While The Unknown made fast the boat and Denser furled the sail under his instruction, Will and Thraun scrambled away up the slope of grass-covered thinly soiled rock and crumbling clay. Will, clutching Thraun’s clothes in his bag more in hope than expectation, hung on to a fistful of fur and thick hide low on the wolf’s back, to help him on up.
‘Why are you bothering to learn all that?’ asked Ilkar, the words tumbling from his mouth before he could stop them.
Denser stopped and straightened. ‘What?’
‘If you care so little for the future, why bother to learn to sail?’ Ilkar had no option but to carry on. Denser’s eyes narrowed.
‘Well maybe I’m trying to establish some normality. Maybe I’m making a bloody effort. Is there something wrong with that?’
Ilkar smiled, trying to defuse the situation he’d created, aware that the eyes of The Raven were on him.
‘It just struck me as a little incongruous, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.’
Denser strode towards him. ‘Yes I will worry about it. Your ignorance of how I feel doesn’t give you the right to make sneering little comments like that. What are you trying to say?’
‘I’m trying to say that you are totally unpredictable and it’s causing us all a problem. Furling that sail you are totally normal, just like the Denser we know so well. But in the next heartbeat you could close up and disappear inside yourself. We don’t know where we stand.’
‘Is that right?’ Denser’s face was reddening. ‘And you think I know, do you? My head’s a complete bloody mess and I’m trying hard to make sense of what I have left. What I want is a little patience, not clever comment, from people like you!’ He stabbed a finger into Ilkar’s chest. The Julatsan pushed it away and pointed at Erienne.
‘And she’s not enough, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Ilkar, that’s enough. Just leave it,’ said Erienne.
But Denser moved in until their noses all but touched. ‘Don’t you dare to question the way I feel about Erienne. You don’t understand. ’ He pushed Ilkar firmly backwards along the shingle. ‘Keep away from me, Julatsan, until you have something good to say.’ He stalked over to the rise and began a solitary, angry climb, Erienne behind him.
‘Good work, Ilkar,’ said Hirad, shaking his head. He climbed up slowly behind the mages, noting the clear sky and the light forging towards them from the east. They would need to find cover soon. Fortunately, the River Tri’s course was lush and wooded and far enough from likely Wesmen occupation to make quick travel possible. They would still have to be careful, though, aliens in their own land.
What taxed Hirad’s mind, apart from Ilkar’s surprising outburst and Denser’s altogether predictable one, was where they would find horses. Without rides, journey time to Julatsa would be trebled or worse and give them no fast escape option. He dug in his heels and climbed faster.
The scent of home was everywhere, bleeding from the very ground on which Thraun trod. The colours of the forest and of his packbrothers filled his head as he bounded away from the water’s edge, taking care that man-packbrother should not slip from him by moving too fast.
Cresting the rise, he put his snout high into the air and sniffed. Untainted by the saltwater smells from below, the scents of the land and its inhabitants unfolded like a map before him. He turned to man-packbrother, aware he was making sounds. Man-packbrother knelt in front of him and held his face in his two hands. He growled, amusement and mild irritation mixing in his mind.
Man-packbrother spoke a word to him. He was aware it was a word without comprehension of language. It tolled in his head but the doors didn’t open. Instead, a confusion of thought plundered his consciousness.
He was standing on his hind legs and there was no hair covering his face. His howl had gone and he could run upright without falling. But there was no joy in his senses, no feeling of the pack around him. He felt clumsy if strong, awkward in his understanding of the land and prey and threat around him. The memories were dim but he knew they were memories. They hurt him inside, dragged at his body and punished his being. He knew there was a way to make the hurt stop but he fought that way.
The hurt scared him, he reacted.
Thraun barked once and recoiled from Will’s grasp, crouching low, yellow eyes fixed on him, fangs bared. He growled, deep, low and menacing. Will stood up in shock and backed away a pace, hands outstretched.
‘Thraun, it’s all right. Calm. Calm.’ He backed away further.
Hirad had reached the top of the slope in time to see the end of the exchange and Thraun’s sudden move backward, taking him perilously close to tumbling over the edge back to the cove. Hirad held his breath. The wolf was tensed to spring, its eyes on Will’s face. But to his eternal credit, Will remained what he urged Thraun to be. Calm. And Thraun eventually relaxed his crouch, shook his head, stood up and trotted away towards a stand of trees.
‘What happened?’ asked Hirad. Will’s face was sheet white in the pre-dawn light. He shrugged. ‘I mean, what did you do?’
‘N-nothing,’ said Will, with a hint of the stammer that had plagued him for days following his terrifying encounter with Denser’s familiar in Dordover. ‘Just tried to bring him back to himself with the word.’
‘What word?’
‘Remember,’ said Will, massaging his temples with thumb and index finger and looking after the retreating form of the wolf. ‘It’s the word he tells himself before he changes. It’s supposed to trigger his memories. It’s not working.’ Will sounded desperate. Hirad placed a hand on his shoulder.
‘He’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘He’s probably gone to change now, hasn’t he?’
Will turned his face to Hirad, a rueful half smile on his lips and tears in his eyes. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
‘So what’s different this time?’ asked Hirad. ‘He’s never reacted like this before, has he?’
‘No. He hates the wolf’s form. His worst nightmare is being stuck inside it forever and losing his ability to change back. But in the years I’ve known him, he’s never tasted the blood of so many victims either. I just wonder whether he’s in some kind of frenzy that won’t go away and it’s blocking his human side from reasserting itself.’
‘What can we do?’
Will sighed. ‘I don’t know. There’s no spell that can bring him back. His condition isn’t magical. We’ll have to wait and I’ll have to keep on trying to get through to him.’
‘A risky path.’
‘The only path.’ Will looked at Hirad. ‘I can’t lose him, Hirad. It would be like being dead anyway so I may as well die trying as sit and wait to die alone.’
Hirad nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘I know.’
Chapter 16
With Ilkar, Denser, Erienne and The Unknown reaching the flatter land above the cove, The Raven made headway to the Tri River valley, Thraun shadowing their progress. The landscape in front of them was beautiful, even in the half-light of early dawn, with much still wreathed in heavy shadow.
North and east, the land swept away in gentle rises, its bracken swaying and rustling, isolated groups of trees and low bush surrounding rocky pools, crags mottling the greens and browns with their stark slate grey.
South and east, in the direction of their immediate travel, the scene was altogether different. At the top of a shallow rise, the land fell away sharply into the valley of the River Tri where it flattened briefly to form great green meadows of thick grass. The river’s banks gave root to thick-trunked oaks and willows, and wild hawthorn tangled the river’s edge while, here and there, pebbled shallows rising to flat rock, covered in times of flood, gave sight of the quarter-mile width of the gentle flow.