Fell (The Sight 2) (42 page)

“King Stefan’s men?” he hissed.

“Not the King, human fool. Knights to whom you swore sacred oaths, long ago, to protect the world.”

Vladeran touched that red cross on his chest.

“The Order of the Griffin?” he gasped in terror.

“Yes, Vladeran. And their veiled leader knows you have broken the sacred oaths to which you bound yourself. The oaths to which he is Guardian.”

“It does not matter,” said a trembling Vladeran, “for you told me that I could not be killed unless Dragomir is in sight of the palace, and I saw my friend die myself. Unless you lied.”

Morgra’s eyes twinkled as viciously as Malduk’s or Ranna’s had.

“I did not lie, Vladeran, unlike your own eyes. For you saw Dragomir fall to the Turk, but you did not see his body, on the point of death, recovered by them too and taken to be healed, even as others were burnt.”

“Healed?” said Vladeran.

On the floor near the throne, Romana had looked up. Dragomir alive? Her own daughter was telling them this thing. It was impossible.

“There, with the arts of Eastern healers, they gradually restored him, and there, after years in captivity, he was ransomed to the Griffin Order, only to rise himself amongst their ranks and finally to become their leader.”

“No,” cried Vladeran. “Dragomir leads the secret Order?”

“Yes,” snarled Alina, “for I do not lie.”

Through Alina’s mind, and Morgra’s snarls, Fell could understand the spectre entirely, and he wondered why she was bringing the human this strange news, if she had served him all along. But hope had once more swelled inside him, for the dead were restored indeed, and, if he had known it, the Griffin, a clawed Putnar, had opened its wings again.

Vladeran’s body seemed to slump. All his belief in himself, in his own invincibility, seemed to vanish in that instant, like Baba Yaga’s broken spell, and now it was as if the slightest touch could shatter him into pieces.

“But why, Morgra? Why didn’t you warn me?” he whispered bitterly. “Why have you tricked me?”

Fell was suddenly growling from the net.

“Tell him, Morgra. I do not understand this either.”

“Oh, Fell,” cried Morgra through Alina’s mouth, and the young woman turned her wolf eyes towards Fell. “Don’t you see it yet? I’ve come to help you. To help nature itself.”

“Help me?”

“Even now you do not believe me, dear Fell, as I knew you would never believe me, when I spoke to you from the Red Meadow. For once we see another being as one thing, too often we see them as that forever.”

Fell growled again.

“At first I thought to help Vladeran, it’s true, and I looked into the future for him and saw a part of the truth about his destiny and the girl’s. But as I watched you, I began to remember the life of the Varg, and I longed for forgiveness, and for my sojourn in that terrible meadow to end forever.”

Fell’s golden eyes were flickering doubtfully.

“I longed for the hate that has kept me a prisoner for so long to cease and release me. For hate imprisons us, Fell, and what I did in life, tried to do, made a terrible purgatory for me, that bound me in confusion tighter than your ropes.” Morgra’s silver spectre looked almost beautiful now. “I once sought to rule the Lera, rule through man, to take revenge for the injustice that was done to me all those years ago. But I knew too that I hated the human who summoned me, and knew it more than ever when he spoke of the injustice that has been done to this girl. For now I know that the only answer to injustice is this. It is justice.”

“But what you told me of my own nature,” growled Fell, “of nature itself. And what I saw myself of Alina’s death.”

“I’m sorry, Fell. It was a dangerous path that I walked, but I had to maintain my mask of hate. Firstly because I knew that you would not believe my intentions, unless you saw them with your own eyes. Secondly because I had to hide these things deep within my own mind, almost from myself, so that Vladeran would not suspect me for a moment. Like some secret jewel hidden at the bottom of the sea.”

Vladeran was glaring at Alina WovenWord and the spectral she-wolf, and he could not believe that he had met a mind even more labyrinthine than his own.

“But, Morgra,” growled Fell, “the pain and darkness when my parents went. What you tempted me with?”

“I had to be sure too that you would come, Fell, and be here now to complete your destiny. For when this is over, you must know that we are not meant to be with these creatures, Fell. That we must be ourselves alone.”

“And Alina’s death?” said the black wolf.

“Remember, Fell, that although the Sight can show the truth of the future, like stories it can lie too, or rather destinies can change. As the vision of man’s destruction of the wild turned from cold to heat, but also to a wondrous garden. Our destinies are our own, Fell, if we have the courage to take control of them.”

Morgra’s voice had become softer, calmer, as if she were making a confession and it gave her release.

“And the Sight lied to me, Fell, when it told me all is shadows, and that the answer to injustice is hate, when it’s really love. Not a guilty, caught, and needing love, like a child trapped by too much talk of duty, but real love and real strength. Because in all my own searching, I know now what the true meaning and purpose of life is. It is to be happy. To feel joy. That is why evil will always conquer itself in time.”

“Oh, Morgra. You did suffer injustice. They thought you a cub killer, when you were simply trying to save it. And like me, the Sight set you apart.”

Morgra lifted her tail hopefully.

“There isn’t long now, Fell, and soon I’ll vanish like a dream,” she whispered through Alina, and even now she seemed to grow translucent at the young storyteller’s side, as Alina’s eyes flashed hazel again. “For your call was not strong, and you are for this world, not the next. But, Fell, can you ever forgive me? For them. For your pack. For dear Larka.”

Fell raised his head in the strangling net. An extraordinary strength had suddenly entered the black wolf, and he remembered what Tarlar had said of the need for all things to ask forgiveness.

“I laid a trap to make amends, dear Fell, but not a trap for you, for this human Dragga, one whose kind have hunted us forever with their minds and their spears. I ask your blessing. Fell’s blessing.”

Morgra’s pleading spectre was fading, vanishing, dissolving into thin air. Vladeran stood there in confusion, paralysed by doubt, quite unable to act, and Fell suddenly felt a fury inside him, as he swung his head to the hunting dog once more.

“Help me, damn you,” he snarled, “or I’ll use the Sight to force you.”

Fell knew it was not so, for the Summoning Howl had exhausted him entirely, and near him he sensed Vladeran move. Just his dagger hand at first. Only one thought was in Vladeran’s vicious mind, and Fell saw its terrible simplicity immediately. To kill the young woman who had brought Morgra’s message. Who had brought his ruin.

“Force Vlag?” said the dog scornfully, across the chamber floor.

Fell’s ears cocked forwards immediately. Still Vladeran hesitated, held back by that spectre that seemed to be protecting Alina.

“Vlag?” Fell whispered in astonishment, pierced by a sudden memory. “Is that your name?”

“It is, wolf. What of it?”

“But it was you, Vlag. Long ago, when I hid with my mother, Palla, and my little sister Larka in an abandoned badger’s set by the river. It was you that hunted us, Vlag, when a fox came by and you missed the scent.”

Vlag’s old eyes were peering hard at the wolf, as his master, Vladeran, began to walk slowly towards Alina WovenWord, forcing himself forwards in his hate.

“Remember, Vlag, you must remember. It was when the human child was stolen and the humans were hunting wolves. They wanted revenge.”

“Yes,” muttered Vlag, “I remember it now. And I said if they wanted revenge then we should give it to them.”

“But you said something else too, Vlag. You said you wished the humans would let you hunt what you wanted. Always chasing after wolves.”

“I did?”

“Yes, Vlag. Remember your nature and the wonder of the world, and what it is to be wild and free. To hunt what you want, not what they order you to.”

Vlag stood up suddenly, but Vladeran was nearly on Alina and Morgra had almost vanished.

“I … I …”

“Do it, I beg you, Vlag. The soldier. I must get out of this net.”

For a moment the old hunting dog, roused into life by the power of memory, hesitated, and then, as if he were gasping for air and youth, he sprang forwards and bit the nearest guard hard in his calf. With a scream the man leapt back, releasing an edge of the net, just enough for Fell to push himself through the opening. The amazed men were frozen into fear, and Fell leapt straight over Romana and Elu at Lord Vladeran, just as he reached Alina WovenWord.

The storyteller saw again through her startled hazel eyes, and Morgra’s shimmering spectre vanished, as Vladeran’s dagger hand rose to strike Alina down. But Fell’s great paws struck his back and knocked him to the floor. Tarlar was wrestling herself free from the net too, and she sprung out and held the guard back with her teeth, as Vladeran rolled and looked up at Fell in horror.

Fell felt Alina’s mind in his, questioning and doubting, even now wanting to show kindness and humanity, in the gentleness of her nature, even now caught by the duality that follows all human animals, but Fell pushed it away.

“No, storyteller,” came his liberated thoughts, “the bloodlust is on me and this thing took and wore my sister Larka’s coat. Slit her throat and skinned her. Let wild nature do this thing then, Alina WovenWord, let it bring justice, and you shall be guiltless of more blood.”

Fell bit, deep and hard, severing Lord Vladeran’s windpipe, and in a gush of red the life expired from the shaking body of the man who had killed his sister Larka. It was over. Some of the Shield Guard drew their weapons, but Cascu raised his hand.

“Hold,” the Helgra cried. “It’s enough. It’s all enough. There has been enough darkness and bloodshed here, and now the reason for the evil is dead. We are men, not beasts.”

The Shield Guard were held, partly by their leader, partly by Tarlar’s snarls, and partly by the hopeful thought that this Helgra might protect them from the fighting beyond. The black wolf growled in satisfaction at his work, and then Fell padded softly towards his friend on the throne.

“You’re safe now, changeling, but I must ask your forgiveness, for taking one of your kind.”

For a moment Alina stared at the wolf, for though she had been locked in the vision, she had understood all Morgra’s words and knew now that her father was alive and here in the palace, as the sounds of battle continued round them, and she knew that still she would have to fight. Then, with a cry, she hurled herself to her knees.

“Oh, Fell, dear Fell,” she cried, and as the tears streamed from the young woman’s lovely hazel eyes, Alina WovenWord threw her arms around him and hugged that great black wolf.

THE TERRIBLE BATTLE WAS DONE. NOW A TALL, visored soldier stood calmly on his palace walls, and as he looked at Romana and Alina and little Elu, his eyes glittered through the slots in his face armour.

On his chest, like the knights around him, patrolling the battlements, or wandering amongst the fallen on the plain below, he bore that symbol of the red cross, with its tongues of yellow flame, like wings, and, since he led that Order, the curled griffin beneath.

Alina thought of Baba Yaga’s riders as the man lifted his gauntleted hand and pulled the visor from his head. The women’s hearts trembled as they saw that fine, sad face, and that red hair, drenched in sweat. The face of Alina’s dreams. Romana could not believe its reality, but her dead husband stood before her, and Alina’s father too.

“Dragomir,” whispered Romana fearfully. “Can this really be, husband?”

Around the mysterious leader of the Order of the Griffin, his warriors watched silently, as did Catalin, standing in the background with his bow. It had not been their charge alone that had won the fight for the Helgra, and Alina had raced to Catalin and Ovidu’s aid, with the wolves guarding their backs. But it had turned the tide again, and driven back Draculea’s men, as that swathe of secret riders had thundered across the plain into battle. Their banners had streamed in the wind like mighty sails, like Guardians, marked with the image of the sleeping griffin.

“I would hardly believe a tenth of it myself,” said Dragomir softly, “if I were not standing here now, Romana. Can you forgive me, wife, for taking so long to return?”

Alina remembered that voice immediately, so deep and full of feeling, like a river mumuring amongst stones. “It is not I that has anything to forgive, husband. It’s you,” said Romana.

Dragomir looked down. On a wooden pallet, beneath a bloodied cloak of wolf fur, lay the dead friend of his youth, Vladeran. Although now it was just a body, and that terrible spirit had departed. Little Elu was looking at him too. He was bewildered and horrified, but he had seen his father’s darkness and cruelty to his mother.

“I was sick to the point of death, Romana, when the Turks took me amongst them,” said Dragomir guiltily, as he clutched his painful left arm and wondered what had done that to Vladeran’s throat. “When they ransomed me, I rose to lead our Order, but so far off in the lands of Hungary, I did not know how my best friend plotted, and then I heard of your marriage and the birth of a son. Then my own daughter’s death. It nearly killed me a second time.”

Romana’s eyes flickered guiltily and Alina’s heart ached.

“For a long time I did not know what to do, until recently, when I learnt how Vladeran had desecrated the oaths of our kind and then that my darling Alina was alive. I had to be sure when I came that I could defeat him, and save you all. But we are here now at last. The Order. To make accounting.”

“Oh, Dragomir,” whispered Romana.

Dragomir looked at Vladeran’s son and smiled at the little boy. He felt nothing but compassion for the child.

Alina took Elu’s hand. Her own red hair was almost as wet as her father’s, and she looked tired from the fight they had taken up after Vladeran’s death, but her sword was sheathed again on the storyteller’s back.

Alina remembered that face and her changeling dreams, remembered how this man had stood aloof, yet how safe he had made her feel too. How much she loved him. Romana stepped forwards suddenly to hold her husband. Then the two adults turned and put out their hands towards the children, Romana to her son, and Dragomir to his daughter.

Elu ran to his mother.

“Will you not embrace me, daughter?” said Lord Dragomir softly, as the young woman stood there still, her beautiful eyes glittering with tears. “You’ve much to forgive, I think, my child. I thought you were dead, until the Order managed to follow your tale, Alina, if only in part. One was especially helpful to us. The girl Mia.”

“Mia,” whispered Alina in astonishment, remembering how she had seen her in the forge, though with hardly as great a wonder as she now looked on her own father.

“The Order of the Griffin found the little girl in the snows, Alina, fleeing with that old woman Ranna.”

Alina shivered.

“The shepherd’s wife was on the point of death, but Mia had tended to her faithfully at her end. She told your story and of the parchment. She was desperate to speak of your innocence.”

Alina smiled and shook her head, her heart filled with gratitude to the little girl for all she’d done.

“Mia asked me to give you this,” said Dragomir, reaching into his jerkin and holding out a small carving, part ram, part wolf. “Until you meet again.”

“Where is she, Father?” asked Alina, stepping closer and taking the thing with a smile, but feeling the word “Father” so strange to say.

“Safe in the halls of the Order, Alina. She lords it about the place like a little queen. Oh, Alina, I’m sorry I was not there to protect you. So sorry. Must we not protect children with all we are? And so the future.”

“Yes, Father,” said the young woman, “but we must help them grow too. And it was not your fault.”

Dragomir dropped his eyes. There were still tears in Alina’s, but she held them back. Instead she put the carving safely in her jerkin and walked forwards slowly. She took her mother and father gently by the hand, no longer a changeling at all. A real girl with a real family.

“Perhaps we must all protect one another,” said the storyteller softly. “And listen carefully.”

Then the family were holding one another once more. Romana and Dragomir, and Alina—restored—and little Elu with them too.

“Perhaps we’ll all find peace now,” said Romana, as they drifted apart, “when the strong hand of justice moves to contain the savage hearts of men.”

“Peace?” said Dragomir, looking sadly at that terrible battlefield. “Is there ever peace in the world, Romana? The King has his troubles, and even now the Order of the Griffin must ride out. There is other accounting to be done.”

“Who?” asked Alina.

“Tepesh,” answered Dragomir. “Draculea. Vladeran and he both touched the left-hand path.”

“You must ride soon, husband?” asked Romana.

“We may stay awhile. And then set out,” answered Dragomir, “But when it is done, I will step down as leader of the Order. For there has been too much secrecy here. Too much darkness in these lands.”

“I’m glad of it, husband,” said Romana tenderly.

Dragomir looked around at the Helgra below, still wandering across the battlefield, tending to their wounded.

“But you must tell me more of this, daughter,” he said. “And of the strange rumours that envelop these halls.”

“Rumours, Father?”

“Of a boy who walked the mountains with a wild black wolf. Not even the Order of the Griffin has heard of such a thing before. I little believe most of the tales, for I’ve seen real children suckled in the wild, Alina, and know how hard it goes with them. How their minds are hurt by it, so that it seems they can never be human again. For people need each other to grow.”

Perhaps that’s the truth of it
, thought Alina,
if there were no such thing as the Sight
. She thought of Fell, waiting out of sight nearby.

“It’s like the stories you used to make up as a little girl, Alina,” said Dragomir, with a sudden laugh, his heart filled with joy and peace he had not known in years. “Do you remember, child? You loved reading so much, and were a marvel at it, but at inventing even more. You hated it when the priests tried to tell you what the truth is, and instead kept trying to teach us all about the world with your tales.” Dragomir laughed again. “All the palace called you a liar, but I knew it as a healthy thing. All those animals and those imaginary friends. Those stories of how you could tell the future, and how one day you would protect the whole world from harm. But your favourite was about how a fine noblewoman went once amongst the people in disguise.”

Dragomir smiled and shook his head, but Alina WovenWord said nothing. She was thinking of that house in Baba Yaga’s valley and wondering.

“Perhaps I should have spent more time with you,” Dragomir whispered, “but there are many things I would have done differently. Will do differently, if you’ll let me.”

Alina nodded.

“Yes, husband,” said Romana keenly, “how terribly we argued too, before you went to fight the Turk. And when you went, Dragomir,” she added, turning regretfully to Alina, “I became so terribly …”

“Hush, Mother,” said Alina. “Peace.”

“But this morning, when we mopped up the rest of this traitor’s men,” whispered Dragomir still, “I almost thought I saw them amongst the men. Two wild wolves.”

Alina smiled. Fell and Tarlar had hidden themselves in the battle, watching Alina and Catalin as they fought, and protecting their backs, while in the fray all had been confusion. As it always was in the ghastliness of war.

“They must have been drawn down by the smell of death, husband,” said Alina’s mother softly, and Dragomir looked hard at her, but at last he smiled too.

“If you say it, wife. The Helgra have had reason enough to throw off my friend’s cruelty, yet they too revere the wild, and the wolf.”

“They do, husband.”

Dragomir could see that Alina and Romana would say no more though. They were protecting the real wolves from the fears and stories of men.

“But now the Helgra shall be safe in their villages again, beyond tyranny,” said Dragomir, “and all of us may honour the five once more.”

“The five, Dragomir?” said Romana.

“The five oaths that bind our Order. That once bound my ‘friend’ Vladeran, until his jealousy and hatred made him betray them and us. The pursuit of knowledge,” said Dragomir, lifting his strong head and looking at that scorched ground and the weary Helgra. “The support of the downtrodden, and the upholding of peace. Peace, and the protection of the earth. And one last.”

Dragomir’s eyes were glistening as he looked out across the lands beyond the forest, and he seemed lost in thought.

“What is it, Father?” said Alina. “What are you thinking?”

“It’s so strange, daughter. As I was healing amongst the Turks, tended to by Muselmen physicians, surrounded by the voices of their mystic Sufi poets, I had a kind of dream. More than a dream. A vision. It was of the whole world and all the animals in it. Not just the animals, but the trees and plants and flowers, and it told me that man, for all that religion teaches him, is an animal. The Order of the Griffin teaches it too.”

“Yes,” said Alina, thinking of that shape clambering down from the trees.

“But of all the animals, man holds the fate of the world in his hands. And woman too, Alina. To know such a thing might drive mankind to terrible ends,” said Dragomir, “or might teach humility and care. For there is such power in nature. Power to heal us all. Is it not as beautiful as all the works of man? Perhaps we must simply choose where the knowledge takes us.”

“Yes, Father, we must.”

“So although I shall be your father once more, the Order shall continue, for generation on generation if I can help it, into the distant future,” said Dragomir, looking proudly at his daughter, and that sword at her back, “and perhaps one day women shall join it too. Warriors. Who knows, Alina, perhaps one day your heirs shall come to lead it.”

Alina’s eyes shone and she sensed Catalin nearby. Dragomir raised his hand and took his wife’s in his again, but he was looking suddenly towards his daughter, and he shook his head wonderingly.

“But of all the five oaths perhaps the greatest is the last, child.”

“The last, Father?”

“The defence of the feminine, Alina WovenWord. Come, Romana, let’s go into the palace and talk of this. There’s much to tell, I think.”

Romana held her son’s hand firmly, and Alina walked over to Catalin, who was gazing back towards the passes and the mountains he had come from, and the two young people heard a note rise around them that made their hearts stir. Human voices were suddenly all around them, exhausted from the fight and mourning their own, singing to the young storytellers, Catalin Fierar and Alina WolfPaw. It was the song of the Helgra.

In that moment Alina Sculcuvant knew that of all life’s great journeys, perhaps the greatest was to come home, and to know the place for the first time.

“It was a brave fight,” whispered Catalin.

“But a painful one,” said Alina softly, “and I’m tired of swords for now, and of bows too, Catalin,” she added with a gentle smile, squeezing Catalin’s arm. “I’d learn what Father spoke of. The upholding of peace. And I will let my hair grow. For why should a woman not head the Order, and sooner than Father said?”

Catalin looked back at those brilliant hazel eyes, with that speck of green, and his heart beat faster. He no longer resented this fine, high lady, this heir to Castelu. He had never seen anyone so beautiful in his life. Suddenly Catalin grasped Alina to him and kissed her, holding her beating heart to his own.

Then the storytellers parted and stood staring into each other’s eyes. As they saw each other then it was as if nothing of that strange story had happened, and none of it mattered.