further. All that was left to do, in the meantime, was to cover him up with some blankets and wait.
The Company all settled around the light at the end of the tunnel, getting acquainted with their new surroundings, their eyes adjusting to the light.
"What's….what's that?" Aerie asked nervously, pointing to a fresh pool of blood on the floor and a small pile of human bones nearby.
Lidia got to her feet from where she'd leaned against the wall, her head finally clear. She approached where the others were sitting. "There was a man fleeing — possibly from that temple Anath mentioned," she said. "He was half-dead when we found him, and he only lived long enough to give us a warning."
"You are still some distance from explaining what happened to the body," Anomen said, folding his arms. "I take it those shade wolves devoured his remains."
Lidia said, "Anath is a wolf, when you get down to it. As for the dead man, well…" She sighed. "We had to choose between helping the rest of you and burying him."
Aerie stared at the spot on the ground again. "That poor man," she finally said. "I…I wonder how far he went before he came here."
Valygar looked up from where he had been staring at the lamp's flame, removing his pipe from his lips. "Not far," he said. "The temple is about a league east of this cave. I've passed by before, and seen this Anath too, at least from a distance. She mainly looks after herself and her kin and keeps her pack well clear of Imnesvale."
"Eh, Boo has a low opinion of those who feed on human limbs," Minsc said. "The wolf-lady caused his little furs to stand on end, and I am not surprised!"
In its sheath, Minsc's sword mumbled something about how it hadn't killed anything for far too long.
Yoshimo lifted himself up, slowly, painfully. He only made it as far as his elbows. He said, "If our guide wishes it, I can move."
"Not yet," Lidia said, gently trying to ease him back onto the floor. "But we can't stay here for long — as soon as possible, we'll need to get our supplies together and push ahead." Though it might make no meaningful difference in the end, she thought, it would be better to have walls around them, rather than fumbling forward in the forest.
Even this wolf's den, where the small lamp's flame jumped merrily and where the fur hides on the ground provided a bulwark against the cold, was far more comfortable than their previous campsite. At least some small part of her was reluctant to leave for the wild darkness outside.