In time the egg had split open and as soon as the huge chick had emerged from the shell, it had pushed the finches’ own eggs from the nest, to fall and shatter on the ground below. Then it had begun to call for food, like a huge mouth, and so the finches had started to feed it. So rapacious was the creature, and so much food did it demand of the little birds that with time, as the cuckoo grew fat and strong, its new parents died in the effort to give it nurture. Palla shuddered as she thought of the horrible cruelty of it and in that moment she wondered what a family really was.
‘Most of the rebels are loyal to Slavka,’ growled Huttser, ‘and they would see us fight each other. But that shall never be, Palla. Meanwhile, we must hope and look to the future.’ But the she-wolf’s eyes had grown heavy and morbid.
‘The future,’ she whispered bitterly. ‘It’s as bleak as the past.’
Huttser shook his head sadly.
‘Larka,’ whispered Palla, ‘do you think she will come?’
‘She must not, Palla, whatever happens.’
A polecat was sitting on the branch of an oak licking the fur around its muzzle. Its little fangs glistened like ivory and it squeaked with satisfaction as it thought of the kill it had just made. It flicked its tail left and right and was just settling down to take a nap when it looked up in amazement. The polecat could hardly believe its eyes.
There in the wood, threading through the trees. Over the past suns the polecat had been startled to see so many grey wolves moving through the forests. But this. Never in his short life had he seen this. They vanished beyond the trunks and the polecat screwed up his eyes. But no, it hadn’t been a dream. He had seen it, on a white wolf’s back.
But with that, the polecat heard a finch fluttering down to settle on the end of a branch and in that instant it forgot all about what it had just seen as it began to creep forward, stealthily along the branch, drawn by its own hunger.
The polecat was not the only Lera to see the strange little family, part wolf, part man, part bird. As they travelled north east towards Slavka in the valley of Kosov an osprey looked down from its rocky eyrie and nearly fell out of its nest. In a sparkling stream an otter poked its glistening head from the waters and promptly dropped the trout it had clasped in its eager paws. A herd of fallow deer were so startled at the sight that they began to fence with their antlers out of season. The strange apparition set up such a chattering and whispering among the animals that the forests seemed to tremble with the rumour.
But other sights had made the Lera fearful too. Sights that filled them with wonder and foreboding. Muzzles and eyes that seemed to appear from nowhere to startle the hunted, and then vanish again as if they had never been.
Larka and the others were frantically worried, for Skart had great difficulty remembering the way now, but as they travelled, at least they had more success than they had done caught in winter’s unforgiving grip. As spring edged towards summer, game became more plentiful as the herds of deer and cattle swelled and the Lera lost their fear and grew lazy with feeding. Tsarr hunted for them all and Larka’s coat lost its pallid yellowy grey, and she walked graceful and healthy through the tall grass, as white as the arctic wolf.
As she went Larka, too, began to notice more of the Lera that lived in this mysterious land. As she watched them, only sometimes did the wolf feel hunger stirring in her belly. But at other times she would look out and marvel at the forms and variety of the animals.
In the forests she saw red squirrels and stoats and weasels stalking through the trees, and fox and wildcats and otters too, spinning and twisting through the glittering streams. She saw snakes slithering through the grasses, horned adders and steppe vipers, picking their way through life with their darting tongues, their undulating bodies so in tune with the earth that they hardly needed their feeble eyes. As Larka looked at them and thought of the promised power to control all the Lera, again she felt strangely humble.
But Larka grew frantic as the summer arrived, and her friend still had difficulty recalling the best route to the valley. She hardly had a plan of what she would do when she reached Slavka, but all she could think of was saving her parents. One clear, calm morning she came to a decision.
‘Tsarr,’ she whispered looking fondly at Bran. ‘I must leave you here. Skart and I shall use the Sight again. We need Skart’s wings now.’
As Larka’s body slumped to the ground by the child, again she felt a glorious freedom as they rose in the skies, as though her troubles were dropping away from her. To the north the ragged mountains climbed into the skies. But to the south, and east and west, the forests and woods had become an ocean of colour below them, rippling and shrugging in a tide of branch and leaf.
But as this sea of growth swept before her Larka was startled, for she realized that, though the whole looked green, now, as she looked down she could see the infinite variety of shades and colours that really made up the forests, as the clouds crossed the sun or the wind rocked the branches. As Larka thought of what lay ahead, she suddenly felt as though there was some hidden moral in the grandeur of that sight.
For three suns they travelled together, and day turned to night and back into day. Larka noticed how many birds there were in the skies, for the creatures of the air had returned from their winter migrations. But, best of all, Larka liked it when the darkness came in and the she-wolf flew with Skart below a star-soaked heaven. She wondered how high Skart could fly, and if the bird turned upwards whether he could ever reach those sparking eyes of light and sail through the darkness along the Wolf Trail itself; a trail between heaven and earth that for as long as the Varg could remember had been etched into the stories of the wolf.
But the wolf and the eagle were flapping below the moon when Skart heard a cry on the air below them. A great cloud of wings was moving steadily towards the east. There were ravens and crows and hungry buzzards. The noise sent a whispering through the clouds.
‘The flying scavengers,’ shuddered Skart, ‘they are making for Kosov too.’
Suddenly, ahead of the scavengers below them and leading them on, they both recognized a single black raven. It was Kraar.
Skart dived on the air and, as they came closer, they heard Kraar’s voice crawing through the night.
‘Come,’ cried the raven triumphantly, ‘follow me. Soon I shall give our kind power over the Putnar, as Wolfbane promised me himself, and we shall feast on seas of blood.’
Before Kraar was even aware of Skart’s presence, a shadow fell on him in the skies and the flying scavengers scattered with fright as the eagle’s great talons closed like a vice around the raven’s wings. Kraar cawed in terror, but he was caught fast as the eagle sailed on.
‘So, Kraar, we meet again,’ cried Skart coldly, as he held the bird below him. ‘Flapping back to your mistress?’
‘Let me go,’ cawed the raven furiously, ‘or I’ll—’
‘Or you’ll nothing,’ snapped Skart, closing his talons even tighter, and wheeling upwards to carry the creature away from his friends. ‘You will be silent, or I will crush you like a fly. Now, tell me what is happening, Kraar. You’re going to the valley, aren’t you?’
The bird was silent.
‘I will kill you if you don’t tell me.’
Kraar screeched on the ragged wind, but the raven knew it was hopeless. Skart could feel the bird trembling in his grip, but he suddenly realized that Kraar couldn’t speak under the pressure of it.
‘Tell me and I will let you go,’ said Skart, relaxing his hold slightly. ‘Where is Morgra? ’
‘Swear you’ll release me,’ gasped the bird. ‘Swear it by the Sight.’
For a moment the eagle hesitated.
‘I swear it.’
‘Very well,’ shuddered the terrified raven. ‘Morgra and the Night Hunters are on their way to the valley as we speak.’
‘And there she plans to use the ancient howl?’
‘No, I can’t,’ screeched the bird. ‘Morgra and... and him.’ Skart squeezed again. ‘Yes, yes. Morgra is waiting for her true servants to come. She will send them amongst the Lera to do her bidding.’
‘But she doesn’t have the child?’
‘She no longer cares. She says we must trust the legend itself. Is not Larka on her way to the valley, too?’
Far away the she-wolf shuddered as she listened, but as Kraar felt the eagle’s grip weaken again with the power of his own words, Kraar said more than he had intended.
‘And Harja. The citadel lies in the mountains above the valley,’ he cried triumphantly.
The connection between Larka and Skart almost broke with the shock of it.
‘No,’ cried the eagle.
Skart’s talons nearly locked through Kraar’s heart.
‘Stop it,’ screeched the raven, ‘you promised...’
‘Kraar, you are nothing but a filthy parasite. A foul, worthless scavenger. A low, black, honourless—’
‘Skart,’ clacked Kraar suddenly and his voice was filled with bitterness, ‘do you think that I choose to be a scavenger? That I like hopping after snarling wolves or taking lambs’ eyes in the morning? If I had huge claws or a fine beak I would be true Putnar, too, and you would not call me honourless. What gives you the right to judge me? To have power over my kind?’
As Larka listened she heard truth in the bird’s words, and strangely she thought of the poor Sikla.
‘Lies,’ cried Skart, ‘you are proud of being a scavenger, Kraar, hiding in the shadows. Or do you hate the thing you are? Is that why you serve Morgra. Because you are like her. Because she hates the life of the wolf and longs for the power of Man. Longs to be human.’
Skart’s talons were closing.
‘Skart,’ whispered Larka’s voice suddenly, ‘you promised Kraar you would not harm him. Whatever happens, Skart, we must not become like them.’
‘Very well,’ said the eagle scornfully, and then he dipped his beak towards Kraar and his eyes bored into the raven’s.
‘We will meet again, Kraar,’ he whispered. ‘I promise you that too. You are blackening the skies and the hearts of the birds, so when we do I will not hesitate to kill you.’
Skart released his talons with disgust and the raven dropped like a stone from his grasp. It opened its injured wings and, screeching terribly, wheeled into the skies. The flying scavengers had been scattered to the winds, but as Skart sailed on Kraar turned to rally them again.
‘Come back,’ cried his fading voice. ‘You’ve no need to be afraid. Wolfbane is with us and I, Kraar, am not frightened of the flying Putnar, I will lead you to...’
‘It’s true, Skart, isn’t it?’ whispered Larka as Kraar’s voice disappeared into the distance. ‘We are caught in this legend somehow, just as Kraar was caught in your talons.’
The eagle didn’t answer the wolf but as she lay by the child, Larka could hardly breathe.
‘We must hurry, Skart,’ Larka said suddenly. ‘Somehow you must warn my parents for me. Get them away from there.’
But as Skart flew on through the night it seemed that fear itself was riding on the wind.
The sun had come again and they were flying along the Carpathians’ southern edge, directly east, when Skart began to descend. They had come at last to a plain and Larka shuddered as they looked down. There below them was a human encampment. A great herd of horses was corralled at one edge and around them there was a sea of tents and the smoking grey embers of fires wheezing in the day.
‘Skart.’ Larka trembled. ‘It’s just as I saw. But there are even more of them now.’
Skart flew on, and in no time at all they came to a wide valley, well shielded by the trees. There were beech and elm and sycamores and an unusually large expanse of rowan trees, still bright with red berries. As Skart flew lower Larka began to see a shifting lake of grey wolves.
‘The rebels,’ whispered Larka, and as she said it her heart began to beat faster. Larka felt a strange longing as she saw so many wild wolves settled together, a longing to be among her own kind again. The eagle was dropping lower still and Larka saw a band of wolves lying in a circle. Her heart almost stopped as she gazed down. She would have recognized those faces anywhere.
‘Mother,’ gasped Larka, ‘Father.’
But some of the wolves guarding Huttser and Palla saw the bird come. They had been ordered to keep everything away and they jumped up and began to snarl and leap in the air. Skart lifted again, and as he did so they noticed a lone shape on the hilltop. Evening was coming down and, even as Skart’s eyes looked towards the sentinel wolf, far away the hackles rose on Larka’s neck. Around the powerful Dragga’s body Larka could suddenly see an angry red aura, fringed with a grey. She shivered as she saw it and thought of what Skart had said of the powers of the Sight bending in some strange way, but she remembered too her vision of Wolfbane.
‘Balkar,’ she whispered. ‘The Night Hunters have already reached the Gathering Place.’
The scout had disappeared into the trees again, but on Skart flew, and Larka’s heart began to pound even more furiously as they soared over the forest. Among the boughs, padding through the darkness, Larka saw them even beneath the canopy of leaves. They were moving silently, in straight lines towards the Gathering Place, the Balkar’s prowling auras. Then behind them came another aura, blacker than the rest. It seemed to swallow light itself. Again Larka felt anguish and desire, that same desire to be close to this creature. It was the presence she had seen before. Wolfbane.
‘Hurry, Skart,’ she cried, ‘we must return.’
As Larka cried out a strange sound came up through the trees. A sound neither of them would have expected to hear in that place. It was a bellow. Deep and dark and powerful. It was the bellowing of a mountain bear.
Below them, Brak snarled as he stood in the shadows and saw the eagle circling high above. Then, again, he looked down on the rebels in the fabled valley of Kosov. There was something in the vision of this giant pack that unsettled him deeply, for though the Night Hunters were all fighting males, all his life they had been trained to travel in small groups, like the ordinary wolf, and strike at speed. He was proud of his own power and skill, and the strength of his night eyes, and he knew that in single combat there were few living wolves that could beat him. But a Greater Pack he had never seen before and the sheer number of wolves set doubt tumbling through his brain. Only Man fought like this, not the Varg.