The Sight (18 page)

‘For pity’s sake, Tsinga,’ said Palla, ‘there is so much we would ask you.  Of Morgra and of Wolfbane.  We must know how to help Larka.’

Tsinga got up and sniffed the air.  She snarled quietly as her head swung back towards the children.

 ‘Can parents ever help their children?’ she chuckled.  ‘Well, we shall see.  You talk of pity, Palla, but winter is here and with it comes death and darkness.  It is as certain as the seasons themselves.  But Wolfbane...’

Bran’s ears started to shake.

‘In stories, the Evil One has always hunted the Varg, hunted through their dreams, feeding on fear and guilt.  Wolfbane, the friend of the dead.  Perhaps the Evil One is nothing more than a fable and, though Morgra claims to command him her art was always to blend truth with the subtlest of lies.  The verse, too, warns of making errors.  But who shall divine, in the dead of the night, the lies from the truth, the darkness from light?’

The pack wondered what on earth Tsinga could mean.

‘Yet if he comes who knows what form he will take, for may not fear come in many guises?’

The hackles rose on Bran’s neck, but as the family listened Tsinga seemed to be talking in riddles again.

‘But the legend will not be easy for Morgra either.  There is much that must be fulfilled before the third power could come.  Above all, none have ever tried the ancient howl before.  Now Morgra is almost certainly too weak and I doubt she can even look into the water.  That’s why she tried to join your pack, Palla.  Though if she finds another to help her—’

‘Another?’ growled Huttser, ‘but Brassa told us that you only taught two wolves of the Sight.’

‘Yes,’ growled Tsinga almost bitterly, ‘and entrusted each with a secret about the legend.  I’d hoped to make them joint guardians of the law.’

Tsinga was shaking her head.

‘But the Sight draws on all the powers of the universe, on the inner forces of life.  Though the legend speaks to the wolf, who is to say there are not others among the Lera that can touch the gift? Others that Morgra could draw on.  And then, of course, there is your daughter.’

Kar and Fell swung round to Larka, and Palla thought of the rumours they had heard long ago about Morgra.  That she had been trying to enchant the animals too.

‘But you all have a destiny, my friends,’ growled Tsinga suddenly.  ‘You must help each other to guard against Morgra’s hate.  Your love and faith must guard against Wolfbane, and you must carry hope in your hearts, always.  Now, hurry.’

The wolves shivered in the cold, but they could see they would get no more from Tsinga and now, their minds filled with all she had told them, they turned away.

‘But, Larka,’ said Tsinga suddenly, ‘listen to this above all.  You must never fear your own nature, even if the Searchers come to turn nature on itself.  Beware of guilt, Larka, and remember the spirit of the wolf, for perhaps nothing may tame that.  And, Larka, the last line of the verse.  You will need courage – a courage as deep as despair.’

The strange words seemed to quiver through Larka’s being, but she didn’t look back.  As they went, Tsinga called to them a second time.

‘Palla,’ she hissed and Palla swung round.

‘What is it, Tsinga?’ she said, walking back to her.

‘I will tell you one last secret,’ whispered Tsinga.  ‘For you are her mother.  Why the verse speaks of the wounded.’

‘Go on,’ whispered Palla.

‘It refers to a she-wolf, Palla.  For the fortune-tellers have always known of them as the wounded ones.  The vision can only be given to a Drappa, Palla.’

Palla growled nervously.

‘A she-wolf that has tended to another living creature.  That knows the pain and love of a mother.’

‘But then Morgra,’ growled Palla suddenly, ‘she is barren.  She has never even—’

‘Perhaps,’ growled Tsinga, ‘but perhaps that was another reason for her edict.’

‘But why didn’t you tell Larka?’

‘That secret she must discover for herself, if it is in her to do so.  Now be gone.  Look after your cub.’

As Palla followed the pack Bran was so relieved to leave that place and the mad she-wolf that his tail rose like a branch.  But Tsinga suddenly lifted her muzzle and called to him too.

‘You,’ she hissed, ‘the Sikla.’

Bran froze in his tracks and turned fearfully.  The smudge on his eye looked like a bruise.

‘Did you not think I scented you too?’ smiled Tsinga.

As she held him in her blind gaze Bran started to tremble.

‘Well,’ said Tsinga, ‘is there nothing the Sikla would ask of a fortune-teller?’

‘Me .  ..’ stammered Bran, ‘no...  no .  ..’

Bran turned and bounded after the others, but as he went he heard Tsinga sniggering and muttering to herself.  Huttser led his pack up the valley and the children huddled together.  But before they reached the trees, Kar felt something fizzing on his back, melting through his fur.  The cubs looked up and suddenly the air was thick with giant snowflakes that tumbled on the bitter wind.

‘And remember,’ cried Tsinga’s haunting voice through the coming storm, ‘love each other.  Be true.  Love each other or perish.’

‘To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice To be imprison’d in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendant world!’ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

The air was thick with snow, blinding the grey wolves and obscuring the mountains around them.  The pack had settled on the edge of Tsinga’s valley in a small copse to give them shelter, but what protection it offered was sparse and the children were shivering bitterly.

‘Huttser,’ cried Palla, shouting to make herself heard above the wind.  ‘Brassa told us that the Sight could give control over the elements.  Do you think Morgra—’

‘No,’ snapped Huttser, ‘Tsinga said Morgra’s gift was weak.  And even if it were strong, how can a wolf control the elements?’

But in truth the storm seemed to have an almost unearthly anger in it.  Larka shuddered as she thought of Tsinga’s words about those with the Sight being able to touch each other, and her strange warnings of the sources of life.  For a moment it was as though the very wind were echoing the fortune-teller.  ‘It is not just for you that you must survive now, but for life itself.’

 ‘What now, Huttser?’ growled Palla.  ‘Do we do as Tsinga says and find this child?

‘I don’t know, Palla.  But we must reach the boundaries.  As quickly as possible.  We must cross the river as soon as we can.’

Fell looked strangely at his father.  Huttser had always inspired such courage in him, but now he knew they were running away.

‘Come, then, Huttser,’ said Palla, suddenly trying to cheer them up.  ‘In the meantime we must look for some food.’

The children lay there, the snow heaping on their backs, as the three adults began to sniff around the edges of the copse looking for some small animal to feed on.  The wolves found nothing in the blizzard and it was growing dark when Bran finally gave up.  His paws were so cold that the pads on his feet were beginning to crack.  All day he had looked out into the storm and seen nothing but the shape of Wolfbane snarling on the wind.  As he slunk back to the copse he overheard the children talking.

‘It’s too terrible,’ Larka was saying bitterly.

‘Larka,’ whispered Kar beside her, ‘perhaps you could use the Sight.  To tell us to what’s going to happen.  This second power...’

‘Don’t be silly, Kar,’ growled Larka.  ‘What do I really know of the Sight?’

Even as she said it Larka wished bitterly that Tsinga had been able to tell her more of her gift.

‘But we’re all marked,’ she whispered, ‘like Bran said.’

‘Bran,’ snorted Fell, ‘that coward.  You mustn’t listen to him, Larka.  What use is he to our pack? If it wasn’t for him Kipcha would still be alive.’

Bran slunk down beneath a tree and laid his head miserably in the snow.  Palla and Huttser had just returned and they settled cheerlessly too, as the night came in.  Bran whined to himself as he drifted into dreams, wondering if Larka did indeed possess the power to look ahead, and thinking bitterly of what Fell had said.

Bran’s sleep was troubled and he shuddered as he woke.  His coat was drenched in sweat and it steamed in the brittle morning.  Though it was bitterly cold it had stopped snowing and now the silence of the land lay all about the resting pack like a pall.  Bran shivered as he peered about him, expecting at any moment some spectral figure to hurl itself at his throat.  But as he waited and whimpered pitifully, nothing came at the Sikla.  Instead he kept remembering Tsinga’s parting words to him, ‘Is there nothing the Sikla would ask?’.  They echoed through his thoughts like her laughter.

Suddenly Bran got up.

‘I must know,’ the wolf muttered to himself as he padded off through the white.  ‘I must know what will happen.’

It started to snow again, covering the Sikla’s tracks as he went.  The thought of meeting Tsinga on his own was almost more terrifying to Bran than Wolfbane or a Man Varg, as he crept back into the fortune-teller’s valley.

The valley bottom was perfectly still and the gnarled bones had been covered by the snow.  But as Bran crept towards Tsinga’s rock, he stopped.  The snow was stained with blood, a little red stream snaking out from the edge of the stone.  The fortune-teller was lying on her side and the snow around her body was covered in paw prints.  She was dead.  Her throat had been torn out and her sightless eyes stared up at him.

Suddenly Bran looked up.  A bird was flapping high above.  It circled for a moment and Bran wondered if it was the raven, and if it had come to feed on Tsinga.  But as he watched it he saw that it was much larger than a raven.  As he looked it turned suddenly and swooped towards the trees.

Bran looked at Tsinga for a final time and then slunk silently away.  But as soon as he reached the trees again he heard a sound and he crept fearfully behind a large oak.  His muzzle and his nervous eyes peered around the side of the tree towards the voices.  There were six wolves lying in a circle.  They were all large and the muzzle of the wolf who was speaking was stained red with blood.

‘That’s one job out of the way,’ he was saying.  ‘She won’t say any more about the verse at least.  Now we must find the family.’

Bran’s ears came forward.

‘We should have come sooner though.  They left the Stone Den suns back.  Morgra will be furious, but I had to investigate those rumours about the citadel.’

‘And when we find them we kill them too?’ asked the wolf next to them.

Bran’s muzzle curled into a silent snarl.

‘Only the adults,’ growled the wolf slyly.  ‘The children we take to Morgra.  One of them is this white wolf.’

One of the Night Hunters looked at him guiltily.  Until Morgra’s arrival the Balkar had protected the rights of the free wolves in Transylvania and adhered strictly to Tratto’s Blessing, respecting other pack boundaries.  Yet even before the murder of the old wolf some amongst them had grown restless and discontented.  Many despised the free wolves and wanted their hunting territories, while others were so used to fighting they were hopelessly lost in times of peace.

But Morgra had come amongst them, spreading tales of Wolfbane and the legend.  Of the power that the Sight could bring them over all the Lera.  She had laughed at their motto– First Among the Putnar.  ‘No,’ she had said, ‘that prize belongs to the humans alone.’ Then many among the Balkar had begun to dream in the night of the altar and the coming of the Vision.

‘But the legend,’ a wolf growled, ‘what have the Night Hunters to do with such things? In Tratto’s day we fought real wolves, not dreams.  But then a true Dragga led the fighting wolves, not an old Drappa.’

‘Silence,’ growled the lead wolf, ‘if Morgra heard you talking like that you would pay with your life.  You know what she has foreseen.’

‘Wolfbane,’ snorted the wolf who had just spoken, ‘she is using the threat to frighten and control us.  Nothing more.  Old Drappa’s tales that sap the strength of the Dragga.  Do you think I am foolish enough to believe that a story could come true? Wolfbane cannot return, because the Evil One does not exist.’

‘You are the fool,’ growled the lead wolf furiously.

‘Morgra has power, and she will summon the Shape Changer to aid us.  When he comes you’d better know whose side you are on then.’

Bran slunk back as the Night Hunters rose and began to mount the slope.  The Sikla’s mind was trembling with what he had just heard, but he was so frightened he could hardly move.  As Bran watched them go he realized that they were heading straight towards the pack.  Bran began to shake uncontrollably.  But it wasn’t the words of Morgra’s curse that came back to Bran now, it was words from the verse.

‘Beware the Betrayer, whose meaning is strife.’

‘Fenris,’ stammered Bran, ‘why am I such a coward? I’m worthless, just like Fell said.’

As Bran thought of the children and his duty to the pack his tail came down and he shivered bitterly.

‘We’re lost,’ he whimpered, ‘all lost.’

But as he stood there something stirred in him that made him angry and suddenly tempted him to rationalize his fear and forgive himself for his cowardice.  Bran shook his tail, but his mind could not stop other words coming to him, words echoing out of the fury of a storm, ‘Love each other.  Love each other or perish.’ Half from terror and half from a desire to draw the Balkar away from his friends, the wolf lifted his muzzle and howled.

‘Damn him,’ growled Huttser as they prowled around in the snow looking for Bran’s tracks.  ‘Where’s he slunk off to? When I find him, Palla.  ..’

Huttser and Palla had been searching all morning, while the youngsters had stayed behind at the copse and now they had come to the edge of the wood sloping down into Tsinga’s valley.  But suddenly they heard a painful whine.  They gasped as they saw Bran struggling out of the trees.  There was blood all over the wolf’s coat and his ears had been torn off.  Bran’s side was so badly bitten that there was hardly any fur left.

‘Bran,’ cried Palla, as the Sikla slumped to the ground in front of them.