The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

In front of him, the hooded figures looked anonymous in the distant light of the lone flickering torch, and it seemed suddenly only Felix was real to him, Felix who was beside him, and his heart went out to Stuart. Was Stuart afraid? Was he himself afraid?

No. Even as the drums grew louder, and as the spectral musicians around him answered and wove their low, harsh threads of melody around the drumbeat, he was not afraid. Again, the prickling began and he could feel the hairs of his scalp wanting to be released, feel the wolf hair in him raging against the skin of the man. Did the wolf in him respond to the drums? Did the drums hold a secret power over the beast of which he’d been unaware? Bravely yet deliciously he struggled against it, knowing it would burst forth soon enough.

The distant fire grew brighter, and seemed to swallow the feeble light of Margon’s torch. There was something so horrific about the quivering, throbbing glare of the fire that he did feel again a deep and terrible alarm. But the fire was calling them, and he was eager for it, reaching out suddenly and taking firm hold of Felix’s arm.

Suddenly the anticipation he felt was intoxicating and it seemed to him that he’d been moving through this dark forest forever, and it was the greatest of experiences, this, to be with the others, heading towards the distant blaze that flared and flickered so high above them as if from the throat of a volcano or some dark chimney invisible beneath its light.

Pungent scents caught his nostrils, the deep rich and living scent of the wild boar he’d hunted all too seldom, and the sweet and seductive fragrance of simmering wine. Cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, the sweet smell of honey, all this he caught with the smell of smoke, the smell of pine, the smell of the wet mist. It was flooding his senses.

Out of the night, he thought he heard the deep-throated cry of the wild boar, a guttural scream, and again his skin was on fire. Hunger knotted his insides, hunger for living meat, yes.

A vast wordless song rose from the invisible beings all round them as ahead they drew up to a veritable wall of blackness above which the sparks flew heavenward from the raging fire they could no longer clearly see.

Suddenly the small torch in Margon’s hand was moving upwards, and dimly Reuben saw the outlines of the gray boulders that he’d once glimpsed by daylight, and all at once he was climbing a steep and rocky incline and entering at Felix’s bidding a narrow, jagged passage through which he could barely move. The drums beat loud against his ears, and the pipes soared again, throbbing, urging, calling to him to move quickly.

Ahead the world exploded with lurid dancing orange flames.

The last of the dark figures in front of him had stepped aside and into the clearing, and he stumbled down now and found his footing on the packed earth, the fire for a moment blinding him.

It was a vast space.

Some thirty yards away the great exploding bonfire raged and crackled, its dark heavy scaffolding of logs plainly visible within the furnace of its yellow and orange flames.

It appeared to define the very center of a vast arena. To the right and left of him he saw the boulders spreading out into the inevitable shadows, how far he couldn’t guess.

Right by the mouth of the passage through which they’d just come stood the company of musicians—all recognizable in their green velvet hooded finery. It was Lisa pounding the kettledrums whose deep rolling booms shook Reuben’s very bones, and around her were gathered Henrietta and Peter playing the wooden flutes, and Heddy with a long narrow drum, and Jean Pierre playing the huge Scottish bagpipes. From high above came the wordless singing of the Forest Gentry and the unmistakable sound of violins and metal flutes, and the twanging notes of dulcimers.

All contrived to make a song of expectation and reverence, of unquestioned solemnity.

Between the boulders and the fire ahead stood a giant golden cauldron over a low-simmering fire that glowed as if made up of coals, and Reuben realized that this cauldron defined the center of the circle which the Morphenkinder were now forming around it.

He stepped forward, taking his place, the fumes of the spiced mixture in the cauldron rising in his nostrils enticingly.

The music slowed now and softened all around him. The air seemed to hold its breath, with the drum rolling as softly as thunder.

There came the screams of the wild boar, the grunts, the deep guttural growls, but these animals were safely penned somewhere, he sensed this. He trusted in it.

Meanwhile, the Morphenkinder drew in as close to the heat of the cauldron as they could, the circle not small enough for them to touch one another, yet small enough for every face to be visible.

Then from the dancing shadows beyond the blaze to his right emerged a strange figure to join the circle, and as she lifted her green hood back from her face, Reuben saw it was Laura.

His breath went out of him. She stood opposite him, smiling at him through the faint steam rising from the huge cauldron. A chorus of cheers and murmured greetings rose from the others.

Margon raised his voice:

“Modranicht!” he roared. “The night of the Mother Earth, and our Yule!”

At once the others raised their arms and roared in response, Sergei giving a deep-throated howl. Reuben raised his arms, and ached to let loose the howl that was inside him.

Suddenly the kettledrums went into a deafening roll, shaking Reuben to the core, and the flutes rose in piercing melody.

“People of the Forest, join us!” declared Margon, his arms raised. From the boulders all around came a clamor of drums and flutes and fiddles and the shock of brass trumpets.

“Morphenkinder!” cried Margon. “You are welcome.”

And out of the darkness came more hooded figures. Reuben saw plainly the face of Hockan, the face of Fiona, and the smaller feminine shapes that had to be Berenice, Catrin, Helena, Dorchella, and Clarice. The circle widened, admitting them one by one.

“Drink!” cried Margon.

And all converged on the cauldron, dipping their horns into the simmering brew, and then stepping back to swallow mouthful after mouthful. The temperature was perfect, to make a fire in the throat and in the heart—to ignite the circuits of the brain.

Again, they dipped their horns and again they drank.

Suddenly Reuben was rocking, falling, and Felix on his right had reached out to steady him. His head swam and a low boiling laughter came out of him. Laura’s eyes blazed as she smiled at him. She lifted the gleaming horn to her lips. She saluted him. She said his name.

“This is no time for the words of humankind—for poetry or sermons,” cried Margon. “This is no meeting for words at all. Because we all know the words. But how are we to mourn the loss of Marrok if we don’t speak his name?”