Beneath (18 page)

The boys began to relax slightly. Five minutes had gone with no sign that the wolves were tracking them. And then a flicker of movement caught the tail of Finn’s eye.

“They’re back,” he said quietly, without breaking stride. “Stop when I tell you and wait for me to change. We’ll need more speed to outrun them than your legs can manage.”

Magnus could see the wolves now as streaks of deeper darkness against the sky. He tightened his grip on the knife.

“Now.”

Finn stopped and, with an effort, so did Magnus. It made his flesh creep to stand still, knowing that the wolves were closing on him, but Finn was right: if he ran, he’d be brought down before he had any chance of reaching Dundee.

Beside him stood the black horse. He reached for its mane to pull himself up and found himself astride its back without doing anything – the horse’s stride already changing from trot to canter.

Behind them now, no longer the sound of howling, but deep, angry snarls, as the wolves realised their quarry had a chance of escape. Magnus dug his left hand deep into Finn’s mane and shifted his grip on the knife.

Jess and Freya went to where Rowan was walking.

“What are you doing?” Freya asked.

Rowan paused to push a strand of dark hair out of her eyes.

“We’re collecting stones to seal the gateway.”

“So, can we help?” Jess asked.

“You won’t be able to recognise the stones that we need.”

“No… how
do
you recognise them?” Jess enquired, looking at the two in Rowan’s hand. To her, they looked no different from any of the other stones lying at her feet.

“Because…” Rowan struggled to find something to say that would make sense. “They just… look
right
. They look like themselves, like they did when they lived in the loch.”

Jess and Freya exchanged glances.

“Mmnn… I see,” said Jess, slowly.

“Really?” Rowan’s surprise showed in her face.

“No. I’ve no idea what you mean. Sorry.”

Rowan snorted. “You can still take them down to the shore and give them to someone to put in place.” She handed the stones she was carrying to Freya. “Over there.” She pointed to where two Nykur men were moving slowly around the margin of the loch, setting stones down every few paces in some precise and obscure pattern.

“All right.” Freya beamed at Rowan and went off on her errand.

Rowan watched her go, then fixed Jess with a stare.

“I want to talk to you,” she said. “About my brother.”

Magnus watched the lights of Dundee growing closer as they pounded along. So far, the wolves weren’t gaining on them, but nor were they dropping back. He could feel the effort of the horse’s muscles working beneath him. This wasn’t how it had been in Finn’s world.

They were among the disorganised scatter of buildings at the edge of town now. Magnus let his mind stray to the fastest route to take to St Mary’s watchtower. And then, without warning, he hit the ground hard, and all the air was jarred from his lungs. He hadn’t even felt Finn stumble. What had happened?

He struggled to his knees, gasping for breath. Finn, back in human shape, was doing the same a few metres away.

Close now, a wolf snarled.

“I want to talk to you about my brother. What are you going to do about him?” Rowan demanded.

“Do?” repeated Jess. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

Rowan’s expression said quite clearly that she didn’t believe a word of that.

“About him. About you,” said Rowan impatiently. “About how he feels.”

“I’m not sure what you…” Jess began, but the tide of heat rising in her face gave the lie to the words before she even said them.

“That’s why he took Freya, you know.” Rowan rushed on with what she wanted to say now, almost ignoring Jess. “It was meant to be you, but the horse senses are hopeless at telling people apart. He’s been watching you for years. He’s loved you for years. What are you going to do? What do you feel for him?”

Jess stood with her mouth open like a fish. A series of images reared up in her brain.

The first time she saw him, in the firelight, when she came to the Nykur world for Freya. The feeling in her chest when she saw him, white and still in the snow. The moment he had kissed her, before he went out to face the wolves at Westgarth.

“I… Magnus and I… there’s nothing…” she stammered.

“What do you feel?” Rowan insisted.

“I don’t know.”

“Liar!” Rowan spat the word out. “He’s risked everything for you, and you can’t even be honest about your own feelings.” She turned away and started to scan the ground, and Jess saw that Freya was on her way back. She put her hands to her hot face, trying to cool it before Freya noticed.

Magnus scrabbled his way over to Finn, looking around wildly as he moved, sure that wolves were about to erupt from the ground around him.

He grabbed Finn’s arm and pulled him to his feet.

“What happened?”

Finn shook his head. “I’m not properly fit – not here, anyway,” he said with difficulty, and pulled Magnus into a run. In the street behind them they could hear the wolves.

Magnus hauled Finn round a corner to the left and into a narrower street, then right into a tiny alley that ended in a flight of steps and beyond that, the backyard of an inn, empty barrels stacked waiting by the cellar door. They launched six barrels down the steps towards the pursuing wolves, and heard the sound of wood and flesh crashing into each other, and whimpers of pain.

Magnus dragged Finn off again across the paved inn yard and out through the archway where the carts came in. They had gained precious time.

“It’s not far now,” Magnus told Finn.

Finn nodded. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”

Magnus ran.

Jess carried an armful of stones to the lochside, glad to escape from Rowan’s scrutiny for a few minutes. The Nykur men looked at Jess with undisguised curiosity as she handed over the stones, but didn’t speak. She walked a little way off and sat down facing the loch.

She needed to untangle her feelings. She’d been pretending for so long that there was nothing to face up to that she’d almost come to believe it, but now Rowan had forced her into honesty.

What do you feel?

Magnus made her feel safe, made her feel happy. She was comfortable with him. She was very fond of him. She hadn’t
quite managed to keep her imagination in check, and had pictured being older, and married to him, and it was a safe, comfortable, happy feeling. It fitted. Everyone would be pleased if they married.

It was the right thing to do.

What do you feel?

Her heart always seemed to have been beating faster when she was with Finn.
That’s because there’s always been danger when you’ve been with him,
common sense said. But she knew it was more than that. All these years he’d watched her and she’d known without knowing it that he was there. And then when she finally met him and he told her about that, instead of being angry, or frightened, it was as if a piece of her heart had clicked into place.

Jess got to her feet, agitated, afraid of what she was admitting to herself. She loved them both.

“No,” she said out loud. “I can’t love Finn. I hardly know him. I love Magnus.”

And, repeating it over and over under her breath, she stomped determinedly back towards Rowan and Freya.

St Mary’s Watchtower rose ahead of Magnus.

Reaching it, he turned the handle on one of the few doors in town that was sure to be unlocked and barrelled into the tower. He held the door ready to slam it as soon as Finn was inside.

As soon as Finn was inside.

Where was he?

Magnus could hear feet hurrying downstairs. He ducked out of the doorway into the street again to see Finn coming towards him at a laboured run, two wolves closing on him fast.

Finn half fell through the doorway into the tower. Magnus shoved the door closed with his shoulder on a rapidly advancing vision of teeth and claws, barred it, and slid down it
to sit in a sweaty heap.

From the stair, two astonished men looked down at the panting figures on the floor.

“You lads had better have a good explanation,” said one of them.

Rowan looked towards the crags on the other side of the loch.

“We’re running out of time,” she said. “The light will soon fade. We have to be ready by the time darkness comes.” She handed the stones she was carrying to Freya, and bent to pick up a final one.

“Come on,” she said and joined the rest of the Nykur walking to the loch.

Jess watched as the last stones were set in place. What were they for? And what was happening to Magnus and Finn on the other side of the gateway?

Gudrun and Euan had come to join Rowan. Jess went to stand beside Freya.

“Now what happens?” Jess asked nervously.

It was Gudrun who answered.

“Now we must wait for Finn to bring the wolves, then try to seal the gateway as they come through.”

“And if you can’t?”

Gudrun shook her head. “If the wolves are on this side, there are so many of them that we may all die. If they are on the other side, Dundee may fall to them. There are so few of us here that we cannot be sure we have enough power. And we cannot spare any to protect you as we work. You must stay in the house with the boys who used to live in your world, and do what you can to protect yourselves.”

Jess glanced at Freya, seeing her own growing fear mirrored in her friend’s face. Gudrun had already turned away to talk to another Nykur.

If Jess thought about what might happen in the next few hours she’d just curl up on the ground, whimpering. Instead,
she gave Freya’s hand a bolstering squeeze.

“I suppose we’d better do as we’re told,” Jess said. “I’d almost prefer to stay here though; at least there are plenty of rocks to throw.”

“How’s your aim?” asked Freya.

“Well, either it’ll improve very quickly, or it won’t get the chance.”

“Then let’s see what we can find to throw from inside.”

They climbed the steps to the house.

“At least we’ve got knives,” said Jess. “There can’t be much difference between gutting a fish and gutting a wolf, can there?”

“Just size,” said Freya, with the air of an expert.

“And you do come from a family of famous wolf killers.”

“Exactly. And the head above the door needs replacing. It’s far too scruffy. Maybe I’ll take father back a new one.”

Jess had no idea why this ridiculous conversation was making her feel better, but it was.

“Boiling water,” she mused as they reached the kitchen. “They won’t like that…”

“The knives are sharp, but they don’t give us much of a reach,” Freya pointed out. “It would be better if we could fasten them to something – makeshift spears.”

“You’re right. Let’s see what we can find.”

Magnus opened his mouth to start explaining himself, but was pre-empted by a crash against the door and the sound of furious growling from outside.

“What’s chasing you?” asked the watchman, eyeing the door in alarm.

“Wolves,” said Magnus, getting to his feet. “The kind that don’t give up once they start hunting.”

“How many?”

“We didn’t wait to see once they started chasing us, but there are hundreds massing not far from here to attack the people in town. You have to sound the warning.”

There was a small, shuttered window to the right of the
door. One of the men went to open the shutters now, as bodies continued to thud against the door.

“Don’t!” yelled Finn. “They’ll get in.”

“No they’ll not. Not unless they can chew through iron.” He threw back the shutter to expose a metal grille. The sudden source of light alerted the wolves, and in a few seconds jaws were snapping outside the window.

The watchmen looked at each other.

“We’ll sound the alarm. Stay inside.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Magnus said feelingly as the men took the stairs two at a time.

A few seconds later a bell sounded: not the continuous tolling that would have signalled a fire, but three notes and a pause, repeated over and over; the signal for people to get off the street and arm themselves, for the wolves were here.

Finn got up and peered cautiously out at the wolf-haunted street. “Let’s go upstairs. We might get a better idea of what’s happening.”

Out on the platform they watched as lights were kindled in windows all over the city. Finn grabbed Magnus’s arm and pointed.

“Look. Here they come.”

A river of black bodies flowed into the streets at the southern edge of town, where they had been only a short time earlier. Magnus saw three terrified cats torn to pieces as the pack began to spread itself through the town.

“You’ve saved lives tonight, lads,” said one of the watchmen. “If we hadn’t rung the bells to get everyone off the streets…”

“What happens now?” asked Finn.

“We can’t do much until it’s light.” He stared at the seemingly endless river of wolf fur. “How many are there? Where did they come from?”

Finn and Magnus exchanged glances, but said nothing.

Jess stood by the kitchen window, trying to convince herself
that she felt safer now she was holding a makeshift wolf-spear: a knife fastened to a length of wood.

Behind her, Freya carried one as well, as the two stolen boys checked the pots of water boiling over the hearth. Jess wouldn’t have recognised them as Donald and Aidan. They seemed to have grown up far more than was possible in the time since they had disappeared, and showed no sign that they remembered Freya or Jess.

The rest of the Nykur stood at intervals along the loch shore. Freya and the boys joined Jess at the window. Freya elbowed Donald in the ribs.

“What are they doing?” she hissed.

“The stones used to live in the loch. We are telling the loch that it is made of stone, not water. Then nothing will be able to force a way through it again. The gateway will be sealed.”

“But what are they
doing
?” Freya persisted.

“They are joining their thoughts to the stones’ thoughts.”

Freya gave up, looked at Jess and rolled her eyes. “I feel much better now I know that,” she muttered.

The scream made Magnus’s skin crawl. The wolves had found an open window in one of the nearby houses. He wasn’t sure how many had got inside. At first there had been the sound of fighting, but then the wolves had clearly overwhelmed the people. There was nothing he could do but stand here and listen to them die.

He tried to keep his mind away from his parents, but it was no good. The house would be locked up tight, surely? His mother was always careful about that, but his father sometimes forgot. He could hear his mother’s voice in his head now; she always said the same thing to his father when it happened.

“You’re not in Kirriemuir now, you big daft lump. Most of these people are strangers to us. We could wake up tomorrow, murdered in our own beds.”

It didn’t seem so funny now, stuck at the top of this tower
while the wolves quartered the town. He wanted to be with his parents, to make sure they were safe.

Finn leaned out over the edge, trying to estimate how many wolves there were.
Far too many
. How long had they been coming through the doorway from his own world?

He could hear shouting down at street level now, as people tried to organise themselves from the safety of their houses, and horses screaming where the wolves must have broken into a stable. The watchmen had disappeared inside to get their crossbows, even though the chance of hitting a wolf in the near dark was slim.

Finn knew he had to go. He watched the wolves in the street below. Still too many, but he couldn’t afford to wait much longer. It couldn’t be long until moonrise.

“I’m going now,” he said to Magnus. “There’s not much time left to get them back to the loch. I hope your parents are all right.”

“Once the men come back up we’ll go inside, slip through the door to the stable and take their horses,” said Magnus.

“But you’re staying here, aren’t you? And I’m going to take horse shape.”

Magnus eyed Finn. “That didn’t work too well on the way here. Why not use real horses to get us at least part of the way – save your breath for the tricky part?”

“You’re right: I’ll take a horse. But,” Finn repeated, “you must make sure your parents are safe.”

“There’s nothing I can do to protect them by staying here,” said Magnus flatly. “I can’t reach them. It makes more sense to make sure you get the wolves back through that door.”

Because he couldn’t find the words to express how he felt, Finn just nodded.

Footsteps heralded the return of the watchmen, crossbows primed. Magnus and Finn hurried down the stairs and went straight through the internal door to the stable, where two wild-eyed horses were tethered.

“Hush now,” said Finn, walking up to the first one, which backed away to the limit of the rope. “Give me a minute, Magnus. I can calm them down a bit.”

Finn slid his hand up the rope to the halter, then down the animal’s neck and stood quietly beside it, whispering into its ear, while Magnus went to fetch saddles. When he came back, Finn had calmed the first horse and was doing the same to the second.