Hunter's Moon (25 page)

Very soon after, we arrived at Wheat Sheaf Quay, where we were met by Olga, alone, wrapped in a shawl against the early-morning chill.

‘You have passage on the first ship that leaves for Faustina,' she said, handing us some tickets before we could speak. ‘It leaves in an hour. You can go onboard right away.'

The river is wide at Wheat Sheaf Quay, so even fairly big ships can moor, and we could see the ship she meant, just a short distance ahead. It was the kind of cargo vessel that also takes a few passengers. It was not normally the fastest mode of transport, but this one was a steamship, and so it would be a good deal speedier than the older models. We could be far away from here in a short time. For an instant I gazed at it in longing, but I knew we could not back out now.

So I said nothing as Rafiel explained to Olga and Andel that our plans had changed, that we would not be fleeing
Lepmest for a little while yet, and that we must speak with Lady Grandmother. I tried not to look too anxious as Olga and Andel, swapping a questioning glance, agreed that we may see her, and that they would rouse Lady Grandmother at once.

As we followed Olga and Andel back into the maze of streets, Rafiel's hand stole into mine. I clasped it tightly and was glad that it was mine to hold. With his hand in mine, all I was really aware of was his closeness; thoughts of what might happen when the feya Lady Grandmother discovered that it was he she had been searching for floated to the back of my mind.

So much had separated Rafiel and I – especially those long years when we had vanished from each other's sight – and yet now it was as though we had never been parted. We had been friends – good friends – in childhood. I had admired him so much, engrossed by his laughter, his daring, his adventurous spirit.

Now, as I walked with him in the dark morning streets, I knew that it had been more than a little girl's hero-worship. It had been the dawn of love, a love that had lain dormant through all those years, and that was now reawakening, like a flower after a long winter.

What I'd sensed in the veiled eyes of the man they called the Prince had been a trueness of heart that went to the core of who and what he was. That trueness of heart had been there in the boy I'd missed so much. And it was there in the man he was now, the beautiful man by my side. His own suffering had turned him into a hunter, but the suffering of others had transformed him into a protector. It was never easy for a person to see what they
had become and to change it, but Rafiel had done it. He had accepted the fault in the path he had chosen without trying to justify his mistakes, and he had sought to do only right from that moment onwards.

We reached the Wheat Sheaf Inn. Olga left us outside with Andel while she went in. We didn't have to wait long. In a few moments Olga came out again. ‘She is not here.'

‘What?' exclaimed Andel, echoing our own thoughts.

‘But I think I know where she is,' added Olga.

‘Oh no,' said Andel. ‘You don't mean …'

‘Yes,' said Olga. ‘The buffet at the Grand Dome Station. She's gone to raid it. Again.'

Verakina and Rafiel looked astonished. But I wasn't. I remembered the greed on the old feya's face as she circled the glass display case full of cakes.

This comical development should have made me feel better. An old woman who sneaked out to raid cream cakes in a railway buffet could hardly be a fearsome enemy … But I knew better by now than to trust such superficial things. I had learnt that people – and feya – could be many things at once, and that it was only a fool who thought danger might not come laughing as much as scowling.

‘She's just not used to the city,' said Olga. ‘Her senses are disturbed, away from the forest. It makes her do strange things.'

‘Stranger than usual, you mean,' grunted Andel.

Olga did not answer. Rafiel and Verakina and I looked at each other. We were all thinking the same thing. If the old feya wasn't as sharp as usual, that was a good thing for us.

As we approached Grand Dome, the station clock struck six. The deep sound felt ominous, and I shivered a little. Rafiel felt it. Taking my hand, he whispered, ‘Whatever comes, we face it together.'

‘Yes,' I said, ‘but …' I began, then trailed off, for now we were in the big central hall, which at this early hour was still practically deserted apart from a busy sweeper, a passenger snoring on a bench, and a station attendant or two in the ticket office. The buffet was closed, and there appeared to be nobody there, but I remembered how the old feya had hidden in plain sight when I'd last been here.

‘Wait for me there,' said Olga, gesturing to some benches at the other end of the hall. ‘She's here all right, but she's not going to like it if we all ambush her.' She loped off, the wolfish grace of her movements clear at this distance.

‘She's not afraid of the transformation, your wife,' said Verakina to Andel.

Andel shook his head. ‘She's learnt to control the wolf inside her without the need for any spell. But then,' he added proudly, ‘she's an Ironheart. A great werewolf family,' he explained, when we looked blank. ‘One of their ancestors saved the Emperor of Ruvenya a long time ago, and because of that, Ironhearts and all their ilk are greatly honoured in the land.'

‘Werewolves are greatly honoured there?' said Verakina, in some amazement.

‘They are indeed. As are all shapeshifters and all kinds of magical folk. Including, of course, feya like Old Bony – er, I mean, Lady Grandmother.'

Olga was circling the buffet now, but carefully, so as not to be noticed by the station attendants and the sweeper. We saw her incline her head once, twice, three times. Then all at once, she disappeared. Vanished. One instant she was there; the next she was gone, as if a hand had reached in and snatched her through an open door.

‘She's in,' said Andel. ‘Now we can only wait –'

He broke off as we heard the drumming sound of many running footsteps. Suddenly, the City Police in their green uniforms appeared in the station entrance. Police whistles exploded in the air and one of them spotted us and shouted, ‘Over there! They're over there!'

‘Olga! Lady Grandmother!' yelled Andel, and we sprinted towards the buffet after him, startling the attendants and the sweeper and rousing the sleeping man, who woke up with a yelp.

And then I found that we were behind the spell wall, invisible to the startled policemen, who ran around in complete confusion as the sweeper, the startled-awake man and the station attendants fled in terror. Safe behind the spell wall, we gasped in relief, but it was a short-lived respite. For inside the spell wall there was the woman they call Lady Grandmother, her eyes as hard and shiny as black marbles, calmly wiping cream off the side of her mouth. And then she spoke for the very first time.

‘I smell lies,' she said, the words absolutely clear and without accent. She pointed a bony finger at Rafiel. ‘Tell me it isn't so, boy.'

‘It isn't his fault –' I began, but the old feya waved a hand at me and I fell silent.

‘I cannot tell you it isn't so,' said Rafiel, ‘because what you say is true.'

‘Ah!' She came up to him. Walked round and round him. Sniffed. ‘The wolf is in you.'

‘Yes,' said Rafiel, without flinching, though he was very pale.

Andel and Olga looked on, shocked. I could read the questions in their faces. This is the evil sorcerer's apprentice? Him, the one we helped to rescue?

Andel said, ‘It's not right –' just as Olga said, ‘Lady of the forest, please –'

‘Silence, both of you!' commanded the old woman. ‘Boy,' she went on, peering at Rafiel, ‘this wolf of yours – you have used it for ill.'

‘And for good!' burst out Verakina. The old woman took no notice.

‘Answer, boy!'

‘Yes, ma'am,' he said, steadily enough, though I could see his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat.

‘The sorcerer from Palume – did you know he also used a wolf for ill?'

‘No, ma'am, I did not know,' said Rafiel. He was deathly pale now, but still he held himself proudly, his hazel eyes blazing with golden light. ‘I only knew him a short time. And I never learnt from him.'

‘Is that so?' She looked at him without moving, her black eyes utterly unreadable as they gazed into his. ‘Yet you studied in his books. I can see it in your mind.'

‘Yes,' said Rafiel, and now his voice had a definite tremble in it.

I took a step towards him, but the feya held up a hand for me to stop.

‘Be patient. Your time will come, girl.' She looked at Rafiel. ‘Continue.'

‘I read and I studied the ways of the shamans from the Northern lands,' he said. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. ‘And I discovered that all along … all along it was in me. It was waiting for me to be ready. Waiting for when I needed it.'

‘The wolf,' said the old woman.

‘The wolf,' echoed Rafiel.

There was a silence. Then the old woman said, ‘The sorcerer's eyes never changed. Yours did.'

‘Yes,' said Rafiel, startled.

‘That is because the wolf is in you,' said the old woman. ‘It wasn't in him. He enslaved another creature's spirit. But you – you transformed your own. You are the one we seek. There is no doubt.'

Forcing the words past my tightened throat, I burst out, ‘If you try to hurt him –'

‘Who said anything about hurting, girl?' snapped the old woman, her black eyes sparking with temper now. ‘We seek him, but does that mean it is for ill?'

We all stared at her. ‘But, Lady Grandmother, I thought –' began Olga, weakly.

‘Fie, girl! Are you as dense as the others? You, an Ironheart? I seek the truth, and now I have it. And I have something else as well. Do you know what it is, boy?'

‘No, ma'am,' he said, his face very still.

‘News for my friends in the Northern lands,' she said, ‘who thought that the old ways were dead, and whose
sadness is a burden to me. They will be glad to know the wolf can still walk. Pah! No doubt you had to cage it because you used your spirit-wolf to stalk in a forest of stone and glass and blood in this city and all the dark places where humans plot evil. Such a place is unnatural for its kind, and its senses are disturbed, its truth distorted. Is that so, boy?'

‘Yes,' he said, and I saw that there were tears in his eyes.

‘When the time is right you will come with me to the Northern lands and my friends will show you how the wolf can walk safely, in its own truth.'

‘I will go,' said Rafiel, and now his face was filled with the beginnings of laughter. ‘I swear it.'

‘Good. And now for you, girl,' she said, turning her hard gaze on me. ‘Look at me. And don't try to close yourself off to me – oh yes, I can tell that you are a strong one – or it will be the worse for you.'

Swallowing hard, I did as I was told. I felt her mind in mine, looking at what was there. I felt her probe inside my memories. I felt her cold feya intelligence weighing everything, seeing everything in the blink of an eye. It would have terrified me had Rafiel not been holding one of my hands and Verakina the other, and had I not felt the anxious goodwill that emanated from Andel and Olga.

It was only for a moment, though it seemed like forever. ‘Very well,' she said.

‘Very well?' I echoed. ‘Hardly!' Now that Rafiel was out of harm's way, I thought once again of why I had tried to seek Lady Grandmother thrice in the single night that had just passed. If Belladonna was a feya like her, only Lady Grandmother could defeat her. She must help us!

‘Listen to me, girl. This witch is not my concern. No,' she snapped, seeing the expressions on the faces of the others, ‘she is not. She is not a feya, so there is no need for me to do what you yourselves might do. I have never done the bidding of others. Ever. I do not propose to start now.'

‘Lady Grandmother,' said Rafiel. ‘I will try to keep my promise to come with you to the Northern lands. But if you do not help us against the witch and if we are killed, how can I keep my promise to you then?'

The feya snorted. ‘She will find a way to beat the witch,' she said, turning her head to look directly at me.

Sharp into my mind came an image of the first time I'd seen Lady Grandmother, in this very place, with the station swarming with police as it was now. It was she who was pushing the image into my mind, I knew that, and I knew she must be doing it for a reason. But …

‘I do not understand,' I said. ‘How does that help?'

‘You will know,' she said, her hard black eyes still on me.

And then, quite suddenly, she vanished.

With her went the spell wall and the invisibility that had protected us until that point from the gaze of the policemen who were still there, searching in every corner of the station for us. They didn't see us, at first – our reappearance was too sudden. We were sidling towards the exit when all at once the shout went up and in an instant, they were surging towards us, their leader shouting, ‘Take them alive! There's a big reward!'

‘Hear that?' Rafiel shouted. ‘Let's make them work hard for it, shall we?' And he threw off the heavy coat that would hamper his movements. ‘Are you ready?' he asked Andel, Olga, Verakina and me.

‘Yes,' spoke Andel. Verakina and I nodded. ‘You?'

‘Yes,' said Rafiel.

‘Then let's get these blighters!' the giant boatman said, and into the horde we plunged, hitting out to the left and right, some of our blows striking home.

The policemen fell back at first, but soon they were advancing again, drawing their clubs. I threw myself at one of the policemen, causing him to lose balance and crash to the ground. Meanwhile, Verakina, with a blood-curdling yell, went after another, scratching at his face with her clawed hands.

The policemen's blood was up now and though we fought hard, we were being forced to retreat, back and back. I heard the crunch of bone as a club came down hard on Andel's foot, watched as another narrowly missed the side of Rafiel's head, and felt another hit me on the back of the legs, so that I staggered and almost fell. Then Verakina did fall, after being whacked behind the knees, and I saw her disappear in a forest of green-clad legs. Yelling incoherently, I threw myself at them, but was pushed aside by a huge policeman with a face as mean as a rat's.