Free The Devil's Secret by Joshua Ingle Page B

has become more of a prestigious antique than a practical weapon, especially after God declared an end to the war on demonkind. Countless angels have owned it. I’m only the most recent in a very long line.”
    “How’d you come by it?”
    “Oh, a superior gave it to me as a gift for my role in ending the legal slave trade. I’ve kept it close at hand in every city I’ve traveled to ever since. And that’s really all there is to say about it. I’m sure an Angel of History could tell us more, but I’ve never taken the time to check with one.”
    “Well, you’re quite fortunate to own something like this.”
    “Indeed. Now tell me a story about yourself. You’re an Angel of War—you must have seen some crucial historical events. I’m very young compared to you.” Such a statement might have struck a sour chord among humans, but angels revered their elderly. To admit one’s own youth was an act of deference.
    “I’m no spring chicken, that’s for sure,” said Leregnon. “But truthfully, I’ve lived a rather humdrum life. I haven’t got many stories to tell.”
    “I don’t believe that for a moment.” Thilial smiled a coy grin, though in truth she was just looking for a distraction from her thoughts of Amy. I’d better find out when the funeral will be held. “Come now, Leregnon. A story for a story. I told you of my sword, now you tell me of something from your life’s history. Your favorite story from the past.”
    Leregnon glanced at the boxes, the drawers, and the shelves full of dusty old knickknacks around the room, as if looking for a way to escape Thilial’s request. Apparently he found none, and his eyebrows arched. Thilial couldn’t tell if he was angry, or deep in thought.
    After several seconds, he finally said, “Well, I don’t have any interesting stories from my own life, but I do have a favorite story that I like to tell to anyone who will listen to an old-timer’s tale. I told a form of it to Ezandris, as a matter of fact.”
    “Oh, now I have to hear it.” Though anything that rekindles the memory of my dead friend is necessarily bittersweet.
    “It’s a dark story, but it’s always captivated me.” He glanced again at the sword in Thilial’s lap. “I overheard it when I was stationed in the Carpathian Mountains, at the edge of Transylvania in the fifteenth century. I’d followed an old man out hunting with his grandsons, and around a fire one night, they heard the howling of wolves in the darkness. The boys weren’t scared of the wolves one bit though: in fact, they bragged to each other about how many they could kill. But the old man warned them that they should be very afraid of the wolves. And then he told them this folk tale, ancient even when I first heard it centuries ago.
    “Long ago, in the world’s darkest forest, there lived a wolf named Othundro. Othundro was among the greatest of all the wolves. He was one of the strongest, fastest, and most vicious. But he wanted to become greater still. He had a rival, a wolf named Uthifel, with whom he fought for dominion of the forest. Othundro knew that if he could just get an edge over Uthifel, he could kill him. And if Uthifel died, Uthifel’s pack would abscond to Othundro, and he’d be the undisputed power in the forest.
    “Othundro and his pack had eaten all of the other animals in the woods, so they began to prey on the livestock in the nearby town, pestering the villagers and frightening their children. One night, while his pack was feasting on a man’s cattle, Othundro left his pack and peered into the man’s house. By candlelight, Othundro saw how tall the man stood. How he walked around on only two feet, one in front of the other. Then with some effort, Othundro tried to do the same. He stood on his hind legs, put one foot in front of the other, and tried to stride as a man would. It was difficult at first, but Othundro practiced all night, even after his pack had returned to the woods without him. And