The ride had been an awfully long slog and Zoltan felt its effects on him, for three days he had not touched a bottle and for three days he felt himself growing angrier and angrier at his soberness and how he felt sluggish without the alcohol in his system, he even began developing a migraine, as he was not use to not having a headache from being perpetually under influence.

At the sight of the tavern inside, Zoltan's heart leapt. From the other side of the wooden gates he saw men hauling bottles of wine and ale into a service entrance, he felt a fire in his belly and a need to blow the jingly coins in his pouch on getting hammered. Hypnotically, he began clopping over to the gates, guided by some primal urge to get a drink. Then he stopped in his tracks as the men started shouting. Zoltan groaned in frustration and looked in the direction of the pointed finger. A man, with a bundled up child was hurdling down the hillside, with a large white dog on tow, he huffed, conveying no urgency. 

"Oi, Forest Lady!" he said, turing to Cataline and snapping his fingers at her rudely, "This seems like your cup of tea." he eyed the bow and arrows on her back, 'she can make that shot.' he thought to himself, snapping out of it and adjusting his spear, 'And if she can't, she'll just whisper to the damn thing.' he chuckled to himself at the jab no one heard.

He looked back to the running father and terrified son, he felt a pang inches heart. He remembered being a boy of that age, afraid and fatherless. Zoltan snapped out of it.

"I'll wait at the foot of the hill, maybe if it comes down fast enough I can impale the bugger." He kicked the horses side and it whinnied, reluctantly trotting around and over to where it was being guided. Zoltan kept his eyes on the scene though. He could live with himself if they died. He wasn't payed to kill wolves, he was payed to kill vampires, this was just a bit extra for his conscience. He stopped at the foot of the hill landlocked up at the distant, panicked face of the father; he was very far away and Zoltan wasn't sure he'd get to the bottom before the wolf got to him. But he watched on regardless, he couldn't really go up, his stupid horse wouldn't travel very fast going uphill, especially when bogged down by snow.