Wolfweir (16 page)

-Onward then, she said, wiping her eyes. I am at the front.
Malvic
, follow just behind. Boys, inspire the others with haste.

With that, she drew a strong breath, pulled her dagger from its leather sheath and lunged into the darkness, slashing cobwebs.

At each slash a mass of
spiderwebs
parted and she stepped through it.

Malvic
holding the torch high so she could see her way clear.

-How far to the Marshes?
she
shouted back at
Malvic
.

-Perhaps another mile, my Queen.

-Haste. Make haste everyone.

She was moving faster now, sweating. A spider fell on her arm. She brushed it away and it hit the stone floor with a thump and scuttled out of the torch-light.

-Ha, said
Malvic
.
Admiringly.
What a quick, brave Wolf Queen.

Ahead suddenly she saw bluish blackness rather than the solid black of the tunnel. Then she heard rushing water.

-We've made it, she cried, her voice ringing in the tunnel.

A shout went up from the wolf people.

-Hush!
said
Malvic
, and the voices hushed.

Lucia stepped from the tunnel into a foot of murky water. The cold shocked her. She splashed around a bit trying to get solid footing.

-My Queen! Are you safe?

-Yes. It's not deep. Come out quickly. Put out your torches first.

The torches blinked out. The Wolf people began to thrash through the cold water, grasping at reeds.

Some of the Wolf children sank into it up to their necks.

-Hold each other's arms!
said
Lucia.

Forming chain of arms the Wolf people waded into the darkness filled with muck and reeds.

The sky was radiant.
Stars in all directions but down.

Then the night was shaken by a blast. The sky turned red for an instant. There was a distant clattering of stones.

-They've blown the castle, said
Malvic
. It's over.

Someone cried out:

-A Vampire!

-Hand me a bow!
said
Malvic
.

Jason splashed away into the watery dark and came back huffing and puffing, holding out a longbow and a small clutch of arrows bound with a leather cord.

Malvic
gave the boy his torch and took the bow and arrows. He plucked out and arrow, notched it onto the bowstring, and turned in a slow circle, whispering:

-Where is the Vampire?

A scuttling splash nearby.

-There!
cried
a woman's shaking voice.

The bowstring
thunked
. There was a squeal.
Malvic
waded over to a clump of reeds. Then he held up a large dead water rat by its tail. The arrow had gone right through its head.

He dropped the water rat with a splash.

-No Vampires.
Just water rats.
Be quiet everyone. Follow the Queen. Which way, my Queen?

Lucia cleared her throat. At the shout of Vampires her mouth had gone dry with panic.

-West. There are river barges hidden in a clump of old and mossy oaks.

Jivalti
had told her this. Where was she now? Had she stayed behind? Lucia's heart was thumping like a bird's.

-Please lead on.

Dawn

The sky was growing light blue by the time they reached the barges and all the Wolf refugees were shivering from the cold of the water.

The river barges were massive, long and flat bottomed boats half sunk in mud. They had been carefully covered with pine branches and reeds to conceal them.

The pine branches were fresh and most of the reeds had been recently cut. Someone had tended to these boats with great respect, caulking any gaps in the sides or bottoms with tar.

There were six barges. Swiftly, Lucia calculated that each would have to hold thirty people. Yes. It was possible.

-Aboard, everyone, she hissed.

Mist drifted in tendrils over the surface of the dark water, so that it looked as if the swamp was steaming.

As the Wolf people boarded the big boats, shivering and splashing and coated with raw muck, Lucia was startled by a whirring of wings overhead.
Malvic
raised his bow,
then
lowered it.

-Wild ducks, he said.

The sun
brimmed
the horizon, shooting rays in all directions. Lucia felt its heat on her forehead. She shut her eyes.

Alive.
What ecstasy.

And Alphonse?

She wept a little, sniveling like a human child, until
Malvec
sat down beside her in the boat.

The stronger Wolf boys would do the poling. Each boat had a dozen or so bamboo poles onboard just for that purpose.

The bamboo poles clunked against the
gunwales,
then splashed in the marsh. The heavy boats shuddered and began to glide. Lucia wrapped her cloak tighter.

-No speaking, she said.
Quiet, all.

The hum of voices stopped.

A chill wind was rising from the north. Mountains appeared as if stamped in vastness.

Driftwood

Something bobbed in the sun glaring water. It sank then bobbed up again. It had a tarry look to it. Maybe it was a drum, or a piece of withered log, or --

-It's Alphonse! Lucia screamed.

All her body had gone cold and she was sweating.

-Alphonse! Alphonse!

He was missing his cap but she'd recognized the dark paint on his head -- it was supposed to be the puppet boy's black hair.

Most of the body was underwater. She could make out a hand.
Drifting in the glare.

-Alphonse!

She was screaming, slavering at the mouth.
Malvic's
arms kept her from leaping into the water.
Crushing her chest.

A Wolf boy extended a long pole with a hook on the end he'd found in the bow of the river barge.

He touched the sinking-floating puppet hand with it. The head sank a little more and Lucia shrieked with agony.

Then the hook caught a wooden arm and the puppet was pulled smoothly to the side of the boat and dragged aboard and set down with a clatter.

Weeds clung to the legs. The wooden eyelids were shut.

Lucia embraced the puppet.
Clinging to it with her whole body as she retched and moaned.

Around her, the people took off their caps, if they wore any.

Malvic
knelt, shutting his eyes, the good arm hanging as if he'd been shot down.

Silence but for the murmur of water against the boat.

The sun was high. It was getting hot. There had been no Vampires.
Malvic
had set down his bow about an hour before and dozed off with his knees draw up. And now he was awake to this new sadness.

Suddenly the puppet jerked, and the hand tapped Lucia's tear slick cheek and fell back clattering,
then
jumped again.

-Alive! He's alive! Turn him!

A boy leapt forward and turned him and water gurgled from the puppet's mouth as the limbs clicked and jerked.

Lucia was weeping madly, now from joy.

The puppet's eyes clicked open. And little puppet Alphonse jumped to his feet, startling everyone.

Magic

Drifting along in the river, Alphonse hadn't been in his puppet body.
Not at all.

At first he was just nowhere.

When his horse had plunged into the dark river, it had turned sideways in the current and he'd been swept from the saddle and bounced against floating bodies.

Sinking, he'd torn off his breastplate armor. Then his body rose to the surface. His puppet arms flailed and splashed.

Shots -- a whole crackling fusillade from the misty river bank.

The river erupted in splashes around him and his head was knocked sideways by the glancing hit of a ball. He sank again, his mouth wide open, water gurgling into his hollow body.

Desperate to live, even if only as this gaudy wooden figure of play, he wrenched and turned his body to swim with the current.
To get away from the battle.

Then something hit him hard --

Waking with a jolt, his whole body in a sweat, Alphonse heard voices around him, the squeaking wheel of some sort of cart, the clatter of instruments on a tray.

There was a bright halo of light beaming through his eyelids.

His fleshly eyelids.

His body was breathing. He could feel the blood pulsing in his fingertips. He smelled antiseptic soap.

The hospital! Paris!

He struggled to open his eyes.
Failed.
Tried again with all his might.

Nothing.

He tried to speak. He managed a groan. And apparently, only he heard it, because two nurses went on speaking quietly in the hospital corridor.

Steps.
Someone was walking to his bedside. He struggled to move.
Could not.

-Is the boy sweating?