hand, I was being auctioned for a very low price.” At this, Wolf let out a bleak smile. “Fortunate, that. I’m not sure how things would have turned out otherwise. But Siobhan, Grae and Beirly saw me by chance at the auction and recognized my heritage. Out of pity, Siobhan bought me and took me back to the guild. I didn’t know what to make of her, at first. Here was this beautiful woman, barely younger than I, who treated me with unreserved kindness and sympathy. My size alone scared her, I could see it sometimes in her eyes as she spoke to me, but never once did she shy away. She gave me the option of staying and working off the money she’d spent on me, or taking me home to Reske and letting the village reimburse her instead. I chose to stay.”
Hammon blinked. “Why not go back?”
“Oh, I did,” Wolf assured him, smile becoming more genuine. “Siobhan wouldn’t hear of it otherwise. We stayed for a good month, too, visiting. But I owed the woman a debt I might not ever be able to repay. It wasn’t just the money she spent on me—she rescued me from a hellish life without thinking twice about it. This, on top of being a brand new guildmaster! I stayed to protect her, to return whatever I could. Beirly made up the hand for me as soon as my arm fully healed, and it helped me regain the strength I’d lost.” Wolf held it up and looked it over thoughtfully. “Actually, for combat, it’s even better than the flesh and blood hand. After the first year of being in the guild, I came to realize that I wouldn’t leave it by choice. I’d forged a strong bond with them, and I wasn’t suited for a quiet village life anymore, not after experiencing life in a good guild. I was born in Reske, and it will always be a part of me, but my home is Deepwoods.” With the same formality he had used at the beginning, Wolf ended with, “That is the story of Erik Wolfinsky.”
Hammon didn’t quite seem to know how to respond to this. Finally, he managed, “I thank you for the telling.”
“Ooh, good response!” Wolf clapped him on the shoulder—with his left hand, fortunately—and grinned. “You’re close to what should be said.”
The scholar canted his head at this. “So there really is a proper thing to say? What is it, exactly?”
“It was a fine telling, and I thank you for it,” Wolf responded as if quoting something.
“I shall make note of that,” Hammon promised. “But formality aside, yours is an incredible tale, Wolf.”
Those clear blue eyes softened. “Siobhan made it incredible. If she had not taken a chance on me, my story would be a tragedy.”
Beirly came in close enough to knock into his shoulder with a gentle thump of the fist. “What are you on about, man? Without you, our stories would be tragedies.” To Hammon, he explained, “Wolf’s saved our skins more times than I care to recall. All those years as a mercenary sure have paid off, to my mind. I’ve never seen a man that can get the drop on him, although Tran’s tried for it a time or two.”
Tran grumbled and growled to himself. Everyone ignored him.
A grin split Wolf’s face from ear to ear, but he tactfully didn’t take advantage of the moment and rib Tran any. (Siobhan would have boxed his ears if he had.) To Beirly, he said, “Like you haven’t done the same for me? For that matter, Siobhan’s saved my skin a time or two, as I recall.”
Siobhan snorted, well knowing what he referred to. “The first time, you had that terrible ear infection that wouldn’t let you stand upright without swaying. And you still fought two men off in that condition!”
“Still saved me,” he retorted, an outrageous twinkle in his eyes.
“And the second time,” she directed this to Hammon, as he was following all of it closely, “his foot got tangled up in a thick rope that was dragging him quickly to the bottom of a lake. I dove in and cut him free. But the reason he was being dragged down to begin with was because he jerked me out of the way before I could get tangled up in it. So I don’t think that properly counts.”
“It counts,” Wolf defended mildly.
Siobhan rolled her eyes. “As you can see, the only chance we ever get to return