The wolves watched them warily until Bran began to growl again.
‘Huttser. What Brassa said about Tor and Fenris making Man’s mind stronger than the animals,’ he whispered. ‘They are wolf gods. Why would they do such a thing?’
Huttser shook his head. ‘The stories have an answer for that, Bran,’ said Kipcha at his side, as they watched the columns sweating below them. ‘Some believe that Tor and Fenris put evil in the world so that the wolves would have a choice. Others that they lost power over the predators, over their own creation.’
Bran found the idea very strange.
‘Some even say that Tor and Fenris made Man because even they did not understand where they themselves had come from and longed to see further.’
The wolves slunk away at this talk of evil and Huttser was suddenly filled with worry for his pack. He quickened the pace and, as they neared the den, led Bran and Kipcha hurriedly up the hill towards the cave, a good part of the kill dangling from his mouth. He only paused at the stream to drink, lapping his tongue in the sparkling mountain water, his stomach rippling as it filled the wolf’s belly. Despite what they had just seen of the humans, Huttser felt strong and alive and free.
He could see Brassa sitting on the slope above, her head up and alert, looking out across the valley in the coming evening. But Huttser suddenly felt the strangest sensation. It was a sense carried to him from somewhere he could not fathom, but as real to a Lera as the evidence of any eyes.
Huttser leapt up the slope, leaving the other two to drink and as soon as he padded into the cave he heard a snarl. Palla was trembling in the shadows and the she-wolf’s bold eyes glittered dangerously in the semi-darkness.
‘What’s wrong, Palla?’ cried Huttser anxiously, as he dropped the meat. ‘Has anyone—’
‘No, Huttser. But you may not come in here.’
Huttser was startled. First by the hardness in Palla’s voice and secondly because he’d come to protect her.
‘But, Palla—’
‘It is my time,’ snapped Palla. ‘You may not see this.’ Huttser bridled, for though they had never actually fought each other their strong temperaments were well-matched and they often argued. But Huttser resisted the temptation to growl at Palla. Her belly was very heavy and every now and then her pupils would dilate, as twinges of pain gripped her stomach and her body shook involuntarily.
‘I’ve brought you food, Palla,’ said Huttser, nudging the kill in front of him towards her. ‘Is there anything else you need?’
‘No, Huttser.’ Palla’s tone softened as she sniffed the venison. ‘I’ll call you when it’s time.’
Huttser turned sullenly and padded back outside. He stretched himself out next to the old nurse on the hill. Huttser did not try to disguise his worry and irritation. They all trusted Brassa implicitly and rarely hid their feelings from the nurse.
‘She won’t let me into the cave, Brassa.’
‘Into the den, you mean,’ said the nurse kindly. ‘She’s ready, Huttser, and she must do this alone. The law allows no Varg into the den during birthing. Don’t worry. Palla will summon you when she’s ready.’
Huttser knew she was right, but he was not used to feeling so useless. The two wolves lay there for a while, Huttser scratching himself and nibbling at fleas, gazing about him irritably. But after a time he noticed that Brassa was looking at the large boulder, on the slope above the den.
‘What is it, Brassa?’
For a moment Huttser fancied he saw something almost secretive enter Brassa’s eyes.
‘Nothing really,’ she answered after awhile. ‘It’s just that’s where they passed judgement on Morgra.’
Huttser had never met Morgra and he only knew the story vaguely, but as he caught Brassa’s scent next to him, he realized that she had begun to sweat and he could suddenly scent fear on the air.
‘Why did she kill the cub, Brassa?’
Brassa swung her head away and as she spoke her voice was shaking slightly.
‘Morgra always longed for pups of her own, Huttser, but even as a youngster there was something odd about her. Many said she had the evil eye and it made it hard for her to find a mate. One night she stole into the den and carried off a cub. It may just have been the way she carried it, or it may have been her own bitterness, but when they found her there were tooth marks on the little one’s neck. She’d killed it.’
‘So they drove her out?’
‘For moons we would see her ranging the hills, watching the pack. Then she vanished. They say she tried to join other packs, but none of the wolves would take her in. They say she kept talking of Wolfbane. Of the Evil One. It was after that the rumours of the Sight really began.’
‘You fear Morgra, don’t you?’ said Huttser.
‘Yes, Huttser, I fear her.’
‘Well, Morgra is far away,’ growled Huttser, getting up suddenly, ‘and what’s past is past. Now if Palla won’t let me inside, at least I can stand guard.’
Brassa nodded as she watched Huttser padding off further down the hill. Male wolves become fiercely protective of the den during birthing and it was clear Huttser would be no exception. But as Brassa looked back towards the rock, she shook her head strangely and shuddered.
That night the pack crowded around outside the den, nudging Huttser and whispering together, listening for any sign from Palla inside the cave. Every now and then they would hear a whine or a low growl, which made Huttser more and more anxious, but if any of the wolves strayed too close the growl of pain would grow into a warning snarl that made the wolves retreat instantly.
The pack lay down by the boulder, where they could see clear to the western edge of the valley. In the darkness they suddenly heard sounds drifting towards them on the spring breeze. In the village the humans were celebrating, and their fires were sparking with life, for they were only just beginning to mark the birth of one of their own.
A sun passed and, as another night of waiting came in, Huttser laid himself down at a slight distance from the den mouth, from where he had the best vantage point to protect the cave. He had hardly slept in two nights, and at last exhaustion overcame him. As he slipped into dreams, filled with running deer and strange moonlit shadows of an angry she-wolf that seemed to float in the air, he felt a brooding sense of disquiet.
‘Huttser. Wake up, Huttser.’
Huttser sprang up, growling angrily, but it was Palla standing there in front of him. In the half-light his mate looked exhausted but as Huttser gazed at her in the coming brightness, her beautiful eyes sparked.
‘Come,’ she said softly.
Huttser was shaking furiously as he followed Palla into the den. The Drappa stopped near the entrance and whined. There, at the side of the cave mouth, lay two little bodies. They were motionless in the dust and their fur was caked with grime and grit.
‘No, Palla,’ gasped Huttser, scratching the ground in front of the dead cubs.
‘The journey must have done it, Huttser.’
‘Morgra’s to blame, and if I ever get my paws...’ But Palla knew now was no time to look back.
‘It is nature’s way, Huttser,’ she growled firmly, ‘and we must look to the living now. The pack must survive.’
As the voice of the law echoed once more in his ears Huttser gazed proudly at his mate. He remembered the days he had first started to court her and, silently, he thanked Tor and Fenris that she had chosen him.
‘Over here, Huttser,’ whispered Palla.
Set back well into the cave Huttser saw the leaves, twigs and moulted wolf hair that Palla had used to make a more comfortable bedding for the birth. But Huttser gasped as his eyes grew accustomed to the shadows and he looked at the cave floor. On the ground was a little ball of fur, rising gently up and down.
‘Just one?’ he asked, hardly daring to breathe.
‘Look closer.’
There were two beautiful new-born wolf pups. Their miniature bodies were curled around each other and their foreheads nestled together pe
acefully as they lay sound asleep. One’s fur was a smooth bluish black, while the other’s was much lighter, and their stubby little tails were as bald as worms. They had tiny ears on their blunt wolf heads, which seemed absurdly large for their bodies. Their faces were deeply wrinkled around their eyes, which were both clamped firmly shut. Palla’s tail was wagging furiously.
‘When, Palla?’
‘The morning after that first sun.’
Huttser felt annoyed at having been kept waiting and worrying so long, but now Palla lay down, positioning herself in an open arc around her cubs. Suddenly there was a frantic squeaking and the heap of fur erupted like a mole hill into a frenzy of tiny moving limbs.
They scrambled over each other to get to Palla’s side, pushing and shoving their way forwards instinctively, and although they couldn’t see them, both were soon positioned proprietorially next to one of the she-wolf’s teats. They started to guzzle greedily and Huttser could resist no longer. He bounded forward, yelping and covering Palla in great slobbery licks.
‘Stop it, Huttser,’ Palla laughed, pushing him away with her muzzle. ‘It’s enough with these two pulling me apart, without you all over me too.’
Huttser pulled back sheepishly, but he could see the sheer delight in Palla’s face. He lay down beside her and together the Dragga and Drappa set about grooming them and whispering excitedly. The day had grown old when Palla lifted her head.
‘Well, then,’ she smiled, ‘what shall we call them, Huttser?’
‘I ... I don’t know, Palla. What are they?’
Huttser was a hunter and he hadn’t even asked yet.
‘A Dragga and a Drappa,’ answered Palla proudly, ‘that one, the light one, that’s the girl.’
‘How about Larka?’
The Varg’s word for newly fallen snow seemed perfectly appropriate for such a light coat.
‘Well, my little Larka. How do you like your name?’
The tiny she-wolf couldn’t have heard her mother, for she was still blind and deaf, but her tail went on shaking.
‘And the Dragga?’ asked Huttser.
‘I thought of Fell, after my father. Ouch. He bites like Fenris.’
‘Fell and Larka,’ nodded Huttser delightedly, but as Palla looked down again her eyes grew grave.
‘They’re so very little, Huttser.’
‘I know, Palla.’
The parents fell silent. Both knew the harsh laws of survival and how much danger faces young cubs in the wild.
‘Well, we shall have to feed you up, Palla,’ said Huttser tenderly, ‘so your milk is as rich as sunlight.’
‘We’ll bury the others outside the den, Huttser, beneath the birch tree, and then you must fetch the pack. It’s high time they were introduced to their future.’
Outside Huttser and Palla laid the unnamed cubs gently down on the earth beyond the cave. They scratched a shallow hole in the ground below the birch tree, and rolling the little corpses inside with their snouts, they turned their backs on them sadly and began to kick the earth over their bodies. The giant sun was setting behind the Carpathians, turning the ridges of cloud to fire and lighting the deep valleys and dark ravines with a last luminescence.
‘My poor little ones,’ whispered Palla when it was finished, ‘you never saw anything of the world.’
But Palla was a she-wolf and, as Huttser went off to summon the pack and the sun finally vanished behind the castle, she turned without another word. Palla trotted back to her living cubs waiting in the den, leaving them to the tree and the stream and the cold, uncomprehending earth.
There was a chorus of whining and yelping though as the pack crept into the den. Brassa was allowed to look first, as the oldest pack member, and the wolf beamed as she gazed down at the little ones. Khaz and Kipcha came next and Kipcha licked Palla tenderly on the snout and whined longingly at Khaz. Though it is unusual for any but a Dragga and Drappa to mate in a wolf pack, Kipcha adored Khaz and she had long dreamt of pups of their own.
Khaz began the call as the pack stood around the children and they all took up the note. Palla and Huttser stood proudly together over their cubs as the howl of celebration echoed around them.
‘I shall hunt for them, Huttser,’ Khaz cried, ‘and catch the fattest deer in the forest.’
‘And I shall teach them to scavenge like Fenris, Palla,’ nodded Kipcha, ‘and to run as straight as Tor too.’
‘I’ll show them cunning and wisdom,’ said old Brassa gravely, ‘and tell them all my stories, just as I did Palla when she was little, so they will be safe from Wolfbane and all harm.’
Despite his usually sceptical nature Huttser smiled and nodded, for it was also a given in wolf law that stories are an essential part of a wolf’s training, and that to know as many of the old tales as possible was in itself protection against darkness and evil. It was why the wolf loved storytellers so highly, and partly why the pack so loved old Brassa.
Bran bounded up to say something but as he stood there, the Sikla couldn’t think of anything at all, so he grinned instead and wagged his tail furiously. Huttser’s heart could have burst with pride and joy. As he looked at his new-born children and at his pack, the wolf felt he had achieved something gravely important and he felt almost invulnerable.
But Huttser suddenly noticed that Bran had broken away from the group. The Sikla’s muzzle was nosing the ground towards the cave mouth and his jaws were beginning to slaver.
‘What is it, Bran?’
As Huttser began to scent his whole body went ridged.
‘Blood.’
Huttser swung round to the back of the cave where Palla and Brassa had begun to groom the pups and, as soon as Khaz caught his look, he and Kipcha followed them outside. Night had come in and over the castle on the mountain bats were flapping through the dark, still air.
A dead lynx was lying on its side in the grass in front of them. It was small for a lynx and from the blood oozing from its torn throat it was clear that it had only just been killed. The fresh scent in the air came, strong and sweet through the dark, and made the fur on the wolves’ backs tingle and stand on end. Huttser began to growl, his upper lips curling backwards to show the pink gums and hard white teeth.
‘Who comes without Tratto’s Blessing?’ growled Huttser. Khaz snorted in agreement as Huttser spoke of Tratto. Tratto was the wolf who had first brought together the Balkar packs, to resist the incursions of southern Varg, driven by human warfare to seek new hunting grounds in the land beyond the forest. When Tratto had brought peace again, he asked little of the free wolves, except allegiance and the occasional gift of game.
Many of the wolves had been happy to give it and it was Tratto’s strength that had long prevented the wolves from fighting among themselves. But now Morgra led the Night Hunters and was demanding allegiance too, it was a very different matter. Apart from her obsession with the dark arts and her edict, Morgra had already allowed some of the Balkar to openly break the law. In Tratto’s day, pack hunting grounds were shared freely, but wolves wanting to cross a boundary were careful to ask the permission of the pack Dragga occupying a territory; ‘Tratto’s Blessing’ it was called and a way of formalizing the natural relationships between the wolves.
Before Huttser could say any more something flashed past his eyes. It had dropped from above and now, lying in the grass next to the lynx, lay a dead wildcat. Huttser swung round angrily.
‘Gifts,’ cried a voice just as he turned, ‘for the new-born.’ Huttser’s hackles came up as they saw a she-wolf standing on the slope, watching them from the shadows above. She looked old, maybe six or seven, and her eyes glittered as she gazed down. Her right ear was missing, and her muzzle had grown strange tufts of fur that had clearly sprouted over the deep facial scars underneath. Around her jaws were the dark stains from her kill.
‘Who are you?’ snarled Huttser.
‘Just a passing Kerl,’ answered the stranger coolly, and she began to pad down the slope straight towards th
em. Her voice was soft and reassuring, but Bran thought it ripe with cunning too.
Huttser shivered. There are many Kerls – lone wolves who either leave or are driven out of packs to survive on their own in the wild. But to a pack wolf like Huttser, their status carried connotations of sadness and even fear, for above all a pack wolf dreads loneliness.
‘What do you want here?’ he said.
‘Want? Why, to share a little of the love that I heard in the den. I hope a stranger has a place at the feast.’
Suddenly a bird hopped out from behind the she-wolf. It was a coal-black and beady-eyed raven.
‘Huttser. Huttser, where have you all—’
Palla froze. Brassa was standing next to her at the cave entrance and as soon as they caught sight of the stranger Brassa hissed and Palla’s eyes flashed like flint. She swung her whole body round to protect the den and as she faced the stranger, Palla bared her brilliant teeth and began to snarl.
‘Morgra,’ she cried.
Bran and Kipcha shrank away towards the den immediately and Huttser and Khaz prepared to spring, ready to defend the pups in the cave against the cub killer. But Morgra just smiled coldly as she advanced on the pack.
‘Come, sister,’ she whispered, ‘there’s no need to show your teeth. I wish you no harm. I don’t want to spread discord through your pack.’
Morgra stopped and now she was looking at Brassa, her eyes glittering in the darkness.
‘So,’ she growled, and to Kipcha’s ears her words seemed tinged with bitterness, ‘I see the nurse is here to guard the den at least. Such good care you take of cubs, Brassa. Such good care you always took.’
Strangely, Brassa couldn’t hold her gaze.
‘What do you want, Morgra?’ growled Palla beside her. Morgra turned her head slightly to face her sister now and an odd melancholy suddenly came into her eyes. A look which might have been mistaken for sadness. The old she-wolf paused and then answered quietly.
‘Want? Why, Palla, to join your pack, of course.’
The pack could hardly believe their ears. The Balkar leader, the First of the Wolves of Transylvania, the wolf who they had fled in the bitter winter, was suddenly before them and asking to be accepted into their midst. It was so strange Huttser couldn’t think of a thing to say.