Fell (The Sight 2) (15 page)

Alina thought of her time with Malduk and Ranna. She had known little fairness amongst the humans, and she suddenly realised that one of the most terrible things in the world is not to be believed. Yet this bitter revelation about her parents had robbed her of all will. Alina felt as meek as a lamb to the slaughter.

“No,” she whispered. “Please. It’s not lies, Fermin. Ivan will speak for me.”

Malduk smiled again and shook his head.

“Oh no, Alin. Ivan will speak for no one ever again.”

Alina’s hazel eyes opened in horror.

“You killed Ivan?” she snarled.

“Not at all. His heart took him when I … questioned him.”

Malduk’s eyes glinted, and Alina felt real tears scalding her cheeks. Dear Ivan.

“We’ll not harm you though, Alin, as Fermin says,” lied Malduk coldly. “I give you my word. The word of a human being.”

Alina felt an ache in her forehead and heard a growling voice in her mind.

“Beware, Alina. Don’t trust the Dragga.”

The wolf was speaking to her from his hiding place below.

“Fell?”

“You’ll not get down the mountain alive, Alina,” came the black wolf’s growling thoughts. “I’ve touched his mind. It is filled with shadows. The human has a horn dagger in his pocket and intends to use it on you soon, when the others are not watching perhaps. To silence you forever. You must fight them, child.”

Just then Alina saw Malduk’s hand hovering at his pocket. As she looked at the old man she had worked so hard for, as she thought of all he and his wife had done, she felt a fury bubble up inside her that was like the fire flaming in the ice cave.

“So, old man,” she cried, “you’d murder me with your own hand, with that dagger you’re hiding, as Ranna murdered Bogdan. Murder me before I ever returned to tell the truth.”

Malduk blanched, and the others saw it. How had this girl known exactly what he was thinking and what was in his pocket? How had she known about Ranna? Was she a changeling and a servant of the devil after all? The others were looking at him, and Malduk realised that his face had revealed the truth of it.

“Witchcraft,” cried the old shepherd angrily, drawing the blade. “He has witchcraft in him, and must be silenced before he does more evil.”

The others were so startled that they did nothing, and Malduk lunged for Alina. Before he could strike her though, he heard a snarl and the old shepherd was knocked sideways in the snow by a leaping black shape.

Malduk just had time to look up and see the glint of savage white teeth, before the wolf snapped his mouth shut on Malduk’s throat, stifling his scream. The pain was not great, for Malduk died almost instantly, but for the watchers in the snow the horror of it was terrible.

There they stood, Alin the changeling shepherd boy and a great black wolf, who seemed to have risen like a dark vision out of the pure white snows, to defend the child. Malduk’s words of a wolf had been true then, but his blood was staining the ground, and the shepherds were powerless to act. There was a sudden break in the storm and the air seemed to clear.

“So, you came to hunt me down like a wild beast,” said Alina bitterly. “Even you, Fermin? Go back to Moldov. Tell them I’m innocent of this crime, but that I’ll have nothing more of humans, until I find my own people again. And the truth.”

The hunters were trembling and backing away, their thoughts more filled with amazement and confusion at a shepherd moving through the world with a wolf at his side, than any sense of Alin’s innocence, or any need for justice. Alina’s hand came down, and she felt the top of Fell’s sleek head, warm under her palm.

“Come, my friend,” she said in human words, although her mind was talking to the wolf too. “Let’s be gone from this place. I’ve a destiny to follow, and we’ve a long journey to make.”

With that Alina WovenWord and Fell the wild black wolf turned and began to walk away across the snow. They limped at first, but as they went, their pace grew stronger and they started to run. They realised that their hurt was already beginning to heal, and their pace quickened even more. Side by side they went, the young woman and the black wolf, and as they began to run through the snows towards the wild winter, and Alina’s destiny, a destiny that somehow involved the survival of nature itself, in the minds of Barbat and the shepherds, they were already running into legend.

THE GREAT LORD VLADERAN SAT IN A RICH fur cape, on a chair of carved oak, by a stone fireplace, listening to his soldier’s report in the flickering firelight. An old hunting dog lay at his feet, and Vladeran’s face, hard, cunning, and handsome, was propped on a large gloved fist, as his deep black eyes flared at his soldier’s words.

“Alive?” he whispered angrily. “You’re sure, Vlascan?”

The captain of Lord Vladeran’s Shield Guard was wary, for he knew his overlord’s flashes of anger, and he looked nervously at the dagger at Vladeran’s belt. Messengers had suffered for their messages in these halls. His eyes wandered to an ornate insignia in the centre of his master’s leather tunic: a red cross, with tongues of yellow, like flames or golden wings, at the four points.

“Your lieutenant did not manage to kill the little girl,” answered Vlascan, “when you ordered her beyond these borders. He died in a fall, and she was saved by a shepherd.”

Vladeran had often wondered why his lieutenant had never returned, and now he knew.

“What shepherd?”

“An old man called Malduk. He kept her as a servant, dressed as a boy. That’s why she went unnoticed until the rumours began.”

They had come to Vladeran like a bad memory from his spies, the rumours of a girl concealed as a boy, near the distant village of Moldov, with red hair and about the age Alina would have been by now. It was said that the redhead was a changeling, and had come out of the snows six or seven years before.

Lord Vladeran rose now. His great furs flowed about him, and his heavy soldier’s frame, six foot two, swayed in his boots. At his feet the hunting dog growled softly as he spoke again.

“The shepherd knew who she was?”

“I think so, my lord. Or something of it.”

“He’ll be impaled for it, as cousin Draculea impales the Turks. No doubt he planned to blackmail me later.”

“Malduk’s already dead, my lord,” said Vlascan softly. “And when I sent our soldiers to question his wife, Ranna, and their little niece, they had vanished into the snows.”

In a glove of deerskin, dyed red, Lord Vladeran’s hand closed into a fist, as if snatching at something that had already eluded his grasp.

“Damn it, man,” he hissed, and his eyes narrowed. “But Alina. She spoke to anyone of Castelu?”

“No, my lord. We found an old woman, a witch skilled in herb law, and questioned her for her tale.”

At the word “questioned” the soldier’s eyes flickered, just as Malduk’s had when he had spoken of Ivan. The witch was dead too.

“She had long given the couple a potion to hold the girl’s thoughts, and together they invented a tale of goblins and changelings. Alina had lost her memories.”

Vladeran seemed to relax a little.

“Strange. And now?”

“I don’t know, except the villagers are still hunting her. Or a changeling boy, as the shepherds still think her to be. Alin WovenWord is accused of murder. It seems that Malduk repented his kindness and was trying to do away with her.”

Vladeran’s eyes glittered.

“Alin WovenWord, eh? Perhaps this Malduk had a change of heart because she has remembered who she really is, or discovered it somehow. Where is the damned child now?”

The soldier’s eyes flickered again. “My lord. There’s a tale that the changeling walks the mountains.” Vlascan paused fearfully, and his hand came up and fingered the livid scar on his right cheek. He was one of the soldiers who had warned the children of the Turks that night, and Vlascan felt bitterly guilty that he had come so close to the child and missed her. His master must never know it.

“But not alone, my lord.”

“Someone aids the girl? Are there traitors everywhere?”

Vlascan struggled with the words. “Not someone, my lord. Something. A wild animal.”

Vladeran’s hard, blank eyes turned on Vlascan in utter disbelief.

“What fairy stories are you talking now? What animal?”

“A wolf, my lord, a lone black wolf.”

The look that suddenly gripped Vladeran’s face was dark and strange, a mix of wonder and fear, but almost foreknowledge too. The soldier thought that the lord might draw his dagger and strike him down.

“I think it nothing but peasant superstition, my lord, like goblin tales, but the wolf’s said to have torn out Malduk’s throat in defence of Alina.”

Dark thoughts were racing through Vladeran’s cunning mind now, but used to living his life and hatching his plots in secret, trained in the subtle ways of a politician and a soldier, he knew above all how to keep his own counsel, and how to shield those thoughts too.

“Very well. You’ve done well to bring me this news, Vlascan, and shall be rewarded for it, I promise you that. Now tell me of the Turk, and Stefan Cel Mare.”

“The Turk comes again, my lord. The land is ringed with fire, and blood soaks the soil in the lands beyond the forest. The Ottomans press on the borders once more, and the armies of King Stefan are gathering again. Your cousin Tepesh summons his men too, to raise the banners of Wallachia.”

“And so shall I. These battles shall serve our plans indeed. We shall rise by it in the King’s eyes, or in my cousin Draculea’s reckoning, if Stefan fails his people in the face of the Turk. We must play them off, the one against the other.”

Vladeran felt angry as he spoke of Stefan Cel Mare, a king who would one day be known both as Stefan the Great and Stefan the Holy. He knew that if the King ever discovered what had happened in these halls, there would be a terrible price to pay. And though Draculea was his cousin, and ruled in Wallachia with such terrible cruelty, he had no more trust of him than of King Stefan. This despite Vlad Tepesh’s membership in the holy Order of the Griffin, the insignia of which Vladeran bore on his tunic.

The Order of the Knights of the Griffin had been established under the High Court of Budapest seventy years before, like another Order that the Impaler also cleaved to, the Order of the Dragon. Both bound their acolytes to defending the West against the infidel, and to upholding both King and Church.

Vladeran thought nervously now of the holy oaths he had taken when he had been admitted to the secret Order, and the five great principles that above all else he had sworn to defend—the protection of the earth, the nurturing of peace and the support of the downtrodden, the defence of the feminine and the pursuit of knowledge. Sacred ideals indeed, but ones that both he and Draculea had steeped and mired in blood.

“And your immediate orders, my lord?” asked Vlascan.

“Hunt the girl down. WovenWord must not survive. If any hear of it, or discover who she really is, you shall die by my own hand, Vlascan. Bring me her head.”

Vlascan listened gravely.

“None must know of this. What would Stefan do if he ever discovered the plot? He may value my strength, even if Castelu is not a kingdom to rival Wallachia or Moldova, but he knows the need for law in this land. A law we have broken.”

The nervous soldier nodded in the flickering firelight.

“And keep your counsel in all this, Vlascan. Now get out.”

Vlascan bowed deeply, turned, and marched from the great chamber. As Lord Vladeran watched his captain go, he rose. He was already thinking of the reward he would give Vlascan when the work was done, and it had the shape of a knife in his captain’s back.

None connected with that day could live to tell the secret, not even the captain of his Shield Guard, and Vlascan knew far too much already. Malduk’s wife, Ranna, and her niece must be found and silenced too. But Vladeran’s thoughts turned to wolves again, and he looked towards a great tapestry hanging on the wall to the left, wrought with mythical hunting scenes.

“Vladeran, my dearest lord.”

The lord started and turned at the soft, feminine voice. A beautiful woman was standing before him, with long, black, curling hair and glittering, smiling eyes. It was the woman Alina had often seen dimly in her dreams. She was at the side of the room and seemed to have appeared from nowhere, although another tapestry swayed gently against the wall behind her.

A handsome blond boy was with her, wearing a huge, mischievous grin. The worry in Vladeran’s face vanished and his features became a mask of charm and warmth.

“Romana. Elu. You startled me.”

“We crept up the secret stairs, my love,” said Romana, with an artless smile. “We heard that soldier’s footsteps leaving, as we slipped into the recess beyond the arras, and so knew it was all right to approach.”

Vladeran smiled too. “I see, my love. Well, you mustn’t sneak up on me like that again. I’ll have it sealed.”

Romana’s lovely dark eyes grew a little sad.

“But don’t you want us to visit you?” she whispered warmly. “In secret or not.”

“Of course, Romana, but there are others who might use the stair for darker purposes. That’s all I meant. It’s a dangerous world.”

The beautiful lady’s eyes darkened. She knew just how dangerous.

“Vladeran,” she said, a little reproachfully, putting her arm around her boy’s shoulder. “You said you would come and visit us this morning.”

“Forgive me again, Romana. There’s been much to do. War comes and Stefan and Tepesh raise their armies. The King shall build more of his churches in the land, if he secures his victories against the Turk.”

Elu grinned. “Shall there be fighting then, Father?” the little boy asked happily. “Oh, I hope so.”

“Elu misses your visits so,” said Romana. “He said you promised to teach him how to use a sword properly.”

Vladeran looked down and smiled at the boy.

“And so I shall, Elu, so I shall,” he whispered. “Soon enough.”

Elu pulled himself from his mother’s grasp, looking nervously at the hunting dog for a moment, then ran towards his father. He caught hold of the lord’s arm with his hands, hands that the man could have crushed in a single fist.

“I’ll be lord below the castle soon, won’t I, Father?” he said. “And fight alongside King Stefan, or Draculea?”

Vladeran forced a smile this time. “That’s right, my son. Although not at so young as seven. Don’t hurry towards the future, lad, for why should you wish for such cares, when your mother and I keep your inheritance safe for you, until you become a man?”

The dark thought seized Vladeran again, the thought he had first had when Vlascan had spoken of a black wolf. His son had once been snatched away by wolves, and now Alina, alive and well and thought a changeling, had been seen with a wolf too. How could it all be? A strange destiny was working itself out in the lands beyond the forest, and it was time to talk with
her
again. Vladeran looked back to the tapestry, with its hunting scenes, and pulled his furs about him in the cold, then swung his strong head towards his beautiful wife.

“Go, my darling,” he whispered. “Take Elu back to our chamber. I’ll visit you both soon enough, but now I must pray.”

Romana walked up and took her boy by the hand, but Elu pulled it away again. When his mother turned to go, though, kissing Vladeran lovingly on the lips, the little boy followed her as she swept out of the room. As soon as they were gone, Vladeran looked down at the dozing dog.

“Stay, Vlag,” he ordered, striding across to the heavy wall tapestry woven with hunting scenes and sweeping it aside to reveal a stone recess, like a kind of little chapel. In this ancient palace, where there were so many passageways and secret places, like the stairway behind the arras up which Romana and Elu had come, this was the most secret of all.

Vladeran paused almost fearfully. Candles flickered at the back, and in the centre was a stone font, half-filled with water. He stepped inside and pulled the tapestry behind him. Vladeran often came in here to think and plan, but now as he gazed into the water, he remembered how he had stood here years before. He wondered if the rite he had observed so long ago would work again.

He pulled off a glove and held up his right hand. In the centre of the palm was a deep scar that had long healed. Now Vladeran plucked the dagger from his belt, held his hand out over the font and hesitated again, fearful of what might come; then, in a single draw, he made a second cut with the knife across his palm, opening the skin.

Vladeran lifted his palm to his lips and sucked it, and then, squeezing hard to make a painful fist above the unholy font, he watched coldly as his blood began to drip into the water. Vladeran, the cousin of Draculea, had learnt many dark arts in the lands beyond the forest, and now he was praying that the power would come once more. With the first red drop the water went murky, with the second it seemed to move, and with the third it changed altogether.

“Come,” hissed Vladeran, like a fallen priest, as an image seemed to be trying to form itself in the water, “by the powers that live beyond the sight of men, come to me. I summon you once again.”

As Vladeran looked down into the font, he smiled as he saw a face appearing in the water. Not a human face but an animal’s. A she-wolf. Although she looked old, her eyes glittered brightly. Her right ear was missing, and her muzzle had strange tufts of hair that had sprouted under her deep facial scars. She was growling, but her true words came into Vladeran’s mind.

“Why have you summoned me once again, human? Summoned me from the misty, anguished regions in the Red Meadow?” hissed the she-wolf. “Where we wait to journey finally towards the Land of the Dead? We searchers. We echoes of the Past.”