THE LAMP OF THE MOON BURNED WHITE THROUGH THE branches. Stark shadows carved across the pools of light leading them on as they raced through the trees.
‘Thank the gods it’s not a dark night. We’d be dead by now,’ Solinus croaked. He was scowling, sweat running along the lines of the scar that quartered his face. Though he looked as vinegar-sour as always, Bellicus could sense the fear washing off him. And who could blame him?
Behind them, howls tore through the night, whipping up into a frenzy.
Bellicus felt his stomach knot. That chilling sound, so familiar from their long nights in the Wilds. The wolf pack sensed their prey was almost in their grasp. They were exhorting their brothers to run faster, driving their meal on to exhaustion. The music of that baying, soaring up then clashing, would wring terror from even the bravest heart, and in that dread mistakes would be made. Wrong paths would be taken. The prey would stumble, or dash wildly into a place from which there could be no escape.
They mustn’t make that mistake.
Bellicus threw himself on, leading the way along the narrow trail through the forest. Feet pounded behind him. The others were still keeping pace. That was good. There was no room for even the slightest error, because he knew too well that the wolves were faster, their stamina greater. They would never simply give up the hunt.
His nostrils wrinkled and he smelled brine on the breeze. Had they been driven so far off course that they were near the southern coast? His legs burned. He felt as though he’d been running for ever. Hours now since the wolves had first picked up their scent and decided they would make a good feast.
But they were brothers. That’s what he couldn’t understand. And he knew all the other Grim Wolves were thinking the same. Never had any wolf threatened them before. Not since the night of their ritual, when they had stalked and killed an old wolf, the king of a pack, and earned their place as arcani.
‘The gods have abandoned us,’ Comitinus moaned at his back. ‘There can be no other explanation.’
‘You know what would solve this problem?’ Solinus snarled. ‘If I punched you in your face and threw you back there. We four could get away while they feasted on you. What say you?’
‘Silence, both of you,’ Bellicus roared.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if they can smell Comitinus’ fear,’ Solinus grunted, demanding the last word as always.
Bellicus thundered to a halt, snatching at a branch to prevent himself from plunging over the edge into an abyss. He sucked a mouthful of air into his searing lungs and peered down. As his eyes searched the dark, which was punctured here and there by silver moonbeams, he sensed the lie of the land. A valley side, so steep at the top it was almost sheer. The earth had fallen away in places and the trees punched up in a jumble of angles, some half slipped, their roots straining. A treacherous route. But they had no choice.
‘I’ll go first,’ he said. He felt a hand grasp his arm and looked round into the face of Lucanus.
‘Take care. One wrong foot and you’ll break your neck.’
‘No great loss,’ Solinus muttered. ‘Just don’t break anything valuable.’
Bellicus glanced back through that black-and-white world. He couldn’t see the pack yet – and thank the gods for that; if he could the end would be near – but those yowls were ringing out even louder now. To the left, to the right, directly ahead. Already preparing to circle. Under the baying, he heard a whisper and realized it was Mato muttering a prayer.
‘Why do you do that? The gods have abandoned us!’ Comitinus said.
Bellicus cuffed Comitinus round the ear. It felt good. A small reward after the hours of running. He spun on his heel and threw himself over the edge.
For a moment, he felt as if he was floating in a great black ocean, and then his feet struck loose soil. Down he skidded, his arms flailing to keep his balance.
Faster and faster he slid as the ground rushed away under him, building up speed until he felt his legs begin to run in his desperate search for equilibrium. An instant later, he was careering madly, each step carrying him yards. He felt weightless. Silhouettes blurred by. Leaves lashed his face. Branches ripped his skin. His shoulder slammed into a listing tree and he bounced to one side. And then he was spinning, even more out of control. His feet swept up from the earth, and up, and he was turning over.
He crashed on to his back, the force so great he bounced and turned again, and he remembered Lucanus’ warning about breaking his neck, but it was in the lap of the gods now. And that was all his wits allowed him before he was spinning and crashing and rolling, smashing into trunks, rattling away. Lances of pain seared through him. His temple cracked against a rock and he was done.
Blinking, Bellicus swam up from the dark to feel the damp turf under his back and his head ringing. He heaved himself upright. Fire burned in every joint, in every bone. But he was alive.
For now.
Lucanus, Solinus and Comitinus were picking themselves out of the bracken and the long grass. Mato was leaning against an elm, binding a cloth around a gash on his arm.
‘Where are those pale-skinned Attacotti bastards when you actually need them?’ Solinus spat.
‘Wolves are too great a threat even for them,’ Comitinus said, offering a hand to haul his friend to his feet.
Peering up the valley side, Bellicus glimpsed movement along the ridge. The wolves were ranging back and forth. For a moment, the world seemed to hang. Then over the top they bounded.
‘Run!’ he roared.
He watched his brothers jerk into life at his bellow, and then they were all racing along the valley floor. The trees there were not so tightly clustered. Ahead, brilliant shafts of moonlight punched through the canopy, shimmering beacons drawing them on through a sea of waving fronds. Bellicus thought he could hear the crashing of waves.
‘Why are they hunting us? Why?’ Comitinus choked back a sob. ‘They can’t be ravenous this time of year. There’s easier prey.’
Their life-candle was close to guttering. Bellicus sensed movement along the valley side to his left. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed sinuous shadows loping through the moonbeams, amber eyes gleaming and fur glowing silver. The pack was silent now, as they always were when the hunt’s end was near. Though he didn’t dare look back, he imagined the rest of the wolves pounding closer behind him, another set breaking off to sweep round to their right.
And then they’d come together as one, and the rending and tearing would begin.
Out of the trees they crashed. Bellicus blinked, almost blinded by the broad moonlit vista after the claustrophobic dark of the forest. They were racing across a windswept headland, the grass silver under the full moon hanging amid a river of stars in the sable sky. A white road ran across the black surface of the heaving ocean. Bellicus could hear the booming of the waves breaking on the rocks somewhere below.
‘Bollocks,’ Solinus said.
Bellicus felt the other man’s dismay. The headland was a spur pushing out into the sea from the treeline and they were trapped on it, with no way to escape to the left or the right. The oaks and elms edged dizzying cliffs.
His thoughts whirled back to the island of the Attacotti, and for a moment he hoped the gods would present them with some hidden tunnel once again so they could crawl to safety. It was a futile thought, he knew. There was only the grass and the dizzying drop.
He glanced back and watched the wolves emerge from the trees. They slowed as they came into the open, lowering their heads, cautious even then, for there was nothing more dangerous than cornered prey. But he’d seen the great packs hunt before, in the far north, and he knew even swords would only delay the inevitable for a short while.
But they would fight to the last. That was what it meant to be a Grim Wolf.
Solinus snatched out his sword as if the same thoughts were burning in his head, and then they were running together to the last of the grass.
‘Stay.’
Nearing the edge, Bellicus jerked at Lucanus’ barked order. ‘We can’t—’
‘Stay.’ Softer this time. He felt a hand on his shoulder, turning him back to face his brothers. Then Lucanus was fumbling at his wolf-pelt.
‘What is it?’
‘Blood.’ Lucanus yanked up the pelt to show the brown stain to the others. He scraped his finger on the patch and examined the smear on his skin. ‘Still wet.’
And then the other Grim Wolves were dragging up their own pelts as the pack prowled closer. All of them were marked with blood along the lower edge. It had leaked down on their leggings.
‘This is why the pack was hunting us,’ Comitinus exclaimed.
‘Who could have done this?’ Bellicus snapped. He was looking past his huddling brothers to where the hunters were circling, slow and steady.
‘Someone who wanted to prevent us reaching our prize,’ Lucanus said.
‘But who didn’t want to face our swords,’ Mato added. ‘While we slept.’
And they’d slept the sleep of the dead after the exhaustion of their trek and the misery of Apullius’ death, Bellicus thought.
‘Might have been good to find that out a few hours ago,’ Solinus said.
But they would never have seen those stains in the dark of the forest. ‘I should have smelled it,’ Bellicus said.
Lucanus clapped a hand on his arm. A tight smile that told him not to berate himself.
The Grim Wolves turned to face their fate.
Lucanus held the eyes of the leader of the pack. It was huge, far bigger than those that came to a halt around it, and a streak of silver ran along its back. The amber eyes stared, and Lucanus stared back, and Bellicus thought that some silent communication was flashing between them.
Then the majestic creature stepped forward, drawing itself on to its haunches, ready to leap. It was as if a dam had broken. The rest of the pack surged.
‘Jump,’ Lucanus ordered, thrusting Bellicus towards the edge.
‘Are you mad?’
‘Jump, and put your faith in the gods!’
A curse rang out from Solinus and then he was running towards the edge. Bellicus watched the others race past him before he too threw himself forward, hearing the thunder of the pack at his back. Torn apart by fangs, dashed to bits on the rocks or drowned? What kind of choice was that for a man?
One by one his friends vanished over the edge. He sensed the great wolf-king snapping at his heels and for a moment he feared he was going to fall to it. But then the ground disappeared beneath his feet, and he was plunging down, the salty air ripping at his hair and beard, the roaring of the waves engulfing him.
Death rushed up to greet him.