Free The Sight by David Clement-Davies Page B

in single file and the air had grown strangely still as the mist furled about them.  On the wolf pack went.  Huttser was peering into the gloom when the lightning flashed again.  There, on a ledge above him, stood Morgra.
    She was holding a bleeding rabbit in her mouth and the moon was behind the old she-wolf, breaking through the and shimmer as the mist clung like smoke around her head.  The she-wolf looked larger than when he had first met her and her eyes glittered savagely.
    ‘Morgra,’ snarled Huttser.
    Kipcha put Fell down in the mud, nudging the cub behind her towards Khaz.  Fell blinked up in horror at the strange she-wolf as Khaz put down Larka and stood towering over the children.  Skop was trailing behind and as he put Kar down the young wolf tried to crawl under his legs.  Fell and Larka were standing side by side now.
    In the sky the storm was above them, yet beyond the edges of the cloud the night was still perfectly clear, glittering with starlight, and it seemed for a moment that the heavens had been split in two.  They felt the first spatterings of rain on their muzzles and then, the thunder closing around them, the downpour began.  Soon the wolf pack was drenched in the deluge and great streaks of livid blue lightning flashed in the sky.
    ‘I have come again, Huttser,’ cried Morgra, dropping the rabbit, ‘as I promised I would.  I always keep my word.  Where are you going with the little ones?’
    Morgra’s voice was full of cunning as it rang out above them and Huttser gave a dangerous growl.
     ‘Trying to hide them from me perhaps?’ snorted Morgra, smiling at the threat.  ‘It’s impossible, Huttser.  I wield the powers of the Sight.’
    ‘We are not trying to hide,’ lied Huttser angrily.  ‘The humans have been hunting and their dogs uncovered our den.’
    ‘Then let me help you.  Against the humans and against the many dangers that face a pack in the wild.  For I know much of Man.  We shall be allies, you and I, and as an honoured member of your pack your poor, barren sister shall give you Wolfbane’s protection and aid you to survive.’
    Huttser’s eyes narrowed in disgust.  He looked over to Palla, who had come up next to him, but he could see that she was confused by her sister’s presence and he turned back to Morgra.
    ‘You would help us against Man?’ he cried scornfully.  ‘Yet you rouse their wrath by creeping through the night to steal their cubs.  Where is it now, Morgra? Or are its little bones already whitening the earth to feed the crows?’
    As soon as Huttser said it, Morgra’s angry eyes fixed on Palla.
    ‘What is he saying, sister?’ she snarled.
    ‘You deny you are a cub killer,’ answered Palla coldly.
    ‘Are you also denying that you stole it? A human child?’
    ‘A human child?’ gasped Morgra.  ‘When did this happen?’ There was something in the she-wolf’s surprise, some ring of startled truth, that made Huttser wonder.
    ‘Tsarr,’ whispered Morgra suddenly, lifting her head to the skies.  ‘That old fool Tsarr.  But he found it sooner than I had imagined.  The Marked One.  It is the ancient verse.  It is the legend of the Sight.’
    The rain was stinging Morgra’s eyes and the storm seemed to have reached a fever pitch as rolls of thunder crashed against the clouds.  Morgra broke from her thoughts.
    ‘Well, then,’ she whispered coldly, the rain whipping off her muzzle, ‘you have more need of me than you think, for dark forces are at work, Palla.  Forces none of you can understand.’
    ‘We don’t need your aid, Morgra,’ cried Huttser.  ‘We can deal with Man on our own.  We just ask you to leave the pack in peace.’
    ‘Peace? And when Wolfbane comes again, Huttser, when the Evil One returns to summon the dead?’ Bran shivered.
    ‘What is she talking about?’ growled Palla.  Huttser snarled.
    ‘These are stories to frighten cubs,’ he cried, ‘and my cubs have been frightened