Beneath (19 page)

As they tightened girths, Finn shook his head.

“You’re crazy,” he said. “There’s still time to change your mind and stay, you know.”

Magnus made a face. “Jess and Freya would never forgive me if I set you loose on your own, and they’re even scarier than the wolves.”

Finn chuckled.

“I owe you an apology,” Magnus went on, turning sober, “I don’t understand everything, but I believe now that you never meant any of us any harm. You’ve more than proved that.”

“Thank you. I’m glad I’m not doing this on my own. I’d say we’re about even.” Finn hesitated, then went on. “Jess is lucky to have you – they both are.”

Magnus shrugged.

“I’m serious about Jess. I’ve made my choice,” he said.

Has she made hers
? Finn wondered, but this was hardly the moment to ask.

They walked the horses to the outside door. Finn checked that the moonstone was safe inside his tunic, then slid back the bolt and opened the door a crack. The street outside was clear. They led the horses out, secured the door behind them and mounted. The wolves had moved further into the town. Denied human prey, they snarled and snapped at each other, the occasional one falling to a lucky crossbow bolt or arrow. Magnus and Finn ignored the torn carcasses of cats and dogs and chickens scattered here and there, and rode in silence to the broad main street that led straight out of town. They brought the
horses to a halt.

Finn reached into his tunic for the moonstone and closed his hand round it.

Magnus became aware of a soft glow above them. He looked up.

There, impossibly huge, impossibly close, the full moon hung. He looked back at Finn’s face, saw him smiling triumphantly.

“Not bad for a half-blood,” Finn said.

And then the howling started: voice upon voice of the wolves, until the darkness hummed with the noise. For a few seconds all the sound stopped. A child cried somewhere and was swiftly hushed.

A wolf appeared at the end of the street, staring at Finn and Magnus, at the illusory moon. It began to stalk slowly towards them. Another appeared, and another, more and more, all their eyes fixed on the moon, moving together in eerie silence.

“It worked,” Magnus muttered in wonder.

And then the wolves began to run towards them.

“What’s happening?” Freya asked Jess. All the Nykur had turned to face the loch. They stood still, eyes closed in the failing light.

Jess shook her head, but Donald answered.

“Can’t you feel it? It has begun. Finn has cast the moon at the wolves. He is drawing on the power of everyone here to help him. He is bringing them to the door. Can’t you feel it?”

The girls put their arms round each other, imagining what might be happening in Dundee, sick with fear for the people they loved.

“How long will it take? How soon will they be here?” Jess asked, but she got no reply.

There wasn’t a sound from any of the Nykur. A terrible, expectant stillness had descended on the lochside. Not a blade of grass stirred. Freya and Jess tightened their grip on their weapons and waited.

As the wolves sped towards them, Finn and Magnus dragged the horses’ heads around and dug their heels into the animals’ sides. The horses hardly needed urging anyway. With the stink of wolf in their nostrils, all that was on their minds was escape. They shot away, barely under control.

The boys gave them their heads, trying to build some distance between themselves and the pursuing pack, knowing they would have to slow down over the rougher ground that lay ahead.

Magnus glanced back. Dozens of wolves ran behind them, filling the street as they passed, and then the horses were into the straggle of buildings at the edge of town, and then clear of it altogether.

Finn didn’t speak, most of his mind concentrated on keeping the moon illusion going.

They kept to the road for as long as possible, then pulled the horses up a little, and turned away from it and onto the hillocky ground they had to cover to reach the loch. At least the fictitious moon gave them light to see by, so they could keep up a reasonable speed. The wolves, unfortunately, were perfectly suited to just this sort of running; soon they would start to gain on the horses.

In the east was a hint that the sky was beginning to lighten as the real moon rose. Finn had been right to leave when he did. The illusion would fail soon.

They could see the loch ahead of them, dark between hills. The horses were almost spent, stumbling from time to time, only their fear of the wolves keeping them going.

“We need to leave the horses now,” Magnus yelled. “Before one of them falls and takes us with it.”

Finn nodded. “The wolves will slow a little to kill them once we set them loose. There’s nothing else we can do, is there?”

Magnus shook his head, and they pulled the horses up, jumped down and started to run without looking back. After a few seconds, they heard shrieks as the wolves caught up with the exhausted horses. Grim-faced, they ran on. Only at the edge of the water did they stop and look back.

Under the moonlight, the wolves’ black pelts gleamed as they loped inexorably on, drawn by the twin lures of prey and moonlight.

“This is it,” said Finn. He grasped Magnus’s hand. “Don’t let go.”

They waded out until they were hip deep and turned to face the wolves again. The leading animals had halted at the water’s edge and moved back and forth, sniffing the earth and the air.

Finn cupped the moonstone in his free hand once more, and above them, the full moon blazed with an intensity that
made them narrow their eyes.

The wolves howled with one voice, and then they started to walk into the water. The boys backed away, waiting for as many wolves as possible to walk into the trap.

“Come on… come on…” Finn muttered.

The water was full of wolves now, only their dark heads visible as they swam, still more moving from the shore into the shallows.

Now Finn, do it now,
Magnus urged him mentally, afraid to speak in case he upset the fearful balance of the illusion. Any second now the wolves would reach them.

And then Finn dragged him backwards off his feet so suddenly that he didn’t even have time to take a breath, and water and wolves and moonlight boiled and seethed around him. He closed his lungs on the little air he had, and concentrated on keeping hold of Finn’s hand.

As Jess and Freya watched, the surface of the loch began to bubble and glow silver. They heard the boys beside them gasp.

“Finn’s done it. He’s brought the moon to the loch. The wolves are there.”

Jess let go of Freya, wiped a sweaty palm across her skirt and took a firmer grip on the spear in her hand. What was going to come out of the loch?

The Nykur faced the loch, tension clear in their faces as they waited to find whether their plan would work. And then something shot to the surface near the centre of the water.

A head. Two heads.

“Finn!” gasped Jess. “And Magnus.”

Without even thinking, the girls dashed for the door and started to run for the loch, leaving behind whatever protection the house had offered.

They shouted the boys’ names, saw them start to swim, saw a black head appear near them, then another, as the wolves
were swept through the door into the Nykur world.

“Hurry!” yelled Freya.

“Swim!” screamed Jess. “The wolves are coming.”

She glanced round as she reached the water’s edge, expecting to see the Nykur poised to help, but they were concentrating on their pattern of stones, waiting to spring the trap shut.

Jess and Freya watched the terrible race to the edge of the loch. They screamed at the boys to swim faster, watching the water-sleek black heads gaining on them.

They waded out until the water was thigh deep; any further and they’d be swimming for their own lives. Jess reached Finn. She grabbed his arm and hauled him onwards.

“Don’t slow down. They’re right behind us,” she urged him.

“Jess!” screamed Freya. “Quickly.”

She looked round and saw, to her horror, Freya trying to fend off a wolf that was almost level with Magnus. Magnus himself didn’t seem to realise what was happening, too disorientated by the last few minutes.

She left Finn and struggled across to help, stabbing and jabbing at the black head, trying to win a few seconds for Magnus to get clear. A red stain spread in the water and the wolf twisted and headed away from them.

They cleared the edge of the water and broke into a stumbling run away from the loch. Jess looked back and saw the first wolf reach the edge and shake a rainbow of water from its pelt.

“I thought they couldn’t get out again. What’s wrong? It’s not working.”

Finn paused to look at the loch and then at the Nykur.

“The illusion isn’t complete yet,” he said.

The wolves emerging into the Nykur world were disoriented. Where was the moon that they had followed? Almost a score of them milled on the shore, trying to scent it, not yet aware of the still figures of the Nykur.

The loch was full of wolves. They’d be overwhelmed in minutes. Magnus stepped in front of the two girls, knife ready, as though he could hope to defend them.

And then…

“What’s happening?” gasped Freya.

Jess watched as the movement of the dozens of wolves in the water slowed and stopped, as the water grew solid around them. There were a few despairing howls that faded to whimpers and then to silence, as the loch forgot it was water.

The wolves died where they were, crushed by water that thought it was stone.

Jess, Freya and Magnus stared in disbelief at the impossibility of what they had just seen. Finn let out a shout to alert his people. And the wolves on the shore, the very last survivors of the pack, suddenly became aware of the Nykur. All their confusion and uncertainty dropped away, for here was prey, and they were wolves, and the hunt was the very core of their being.

They launched themselves at the Nykur.

One man was dead before they had any chance to react, brought down and killed with terrible ferocity. A woman screamed and then the lochside erupted into a chaos of hooves and teeth as Finn and the remaining Nykur took horse shape. Magnus, Freya and Jess shrank close together, unable even to flee to the house through the whirling fury of horses and wolves. Magnus struck at a long body as it shot past him. The knife connected, but the wolf was gone before he could tell how badly he’d hurt it.

They saw a wolf stop and focus on Euan, the only other human in the melee, scenting an easy kill. It bared its fangs and moved in, and then a horse plunged in front of it and struck again and again with its hooves until the wolf was a twitching unrecognisable mess of red and black and white.

Around them, the wolves died, whimpering. At last the world grew quiet. The horses grew still. Every wolf lay dead or
dying. Magnus took a few steps to where one lay helpless, its back broken, and drew his knife across its throat.

There was utter silence, and suddenly the horses were gone and in their place, torn and battered and blood-streaked, were the Nykur, back in human form.

There were three still figures on the ground: the man who had died at the start of the attack; a woman with long blonde hair matted with blood from a terrible wound to her skull, and Finn.

The silence was broken by a scream as the survivors took in the scene around them. Jess would have run straight to where Finn lay, but Magnus held tight to her arm.

“Let me go.” She tried to shake him off.

“Jess, wait. Let his family go to him.”

“No.” She tugged ineffectually against him.

Magnus stepped in front of her so she had to look at him.

“Jess. His family need to go to him first.”

She saw the truth in what he said, and instead buried herself in his arms, aware a few seconds later of Freya’s arms around her as well. She had no idea how long she stood like that before she took in that Magnus was speaking to her.

“Jess? Jess, look up. Look. He’s all right.”

She looked, hardly daring to hope she understood. Finn was on his feet, his whole family hugging him. “I don’t think he’s even hurt,” Magnus said.

He couldn’t stop her this time as she stumbled across the stony earth to Finn and his family and threw her arms round him.

“I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead.”

Behind Jess, Magnus had turned away, and Freya put an arm round his shoulders.

“I’m all right,” said Finn, still struggling for breath. “Keeping the moon illusion going was a strain, that’s all. What about you?”

“I’m fine. We all are. Is it over now?”

“Yes. It’s over.” He looked at the broken bodies that lay on the loch shore. “It’s over.”

The Nykur carried the dead man and the dying woman into the abandoned house. They made the woman as comfortable as they could and her family gathered round her bed.

Jess and Freya helped to tend the other wounded Nykur. No one else was badly hurt, though few had escaped completely unscathed. They all stayed there for the night, falling into exhausted sleep where they sat or lay. No one had spoken much, too shocked by the deaths they had witnessed.

The injured woman died just before dawn.

Once the sun was fully up, the Nykur gathered to bid farewell to their dead. Jess, Freya and Magnus hung back, not wanting to intrude, but Finn came for them.

“We would like you to be part of this, as you were part of what happened yesterday.”

They followed him outside, not knowing what to expect. A burial? A pyre?

The Nykur stood in a ring round the bodies. Jess, Freya and Magnus joined it, standing between Finn and Rowan. No one spoke. The families of the dead came forward to kiss them, then returned to their places. Everyone stood silently. How long would they keep vigil like this, Jess wondered, and what would they do afterwards?

Something was happening to the bodies.

Jess blinked and squinted, for she could no longer see them properly. It was as though they were wrapped in mist, red and gold and silvery grey. The mist seemed to settle to the ground. She could see the shapes under it now, but they didn’t look like bodies any more: it was as though someone had painstakingly formed their detailed images from heaped autumn leaves.

A breeze came from nowhere, swirling around. It lifted the mist away from the leaf images, then moved the leaves
themselves in little spurts and eddies. The leaves moved faster, spinning in a vortex that carried them high overhead and then released them in the air to be swept away by other winds.

Jess found that her face was wet with tears, and looked round to see that everyone was weeping.

It was a new day. The wolves were defeated and the dead were gone.

“It’s time we went home,” said Magnus.

Finn, Jess, Freya and Magnus stood beside the river near Finn’s family home.

It had been a sombre journey back. They had waited until they were all well enough to travel, then left the others at the loch.

Jess knew she should worry about the reception that was likely to face them in the Upper World, but her mind and heart were here with Finn. She was desperate to speak to him alone, but somehow either Magnus or Freya had always been with her. There was no time left if she was going to speak.

“Will you come back with us for a while? Even a day or so; just for a rest, a few meals, until your family gets here.”

He shook his head.

“I can’t. And you need to make your peace with your father. My being there wouldn’t exactly help.”

Jess’s heart sank, even though he was right. She tried to smile, not trusting herself to speak further.

“Ready?” Finn asked.

They joined hands and stepped into the water, let it carry them down and up and through, opened their eyes to low sun slanting through tree trunks, and pulled themselves free of Roseroot Pool.

Finn embraced Freya and Jess.

He and Magnus gave each other a long look, and clasped hands briefly.

“We’ll see you again, won’t we?” asked Freya. Jess couldn’t have spoken if her life had depended on it.

“Maybe,” was all Finn said.

He didn’t dare stay a second longer, or he’d never have the strength to go. He left his heart on the shore like a gasping fish, waded out, and disappeared.

Jess felt something inside her break and go with him. She stared at the empty water until Magnus and Freya turned her round and made her start walking.