Larka turned to follow Brassa, but again the call came.
‘But I can’t,’ said Larka. ‘To deny them is... to deny life.’
‘What holds you, Larka?’ whispered Brassa. ‘Their love? Their need? That is not strong enough to call back one such as you. Love is a shadowy thing. Like hate. They are just energies, Larka, and part of the vines that bind us to the world. That ensnare us.’
Larka remembered her parents’ snarling voices the night Fell died on the ice.
‘We all must leave our parents, Larka, indeed one sun nature would have forced them to drive you out and, for one who seeks the truth, you must go far beyond. They are your parents, yes. But no more. What would you have done if they had died that night when my kind attacked? Then you would have been alone, as we are all alone. A Searcher must break such ties for ever.’
‘For ever?’ Larka trembled.
Tsarr was shaking violently. Larka lay slumped on her side.
‘Help her,’ he cried desperately.
Huttser and Palla stood looking down stupidly at their daughter.
‘It’s no good. We are lost. Larka has gone.’
Suddenly a shape flickered on the edges of their vision. As Kar crested the slope, some of the rebel guards sprang up growling, but Kar sprang past them. He gasped as he saw Larka lying there at Huttser and Palla’s feet. Kar began to whimper pitifully as he leapt towards them.
‘Kar,’ cried Palla in amazement, but Kar had no time for the Drappa and Dragga. He was staring down in horror at Larka. She had stopped breathing altogether.
‘No,’ Kar sobbed bitterly. ‘Larka. You’re dead.’
Larka felt a wonderful sense of peace come upon her as she drifted through the poppies. Where before the air had been cold and still, now it was filled with a sweet and drowsy odour that made her limbs seem to float. A terrible weight was lifting from her, and the thought of Morgra and Wolfbane was receding into the shadows.
She felt a sense of expectation and, as the flowers quivered around her, her heart grew calmer and calmer. Still she could hear her parents calling, pleading with her to come back, but guilt had dropped away and, though she loved them, she knew she was far beyond Huttser and Palla, that they could never reach her now.
The spectral wolves were approaching the trees at the edge of the meadow, and as they went on Larka gasped. Between the trunks Larka saw brilliant lights, like eyes of sparking fire dancing between the bows.
‘Come,’ smiled Brassa gently. ‘It is time.’
‘Please, Larka.’
Her parents’ voices were like a dream. But even as she hesitated Larka felt her senses reel. There, between the trees, caught in the fire play of dark and light, flickering among the brilliant glow stood a young black wolf. He looked exactly the same as she had known him in life.
‘Fell,’ cried Larka, her head spinning, ‘dear Fell.’
‘Come,’ whispered Brassa beside her.
Larka paused and took another look around the beautiful meadow. It had lost all its terror for her. She turned and stepped towards Fell and the trees. But as she did so the she-wolf stopped dead in her tracks.
‘Larka.’
Larka lifted her ears. That voice. It wasn’t her parents. It was a voice she had wanted to hear for so long and now it tugged violently at her heart.
‘No,’ gasped Larka. ‘It’s him. I cannot.’
Larka felt an agony of doubt and then an almost physical pain. To tear herself away from Fell and the lights was almost too much to bear, but to turn her back on that call was impossible. Memory began to flood into Larka’s mind.
‘Again,’ said Huttser as they stood in the hollow. ‘Call to her again.’
Palla looked fearfully at Kar. His sudden appearance had astounded her, but thrilled her heart. Kar understood nothing of what was happening, but he could see their desperation, and his heart began to beat violently as he dropped his head and licked Larka’s muzzle.
‘Larka, dear Larka,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t leave me. Not now I’ve found you again.’
Palla was shaking and Huttser growling. As they stood helplessly over their daughter they felt that to lose Larka would kill them both. But Tsarr had suddenly stepped up closer.
‘Look,’ he cried.
Tsarr had just seen Larka’s leg twitch. Palla’s ears were straining forwards, quivering.
‘Again, Kar,’ growled Huttser. ‘Call to her again.’
‘Larka,’ said Kar almost helplessly. ‘Larka.’
‘Damn you, Kar, for Fenris’s sake call louder,’ cried Huttser furiously. As Kar lifted his eyes angrily, Huttser looked down guiltily and fell silent.
‘Come back, Larka,’ cried Kar. ‘Please come back to me.’ Suddenly Kar lifted his head to the star-spattered skies.
He opened his mouth and let out a call. A howl that seemed to touch the earth and the clouds and the airless void above the firmament. Louder the howl rose and louder. Not a hunting howl or a greeting call, not a howl of mourning or anger. A howl so strange and tender, so full of pain and love that its sound thrilled through Huttser and Palla. It made Tsarr’s old bones tremble. It woke the rebels from their dreams and, as the wolves listened to Kar in the night, none of them could resist it.
From all around came the wolves’ cries, circling Kar, shaking the anguished night as the rebels joined the chorus. Voices of longing and loss, filtered through memories of dead friends and battles fought and still to come, like pain struggling towards consciousness and understanding. Wild, primitive, instinctive. A call as old as the world.
In the blood-red meadow Larka shivered and began to growl. Her limbs were shaking, the muscles quivering along her back.
‘You must come now,’ growled Brassa, and there was suddenly an anger in the spectre’s voice.
Larka looked back at Fell. He was motionless, frozen as he had been on the ice. But suddenly Larka was running, running through the strange flowers, back towards the avenue of trees.
‘Kar,’ she cried desperately. ‘Kar!’
Kar had no notion of what was happening, but as he looked down at Larka she twitched violently. The life seemed to be flowing back into her, filling her body.
As Larka ran a great darkness came down around her. The meadow seemed to be bleeding of colour. Only the heads of the flowers retained their vivid red hue. With the paling grey came emotion; hope and fear, anger and tenderness. In the distance she heard another voice. Fell’s voice.
‘We will meet again,’ it whispered.
‘So I am to die,’ muttered Larka bitterly. ‘But not yet, brother. Not yet.’
Larka twitched again and opened her eyes. Morning was coming and, as she looked up, she saw her parents staring down at her and, in between them, stood a handsome young wolf. For a moment Larka didn’t know if she was awake or asleep. It was Kar.
The air was loud with songbirds all around Kar and Larka as they lay together near the hollow. As soon as Larka returned, Huttser and Palla knew instinctively that they had to be alone and now they stood off, talking quietly among the trees.
‘It was you, Kar,’ said Larka tenderly. ‘You brought me back.’
Kar rubbed his nose under Larka’s muzzle. She looked into his eyes, so fine and clear, and she suddenly remembered what Tsarr had told her in his story about love entering through the eyes.
‘My parents couldn’t have done it alone,’ growled Larka softly. ‘But you. Dear Kar, how I have missed you.’
‘And I you, Larka. It has been terrible.’
Kar could hardly believe how Larka had grown. She had changed so much. She had grown into a beautiful she-wolf.
‘Yes, Kar. I wish I could have helped you.’
‘You did help me, Larka. It was the thought of you that really brought me back, the memory of you that saved me from losing myself.’
‘Losing myself,’ thought Larka sadly, even as he said it, for she knew that her visit to the Red Meadow had changed nothing at all. Fell had said he would see
her soon. But as for the others, Larka’s journey to the realms of the dead might persuade Tsarr and her parents, even Skart, that there was hope, and this time Larka would let them all believe the lie.
As they lay there, Kar told Larka all that had happened to him. Of Mitya and Manov, and what they had said of freedom and what he had learnt of Morgra’s terrible secret. As Kar spoke of freedom and the untamed wolf, Larka’s heart ached, for with summer burning around them, the meadows languid and poppies blushing in the living fields, Larka suddenly felt nature stirring in her and she knew that she loved Kar.
Not as she had loved him – almost as a brother – but for his fine grey fur and his brilliant eyes, for his kindness and the joy she felt now she was with him again. For the strange feelings that woke in her, too, as he reached forward and touched her muzzle, and how they inspired thoughts of the future and of fine young cubs that could unite them in new life.
Suddenly, Larka looked up. A shadow had fallen across them in the grass.
Rar was standing there and his body was drenched in sweat. His eyes were full of guilt, for he had been searching frantically through the forests as Larka had wandered through the red meadow. But to no avail.
‘Larka.’ Rar trembled. ‘The child. It has vanished. And
Slavka has gone too.’
‘What should we do, Larka?’ whispered Palla that night. The rebels were around them, and again there was a terror in their faces.
‘Morgra,’ growled Larka, ‘she must be controlling Slavka. That’s why the birds and the Balkar stopped hunting. To put us off the scent.’
‘Then soon she will have the child,’ growled Huttser, ‘and Slavka knows how to find the entrance to the citadel, beyond the Stone Face.’
They all looked up at the soaring mountains beyond.
‘But what are they planning, Larka?’ whispered Palla. ‘It’s not a sacrifice, is it?’
Suddenly Larka thought of the story of Sita again. The sacrifice she had seen in the water was not the child’s, it was her own.
Larka turned to Tsarr and he lifted his muzzle. As Palla heard the words again, the strange words she had heard so long ago in the forest, she trembled. Then the third of the powers will be fleshed on the bone
And the Searchers tempt nature to prey on its own.
With blood at the altar, the Vision shall come
When the eye of the moon is as round as the sun.
In the citadel raised by the lords of before,
The stone twins await – both the power and the law.
Then the past and the future shall finally show,
To the wounded the secret the Lera must know.
And all shall be witness to that which may be,
In the mind of the Man Varg, then who shall be free?
The rebels started to growl and look into the heavens as the verse spoke of blood at the altar. But as soon as Tsarr finished, Larka looked at him strangely. ‘What is it, Larka?’
‘The last line,’ she growled urgently, ‘repeat it, Tsarr.’
‘Why, Larka?’
‘Don’t argue, just tell me.’
‘In the mind of the Man Varg, then who shall be free?’
Larka could hardly believe her ears, but the words suddenly sent a strange warmth through her body. The lines of the verse, they were different to how her mother had recited them all those moons before. ‘In the mind of the Man Varg, then none shall be free.’
‘Are you sure that’s what the verse says?’ growled Larka, looking hard at her mother.
‘Yes,’ answered Tsarr. ‘Every spore on my journey has etched the words into my memory.’
Larka was shaking her head in amazement. ‘Of course, the power of memory,’ she thought. The power of memory among the thoughtless Lera. When Gart had recited the ancient verse his memory had not served him as well as he had thought.
‘Very well, then,’ Larka growled, suddenly feeling a new strength enter her. ‘There is no time to lose.’
‘But we are so few,’ said Palla. ‘Think of the Night
Hunters and Wolfbane.’
‘I must face Wolfbane, Mother. Whatever I do. And in the Red Meadow they said I must face the Evil One alone.’ The night itself seemed to have grown darker as Larka told them her plan. If Morgra set the Balkar to guard the entrance to Harja it would be almost impossible to get through that way. But there was the second entrance the spectres had told Larka of. That was the way in. As long as Morgra had not discovered it too. If her parents led the rebel wolves to the stone face to create a diversion, they would not have to approach the citadel itself and would not be in so much danger. But Morgra’s all seeing eyes might be distracted just long enough to give Larka a chance.
‘Then,’ lied Larka as she lay there, ‘perhaps then I can kill Morgra. Or if I cannot, at least I shall play the scavenger once more and steal the child away.’
‘No, Larka,’ growled Palla, ‘not alone.’
Larka lifted her muzzle.
‘Very well, Mother,’ she said. ‘Then I shall take Tsarr too.’ A thought had occurred to Larka. If what Larka had seen was true and she was to die on the mountaintop, then she needed Tsarr to get the child away. But with the thought came another terrible realization. The spectres had told her that if the pathways were to be closed and the Searchers commanded once more, then the altar must taste blood. Hadn’t Tsinga, too, warned that one amongst them would pay the price? But who? And if the altar did taste blood again, then would not the Man Varg come? Suddenly Larka could no longer see the way ahead and, once more, the legend seemed to be closing in around her, like a trap.
‘Larka,’ growled Kar suddenly, ‘I will come with you too.’
‘No, Kar.’
But Kar’s look silenced the she-wolf. She had tried to drive him away once before. She could not do so again.
The rebel wolves all dreamt that night and, as they gathered in the morning sun, the fear of Morgra and Wolfbane had them by the throat, for as they talked among themselves they realized that the dream had been the same. Each of the wolves had seen a wolf snarling and tearing at them and, before they had woken, biting and clawing, they had turned to face the creature and seen nothing but the image of themselves.
Yet as they came together and Larka stood before them, the rebels’ hearts lifted. Something close to terror was stirring in her own heart, but Larka’s eyes looked proud and defiant as she raised her fine white tail like one of the humans’ fluttering banners.
‘My friends,’ she growled. ‘It is time. I know you have fought long against Morgra and all have suffered terribly. Well, soon it will be over. They have the child, and Slavka knows where the entrance to Harja is. Now Morgra would fulfil the legend of the Sight and bring forth the Man Varg. I must stop her and that I alone can do. But you can help me. My parents will lead you and, with your strength and courage, I can get through.’
Gart suddenly stepped from the rebel ranks.
‘And when the Deliverer has destroyed Morgra,’ he growled proudly at Larka’s side, ‘and has looked into the child’s mind, we shall rule all the Lera. Then the First of the Putnar will be our slaves, too, and they will suffer for what they have done.’
‘No, Gart,’ said Larka, ‘the legend is not for me. If I can kill Morgra the Night Hunters must be disbanded. We must go back to our packs and live as free wolves. Without hate.’
‘Without hate?’ said Gart coldly, and some of the rebel wolves began to mutter disapprovingly. ‘How can we live without hate, Larka? After all they have done to us. After all we have seen.’
Larka nodded slowly.
‘You must try and forget,’ she whispered, ‘and forgive. That is the only way to be free, Gart. Or at least forget the hate your memories bring. We must learn to heal our memories.’
Gart snarled.
‘I will never forget, or forgive. For then I would be less than a Varg.’
Larka suddenly remembered Morgra’s curse. The words had never left her. ‘May the p
ast that’s dark with crimes, bring revenge in future times.’ Larka stepped up to Gart and peered calmly into his eyes. The strength of her gaze made him shiver and drop his own.
‘We cannot really change the past, Gart,’ whispered Larka kindly, ‘but perhaps we can change the way we see it. You must escape your history, as Morgra could not escape hers. That is the only way to truly conquer her. Otherwise it will go on for ever. We can make a different future. If we have true courage.’
‘And should we change our natures?’ growled Gart. Larka shuddered, but she raised her head even higher.
‘We leave together. Tor and Fenris be with you.’
As the rebels gazed at Larka standing there on the mound, three wolves came up beside her. Huttser and Palla were on her right side and Kar on her left. They looked at each other and smiled. Larka turned to lead her family up the slope. It was the same family that had been sundered on the ice all those moons ago. Yet each of them seemed subtly different.
It was as though their characters had finally been picked out by the strange journey they had taken together. As though they had stepped out from the shadows or, as they walked across that landscape and some silent human watcher surveyed the scene, a shaft of sunlight had suddenly illuminated their forms against the complex camouflage of nature that kept them hidden.
‘If only we’d all had more time together,’ whispered Palla as they went.
‘I know, Palla,’ growled Huttser, looking at their children ahead of them.
‘But we will give them time, Huttser,’ said Palla suddenly.
‘Won’t we Huttser, when we get through? All the time in the world.’
Huttser growled quietly as Larka looked back.
The rebels, with Tsarr ahead of them, followed too. As Skart lifted above them, the little group of travellers rose into the mountains, and Palla padded up beside her daughter.
‘Larka,’ she whispered, with a desperate anguish for her child, ‘why don’t we just go away? Any true Varg knows when it is best to flee. Your father and I love you, Larka, and we need you. We could go off into the forests and live freely, as Putnar. We do not have to do this.’