Darkwood (30 page)

The day had dawned white and cloudy and even now, at midday, the sun struggled to brighten the forest floor. For the third time in as many minutes, Baggy stopped to consider his route. Where the wolves had simply jumped clear of roots and bushes, the horse proceeded gingerly. All her coaxing, even her sharpest kicks, could not make him hurry. Abruptly, Annie turned his head straight south, and the horse, as if knowing they were headed at last to a proper road, hustled along. A quarter mile later they broke from the trees and joined the road that connected the cutting fields to Gorgetown. It was strange how quiet everything was, how normal. What had she expected, a black flag waving from every rooftop?

Two dark specks were making their way toward her, now clear against a patch of snow, now lost against the muddy ground. Wolves? They were much too small to be wolves.

Then Annie was standing in the middle of the road, the cats purring and rubbing against her ankles. Around her neck
Prudence wore a circlet of braided hair. The hair was pale gold, nearly white, without any other colors mixed in. Page's hair. Page was safe. Annie slipped the circlet onto her wrist. But Isadore wore something around his neck as well, a red ribbon shot through with gold thread, the colors of the king's army. Annie dropped the ribbon to the ground.

They were together. He had found her. She had wanted to be found.

A farmer at work in his field felt the sun's warmth on the back of his neck and straightened up, resting his spade against the toe of his boot. Nothing had grown in this plot of land for more than a decade, but every spring he turned the soil and planted seed. Lifting his face to the weak light he saw a girl fly past on a horse, her body bent nearly flat to the animal's back, her hair whipping out behind her like a black flag. What can that poor child be running from? he wondered. He watched her a moment longer, then smiled and stuck his spade into the thawing earth. She was not running away, he decided, but toward.

The smells of the battlefield reached her first: death and dying, fear, of course, and exertion, clouds and clouds of doubt, and someone, somewhere, reeking of joy. She heard shouts and gunfire, the fierce barking of a wolf, cries of pain. Then they rounded a bend in the road and she reined the horse in so hard his front feet left the ground. She had wanted desperately to reach the fight, but now that she was here she wanted just as desperately to turn around and go back—not just back along the road, but back in time to the Annie who had never seen a war.

Corpses covered the field, red for the king's army, black for the wolves. The men fought with guns and swords and axes. The fighting was thickest closest to the hill, just as she had feared. The men kept their backs to the ridge. The wolves hemmed them in. Their numbers were about equal, which meant the rest of the wolves had not yet arrived. Had Mira caught up to them? Had she stopped them? Annie scanned the hilltop. There was the oak clinging by its roots to the cliff, and the spot where she had stood with Izzy and looked down at
her uncle and Chopper. And there, in the shadow of the oak, a square of purple, an odd patch of color amid the landscape's grays and browns. Uncle Jock had complained for days about the purple patch on the knee of his breeches.

Womanish. I look a fool
.

It's all I have. Would you rather the wind freeze your joints
?

He had tipped the gun almost vertical, barrel pointing down as though he planned to fire at the very base of the wash. Of course she would be there. The king would try to protect her, might even shield her with his own body. But would he think to look up?

Look up, look up, look up
.

Uncle Jock took aim, frowned, lowered his weapon, and took aim again. Page must be moving. Running back and forth, maybe looking for Annie even as Annie was looking for her.

Look up, look up, look up
.

Annie watched her uncle take aim once more. He smiled. His shoulders relaxed.

She threw back her head and howled.

She left the horse—too skittish, too slow. She left her boots, useless without their laces. When she fell on the blood-slick field she got up and ran on. She climbed over the dead bodies of men and wolves. She pushed living bodies out of her way, until they seemed to move themselves, an avenue opening before her, on either side a wall of red and black. She could see
them now, Page and the king, standing at the end of the avenue. They were looking at her, their mouths open in shock, in greeting.

Uncle Jock's finger moved on the trigger.

Annie's body struck Page just ahead of the bullet. She felt her sister jerk in her arms, then they landed together in a heap. The king bent over them.

“Where? Where's the shooter?”

Up there
, Annie tried to say, but her voice came out a snarl.

The king flinched.

“Up,” Annie tried again. “Uncle.”

She pointed, but Uncle Jock had disappeared. The king's face turned pale.

“Look,” he said to Annie. “Look.”

The rest of the wolves had arrived. They crowded the hilltop. At the front stood a wolf with a reddish coat that Annie recognized from the night Sharta died. She stood stiffly, her tail held high as she surveyed the battle below. But her face …

She looks so sad
, Annie thought. There was a stirring in the ranks behind her, a wolf pushing through to the front. Mira, foam flecking her jaws and sides heaving. Mira had reached them.

All this time Annie kept her hands pressed over her sister's throat. The bullet had struck Page in the neck, just under the jaw.

“It's only a flesh wound,” she said to the king. “It's only a
flesh wound,” she said, again and again, as the blood ran over her hands and soaked her sister's hair.

“Is there anyone to help? Any doctor? Your Highness, answer me!”

“East,” the king said. “Two sisters. A medical tent.” He spoke slowly, dreamily. “Will you run there, as you ran here? I have never seen anything like it. I thought at first you were an animal.”

“I'll run. Now hold your hands here, like this.” Annie pressed the king's hands over her sister's wound. “Like she did for you.”

“Look at them all,” the king said in that same odd, dreamy tone. “Look at how they wait on you.”

Annie turned, and for the first time saw what made the king speak so strangely. The battlefield had fallen perfectly still. Men and wolves seemed to have forgotten what they were doing and simply stared. On the hill above them four hundred wolves stood still and stared. They all stared at her.

Annie took a step forward. No one moved to stop her. She started to run. A white flag marked with a red cross waved at the eastern edge of the field.

A large shape stepped into her path, a wolf, rearing on its hind legs, its pelt sliding horribly from its back, a flash of white skin, whiter teeth, then a rifle butt brought down hard against her temple.

Two blurred dark shapes loomed over her. Two wolves? A paw reached down, no, a hand. To help her up? Sharp pain crossed
her scalp. Her hips left the ground, then her feet. She was being lifted. By the
hair
. It hurt to struggle, but she did, until the hand in her hair made a fist and jerked her head back. She found herself looking up at Gibbet's furious, blood-smeared face.

Chopper stood beside him with his rifle pointed at Annie. She saw at once why she had mistaken them for wolves. As camouflage, each wore a rough cape of wolfskin. The skins were fresh.

“What are you?” Annie said in Hippa.

Gibbet smiled. His teeth, she saw, were fake.

“This girl,” he called out. “Why do you stop fighting for this girl?”

The red wolf howled her answer from the hilltop. She dropped into the wash and four hundred wolves flowed after her and through the parted ranks of soldiers. They came to a stop in front of Annie and Gibbet.

“Fristi, you wish to make trouble for me?” Gibbet snapped in Hippa.

“Release the scion,” the red wolf said.

“What did you call her?”

“Release the scion.”

“How do you know it's her?”

“She is the one.”

“How do you
know
?” Gibbet jerked Annie's head to the side as spoke. Fristi's eyes narrowed.

“You know it as well as I. But if you need a sign—there, at the back of her neck.”

Now Gibbet jerked her head forward. Fristi growled. Annie felt his finger with its sharp fingernail touch the nape of her neck where the white hair grew.

“That is nothing. A birthmark.”

“A birthmark indeed. Let her go.”

“Finish the fight. Then I'll give her to you. The girl, and all your land. Whatever you want.”

Fristi barked high and fast. Annie recognized the order, but it wasn't Gibbet they went after. A shout of fear sounded from the top of the hill and Uncle Jock appeared from behind the oak, Mira snapping at his heels. He slashed at her with his rifle but she drove him relentlessly over the edge of the wash. Wolves waited below. He slid awkwardly down the steep hillside, trying to scramble up even as he fell. At the bottom he managed to stand and lift his gun, but there were too many, too close. Panicked, he turned and began to run, staggering through the mud.
Fool
, Annie thought. For now the wolves hunted as a pack, darting in to deliver quick, superficial bites, then backing away. They were not without cruelty. When their prey stumbled, the wolves hung back, allowing him to get to his feet before they moved in again.

“A trade?” Fristi asked.

“There is no trade,” Gibbet replied. “He means nothing.”

“Then he dies.”

“No!” Annie cried, but her voice was lost in a volley of excited barks as the wolves brought down their prey for the final time. She was glad she could not turn her head.

“But surely this one means something?”

Wolves surrounded Chopper, snapping and snarling. Annie could smell his fear, though none showed on his face.

“No,” Gibbet said. And it was true. She sensed nothing like sadness on him, no regret, no uncertainty, only his same stale odor of onions and fury.