Page 62 of Blood of Ancients

I had a reason to keep my eyes out for any ne’er-do-wells.

No one suspectedmeof being the ne’er-do-well in question, or the instigator. Not when I was wearing the Hersir dragon-badge on my shoulder that showed I was in the middle of fieldwork.

Students treated badge-wearing students like they were Huscarls, not fellow peers. It made it easy to move around mingling students and passing acolytes, keeping to the shadows away from torchlight.

It also made it easy to slip into the open cave structure of the Lanfen den. I found it empty, because it was the middle of the day and everyone was in their respective classes.

I waited around for a while, choosing my spot behind some pillars of stalagmites beneath the alcove of a gravelly knoll.

The Lanfen den was nearly the same size as the Torfens’, with high ceilings, rough-hewn walls, and multiple rooms and openings that made it easy to roam around in wolf form. Only a few legacy families were rewarded with dwellings of this size.

The boiling of my blood reached a crescendo as I sat there picking my nails, biding my time, and listening.

After more than an hour of waiting, I heard footsteps. Voices. Cordial, laughing, shooting the shit. The voices were echoing off the walls, down the corridors outside the cave entrance.

Peeking around the corner of my pillar, I spied three young men dressed in casual wear, returning from their classes with backpacks strapped to their shoulders.

Not a weapon in sight.

The Lanfens had grown lazy and negligent when they walked around campus, never wearing blades or armor because they always walked in a pack and didn’t need to worry about threats.

Until now.

I recognized the centermost man, the tallest of the bunch, as Raylan Lanfen, the eldest son of patriarch Haldor Lanfen. Haldor had attended the academy around the same time as my father.

Raylan was a third-year, like me. Walking alongside his skinny ass were his twin brothers, whose names escaped me because they’d never meant shit to me.

The trio passed the pillar of my stalagmite without a care in the world. I gauged their footsteps, listening to the echoes of their annoying voices, and then drew a club from my belt. It was more of a baton—a slim, fortified cudgel I opted to bring with me today on my patrolling mission rather than a sword, to give a real Wild West lawman feel.

It also made no sound when I drew it, whereas a sword would have rasped with sliding steel.

I whipped around the side of the pillar, my feet crunching on gravel, and their three faces spun around—

Just as my hand lashed out and slammed the baton across Raylan’s stupid fucking face.

I felt bone shatter. Blood spatter. Teeth fly.

The crash was jarring. Even more when he flew off to the side, crumpling down like a heap of bricks on the ground.

His brothers screamed. One of them was already shifting—

So I moved to him and kicked him in the stomach.

The third one punched me in the spine.

I growled, wincing and bowing my back, and then spun around and swung the baton.

Missed.

The twin roared at me.

I swung again, distracting the Lanfen with the baton, forcing him to skitter back—

While my free hand Shaped apullingrune and flung gravel from the ground up into his face.

He cried out, hands in his eyes, temporarily blinded.

My baton cracked over his side, once, twice, three times, until I felt his ribs snap.

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