“I could have the Emerald Swan herself come over here and fill your ears with how many Nobles and Commanders this little monkey’s scratchings in the dirt have helped heal, and how swiftly. Why, I imagine even Ice Mountain Himself has a fair idea of how many thousands and tens of thousands of His vassals the little monkey has Healed and saved. Old Emberbark, that curmudgeon Iron Shell, Boulder Fist, Goring Horn, Six Steel Scales, Snow Visions, Iron Laugh, even that sneaky Wind Whisperer have been here before you.

“The little monkey helped them all. You think she can’t help a mere Wolf?” Winkle sniffed haughtily.

Normally that would be a great excuse to die, but he was a Silver Fox with Seven Tails, and tweaking the nose of a Noble Wolf wasn’t beyond him, especially given his Bloodline. If the Wolf did anything, he wouldn’t die nicely.

“The Wolves need no help from a monkey,” the Wolf repeated sullenly. “Return me my skull, and this Wolf will go.”

Proud and stubborn and just didn’t care.

“This isn’t about the Wolves. This is about the Beast Realm, Elder,” I interjected, opting for the outrank. I lifted up the Skull. “You have a Weapon here, ready to be used, and you’re digging a hole for it and burying it under a rock. Word of this has already spread... it is why the Golden Ghost knew to steal it from you.”

Reynard the Golden Ghost! My Name is already growing! I could feel him preening...

“If I wanted to keep this from you, your Emperor would allow me. If I want to return it to you after it is improved, He will approve, for He knows what the Skulls will do. I... want to know why you do not want to make yourself into a better killer of the Shadows.”

Winkle slowly got to his feet.

A couple seconds later, the Crystalbone Bear, the Canyon Splitter Tortoise, the Forestheart Stag, and the other Nobles all stopped pretending to be idly interested, and they all rose to their feet, staring at the pack of Wolves.

“Ho, little monkey called Fae,” Winkle murmured for everyone to hear. “What are you seeing here?”

“Four of his Warriors have Taint, and one of his Commanders. I don’t recall any of the Green Thorn Pack ever coming in for Cleansing, despite the fact they actually bite and rip their opponents apart, and that inevitably leads to contamination.”

The Crystalbone Bear took one step forward, and the earth shook. Good thing I was levitating. The Warrior and Commander Wolves, despite the presence of their Baron, fell prone as a whole bunch of Auras descended upon them.

“One wonders at the purity of the rest of his Pack, from those not tough enough to resist the Taint at all.”

I lifted up the Crystal Skull of an Undead Baron. The body had been burned by vivic flame to make the Skull, but that didn’t mean the Wolves had been exposed to it. However, it would immediately flare up in the presence of Dark Magic, which would probably be bad.

“Elder Winkle, a stroll through the Pack, if you will?”

Keeping a casual eye on the very tense Green Thorn Baron, Winkle flowed gracefully past him, as fluid as water and as dazzling as the moon above. Out of his Hammerspace Pocket, his own Ruler’s Baneskull, accented properly in gold, popped out and wove itself into his short beard.

Instantly his fangs, Tails, and claws all lit up with dark flames the color of black ichor, eerily coagulant and unnatural.

“Hie!” He sent one Warrior Wolf rolling off to the side helplessly. “Couldn’t control his appetite, this one. Oh, this one must like to chew. This one must like to nibble...”

He easily located the five Tainted wolves and separated them from the others. “To the Healing Circle. Go. Now,” he ordered them, and they whimpered as they crawled away on their bellies towards the Circle a mile or so away, currently finishing up with the treatment on a Garnet-Bellied Salamander’s spiritual injuries.

I turned my attention back to the Green Thorn Baron. “If we inform Ice Mountain Emperor of this, the Tigers will come down and purge your whole pack without the slightest hesitation.” His glowing green eyes fixed on me. “The Taint of those five is small, and you might even have missed them, or thought we wouldn’t sense them without the nose of a Wolf, Elder.” I lifted the Baneskull. “How bad is it among your Pack, Elder?” I looked over the wolves there. “This cannot be even a fifth of your Commanders, and a hundredth of your Warriors.”

He hesitated for a long moment, and, on an unspoken signal, all the Rulers there took steps forward.

His thorned head bowed. Dominance or submission, Wolves knew it well.

“The Dark gathered in them after the vivus passed,” he growled slowly. “Our Pack fought so hard and well, none had the kills that the Pack of Green Thorn did-!” he started to say, raising his head, and Crystal Mont just grumbled, and his head dropped again. “A great number have the Dark Power in them...”

“And they are starting to mutate, to rebel, and to run away. And since you did not kill them straight off, if they escape, the Tigers will come down off the mountain and kill you all.” Ice Mountain wasn’t going to have any dog mucking up the purity of His lands, after all.

I sighed for him. “Elder, you have only two choices here. Purge your descendants and start anew, or die. You cannot run. If you must blame something, blame the Shadow for bringing the Dark and bringing this upon you.

“You are noble Wolves, and you have done nothing wrong. But there were even Nobles who fell to the Darkness. To think that your descendants would be immune is not pride, it was foolishness!

“Either do what must be done, or die.” I lifted the Crystal Skull in my hands before his thorned muzzle. “This will help you do what must be done.”

Green Thorn turned his head to fix one eye upon Elder Winkle standing there, his natural weapons wrapped in Death to Shadows, and just stared for a moment at the Silver Fox, the seven Tails looking like fluttering whips ready to deliver death to the Tainted, truly a fearsome sight to those Tainted.

He turned back, and if something of the light and pride had gone out of the Wolf, it was replaced by a dangerous resolve. “Finish with the Skull, and this Wolf will do what a Wolf must do.”

I nodded once. “With the Skull, you will be able to sense those who can be saved by the Healing Circle, and those who cannot. Those you do not kill you must drive back here, and they must be purged of the Taint. If they have fallen to its power and do not wish it so, then they too must die.”

“You will burn them clean?” he asked after a moment, staring at me.

I inclined my head. “I will.”

With a natural regality of a Noble, he settled down on all fours before me. “This Wolf will wait.”

I nodded and got to work, but I sent a thought at Elder Winkle. After all, we would have to make sure that the Wolves did not escape, and there was likely to be fighting. Actually, with the sudden absence of their Baron, I expected the internal contamination was going to explode, especially since he’d brought the purest with him.

Warrior and Servant-rank Wolves were no smarter than children, and the extra power of the Taint could only be a good thing in the competitive, sometimes lethally so, hierarchy of the Beasts, endlessly chasing strength and power and competing with others.

Some extra Silver Foxes and Avians along to contain any escapees would be a good thing to have.

Elder Winkle said nothing, but his thoughts went speeding out into the fading night.

--------

It only took a couple hours to lay down the proper Patterns, and the Baneskull of a Skeleton Baron lit itself up in the more sepulchral flames of the Undead, versus the oilier ones of the Shades.

I wedged the Baneskull up onto the Wolf Baron’s skull, a sticky concoction all that was needed to hold it in place, secreted from his barklike hide and freezing it in something akin to amber, only far harder and stronger.

With that, he turned to leave and return home. The Wolves he left behind would be purged in the Circle starting in the morning, the other Nobles more than enough to make sure of that.

A dozen Commander-Class Silver Foxes were coming with him, pacing easily behind the Green Thorn Pack. The Wolves’ use of Plant Magic didn’t grant them any extra speed, while the Silver Foxes could flow between dimensions as smoothly as they wished, flitting around and ahead as they deemed fit on the way to Green Thorn’s territory.

I was riding a Disk near Reynard, who was half-visible as he raced around in delight, proud to have set off such an exciting turn of events.

“Aye, that was a good trick, Reynard, unintended as it might be. But it is very sad, too.”

“Sad?” he asked, startled. “The Taint is a bad thing, yes?”

“Yes, Reynard. But think of the Wolves. You are not a fool. You know how long, how hard, and how nobly they fought against the invaders. You know how many of the Green Thorn Pack died in that fighting, yes?” I scratched his semi-visible head as I rode my Disk alongside him. He would have allowed me to ride him, and I had, but riding a canine without a saddle was not fun at best, as they bounce a lot more than horses do.

“Even Wolf cubs know how to play and romp. But a great deal of them are now going to die, because of this infection, because of the things they dared to fight. The Foxes rarely dared to sink fangs into the Shades and Undead precisely because of what is going on here.

“They are going to die savagely, because they must, but they were our allies and maybe even friends, and did not deserve this.”

Reynard was a bit less happy after I told him that. “The Dark Realm... it is truly a bad thing, isn’t it?” he asked me after a moment as we zipped along. He had no problems keeping up with the remaining Warrior Wolves, or even the Commanders, once I put a Run spell on him that would last until the dawn.

“Not from its own perspective, of course. It thinks what it does is only right and proper, bringing it a harvest of death, hate, grief, sadness, anger, rage, and pain, which helps it grow stronger.

“From everyone else’s perspective... yeah, it’s pretty damn horrible.”

He thought about that. “It is why you are here, yes? My sire said you were brought here to fight the Dark.”

I nodded to him calmly. “Yes. This... this is often the worst part of fighting things like this. This is cleaning up the mess they leave behind, and they leave behind, by every definition of the term, some truly unholy messes...

“What the Hells is that?”

I looked up at the sky as a door opened there, and a loud, long horn call, of the sort raised to signal a hunt, or a call to battle, sounded out loudly enough to make my skin tremble. A lot of running Canines turned their heads in astonishment as a bunch of streaks of lights came down, and promptly descended on all of the running Wolves.

“It’s a Summoning Spell! A mortal spellcaster is Marking and Summoning the Wolves!” exclaimed one of the Silver Foxes, who had all Blinked and put hundreds of yards between them and the Wolves.

The Green Thorn Baron was the only one unmarked, and could only howl in outrage as a great square in the air was drawn in front of us, and the Wolves were drawn irresistibly that way.

With a yelp of surprise of my own, so was I!