Fell looked strangely at his father. Huttser had always inspired such courage in him, but now he knew they were running away.
‘Come, then, Huttser,’ said Palla, suddenly trying to cheer them up. ‘In the meantime we must look for some food.’
The children lay there, the snow heaping on their backs, as the three adults began to sniff around the edges of the copse looking for some small animal to feed on. The wolves found nothing in the blizzard and it was growing dark when Bran finally gave up. His paws were so cold that the pads on his feet were beginning to crack. All day he had looked out into the storm and seen nothing but the shape of Wolfbane snarling on the wind. As he slunk back to the copse he overheard the children talking.
‘It’s too terrible,’ Larka was saying bitterly.
‘Larka,’ whispered Kar beside her, ‘perhaps you could use the Sight. To tell us to what’s going to happen. This second power...’
‘Don’t be silly, Kar,’ growled Larka. ‘What do I really know of the Sight?’
Even as she said it Larka wished bitterly that Tsinga had been able to tell her more of her gift.
‘But we’re all marked,’ she whispered, ‘like Bran said.’
‘Bran,’ snorted Fell, ‘that coward. You mustn’t listen to him, Larka. What use is he to our pack? If it wasn’t for him Kipcha would still be alive.’
Bran slunk down beneath a tree and laid his head miserably in the snow. Palla and Huttser had just returned and they settled cheerlessly too, as the night came in. Bran whined to himself as he drifted into dreams, wondering if Larka did indeed possess the power to look ahead, and thinking bitterly of what Fell had said.
Bran’s sleep was troubled and he shuddered as he woke. His coat was drenched in sweat and it steamed in the brittle morning. Though it was bitterly cold it had stopped snowing and now the silence of the land lay all about the resting pack like a pall. Bran shivered as he peered about him, expecting at any moment some spectral figure to hurl itself at his throat. But as he waited and whimpered pitifully, nothing came at the Sikla. Instead he kept remembering Tsinga’s parting words to him, ‘Is there nothing the Sikla would ask?’. They echoed through his thoughts like her laughter.
Suddenly Bran got up.
‘I must know,’ the wolf muttered to himself as he padded off through the white. ‘I must know what will happen.’
It started to snow again, covering the Sikla’s tracks as he went. The thought of meeting Tsinga on his own was almost more terrifying to Bran than Wolfbane or a Man Varg, as he crept back into the fortune-teller’s valley.
The valley bottom was perfectly still and the gnarled bones had been covered by the snow. But as Bran crept towards Tsinga’s rock, he stopped. The snow was stained with blood, a little red stream snaking out from the edge of the stone. The fortune-teller was lying on her side and the snow around her body was covered in paw prints. She was dead. Her throat had been torn out and her sightless eyes stared up at him.
Suddenly Bran looked up. A bird was flapping high above. It circled for a moment and Bran wondered if it was the raven, and if it had come to feed on Tsinga. But as he watched it he saw that it was much larger than a raven. As he looked it turned suddenly and swooped towards the trees.
Bran looked at Tsinga for a final time and then slunk silently away. But as soon as he reached the trees again he heard a sound and he crept fearfully behind a large oak. His muzzle and his nervous eyes peered around the side of the tree towards the voices. There were six wolves lying in a circle. They were all large and the muzzle of the wolf who was speaking was stained red with blood.
‘That’s one job out of the way,’ he was saying. ‘She won’t say any more about the verse at least. Now we must find the family.’
Bran’s ears came forward.
‘We should have come sooner though. They left the Stone Den suns back. Morgra will be furious, but I had to investigate those rumours about the citadel.’
‘And when we find them we kill them too?’ asked the wolf next to them.
Bran’s muzzle curled into a silent snarl.
‘Only the adults,’ growled the wolf slyly. ‘The children we take to Morgra. One of them is this white wolf.’
One of the Night Hunters looked at him guiltily. Until Morgra’s arrival the Balkar had protected the rights of the free wolves in Transylvania and adhered strictly to Tratto’s Blessing, respecting other pack boundaries. Yet even before the murder of the old wolf some amongst them had grown restless and discontented. Many despised the free wolves and wanted their hunting territories, while others were so used to fighting they were hopelessly lost in times of peace.
But Morgra had come amongst them, spreading tales of Wolfbane and the legend. Of the power that the Sight could bring them over all the Lera. She had laughed at their motto– First Among the Putnar. ‘No,’ she had said, ‘that prize belongs to the humans alone.’ Then many among the Balkar had begun to dream in the night of the altar and the coming of the Vision.
‘But the legend,’ a wolf growled, ‘what have the Night Hunters to do with such things? In Tratto’s day we fought real wolves, not dreams. But then a true Dragga led the fighting wolves, not an old Drappa.’
‘Silence,’ growled the lead wolf, ‘if Morgra heard you talking like that you would pay with your life. You know what she has foreseen.’
‘Wolfbane,’ snorted the wolf who had just spoken, ‘she is using the threat to frighten and control us. Nothing more. Old Drappa’s tales that sap the strength of the Dragga. Do you think I am foolish enough to believe that a story could come true? Wolfbane cannot return, because the Evil One does not exist.’
‘You are the fool,’ growled the lead wolf furiously.
‘Morgra has power, and she will summon the Shape Changer to aid us. When he comes you’d better know whose side you are on then.’
Bran slunk back as the Night Hunters rose and began to mount the slope. The Sikla’s mind was trembling with what he had just heard, but he was so frightened he could hardly move. As Bran watched them go he realized that they were heading straight towards the pack. Bran began to shake uncontrollably. But it wasn’t the words of Morgra’s curse that came back to Bran now, it was words from the verse.
‘Beware the Betrayer, whose meaning is strife.’
‘Fenris,’ stammered Bran, ‘why am I such a coward? I’m worthless, just like Fell said.’
As Bran thought of the children and his duty to the pack his tail came down and he shivered bitterly.
‘We’re lost,’ he whimpered, ‘all lost.’
But as he stood there something stirred in him that made him angry and suddenly tempted him to rationalize his fear and forgive himself for his cowardice. Bran shook his tail, but his mind could not stop other words coming to him, words echoing out of the fury of a storm, ‘Love each other. Love each other or perish.’ Half from terror and half from a desire to draw the Balkar away from his friends, the wolf lifted his muzzle and howled.
‘Damn him,’ growled Huttser as they prowled around in the snow looking for Bran’s tracks. ‘Where’s he slunk off to? When I find him, Palla. ..’
Huttser and Palla had been searching all morning, while the youngsters had stayed behind at the copse and now they had come to the edge of the wood sloping down into Tsinga’s valley. But suddenly they heard a painful whine. They gasped as they saw Bran struggling out of the trees. There was blood all over the wolf’s coat and his ears had been torn off. Bran’s side was so badly bitten that there was hardly any fur left.
‘Bran,’ cried Palla, as the Sikla slumped to the ground in front of them.
‘No time, Palla,’ panted Bran. ‘You must get away, all of you. The Night Hunters. They tried to make me tell where you were but I wouldn’t, Palla, I wouldn’t betray you. I sent them west instead.’
‘Tell us what happened, Bran,’ growled Huttser softly.
As Bran relayed his story in harsh, broken breaths the Dragga and the Drappa bowed their heads.
/> ‘Morgra,’ snarled Huttser.
‘So it got me too in the end,’ whispered Bran bitterly, the life beginning to ebb from his sad eyes. ‘Morgra’s curse.’
‘Hush, Bran,’ said Palla tenderly, but the same fear was flooding the Drappa’s mind.
‘Huttser,’ whispered Bran suddenly, his voice so weak and strained they could hardly hear him at all, ‘tell me, Huttser. What will I see when I... will Wolfbane be there? In the darkness, waiting for me.’
‘No, my friend.’ Huttser shivered. ‘Now you go to run with Fenris through the clouds for ever. Tor will be waiting too.’
Bran’s torn body relaxed a little.
‘And, Bran,’ said Huttser guiltily, stroking him with his paw, ‘I’m sorry. For what I said at the rapids. Forgive me, my friend.’
Bran began to shudder violently, and now it was he who could hardly hear the Dragga. Bloody spittle dribbled from his mouth and curdled with the virgin snow. The two wolves stood over the Sikla and in that moment their hatred for Morgra was as raw as fresh meat.
‘Palla,’ whispered Bran suddenly, ‘will you tell the children...’
‘What, Bran?’ said Palla, straining to hear his fading voice.
‘That I’m not a coward.’
‘Yes,’ answered Palla sadly. ‘We shall tell them.’
‘And, Palla. Promise me. That you’ll all escape.’
‘Yes, Bran, we will...’
‘Palla,’ gasped Bran suddenly, ‘tell Larka. Tell her a secret from me.’
‘What, Bran?’
Bran could hardly speak now.
‘Tell her that it’s not so terrible to...’
Palla was straining forward to hear the dying Sikla and as Bran whispered the secret in her ear, Palla’s eyes opened with surprise. But Bran shuddered for a final time and the death rattle hissed out of his broken body. The Sikla was dead too.
‘She is winning, Huttser,’ growled Palla bitterly, throwing back her muzzle. ‘Morgra’s words will hunt us all down. If the Balkar don’t get us first.’
‘Stop it, Palla. We are truly a family now and nothing will break us apart. Morgra will not win, and we will escape. The eastern boundary is only two suns away. We will do as Brassa said. We will survive.’
Palla lifted her muzzle and howled. As he watched her and the wind carried her cry down the valley, Huttser shivered and grew angry with his mate, for he knew that the elements were carrying her call straight towards the Night Hunters.
‘We’ve got to get under cover,’ snarled Huttser through the snow. The little pack had come to a particularly deep drift and, though the wide pads on their paws helped to hold them up, the snow was so fresh that the freezing wolves were sinking deeper and deeper as they went. The blizzard had started again and now it was getting even stronger. After what Tsinga had said of Wolfbane, they all remembered Brassa’s words, long ago. About a terrible winter that would shroud the earth, Wolfbane’s winter.
Their progress was desperately slow and the children’s coats, although thickening for winter, were soaked to the skin. The air was bitterly cold too and the wolves shivered terribly. But there was more than cold in their trembling progress, there was terror. The children had been horrified by Bran’s death. That morning they had heard wolves nearby, and Palla spotted them later that sun, in the far distance, moving after them like shadows through the blizzard.
‘It’ll be worse the higher we get,’ growled Palla, trying to spy the peaks above them through the snow, and shivering as the wind bristled along her back and made her ears tremble.
‘Kar,’ whispered Larka behind her in the angry wind, ‘do you think it’s Morgra trying to stop us escaping?’
Kar trembled at her side, but he had no answer for his friend.
‘Larka,’ said Fell suddenly, ‘if Morgra can affect the elements, then perhaps you can too. Why don’t you try to stop the storm?’
Larka looked angrily at her brother, but as they pressed on through the storm she kept closing her eyes and trying to concentrate. If anything the storm seemed to intensify.
‘Keep an eye out for a cave, all of you,’ called Huttser, ‘and stick together.’
They didn’t find a cave, but as the wolves rose higher and the storm grew worse, Kar suddenly saw a shape looming at them through the snow. The pack crept forward and froze in their tracks.
The wind had dropped suddenly and with it the blizzard had almost died. There, on the flat ground before them, stood a kind of castle. It was much smaller than the Stone Den had seemed on the mountaintop and all about it there were piles of rubble. It was fronted by a high arch and a wooden door, splintered and cracked, that was creaking mournfully on its hinges. The wolves knew by instinct as much as sight that it was deserted.
But the castle was made sinister by the shapes they saw ahead of them. The top of the arch was crowned with animals that glared down at them from the snowy rock. There were birds seized in the very moment of taking flight, and snakes twisting and curling round the rock. There were two snarling heads at each side of the arch, which they instantly recognized as wolves, and weird, grimacing faces that looked like humans. At either side of the archway stood two great stone dragons and in the middle of this frozen menagerie was a pair of wide black wings over the very centre of the entrance, that looked like a cross between a bird and a squirrel. It was a bat.
‘It’s like my dream,’ whispered Larka in amazement, ‘like the dream I had by the river. Do you think the Grasht live here too?’
‘What do we do, Huttser?’ growled Palla.
‘Investigate,’ said Huttser immediately. ‘If we don’t get out of this cold, Man can have us anyway.’
The air seemed to freeze solid around them as Huttser led them on. The wolf pack passed under the entrance and the children almost ducked, half expecting those stone Lera to launch themselves at them. But they relaxed as they entered the courtyard. It was deserted. There was nothing inside but piles of stones covered in snow and a few bits of rotting wood. Above all, the air had that lingering stillness of desertion about it, a tepid, empty quality, as though time itself had abandoned it. But the wolves felt the welcome rise in temperature immediately and to one corner of the courtyard they saw a wooden lean-to that offered perfect shelter.
‘Come on,’ growled Huttser.
In the sky, the snow was getting thicker again. But as they crept under the lean-to Huttser began to growl. On the ground, where the snow was sprinkled thinly, there were wolf skats.
‘Night Hunters?’ growled Palla.
Huttser gave no answer but when the wolves began to investigate they realized that the skats were fairly old. There had been two wolves here, a male and a female. But Palla suddenly noticed that Larka was standing at the edge of the lean-to, trembling and sniffing the ground.
‘What is it, Larka?’
At first Larka didn’t answer but suddenly she recognized the scent from the edges of the Gypsy camp.
‘Man,’ she answered gloomily, ‘Man has been here too. Perhaps it’s...’
They settled and, though they were all cold and hungry, they were greatly relieved to be out of the blizzard. They all wondered if Tsarr and Skart and the human child had really been this way too and suddenly Larka thought of what Tsinga had said.
‘Perhaps the child will find you.’
But Larka had no desire either to find or be found by a human child, to have anything to do with Man or the legend. The howling wind came to them through the courtyard like voices from the dead.
‘Palla,’ whispered Kar as they lay there, overawed by the weather and the strange little castle. ‘Can things really come back from the dead – like these Searchers?’
‘I don’t know, Kar,’ growled Palla, ‘I don’t believe it.’
But as Palla watched them all and saw their mounting terror at this talk of the dead she too felt an anger stirring in her.
‘Come, children,’ she growled suddenly. ‘I know a happy story about things coming back
from the dead. A story about a bird, a yellow oriel.’
The children looked up hopefully.
‘It lived in a land on the other side of the world and, because of its beautiful feathers and the magic that it carried in its wings, it was loved by all who beheld it. The bird had the power to cure the sick with its song and to touch hearts wherever it flew. But there was a wolf who so loved this bird that he determined to capture it and keep it all for himself. One sun when the oriel was sleeping happily in a bush the wolf managed to seize it in his jaws, though he held it carefully like a cub, and carried it off to a cave near a human den. The wolf lay down outside the cave, guarding the oriel day and night and he would growl at it and order it to sing to him, for in truth the wolf’s own heart was desperately sick.
‘But the oriel loved nothing more in the world than its own freedom, and the power and beauty of its song was held not in the bird alone but in the joy of the free air and the glory of the changing skies. The oriel would try to sing to the wolf, for it cared for all things, but in the cave its song began to grow fainter and fainter. It grew sick itself, and at last the oriel died.
‘When the wolf saw the bird lying dead in the cave, stiff and lifeless and not even worth a meal he lifted his head angrily.
‘‘‘It’s just as I thought,’’ he cried bitterly. ‘‘The oriel was a liar. There is no magic in the world.’’’
Palla was looking carefully at the cubs now.
‘So the wolf picked up the oriel and carried it down to the human den where he saw the grey embers of their fire. He threw the bird scornfully into the ashes and turned away. But as the bird lay there, the grey embers stirred about it and started to eat up its feathers and its body. The fire burst into life, delighted at its unexpected breakfast, and the flames rose higher and higher. The fire seemed to have destroyed the oriel, but suddenly from the flames rose a shape, even larger and more magnificent than before. Into the skies rose the giant oriel, and now its wings were a glittering, shining gold and its song was louder than ever before, for it had found its freedom again and so its love and its hope. But the wolf never even saw the golden bird,’ finished Palla, a little sadly, ‘for it had never even turned back to look.’