Fell (The Sight 2) (25 page)

Catalin’s eyes were filled with shock, for he was learning that real life could be far stranger than stories, but his heart felt only the bitterness of his father’s murder.

“That sealed Romana’s joy. And Vladeran’s too,” said Vlascan. “Their son was restored.”

Alina felt a fury at this woman from her dreams, who had treated her as a servant, and who had married her father’s best friend. Had Romana been happy because she could only really love a boy child? Vladeran’s son. Had Romana hated her own daughter all along, and let Vladeran try to kill her?

“Where is my half brother now?” she whispered, suddenly feeling far less tender towards him.

“Safe in the palace, of course. But tell me, was it the memory of that night when he was taken that made you invent your clever story of a wolf companion? Some call you the changeling storyteller.”

Alina stared back coldly. Her heart was burning with all she had heard, and aching for Lescu too, and her own dead father, but in that moment she remembered all that the blacksmith had taught her. She took in a gulp of air and tried to calm her breathing and her churning thoughts. Words came back to her.
A fight is won and lost in here
. Something else was happening in Alina’s mind too. She was reaching out, searching in the darkness, calling for help.

“Fell, come to me, Fell. I beg of you.”

There was no answer, and Alina’s eyes moved slowly around the room. The revelation of who she really was had made the other soldiers pause, for they had known nothing of it.

Alina noticed that the soldier to Catalin’s right had not drawn his sword and that it was hanging loosely in the sheath at his belt. If only Alina could rush him and draw it herself, the young woman might have a chance. But no. A single move of the second soldier’s arm, and Catalin’s throat would be cut.

Unless she could turn and swing in time. Then one or both of the soldiers by Vlascan might strike at her back. As Alina weighed all this in a split second, seeing the very movements in her inner mind and playing them out, the soldiers about her still didn’t move, for they thought a girl no real threat.

“Let’s be done with it,” said Vlascan suddenly. “The others’ll be here soon, and we’ve wasted enough time on a woman.”

Vlascan stepped forwards, but in that moment Alina unleashed the will that she was channelling through her body. She sprang forwards, and as her left hand gave the freestanding soldier a sharp shove in his chest, her right grasped his sword hilt.

The blade rose cleanly from its sheath, as the soldier toppled backwards and crashed to the floor, and Alina turned on one leg and swung the blade down towards the soldier holding Catalin. It cut his knife arm, and with a cry, he dropped his dagger and Catalin broke from his grasp, throwing himself on his dead father and clasping his dear face.

Alina sensed one of the soldiers by Vlascan moving to strike, and felt his sword above her head. She had no time to turn. Instead she swivelled her sword in her wrist and brought it up and back behind her, under her own right arm. The soldier’s movement impaled him on the sword, and Alina let go for a moment, turned, and, striking the wounded soldier in the chest with a cry, pulled the blade from his body and raised it to check the advance of Vlascan and the other.

They had stopped anyway, amazed by the girl’s speed and skill. The two of them, and the soldier clutching his arm, too, were suddenly filled with fear and wonder, but not as much as Alina now had for herself.

“Impressive,” hissed Vlascan. “Did you learn it off the blacksmith? Well, these skills shall die with him, as they do with you.”

There was a groan from the chair, and Lescu half raised his head, his bloodied lips suddenly mouthing. The blacksmith was still alive.

“Father,” whispered Catalin bitterly. “I’m sorry, Father.”

“Catalin,” gasped Lescu faintly. “The girl, help the girl.”

Catalin was looking about for a weapon, and the others were watching Alina warily. Alina swung her head left and right, calculating who to fight next. They did not dare advance on her, but Alina saw Vlascan look up momentarily, towards the stairs. Was another soldier up there? Before she could turn, she heard a swishing sound, and felt a horrible pain in her right shoulder.

A knife had been thrown from the stair by a soldier who had been searching above. The pain of it entering her body made Alina cry out and drop her arm for a moment, and her guard too. The soldier she had pushed to the floor struck from below, knocking the sword from her hand, and in a sudden drawing of blades, Alina WovenWord was surrounded again.

“Do it now,” cried Vlascan angrily, as the soldier on the ground rose. “And make her pay dearly.”

It was the shattering of glass that made them turn, and the huge black shape that came flying through the window. The wolf knocked one soldier to the ground. For a moment, all the others were aware of was a snarling black muzzle and angry, pointed teeth. The soldier beside Vlascan struck out in horror, but Fell went for his throat next, and stopped him in the instant. The powerful wolf turned and growled viciously at the others.

“Stand back, Alina,” came his angry thoughts. “I can’t control them with my mind, but still these weaklings are mine.”

Alina reached up and pulled the dagger from her back with a cry, as Vlascan cowered there. He could not believe what he was seeing, and nor could Catalin, who just thought that Baba Yaga herself had come crashing through the window.

“Then it’s true,” gasped Vlascan. “The wolf story’s true.”

“Yes,” cried Alina furiously, “I walk with the wolf, so beware, little man.”

Catalin was looking at Alina WovenWord in terror, as Fell growled furiously at her side. The boy was utterly horrified, and his fear and confusion were blending with his agony for his dying father.

“Very well,” hissed Vlascan, rallying and raising his sword. “Then we’ve a man’s fight after all.”

Fell took Vlascan in a snarl, as Alina turned and used the dagger to put an end to the wounded soldier, who had just thrown himself towards her. She felt tears burning her cheeks as she did so, but she held her resolve. Her story of killing Malduk had been a lie, but now she had just killed two men, and she felt little glory in it.

There was only the soldier on the stair, and the one whom Alina had struck first, but seeing the strange fighting girl and the black wolf amongst their dead companions, they both raced for the door.

“Witchcraft!” cried the one who had thrown the knife. “The Evil One is here.”

Fell swung round and snarled again.

“Leave them, Fell,” cried Alina in disgust.

They ran for their horses and galloped away into the growing night, driving the riderless animals before them. In the house, Alina lowered her dagger again and turned sadly towards Catalin and his father.

“It’s all right, Catalin, we’re safe now. For a while.”

Suddenly there was another groan, and Lescu had raised his head again. He was reaching out a hand towards Alina, like a father to a daughter. She rushed forwards and grasped it tenderly, and Fell growled as he watched the strange humans. He didn’t like their scent at all.

“Alina,” gasped Lescu. “Then this is your wolf. And your journey too, dear Alina. You know it now. I heard what they said of your birthright. You’ve noble blood in you indeed, and thus a dangerous road, amongst people who seek power alone.”

“Perhaps, Lescu.”

“But beware, daughter,” whispered Lescu faintly, “above all beware of bitterness and hate that kill the mind and soul. I’ve taught you well, but see clearly, and know that nothing anyone ever does to you can be as terrible as what you do yourself. Remember that. And know too what ‘Alina’ means in our tongue—‘to comfort.’ ”

Alina could feel the strength leaving the blacksmith.

“Take my son into the mountains with your wolf. Protect each other—two great storytellers, together. Swear it. Make a pact. Love each other.”

“I swear it, Lescu. On my life.”

Tears were flowing down Alina’s lovely face, and she felt as if her passionate heart were breaking. This was one of the only people she had ever loved, apart from those dream shapes she had so desperately wanted to love and feel love from, and already he was being taken from her. As Ivan had been. As her father had been too. Alina had never felt such a terrible pain in all her life.

“Go now. Hurry. And may the gods speed you in your journey. But first, look in the forge.”

“The forge?”

“In a box by the bellows,” said Lescu faintly. “I made it for you with all my skill, Alina Sculcuvant, now you’re becoming a woman and a warrior, and I finished it this very day. When I knew what to carve on the top. May it serve the heir to Castelu well.”

Lescu’s hand closed hard on Alina’s and he slumped completely. The kind blacksmith was dead. Catalin groaned and sank to his knees, but Alina fought back the scalding tears and, with a bitter pain in her heart, prised her hand from dear Lescu’s. She rose and felt that ache in her forehead again, though far less than the terrible pain inside her.

“We go, Alina?” came Fell’s angry thoughts. “I don’t like this place.”

“Yes, Fell,” answered Alina aloud, “into the mountains, towards the castle and the palace beyond. The region of Castelu. My home.”

Alina turned to Catalin, who was still cowering from the wolf by his father’s side, to see him glaring at her angrily.

“Come, Catalin,” she said firmly. “Quickly.”

Catalin looked into her eyes and she could see fear in the blue green, as the lad shook his head furiously.

“Catalin, please. I swore to Lescu.”

“No. Get away from here. Leave me to my father. He’s dead.”

“Please.”

“Go away. Get out of our house.”

Alina paused. She saw the horror in his eyes.

“Very well,” she whispered.

She turned proudly and, with Fell padding after her, walked silently outside, hurt by Catalin’s fear, but with the thought to leave him alone with his father awhile, before asking him to leave once more.

Catalin rose slowly. His mind was in turmoil as he stood looking down at his father. He had never been happier than in these last few months, because of the strange, beautiful young storyteller, and now, because of her too, his father was dead and he was all alone. Because of this noble lady, the heir to Castelu, a devil in the shape of a wolf now stood outside his home.

Yet as Catalin stood there, feeling terrified, he realised bitterly that there was nothing to be done but to go with her for now. There was nothing left here. The girl, this witch child, had been right; the soldiers would return. Catalin turned and walked to the dresser to retrieve his father’s store of gold, and then with a last bitter look at Lescu, he walked outside.

As he reached the forge, he saw Fell standing in the moonlight, but the wolf let him pass inside. Alina was standing by the bellows, and as he entered she put down the shears. Her beautiful red hair was cut short once more and lay in curls about her feet.

Alina looked down now at a long wooden box, and as she opened it, her amazement almost drove out her misery at Lescu’s death. There was the most beautiful sword Alina Sculcuvant had ever seen. It was almost half the young woman’s height, and hammered out of the finest folded metal, but as the heir to Castelu lifted it in her hands, she found it light and perfectly balanced. Its handle was carved from antler horn, and at the top it was worked into the shape of a wolf’s head. Finest of all was the engraving in the middle of the sword, just below the hilt. It was the mark of the eagle.

Alina raised it in its sheath, draped with a cord of leather to hang it from, and slung it over her shoulder like a magic blade. Then she turned proudly and walked back towards Catalin. She peered into his eyes, and realised from the confusion she saw there that she had to take the lead.

She took two hooded coats from the back of the door to the forge, giving one to Catalin and putting one on herself, and picked up two horse blankets laying in the barn. Then, almost as an afterthought, she unslung the bow that hung by the door, and a quiver of arrows, then clasped Catalin by the arm and pushed him out into the moonlight.

Fell was waiting, staring up towards the star-flecked skies—the Wolf Trail. With that the three of them—the boy, the wolf, and the heir to Castelu—began to walk towards the mountains and the future.

“BUT HOW, SCULCUVANT?” WHISPERED CATALIN, glaring at the wolf in disgust. “It’s witchcraft, darker than any of the tales we tell.”

The young man sat on a tree stump, as the black wolf tore into a snow rabbit. The ground was flecked with specks of red, and Alina sat opposite, with her jerkin half open, rearranging the poultice she had made for her injured shoulder.

For two days Catalin had followed Fell and Alina SkeinTale without talking, and now they had almost come to the far end of Baba Yaga’s valley.

Although Catalin had not been able to hear their thoughts, he knew now that there was some special power that worked between the girl and the wolf, and it had made the young man retreat into himself, almost as much as Lescu’s murder had. He looked on the wild creature as a kind of demon, and on his former friend as a being wrapped in witchcraft—a very sorceress.

“I … I don’t know, Catalin,” answered Alina, glad at least that he was speaking. She closed her jerkin again. “It just happened. And we’re linked by fate, and a power called the Sight. The Gift some call it. You heard what that soldier said of my half brother, Elu, how he was stolen as a baby and returned by wolves.”

Catalin glared at Alina with something close to hatred in his eyes.

“It’s you,” he whispered. “It’s because of you and that … that wicked thing that my father’s dead.”

Alina hated Catalin for saying it, but it was just.

“I … I would have done anything to save Lescu, Catalin,” Alina whispered desperately.

Another name was in her head though, and one that brought sorrow too. Dragomir. Her own father was dead as well. Catalin snapped the stick he was holding and jumped up.

“Damn you, SkeinTale. Damn you both to hell.”

Fell rose immediately and snarled, but Alina cried out. “No, Fell. This is between us.”

The wolf lay down again and whined. He felt almost jealous seeing them talking together.

“You speak to that thing as if it were a person,” said the young man with disgust, slumping down dispiritedly again.

“We’ve a bond, as I said,” said Alina simply, “as you did with Gwell.”

Catalin felt sick as he thought of his own dog, lying there with his throat cut. He had loved Gwell deeply. He loved animals as much as Alina.

“That’s not a dog, it’s a wolf. They’re killers, SkeinTale. Wild beasts.”

“You don’t understand,” said Alina coldly. “And don’t call me SkeinTale.”

“Understand what?” snapped Catalin scornfully. “Understand that this stinks to heaven? Understand that it’s unnatural, and what a wicked thing is happening?”

“Fell, come here awhile,” whispered Alina, turning to the wolf.

Fell looked up, but he did not move. He didn’t trust Catalin at all, and if his instincts and his thoughts of the vision had sometimes made him want to strike at Alina, he felt it tenfold with the young man.

“Why don’t you order it?” asked Catalin mockingly.

“I can’t order him,” answered Alina sharply. “The wolf does as he pleases. He’s wild and free.”

“He’s under a spell, don’t you mean? Your spell.”

“Don’t speak like that, Catalin. It’s a lie. Like magic is a lie. And fairy tales.”

“So many lies, since you arrived, anyway.”

Although Fell had not understood Alina’s spoken words, he suddenly rose again and, lifting his tail, took a step towards them. Catalin saw it, and it made him recoil immediately. He nearly slipped backwards off the log he was sitting on.

“Get it away from me!” he cried. “I don’t want that devil anywhere near me.”

Alina felt scorn for her friend.

“You’re frightened of him, Sikla?” she said coldly, her hazel eyes glittering.

“So what if I am?” answered Catalin angrily. “A wolf that appears from nowhere, whatever your history? A killer. Wouldn’t any man fear that? It seems like sense to me.”

Alina looked into his eyes. “Yes,” she said softly. “And I know how hard it is to be a man.”

Alina was thinking of the shepherds, and the bullying she had often seen amongst the village boys, the bullying she had felt herself, and she had meant the remark kindly, to reassure Catalin, but he misunderstood her and thought she was mocking him.

“And wouldn’t any man be frightened of a girl who wants to be a soldier?”

Alina jumped up now.

“Wants?” shouted the young woman furiously. “Did I want to be taken from my home? Did I want to be hunted, or your father to be killed? Did I want my own father to be dead? Or want my mother …” Alina paused and tears rose in her flashing eyes. “I haven’t wanted any of this.”

She wanted to cry, but the heir to Castelu straightened her back. “Yet it seems to me that life just happens sometimes, and when what happens is bad, you can either give in, or you can do something about it.”

Alina had her sword slung across her back, and despite himself, Catalin thought how fine she looked, but he could still see Fell behind her and it made him nervous and angry.

The wolf sensed the emotions coming off the lad, the male aggression, and it made him deeply unsettled. He wanted to react with snarls and teeth, but Fell had realised that the boy and the girl were not enemies, and it caused a painful confusion in him. Suddenly Fell growled and sprang away into the trees. He wanted to be in the wild.

“Fell, come back.”

The wolf was gone.

“He’ll return,” said Alina to herself, “probably by nightfall. But we’d better get moving again, Catalin. The soldiers will be on our trail by now.”

“Is that an order, from such a fine noblewoman?” Catalin said resentfully, sitting still on the stump. “One with such a great destiny.”

Catalin blinked at his own words. In truth, all that had happened had made Catalin revise his feelings for the girl. But so too had Vlascan’s revelation in the house that she was the heir to Castelu.

She had thought Vladeran and Romana her parents for a long time, but Catalin had seen the lovely girl as an equal, of ordinary stock like himself, and a fellow storyteller, who he had begun to hope might walk at his side. Suddenly it was if she lived in a world entirely apart from a blacksmith’s son, as if she had been hurled into the stars and now was looking down on him. Catalin did resent her for it, and feared her too.

“Of course it’s not an order,” answered Alina, deeply stung. “We’re good friends, aren’t we? I swore to your father that we’d protect each other. Perhaps more than that,” she added softly.

The pretty young woman’s heart was reaching out to Catalin, but he turned it away coldly.

“You,” he sneered. “Why would you need protecting, with a demon at your back? And mastery of a sword, like a man? Surely the Evil One himself watches over you both, my fine Lady Baba Yaga.”

Alina glared at Catalin, then reached slowly up to her back and drew the sword Lescu had forged her. She pointed it straight at him.

“If you fear the Evil One, or the heir to Castelu,” she said coldly, with a sneer on her own lips, “then don’t worry, Catalin Fierar. I alone shall protect you, boy, with my sword.”

“No, thank you,” said Catalin, stung by the insult.

“It’s dangerous in the mountains and the wild,” said Alina, and her tone was truly mocking. “Perhaps if you’d learnt to use a sword when your father trained me, I wouldn’t need to worry about you so much.”

Catalin stood and his cheeks were burning.

“What’s that supposed to mean, girl?”

“It means …” Alina paused, seeing how badly she’d hurt him, and pulled back from her anger. She began to stammer. “I … I know your father didn’t want to teach you how to fight, Catalin. Wanted to protect you. But …”

“But what?”

“You might have joined us, and learned about a sword. About courage.”

Catalin said nothing. He looked ashamed, and Alina suddenly felt ashamed of herself too.

“I’m sorry, Catalin, sorry for everything,” she said bitterly, sheathing the sword again. “It’ll be all right, somehow, I promise you. But it’s too dangerous to stay here.”

The young woman had bent to pick up the bow and the quiver that lay at her feet, and Catalin was looking at it strangely.

“Are you coming, Catalin?”

“No.”

Alina stared hard at him and saw that nothing she could say would sway him.

Her eyes grew sad. “Very well then. We go that way, Fell and I. To the northeast, towards the empty castle. It’s a long journey, Fell says, and you can change your mind and come, if you like, but if you don’t, stay out of the open. The best game is lower down the mountain, where the grass is richer. You’ll find them easiest where the Lera—where animals need to drink.”

Catalin said nothing, although as Alina began to walk away, he felt as miserable as she. Yet as soon as she was out of sight, Catalin’s spirits lightened a little and he told himself that he was well rid of the witch, and the beast that walked at her side. Catalin had grown up in nature and he knew many of the arts of hunting and trapping for himself. He knew things that Alina did not know, and he loved the wild, although he had not got as close to it as Alina.

Yet as he sat there, wondering what to do, he suddenly felt dreadfully alone. The light faded, and as the shadows grew in the trees on the edge of Baba Yaga’s valley, an owl started hooting in the blackness. Catalin jumped, as he heard a cry on the evening air, a wolf howl. It might have been Fell, or it might not, but it reminded him of the many dangers that lurked in the mountains. He suddenly stood up.

“Alina,” he called nervously, and the young storyteller started to walk quickly in the direction they had both gone, “wait for me.”

Fell was running fast through the trees. It was so good to be on the move again, and with a sense of purpose. The girl’s journey had begun in earnest and he was bound to her, but the presence of the Sikla, the human male, had unsettled him deeply. The young man’s eyes had always looked at him so accusingly, and Fell had known that Catalin did not like having a wild wolf as company.

But there was something else. With many of the other humans Fell had been able, for snatches of time at least, to look suddenly into their minds and see their thoughts with the Sight. Yet he had tried to do it with Catalin on the first night they had left the blacksmith’s den and been quite unable.

It was as if Catalin was blocking him somehow, and it had made Fell angry and frustrated, for he’d had a reason to want to search the lad’s mind. He wanted to find out what kind of human the boy really was. If he was more than a Sikla, a Dragga even, and what he knew of the world. If they should trust him in the wild.

Fell swung his head and spotted a familiar silhouette running ahead of him at a distance.

“Alina.”

Alina was bearing her sword at her back and carrying that bow as she jogged swiftly through the undergrowth, trying to make it above the tree line before the night thickened. She was still smarting at some of the things Catalin had said, and hated his fear and distrust, but she was also bitterly guilty at all that had happened—that old, consuming guilt that was almost a friend.

She felt Fell’s presence at her side, twenty yards away, and looked across to see the black wolf running parallel with her. She smiled warmly, and they both quickened their pace in the forest. Alina breathed deeply and steadily, and both of them sprang over logs and jumped ditches as they ran, ran as fast as Vasilissa.

“Alina,” came Fell’s searching thoughts, “we go to the Stone Den now?”

“That way at least, Fell. To a palace beyond the castle and to this human lord I spoke of, and his Drappa. I am connected to her, Fell, by blood. They are my lands.”

“Blood connects us all, human, like the rivers that flow through the wild.”

“But I fear it,” came Alina’s honest thoughts. “I know now that my father is dead, and that my mother has married the man who tried to kill me. I think she tried to kill me, too, after my half brother disappeared.”

The wolf was thinking of how often the Varg tried to usurp one another in their fights to mate in the wild.

“And the human lord knows of your presence now, and hunts you?” he asked.

Fell could still remember the taste of human blood on his lips, the soldier’s blood, and it sent strange thoughts dancing through his mind and suddenly made him think nervously again of his vision of killing Alina.