Larka’s eyes were sad, but in that instant she felt angry with Palla. After all that had happened it seemed that her mother was tempting her to turn away. For a moment she wanted to growl and tell her mother to get behind her.
‘Palla,’ she said, ‘how can we be free if the Lera are enslaved?’
‘But, Larka, what do you owe the Lera? You shouldn’t feel guilty. Why should the Lera be your responsibility, why should this child?’
‘Mother, true responsibility isn’t because of guilt or even simple duty,’ growled Larka softly, ‘it’s because of love. And I love the child.’
‘But, Larka,’ said Palla desperately. ‘You have a choice.’ In that moment Larka wondered. Did she really have a choice? Any more than the Lera have a choice to eat? So far the legend had marked out almost everything that had happened to her. Larka looked up. She noticed that in the clear blue sky the edge of the moon was already peeping into the day.
‘Mother,’ she said, ‘do you remember the story Brassa used to tell us. Of Tor and the moon smiling down kindly on the world?’
‘Yes, Larka.’
‘But it seems to have hunted us like Fenris, Palla, ever since Morgra came.’
‘Then we should do what wolves never do,’ growled her mother, sensing the gravity of her daughter’s final choice, ‘and howl at it.’
For an instant Larka felt less afraid.
‘Yes, Mother, and we must hurry. For this moon heralds the vision and the secret, and it is we who are chasing the moon now.’
15 - Harja
‘I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind.’ Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven
‘We must be close,’ Brak growled as he sniffed the thin air. The Night Hunters had reached the higher mountains above Kosov and the wolves’ eyes all had the same fearful, hunted look. They moved like sleep-walkers through the shadows. They were travelling out of a huge gorge and the shadowy peaks and crags looming above them made them feel as if they were passing through a land of ghosts. The slopes were dotted with beech and fir, dwarf pine and juniper trees, while swirling mists hung about their hag-ridden shapes, breaking into floating wraiths in the fading sun.
‘The full moon’s coming,’ said Brak. ‘It should be no more than a few suns now.’
‘Then what?’
‘We shall never see it, whatever they plan. Until the Man Varg comes, and the Vision. She has taken only her favourite Balkar with her.’
A jealous look had crossed his face.
‘I wish I was with her,’ said the wolf next to Brak. ‘I feel so much safer when she is watching over us. Protecting us from him.’
‘Like Fenris himself. But we have strict orders to defend the gully. Something about this other wolf.’
‘The white Varg?’
‘Yes. She leads the rebels now, Fenris take her.’
The leading wolves had stopped and were looking up. They had come to the edge of a high rock wall, its craggy sides looming sheer and black above them. But what had caught the wolves’ attention was not the precipitous nature of the cliff, it was the strange shape that rose above them.
Overhead the cliff wall had buckled outwards, creating a boulder overhang that time and the elements had eroded into the most extraordinary shape. As the wolves looked on, the shape became clearer in their minds. It was the image of an enormous dog. The ears were there, formed by two spurs of spiky granite. The eyes too, implanted in the sides of the rock by two small hollows. They lay aslant the surface, which tapered down and forwards to form a muzzle.
It was like the images men carve out of the bare rock to tell of their truths and beliefs. Yet this face had not been made by man, but by chance, eroded by wind and storm and rain. It was only because of the nature of the creatures gazing at it that it looked like a dog at all.
‘This is the place,’ growled Brak. He led the wolves on below the shadow of that strange face. They had hardly gone any way at all when another of their number cried out.
‘Here, over here.’
The crack in the rock wall was no more than five tails wide, but it ran like a scar down the entire cliff. By a quirk of nature, the wall abutting it buckled out, so that it was always lost in shadow. But as soon as the wolf stepped through he called out again.
‘This is it all right.’
As he entered it the sides of the fissure had begun to open and, ahead of him, he saw the beginnings of a canyon that opened wider and wider before him. One by one the Balkar followed him in. The canyon grew wider still and the ground began to rise. There wasn’t one of the Night Hunters that did not feel a sense of foreboding as they climbed through the entrance to Harja. But something else was troubling them. They all felt it. It was as though they were being watched.
‘Can you sense it?’ whispered the wolf that had been speaking earlier.
‘Yes,’ said another, his shoulders hunching below those towering cliffs, ‘Wolfbane. I felt him probing my mind last night.’
Some of the wolves around them began to growl. The fear of the Evil One haunted them all, both waking and asleep, and they knew only too well the punishment that awaited them if they showed any signs of dissent.
‘He’s always watching now,’ growled another, his voice beginning to echo against the mountain. ‘Even our most secret thoughts. When he comes I can do nothing but obey. I hate him—’
‘Hush, don’t speak like that, not here.’
But even as he spoke the Varg that had said it began to growl and the hackles rose on his back. He was standing stock-still and his legs were shaking. The others could smell the sweating fear that had suddenly taken hold of him, and they felt it themselves as they looked on. He was staring straight ahead, his eyes wide and glassy, and the growl that was coming from his stomach grew louder and louder. Then suddenly he closed his eyes and let out a terrible whimper.
When he opened them again the yellow orbs were bleached white. He was blind.
Wolfbane’s back arched and he let out a sigh as his mind released the blinded Night Hunter. His body was tingling and it was as though he could feel the wolf’s pain beneath his claws. He gave a deep grunt of satisfaction at what he had done, shifting the Night Hunter’s own energies through his body to burn out his retina. Now the third power had entered the world it always pleased him to visit his punishments suddenly on the Balkar. When he did so, he felt a strange closeness to them that always magnified his anger, for it stood in such bitter contrast to the terrible loneliness that gnawed at his heart.
Outside his shelter Wolfbane caught sight of a shape lying in the grass. The she-wolf was asleep and, for a moment, Wolfbane thought of visiting her. But he let Slavka be. He controlled her mind completely now and he knew that each time he visited her with his own powerful thoughts it weakened her. He felt nothing for the creature, nothing but a kind of grim contempt, but he wasn’t ready to dispose of her yet.
Besides, he had already learnt much from Slavka’s mind. There he learnt the depth of experience that had been denied to him. He had learnt of the anger and bitterness of Slavka’s own loss and the fury of revenge that made her so strong. He had learnt of the pride that swelled in her and the violent agony of defeat.
As he roamed her dreams he had sensed how her own desires were betraying her, tearing her apart. He had realized it when he had first whispered to Slavka of another way, of something that would end the war for ever, of power. That was the lie that had finally made her his. That she too could master the Sight and with it put an end to her own agony.
Then she had come, the wolf that Morgra had long warned him of. Wolfbane had discovered a new and deeper emotion in Slavka then, perhaps deeper than any other – jealousy. The stranger’s arrival had driven Slavka towards him, and with her the creature they had been seeking for so long, the human cub. Was it Fenris’s will that she also knew the way into Harja? Poor, foolish Slavka. Her battle with Morgra wa
s to end here, in the fulfilment of Morgra’s great purpose.
‘Wolfbane,’ came the cold, suspicious voice in his mind.
‘Wolfbane, what have you been doing, my dear?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You can’t lie to me. You have been using the third power to . .. play with my Night Hunters. Don’t you feel guilty, Wolfbane, at the terrible things you do?’
‘One of them,’ snarled Wolfbane almost jealously, ‘showed fear. I could smell it as soon as they entered the gully.’
‘Very well. But you mustn’t waste the power. Leave them be for the while. We have need of them. I have told them to defend the entrance in case—’
‘She is coming.’
‘Yes, Wolfbane, and they will try to stop me. But it is too late. Now we have the child, it will not be long. Every night I look up and see my hopes growing. But now you must do something. Go down to the second entrance and guard it, in case she has discovered it too. Be ready, Wolfbane, for she is strong.’
‘Then you will help me to take revenge?’
‘Of course, my dear, for we were born for revenge,’ whispered Morgra. ‘But no more blindings. Not until it is finished. Then you can torment the Night Hunters as you will and the name of Wolfbane shall sing like a curse through Transylvania.’
A shadow fell across the entrance to Wolfbane’s shelter and a great bellow shook the air. The bear lumbered slowly across the ancient stones, rising every now and then on its haunches, and crashing to the ground again.
The tiny band of rebels were dwarfed by the trees and the mountains around them. Every sound made them start and growl. The wolves’ hearing had been heightened by fear so that even the faintest stirring of a fox or a squirrel echoed in their minds.
Close to sunset they came to the top of a soaring high- backed pass that plunged away into a giant wooded gorge, and here Larka stopped to look out. The mist was rolling like a wave across the far slopes, but Larka was deeply troubled. More than that, she was in terrible pain.
It had begun almost as soon as they had set out. It was like a great pounding in her brain, a terrible, noisy throbbing. As she listened, Larka realized she could hear the thoughts not only of the rebels, but of the Lera all around her. They were everywhere, chattering, snarling, growling and whispering, and they were full of terror, for the Searchers had been among them. Larka wanted to make it stop, but she could do nothing but listen to their frightened minds.
‘Close the eye,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Close the eye of the Sight.’
Larka breathed in and tried to relax. She tried to shut out the noises and she found, strangely, that memory was the best balm. The mist on the slopes cleared and in the distance the she-wolf saw a strange sight.
Standing alone above the tree line, on a rocky outcrop, was a single red deer. It was a magnificent royal stag and its coat glinted russet even in the fading light. It seemed to be watching Larka and, as the wolf looked back, it dipped its proud head slightly and turned away. But among the trees and in the grass other Lera were watching the wolves fearfully as they went.
On the rebels travelled, down into the gorge and then up again towards the towering peaks beyond. It was dark when Huttser stopped them again. They had come to a strange hollow, overhung with gnarled trees and hanging vines. A little spring gurgled out of the rocks at their feet.
‘Larka,’ whispered Huttser. ‘Slavka told me of this place. The rock can’t be far now.’
‘We will part here, then,’ said Larka. ‘Skart will show you the way now. They told me the second entrance lies close to the east. I still have time.’
‘Very well, Larka,’ growled Huttser, looking gravely at his daughter, with Palla at his side.
‘But be careful, Father,’ whispered Larka. ‘Worry the Balkar. Make them think we are trying to get through that way. But don’t do anything to endanger...’
‘We can look after ourselves, Larka,’ said Palla gently. Larka nodded but as she stepped forward, and they began to take their farewells both parents and child started to lie to one another. They agreed to meet back at the spring in two suns time. Huttser and Palla were oblivious to what Larka had seen, to the certainty that she was soon to die. In turn, their daughter was too distracted to see what her parents were hiding in their hearts.
‘Look after her, Kar,’ whispered Huttser as Larka turned to leave.
‘Yes.’
‘And, Kar. Take care too.’
Kar lifted his tail, and Huttser thanked Tor and Fenris that at least he had made his peace with the young wolf.
‘I will, Father,’ he whispered.
Huttser stirred as Kar called him Father, but there was a leaden weight in Huttser’s heart. Somewhere he feared that he would never see either of them again. The rebels turned and, as Skart rose into the air, Huttser and Palla led them up and out of the hollow. But as soon as they were through the trees, out of earshot, Huttser swung round to Palla.
‘Now we must hurry. Gart knows the plan.’
‘Then Tor guide us,’ cried Palla as they began to run, looking up at the eagle soaring high above them in the sky.
Larka watched her parents go and turned to see Tsarr and Kar watching her intently.
‘Come.’
But as Larka began to run too, her paws felt like stones and she knew that every step was bringing her closer to her doom.
It wasn’t long before Skart returned to the rebels and, from his agitated flapping, they all knew that the strange rock was close at hand. But they hardly needed to be told. They had already scented the Night Hunters. The scent grew stronger and stronger as they climbed and, by the time they came on the stone face, they were at their nerves’ end. As they reached it and muttered fearfully, Skart was standing quietly in front of it, but before they could say anything he lifted quietly into the air again.
It was Palla who found the entrance to the canyon nearby and, as soon as she began to scent around it, she pulled away. It was plain that there were Balkar very close at hand. That night the rebels waited at the entrance and Huttser discussed his plan with Gart. He had asked him to distract the Balkar to give himself and Palla a chance to slip through. The wolf shook his head gravely, but he could see that Huttser was determined to reach Morgra before their daughter. Palla lay with Keeka and Karma and Rar, whispering quietly and taking her farewells.
The sun was just climbing the sky as the rebels crept through the fissure in the cliff face. The bottom of the canyon opened out and, in the soft stone above, there were numerous caves, shallow but deep enough for concealment. The slopes up to them banked gently so it was a perfect position for an attack. Ahead, the path of the canyon bent round suddenly, but they could smell Night Hunters just up ahead.
The rebels began to fan out in the caves above and Huttser and Palla found a spot to conceal themselves while Gart, with Rar and Keeka and Karma behind him, padded up the gorge and disappeared out of sight. It wasn’t long before they heard the howls and the three rebels came leaping back down the ravine. The Balkar were at their tails. From above Huttser growled and Palla’s fur began to bristle as they watched the ambush, and the rebels rushed down from their caves. They knew it was hopeless, but neither of them joined the fray. They were still waiting.
It wasn’t long before the majority of the Balkar appeared at the bend in the ravine, hearing the other’s howls. This contingent did not rush so haphazardly into battle. Instead the wolves advanced slowly, fanning out across the gorge. At first it seemed to Huttser that they could never slip past them and his eyes ranged over the slopes, looking for a way through. But at last he hit on it. From where he and Palla were standing a narrow path ran along the sides of the slope and down behind them.
‘Quick, Palla,’ he cried, ‘follow my tracks.’
The Balkar were engaged in the fight and none of them noticed Huttser and Palla as they threaded past them. As they began to descend they saw that the Night Hunters had started to regroup, and that the rebels were being pushe
d back down the pass, howling and snarling furiously. But Huttser and Palla were on level ground once again and they bounded away. They did not notice the tiny shadow that had scudded across the ground behind them. Nor the silent wings flapping in the sky above them.
Huttser and Palla sped on up the ravine, the great granite walls rearing around them. They didn’t slow until they had left the Balkar and the rebels far behind, and the twists and turns in the rising gorge had long obscured their path. It was only as evening came in that they began to feel a little more secure. But it did not last. They had rested on the edge of the ravine and as they moved off again, their attention no longer on flight, Palla began to scent the ground and called Huttser to her side.
‘Can you smell it?’ he whispered nervously.
‘Bear,’ growled Palla in surprise. ‘It’s the scent of a bear. Do you think...’
‘And another,’ growled Huttser, sniffing the earth, ‘Slavka. I’d know her anywhere.’
‘And here,’ said Palla, ‘Morgra has been this way too.’ But Palla had paused again and, this time, her muzzle was close to the ground.
‘What is it, Palla?’
Palla didn’t answer. She suddenly lifted her muzzle and shook her head.
‘It can’t be,’ she whispered. ‘For a moment...’
‘We should get on,’ said Huttser and he led Palla up the slope.
They rose up and up as the darkness came in, hardly speaking as they thought of the mysterious citadel above, their forms illuminated by the swelling moon. Instinctively the wolves walked together, brushing each other’s flanks for comfort.
At last, the path between the cliffs began to bank steeply and the two wolves climbed towards the mountaintop. They stopped together as they crested the slope and came upon the citadel, glittering before them in the moonlight.
‘Harja,’ gasped Huttser. ‘The gateway to heaven.’
All around them stood temples and statues, shining in the moonlight. But now they saw something that made their thoughts quiver. Beyond these statues lay a wide ravine, and spanning its cavernous drop was an arched stone bridge, old and crumbling. Just beyond the bridge on a kind of raised platform, set well above the rest and fronted by a flat stone circle, was another statue. The statue of the giant she-wolf. Huttser and Palla shivered as they saw the stone children suckling at her belly and, at its base, a wide, flat dais. The sacred altar.
The Sight Page 39