“Look,” Alexios said as he walked toward Bagrationi. “We didn’t come here to fight. We didn’t even know you were going to be here.”

  “Good excuse,” Bagrationi said, as Isato, Kassia, and Basil herded the two guards toward the duke and the metropolitan. “First you take Trebizond from me, now you’ve come to take my family’s ancestral home!”

  “Why would we do that?” Alexios said. “None of us has thought about you in months! We were just passing through!”

  Bagrationi frowned. “Do you expect me to believe you? It’s a funny coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  By now Sophronios’s shouting had produced more shouting across the entire castle—in the courtyard, along the walls, and from all the windows. The sound of clanking armor was echoing along the corridors which the travelers had just walked through to get to the dining hall. One man’s tread sounded distinctly loud, and was shaking the whole building like an earthquake.

  Bagrat alert.

  Just as the armored giant was appearing at the hallway’s far end—flanked by the grizzled warriors he had been fighting in the courtyard—Alexios shut the door, locked it, barred it, and even braced himself against it. An instant later, the door burst off its hinges, and Alexios was thrown aside. In the doorway stood the giant Bagrat, roaring like a beast, his shield over his back, his massive sword sheathed at his side. He was so tall, he ducked to enter the dining hall.

  Bagrationi was already pointing at Alexios—lying under the door, gasping with the wind knocked out of him—and shouting. Bagrat lunged forward, tossed the door aside with one hand, and then lifted Alexios with the other and flung him across the room. Alexios spun through the air and crashed onto the table, knocking aside the priceless chinaware, the pretty glasses, and the elegant Georgian cuisine—soup dumplings, flatbread, and fruit leather. The plates and bowls and cups shattered on the floor; the wine spilled everywhere and the food smacked and smeared everything, including Alexios, who was now groaning on the table like a living main course.

  Bagrationi kept shouting the same phrase in Georgian. Bagrat drew his massive sword and stomped toward Alexios.

  “You want to kill him,” Isato growled, glaring at Bagrationi.

  Uh oh, Alexios thought.

  “How dare you do such things to my love?” Isato said. “He may be a commoner, but he is my commoner.”

  “What are you talking about?” Bagrationi said. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I am Princess Isato of Zagwe—and I am now your sworn enemy for the short remainder of your life.”

  Alexios—despite all his pain—laughed.

  Big mistake.

  Isato had been almost too angry to speak. Now she dropped the heavy swords she was carrying and got down on all fours. Her arms stretched forward and grew so muscular that the glimmering silk dress she wore was ripped to pieces. Thick fur burst from her flesh. Her hands and feet became paws with long sharp curving black claws, and her nose lengthened into an enormous snout. Her jaws were serrated with sharp fangs the size of knives, and her black eyes shone with rage.

  The giant Bagrat froze. Bagrationi barely had time to whimper with fright. Sophronios crossed himself, and managed to say: “Oh, Jesus!” And even the children—who had once witnessed Isato’s transformation in Miriai’s caravanserai—stepped back and screamed.

  “Get away from her,” Alexios groaned, waving to the kids. “Get away!”

  Isato bared her fangs and cackled—like a hyena—at Bagrationi. Then she knocked him aside with one swipe of her paw. He fell to the floor, his silk tunic already soaked in the blood rushing from his gashed chest. As Sophronios bent over Bagrationi and pressed his hands to the duke’s bleeding wounds, the were-hyena leaped away, and in one bound soared over Alexios—still lying on the table—and slammed into Bagrat the Giant, who had already turned and was fleeing for the doorway. Hyena and giant fell to the floor with a crash that threatened to break the floorboards, the hyena roaring like a lion, the giant crying for help. But it was over in a moment. Bagrat was a bloody pile of meat and steel, while the hyena—bathed in blood—was bounding after the other warriors, who were running back along the hallways and screaming and pounding on locked doors and begging people on the other side to let them in.

  This chaos hurtled along the corridors until it could barely be heard from the dining room.

  “Another pleasant dinner,” Alexios gasped.

  Basil and Kassia helped him up, asking if he was alright.

  Alexios gestured to Bagrationi. “Maybe you should be asking him.”

  “We can’t,” Kassia said. “He’s dead.”

  Indeed, Bagrationi had grown so pale that his flesh was almost blue-green, and Sophronios—clutching the duke in his arms—was covered in the man’s blood.

  “He was never much of a conversationalist anyway,” Alexios said.

  “How could you do this?” Sophronios said. “We invite you into our home, and you repay us with murder?”

  “These people,” Alexios said. “To the very end, they play the victim. Even with a gun to their heads, they’d refuse to admit that they’d ever been wrong about anything.”

  “Vengeance shall be mine.” Sophronios clutched the bloodied jeweled cross hanging around his neck. “God will repay.”

  “Shut the hell up,” Alexios said. He turned to Basil and Kassia. “We should probably get our stuff and get out of here.”

  “No silk pillows then,” Kassia said.

  “I don’t want to hear another word about silk pillows,” Alexios said.

  “Silk pillows,” Basil said. “Silk pillows, silk pillows, silk pillows—”

  “Alright, alright,” Alexios said. “We’ll bring some for the road.”

  The three travelers moved back through the castle, doing their best to retrace their steps. Evidence of Isato's rampage was everywhere. She had torn up everyone in her path. Walls were covered in blood, and shredded bodies were lying on the floor—mostly guards, but some servants among them—with every door smashed to splinters, even the ones which had been barricaded and locked. Knobs had been torn out of the doors; tables and chairs and beds that had been propped against the doors were lying nearby on the floor. Her huge red paw prints led in many different directions—she had sometimes doubled back to make sure that she had checked everywhere. Howls of rage, shrieks of fear, and that hyena cackle echoed along the hallways.

  She’s really pissed off.

  Alexios returned to the guest rooms with Basil and Kassia. They changed back into their old clothes—already washed, dried, and lain out for them on their beds by the servants—and grabbed their saddlebags, checking to make sure all their money was there. (Having no time to count, Alexios could only weigh the bags in his hands and guess that they felt about the same.) He splashed his face in the bathroom, hating the heavy iron reek of blood clinging to him. Finally, he grabbed Isato's clothes and snatched a couple of small silk pillows. The three of them were soon running along the stone corridors and stairwells in the direction of the courtyard.

  There they found Isato in her human form, lying naked in the dirt and hay, dripping with blood like someone had splashed her in buckets of red paint. Alexios, Kassia, and Basil all stopped for a moment, unsure of what to do. A muscular young guard armored from head to toe in sharp gleaming steel lay beside her, his throat torn out; there was a serving woman whose entrails were piled on the ground near her belly like blue snakes. A young nobleman also lay nearby. Alexios at first had trouble recognizing him because his face was just a maw of blood, but the poor man was wearing a silk tunic. His sword was belted by his side. Isato had killed him so quickly, there had been no time to draw it.

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  “Damn,” Basil said. “Isato fucked this place up.”

  Alexios glared at Basil, and was about to tell him to watch his language, but Isato had stirred at his voice.

  Alexios handed the silk pillows to Kassia—since she wanted them so badly—while the saddlebags and Isato’s clothes went to Basil. Then Alexios brought Isato to the well, afraid to even look at her, let alone touch her. Yet she was trembling, seemingly unable to speak. It took bucket after bucket to wash the blood from her skin and hair, though no amount of water could work the red grime out from beneath her fingernails. The water flowing from her was red with blood, the dirt underfoot red muck.

  Except for the four travelers, the courtyard was abandoned. A horn sounded in the distance. The ground thundered with faraway hooves.

  Great. More reinforcements.

  Alexios asked Isato if she could ride. She nodded. There was nothing to dry her with, so she donned her clothes while she was still wet. By the time Alexios was fitting her sandals over her feet, Basil and Kassia had loaded up the horses, which had only rested for a few hours. Soon they were riding out of the castle, past the fields—the peasants were either hiding, or had fled—and back along the path through the woods. In the distance, a column of armored horsemen was galloping toward them, a man in red silk at the front pointing his long scimitar at them and screaming, his face contorted with rage.

  Adarnase of Tao.

  Alexios told Rakhsh to gallop for all he was worth. It was easy enough for this steed to hurtle through the woods in a blur, but the other three mounts had trouble keeping up, so he soon slowed down.

  At the fork, the travelers turned right, and ascended the Kaukasos foothills as far as their horses would permit. None of their pursuers followed.

  The travelers kept silent, even after they set up another campsite in the woods away from the road, and found themselves sitting against the tree trunks eating hard bread and cheese for dinner, with nothing to wash it down but lukewarm water from their water skins. Isato, however, refused to eat.

  “I can still taste them,” she said.

  The other three travelers watched her.

  She turned to Alexios. “How many did I kill?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. A lot.”

  “How many is that? Tell me!”

  “Ten at least,” Alexios said. “Mostly men, mostly soldiers. But some were just women servants.”

  “Were any children among the dead?”

  “We didn’t see any,” Alexios said.

  She shook her head. “Thank God. But you see, now, the sickness I carry with me. The sickness God has seen fit to curse me with. The sickness which Deacon Dawit Tewodros Za-Ilmaknun could not cure, no matter how many zar and adbar spirits he summoned with his āsimati, no matter how many potions the witch doctor medicine man gave me, no matter how many shrines or churches we visited, no matter how hard we begged Jesus or Mary or a thousand different saints for aid.”

  “I had thought you had more control over yourself,” Alexios said. “This time was different from back in Miriai’s caravanserai.”

  “Each time is worse,” Isato said. “Each time is longer. Each time I kill more.”

  “How long has it been like this?”

  “Years. At first my family tried to help me. Then they tried to hide me. Then they threw me out—like I was some rabid dog. Which I am. I am a rabid dog, and a danger to all of you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Isato turned to him with tears in her eyes. “Will you leave me, the way they did?”

  “Never.” Alexios hugged her close. After a moment of hesitation, Basil and Kassia joined them.

  “I never wanted to hurt anyone,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “All I wanted was to live in the palace, get married, raise a family—do my job. But this—this disease is unlike anything anyone we know has dealt with. One day it will consume me. I will no longer be Isato. I will only be that thing.”

  “We’ll find someone who can help you.” Alexios was rubbing her back. “Someone in Sera will know what to do.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “There isn’t a lot they don’t know,” Alexios said. “Every problem has a solution. Every poison has an antidote. Every disease has a cure.”

  She snorted with laughter. “What an optimistic commoner you are.”

  “If I were a cynic, I’d be fighting for Rome,” Alexios said. “You think I’d be out here in the middle of nowhere with the three of you, if I didn’t believe in something greater?”

  “No,” Isato said.

  “Let’s get you some food and then get you to bed,” Alexios said. “You must be starving and exhausted.”

  She smiled. “I am.”

  Yet even as Alexios gave her bread and cheese and water, and even as she asked why Bagrationi had seemingly attacked them for no reason, and even as she went to sleep with the children—he had volunteered to keep watch all night—he recalled that last smile of hers. Her dark blue eyes had shone with love, while blood still stained her teeth.

  Who did it belong to? Alexios wondered. Was it the duke’s? Or was it from the serving woman in the courtyard?

  A starry night descended on the Kaukasos. Alexios kept himself awake by getting up and walking around every now and then as quietly as possible. Since the travelers had climbed into the mountains, Kutaisi could be seen below and behind them, just a few glowing candles wavering alongside the dark River Rioni that snaked all the way back to the Euxine, where Phasis shone like a star. Maybe Alexios even saw some white sails or hulls flitting on the black sea near that port. None of the people in any of these places had problems like his.

  To have a normal life… maybe that would be easier. It’s what most people choose. Why go against the grain?

  He recalled all the stories about the raiders terrorizing this place. Peasants had no defense against them—no divine farr to protect themselves. Nothing but sharpened wooden sticks. They lived at God’s mercy, which might have explained why they clung so passionately to their faith. Tiflis, up ahead, was under an emir’s command, the tide of Muslim conquest having surged all the way into the Kaukasos centuries ago. Alexios wondered how it would compare to Kutaisi and Phasis.

  Hopefully more like Phasis, and less like Kutaisi.

  As evening wore on, he struggled to stay awake. He wished he had a phone with an internet connection to keep him entertained—or to answer the question of how best to avoid falling asleep. There must have been some tricks to keeping yourself awake like this, after a long day of riding, watching in horror as your friend transformed into a giant hyena before killing ten people, then fleeing for your life.

  Normal everyday problems.

  It was too dark to see Kassia, Basil, and Isato sleeping on the silk pillows. His angels. But he heard the horses snoring. No one would ever find them here. He would risk no fires at night, not while it was still warm, with the breeze rushing through the leaves, the occasional owl hooting or screeching, a wolf or two howling in the distance to chill the blood in your veins.

  Maybe it would be alright to just rest his eyes a little. They were stinging, and getting so heavy, and closing by themselves. Their camp was far from the road, but close enough to hear any hooves thumping along the dirt. Anyone searching for them would need torches. None were visible. They would look like fireballs hunting in the night. Firefly swarms.

  But Isato killed so many people. She killed a duke. Adarnase must be looking for us. He must be furious. How could he give up so quickly?

  Fear of some hunter in the dark finding them was what kept Alexios awake, as did the wolves howling from the mountains and forests. Sark. That meant “wolf” in the local languages, didn’t it? Sakartvelo, that was Georgia’s Georgian name. Kartli, Kartvelian, Sakartvelo. Wolfland. The wolves howling…running through the night so fast with all four limbs, the legs in front pulling forward, the legs in back pushing off, claws gripping the dirt and roots and tearing them up, panting and grunting through those long snouts, an entire universe of smells filling their brains—lighting up the black night like constellations, a mouse shining here, a family of roosting pheasants glowing there, a cluster of men pouring off an awful stench so powerful it glittered from miles away, as long as the wind was blowing. Always you knew to keep away from them. They were the only dangerous ones. Hungry, time to eat, thrill of the hunt, killing until one day, you die too—

  “You have to let us take turns keeping watch, Alexios,” Basil said.

  Alexios opened his eyes and squinted in the sunlight. Everyone was standing over him. The horses were packed and ready. Even Rakhsh regarded him with disdain.

  “We could have been killed,” Kassia added.

  “Sorry,” Alexios groaned.

  They mounted their horses and got moving. Mingrelia and Imeretia lay behind them, and the Mtkvari River—a peasant told them the name—lay ahead. This brought them to a sturdy stone fortress built on a hill. It was surrounded by farmland and little houses for miles, with mountains on two sides, and the river cutting a green gorge between them. A few white pennants with red crosses fluttering over the fortress gate showed that this place was in Christian hands. The travelers kept moving, since they assumed that whoever controlled this castle was friendly—if not related—to the people they had killed yesterday. It was also impossible to hide themselves. Their pursuers would ask the peasants if they had seen four riders come through here—a Roman man, an Aethiopian woman, and two Roman children. The peasants would say yes, and point east.

  Alexios was curious about the town’s name, but afraid to stop and ask. It was also becoming more difficult to communicate anything beyond basic needs. No one, not even the priests in their little wooden churches, spoke a word of Roman.

  Two rivers merged at a town up ahead. Following the road alongside this single river, the Kura, the travelers heard the call to evening prayer echoing across the mountains. Before them lay the jade domes and white minarets of the mountain-river city of Tiflis, capital of the Kaukasos.