The morning, like the day before, dawns red. Soldiers, by now used to their grisly duty, search each house. They report their results to Lord Robert.

As the town assembles, they note two things: a body, covered with a sheet, and a bowl filled with a blue ash.

"The wolves have struck. I fear this is a bad portent."

Process of elimination quickly divines who the pile of ash had been.

The Firar is sitting next to the coffin in which the body of Lady Addrianna laid. He is in deep prayer, focusing on the new vision which his Lord had sent. Suddenly, his eyes open, and a searing pain enters his soul. He grabs his rosary in his fingers and kisses the crucifix at the end. He says a very short act of contrition before he sees the shadows cast on the walls by the flickering candles.

"You are here, as I suspected. Be done with it."

He feels the sharp claws and fangs on his body. Only the name of his Lord escaped with his dying breath.

Gregor comes to the square with the dawn, his roughly bound journal clutched under his arm. He nods slowly as he is told who has died and bows his head.

"God help me, I was wrong. They were both as good as they seemed, and now our hope is slim."

He grimaces, looking up towards the others. "But not wholly gone; not yet." He shifts his journal to his hand, starting to flip it open, but first he turns to Lord Robert.

"Two died last night? How is this? Do not the Great Wolf's rules allow them only to take one a night?"

"One of the remaining wolves must be an Alpha. They act as ringleaders for the wolves, and have been known to...re-interprit the Great Wolves rules. He favors them to win, of course, so he will occasionally turn a blind eye toward them breaking a rule. But would not allow such a thing to happen twice."

Roth walks the street with a distant look on his face. He knew the wolves were evil, but today is too much. First they broke their own rule and killed more than one person, and then they struck the Friar. Friar Anselem was one of the few reasons the villagers had any hope left. Roth walsk over to Lord robert and asks,
"Why was someone burned to blue ash? I thought the wolves mauled people? Did he have some sort of will asking him to be cremated?"

"This seems to be a...side effect of the power of the seer. It is said that they are so infused with the powers of the Lord that upon death they are consumed in flame and ascend directly to heaven. I do not know if this is the case, but it has thusfar held, in every account I've read, that one who burns thus was touched by the hand of whatever force grants the powers of the Seer. Wether that touch bestowed insight or madness, we do not know."

Lord Robert sighs. He has aged much in these past few days.

"So few of you remain. I hope you will choose more carefully this day than you have in days past. You must all vote."

*Saul lays awake for the entire night, waiting for death to come for him. It is, at this point, all he can do. He cannot hope to kill one, or probably even wound one - he is no fighter. He cannot run, for if he runs, the Great Wolf will destroy him and probably allow them to kill another one of the villagers. He cannot even poison himself and leave the beasts to feast on his envenomed corpse, because his books indicate the damned things would smell the poison on his body, and simply let him die of it. All he can do now is wait... No, perhaps, he may do one other thing. As the wolf arrives, the creature finds Saul standing, waiting for it, right hand clenched into a fist and face completely calm. As his body is torn apart, he uses every bit of will that he has to keep both of those as they are... until, when his soul leaves his body, his departing will at last allows his right hand to open, revealing a piece of paper, crumpled tightly to fit into his hand.*

Joseph bows his head at the disturbing news. "Two more... they took two more! My god, what are we to do?"

Ritz asks quietly, "Are we going to die?"

"We might," Gregor replies to Ritz, while thumbing open his journal. "We don't have many tools left to us but our minds, but we're not doomed yet; there's too few wolves for them to declare victory just yet. But if is not a wolf we choose today..."

He shakes his head slowly, then frowns, looking at the page he's opened the journal to. "We do still have one tool; we have our minds. We're going to need them."

He looks up, then steps forward a bit. "I have been keeping track of the votes cast by the village. So far, three men have voted for an innocent every day. At least one is simply misguided, but I'm willing to bet at least one is a wolf. Only the wolves, after all, know for sure who is innocent."

He scratches at his freshly-shaven face, then turns towards Alexander. "Alexander, one of those is you. I believe you are a wolf. What say you?"

Roth slowly hesitantly steps forward, but when he does speak he does so clearly,
"Gregor, could you explain what it is that makes you accuse Alexander? What makes him more guilty than the other two that voted? As you said we must use our minds, so could you please explain the logic of this to me?"

Moses comes to the group with Chairity. Surely he wouldn't leave the child....

He has no pipe to smoke with, having misplaced it yesterday , but he seems to have more life in him than usual. He asks a soldier about the events of the night and furrows his brows at what he is told.

Approaching the group, he takes out his earhorn and listens.

Alexander regards the scribe for a moment before quietly replying

"Three innocents? If my memory serves, Gregor, I voted for you on the second day... and yet here you stand before me. More than can be said for Adrianna and the Traveler... both of whom you voted for."

"Convenient how the Seer was killed last night, before he might be tempted to prove once and for all that I am not a wolf, as he has revealed Moses and Charity to be clean." Gregor shrugs, and sighs. "Of course, seeing as I was the one that pointed out he was the Seer, I probably damned him, and damned us all at the same time."

The scribe then nods his head. "It is true, I killed the traveller. When left to choose to die myself or take his life, I could not walk Adrianna's path. I chose life. But while I survived your vote the second day, the Traveller was killed by your hand as well. As for yesterday..." He frowns, tapping his fingers angrily against the book. "Adrianna was doomed from the moment the sun rose. I did not expect both the Friar and Saul both to die last night."

Raising the journal slightly to draw attention to it, Gregor continues. "There are facts we can work on. We know three to be innocents: our fallen Seer saw no evil in Moses or young Charity, and our false Seer Eliana has revealed her sight to be flawed, but played too risky a gamble to be a wolf herself." He slowly looks at each villager. "Each of you knows yourself whether you are innocent or not, and not one in the village has been spared of voting for one we now know to be innocent, posthumously or no. All save young Charity have voted for two innocents at least. It is based upon my knowing myself innocent - for I know I am not a wolf - and the revelations of the Seer and of death, that I make my tallies."

He lowers the book, then steps back. "Unless another Seer steps foward, we have three assured innocents among us. These are the facts. Alexander has answered my challenge with one of his own, and neither of us can prove our case. So, though we have been wrong so far, we cannot always be so. I leave it to you to make the choice. I cast no vote."

Vote: Abstain

Alexander shakes his head "Not a challenge, Gregor... I meant only to say that we are voting for people to be killed with imperfect knowledge... it's almost a game of pure chance.

As a matter of fact, we both damnably voted for the Traveler and for Adrianna. I suspected you in the past, and now you suspect me."

Alexander taps his forehead "We think in similar ways... which is why my opinion of you has changed somewhat over the past couple days. Logic has proven fallable in the past so I only have my gut instinct to go on, but I do not think you are a wolf.

...and this suspicion against me is wasted energy. I am not a wolf" Alexander says vehemently "I am in the same position as the rest of you, making guesses in the dark based on games and shadows. I think the real wolves have done everything up until this point to remain unnoticed, participating only enough to avoid standing out."

Alexander rubs the bridge of his nose tiredly "You said there were two others who voted only for innocents. I don't think this makes them guilty, but just out of curiosity, who are they?"