Fell (The Sight 2) (6 page)

The villagers had often accused Alin of stealing things.

“Stolen?” cried Barbat scornfully. “What do we care about theft, Malduk, when this is murder?”

In the darkness of the barn, Alina’s knees went weak.

“Murder?” hissed Malduk, with glittering eyes. Ranna’s plan was coming good.

“We found Bogdan on the edge of the village, facedown in the snow,” said Barbat, “with this in his back.”

Barbat reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife with an antler-handled dagger—Alina’s own dagger. In the barn the girl felt as if a thousand furies were suddenly rushing at her, and she clutched at Mia’s arm. Ranna and Malduk had murdered Bogdan.

“It’ll break his wife’s heart,” said Barbat. “It’s his, ain’t it, Malduk? Alin’s.”

“It looks like his, yes,” answered Malduk slowly, feigning reluctance and shock, “but he was using a different one today, Barbat. He left it in the barn.”

Malduk reached into his pocket and pulled out the curving Turkic blade Alina and Mia had seen in the house, before Ranna had wiped that blood off her hands. He held it up innocently.

“That’s Bogdan’s!” cried Barbat. “I’d know it anywhere. The changeling’s the killer, all right. He must have murdered Bogdan for his knife, or simply because the changeling hates humans.”

Alina couldn’t believe her ears—or her eyes. The villagers began to shout and curse, and the soldier put his hand to his sword and in the barn Mia could see that Alina wanted to go outside, to confront the injustice of it all and speak up for herself. The little girl grabbed Alina’s hand and shook her head furiously.

“I can’t believe it,” whispered Malduk outside. “After all our kindness, and with my little niece Mia in our home too. We’ll hunt him down all right.”

“No,” cried a voice suddenly. “It can’t be Alin. He wouldn’t. I know him too well.”

Alina’s heart leapt. It was her friend, the old shepherd Ivan, who had pressed forwards from the throng. Ivan had a wise, open face, which although kind was not soft, and was heavily lined by his years in the open. He was much respected by the other shepherds, but the murderous villagers began to shout even Ivan down.

“We know how you favour the lad, Ivan,” growled Barbat angrily, “but none of us know where he really came from. Don’t thieves and murderers creep out of the snows, like witches’ children? We ought to have driven the changeling out long since. A Jonah, that’s what he is. Ill luck for us all.”

“Yes,” said Malduk sadly. “Now I think you’re right, Barbat. Poor Bogdan.”

“You!” said Barbat, glaring at the soldier. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Sculcuvant, you say?” answered the soldier, thinking of the children he had met earlier. “A changeling?”

“That’s right. And in league with the devil.”

Suddenly there was a great howl in the night and the villagers turned, as Malduk lifted the dagger. One of them pointed up the mountainside, and they could see it but faintly in the icy air, a shape etched against the night sky, like a dark shadow. A wolf was high above them.

“It’s that black loner,” growled Barbat, with a shudder, “the one they spotted last moon, near the stream. The man-eater.”

As she listened, Alina thought of that face she had seen in her dream.

“I should get home,” grunted another villager immediately. “They say that one spends all its time stalking humans. With the winter everything’s fighting harder to survive.”

“Perhaps the black wolf comes from the Helgra,” said a third villager nervously, and the others started muttering.

“The Helgra?” said Barbat. “What are you talking about?”

“That Magyar-Dacian tribe that lives below the great castle,” answered the man. “Fearsome warriors, they say, who pay allegiance to none, not even Lord Vladeran, Tepesh, or King Stefan. The Helgra worship the wild wolf as the devil, and wear their coats as talismans.”

“It’s not the Helgra,” said Malduk suddenly, worried that the villagers would turn from the task at hand. “Changelings serve the devil too. Alin must have summoned it to aid him in his wickedness. We must raise all the villagers.”

They could all see the sense in this, all except Ivan, and they started nodding and muttering again.

“He’ll not escape,” cried the soldier, “and he’ll hang for this. Or burn.”

Suddenly the door to the cottage opened and old Ranna came outside. The lurid glow of firelight shimmered across the snow between the evil old couple, as Ranna hobbled forwards. She had slipped back into the house as the men arrived, and now she was holding a handkerchief to her face and she looked as if she had been crying.

“You’ve heard then, wife?” whispered Malduk, as she saw her.

Ranna sniffed bitterly.

“Yes, husband, and my heart’s broken. How could he? I loved Alin so.”

The villagers murmured sympathetically at the old couple’s bitter plight. In their hard lives they despised little as much as ingratitude.

“We must find him soon, men,” said the soldier, convinced now. “Hunt down the changeling, like a wild animal.”

There were cries and grunts of approval all around.

“We’ll get the dogs,” said Barbat.

“Come up to the house first,” said Malduk, “and we’ll divide you into groups. Some to search the farm, others to scour the southern fields.”

“We’ve men searching the South already,” said one of the villagers, “and others posted right along the path. The changeling won’t escape us. Unless he’s already in the mountains.”

“Very well then,” said Malduk, “come quickly. But be careful of him. With his lies and his stories, he could enchant the devil. If you find him, don’t listen to a word he says. Stop the child’s throat.”

“Wait, husband,” growled Ranna. “He won’t escape us.”

“Why not, my dear?”

Ranna held out Alina’s handkerchief, with a stifled sob.

“What’s that?” asked the soldier stupidly, and Ranna’s eyes sparked furiously.

“It’s the changeling’s, and carries his scent. For the hounds.”

“Baba Yaga,” hissed Alina in the barn, glaring at Ranna through the crack in the door. Mia was staring at her aunt in disbelief.

“I’ll go outside, Alina,” she said suddenly, “and tell them everything.”

It seemed a chance, but as the children looked through the crack at the furious mob, they knew it was madness.

“No, Mia. They’ll never believe you. They’ve always wanted to drive me out.”

Alina had forgotten the parchment in her pocket, and seemed at a loss for what to do, but Mia was already tugging at her sleeve, pulling her to the back of the barn and a broken slat of wood in the wall. Alina found it strange that the younger child had taken charge, but the terrible revelation in the house, and then the false charge of theft and murder, had dazed Alina completely. She was petrified.

“Go, Alina, now.”

“But where, Mia? I can’t make it across the open fields. The only path to the mountains is across the stream, through that break in the fence by the copse. But you heard what the villager said. They’ve men posted along the path.”

“You’ve got to try, Alina. Please. If they find you here … If they get the dogs …”

Little Mia was holding back the large piece of broken slatting with all her strength, and Alina peered outside into the snow. The wind was catching the surface, lifting it in angry curls of icy cold.

“Hurry, dear Alina.”

Alina began to squeeze through the opening, pulling her pack after her, her breath smoking furiously in the freezing air. The little girl followed her through easily, and then they were both standing outside again, looking out across open ground towards the fields, and the high fencing that ran along the track. In the distance, to the south, they could just make out moving shapes and little red specks of torchlight, while the sounds of the villagers were loud on the other side of the barn.

“They won’t see you from the house,” whispered Mia, staring out towards the copse near the break in the palisade, where they often played. It led to the track, across to the verge, and down to the stream beyond. It was a good way off.

“Go, Alina.”

The older girl rose, and she was about to run when she suddenly stopped and turned. Alina slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out a little carving, a cross between a ram and a wolf, that she had whittled in the fields, watching the sheep.

“I’ll never forget you, Mia,” Alina whispered tenderly, thrusting it into Mia’s little hand. “Take this and think of me. Then one day perhaps …”

“There’s no time. Oh, Alina. Good-bye.”

Alina leaned forwards and kissed Mia on the cheek, then turned and began to run, but she heard Mia hiss behind her. “Look, Alina.”

Mia was pointing at the snow and the marks Alina’s boots had made, which were leaving a clear, deep trail behind her that could easily be followed when the hunt began for real.

“There’s no help for it now,” called Alina, in a fearful whisper. “Pray for more snow, Mia. Just pray.”

“Yes, Alina. And Alina …”

“What?”

“In the forests. If you ever find the goblins and the elves. If you meet Baba Yaga. Tell them to make a spell to protect me too.”

With a nod, and a terrible ache in her heart, the young woman turned again and was gone. Alina made straight for the copse behind the barn and then in the direction of the stream, but as she reached the copse, she saw villagers moving down the track, their flaming torches glaring garishly against the perfect white, and Malduk leading them. Then Alina heard a yelp behind her.

“Elak,” she whispered, as the sheepdog came bounding towards her across the snow and jumped up to lick her face, whining and wagging his tail foolishly. “Hush, Elak, you must be quiet.”

The dog didn’t understand and in his excitement kept whining loudly. Alina gave one of the low whistles she used at pasture, pointing her finger at the ground.

“Down, boy.”

Elak sank on his forepaws and fell quiet. Just in time too, for the villagers were almost parallel with Alina and the gap in the palisade, and just then another wolf howl came down from the mountains.

“That loner again,” cried one of the men, and his voice came clear and cold across the snow. “Do you think the changeling’s really made a pact with the devil, Malduk?”

“I’m sure of it,” answered Malduk. “Maybe SkeinTale’s really a werewolf. I should have known it.”

“Werewolf?” said the first.

“A human turned every full moon from a man into a snarling, murderous wolf,” said Malduk, his gaze dancing amongst the villagers, “as he drops down onto all fours to join his wicked kin and feast on blood and gaze animal flesh. A changeling indeed.”

Alina shuddered, but something else had come over her as she crouched there with Elak. The potion was still in her blood, and it was working on her again, making her body feel heavy, and her eyes droop.

All the villagers were listening attentively to Malduk’s words, rapt with interest and fear too. Malduk spoke like a natural teller of tales himself, for he had often listened to Alina, touching something deep and instinctive in them all. Something angry too. He looked about and spoke again.

“They say that the bite of a lone black wolf is enough to put the spell in a man’s blood, so that he changes,” he whispered, with a growl in his throat. “That he can’t be killed with ordinary arrows neither, but only with an arrow tip, which has been hammered out of a silver cross, blessed by a patriarch.”

Alina heard the mesmerising words and pressed her hand into the cold snow to shrug off the weariness. Not now, she thought, Wake up, Alina.

Alina found herself listening again. She had heard many bizarre tales and legends from the village children, even more fanciful than her own clever stories, but just as she thought a shepherd’s life strangely ignorant, so she had thought them mostly silly and too fantastical. But at Malduk’s words she was shuddering.

“And they say that the werewolf can talk with animals,” hissed Malduk, stoking the flames of fear and hate flickering around the little group. “See into their minds and very souls.”

Alina was appalled that these men might think that she was such a thing, yet she suddenly found herself wanting to know what Elak was thinking and feeling, and the wolf that had cried out too. But Alina had just discovered that she wasn’t from the fairies after all, and had no such power. She faced real life now, and all alone. An icy wind licked up the snow around her.

“Well, where’s he got to?” said the first villager.

“No tracks here,” answered Malduk. “We’ll split up. Some to where the valley opens, others near the village gate. You two men, stay here.”

Elak had lifted his head and started to growl, but Alina clamped her hand around the dog’s muzzle.

“Come on then,” growled Malduk. “Hurry.”

The party broke apart, leaving only two of their number guarding the break in the fencing. They were both carrying clubs, and Alina tried to shake off the weariness and think clearly. It was now or never. She took the beautiful sheepdog’s face tenderly in her hands.

“Elak,” she whispered, “I need you to do something for me, dear Elak. I know you don’t really understand, but please try. I need you to run to Teela. Make as much noise as you like, but don’t stop.”

The dog looked stupidly at the girl and she released her grip. Elak licked her hand and whined softly. There were tears in Alina’s pretty hazel eyes.

“Now, Elak,” she said, pointing towards the path, “Teela.”

Elak’s ears were up immediately.

“Go Elak. Find Teela.”

Driven by the urgency in the girl’s voice, her pointing arm, and the thought of Teela, Elak sprang forwards. The dog began to race round the far side of the copse, streaking through the gap, out onto the path, and away. But he wasn’t making any noise and, hating herself, Alina picked up a stone and hurled it at his haunches. The sheepdog yelped painfully and sprang forwards.

“Hey, what’s that?” cried one of the two men.

They turned and rushed in the direction of the moving shape, raising their flaming torches and shouting loudly. But by the time they had come to a halt again, muttering about blasted dogs, and turning back towards their guard post, Alina Sculcuvant had broken from her covering and slipped silently through the gap in the palisade. She trailed her pack behind her to mask her footprints in the snow as she went, but because this was where the men had all gathered, and there were many prints already, in the darkness the two villagers noticed nothing.