Fell (The Sight 2) (33 page)

Fell could see that Huttser’s thoughts were rambling, locked in the past, and that his father was in great pain. He was pierced by a pang of love for the old Dragga.

“We must be careful, you know. There’s so much that faces a wolf pack in the wild. And all these silly rumours and legends, about a stolen human and that snake Morgra, and the stupid Sight.”

Huttser was looking straight at Fell, but he wasn’t talking to him at all, but to one of the Betas in his pack, long ago. Fell wondered suddenly if that isn’t all we really are, our thoughts and dreams and memories. If it was so, then hadn’t we a duty to make our memories the best they could be?

“Father, it’s me. Fell. Your son.”

“Do you think I’ve lost my wits?” growled Huttser angrily, breaking from his trance. “Of course it’s you, Fell. And a long time it’s been too. The years seem strangely out of shape.”

Huttser growled again.

“But you’re here now, that’s what counts, and there’s work to be done. This damned Jalgan has to be beaten. He wants that Drappa Tarlar, and I must say if I were a younger wolf I … Don’t tell your mother I said it. But these Vengerid respect nothing at all. I must patrol again.”

Fell was glad to see his father suddenly restored, and yet he was bitterly sad too that Huttser did not realise the nature of his own injury. It was fatal.

“And I’m glad to see how strong you’ve grown,” growled Huttser. “I always knew you had my strength in you.”

Fell felt very strange as he said it. He wanted to say, “
No, Father, I am not you
.”

“Yes, Father,” he said.

“It does my heart good to see you, Fell. Because you must help us.”

Fell stepped forwards.

“Not
must
, Father,” he found himself saying suddenly.

Huttser growled.

“Then why on earth are you here, damn it?”

Fell’s voice choked. He did not say, “I am
here
to say good-bye.”

“I mean that I’ll help you if I choose to help you,” he answered steadily. “Of my own free will.”

Huttser growled again.

“Oh, don’t talk rubbish. You’ll do as you’re told. You’re of the pack, are you not, and I’m your father.”

Fell was furious with his father in that moment for talking to him as if he were still a little cub, but because of something else too. Huttser had often talked to him of duty and of responsibility, so dutiful was he to his own family and his pack. But why do adults, why do parents not realise that children desperately wish to do things not so much out of duty, but out of love? And you can’t force anything to love anything else against its nature. Not with talk of family or pack, not with talk of greater borders, or the truths or lies of Tor and Fenris.

Fell felt a deep pang in him now as he looked at Huttser, for he knew that all his life his father had lived with words like “must” on his tongue, when he, like everything else, craved love too. Well, Fell had come, not out of duty, but out of love.

“I’ll help you, Father.”

“Of course you will. Well done, Fell. And we must plan. You and I together. Father and son. It’ll be a bitter fight, and if I fail the challenge, the Vengerid will try for Tarlar. But your claws are sharp and teeth strong.”

“And I’ve another weapon,” whispered Fell. “The Sight.”

Huttser’s eyes clouded and he growled uncomfortably. Fell remembered how, for so long, such a practical and rational wolf as Huttser had dismissed any talk of the Sight. How he had argued with Palla, and forbidden any mention of it, until the truths of their journey had forced it on them all.

Huttser had already closed his eyes, and laid down his old head again, and Fell turned sadly back towards the cave mouth, but as the sun shone on his muzzle he heard Huttser behind him.

“Fell. It is good to see you again.”

“Thank you, Father. It’s good to see you too.”

Palla stood staring at her son as he emerged again into the day, and her failing eyes were full of pain and worry.

“I don’t know what I will do when he’s gone,” she whispered.

“Hush, Mother.”

“I love him so, Fell. Oh, he can be foolish and unreasonable at times. Angry and irritable, now more so than ever. But he’s always been strong and true. But perhaps I must bear it. They say the Drappa often outlives the Dragga.”

Palla shook her old head.

“For all your bold talk of fighting and strength and courage, it’s we females that must birth the cubs in the den, and suckle them at our bellies. Must hunt and scavenge too, and direct the pack when it goes astray. So nature makes us strong. Stronger even than Draggas.”

“I’m sorry, Mother. So sorry.”

There was nothing else to say.

“When he goes, I don’t think I want to be in the world anymore,” said Palla, more in weariness than sorrow.

“Hush, Mother.”

“It’s true. Why should I? What is there for me? You are fine. The cubs are fully grown now and will be fine too, and it is high time they found their own packs. I think I would walk with your father through the Red Meadow, towards the Wolf Trail.”

“Mother, please don’t say it.”

“Fell,” whispered Palla suddenly, “I know the Sight has brought you much trouble, but Larka said that it has a power to heal.”

Fell’s eyes flickered. “So it’s said. I think it has kept me young.”

“Try to use it then, Fell, to help your father.”

Fell felt strangely at a loss. He did not know how to use the Sight to heal.

“Yes.”

Even with her dim eyesight Palla could see that something was wrong.

“What is it, Fell?”

“Mother,” growled Fell sadly, “I’ve had dark dreams. More than dreams. Visions.”

“Like the terrible vision we all saw on the mountain?”

“Something even worse. I’ve been travelling with a human. A girl.”

Palla looked shocked, but she nodded as wisely as she could.

“And though I care for her, the Sight shows me the future. That I’ll kill her. But there’s something else, Mother. In these visions a wolf speaks to me. A she-wolf.”

Palla’s ears had come forwards suspiciously and Fell hesitated.

“Morgra,” he said.

“Morgra!”

Palla was shaking furiously at the mention of her half sister, and the old Drappa had begun to growl. The lips on her muzzle were curling up, and Fell suddenly remembered her in her prime, that night of a terrible thunderstorm, when she had threatened to kill Morgra if she did not leave her cubs alone.

“Morgra alive? How can this be? We saw her death.”

“Not alive, Mother,” said Fell. “Calm yourself. But her spirit seems to live on. She calls to me with the Sight.”

“Seems to live on?”

“She talks from the Red Meadow, through a human connected to this girl that I’ve journeyed with. And the boy child we returned to the village.”

“She’s evil, Fell. Beware her. Will this legend never be finished?”

“I fight with her,” said Fell. “But evil? Yes, she’s evil. And yet, the injustice that was done to her, when she was unjustly accused.”

Palla had dropped her misty eyes now.

“I know it,” she whispered. “And injustice spreads injustice. I often wonder if Huttser and I had taken her into the pack that day, would any of it have happened? Would Larka still be alive? And as for the Red Meadow, they say it’s a preparation for what lies beyond. That Varg may linger there, if they are somehow bound to this world, by anger or pain or love.”

“Or hate,” growled Fell sadly.

FOR MANY SUNS FELL HUNTED FOR HUTTSER, and in the cave his father ate fresh red meat. The others gathered round Palla, waiting, and there was a strange expectation in the air as the days passed. Fell sat with Huttser as he fed, and as he watched the tired old Dragga try his weakened teeth on the flesh, Fell closed his eyes and tried to use the Sight to help him.

Fell sensed or hoped that the connection was doing his father some good, moving energy about his body, yet he felt something else even more powerfully as they lay there. That his father Huttser was dying.

He could sense that the spirit inside Huttser was growing very weak. Not just the wound, but nature itself was at work now, and Huttser was very old. The oldest Dragga in the lands beyond the forest. All things die, Fell realised, so perhaps the Sight could only aid living things to use their own strength, and if that natural strength itself was failing, perhaps not even the Sight could intervene.

But as two moons passed there was no sign of the Vengerid, and Huttser talked once more of Jalgan’s challenge, of the younger wolves and of defending the pack. He talked like a true Dragga again and refused to accept what was happening to him.

“Father,” whispered Fell one day. “Do you … do you believe that anything lies beyond the Red Meadow?”

“I don’t know why you’re talking like a foolish cub,” said Huttser angrily. “The Vengerid threaten us and, when I’m better, we shall fight them side by side.”

His son could see that Huttser didn’t want to face the question, and Huttser suddenly gave a furious whimper from a bolt of pain from the infection that had gripped his side.

“Damn it.”

Fell winced.

“I believe there must be something beyond, Father,” Fell said softly, as Huttser settled again, although he thought of his failure to find the Guardian, and now he was lying. “I mean, if the Sight gives me the power it does, everything is stranger than we think.”

As Fell said it, and almost felt it true, he could not say what it was he really believed in, even if he desperately wanted to give his father some consolation.

“Wolves like your father and I go straight to the Wolf Trail,” said a soft voice suddenly, “to run forever with Tor and Fenris.”

Fell swung his head and there was his mother, standing in the cave mouth.

“And they climb the skies and join those little lights in the heavens. It’s nothing to fear.”

Palla’s very words had calmed Huttser’s body, and made him relax again, and Fell was suddenly angry with himself. For all his searching and journeying, for all his struggles with the Sight, he had not had the wisdom, or the belief and certainty, to say such a thing to his father, when it was most needed. Fell was desperately glad that his mother had though.

Fell turned sadly and padded outside. He lay down by the stream in the moonlight and watched the waters gurgling and churning over the stones. As he looked, he calmed himself a little, and he thought that if he hadn’t been so frightened of it, he would have always liked to live near the sound of water.

Fell shook his head. He no longer believed the Guardian existed, and it made the heavy weight of responsibility worse. He suddenly felt angry with life for throwing so many difficulties in his way, yet he was glad too that he was here at all. Glad of the responsibility.

“He’s sleeping now,” said a voice softly, behind him. “But he’s bad today.”

Palla lay down beside her son. He thought again how very old his mother looked.

“I’ll sleep too. I’m so very tired, Fell.”

Palla’s beautiful old head was already on her front paws and her eyes were closed.

“Wake me, my dear, if he stirs, or needs anything. For I’ve always been at his side. Watch him for me.”

“Yes, Mother. But can I get anything for you?”

Palla was already fast asleep. Fell lifted himself on his paws and looked down at her. She was breathing so faintly that Fell could hardly see her body stir, as though the spirit in her had become but a dream, or a memory itself, tying her but faintly to her own body.

“Rest, Mother,” said Fell gently, “I’m here now.”

Fell padded up the slope and laid his great black body down in the cave mouth, between his mother and father.

He slept fitfully that night, and it was in the early time, towards morning, after the fifth of human hours, that Fell suddenly flashed into consciousness. He got up immediately, and the wolf knew something was wrong.

Fell sprang into the cave and saw that Huttser had almost rolled onto his back. His body looked so feeble and old now, fully his fourteen years, that it was as if some force was sucking the life from him. Huttser was muttering to himself, as his tongue lolled from his mouth.

“Home. Take me home. I should be—”

“What is it, Father?” whispered Fell.

“I’m dying, Fell.”

Fell knew it was not the time to lie, even to be kind.

“Yes, Father.”

“Your mother, look after your—”

“You don’t need to worry. Palla will be cared for.”

“We’ve walked so long together, your mother and I. Hunted in the forests and mountains. Drank from the wild, fresh streams. Fought and laughed and cried. She’s my blood mate. My …”

“Oh, Father.”

“Meaningless,” muttered the old wolf sadly. “It’s all meaningless, isn’t it? All our rages. All our battles and storms. For what? So we may become carrion, and feed the tiniest of beings. A bitter thing. And … And …”

“What is it?”

Fell’s muzzle was straining forwards, and Huttser’s voice was so faint that he could hardly hear him. He thought though that Huttser suddenly whispered, “I’m frightened, Fell.”

Then Huttser’s body flexed and the wolf was reaching out with his paw. It touched Fell’s own, and Fell felt a new, unexpected force in Huttser, a renewed vigour, as if will itself was making him hold onto the world.

“Have I been all right, Fell? Have I done well in the world?”

“Yes, of course, Father.”

“Your mother and I, did we argue too much?”

“Life can be a fight, Father. Draggas and Drappas argue. It is nature’s way. Perhaps.”

“And I’m a fighter.”

Alina’s word came into his mind at that moment—
a warrior
. He nodded.

“I am the Dragga,” growled Huttser faintly.

“Yes, Father.”

“Open, Fell.” Huttser’s body was struggling with pain on the earth floor. “Open like a flower.”

They were the strangest words that Fell had ever heard, in that sad place by the stream, but Huttser’s body was suddenly feeble again and broken. Fell bowed his head. He hated to see his father like this, with all his heart.

“Leave me, Fell. Go away.”

“What do you mean, Father?” said Fell desperately.

“Leave.”

Fell backed away. He suddenly thought of Palla, or any she-wolf, and how when they birthed in the den they always wanted to be alone. Was death like that too? Like the very beginning of life. Something you always had to do alone? As though it is life itself, and the living, that bind us to the world.

Fell stood there, his head bowed, for what seemed like an age, and when he looked up again he knew that Huttser was gone. His body had stopped moving altogether. Fell heard the fluttering of birds outside, and in the cave was nothing but emptiness.

He didn’t know what he felt in that moment, for within himself he was partly glad that the horrible struggle was over. He had known it was coming, and known it had to be, that not even the Sight could do anything about it. Yet he could not comprehend it either.

As Fell looked at that body, once so alive and full of vigour, a wolf that had walked with him all his life, even as a Kerl, he felt as if something in the world had split apart. Light was coming outside, morning, but although the sky was blue and there was a brightness in the air, Fell felt a strange, slow darkness about him.

What is death really? he wondered. How can such a powerful, vivid, living being, and one that had marked Fell’s whole life, just disappear? Just stop and go away. It was a question that only those near to death really understand. It seemed impossible.

Fell felt a deep sorrow inside himself then, and something else too. Guilt. With all his powers, with all the force of the Sight, Fell had not been able to heal Huttser. When his father had snapped at him too, he had almost wished him gone, and as he thought it, Fell suddenly had the most terrible feeling that he himself had killed his own father. Surely he could have done more. Surely he could have made it easier.
Am I wicked?
thought Fell.
Am I really wicked?

Then came another feeling, like a lonely hunter: a resentment that Huttser had said nothing to Fell to wish his own son well, for the future. For we all have to face death, thought Fell angrily in that moment, because nothing can conquer that. Fell had needed something desperately from his father that had not been given, a blessing for his own hard journey and for his uncertain future.

As Fell stood in the cave the strangest feeling of all was that Huttser had not gone at all. Not that he was still in the cave, he wasn’t, that place had an empty air, yet Huttser was still there, as real as ever, and where he was was in Fell’s own mind.

Then the memories began to come, in such extraordinary detail that it was as if Fell were living these things again. Memories of his father when Fell was a cub, memories of hunting together, memories of being scolded, and of feeling safe at Huttser’s side, memories of arguments and bitter quarrels and longed-for reconciliations. The past.

Fell padded over to Huttser’s body, and as Huttser lay there, an unmoving carcass, he seemed stronger than he had seemed in the anguished throws of death. His muzzle was calm, his body no longer contorted with pain. It was as if that strength he had had in life had suddenly been given back to him. Huttser was restored. A warrior once more.

Fell turned from his father and padded slowly from the cave to wake Palla. He felt dizzy and sick, and although birds were singing and the sun was starting to shine brightly, it felt like a grey, gloomy day.

“Wake up, Mother. It’s finished.”

Fell was surprised that Palla didn’t spring up with the news and rush to Huttser’s side.

“Mother, this is important.”

Fell’s eyes opened in bewilderment. He could see now that Palla’s body was as still and lifeless as Huttser’s. The breath had only just left her tired form. Palla was dead too. Her heart had given out.

“Oh, Mother.”

Fell felt like a tiny little cub, abandoned and alone.

“No, Palla. Not you as well.”

“Fell,” called a voice.

Kar was coming up the slope with the others, and they could see instantly that something was wrong. They rushed forwards.

“Is it Huttser, Fell?” said Kar.

Fell swung his head and his eyes flickered as he saw Tarlar and his younger brothers and sisters looking fearfully back at him.

“They’ve both gone.”

The younger wolves stared at Palla, and all their tails came down in disbelief. Khaz whined, and Kipcha gave a low growl.

“I should have been here,” she said bitterly.

“I must see Father,” whispered Larka, looking towards the cave.

Fell knew that all of them, suddenly faced with this news, were looking for him to say something bold and stirring, but Fell had nothing to say. He wanted to be alone. These were his family, yes, and yet he hardly knew them. Not even dear Kar.

“I’m so sorry, Fell,” said Tarlar’s soft, kindly voice. “May I do something for you?”

She alone did not seem overcome with the news.

“No, Tarlar. I … I must walk now. And think.”

Fell sprang away. The black wolf ran like something hunted, sucking at the air, his mind feeling as if it were entering a dark dream. He wanted to be away again, away from everything.

For hours Fell ran, and the sun, burning with its unfeeling fire, millions of miles away in the heavens, began to sink in the skies, or rather the great, mysterious earth turned in space like a water droplet, and light began to dim and fade over the lands beyond the forest.

Fell was hardly aware of the ravishing landscape all around him, bursting with life and vigour. As he ran he thought of everything that had happened in his life. Of Huttser and Palla. Of Larka and Kar. Of the dark adventure that had marked his existence. But it was not as if he were seeing these things unfolding naturally before his eyes. Instead it was as if everything had been slowed down, as the action of cold works to slow water into ice.

Fell’s powerful mind had fully entered the past, and now it was as if it were sucking him backwards, drawing him back in time itself, although Fell knew that none of these things he was seeing could he really touch or affect. Although he ran fast, his mind was inching along, like one stumbling through mud, or creeping through a freezing fog, so slowly that it was as if time itself might stop.

Huttser and Palla’s powerful, vivid lives had simply come to a stop. Fell felt shadows flutter around him, like huge black birds, and it was as though the outside world, the grass and the rocks, the fields and mountains and the great, living trees, appeared through a dim, intangible film. There was a sickness in the wolf’s stomach, as though he were turning inside himself and could no longer breathe.