Daughter of the Moon (The Moon People, Book Two) (50 page)

Rather than succumbing to fear, Miral had fought it. His strength of will had made him great, clawing the thorns and scales from the serpent's body, tearing off its heads one by one even as the coils binding him sliced through his flesh and muscle. One by one the tendrils had snapped loose, severed in his fight with the great spirit until he was once again free, fur torn and soaked with blood, the body of the monstrous serpent lying in shreds around him. He had gorged himself on its remains, hovering somewhere close to death, and yet in that moment he had never felt more filled with life. His own life. His own strength. The power to defeat the very spirits that the rest of his people so revered.

When the hold of the spirit world had receded he found only torn cords and bloody brambles where the serpent's coils had been, and it was the blood of the two women and their shredded entrails that decorated the site of Miral's victory. They too had been slain in the fury of his battle with the demon.

Eventually he would finish what he had begun the day he was caught in Octavia's snare. She could not hide from him forever. But first he would put an end to the clan of witches who sought to imitate the woman who had foolishly tried to elevate herself beyond her rightful status. He could taste their scents now. They laced the air like the fragrance of wild herbs. So many females, and barely a man to be found among them. The faint scent of blood from the wounded boy faded away once the smell of the others grew clear. There was no longer any need to track them, for the scents of many wolves now funnelled directly into the valley that lay ahead, streaming like tributaries toward the place Adel must have made her den.

The land led them down into a stretch of dark forest guarding the valley's entrance where an ominous mist writhed through the trees. Miral did not expect the witches to have prepared an ambush, but he also knew that Adel was no fool. If she had not fled her den already—and by the freshness of the scents, it seemed she had not—then she would have some other scheme to escape him. It would take more than a handful of coloured flames this time.

Throwing back his head and uttering a loud bark, he brought his pack to a halt behind him. As he rose up on two legs the glint of firelight hove into view farther down the valley, a distant glow against the rocky slope on the northern side.

"They are here, my warriors. If they fight back, then face them with honour. Spare the seers and the den mother, but leave no man alive." He raised his arm and swept it across the wooded area that lay before them. "Spread your eyes and ears out across this forest, and tread carefully. If they have the wit of a single skilled warrior among them, they will try to fight us here."

The eyes of his warriors shone back at him amid the press of furred bodies, hungry breath panting on the air like the ebb and surge of a great wind. They were ready to fight for their alpha, but fear still stalked among them. A one-eyed male who had lost half his sight to Octavia's traps shuffled to the back of the group. Those at the edges hesitated to spread out as he had ordered.

"Witches," Miral spat. "Let me tell you that fear is their weapon, and it is weaker than any one of you! Would you let them remain here, putting doubt in your hearts, seeding curses upon our hunters? Our pack is the strongest in this land, stronger soon than even Khelt or Gheran's once we take Adel's strength and make it our own! Watch how their magic breaks before the power of an alpha!" He roared the last words loud enough that they echoed off the valley walls. With the sound of his own voice still ringing in his ears, he leaped back into the shape of his wolf and charged forward. Caution be damned, his warriors needed their wolves' bloodlust this night, and soon they would have it. They would hear it in his voice, taste it in his scent, and it would work its way into them until their beasts forgot all thoughts of spirits and sorcery. Once they tasted blood, there would be no stopping them. He had trained his warriors well.

His unflinching charge had the desired effect. The heavy bodies of four dozen wolves pounded through the trees around him, their fear suppressed as their alpha's confidence spurred them on. They would fight and kill for him that night, as they always did. Perhaps they would kill some of the females in their frenzy, but they could sate their urges by doing what they pleased with the rest. The men were of no use to him. Better to finish them now. Women could be tamed, broken to his will, and he fully intended to take the sorceress the other packs feared and make her his own. There was no thing in this world or the next that Miral could not have. Not if he was patient. It was an insult to him that females like Adel and Octavia had ever believed otherwise.

His paws pressed deep marks into the damp leaves and loamy soil as he ran, the alpha calling upon the strength of his inner beast to spur him forward. The hard pace of the last few days had been tiring, but he was ready for more. The challenge called to him like the dancing flames he spied up ahead between the trees. They were close. Far closer than the fires he had seen farther down the valley.

An uncomfortable sound rattled in the air, barely audible beneath the pounding footfalls and hungry breath of his pack. Uncanny, like a familiar noise made strange by the wind. And why were these fires so close? What was the herbal scent lingering in the air, the same one that clung to the trails he had been following, and why was it growing so much stronger?

Miral breathed deeply as he ran, and something bitter struck his muzzle as sharply as the sting of a hornet. A vague memory blinked through his mind in the instant between lifting one forepaw and dropping his weight on the next. He recalled the lined face of his long-dead grandmother. Den Mother. And a bowl of tar-like poison, black and bubbling, upon the coals of her fire. He remembered that scent.

He jerked his body forward at the last moment, the scent so strong he knew he must be on top of it. Needle-sharp wooden points brushed the fur of his underbelly as his forepaws skidded through the dirt, just barely avoiding being pierced by the concealed spikes. A choked snort of anger left his muzzle as he breathed in another mouthful of the bitter air, tasting thick smoke blowing in from the east. He reverted from the shape of his wolf before those following him could blunder into the trap, digging his fingers into the leaves and hauling out the flimsy frame of sticks that supported it. The keenness of his wolf's eyes gone, he could just barely make out the dark-tipped spikes jutting wickedly from the crosspiece he held in his hand. A coward's weapon, just like the ones Octavia used. So Adel had learned her tricks after all.

Miral clenched his jaw as he heard yips of pain coming from those around him, the less vigilant of his pack no doubt having stumbled into more of the same traps.

"Watch your feet!" he bellowed through the forest, dashing the wooden frame into splinters against the trunk of a nearby tree. Something sharp snagged at the back of his braided hair, chiming with the same eerie tinkling sound that subtly pervaded the whole forest. With a growl he spun around, snatching the thing from the branches and ripping it free. A cracked bird skull leered up at him from a tangled cradle of bones. Nothing more than a seer's trinket. He threw it down next to the broken trap, his brow steeped in concentration as he peered through the thickening smoke.

Half of his pack had charged on by, but he could hear more of them stumbling hesitantly through the trees around him. A young male let out a yelp of fear, almost falling over himself in his effort to avoid the grisly trophy Miral had just cast down in his path. The startled warrior faltered, glancing up at his alpha with apprehension. From the way the boy was favouring one of his paws it seemed he had pierced it on something already.

"Is this what you fear?" the alpha said, seizing the wolf by the scruff of the neck and kneeling down so that they stood eye to eye. With his free hand he snatched up the skeletal totem and shook it in the youth's face. "Or do you fear this more?" His fingers tightened, both against the back of the wolf's neck and around the bird skull. The brittle bone popped into fragments within his grasp. The wolf whined. When Miral released him, he bolted as if the alpha's fangs were nipping at his heels.

Smoky air pricked at Miral's eyes and stung his throat as he sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, but he ignored the discomfort as he strode toward the closest fire, not deigning to return to the shape of his wolf. The next trap he came upon splintered harmlessly beneath the hard leather of his moccasins, and he kicked it aside along with another animal skull impaled upon an upright spear. Cowardly these totems might be, but clever. A lesser warrior might have balked at the sight of them. But Miral was no lesser warrior.

By the time he reached the fire he could barely see for the smoke roiling off it in thick plumes, burning his lungs as if the very air had sparked aflame. He could see no one else nearby, only a smouldering, steaming heap of green weeds that were gradually taking light. The alpha lingered for a moment longer, fancying he saw clawing hands and the bodies of serpents writhing in the flames, but he screwed his eyes shut and drove the fantasy from his mind. The battle cries of his warriors were already reaching his ears from farther down the valley. He could waste no more time pondering over this strange fire.

The howls of animals became the shrieks of spirits as he took the shape of his wolf and ran through the smoke to join them. Terrifying, otherworldly sounds. Sounds that would have stolen the courage from a weaker man. Miral's muzzle drew back from his teeth in elation. He could feel it. The spirit world had drawn close to him. The forest, perhaps, had been a passage from his own world into Adel's. Whatever demons the sorceress had summoned, he relished the chance to fight them.

* * *

Dark shadows and whistling wind greeted Netya and her companions when they reached the higher slopes of the valley. The treacherous footing and steep rocks made the nearby caves difficult to reach and impractical to use, some of them little more than sheltered overhangs, but so long as each one could house a fire, they would serve their purpose that night.

Howls echoed up from the trees below, patches of smoky orange flickering against the underside of the canopy where the bonfires burned. Miral and his pack were in the valley now, a ripple of noise spreading through the forest in their wake. Netya prayed the poisoned traps and burning herbs would do their work. If Miral's warriors retained the courage to push on then Caspian and the other men would be next to meet them, and once they clashed there would be no escaping the bloodshed Netya had so feared. Her anxious thoughts returned to harry her as she kept watch outside the cave leading to the hidden glade. On the far side of the valley she could already make out several sparks of fire flaring to life.

"Hurry, the others are ahead of us," she called inside, her voice an insistent whisper.

Meadow and Selo emerged a moment later, each of them carrying a hollowed wooden bowl insulated with grass and filled with hot coals from the fire inside. Awkward to carry, but much quicker than striking sparks from pyrite. Netya grabbed her spear from where she had left it propped up inside the cave earlier that day, as unnerved by the prospect of using the weapon as she was reassured by its presence. But she was more comfortable with her spear at her side than she was with tooth and claw. Even if she'd shared her companions' many years of experience with their animal forms, the diminutive wolf of a young woman was unlikely to fare well against the kind of males Miral had no doubt brought with him. At least with her spear she had a chance to even out her disadvantage.

Leading the way along the high slopes, Netya picked her way quickly and quietly across the waterfalls while Meadow and Selo brought up the rear, clinging to the shadows and shielding their coals from the spray. Netya's small medicine pouch bounced against her chest beneath her clothing, heavy with the weight of a handful of spirit powder Adel had given her that morning. It was not much, but perhaps enough to scare or startle an enemy if she could touch it to flame.

A small but carefully built pyre awaited them inside the first dark alcove they came to, dry sticks piled in a lattice upon powdered bark and dead leaves for kindling. Netya crouched down outside once again, keeping her eyes on the valley below while Selo knelt and lifted one of her coals into the kindling with a pair of sticks. After a few careful puffs of breath from Meadow the ember burst to life, igniting the dry plant matter around it and quickly spreading to the rest of the kindling.

In the flash of light Netya glimpsed fear on the faces of her pack-sisters. Selo, a young seer like herself who had chosen the path of the spirits rather than one of violence. And gentle, soft-spoken Meadow, never one to raise a finger to harm another, even at her own expense. But they bore their fears silently, just like Netya. She was proud to have them at her side.

It was the work of but a few moments to kindle each fire as they moved from one cave to the next. Small flames sprouted from the darkness on the other side of the valley where Fern and the others were carrying out similar tasks, growing in number until what had started as a few scant pinpricks had bloomed into dozens of blazing lights.

The tang of acrid smoke creeping up from the forest bonfires reached Netya's nostrils, and she took care to cover her mouth with one of the trailing paws of her white wolf pelt whenever she caught wind of it. It was impossible to tell what was happening on the valley floor now. Smoky fog and the glare of the fires overwhelmed the clear moonlight, leaving only the intermittent howls of wolves to clue her in to the events unfolding. Miral's clan sounded as though they had moved deeper, travelling past the spot Netya and her companions had reached, but whether they had clashed with the others yet she could not say. The beat of her heart pounded harder in her chest, hot and harsh like the heat of the fires. She kept her companions moving, unable to do anything but fix her mind on the task at hand. They went from cave to cave, navigating the steep cliff as the howls grew clearer and the fires burned brighter. It could not have been long since they began, but each agonising moment stretched the passage of time into what felt like hours.