Morgra snarled furiously.
‘Hurry, fool,’ she cried, ‘take half the home pack with you. Find it, Brak. Find it or do not return.’
‘Yes,’ muttered Brak, but he stood there still.
‘Well, idiot. What are you waiting for?’
‘The home pack,’ said Brak, dropping his ears, ‘they’re waiting.’
‘You know what night it is, Mistress,’ cawed Kraar approvingly, ‘last night Tor closed her mouth and the moon vanished.’
‘Very well. But go, Brak. And hurry.’
As Brak sprang out of the cave Morgra followed him slowly into the snowy air.
‘So these rebels are forming a Greater Pack,’ cried Kraar, as he flapped after her. ‘What will you do, Mistress?’
‘Do, Kraar? I shall wait and watch, of course. Slavka is bringing the free wolves together in one place, which can only serve our purpose. ‘‘When untamed are tamed’’, Kraar, that’s what the verse says.’
Kraar nodded frantically.
‘When I find out where they are gathering I shall destroy them all. Don’t you want Wolfbane’s promise fulfilled? And it must happen together, Kraar, if the howl is to summon the Searchers.’
Morgra began to growl with pleasure. The Balkar wolves were waiting for her silently in the darkness. There were only fifteen of them now with Morgra, for the other packs had been sent out to continue their search.
But the Night Hunters were a fearful sight as they stood there in a circle. They were all huge male wolves, their great chests bristling with vigour and their brilliant eyes slicing through the dark. Yet even as Morgra approached, they shrank visibly before the she-wolf and the circle broke. Standing in the centre was a young wolf, hardly an adolescent, and it looked petrified. Its legs were trembling furiously in the snow and its tail shook like a leaf.
Morgra’s own tail came up as she entered the circle and it closed around her again. Kraar lifted into the air and landed on a bush, which quivered beneath him, but even here the raven could not see what was happening. Yet it was no matter. Kraar had seen the rite before.
Suddenly Morgra’s voice rang out into the steely night.
‘Brothers,’ she cried, ‘Balkar. First and most fearful of the Varg. The Sight has brought me to you to fulfil your true destiny. When your beloved leader enslaves the Lera, you shall truly be the First Among the Putnar. But now there is another we must summon. Again we call to him. Again we offer him tribute.’
Kraar heard a snarling and a yelp of pain. Then a terrible silence descended. Kraar clacked his beak as he saw a little trickle of blood weaving down the hill between the Balkar’s legs in the snow. Morgra began again, an incantation that trembled on the freezing air.
‘Come, Wolfbane, friend of the dead,’ she howled, throwing her muzzle left and right. ‘Come from the shadows and fill the spirit of one amongst us. Those who worship your cult again do you homage. By the blood of the innocent I summon you. You shall hunt for us, Wolfbane, hunt down any who stand in our way. You, the Shape Changer, shall be our servant and together we shall feed in Wolfbane’s winter. Together we shall seek the ultimate power.’
Morgra’s howl rose, and the Balkar shook furiously and began to growl, as their muzzles also swayed through the darkness.
‘By the elements that feed the Sight I summon you. By wind and snow, by storm and rain. By the untameable forces of nature and the energy that dwells in all, I summon you. I call you forth, Wolfbane. Reveal yourself to us.’
The snow quivered with silence as the wolves waited. They began to look around them nervously, half-expecting Wolfbane to materialize among them there and then. But nothing at all happened and at last Morgra lifted her head and turned away. The circle parted once more to reveal the cub lying limply in the snow. It was dead. The wolf’s name was Cal and he was Kar’s brother.
Morgra walked calmly back towards Kraar, her muzzle stained with blood and her eyes glittering, not just with pleasure, but with pure amusement.
‘That should keep the fools wondering and waiting,’ she sniggered delightedly, ‘and muttering his name too.’
Kraar nodded but he was hardly listening to Morgra. He was looking back towards the circle and thinking of how he would soon replenish the cave with fresh cub meat. They came to a nursery where other young wolves were standing fearfully in the darkness, guarded by the prowling Night Hunters, wondering why the Balkar would come to them regularly and take one from their midst.
As Morgra approached them the youngsters slunk back in terror, but Morgra smiled and when she spoke her tone was soft and kindly.
‘Come, my children,’ she whispered, ‘don’t be frightened.’ The young wolves were all glaring at her.
‘What’s wrong. You know that I love you, don’t you?’ whispered Morgra.
Still the wolves stood there, speechless with terror.
‘Speak up. You mustn’t be afraid. I won’t be angry, trust me.’
‘Trust you,’ cried one of the male cubs suddenly, ‘never. We know what you’re doing, Morgra. Let us go.’
Morgra’s face looked wounded, but her eyes were smiling.
‘Don’t say such hurtful things,’ she growled. ‘I only want to protect you. Care for you all.’
In her heart Morgra was reaching out towards them as she said it, but the she-wolf felt nothing at all for the youngsters and in her mind Morgra had just marked out the cub that had dared to speak.
‘Don’t worry,’ called Morgra, as she turned her back on the orphans, ‘I’ll come and visit you again soon. Then we’ll all play happily together.’
Kraar fluttered down on to Morgra’s back as she prowled away and, although somewhere she had just been made angry, the she-wolf tolerated the raven’s touch.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Kraar, ‘you’re always so nice to them and yet we’re—’
‘The legend, Kraar. The she-wolf must know the Drappa’s care to reach the Vision. Yet no matter how hard I try I can’t feel anything for them. They are not my own blood. Still, they are serving their purpose all right.’
Kraar nodded delightedly as he thought of how many cubs the edict was bringing him.
‘With her, though, it would have been different,’ said Morgra suddenly, ‘will be different. When I catch her then everything will be different.’
‘So you did want to join their pack, Mistress?’ said Kraar.
‘For its own sake?’
A familiar confusion entered Morgra as she thought of Palla’s pack and the genuine bitterness and jealousy she had felt when they had refused her above the ravine.
‘I could have tended to them, Kraar. All of them,’ she said angrily. ‘I could have protected them and taught Larka about the Sight, like my own daughter. Together we could have fulfilled the legend. Together ruled the Lera. In our own good time. If her stupid parents had only let me join...’
Morgra began to snarl. She was thinking back again, across the long, angry years, back to that sun when she had first been driven out for a crime she had never even committed. Yet when Morgra had seen her sister again, perhaps even then she could have learnt to forgive and forget. To turn the power of the Sight away from darkness, back to the goodness that lay buried somewhere deep inside her. But they had driven her away too. Had betrayed her again. With that rejection had ended Morgra’s last faint hope of returning to the light.
‘Come, Kraar,’ snarled Morgra, ‘you were telling me of the pack.’
‘I left them when that Sikla died, as I said,’ cried Kraar, flying above her head now, ‘after the female was lost to the water. Huttser’s sister.’
‘Very well, then, Kraar.’
‘So that only leaves this young stranger ... and the family.’
Morgra’s eyes grew dark with anger, and something close to fear crept across her scarred muzzle.
‘The family,’ she hissed.
‘How shall we tell if Larka’s is really the family?’ asked Kraar.
‘Larka is already
alone,’ Morgra growled, ‘but we shall see. It’s why her loved ones must all die.’
They had reached the mouth of the cave again, but rather than going inside Morgra turned to an area of open ground where there was fresh meat lying in the snow. Kraar fluttered towards it immediately but Morgra barked at him.
‘Leave it,’ she cried, ‘it’s not for you.’ The raven settled beside her.
‘Why do you keep feeding them?’ he asked jealously.
‘Because there maybe one among them,’ growled Morgra, her eyes searching the trees, ‘one who has the power too. Who can help me. Who could serve me if I can’t find Larka.’ Even as she spoke they heard a bellow from the forest beyond and the hiss, too, of a mountain lynx. The creatures had already been feeding in the night and Morgra was ready to speak with them. But as the bear’s bellow rose above the trees Morgra noticed that the Night Hunters below had turned fearfully and were looking up the slope. Wolves are high in the food chain and have few natural enemies in the wild except man, but a bear, and especially the giants that roam the Carpathians, is one dangerous exception. As Morgra saw the fear the sound instilled in the Balkar her eyes glittered.
‘You asked what Wolfbane looks like,’ she whispered coldly. ‘Well, I wonder.’
Kraar did not understand his mistress. Now Morgra turned back and inside the cave it was dark and a breeze stirred the pool.
‘Mistress,’ said Kraar as he settled on his stony perch, ‘even if the curse has broken the family. What about Larka? Might not her gift alone threaten us? Perhaps she could—’
‘Never,’ snarled Morgra furiously, reading Kraar’s thoughts. ‘Larka touch the Vision? She is nothing but a whelp. Who is there to teach her? Tsinga is dead and...’
Morgra paused. She was suddenly thinking of Tsarr. But she shook the doubt from her mind.
‘Besides, Kraar. Larka knows nothing of the world. The Sight alone cannot bring forth the Vision. There must be true knowledge too. Knowledge of the humans themselves. Knowledge that I alone possess.’
Morgra’s face was suddenly contorted with a kind of angry self-pity. Kraar had seen the look many times before.
‘You’re thinking of the village again, Mistress, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Where the humans held you. Don’t you want to forget?’
‘Forget?’ growled Morgra.
‘What happened. The past.’
‘I shall never forget. Not a single thing, Kraar. Not like the thoughtless Lera. Every moment of my life, every injustice, every claw of pain I shall remember and it shall make me stronger. Shall bring me to truth and power.’
Morgra was quiet for a while, but when she spoke again her voice was full of cunning.
‘What can a mere cub know of human power? Of the glories and horrors of his mind? What can she know of the only true Putnar, the greatest and coldest killer of all?’
Even Kraar shivered and once again, inside the little silken pebble strung to the cave ceiling above them, a tiny creature moved. It had been alive before and had wriggled up here itself to feed on the damp moss above. It had no eyes, but its senses had taken it here, and its mouth. And now it was changing.
‘No, Kraar,’ whispered Morgra, ‘let her wander, alone and reviled. Larka will find no help among the Varg, for even Slavka has sworn to destroy all with the Sight. Let her feel the strangeness of her gift and how it cuts us off from the wolf. Let her look out on the world, for what she sees there can only fill her with bitterness and anger and hate. It shall only bring her closer to me. Which is as it should be, Kraar, for those with the Sight must choose for themselves.’
‘But would it not be better if she were with us now? I fear Slavka and these rebels, Mistress. Even the Balkar would be no match against all the free Varg. The packs are hardly an army.’
‘No, Kraar,’ hissed Morgra, ‘but when I open the pathways, then my true servants shall come. They are already being summoned, summoned by the anger and hate the Balkar are spreading throughout the forests. For they feed on it, Kraar. When Larka helps me grow strong enough to use the ancient howl then I will have an army at my back so terrible...’
Kraar was silent at the she-wolf’s words.
‘But go, Kraar,’ cried Morgra suddenly, ‘go in search of her. I shall use your eyes.’
As Kraar lifted out of the cave into the freezing air Morgra slumped to the ground. The she-wolf looked almost dead as she lay there. But Morgra was far from dead. The wolf’s hungry mind was using the first power of the Sight, using it to look out now over the snowy trees racing below the raven’s beating wings.
‘Leave me alone, Kar,’ cried Larka angrily in the gusting snows. ‘Can’t you see I want to be alone?’
‘I won’t,’ said Kar sullenly as he padded after her.
The wind was howling like a demon and the storm had come again. It was over a moon since the terrible night on the river and it had taken Kar a good week to find Larka. He had tracked her paw prints in the snow and, when at last he had caught up with her she had tried to drive him away. Since then they had argued again and again.
‘I’ll never leave you, Larka,’ Kar cried angrily. ‘We made a pact and nothing will come between us.’
‘Nothing?’ said Larka bitterly. ‘Fell made the pact too, remember, and he’s already dead. Because of me.’
‘Larka,’ muttered Kar gloomily, ‘if anyone is to blame for Fell’s death, I am. You must stop this talk.’
‘The pact was a lie,’ growled Larka. ‘Go away.’
‘No.’
Larka rounded on Kar in the snow.
‘What are you doing here anyway?’ she snarled. ‘What do you want? Following me like a little cub. You can’t help me. Nothing can. I killed them all, didn’t I? Because of the Sight. There’s nothing to help me now.’
But suddenly Larka wanted to blame someone other than herself, anyone.
‘And anyway,’ she spat scornfully, ‘what can you do, Kar?’
But there was something else in Larka’s mind again, something far deeper. She didn’t want to be responsible for the wolf, she didn’t want to be responsible for anything or anyone.
Kar felt bitterly wounded, but he was glad he had followed his friend, and in that moment he didn’t feel quite as worthless as Larka did.
‘We must have faith in each other,’ he growled, ‘that’s what Tsinga said.’
‘I’ve lost faith in us,’ snapped Larka. ‘I’ve lost faith in everything.’
‘But, Larka,’ growled Kar, ‘can’t you stop and think calmly for a while? You don’t even know where you’re going.’ ‘I do,’ cried Larka furiously, quickening her tread through the storm. Kar fell silent but still he followed the she-wolf. He looked tired and emaciated and his fur was beginning to drop out in clumps. Larka had hardly fared any better. The white wolf’s coat was already turning a yellowy grey and the skin was hanging down from her belly. The two young wolves had nearly reached their full size, but there was little of the strength and vigour in them you would have associated with healthy wolves of their age.
They hadn’t eaten in at least fifteen suns, for they had so little time to learn of real hunting from Huttser and Palla. As they travelled together they had often picked up the scents of Lera and trailed them with their black noses skimming through the snow, only to lose them again. But whenever Larka had come close to a kill, that terrible feeling had come over her again, and twice she had seen herself looking through the hunted’s eyes.
Kar was wondering what had become of Huttser and Palla now, for they had spied or heard nothing of the Dragga and Drappa. When they had fled from the river they had not seen those eyes in the trees, nor the ice beginning to crack below Huttser and Palla’s paws.
They had seen other wolves though, only three suns before, hunting through the mountains. Whether they were rebels or Balkar, they had kept well out of sight.
Ahead, Kar could see that Larka had calmed down a little.
‘Larka,’ said Kar suddenly, ‘perhaps you could
try to find your parents again. Use the Sight.’
‘No, Kar,’ growled Larka bitterly, though she was suddenly glad to hear his voice behind her, ‘don’t talk of it. What good are these powers to me? I have terrible dreams and whenever I try to hunt...’
Larka kept imagining, too, that those yellow-black eyes were following her as the wolves threaded through the trees. But if fear was on their trail, something else was hunting the wolves, something quite as frightening as Wolfbane or Morgra’s curse; the most exacting and relentless predator known to Lera or to Man. Winter itself was stalking them through the land beyond the forest, and in its jaws came hunger and the pressing threat of starvation.
‘I’m hungry, Larka,’ said Kar as his paws crunched on through the thick white.
Larka looked across at Kar and she felt ashamed of what she had said to him. Though she had meant to get away from her family and find solace on her own, she, too, was hungry and secretly very frightened and she suddenly felt glad that Kar had followed her.
‘Don’t worry, Kar,’ she whispered faintly, ‘we’ll find something soon.’
‘We’ll die if we don’t.’
But in that moment Larka hardly cared. She felt as if she had been sent into exile from her own life, from her own childhood. Ahead of her lay nothing but fear. Larka lifted her head to the skies and in the distance she saw a tiny black shape moving towards them. But as she watched, it suddenly wheeled in the skies and turned north again.
Below Morgra’s cave, half the Balkar packs were gathering again, for – except for those wolves that had been sent out to find the child – Morgra had summoned them. It had taken nearly a whole moon to bring them together. Five of the wolves lay together in the darkness now, sharing the warmth of their bodies and whispering nervously in the freezing night. Again, rumours of Wolfbane were circulating and now the wolves were stirring restlessly, avoiding each others’ eyes as Huttser’s pack had done, but listening intently.
‘There’s news,’ said one of them. ‘A scouting party has returned. They brought Morgra something and they were talking to her half the night.’