Wolfking The Omnibus: Books 1-4

by Sarah Rayne

  The male wolves were panting, their tongues hanging out of their muzzles, their bodies sexually aroused. Fear and horror had gripped her, for she had known what was about to happen.

  “I could not have prevented it. He was more wolf than man by now; perhaps he was all wolf. He would have torn out my throat and the wolves would have finished off what he left.”

  She had stayed where she was, unable to move, and unable to look away, and she had seen everything.

  Cormac had raised himself to a kneeling position, thighs apart on the ground. He had pulled the nearer of the she-wolves to him with one hand, while the other hand had gone to the fastenings of his breeches. At length, he knelt naked and aroused on the forest floor, his hair black and curling, damp with sweat, his eyes slanting, and a faint mist of perspiration on his skin.

  “And he was so beautiful. I cannot begin to tell you how strange and strong and beautiful he looked. I could only stare. I had never seen him like this. My people are of lion blood, and the men of my family — occasionally the women — are strong and handsome and noble. And I have stayed at Gallan with Cait Fian who is of the Wild Panther line, and I have dined with the gentle shy Gazelle people of the west coast, and with the shaggy friendly White Bear clan of the northern islands. And I was at the Ritual of the Bloodline when the Eagleline was strengthened and the clearing shivered and spun with the immense power of the sorcerers’ Enchantment.

  “But I have never seen anything so beautiful and so out of the world as that sight in the forest.”

  Cormac mounted the she-wolf easily and naturally, and as Mab watched, he drove into her again and again, the muscles of this thighs rippling, his eyes bright and dark with passion. She had seen the momentum of his desire approach; she had heard him groan and she had seen the she-wolf shiver in ecstasy.

  Cormac laughed and pushed the creature from him playfully and affectionately, and the wolf turned and licked his face. He ruffled the fur on her neck and lay back on the forest floor, as relaxed and as casual as he was in his great Palace of Tara.

  The wolves were lying watching him, forming a halfcircle about him, their eyes bright and hopeful, their ears pricked. Cormac had laughed again, and emitted a mock groan, and Mab had known that the wolves were waiting for him to take another of their females. He would take them all, one after the other, and then he would come to the rose silk bedchamber, flushed and exhilarated from his encounter with the wolves, excited and buoyed up. I have lain with the wolves and now I will lie with a human.

  “I could not do it,” said Mab. “I could not allow him in my bed then, or ever again. I could understand why he had done what he had — he was part wolf — but I could not forgive him for breaking the most sacred of all Tara’s laws. He, the High King! I knew I could never forgive him.”

  “And so you drove him out?” said Flynn, very softly.

  “I deposed him,” she said, staring straight ahead as if Flynn was no longer there. “I turned him from my bed — he thought I was simply tired of him — and then I gathered about me the plotters of the Court and the intriguers, and the men and women who would do anything, and serve any master, for power. I led the Great Rebellion against the Wolfline, and I exiled Cormac to the terrible Fortress of Shadow, and I saw my son crowned as High King. I did not tell anyone what I had seen; I allowed Cormac to believe that I had used my knowledge of him to launch the Rebellion and lead the people against him. I never told Cormac’s people that their beloved Wolfking had violated the ancient law of the Bloodline.

  “But I saw to it that he was punished in the way the Twelve Judges would have punished him. I saw him taken from Tara by his own armies and flung into the wilderness to live or die as he chose.

  “But,” said Mab, “I have never been happy since that day.”

  *

  A remarkable lady. Flynn wandered through the Palace, his mind half on Mab’s story, half on his own. Shall I escape today? And thought how absurd it was to use such a word. As if I was a prisoner! he thought, and immediately wished he had not used the word prisoner either.

  The Court was seething with activity and excitement, and anticipation ran through the great high-ceilinged halls like a white hot flame. Flynn was made one with it all, he was welcomed into the various groups and hailed as a friend. “As if,” he thought, “I have been here for years.”

  He was helping Sean the Storyteller and Conaire to stack the woodbine and the rowan for the journey to the Plain of the Fál later that afternoon, when Bricriu, his lips smiling thinly, his eyes expressionless, approached him.

  “I wonder now, would you join my party later tonight for the journey to the Plain, Flynn?”

  Flynn was rather flattered; “I should be honoured, Sir.”

  “Only a few of us, you understand. But we like to make Beltane something of an occasion. It is all superstition of course; everyone knows that. But the ceremonies are impressive, and I should enjoy explaining them to you. These things are always so much more interesting if viewed with the proper knowledge, do you think?”

  “Oh yes,” said Flynn.

  “Then I will look for you later,” said Bricriu. And then, as if struck by a thought: “You will not forget to carry the woodbine, will you?”

  “No,” said Flynn. “I shall bring it to the Plain.”

  “Yes,” said Bricriu. “I think you had better.”

  *

  Portan knew that they were never going to reach the dark stone fortress that swam in and out of the mists, always near, never quite within striking distance.

  The place was not, of course, the Gealtacht as Grady and Muldooney seemed to imagine. Portan did not know what it was, although she felt it was a place of suffering of some kind. But it did not matter, for they would not be permitted to reach it.

  They were lost in the forest, and they were blundering in circles. Portan knew this quite definitely, and she could not understand why her captors did not know it. It was something to do with the cold, rather beautiful music, and with the voices that sang from inside the music.

  You will never reach Scáthach, Men of the Desolate World …

  They would never reach Scáthach; they would roam forever in the dark forest.

  Until we possess your bodies, until we eat your souls, Men of the Black Desolation …

  The voices wanted these two men, and Portan shivered in sudden fear, for there was such cold mercilessness in the voices. But she could spare no pity for her captors, for her mind was wholly on Flynn. Flynn was in some terrible danger; he was with enemies, men who wished him great harm. Portan knew this quite certainly now. She did not possess the Samhailt, although she understood about it, but she possessed something, and it was the something that made her lift her head and listen to the night and think: I must reach Flynn.

  And then John Grady spoke: “Hush. There is someone quite close by.”

  “Following us?”

  That was the other man, the one who had a large coarse face with the features crammed into the centre of it, and clumsy stupid hands and a slow mind. Even so, Portan preferred him to John Grady.

  Grady said, “No. Not following us. But quite near. It may be someone who knows the forest. Someone who can lead us out.”

  Out of the Forest of Bondage … But this is the way Travellers, this is the way … over hill, over daley through bush, through briar … this is the way …

  John Grady said very loudly, “It would be a grand thing to find someone who knew the way out of this place.”

  And Muldooney, equally loudly, said, “To be sure it would.”

  John Grady knew, as all sensible men knew, that it was madness to go wandering about in a forest after dark; even so, they had somehow got themselves into this situation — he blamed Muldooney most severely for that — and must perforce get themselves out again. It would do no harm to ask for help. To himself, he thought that wasn’t it the worst possible luck to be landed with an idiot like Brian Muldooney who couldn’t find his way across lands that sho
uld have been as familiar to him as his own pig farm! He began to wish they had never embarked on this ridiculous chase.

  Muldooney thought that wasn’t it the worst luck in the world to have trusted Grady the Landgrabber, and then find the man had no more sense of direction than a chicken with its head chopped off. They’d been tramping about in this horrible dark forest for hours now; and where the forest had come from, Muldooney had no more idea than he had of how to fly in the air! It was a place the like of which he’d never seen before, not in all the years he’d lived in Tugaim. Of course it was all Grady’s fault, and him an Elder and not allowing a soul to forget it. Muldooney would have a thing or two to say about John Grady when they got back to Tugaim. If they got back. As for the sounds they could hear a little to their left, well, all Muldooney hoped was that it was not going to turn out to be some desperado or other set to slit their throats and make off with their goods. A fine old thing that would be for them both!

  And then the trees thinned and the mists swirled, and ahead of them stood Amairgen, his clothes muddied and torn, his face chalk white.

  And two dark gaping wounds where his eyes had been.

  With a low animal moan, Portan tore herself away from John Grady’s surprised and suddenly loosened grip, and bounded to his side.

  Behind her, the mists closed in again, and the laughter of the sidh echoed triumphantly through the forest.

  *

  Strength swept through Portan now, and with it an immense confidence. At least I can be of help. At last there is something I can do to help one of the beloved friends who brought me out of the Gealtacht. She did not stop to think. “And if I had stopped,” she said afterwards, “I should never have been able to do what I did.” She did not think: I am here in the middle of a dark forest with a sightless man and two enemies nearby; she thought: I will lead Amairgen to safety.

  She took his arms firmly, saying as she did so, “Amairgen. Hold on to me.”

  “Portan?” His voice was the voice of a man who has looked on despair, and thought never to hear a friend again, and Portan nearly broke down.

  But she said calmly, “I am here. I will lead us to safety.”

  “I am blind …!”

  The cry tore at her vitals, but for the moment she must bear that. They must escape Grady and Muldooney; they must certainly get away from the beckoning, evil music, and they must find some kind of hiding place.

  “Listen Amairgen. Do exactly as I tell you. And trust me.

  What hurt so much was his utter dependence on her, and his trust. He waited obediently as she fashioned the makeshift leash Grady had used into a kind of harness, slipping one arm through the loop so that it no longer threatened to strangle her, making him take the other end.

  “Now I can lead us out,” said Portan, and she turned unhesitatingly in the direction of Tara. She did not know, not for certain, that she was going in the right direction, but once more the something that was guiding her was at work. She knew her choice of path to be right.

  Behind them, the sounds of Grady and Muldooney were fading; once she caught the mocking laughter of the sidh, and once she heard the two men still blundering about in the undergrowth, but then there was nothing. She thought that the creatures of the music were surely luring the two men to some kind of terrible fate, and she felt a deep shudder go through Amairgen.

  But he stumbled wherever she led, his face grazed by the low branches that he could not see, and that Portan could not reach to brush aside for him, but following her unquestioningly and blindly. Blindly. The knife turned in her stomach again, but she dared not pay it attention; there was no time yet for pity or explanations, there was no time for anything at all, other than flight from Grady and Muldooney … and the music.

  At length, Portan stopped and looked about. “I think we have lost them, Amairgen. I think we are safe for a while. And we should rest.”

  “Yes. Thank you.” The words were no more than an exhausted breath of sound, and Portan saw that he was at the end of his reserves of strength. She caught him as he fell, half-fainting, on to the ground.

  Portan was frightened, but she thought: I must not panic. I am frightened, but I must not panic. Whatever there is to do I must try to do it. and one thing at a time. Make him more comfortable. Yes, and warm. Flynn’s cloak. Holding on to coping with one thing at a time, she wrapped Flynn’s cloak about the unconscious Amairgen, and then scooped a kind of half-hollow in the soft forest floor. Didn’t animals sleep that way in the winter? Very well, so would they. And yes, he was a little warmer now, his face no longer had the white waxen look. He would not die, because Portan would not let him. She uncorked the flask of wine that Flynn had left in one of the cloak’s deep pockets, and used the strong sweet stuff to moisten one of his handkerchiefs. Gently and carefully, she sponged Amairgen’s face clean of blood and dirt, trying not to shudder away from the dark crusted wounds where his eyes had been, and then she was able to sponge there as well with infinite tenderness. For, thought Portan humbly, who am I to flinch from physical mutilation in another? She remembered how Amairgen had never once failed to meet her eyes kindly — often affectionately — and how he and Flynn had always, always, treated her as an equal. Portan knew she was not their equal, the years in the Gealtacht had taught her that her kind were no one’s equal; but Flynn and Amairgen had never seemed to think about it. She loved them both fiercely for it.

  Amairgen moved restlessly under her careful hands, and groaned once or twice. But he did not wake, and Portan, still determined not to be frightened, thought that after all, sleep was healing. He was warmer now, and his breathing was deep and normal. As night drew on, Portan tucked the cloak around the two of them, and curled into a little ball against Amairgen.

  She had not thought she would sleep, but she did, deeply and dreamlessly, and when she woke, a faint pink-tinted dawn was beginning.

  Portan’s spirits lifted a little; after all they had survived the night in the forest; after all they were still alive. And they would find Flynn — they must find Flynn, for it was not to be thought of that Flynn should be lost to them. She would not think it, even for a moment. Flynn would be somewhere near, quite safe. Amairgen would tell her what had happened. Pain sliced through her at the memory of Amairgen’s terrible mutilation, and with it a great tenderness. And — let me help him, she thought. Oh please, please, let me be able to help him.

  At her side, Amairgen stirred, and Portan was at once fully awake, holding his hands in hers, reassuring him, because it would be the most terrible, most pitiable circumstance to wake to the knowledge of blindness, to know, afresh, that you were forever in the dark …

  “You are here with me,” said Portan, willing her voice to be calm and confident. “You are quite safe, Amairgen.”

  And I shall not let anything harm you …

  He turned his head, as if seeking the light, and Portan saw the knowledge of his blindness return to him, as she had known it would. He flinched from it, like a man who has lifted his face for a caress and received instead a harsh blow. The weight of his sightlessness descended on him, and Portan, aching with the pity of it, wanted to reach out and take him in her arms.

  But she did not dare, and she thought that anyway she must not overwhelm him, and so she said, in a gentle, conversational voice, “It is early morning. Only a little past dawn, I think. Do you hear the birds? Beautiful. And I should think we are quite near to Tara.”

  Amairgen said, in a voice of agony, “Portan, I am blind. I am eyeless. I tore out my eyes in the Caves of the sidh so that I should no longer have to look at those creatures. I saved my soul and I saved my sanity, but I am blind. I shall never see again!” Portan, hardly knowing what she did, knelt at his side and wrapped her arms about him, so that his poor mutilated face was against her breast, and then murmured words she had once heard, long ago, before John Grady caused her to be thrown into the Gealtacht. She thought she would die from the sheer strength of love and pity. She had been in an
agony of worry about Flynn, but for the moment Flynn had ceased to exist for her.

  Amairgen had no defences. He clung to Portan, his body wracked with great dry sobs, for a man with no eyes cannot weep, and he felt every one of her thoughts as vividly as if they had been laid out for him, and he was humbled at the strength of her devotion. But his agony was still too raw and his despair was still too complete; he could take little comfort from Portan’s love.

  The darkness frightened him, for he had never imagined such an utter lack of light. Blackness, impenetrable, had descended about him like a thick stifling curtain. A towering wall had risen up between him and the entire world, and he was suffocating and terrified. He felt as if great chasms were opening at his feet, so that he could never take a step forward again, and he felt as if huge threatening creatures were rearing up before him. He clung to Portan, unable to speak, barely able to think, afraid and lost and in the grip of black and bitter despair.

  I have saved my soul and my sanity, but at what price?

  The price had been too high and he would never again take his place in the world. He thought: better if I were to die now, here. But even as he thought it, a spark of rebellion lit within him. Half to himself, he said, “I am so afraid …” and he felt the strong reassuring hands hold him more firmly. When he said, “Please — don’t leave me,” there was at once a strong sweet sense of loving and of concern, and at once the response — “Never!” For the first time since the sidh had flung him from their caves, sightless and useless and impotent, he felt a faint, far-off comfort. At least I am safe. At least I am with one I can trust. I am forever in the dark and I shall never, from now on, see anything again other than the black wall, but after all I am safe. I am sane and my soul is still my own.

  A tiny cruel voice that he did not recognise, said: ah, but what does it profit a man if he gains his soul but suffers the loss of his sight? and he gave it scant attention, frowning as he did so. But he was already calmer; he lay back, with Portan still holding him against her, and he felt again the clarity of her thoughts. I am here with you, Amairgen. I will never leave you. You are not alone.