As Brassa prowled into the cave she began to look around her fondly.
‘Huttser, I nursed Palla here myself,’ she said proudly. ‘It brings back such memories.’
‘Not all of them good,’ murmured Palla. ‘You nursed Morgra here too, remember?’
Brassa looked strangely wounded. She fell silent as Kipcha settled on the edge of the chamber as well. As Bran padded inside, he pushed accidentally against Huttser, who turned and snarled at him. Bran jumped sideways, creeping back to the edge of the wall in submission and showing his throat to the Dragga. They were all exhausted and hungry, and Huttser’s worry for Palla had strained his patience to breaking point.
‘Try and get some sleep, all of you,’ Huttser muttered sullenly, turning away from Bran. ‘Without sleep how can a Varg go on?’
Wolves spend something like a fifth of their lives asleep, but Bran whined miserably.
‘Sleep? How can I sleep with this ache eating at my gut? Besides, I’m bound to have nightmares about that Stone Den. It’s horrid.’
In the cave Palla looked up.
‘My parents said the castle was deserted, Bran,’ she whispered, as if to reassure the Sikla. ‘But as cubs the grown-ups used to tell dark stories about it too. They say Morgra climbed up there once. But she was always so inquisitive. That’s why she always asked so many questions about the Sight.’
Huttser threw Palla a warning look but it was too late.
‘The Sight,’ whispered Kipcha excitedly, her breath stroking the others. ‘Tell us more about the Sight, Brassa.’
Brassa was the pack’s advisor and keeper of stories, but the old she-wolf suddenly seemed rather nervous. As she stared around the cave the others’ eyes had locked on hers though and Brassa turned to Huttser, for she knew he disapproved of discussing such things. There were so many rumours already circulating now that the Dragga let her speak.
‘Most say that the Sight is pure myth, Kipcha,’ growled the nurse quietly. ‘The Varg’s belief in it died out long ago, thank Tor, although it was the way of seeing that the predators have believed in since the birth of the sun. The seeing that comes through the forehead. The sense beyond sense, drawing its strength from the energy in all things. They say the power had not reappeared among the wolves for generations. Until Morgra came.’
‘Why?’ asked Palla.
‘Who knows. Perhaps it faded because the Varg began to look to reason and their wits, though the Sight was always a very rare gift. That, too, made it feared. But some say when it reappears, it usually comes to more than one.’
Bran gulped.
‘In the old days, Brassa,’ growled Kipcha, ‘what did the wolves use it for?’
‘That, too, little is known of. Some say it helped the wolves survive the Great Trek, when we first came out of the Land of the Northern Snows. Others that the old Seers cultivated it as a way of telling the future. Still others argue that it was a gift from heaven to help the wolves in their search for Truth.’
‘The stories, they frighten me,’ growled Bran. Brassa nodded coldly.
‘Yes, Bran. It’s frightening. There are three powers of the Sight. The first is to see through the eyes of birds, the Helpers.’
Bran stirred, unhappily.
‘The second is to look into still water and see things there of far off realities, of past, present and even future.’
The wolf pack all looked up, not simply because of the strangeness of the idea, but because a wolf fears nothing more than death by water. If a wolf is drowned then they believe the soul can never find a true resting place in the skies with Tor and Fenris.
‘But the last power,’ whispered Brassa, ‘that is the most fearful, although it is said that none have even reached it before. It is the power to touch the minds of others directly and control thoughts and even physical actions. Some say that only predators can wield the Sight, but that if they do it always brings great unhappiness and misfortune.’
The wind outside was screeching now, moaning and howling around the cave mouth. The wolves were all thinking fearfully of Morgra, and they hoped more than ever that they had left her far behind. But as Bran watched Brassa, for a moment he fancied she was keeping something back.
For a while in the den not one of the wolves dared speak as the wind went on moaning. But suddenly Huttser sprang to his feet.
‘All this is nonsense,’ he cried irritably. ‘The Sight is nothing but a myth, as Brassa says. And besides, doesn’t the wolf have senses enough to master the world?’
Even as Huttser spoke, a shadow suddenly spread across the wall of the cave. It swayed gently and though it looked something like a wolf, its muzzle was strangely extended and misshapen. Huttser swung round, growling threateningly, and even Bran raised his tail in challenge, although he drew backwards too. But as the pack recognized the handsome face that suddenly appeared through the darkness, they all sighed with relief.
‘Khaz,’ cried Kipcha, wagging her tail delightedly.
The wolf that trotted into the cave was only a little smaller than Huttser, though distinguished by a great bushy tail, tinged with red. His eyes sparkled as he acknowledged Kipcha and dipped his head to the Dragga, for in his mouth he was carrying a hunk of fresh meat. It was this that had distorted the shadow thrown on to the cave wall from the world outside. As Khaz threw the meat on the cave floor he shivered and shook the snow from his thick coat.
‘There,’ he cried, ‘not much I’m afraid, but enough to give strength to Palla and her little ones. This cold could freeze the claws off a bear.’
‘Good for you, Khaz,’ growled Huttser. But he was thinking, too, of those huge paw prints in the snow, ‘I was wondering where you’d got to.’
‘I would have caught up with your tracks sooner,’ panted Khaz, lying down and nuzzling up to Kipcha for warmth, ‘but I was checking for Night Hunters. No sign at all, thank Fenris, though I met another family fleeing the edict.’
The freezing wind began to whistle through the willow tree now and its movement sent swaying shadows dancing like crabbed fingers across the cave floor. Palla began to gnaw at the flesh, chewing at it with the side of her powerful jaws. It was tough, but her teeth were very sharp and to an appetite enlivened by hunger it tasted delicious. Bran’s eyes looked longingly at her across the cave.
‘And I saw other things to worry us, Huttser,’ growled Khaz. ‘Humans, hunting near the village.’
‘Man,’ snorted Brassa, lifting her paw as if in evidence of what she was saying, ‘they are evil, as Palla says. They are cruel and kill without hunger.’
‘So do we, Brassa,’ said Khaz rather cheerfully, staring at Palla too as she fed, ‘for we are Putnar also.’
Putnar was the wolves’ word for a predator. Among the titles Morgra’s Balkar gave themselves to intimidate the free wolves they called themselves ‘First Among the Putnar’. Khaz bared his teeth. He couldn’t hide the saliva beginning to drip from his jaws as he gazed at Palla, for although he had made the kill and eaten a little himself, it was only a small calf and he hadn’t lingered to feed properly.
‘Some things not even the Putnar can control,’ Khaz went on, growling to himself thoughtfully. ‘I got into one of their sheep folds last spring. I wasn’t hungry by the time I left but I... I couldn’t help myself. I killed them all.’
‘The bloodlust was on you, Khaz,’ smiled Huttser indulgently, ‘that’s all. And when they bring so many tamed Lera together in once place, it’s difficult to resist.’
As the wolves thought of Man’s strange habit of taming the Lera, they all nodded gravely. It was fundamental in Varg lore that the wolf was the only Lera that could never be truly tamed. Freedom is a wild wolf’s birth right.
Palla finished her meal and licked her lips as the others tried to swallow nothing but their disappointment. It wasn’t really difficult because, though they were all bitterly hungry, there are few bonds in nature as strong as a wolf pack and their co-operation is remarkable, especially when the Drapp
a is pregnant. They will all hunt to feed the expectant mother and nothing is allowed to get in the way of the pack’s future, now symbolized by the life stirring in Palla’s belly.
‘I’m glad of one thing at least,’ said Bran mournfully, promising himself that tomorrow he would take the very fattest snow rabbit he could find, ‘that the humans are always fighting each other. Just think if they really turned their attention on the Lera.’
‘Coward,’ muttered Khaz under his breath. He didn’t have much time for the Sikla.
‘Hush, Khaz,’ said Huttser.
The Dragga turned to Bran and his expression was meant to make up for his anger earlier.
‘Which is why the wolf should walk as a shadow when Man is about,’ he said softly, ‘and why he should remember the oldest law, never to meddle in human affairs.’
Bran suddenly thought of what Kipcha had said of a legend, but Huttser laid his head gratefully on Palla’s paws. He was desperately thankful that they had reached warmth and safety at last. Palla could give birth any sun now and the last thing he wanted was his pack out in the open. Outside, the snowfall was already beginning to stop. The winter had been unusually long, for it was late February, but it had almost run its course. Now the secret earth that lay hidden beneath its snowy shroud had sensed the coming thaw and was preparing to throw forth new life.
But Huttser was mistaken if he thought their arrival had gone unnoticed. Something had seen the wolves enter the cave. Its trail in the snow led back through the forest to the castle on the mountain above the village and its eyes were watching the cave mouth intently. In their glittering gaze lurked the flames of longing and of hate and above its head hovered two black wings.
A small red-deer herd was grazing in the grass on the edge of the forest at the valley bottom, munching happily on the lush spring stems. It was fifteen suns since the pack had returned to Palla’s birthplace beneath the gloomy castle and most of the snow had already thawed.
‘Now,’ snarled Huttser in the wood, ‘now is the time of the Putnar.’
The fur on the Dragga’s back seemed to quiver as he dropped down like a cat and began to edge forward through the grass, scenting the air as though tasting it, his ears cocked forward, his eyes suddenly full of a sly cunning. The wolf’s instincts were fully engaged, and though his awareness of the deer was not held in his conscious mind, all his senses were at work, reading the patterns of the herd.
But suddenly one of the deer lifted its head and the whole herd bolted. The wind had changed.
From the darkling cover of the wood, three sleek grey shapes came shooting towards them. The wolves moved as fast as darting swallows, but springing in a clear, straight line across the grass, covering the space between the trees and the deer in a matter of seconds.
One deer, with a back leg that was slightly deformed, began to trail behind the rest as they fled and as the wolves closed they swerved towards it. But Bran leapt forward on his own, making towards a stag that carried a full head of antlers.
‘No, Bran,’ cried Huttser angrily, ‘not that one!’
But Bran was far too excited to listen and his jaws were almost within biting distance. His heart was racing as the wind raked his ears and the scent swamped his nostrils. But the stag had the measure of him. It waited for Bran’s head to come a little closer and let out a vicious kick, catching Bran full in the muzzle. Bran shied away, yelping in pain, as both his front legs buckled and he spun helplessly in the grass.
‘Don’t let them get into the trees, ‘cried Huttser frantically. Kipcha hardly needed to be told as the she-wolf raced after the rest of the deer. She was coming from the left and she made straight for the slower deer, trying to split it from the herd. Huttser was with her, the two wolves working together instinctively, seamlessly, as they had done on so many hunts before, closing in steadily and swerving to shadow the living contours of the herd.
Closer the wolves came, and closer, to the crippled deer and, just as Kipcha snapped at its right hind leg, Huttser pounced. He was round its neck and, as the deer rolled, his huge mouth closed. The wolf bit deep, drinking the hot, sweet blood as it flowed between his teeth, his jaws snapping like a trap around the warm fur. The bite was fatally accurate and, as the young stag tumbled in the grass, it was dead before it even stopped moving.
Huttser held on to make sure of his quarry though, shaking the deer’s neck back and forth like a broken twig. Its body went limp but still Huttser worried the dead stag, proud of the kill and feeling the power and guiltless glory of the wild hunter. Only when he was certain it was dead did the wolf raise his head and howl with pleasure. But as soon as he saw Bran coming towards him Huttser’s eyes narrowed angrily.
‘A pack works together, Bran,’ he cried, ‘don’t ever forget that. If we don’t have that, what by Tor and Fenris do we have?’
Bran drew his tail between his legs.
‘Besides, Bran, this was the weakest Herla,’ said Huttser using the formal word for deer.
Huttser and Kipcha stared accusingly at Bran, and now embarrassment drove the Sikla to speak.
‘The weakest,’ Bran snorted, ‘I could take any one of them, Huttser.’
Huttser snarled and took a swipe at Bran.
‘You could take nothing of the kind, fool. Besides, we hunt the weakest not just for the ease of the kill, but so that the Herla may go on too and feed us in the future. That is the law of the Putnar.’
Bran knew the law as well as any, though his own thoughtlessness, his desperate excitement and the smell of the deer had made him suddenly forget it.
‘Very well, then,’ snapped Huttser, ‘let that be an end to it. Now let’s eat, we’ve earned the Putnar’s right.’
Bran edged forward, but as Kipcha came up he slunk back again. In the pecking order of the pack Kipcha had the right to try the kill before the Sikla. The deer hovered by the trees beyond as the sounds of the ravening wolves came to them across the grass, their own senses almost frozen in impotent horror. But they all knew that this was the law and at least for another sun the danger had passed. It was a law as old as the rocks that littered the giant mountains, and a law just as hard.
The wolves’ hunger began to abate. Kipcha was licking her paws like a giant kitten as Bran cracked and crunched on bits of bone to get to the delicious marrow and suck out the last bit of goodness, when Huttser lifted his muzzle.
‘Now we must take meat for Palla.’
Although its ribs were open to the sky, nearly a third of the deer carcass remained intact next to the feeding wolves.
‘Shouldn’t we bury the rest?’ asked Kipcha.
‘No, Kipcha. Listen.’
They lifted their ears to the south and a familiar sound filled the air. Soon they saw wings flapping towards them across the forest and Kipcha growled and dipped her head in defence of the carcass.
‘Kipcha,’ said Huttser quietly, but with little rancour this time, ‘today we all seem to be forgetting the law. Let the birds scavenge it, with a free heart.’
As the birds flapped towards them though, Bran growled.
‘They look like Wolfbane’s Helpers,’ he shivered. Huttser smiled and shook his head indulgently.
In wolf lore Wolfbane was a demon spirit, in human terms almost the equivalent of Satan himself. It was said that long ago he had made a blood pact with the scavengers of the air. Like the Sight, the cult of Wolfbane had been a cornerstone of the old beliefs, when spectres and demons had haunted the land beyond the forests and the wolves had lived in fear and ignorance. Before the time when the wolves had begun to talk of Tor and Fenris, who they said had really made the world and who had brought the light of truth into the Varg’s lives.
Wolfbane was also known as the Evil One and the Shape Changer, since some thought he was a giant wolf, with terrible yellow-black eyes and teeth the size of trees, while others thought that he could take on the shape of anything that ate meat, a lynx, a bear or very occasionally a man. Parts of the old superstitions
had mingled with their religion, and some wolves still believed that Tor and Fenris would send Wolfbane to stalk the earth whenever the wolves betrayed them, until the courage and strength of the wolves could drive him back into the shadows. It was said that he walked with the dead and, even now, if young wolves misbehaved, their parents would warn them that Wolfbane was coming to gobble them up, for Wolfbane was said to love to feed on the flesh of cubs.
Huttser left the carcass to the birds and led the others back in the direction of the den. But as they crested a high slope, Kipcha’s muzzle began to quiver. At the top of the hill, the wolves looked out in amazement. After his talk of the Evil One Bran began to tremble violently.
They had visited the plain below them already, and seen game here – deer and sheep and even water buffalo. But now as the wolves looked down they could hardly believe their eyes. There, before them, were humans. Some were on horseback, while others marched wearily through the grass. There were nearly a hundred of them. They were moving in columns, their sweating horses snorting and pawing the earth. Several of them carried long branches in their hands, from the top of which fluttered brightly coloured skins.
Huttser noticed that the sharp sticks at their sides glinted like teeth in the sunlight and that the men riding the horses were clothed in the strangest way. Their chests and heads sparked and glittered brilliantly, as if they were made of the same hard material as their shining sticks.
‘Man,’ growled Huttser.
‘What are they doing here?’ whispered Kipcha nervously.
‘They have the look of Putnar. I think they’re hunting.’
‘For wolves?’ shivered Bran, and he suddenly thought of Kipcha’s words in the forest about a legend of a man and the wolf.
A twinge of fear gripped Huttser’s stomach too.
‘No, Bran. They seem to be travelling south.’