The Sight (6 page)

‘Because the moon is the goddess Tor,’ answered Brassa softly, smiling down at Larka, ‘looking down on us all.  As some say the fury of the sun is the hunter Fenris snarling at the Varg, so they say the moon is the wolf goddess, opening her eyes wider and wider and stroking the world with her kindness.’

But Fell’s eyes had sparkled at the mention of Fenris.

‘One day I’ll hunt,’ said the black cub hopefully, ‘won’t I, Brassa? Like Fenris.  I can’t wait to kill something,’ he added, wrinkling up his little nose.

Brassa looked down at him tenderly too.

‘That will come, Fell, all in good time.  You’ve yet to learn quite what lies out there in the wild, even for the Putnar.  To face that you will need not only courage, but wit and cunning.  The cunning of the hunter.  Now, pay attention.  I’m going to tell you a story.’

‘A tale of Wolfbane,’ yapped Fell, ‘a story of the Evil One.’

The cubs wagged their tails at the old nurse and Larka settled again.  They loved listening to the rhythms of her voice and plucking out familiar sounds and phrases.  Each sun, Larka and Fell seemed to know more and more words and, though they longed to be gone from the den like all the grown-ups, they loved stories.

‘No, Fell,’ whispered Brassa, ‘not Wolfbane.’

‘Of a horrid Grasht, then,’ piped Larka, ‘cursed and drinking blood.’

Fell nodded enthusiastically.  Now here was a story he could really get his teeth into.

‘No, Larka,’ answered Brassa, looking very nervously at the white wolf.  ‘It was in the beginning, when the wolf gods Tor and Fenris created the world and so brought light out of the darkness.  When, in the shape of the moon and the sun, the great gods made Dammam, the first wolf, to rule over the whole earth.  Then, because she loved him, Tor took one of Dammam’s teeth and out of it she fashioned the she-wolf Va, to be his mate.  As Tor and Fenris stood over Dammam and Va and looked down on them from the heavens they were glad at what they had done.’

Fell yawned for he had heard this part of the story before, but as Brassa spoke of Tor and Fenris standing up there in the clouds, he suddenly thought of Huttser and Palla towering protectively over them in the den.

‘Why?’ asked Larka suddenly.  Larka was always asking things of the grown-ups and, though she rarely listened to the answers properly, her favourite question was always ‘Why?’.

Brassa licked the little she-wolf.

‘Because Dammam was very lonely as he wandered through the forests, Larka.  So Tor let Va give Dammam a beautiful litter—’

‘But who made Tor and Fenris, Brassa,’ growled Larka irritably, ‘what was before them?’

‘Stop interrupting,’ snapped Brassa, though she was deeply impressed by Larka’s question.  Brassa shook herself and tried again.

‘So Tor let Va give Dammam a beautiful litter of thirty- three pups, as I was saying, made up of every type of Varg in the world; Timber wolves and Red Wolves, Long-maned, Chancos and Arctic wolves, all of whom lived and grew and spread out through the forests.  But the oldest of these cubs was the grey Varg Fren, who was Va’s favourite.’

Fell and Larka stirred excitedly.  Depending on who was telling the story, and especially whether it was a male or a female, Fren was either the greatest hunter and fighter in the forest, dark and mysterious, a loner and something of a villain too, or the kindest father and the best defender of the brood.  But brave and cunning, and always at odds with Tor and Fenris, Fren was the hero of a thousand wonderful adventures.

‘One sun, Fren was fast asleep in the sunlight,’ growled Brassa, ‘when Tor came padding slowly by across the clouds.  Now Fren heard Tor, but he pretended to go on sleeping, for he guessed what was coming next.  Tor was furious with Fren because he was always disobeying her and stealing things from the wolf gods, food and magic and the secrets that they for ever kept hidden in the den of the night.  Above all, he had tried to steal the golden deer pelt that once worn would bestow not only freedom, but all knowledge and wisdom on the wearer.  It hung from an ancient branch in a forest of almond trees.’

The children’s eyes were glittering.

‘Just as Fren had expected, Tor grew angrier and angrier as she saw him sleeping there and, in order to wake the wolf, she let out a howl that rose to the stars.’

Huttser and Palla were padding slowly down the hillside as Brassa told her story, side by side, matching each other’s pace and trying to enjoy the warm evening.  The hunt hadn’t gone well though.  Palla was tired and again her thoughts were occupied with Morgra.  She was looking up at the heavens.

‘Huttser, it’ll be almost full again.  Do you think...’

But Huttser wasn’t listening.  For the last few moments Huttser had grown deeply unnerved.  He stopped as the valley opened below them.  From where the wolves were standing they had a perfect sweep of the forest, clear to the castle on the mountaintop.  Its great black walls loomed above the endless pine trees and not even the gentle glow of the setting sun could soften its battlements.  The wolves could see the river and, through a break in the trees, the little waterfall.  At this angle they could not see the entrance to the den, but Huttser’s heart began to pound as his eyes ranged back and forth across the hill above the cave.

‘Where’s Bran?’ he growled suddenly, ‘I told him to stand guard.’

‘There,’ sighed Palla with relief, but the she-wolf’s tail came up and she began to sniff the air.  Palla’s eyes were not as good as Huttser’s, but her nose was telling her more of the faint shape she had spied in the distance.  A Lera was moving back and forth across the hill right by the big boulder.  Its head was down, scenting the ground and its tail was wagging.  But its coat belonged to no Varg that Huttser or Palla knew.  It was a light beige colour and perfectly svelte.

‘A dog,’ snarled Huttser.

But suddenly the dog turned away from the den and ran straight back into the trees.

‘Do you think he found it?’ whispered Palla.

‘He’ll have picked up the scent all right, but perhaps Bran scared him off.’

In that moment they heard a sound lifting over the valley that made the wolves tremble to their bones.  In the distance, among the trees at the base of the Stone Spores, voices rose in a baying frenzy.  Not one voice but ten, twenty voices, crying together.  Now, through the wood, the wolves could also see strange oranges lights flickering about the branches, like little eyes of light moving up the valley from the direction of the village.

‘Man,’ cried Huttser desperately, ‘Man is hunting and that dog is one of his hounds.’

Palla began to shake.  A wolf’s instincts are perfectly balanced between the need for fight or flight and a she-wolf will sometimes abandon even her own cubs if the threat to them is too great.  Palla was wrestling with her own nature.

‘My pups,’ she cried suddenly, ‘hurry.’

Huttser could hardly keep up as the she-wolf bounded down the slope.  Palla’s springing limbs were seized with a furious energy and every muscle was trained towards a single purpose: reaching her cubs in time.  Night came down and the hungry darkness consumed the forest, but the wolves’ desperate eyes began to glitter in the shadows as they ran.  The dog pack’s frenzied barking sounded nearer every moment and Palla’s heart was beating so hard it was fit to burst.

‘But Fren had howled so long and so hard that his call had filled the whole world.  And there was plenty of howling left over for every wolf in it.  And for every kind of feeling too.  The howl of the hunter and the mate, the howl of friendship and of loss.  The howl of danger and of mourning too.  Which is how, my dears, Fren stole the secret of the howl from Tor and Fenris.  And how he showed his cunning too.’

Brassa was smiling down at the cubs but she swung round immediately as Palla bounded into the cave.

‘Brassa.  Quickly.  We must move the den.’

The cubs leapt up, their tails going and their voices breaking into delighted barks.  Brassa could see Palla’s desperation and she was immediately nervous that the cubs were already so large.

‘What’s happening?’ cried Brassa.

‘A hunting pack,’ snarled Huttser from the cave mouth, ‘and humans are on their trail.’

Larka and Fell didn’t really understand what a hunting pack was, let alone humans, but they immediately sensed the tension in their father’s voice.  Larka looked nervously at her brother, but the black wolf’s eyes shone.

‘Then we must hurry,’ growled Brassa.  ‘Follow the stream and the river and use the water to cover our scent.  Further down the river to the east, there’s an old badger’s set by the big oak.’

‘Good, Brassa.  Take Palla there.  I’ll draw them off and try and get to you when I can.  It’ll be quicker if you carry them.’

‘But, Huttser,’ cried Palla.

‘Don’t argue with me,’ snarled her mate.

Huttser sprang out of the cave.  As soon as he emerged into the evening he saw Bran running up the slope towards him.  Bran had picked up the scent of a squirrel near the den a good while earlier and it had made him completely forget about his charge of guarding the entrance.  His face was full of guilt as Huttser spotted him.

 ‘Huttser, I’m sorry, I just wanted—’

‘Silence, Bran.  Follow me.’

In the den Palla grabbed Larka.  She was quite heavy, but as Palla held her by the loose folds of fur around her neck, the wolf pup instantly went limp, and Palla found her easy enough to carry.

‘What is it, Brassa?’ whispered Fell as the old she-wolf dipped her muzzle to pick him up too.  ‘Is it that cub killer?’

‘Hush, Fell.  You must be quiet now, and as brave as you can.’

‘I’ll look after you, Fell,’ growled Larka suddenly as she hung from her mother’s jaws.

The she-wolves sprang out of the cave, splashing into the stream, with the pups swinging from their mouths.  As they followed the stream down the hill, Palla turned to see Huttser and Bran watching them from beside the boulder.  Huttser nodded gravely and then sprang straight towards the sound of the approaching dogs.

Little Larka’s thoughts were consumed with fear as her mother ran through the deep, black night.  Yet she was excited too.  She hardly knew what was happening, but one thing was for sure.  This sudden adventure had carried them beyond the confines of the den, and as she peered about at the looming trees flashing past them, her very first taste of the outside world thrilled the young wolf to the marrow.

‘How far?’ panted Palla in the darkness.  They had stopped to rest the cubs.

Suddenly the air quivered.  Behind them through the dark came the furious barking.  Palla’s hearing seemed to have become even more acute with the adrenalin pumping through her body and now she could even hear paws churning through twigs and leaves.

‘Hurry,’ she cried, ‘they’re on to us.’

For a time the pack had followed Huttser and Bran, moving so fast that they had left their human masters far behind, but after a while they had split into two and half of the hounds had turned back to the den.  They were furious when they discovered the den empty, but they had wandered around by the river and one of them had stumbled on the scent of the she-wolves by an elm tree.

They had followed it silently, noses locked to the ground, sniffing the pungent, feral odour of the wolf and losing it in places where the she-wolves had crossed the water.  But they had just picked it up again and set up a chorus of barking.  This was the sound the wolves could hear now and they knew there was no time to lose.  Brassa grabbed Fell again and bounded ahead, searching desperately for the badger set.  As the dogs called behind them, she was almost at her wits’ end.

‘I’m just a forgetful old fool,’ Brassa kept thinking bitterly to herself.

At last Brassa spotted the big oak and then a wide hole high on the far bank and mostly obscured by a log.  Brassa waded into the water and soon they were on the other side.  The set went a good way back into the bank and it was certainly wide enough for a wolf and two cubs, but Brassa realized immediately there would be no room for her.

‘Hurry, my dear,’ she trembled, ‘go as deep as you can, it’s their only chance.  Keep the little ones quiet and I’ll try and make it into the mountains until it’s safe again.’

‘Don’t leave us, Brassa,’ whispered Fell.

Brassa dipped her head and licked Fell’s nose.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll be safer with your mother,’ she whispered.

There was no time to argue.  Palla began to back into the hollow, pulling the cubs after her.

‘Good luck, my dear,’ cried Brassa, and the old she-wolf sprang away.

Palla drew Fell back into the darkness behind Larka and the moist walls closed around them.  The air smelt heavily of badger.

‘Mamma,’ growled Larka.  ‘Why are they chasing us, Mamma?’

‘Quiet, Larka.’

Palla was terrified of alerting the dogs outside and besides, how could she ever explain why animals chased each other?

Larka and Fell could hear the dog pack drawing nearer and nearer across the river and suddenly the full terror of their situation dawned on the cubs.  Larka began to tremble, and as a reflex to her fear, although she was well beyond suckling, she tried to get to Palla’s milk.

‘Keep still, Larka,’ whispered Palla angrily.

But Fell had noticed a beetle scurrying across the low roof of the den and he let out a squeak that turned into a growl, and finally a little howl.  Fell clamped his mouth shut again, startled at the extraordinary sound that had just popped out of his throat and terrified that he had just given away their hiding place.

The dog pack was far enough away for the sound to be muffled by the earth but two of them heard something and looked across the river.  They saw the log, though not the mouth of the set, but while the others discussed what to do next, they splashed across the water and climbed the slope.  Palla’s blood froze.  She could hear the sound of the dogs’ footfalls just above them, through the thick earth, coming nearer and nearer to the entrance.

They would have discovered it too if one of the other dogs hadn’t called out to them from across the river.

‘What have you got, Vlag?’

‘I don’t know, boss,’ answered the larger of the two.