A Whisper of Wolves

by Kris Humphrey

  Alice turned back to the parapet. The sounds of fighting echoed from all corners of the village now. Torchlight flashed between the rooftops. She had to act fast, before they were overrun by the Narlaw. With an effort, Alice closed her eyes to the growing chaos below. She let her Whisperer sense expand and wander, ready this time for the foul touch of the demons. She pushed out to the village wall and beyond, encompassing all of the fear and panic and anger of the siege.

  She felt the Narlaw dart and slide across her senses. They moved so quickly, impossible to pin down, always slipping away from her. It seemed deliberate – they were evading her touch. Out in the village someone wailed and then went silent. There was a crash and a sudden panicked shout that brought Alice out of her trance.

  “Here! Here!”

  It was Owen.

  Alice ran to the north-facing edge of the tower and saw a lamp-lit alley flickering with shadows. Several defenders, including Owen, stood uncertainly, staring at the sprung trap from a safe distance.

  They had one. They had trapped a Narlaw.

  Alice peered down at the thrashing, grey-eyed demon. It was in the form of a young woman from the missing hunting party. Now was Alice’s chance.

  Alice focused on that one alleyway alone. There was Owen standing, excited and afraid, with two others. And next to them, pinned to the wall, was the snarling, desperate presence of the Narlaw. Alice let her senses swallow the four of them, the wooden cottages and the dirt beneath their feet. She felt the air brush through Owen’s hair, the tiny vibrations in the earth made by the movements of his booted companions. She felt the thrashing, mad, un-breathing Narlaw like a poison inside her.

  And she gave herself to the earth.

  She held tight to the demon’s presence and began to lose herself in the trance. Her body was gone. She floated free with all the particles and currents of the air. And the power of the earth rushed through her, blanking everything.

  When her vision and feeling returned she found herself kneeling at the parapet. She rose, her head dizzy and buzzing.

  “You did it!” Owen shouted. “It’s gone!”

  Alice steadied herself, shocked.

  She had done it.

  She had banished a Narlaw.

  But before Alice could respond to Owen there was a terrible splintering noise behind her. She spun around and, out across the rooftops, she saw the south gate fall, taking a long section of the palisade wall with it. Those who had defended it fled towards the heart of the village and, close behind them, with that startling, inhuman speed, came the Narlaw. There were too many to count at once. Ten, fifteen, perhaps. Certainly more than the five Alice had expected. Most were in human form, too distant and too quick to recognize individually. Some came snarling into the village in the guise of wolves.

  The villagers ran and Alice saw Storm’s wolves darting through the shadows, harrying the demons but incapable even of slowing them down. There were screams, cries of desperation. Alice cast her senses out across the village and recoiled immediately at the seething, chaotic movements of this new band of demons. They were everywhere. She had no chance of holding them long enough to perform the banishment.

  Then it struck her. She knew what she must do.

  As she charged down the steps of the bell tower she felt the ward around the building tremble. The Narlaw were testing it, trying to get in. Alice reached the main hall and the mass of panic-ridden villagers. The great doors rumbled, a noise strangely deadened by the protective power of the ward and somehow all the more frightening for it.

  “Where are you going?” asked Elder Garth. “You can’t leave us!”

  “This is the only way,” Alice said, surprised at the calmness of her voice.

  She reached the doors and the squad of armed guards turned to face her.

  “Open them,” Alice said. “The ward will hold. They cannot pass. Not yet.”

  “But…” stuttered a large man holding a makeshift pike.

  “Just do it,” Alice ordered. “I cannot do my work from inside.”

  The guards unbolted the doors and, after an exchange of worried glances, flung them open, ready with their weapons. The steps were empty but Alice probed ahead. Perhaps the Narlaw were afraid of her. They must know by now that she had banished one of their kind. She peered out into the village square. The festival tree towered over a scene of eerie calm. The air clamoured with the sounds of battle, but the open square lay empty.

  Alice passed through the ward and felt it shimmer over her. She stepped down into the pure clarity of the outside. The doors slammed shut behind her and she was alone once more.

  She closed her eyes and reached out to Storm. Come to me, she whispered.

  Storm howled into the night sky and the thundering of paws echoed from the western streets of the village. Alice strode to the shelter of the festival tree and in seconds Storm was at her side, with a pack of eight tough-looking wolves behind her.

  Why did you leave the tower? asked Storm. She was breathing heavily.

  I need the demons close to me, all together, Alice said. It’s the only way.

  Storm snorted, turning to the wolf pack, who formed a ring around them.

  Something moved on a nearby rooftop. Alice glanced up and saw a demon leap back into the shadows. They were cautious, but they would come. They would come for Alice because they needed her gone.

  She looked around at her protectors, their ears taut and hackles raised for the fight. They were strong and fast, but against Narlaw they were not enough. She would need time to focus her senses on the demons when they came. She needed more people.

  “Defenders!” she cried out. “Defenders, come to me!”

  Her voice flew on the wind, vanishing down the narrow, fortified streets.

  “Fall back to the square!” she cried.

  Now her cry was echoed by others.

  “Fall back!”

  “Back to the square!”

  A door creaked open on the edge of the square and a woman darted out. It was Elder Byrne, brandishing an ancient, rusty-looking sword. The wolves parted so she could join Alice and Storm within the circle.

  “They’re everywhere,” said the elder, breathless and barely in control of her fear. “We can’t defend against this many.”

  “We have one chance,” said Alice. “If we can bring them to us, keep them in one place for long enough, I may be able to banish them. That’s all I can think of. It’s the only way.”

  A weary group of defenders emerged from a side street and ran to join them, carrying their lanterns, torches and makeshift weapons. Something bolted across the edge of the square and crashed through a door.

  A demon, too quick to see.

  They were coming.

  The last to join them beneath the tree was Owen. He appeared suddenly from behind an upturned cart and jogged to meet Alice at the centre of this strange band of wolves and villagers.

  “I reset the trap,” he panted. “But they know to avoid it now.”

  “They’re avoiding me, too,” said Alice. “But they will come. They have to.”

  Owen nodded, peering up at the jagged rooftops of the cottages.

  A pair of human forms flitted across with inhuman speed.

  “There are more than we thought,” said Owen.

  Alice nodded. She could feel them drawing near, making ready to attack and to place her in the ghost-sleep as they had Moraine. With both Whisperers gone, these creatures would spread unhindered through the forest, overrunning village after village and ushering more and more of their destructive kind into Meridina. She wished, again, that a battalion of guards, armed to the teeth, would gallop into Catchwood right then and fight the demons off.

  But wishing was no use.

  A slate slid from a nearby rooftop and shattered on the ground. The Narlaw were coming. Alice closed her eyes, with the band of defenders spread around her, and made ready for her final test.

  The first attack was brutal and short. Three Nar
law came together, knocking one man unconscious and badly injuring a grizzled, grey wolf before Alice could turn her Whisperer sense on them. When she managed to, they leaped away like giant insects and then vanished.

  The villagers dragged the unconscious man into the centre of the group and propped him up against the tree’s vast trunk. He was breathing. He would survive. The injured wolf limped on, ready for the next attack.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  The Narlaw swarmed from the streets and alleys, furtively at first and then with a brazen confidence, as if they knew Alice had no chance of banishing so many at once. As the group of defenders tensed, preparing to fight, Alice felt the cold, otherworldliness of the demons creep into her mind, their desire for destruction focused on her. Their grey eyes glowed with malignance.

  She did her best to stand tall beside Storm, Owen and the others. Even if they were all sent into the ghost-sleep right there, even if the village was taken, then they would have tried; they would have fought against the demons together.

  That was something at least.

  The Narlaw struck. They came from all angles, closing on the group beneath the swaying boughs of the festival tree. The demons dodged and swerved, preventing Alice from grasping them.

  And then she saw Moraine.

  Her heart lurched. Of course it was not Moraine, but her likeness. Still, Alice felt suddenly and desperately ill. The true Moraine would be hidden somewhere – hungry, cold and weak. And the hunters much worse.

  Beside her Owen cried out for his father, whose face would also be here, twisted into evil. But she knew that Owen understood too. The only way to save their loved ones was to banish these creatures. Right here. Right now.

  So Alice closed her eyes and cast her Whisperer sense across the square.

  The Narlaw slipped away from her like phantoms. She tried to embrace them, all at once, then just one at a time, but it was impossible. It took all her effort not to flinch away from the cruelty and destruction that they radiated. With her eyes closed, she witnessed the next attack with her senses. The wolves and villagers shone with fear and determination as they desperately fought the demons off. Their cries seemed distant even though they were only paces away. The demons leaped and struck out at the defenders. The defenders swung their torches, making the demons recoil. A lone Narlaw broke through the circle and Alice retreated, back towards the great tree. Storm and Elder Byrne intercepted the demon and the fight was vicious and swift. Alice tried to hold the Narlaw in her mind, to banish it as she had done the one in Owen’s trap. But the creature fled, leaving Storm panting and Elder Byrne near to collapse beside her.

  Several of the villagers were lying still on the ground. The Narlaw came in waves, synchronized and distracting. Alice tried with everything she had to hold them to her, to make them a part of her embrace of the village square and everything else within it.

  Then a demon presence was on her, dropping down from the festival tree. She opened her eyes and cried out. Storm spun around and came rushing towards them, but the demon was faster. It struck Alice in the jaw and she felt herself leave the ground, then land, all the air rushing from her lungs. The Narlaw stood over her. Alice blinked her vision into focus and gasped into Moraine’s face, grey-lit and horribly intense. The Narlaw lowered a hand towards Alice’s forehead. Alice tried to scramble back, but the fall had sapped away her energy.

  She cast her senses wide. One last try. The Narlaw overshadowed everything. Where was Storm? Where was everyone?

  Then there was another presence. Something huge and old.

  She knew it somehow.

  The Narlaw’s cold hand touched her head and Alice squirmed away. She collided with something, the tree perhaps, she couldn’t tell. But there was nowhere left to go.

  She waited for the ghost-sleep, still trying desperately to snare this one Narlaw, to hand it to the earth for banishment. But she couldn’t hold it. She coiled into herself in absolute fear.

  Then came a roar like nothing she had ever heard.

  The demon flinched away and Alice opened her eyes. It was the presence, the ancient, hulking presence from Soraya’s cave. She saw its thick limbs swing and the Moraine-demon crumpled to the floor. It roared, a jaw full of teeth that glinted in the moonlight.

  A bear. It was the first Alice had ever seen, so few were there in the great forest. It reared on to its hind legs, twice the height of a man, and roared into the night. Then it turned on the attacking group of Narlaw, fearless and more powerful than any other beast of the forest. More powerful than a Narlaw, even.

  Alice struggled to her feet and suddenly Storm was at her side.

  She sent it, Storm said. Soraya sent her companion.

  For an instant Alice wondered what this might mean for Soraya, but only for an instant. The battle consumed her once again.

  The Narlaw had backed away in confusion, pausing their chaotic attack.

  Now, Alice whispered.

  It had to be now.

  She summoned every scrap of energy and concentration, opened herself completely to the chill night air and the rutted earth beneath her feet. This was it. She cast out with her senses. Everything there was became a part of her. The tree, the houses and the wind. The wolves and villagers. The Narlaw and the bear.

  The demons fell on the bear all at once and Alice felt the beast’s fury as it fought for its life. She brought its fearsome presence close and the Narlaw came with it, their wild movements now contained. For a moment, to the Narlaw, she was forgotten.

  And a moment was all she needed.

  The Narlaw sickness welled up in her, but the earth was there too, rushing through her mind and body. She felt as tall as the festival tree, as great and powerful as the forest itself. The earth sang in her heart and it burned with fury at the demons in its midst. In a single, obliterating moment the demons were torn away. Alice felt it like a cleansing of her soul. And then the earth trance rushed away and she fell.

  She looked up, dazed, into Storm’s golden eyes. Storm’s muzzle was bleeding and she was panting hard.

  You did it, Storm said. They’re gone. All of them.

  Alice smiled, too exhausted to speak. Her head felt empty and weak and the relieved laughter of the villagers came to her as if from a great distance. Where the Narlaw had stood lay only ashy shadows on the earth, stains from their violent departure back to the Darklands. Alice watched as a man she knew as the village butcher rose up slowly from the ghost-sleep he had been thrown into just moments before. He was bruised and dirty from the fight. Blood had trickled and dried on his face. The whole square was stunned into silence as this tall, white-haired man looked about him at the remains of the demons. He had tears in his eyes.

  CHAPTER 14

  The infirmary was deathly quiet. Ebony swooped in ahead of Dawn and perched at the foot of Yusuf’s bed. The real Yusuf.

  Lady Tremaine was already there, flanked by a pair of the king’s guards. She turned her icy gaze on Dawn as she entered.

  “So you have returned,” the warden sneered. “After disobeying the king for a second time I thought you would have fled the city. It would have been a wiser course of action.” She turned to the guard at her right side. “Take this girl into custody. But find her a cell in the prison wing this time.”

  Ebony cawed and spread her wings wide as the guard stepped forwards.

  Dawn stood her ground. “You may wish to know why I arranged this meeting before locking me away,” she said.

  She met the warden’s gaze head-on, battling the exhaustion that she felt inside. The warden said nothing, but the guard paused.

  “Captain,” Dawn called out. “Would you bring the prisoner, please?”

  The warden’s eyes narrowed as she looked to the doorway. Valderin entered and behind him came four of his palace guards. The demon that they carried was still locked in its final lunge, limbs outstretched and a monstrous fury on its face – the face of Yusuf.

  The warden gasped and
her guards drew their swords.

  “The Narlaw spy,” said Dawn. “This creature sabotaged the viaduct and sank Princess Ona’s friend into his present state. Don’t fret.” She smiled. “I have the demon contained in a protective ward.”

  Valderin and the guards withdrew, carrying the demon.

  “But … I don’t…” the warden muttered.

  “I am the Palace Whisperer,” said Dawn. “It is my task to protect this land from the threat of the Narlaw and that is what I have done. You can order me to the dungeon if you wish, but I shan’t be going. I have work to do.”

  The warden stared, dumbstruck. She did nothing as Dawn turned her back and left.

  In the corridor outside Ebony flapped on to Dawn’s shoulder. Satisfying? she asked.

  You could say that, whispered Dawn.

  She strode along the infirmary corridor. With one task complete, it was now time to rescue Yusuf from his ghost-sleep.

  Seeing the warden squirm had been a welcome consequence of clearing the young man’s name, but the victory was tempered with uncertainty. Dawn had a demon to banish, a war council to organize, and somehow she had to find out exactly what the Narlaw were planning. It was no random act, this spy infiltrating the palace. The demon had carried out an act of sabotage, but what Dawn feared most was that it had seen how vulnerable the kingdom was – how ineffectual the king had become and how Princess Ona was utterly unprepared to rule in his place. If the shape-shifter had communicated with others of its kind then they would waste no time in sending their hordes across from the Darklands. They had already attacked in the north. Where would be next? And how long did they have? There were so many questions that Dawn simply could not answer.

  Up ahead Valderin and his guards reached their destination, leaving the corridor through a wide doorway. Dawn and Ebony entered behind them. The room was square, with faded white walls and a surgeon’s table in the centre.

  The guards placed the frozen Narlaw on the table. It lay, stiff and horrifying, in its posture of attack. Dawn stepped up, ready to remove its presence from the kingdom.

  This was her first banishment, but she knew she had the power she needed. She had trained long and hard for this day under Esther, the most learned Whisperer of all.