The moonlight flooded the forest in silver light.
The wolf prowled through the darkness. The was a strange smell in the air. It was food, but not quite. Something was wrong with the smell.
The wolf followed it’s nose. Deep in to the forest.
Up ahead something moved in the bushes. How had it got so close without the wolf knowing?
The wolf froze, it’s mouth open, siliver dripping from it. The prey was big, far bigger than he could kill on his own, but he knew the pack was here. They where all around him watching the prey.
The wolf moved forward.
The prey moved from the shadows of the tree. It’s great paws padding softly on the ground. The wolf stopped. The pack looked on as the huge prey moved slowly towards the wolf.
The prey roared at the wolf. It felt the ground shake. The pack cowered. The wolf took a single step back, but stood tall.
It understood. This was not prey. This one of the great ones.
The wolf looked it in the eye and slowly lower it’s self to the ground. The great ones had massive power, but used it wisely. The wolf would show respect, but was not going to be dominated by this great one. He had once been so close to knowing what the great ones where, if had not been for her…
The great one growled slightly. Something was happening, change was coming. The wolf had his part to play. It was not right, it was not what the wolf wanted, but the great one ordered it. He would not go against the wishes of the great ones again, however much he wanted to.
Once this was done and it was at last all over the wolf could return to the pack. He looked back at the ghostly pack, shimmering in the moonlight, one by one they faded in to the darkness. The wolf was left alone with the great bear. The bear too then faded.
The wolf was left alone.
The morning was clear cold and bright. Of course we had needed to sleep together for warmth. It was wonderful to wake up next to Natalie again. She really was back in my life. Of course at this moment my life consisted of sleeping on a stony river bank in fairytale forest with Mondreana and Furgus sleeping right along side. He and I slept on the outside while our two ladies where in the middle of this human sandwich.
Whatever my body had decided it wanted, it was not going to happen.
I hadn’t slept much anyway, Furgus and Mondreana both looked very bright and refreshed after there sleep. Natalie looked amazing as always. The fact that she hadn’t slept well made the way she looked even more incredible.
After a surprisingly good breakfast of fleshly caught and cooked fish, we set off for the ‘scared place’.
“So what is your realm like then”. Furgus asked as we plunged deeper in to the forest.
“A little like this, in places anyway. But there are a lot more people and cities and a lot less of this amazingness. Also we don’t have much magic or talking bears”.
“You have spoken to a bear! You have spoken with one of the great ones?”
“Yes, he was the first thing we spoke to after we came through here”.
“You are truly blessed. I have lived in these forests all of my life and I have heard so many stories of the great ones, but I have only ever caught sight of one of them once”. Furgus spoke with reverence. “And you have talked to the great bear”. He spoke his head, maybe at the unfairness of it all.
“So the great there is the great bear and there are other great ones as well?” Natalie asked.
“Yes there are been many great ones, the great bear, wolf, eagle. At times of great trouble or strife there are more than one, now we know there is the great bear and deer”.
“So what are they, spirits of nature given form?” This sounded like the old Natalie I knew before that night.
“Yes, maybe. No one really knows. They are the greatest of there kind and they certainly have power over the animals of the forest and the forces of nature. But they are not spirits and they can bee killed. Legend has it that hundreds of years ago the Queen killed one of great ones. I don’t want to believe it my self but that shows you what sort monster she is…oh yes you probably know that. Sorry”.
“Hundreds of years. How can the Queen be that old?” Natalie asked.
Furgus looked confused. This was not the sort of question he expected to get asked. “Oh maybe you don’t know, you don’t elves in your realm”.
Elves! We really where in a fairytale world now. Natalie shook her head. “No we don’t, apart from in our legends and stories and those might have come from this place”.
“Elves, well they say that they live forever, that time does not touch them”.
“So the wolf can never have its revenge, then?” I asked, suddenly feeling awful for the wolf. Wanting revenge like that for all of its life and never able to get it. What away to live, except the wolf was already dead.
Furgus smiled, it was the sort of smile you might give a child when you explained something which was very simple and obvious to you. “No, they can live forever. They don’t age, well the pure bloods anyway, but they can be killed. They are not as weak and frail as us people are but they can be killed”.
“What do your elves look like?” I had to know. If humans where weak a frail compared to them what where we up against.
“They look like us for the most part. Taller, finer features, lighter skin and the eyes and ears are very different. Longer, stretched. They are supposed to be very beautiful. Some say that an elven maid can drive a man insane with desire just on sight of her”.
“So you have never seen an elf?” Natalie asked.
“No, very few have. The pure bloods that is. I’ve know a good many half elves and I have worked with the grey elves. But the pure white elves. They keep them selves to them selves mostly. Very rarely leave their lands and of course it is death for a human to been seen in elven lands”.
While this place might look like a fairytale land, it was a world of its own and clear it was as complex and dangerous to outsiders as our own world was.
“So the Queen is a one of these pure bloods?” Natalie asked.
“So the stories go, but very few that have seen her live to tell the tale and she has lived long enough to be one, but I don’t really know. But you don’t know either?”
“No. I didn’t get to see much of her memories. Those that she showed me…she used them to control me. The things she did…”
We talked on in silence for a while after that.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what did the great bear say to you?” Furgus asked.
“He wanted us back home and these things out of our heads”.
Furgus’ face broke in to a board grin. “Then we have the best and most powerful ally we could hope for one this quest. Our success is assured”.
It seemed to be about midday when we stopped in a clearing with a wide but shallow stream running through it. Well I felt like it it was midday, but maybe the days where different lengths here. There was no reason they should be the same. That was a worrying through.
“This is place”. Monderana announced to us.
It just just another clearing like many we had passed through this morning, there was a stone close to the stream, which really looked like it was ancient. The clearing was in a shallow valley. Had they chosen here because of that, having the high ground was always an advantage in battle, wasn’t it.
I was thinking about battles now! What I wouldn’t do right now to not have to worry about battles, if the day length is the same and what the Queen might do. I wanted to worry about simple problems like how much I was going to go in to the red this month and how long I was going to wait in the traffic tomorrow morning. Then I realised I was doing this, so I could worry about these problems again.
“This is the scared place?” Natalie asked, she didn’t sound 100 percent convinced. This was one time when I wished that she could act with the intelligence her current blonde hair colour suggested she had.
“Yes” Mondreana’s face was totally covered with her cloak glasses and scarf and so unreable. “We come here on pilgrimages. We must come at least once in our life time. The place as great healing properties. Do you not feel it?”
We stood silent and still for a few moments. I did feel oddly calm. Was that just because I was hoping to feel that was, or maybe there was something about this place.
Natalie nodded. She felt it too.
“Good. We will be waiting here for you. You know the way to the Queen palace from here”. Natalie nodded. “That is one thing the Queen did leave in my memory, I could find the palace from anywhere in these woods”. There was no hint of doubt in Natalie’s voice, she knew. This worried me slightly, why would the Queen leave that knowledge? Could all of this be some sort of trap. But to what end, why bother trapping us like this? The feeling of calm that I had just a few moments ago was fading already.
“Good. We will wait here”. Mondreana took over from Furgus. It is not far from here, about half a days travel. I suggest that you don’t wait around close to the palace for long, so take your time getting there. Bring the Queen anyway you can back here. You will need to it within 3 days, for the great hunt happens then. I don’t think even a fragment of her and the wolf could distract her from that”.
“Right”. I nodded. The great hunt must coincide with midsummers eve. Since that was still 2 weeks away back home, that must mean something odd with time is happening between our two realms. More thoughts that it seemed where just to big to fit inside my head!
“When you get here don’t worry we will be ready, just stay out of reach of the Queen and we will do the rest”.
“You are ready then?” Furgus asked. I wasn’t sure about ready, I probably wouldn’t be ready till I’d done this at least once. But I nodded. “I am, very ready to get rid of the Queen”. Natalie said.
They provided us with enough food to make it there and back plus a blanket. We said our good byes to them and started off in the forest again.
I did now trust that Furgus and Mondreana where totally on our side and the fact that Furgus seemed to think the great bear being on our side as well made the quest a sure thing helped a lot. But I still couldn’t help but think this was total madness.
I didn’t question the direction Natalie was taking us in, but it seemed to me that we where heading deeper in to forest. We weren’t on any sort track anymore and the undergrowth was getting thicker and thicker. The trees much closer together as well. There was every so often a gnarled and ancient looking tree, but between these the space was filled with many smaller trees. These trees all looked weak a sickly, but there few leaves still gave the effect to two canopies above our heads. I knew the sun wasn’t setting yet, but it was starting to get dim down at the forest floor. The air also started to smell stale and dump. There was a definite musty smell in the air.
We carried on in silence, me trusting that Natalie knew where she was heading still. The lack of talk, made me realise that the sounds of the woods that had been constant around us ever since we had arrived, where a lot quieter now. There was less sound of birds in the canopy above us. And it seemed that there wasn’t really any animal life down on the forest floor either.
The small trees now looked deformed and their trunks where covered in odd shaped fungi. In fact pretty much everything around us either looked like some sort of fungi or was covered in it. The air was still damp and heavy, with odd smells, smells that suggested death and rot.
I realised I’d stopped walking. Natalie turned around.
“What is it?” She asked. Even the quiet sound of her voice seemed incredibly loud in strange forest of fungi.
“This place, is…wrong”. I shivered, despite the warmth. “Don’t you feel it?”
Natalie looked around. “The Queen knows this place. Its different, but maybe since the Queen knows it, I don’t feel whats wrong here”. Natalie walked back to me and grabbed me hand.
“I’m just worried, if this place isn’t…natural, then what the bear said about us being protected isn’t true anymore”.
I sighed. I knew this place was wrong and I felt we where heading in to the centre of this…wrongness. “Look I wouldn’t ask you this unless I thought is was really, really important, but can you try and remember what the Queen knows about this place? If it is something that she might have caused”. I put my hand on top of hers which was holding my other hand.
Natalie looked around and sighed deeply. “Okay, I’ll try, but just…you know watch me. If you think the Queen might be taking control…”
Natalie didn’t finish. “You are strong enough. You fought her off before you can do it again. But you wont need to, it will be okay”. I hoped that I sounded convincing, but I didn’t feel convinced my self. I just hoped that my feeling that the wrongness here was something the Queen knew about and knew how to avoid was worth the risk.
Natalie closed her eyes for a moment.
It was really eery for that moment. Not a sound, not even my breathing since I was holding my breath without realising it. With Natalie’s eyes closed, even though I was holding her hand, it felt I was alone here. Alone in this alien looking forest.
I looked around quickly. Nothing had moved or changed in the forest.
I looked back at Natalie. Her eyes opened.
Her hand squeezed my hard and there was something different in her eyes. A fire…
It was the Queen. I knew that look. I tried and pull my hand from her grip, but she had it held fast.
Then Natalie blinked and let go. I fell backwards and as I fell I saw Natalie’s legs give way and she fell to the ground as well.
I scrambled to me feet and over to Natalie.
She opened her eyes and smiled at me weakly. “You okay?”
“Sorry. It…”
“Yes I know, it was the Queen. You did well you fought her”. I hugged her as I lifted her back to her feet.
“Thank you”. She smiled sweetly. That was the Natalie I knew and loved.
For a few moments we said nothing. I didn’t want to push her in to talking about what just happened, but if we didn’t get anything from it, then we could be walking in to far greater danger. Or I could be wrong and this place could be just making me jumpy.
“You aren’t wrong about this place. The Queen knows about it. She comes here some times. To…I think gloat”. Natalie frowned. “She is connected somehow to here and yes it’s dangerous”.
“So how do we get out of here?”
Natalie looked around. She looked nervous. I didn’t think I was going to like the answer to this question.
“We can head pretty much anyway out of here, since we are almost in the centre of it”.
“Oh”. I was right I didn’t like the answer.
“So I say we head on the way we where going”.
“And that’s the quickest way out of here?”
“Not quite the quickest way out of here, but it is the quickest way to the Queens palace…and it takes us right through the centre, just over there”. Natalie pointed. “There is little depression, that’s the middle of this”.
“Are you sure about this. If Queen was involved in this somehow, I don’t think the bears protection applies any more”.
Natalie nodded. I looked very closely at her. I’m ashamed to admit I was looking to see if I could see or feel any sigh of the Queen in her. But I couldn’t. I had said that I would trust Natalie with my life, it seemed now that trust was being tested, I was not living up to my words.
“Okay then, lets go. We don’t want to be caught here standing do we”.
Just as Natalie had said there was a small did just ahead. It was large, maybe 100 meters across, but very shallow. It’s edge seemed to be marked out by several huge ancient and very deformed trees. The smaller trees that filled forest here, appeared to be all dead, they where just twisted sticks projecting out of the ground. There was a definite chill in the air.
Both of us stopped at the edge of this strange area. In the centre of it was a single large rock. The rock looked a bit like a pillar, but even from here I could tell it hadn’t be carved to this shape, this was natural stone.
“You have to feel that now”. I said quietly.
Natalie nodded. “Lets cross this place quickly”.
We held each others hands and then together stepped in the depression.
Much to my surprise and relief nothing happened. Again we had both stopped after our first step. Natalie seemed to have been expecting something to happen as well. Together we started walking again, much faster this time.
I glanced at the stone in the middle as we passed it. It somehow seemed to ooze menace. I shivered again, this time it was cold as well as the strange feeling here.
We where over half way across and nothing had happened! We where going to make it. The I heard something move in the undergrowth. I didn’t see anything change ahead of us, so I didn’t look behind. It was behind us, that was good. I hopped that what ever it was could leave the depression. Both me and Natalie quickened our pace.
Something caught my foot and stumbled and fell. I almost pulled Natalie down with me, but our hands separated.
I started to get up. I heard more sounds of movement, for all around us this time.
My foot was caught in something. I moved my hand to free it, but recoiled in horror when I saw the rotting hand of a corpse sticking out of the ground. It was this which had my foot held tightly down.
All around us hands where pushing their way to the surface and it wasn’t just hands.
I kicked at the hand with my free foot. Its fingers held tight, their nails cutting in to my skin.
I looked to Natalie. Two hands and a torso where emerging from the ground behind her. She grabbed my arm and started to pull it.
“Behind you” I shouted.
She turned, just as the thing tired to grab her. She kicked at it’s half exposed chest. Her foot knocked off a large chunk of it with a sicking wet sound. But the thing didn’t stop moving.
Natalie grabbed me again and pulled. The hand came free of the ground, but it was still attached to my foot.
We both fell to the ground, I landed on top of Natalie. As so as I feel I felt more hands grabbing for me. I stumbled up, dragging Natalie with me.
Two of the awful corpses where now fully free of the ground and where lumbering towards us. Around us there was a rapidly forming sea of hands and torsos crawling out of the ground.
“Come…” Something grabbed me from behind and pulled me away from Natalie. “Dave!” She called out.
There where three hideous, rotting hands now holding my arms. An arm warped its self around my waist.
I could feel the cold, damp mass of one these things touching my back. I tried to twist out of it’s hold, but another hand had my leg now.
I heard Natalie scream. I threw my left arm back wildly. It hit something cold and wet. One of the hands holding me let go.
I twisted around quickly, throwing the one behind me way. I kicked it as it rolled away.
Natalie was being held 3 three of the things. I ran towards her, forgetting the hand holding my foot. Again I fell. The thing I had kicked now grabbed my arm as I tired to get up. It held me fast. As my other arm tried to find something to hold on it, it fell on something cool and hard. A branch. I pulled hard on it.
It wasn’t attached. But it was a weapon.
Again I heard Natalie scream. “Natalie!” I shouted.
I swung the branch wildly. Twice it hit something with wet thud. I kicked and punched like I wild man at the thing on the ground with me. I stumbled to me feet and pounded the hand in the ground holding me with the branch.
There where 5 more of the things advancing on me, but I focused on the others in the distance. Natalie cried out again.
I ran, swinging the branch at anything that got in my way.
I saw Natalie pull away from a crowd of the things. She screamed, but this was in anger, not fear. I saw two of the things lumber up behind her and grab her from behind. I screamed as I ran towards them.
The things and Natalie fell backwards and landed by the stone. Two more fell on top of her. Again I heard her scream, this time in terror.
I swung at the two on Natalie, bit’s of them when flying.
Natalie was being held face down by the other two, she was sobbing and trying to lift her head from the earth of the forest floor. I grabbed one of the things and yanked it’s arm. A the arm came off with a large chunk of its torso.
Natalie had give up. Her head was being pushed in the soft ground by the other thing. I could hear move of them behind me.
I used the branch to push the thing away. It punched right through the thing thing with a wet thud. Its hand on Natalie’s head wen’t limp.
I pulled her up. “Come on”.
She took a deep sobbing breath and coughed out a great lump of earth.
“We’er going to make it” I whispered to Natalie as I hauled her limp body up. I wasn’t really sure of that, but I was going to make sure that if I died here it would be protecting Natalie.
I turned and ran, knocking one of the things out of my way. A head where two more. They fell away before I even touched them. I saw others fall to the ground. I slowed and stopped.
All around us the things where falling to the ground and devolving to pools black slime.
Natalie cuaghed again, but she was back with me. Her legs took the weight of her body. We both looked around at the awful spectacle.
There was a wind now, blowing at our backs, it was quickly getting stronger. We both turned to face it. It seemed to be coming from the stone. It was reaching near gale force now. Natalie stumbled in it and I grabbed hold of her.
After a few seconds the wind died, just as suddenly as it had started.
For a few moments there was no sound of any kind. Total silence filled the world. Then slowly in the distance, I could here the normal sounds of the woods, wind in the leaves and birds in the tree tops start to return.
I turned to Natalie with a smile. Whatever had happened, the feeling of wrongness had gone. Natalie’s face was dirty and streaked with tears. She looked exhausted.
I when to hug her. “It’s over”. I said.
She pushed me away. “Lets get out of here”. Her tone was hard and left no room for argument.
She turned and ran off. I picked up the branch and ran after her.
Well walked on in silence again.
At least the forest around us seemed to be looking more and more ‘normal’. The trees looked healthy, still ancient and gnarled, but at least normal. And the sounds you would expect from woodlands surrounded us once again. I never saw any wildlife, that all kept out of our way. All I caught was glimpses of things running away and of bushes moving. This must have been the work of the great bear.
I was still really worried about Natalie. She had not said a word to me since we had left, that ‘haunted’ part of the woods. The the whole situation reminded me to much of that long drive home from the woods where this all started 3 years ago. Somehow it felt like it was all my fault.
I wanted to talk to Natalie about what had happened, but it seemed that she wasn’t ready for that and I didn’t want to push her. She had already been through so much and she was still going. Once again I felt huge pride at the way she took all of this weirdness and just kept on going. She was truly the most amazing lady, no the most amazing person I knew.
The light was beginning to fade, but it didn’t fell like it was that late in the day to me, yes I was tired, but that was just from the fact that I had been walking all day. Maybe the days here where shorter. Natalie’s pace had slowed to. It was time to stop.
I caught up with with her. “We must have covered quite a bit today. Time to stop?”
She looked at me. Her eyes where intense, focused and for the first few moments seemed look right through me. She also looked utterly exhausted. Natalie blinked and then actually looked at me as if she now saw I was there.
“Err…yes. We aren’t that far from the place now. But far enough away to be safe for tonight”.
As she stopped, she looked decidedly unsteady. Her legs where shaking. She started to fall but I caught her.
“Sorry”.
“Its okay I’ve got you”. I lowered her to the ground and put her back up against a tree trunk.
“I guess I’ve been pushing a bit hard today. I just wanted to get away from that place”.
“That’s okay, so did I. Not that I’m saying it was worse for…oh sorry”. I didn’t know what to say to her again. I wanted to be able to help her. I wanted to know the exact right thing to say to make it all okay again, but I didn’t know what that thing was, or if even there was a right thing to say here. I felt so helpless.
Natalie smiled at me weakly. She was okay. I sat down by her.
“I don’t really know what happened back there, but the Queen was responsible for it, I know that” Natalie’s eyes filled with tears.
“You don’t have to talk about this”. I told her as I put my arm around her.
“Yes I do. They would have killed you as well back there”. She wiped her eyes. Her face was still streaked with mud and sweat, but she still looked incredible to me. “But this is good things I’ve got to tell you. Whatever it was there that the Queen had done, I was able to undo it. I guess because maybe I’ve got some of the Queen in me. And I used that to do some good”. Natalie smiled a truly blissful smile. “Something good has come out of this. Like I used to believe, ying and yang, inseperblely linked. Good and evil, night and day”. She hugged me back.
We sat there for a long time, just enjoying the quiet and being close once again.
After a while I noticed a distinct chill in the air. I looked up through the canopy to the sky, it was getting dark very quickly, but this wasn’t a sunset. Dark, angry looking clouds where gathering. I as looked up a deep rumble of thunder filled the air.
We both jumped. “Where do we take cover from a storm in a forest?” I asked Natalie.
“No with our backs against a tree”. I helped Natalie up, she still seemed to be very weak and I could feel her legs trembling beneath her. Another much louder rumble of thunder seemed to shake the forest around us. It was getting dark very quickly now and the forest was almost in twilight by this point.
“Where now?” I asked. The wind seemed to be picking up too.
“I don’t know. Maybe this is one of the things that the bear will protect us from”. Natalie said hopefully.
As she said this the twilight forest around us was lit for a fraction of a second by intense white light.
I opened my mouth to say something when we where pummelled by a sharp crack of thunder. The force of this sound made both of us stumble.
“Not something I’d like to bet my life on”. Natalie nodded.
“We need to get down low” I said over the sound of the wind. And in the distance I could hear the hissing sound of rain moving towards us.
“There”. Natalie pointed to a shallow depression that seemed have been caused by a huge tree stump being pulled out of the ground sometime in the distant pass.
The rain hit. Even with the cover of leaves above us, the rain was hard and cold. “What about flash flooding?” I said.
Again the forest around us was lit twice by the white light of lightning. In those brief flashes I was sure that I saw ghostly shapes in the forest around us.
Again the thunder hit as if it where a physical object. Without say another word we both dashed for the depression.
The rain now hammered down. Lightning flickered once, twice a third time. This time in the light of those flashes I know I saw something. Ghostly outlined shapes running through the forest. The thunder roared around us. We both held each other tightly.
More lighting. More shapes, glowing outlines darting through the forest. There where the outlines of animals. All running through the forest in the same direction. Heading towards where we had come from.
The thunder roared again, but not it wasn’t thunder, well not all of it there was a roar there to. A sound laid over the top of the thunder, louder that it.
I stood up and looked in the direction the animas where running. Again the forest lit up with lightning. It was all directed at a point in the distance. That was where the animals where heading towards and where we had come from. The Haunted Forest!
“Get down!” Natalie pleaded with me.
“No it’s okay, we safe, look”. I pointed to the distance. From every part of the forest around us, small and large glowing outlines of animals ran heading in to the glowing distance. The thunder roared again. This was no thunder, but just a roar. It came from behind us. We both turned around very slowly to see the glowing outline of a huge bear standing on the fallen trunk that had created the depression we now stood in.
The bear roared again, the thunder rumbled in ripely. The bear ran and jumped for us.
We both dunked down.
Nothing happened. We both slow looked back up. The bear was running with the rest of the animals.
The lightning flash, the thunder rumbled and the rain pelted us with cold, hard drops of water, but we where both knew we where safe.
The storm didn’t last for long after the bear headed for the Haunted Forest. The ghostly animals had stopped then too.
After the storm we where both soaked to skin and cold, but somehow things felt better. Like the storm had cleaned us of something. As the clouds cleared the colours of a spectacular sunset broke through.
It was time to stop for the day. We broke out the food that Furgus and Mondreana had given us.
“We’ve made it this far, we must be doing something right”. I said, suddenly feeling that we might be actually able to complete this crazy quest we had set out on.
“Mmm, maybe you missed your calling and you should have become a heroic warrior”. Natalie said with a smile.
“Well it probably pays about as well as I what I was doing before but if I get to go on adventures with my beautiful sorceress companion it would make it worth it. Or maybe you would be a Druid priestess. You would certainly look good in those ceremonial robes or anything in fact”.
Natalie smiled sweetly at me. “Thank you. And the leather armour look would work for you”.
“I’m sure Furgus carries it off better”.
Natalie pulled me in close and kissed me. “Don’t worry I was only looking. I’m not going to replace you for a newer sportier model”.
I awoke the next morning, feeling cold and like I’d slept on a bed of stones. That wasn’t so far from the truth. Only the warm mass of Natalie’s body next to mine gave me some comfort.
I could hear a strange snorting sound very close to me. I opened my eyes and moved my head slowly. Something was routing around in the up turned tree stump we sheltered by. It looked a bit like a big, but it seemed to have a long thick tail. It didn’t look dangerous, but even with the bears assurance that nothing of the woodland would harm us, I moved slowly. “Natalie”. I whispered in her ear.
The animals head shot up, revealing a long snout with an even longer tongue sticking out and large rabbit like years. The animal looked at us very wearly as it slowly backed away. Natalie opened her eyes.
“Hello boy”. She said reaching out to stroke the thing. It turned and run.
“Oh well”. Natalie said stretching.
“What was that?”
“Well it looked to me an awful lot like an Aardvark, but it couldn’t be, they live on the african savanna on Earth. Maybe here it’s different”.
I shook my head. “Not been awake for more than 1 minute and we’er already talking about the differences between here and home”.
“I know. We are really crazy aren’t we”.
“Totally”. I nodded
“But we are ready to find the Queen today?”
“I am, but are you?” I put my hand on her shoulder.
“Oh yes. After what I’ve been through in the last few days, there is nothing that she could do that would be any worse. If she wants a fight, she’s got one here”.
Once again I was totally amazed with Natalie, she was still holding up after all this and now ready to fight the Queen. I hoped that I would be able to cope with what might happen as well as Natalie.
We continued on in to the forest. Natalie still knew exactly where she was going. I didn’t doubt that anymore, what I was unsure about now, was what we did when we got there. We where just over a days walk from the clearing. The chase wouldn’t last that long. They had been mounted before, I knew that, the wolves memories told me that much.
“So what do we do when we get there?” I asked. We needed to plan ahead for this.
Natalie stopped, her shoulders dropped visibly. This wasn’t good news, I took it to mean that she didn’t have any idea. She turned to face me.
“We won’t get there”. She said simply.
“Err, but you said you knew the route to her palace?”
“Oh yes I do, but we won’t need to get to it, she will find us”.
“What! Don’t you think I could have used that little bit of information!” I was angry now, she must have know this for…”
“She’s probably heading out for us now”. Natalie seemed calm but sad somehow.
“How do you know?” I snapped, realising it was a stupid question as soon as it had left my mouth.
“The Haunted forest, that was something to do with her, she created it, maybe by accident, maybe deliberately, but she will know something happened there. So she will have left this morning to find out. I know her”.
“Sorry”. I was acting like a kid hear I knew, but I still couldn’t figure out why Natalie didn’t tell me till now. “So why are we still heading for her palace?”
“We aren’t. We are already heading back”.
“What!” Of course Natalie knew these woods, she knew the bits that Queen knew. “So your know the route the Queen will take and what she’ll do when she sees the whats happened to the haunted bit?”
“I know the route she’ll take yes. I’m not so sure about what will happen then, so we need to be close, but no too close and I can’t take the route that she will follow”.
I nodded. I shouldn’t have worried, Natalie was smart and she had feminine cunning, not to mention knowledge of the woods.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get sharp with you there”.
Natalie smiled. I could see that she didn’t really want to hide this from me and I still wasn’t 100 sure I knew why she did, but then she wasn’t the only person hiding something. Maybe Mondreana had told Natalie something as well. I wanted to know, but there must have been a good reason why I didn’t so I would play the dumb male for a while.
“Okay lets go then”.
It was a few hours later that we stopped again. Nothing had changed in the forest to my eyes, but Natalie knew this place and I didn’t.
“What is it?” I asked quietly.
“Oh nothing we need to worry about”. She replied in her normal voice. “The haunted bit of the wood is pretty much directly behind us now”. I turned around to look, but of course I didn’t see any change. In forest once you got more that 100 or so meters away, all you could see where trees and in any case the boundary between the ‘normal’ and haunted parts hadn’t been clear and sharp, it had sort of faded in.
“How far?”
“Oh a mile or so”.
“Is that to close? I mean I don’t know how fast they will be able to go in the forest or even how far we are from the clearing”.
“We are still about half a days travel from the clearing, but I don’t know if they could ride through this lot. There is a stream up ahead which sort of cuts around to close to the clearing. Its a longer route, but riders could use it to get there quicker”.
“So your thinking go through the woods and hope that they might split up, send some down the river, the others through the forest?” I suggested.
Natalie gave me a surprised look. “Well no I wasn’t thinking that, but it sounds a good idea to me. But what do I know?”
I nodded. “I haven’t the foggiest idea either. God this is stupid. Why couldn’t Furgus have come with us? He would have known how to do this sort of stuff”.
“He wouldn’t have wanted to leave Mondreana, I’m sure”.
“Oh thats right use logic against my rant” I couldn’t help be smile at her saying this.
“The Queen would follow us in the strighest route possible, I know that”.
“So that might work then. She’ll take the direct, but maybe slower route while some of party go the long way. It will mean there are less for Frugus and Mondreana to deal with”. I leaned against a tree. “Maybe we aren’t so bad at this”.
“You okay”. Natalie put her hand on my forehead. “Yes, just a knackered. I’m not as fit as you are remember”.
“Well we are going to need some help, because I’m knackered too and they aren’t even chasing us yet”.
I nodded. “Can we rest and think for a bit?”
“We really should keep on going but…”.
“Okay then”. I pushed away from the tree. “Lead on, you know this place”.
Natalie just nodded and we walked on wards.
“Just had an idea”. She said a few moments later.
“Oh yes”.
“The wolf, could you use the wolf, to call the rest of it’s pack?”
“Err..maybe. What’s your plan?”
Natalie stopped and turned to face me. “We could use them to bring the Queen in to us from quite a distance”
Again Natalie was showing just how smart and adaptable she was. I hadn’t really got used to the idea of having a wolf inside my head and here she was using what the Queen knew about this place and coming up with ideas for my wolf. I would have never made a good fantasy hero, but Natalie would make a dam good heroine.
“Right”. How would I do that? I knew the wolf in my head, could somehow call to the pack, but could I get it to do that for me? On demand, I didn’t know. “Okay. I’ll try. But…”
“Yes I know, we’ll have to stop”. Natalie grinned back at me. She knew me all too well.
We stopped and I sat down by a tree. I closed my eyes and tried to reach in to that little space at the back of my mind where the wolf seemed to lurk. I knew it was there and it seemed to know there was something going on. It shifted, moved, no I don’t have words for what it did, but I knew something was up and it reacted to that.
I wasn’t really sure how long I’d been sitting there trying to contact the wolf, when suddenly, the wolf did more than shift.
It felt like all of sudden I was with the wolf. It was with me.
I was running through the forest. Darting past trees and over bushes. The world was very different, it was in twilight, no colours, but the smells. The wonderful smells, of prey, or the trees and plants, of the pack and the females in it. We ran past members of the pack. We called to them. They replied and ran with us.
We reached the packs place in the woods, it looked no different to any other to me, but to the wolf this was the place. It needed no more of a name than that.
The pack swarmed around us. I saw us from the pack. The eyes of the pack looking back to us as we looked at them. There was no wolf now, just the pack. A hundred minds as one, the pack smoothing out the differences, so there was just the one wolf, the pack.
There was no speach, no words. None was needed, the pack knew what was needed. The pack wasn’t happy, the Queen had done so much damage and the wolf’s desire for revenge was spread thin across all of the minds which made the pack.
The pack wasn’t going to do it! We had failed to sway them.
Then before the pack could break up and familiar smell to the pack wafted across the place. I knew the sound that followed. Huge deep, but soft foot steps.
In to this twilight world the glowing, spectral outline of the Great Bear slowly and majestically walked.
Again there where no words and I didn’t know what the bear was communicating to the pack mind. I was not part of this clearly.
The bear let out a low, long hum, which I recognised as it sighing. Was this good or bad.
The bear clearly had great power over the forest and it’s animals, but could it force the pack to do what it didn’t want. If Natalie was right and this was some manifestation of natures power, then would nature do something like force animals? Wasn’t that putting human like characteristics on to what was just a force.
The twilight world of the wolves was fading quickly around me.
Think like a wolf, I told my self. No don’t think that’s the problem, just be.
The wolves stood there looking at the bear and it looked back. I was there to, I think, but I have no idea why or how or even how long we where there.
Suddenly after a time, which could have been minutes or hours the pack suddenly broke and scattered. The bear was gone and I was back in the normal forest, sitting against a tree, with Natalie’s worried face looking down on me.
“Dave, Dave. Are you okay?”
I blinked. “Er, yes fine…I think”. I stood up, feeling slightly shaky and that my body was to big.
“Okay. Right I think the pack know what we are trying to do”.
“Good, so will they help?”
I though about what had just happened. There was no clue to that in memories at all. “Sorry I have no idea about that. The Great Bear was there as well, so…”
“They will” Natalie said with utter conviction.
“I don’t know that. How can you?”
Natalie smiled. “You just don’t have faith do you. I know the bear is helping us and I know it has a lot of power over the forest animals and we have helped remove that haunted part of the wood”. There was no room for doubt in Natalie’s voice, she believed abosultley in the Great Bear, the same way that Frugus seemed to.
“So the Great Bear owes us”.
“Does nature work that way?” I asked.
Natalie smiled and shook her head. “No your right but it still makes no difference, they will help us”.
I got up. “I hope your right”.
“I know I am”. As if to confirm Natalie’s optimism, a wolf called out in the distance.
“Okay you where right”. I told Natalie as I walked on, but she had stopped. “Natalie, are you Okay?”
She wasn’t moving at all. She just stood there standing totally still. “Natalie?”
Her gaze seemed to be fixed on a point in the distance. Her eyes didn’t move at all as I stepped in to her field of view.
More wolves called in the distance. Some from behind us others in front.
Suddenly I felt very alone. The Queen was out there somewhere, so where the wolves and we where between them.
“She’s close, very close”. Natalie suddenly whispered. I ducked down instinctively and pulled Natalie down with me.
“Did she…”.
“No. But I think she knows we are out here somewhere now. I saw through her eyes for a moment, there, she was in the haunted bit of the forest. That’s only a few miles behind us. Where are those wolves?”
As if to answer Natalie’s question, a wolf howled from close by, very close by.
It was running across our path, but it slowed and stopped. It’s hungry yellow eyes where focused on Natalie. Would this lone wolf respect the Great Bears protection of us? I wasn’t going to risk it. I stood between the wolf and Natalie. I stared at the wolf. In my mind the wolf shifted. Some message was communicated. The wolf lowered it’s head and ran off.
“We need to run now”. Natalie said suddenly. “The Queen is on the move”.
We both leapt to our feet and ran.
As I ran I tried to get an idea what the pack was doing. But running and trying to concentrate was not easy, I stumbled but managed to stay on my feet. Each time I felt the wolf move in my mind, but it’s thoughts where closed to me, it was just shifting black hole in my mind. It seemed to be moving more now that the pack was near by.
More wolves ran past us. They didn’t stop or even seem to notice us. Whatever was happening it was going on behind us.
I couldn’t hear any sound of the Queens party, but that was good. They couldn’t have been that close.
The forest seemed to be getting thicker now. Natalie wasn’t taking a straight path, I was sure of that now.
The pack had been seen by the Queen. I knew this suddenly. The wolf in my mind trashed, it’s thoughts leaking in to my own.
Kill her, kill her now. I didn’t know who it was directed at, but the wolf didn’t even try to take control.
“Almost there, about a mile or so”. Natalie shouted from up ahead. A mile! I might not make another mile. I needn’t have worried.
As we ran in to a small clearing she was there already. Directly in front of us was the Queen and her hunting party.
I knew it was the Queen, even in the wolf’s reaction to her hadn’t made it clear, Natalie’s reaction did.
The Queen sat on a magnificent white horse. She was tall wrongly proportioned for a person. It looked like she was stretched, elongated. Her face was the same, human looking and having an other worldly beauty to it, but wrong. Too Narrow and long for a human head, her huge violet eyes where beautiful, but cold and heartless.
Natalie’s run stopped dead, she stumbled and fell as she tried to run backwards from this awful beauty.
The Queen smiled and cold smile, revealing a mouth of sharp fang like teeth.
“So you are the one that has caused so much trouble…” The Queens face changed, was that a frown? “You! So my vessel has returned from the other world. That must mean…” Her eyes fell on me. “…That you still hold some of the wolf. Yes, I see that now. Well this is going to be fun”. The Queen dismounted.
Behind here, the hunting party did the same. Most of the hunting party looked similar to the Queen, they where elves, but there where a few others…That’s the only word I could use for them. They where human shaped, but they where not human or elven, they where different. And ugly.
With the Queen off her horse, I could see that she was very tall, probably 7 foot but thin and lean. Even still she looked very threatening, I could see powerful looking muscles move beneath the pale, almost white skin of her arms.
She walked towards us with an incredible fluid grace of movement which was quite beautiful. But it was wrong, it was an awful, inhuman beauty.
“So I get to kill the wolf this time. You denied me before, but this time I can take the pleasure of ending your sorry life”. Natalie stood between me and her as she drew a vicious looking sword apparently made of a shard of some sort of glass or crystal.
“Oh we have some fire here, well that will make things more fun” She looked back at her minions, they hooted and laughed with here. There where all off of there mounts now. I closed my eyes and shouted now! To the wolf in my mind. It didn’t understand the word, but it didn’t need to.
I grabbed Natalie’s arm and ran.
The Queen had longer legs, but we had ahead start. I’d hoped she was going to try and chase us on foot, this would mean that she would have to go back for the horse when we got to far away for her and that, just hopefully would be in time for the pack to arrive.
“How far” I shouted to Natalie.
“To far”.
The Queen was gaining on us. We ran up the small hill. From the top we could see there was a small valley with a little stream running through it. We ran down the valleys shallow side.
The Queen of the Hunt appeared over the top of the hill. He shape cast in silhouette, by the moon light. Behind her, as ever where her court of minions. There where at least 9 of them and if we counted the bear, I was still not sure we could count on him, just 3 of us.
“So you hide, pathetic humans. Still the hunts I’ve had with what you carry. I shall remember those and not the sad end of you wolf”. She was talking at me, but I knew she didn’t care about me at all, it was the old wolf inside of me. I still felt it there, but it seemed subdued, some how subservient to her. I had expected, maybe even hoped that it would try and take control and finish this, but it just lurked in the back of my mind, passive and silent. “And you…” The Queen looked down at Natalie, “…well as vessel for my soul, you where disappointing, no real strength or power, but you have fought me each time. Yes there is fire there, maybe you might join my court and make something of your self. Such a place is not given, but earned, maybe tonight you will earn it”.
Natalie bristled, I could tell she was not going stand here silently. “One way or another your leaving my head tonight, you bitch!” She shouted back.
“It will probably be the other. I will be free of your weak body and mind when I run you through with scaran here”. She drew her horrible looking obsidian sword. “But no, maybe that would make things to easy. I might be fun to kill you with my bare hands”. She sheathed the sword and clenched her fists, flexing her leith, muscular arms at the same time. “It makes the kill so much more real when you can feel the life ebbing from your prey”. The minions cheered there Queen.
She always talks to much. The wolf suddenly said from the back of my mind.
The Queen and her court where slowly moving down the hill towards us.
“And you…” She suddenly pointed to the top of the small rise behind us. “…You will find out just impudent you are against my power”. The great bear just stood there, a dark outline against the impossibly clear and stary sky, it’s golden eyes almost seemed to glow in the fading light.
“What no words of defiance from you old bear?”
The let out a low growl. “We will see who is impudent. By the time this night is over, powers will have been tested and those which are greatest will win out”.
“Ha, you clim prophecy. I know I will win simply because I am the strongest here and when I do, I will have dominion over the forest and all in it. Oh tonight is going to be a great night”. She threw her head back and laughed manically at the sky. Her minions joined in.
The laughing idiots suddenly infuriated me, they where not going to be laughing at me for long. I gripped the staff and shifted my weight getting ready to run.
No, not now. She wants you to strike while you are still weak! The wolf shouted in my mind. It struggled to take control of my body. I had not been expecting it so it had stopped me from running before I had realised what it was doing. But I was stronger that it, or so I thought. I tried again to move, but I was frozen to the spot.
Let me go! I shouted silently at the wolf.
Good, keep the anger we will need that. Now is not the time, but soon.
Natalie looked at me, she must have sensed something was wrong. The Queen was now just a few feet from us. Her minions had stopped a few more feet behind her.
The Queen looked at me and smiled, had she sensed it too? “So wolf shows it’s sorry face at last. A fitting end for you, my love. You where born as a man, but you could have been so much more, why did you spurn me so? In my court you could have become the greatest of all men, but no you became a wolf, a small scrawny wolf. Well you will die as a man. You deprived me of the pleasure of killing you as wolf, I won’t be denied a second time”.
The Queen reached out her hand to touch my face.
“You bitch!” Natalie screamed as she swung her staff at the Queen.
The Queen turned with impossible speed and caught the staff with her hand. Natalie’s swing just stopped, the Queen did not move at all where as Natalie twisted and jolted to a halt. The Queen smiled a cold and awful smile. “Fire indeed”. She yanked the staff clean out of Natalie’s grasp and threw to the ground. Natalie stumbled and fell. I quickly moved block the queen from reaching her and helped her up, the wolf did not stop me.
The Queen laughed again. “Oh how wonderful. Lovers still even after what you did to him. This will be fun. She looked right past me and at Natalie. “No…” I heard Natalie’s voice from behind me. It was the voice of tiny scared child.
“I have had your body before it is mine again”. The Queen shouted with glee. I moved to block the Queens gaze, but she pushed me away. The push sent me rolling down the bank and it to the stream. Stunned the force of her push, the wolf was back in command of my body. Clumsily I climbed out of the stream.
“Natalie!” I cried out. The wolf shouted in my mind too, it was an inhuman cry. A cry to it’s pack. In the distance the pack answered. Natalie turned to face me. Her eyes where cold and hard, not Natalie’s eyes, they where the eyes of the Queen. She smiled the same cold smile of the Queen. She was under the her control now.
“Fight her”. I called out. The wolf did not stop me from talking but it controlled my arms and legs. My hands discarded the staff, the wolf didn’t know how to use it.
“You seek to pit your small mind against mine, child!” The Queen called, for a moment Natalie’s eyes softened, but the Queen took control back in less than a second. “A real fighter this one, pathetic, but brave”. Both the Queen and Natalie spoke in unison. “I might let you in to my court after all”.
The pack was close now.
“Kill this pathetic man and you will have my love” Again both Queen and Natalie spoke.
Natalie’s face twisted in to a scowl of rage as she ran towards me.
The wolf suddenly let go of my body. This is your fight.
I dived for my staff. I didn’t want to hurt Natalie, but right I knew she wouldn’t hesitate to kill me. I grabbed the staff from ground and held it and angle before me. Natalie couldn’t get close now. I just had to keep it between me and her.
She lunged for me, I knocked her arm away. “Come on Natalie, you don’t want this!” I shouted to her, but their was no sign of Natalie in those eyes, just the cold hard, hatred and madness of the Queen. I knew inside Natalie was fighting the Queen. I had to help her.
Natalie darted the left. I turned, trying to keep the staff between us. Natalie might not have the strength and speed of the Queen, but she had her skills. The Queen was a fighter, and I was not.
Natalie dived to the right this time. She was quicker and her outstretched fingers caught my arm before I pushed her away.
“Come on little man, you can do better than that. This is life and death”. Both Natalie’s and the Queens voices mocked me.
I need help here. I called to the wolf in my head. He was still there but, he was passive again. I couldn’t hold her off for long.
Natalie made another move to right, I blocked her this time, but now the Queen was off to one side, they where manoeuvring me so the Queen was behind me.
“Natalie fight her. You can do it. I know you can”.
Twice in quick succession she lunged for me, the first one I blocked, the second, her hand grabbed my arm and she dug her nails in hard. I cried out with pain and my grip on the staff loosened. I couldn’t drop it. Momentarily blinded by anger I sung the staff with all my strength. There wasn’t room for it to pick up speed, but the impact still knocked Natalie away. She stumbled, but didn’t fall.
“That’s more like it. Fight, fight for life”. The Queen laughed.
“…For you life”. Natalie was ever so slightly out of sync with the Queen.
They are hear! The wolf cried ecstatically in my mind. I knew it too, they where coming down the little valley, long the path of the stream. I knew it without looking.
But it was enough to distract me for a second. Natalie was on me again. She clawed at my neck.
I pushed her away.
The Queen was behind me now and close. I hit at Natalie’s arm with one hand while I swung the staff around with the other.
It had a full 180 degrees to build up speed this time. As I span with Natalie still struggling on one side of me I saw the Queen pivot in to view. She was lost in the excitement of the combat, watching from Natalie’s eyes, she didn’t see the blow coming.
It hit her full in the chest, unprepared she when down and the force of the blow rolled her body twice before she started to get up.
Suddenly Natalie’s struggles stopped and she when limp. I grabbed her as she fell.
I was already running towards the oncoming pack. I knew behind me the Queen was not down for long. She was already screaming at her minions to get us. Natalie’s body stiffed. She was back with me.
“Run” I told her as something zipped past us. The Queen screamed with insane anger.
We ran. As we did I caught sight of the bear, he was still standing on opposite side, just watching our life and death struggle. Why couldn’t do anything?
I wasn’t going to look behind. There was no point I knew what would be there. I didn’t need to know how close they where. I knew we where close to the place Furgus and Mondreana where set up and waiting. So we just ran.
Natalie was just ahead and I was going to keep her there. I didn’t know if the Queen was going to take control again and anyway she was much fitter than I was.
As I ran I felt the pack. It was running too, running towards us. The wolf howled with joy silently in my head. I felt the wolf moving out from the hidden places in my head. The running this was what the wolf did, it was joy.
I started to run faster. I was level with Natalie now. I was not going to let her fall behind me.
The wolf was trying to take control again. I fought it, it was not going to have its revenge yet. We would share that.
Ahead I could hear the calls of the pack, behind the shouts from the Queen and her minions and over it all the hammering of my heart and great gasps breath I was taking.
I could sense the pack was close now. The wolf called to them again. Hard yellow eyes flashed up ahead of us. The pack was coming to stop. They howled. I felt the wolf in my mind again. It was not controlling me, but it was there right up in my mind with me, sharing it’s thoughts.
Natalie stumbled, I grabbed her waist and carried her with me. She didn’t seem to have any weight to her at all. I ran with the wind whistling through my ears, bring scents both new and old to my nose. The pack was all around us now.
I felt it’s anger at having the Queen among them, the one that had caused so much suffering and she was now so close. But I told them to wait, their time would come.
They obeyed, I was the old wolf, I had lead the pack for so long, even those whose fathers where born after my time knew me.
The pack turned and ran with us.
The wolf had taken me fully there. I had felt it. I had known all that it had known. The Queen and he had been lovers once, when he had been a man…
With the wolf gone to the dark places in my mind again, the shouts of my body’s complaints became clear. My legs, arms, lungs and heart all ached.
“This is the place”. Natalie whispered in my ear. We where in the clearing. A head of me, I could see the old stone. I came to a halt and Natalie pulled away from me. The pack spread out around and behind us and the Queen and her minions slowed and stopped. They spread out in front of us. The Queen moving forward from there line. Somewhere in the forest around us, I hoped was Furgus and Mondreana.
This was it.
“You can’t run from me!” The Queen said calmly stepping forward. “Wherever you go, wherever you try and hide I can see you”. She was talking to Natalie. “And wherever I can see I can follow. Not that I need to”. Her ice cold eyes turned to me. “I can take the pleasure of killing you both now”.
Kill her. The wolf snarled in mind. It was taking control again. I started to lift my staff…
Suddenly my world was rolling around me. Something had hit me hard across the back.
Everything seemed distant and dim. My view of the world was hazy and indistinct, the sounds of the world somehow muted and distant.
Winded I rolled in to the stream. The cold water splashing across my face brought me back to my senses. Natalie was running towards me with a staff ready in front of her. The Queens eyes, filled with burning hate looked out from Natalie’s face.
I swung my staff up to try and block her attack. Natalie’s staff hit me in on my left shoulder with the full force of her charge.
Again my world was sent wildly spinning.
The next thing I saw was Natalie looming over me. Her staff was held tightly between her hands. Mine was lost somewhere. With an awful twisted smile on her face she lifted the staff, ready to bring it down on my head.
Fight you fool, kill her. The wolf shouted. It took control and I kicked out, but my leg didn’t connect.
Where are you Mondreana? Now, dammit NOW!
Natalie paused for a second with the staff ready to deliver the final blow.
The wolf tried to move me, but I was back in control again. No! The wolf cried
The Pack howled. “Kill him now”, the Queen screamed.
But Natalie didn’t, she was shaking. She was fighting the Queen. “Weakling! I will do it”. The Queen shouted, I could hear her foot steps approaching rapidly.
Now! Get up. Kill her. My flaling hand touched a rock, I grabbed it.
I saw the Queen I view now. She drew her sword pushing Natalie out of the way. Natalie stumbled but did not fall. I could see her eyes where back to normal, but she was focused on something, she wasn’t here. Her whole body was shaking with some sort of effort.
The Queen swung the blade.
Her hands opened and the blade flew from her hand.
For a a tiny fraction of a second nothing happened. “Bitch” The Queen screamed at Natalie with insane anger. “You think you can control me, I’ll fry your brain, you insect”.
I threw the stone. It hit the Queen squarely on the side of her head. She screamed as she fell.
The wolf took control. I leapt to my feet and fell on the Queen. My head was filled with the blinding fury of the wolf. All that had been done to his kind would be avenged tonight. There was nothing I could do, the wolves anger was insane. I could not control my body.
I fought the only way the wolf knew, with claw and tooth. The Queen kicked me off.
I couldn’t kill her, there would be no hope for Natalie then.
I caught a glance of Natalie as I scrammed up. Mondreana landed behind her.
It was almost over!
Mondreana touched Natalie with one hand, in her other was a glowing shard of crystal. Natalie collapsed to the ground. Something held me back as I tried to lunch my self at the Queen again. Mondreana lunged for the Queen. She screamed and inhuman scream of rage.
Mondreana touched her and the awful sound was cut off. The Queen slumped to ground. All around us the sounds chaos filled the air, human shouts, wolves hollowing and above it all the bears roar.
Mondreana turned to the stone in the centre of the clearing and slamed the crystal down on it. The crystal shattered and it’s strange glowing light faded. Mondreana nodded to me and whatever was holding me realised.
The wolf in me charged. The rest of the pack fell on the Queens still body.
For a few moments the wolf in me was lost in the bliss of the pack again. Then the wolf released me and I felt it fade.
I pulled my self away from the furry, blood splattered mass that was pack. They didn’t notice me. The pack was tearing the Queens body to pieces.
The Queens minions where running from other members of the pack. Natalie! Where was Natalie.
Mondreana was dragging her away with Furgus standing by her, his sword at the ready.
I ran, stumbled and jumped over the wolves at my feet.
“She will be fine”. Mondreana assured me.
I picked up her limp body. She was still breathing and as I held her eyes flicked open and she smiled weakly at me. The sounds of the pack and the minions where fading now.
“I’m okay” She said almost to quiet to be heard. Then her eyes closed again.
I put here down. The clearing was quiet now. A few wolves played with what was left of the Queens body. A few of her minions had shared her grizzly end. The others where disappearing down the stream, being chased by more wolves.
The great bears footfalls where all that broke the quiet.
Furgus knelled as the huge animal approached.
It’s cool orange eyes surveyed the scene.
“Mmm, simple. That is the way it should be. You will need rest before I return you to your own realm”. The bear told us. “These two are under my protection until such time as they return home. They know the route there, but may stay with them and guide them if you chose”. The bear said to Mondreana and Furgus.
“Thank you, great one, I chose to guide them”. Furgus said with awe and reverence in his voice. “You have restored the natural balance here tonight. I thank you”.
The bear moved off to one of the wolves near by. Furgus stood up, there where tears running down his face.
The bear and the wolf stood facing each other for a moment, almost as if they where talking, but no words where needed here. Besides the two of them a shimmering shape started to appear. It was another wolf. It was far larger than any wolf should be. The great bear looked at the wolf in front of him and then to the spectral wolf beside him.
The ghostly outline of the wolf seemed to be getting more and more solid by the moment. The wolf turned back and looked at me. I knew this was the old wolf I had shared my body with for the past 3 years.
He turned away from me. He was now fully solid and huge for a wolf. The bear looked around at everything for a few moments, then it walked off. Slowly fading to a ghostly outline as it did.
“The great bear has handed it’s power to the next great one, the great wolf”. Furgus said from beside me. He was clearly moved by this and I felt…something, but Natalie lay on the ground. She needed me now.
I lay down beside her.
I awoke the next morning, feeling so much better. I was still stiff from another uncomfortable nights sleep, but I awoke to the smell of what could have been coffee and better than that as I sat up I saw Natalie laying beside me, smiling up at me.
No words where needed, I just kissed her.
“Even here in a different realm you still aren’t a morning person are you?” She asked, teasing me.
“You are back to normal now, no Queen lurking in the back of your head?”
“It’s just me, yes and has your wolf gone?”
I nodded. “I think so. I’ve still got some odd memories which must be from it, but no wolf there no”.
“Considering that the wolf left you by choice and what happened to it after, that is normal, I would say”. Mondreana said from behind us. She didn’t have either her hood or scarf on, so we could see her face.
“And the fact that I can’t recall any of the Queens memories, is that normal too?”
“Yes, she was removed by force. Not a natural process, so it is clean and tidy…”
“And what happened to her”. Natalie asked, maybe sounding a little sorry for her.
“She doesn’t exist any more, she was held in the crystal which was destroyed before her body was killed by the pack. It gave them what they needed and considering what she had done in her life it was a cleaner and kinder method that she deserved, but she is now dead. Totally. I know of no magics which will be able to recover her now”.
“Thank you”. Natalie hugged Mondreana. She didn’t really seem to know what to do with this, so just stood there still while Natalie held her.
“I helped to”. Furgus said with his characteristic grin.
“Of course”. Natalie hugged and Kissed him. I didn’t feel in the least bit threatened this time.
“So what did happen to the wolf then?” I asked Furgus.
“I don’t know for sure, but legend says that the powers of great one can be transferred. I’m thinking we saw that happen. The great bear passed his power to the great wolf”.
“That sort of fits in. I think I can remember the fact that the wolf could have been more, but something was holding him back”.
Furgus nodded. “Revenge. Nature doesn’t really allow for that. I guess with that out of the way he could become the great bear. And maybe the great bear had some connection to the problems the Queen caused. Perhaps he was the solution to those problems. When they where solved he was not needed anymore”.
Furgus looked away to the distance, apparently lost in thought. “We will never know for sure, but after a hearty meal we need to get you home”.
Again Natalie lead us. This time we where going home and it was not the Queens memories that guided us. My Natalie was fully back, there wasn’t that murderous psychopath lurking in the back of her mind anymore. Not only that but all we had been through had made me realise just what an amazing lady she truly was. She had been the ideal lady to me before, but now she was just prefect. And she wanted me back…
Something brought me back from my blissful thoughts of Natalie to the real world.
I wasn’t sure what it was.
Somehow I knew this part of the woods. Yes this was very close to the place we had arrived here, I knew that now. That wasn’t what distracted me however, I was sure there was something else.
Furgus looked around. He was clearly unsettled by something.
The pack was all around us. I knew this before I even caught sight of one of the pair of golden eyes looking at me.
“There all around us”. Furgus said quietly. I nodded.
“We are still under the protection of the great bear”. I told him. I knew this with certainty.
“And when you leave?” He asked.
Up ahead was the gateway. I didn’t look so much different from the forest that surrounded it, but I knew it was the gateway. The two trees that it sat between, looked, more normal. They looked like the tree’s I knew from home. They where from home. That patch of land sat between the two realms, being part of neither.
The Great Wolf stepped out in between us at the gateway. I was huge and fully flesh now. It’s golden eyes looked right through me. It didn’t talk but I knew what it intended. Furgus dropped to his knees.
“You have always lived here in the woods. You are part of woods. You respect and understand the order of nature and your place within it. You are safe”. I told Furgus, but I wasn’t sure the words where mine.
Furgus stood and the Great Wolf moved aside. It was clear that it was time for us to go.
We said our final tearful goodbyes to Furgus and Mondreana. This would be absolutely the last time we could ever see them again, assuming Luke was able to close the gateway.
Me and Natalie stepped forward towards the gateway. Around us the pack, lead by the Great Wolf it’s self howled their goodbye.
“Luke!” I said suddenly as we approached the gateway.
“What?” Natlie asked.
“What if he has managed to close the gateway? Where will we end up then?”
“The gateway isn’t closed. Does it look closed from here?” Natalie smiled, she wasn’t at all worried.
“No, but maybe it will, I don’t open somewhere else”. Natalie grabbed my hand.
“It’s not. I know…”
I was going to ask here how, but before I could she said. “I just do”.
We stepped forward in to the gateway.
The woods around us didn’t seem to change that much, apart from the switch from day to night.
Luke was standing there with his torch, so was Jamie. She was looking around behind her self. The dogs where all there too. Things didn’t look so different from when we had left. That had been at least 3 days, but somehow I didn’t think that much time had passed here.
“What happened”. Luke hissed in a low voice. In the distance I could here a car approaching.
“It’s a long story” I told him.
“Okay never mind about that now then. Get clear I need to close this gateway before they arrive. Jamie take them get out through the other side of the woods”.
“No, you can”. Natalie said firmly.
“We need to get this gate closed, I the only one that can do it. They not likely to be please with me once I’ve done that. You run, you don’t need to be part of this”.
“No, I don’t mean that. You can’t close the gateway. I know this. But it doesn’t matter, the Queen is dead. There will be nothing for them beyond this gateway”. She told him.
“Well there might be some angry wolves which have no love of the Queen or any of her cronies”. I added.
“Come on then! Lets go”. Jamie called urgently.
We could hear voices now coming from the track. And there where flashes of torch light”.
Luke frowned in the harsh light from Jamie’s torch. “But how. What happened there”.
I started to follow Jamie. “Like you said we don’t have time for that right now. Come on”.
Finally convinced Luke followed us.
We ran through the darkened woods. We couldn’t use Natalie’s instinctive knowellege of the gateways location now and the night sight could help as we ran, so we had no choice but to use torches.
They chased us, again they had to use torches, so there was no hiding now. It was just a mad run.
Maybe there was a bit of the wolf left in my, for the night run through the woods seemed to make me feel so alive.
They didn’t chase for long. It seemed they where more concerned about the gateway than us.
It was pretty much useless to them now. And I wondered what would happen if they did open it. They might get hurt or killed by the wolves. I we could warn them, but somehow I don’t think they would listen to us.
It took us hours to get back to Lukes farm. There was no one there when we did, but clearly they had broken in. It looked like they where just after us, nothing much had been touched. They must have done a search for us then…well that didn’t matter now.
All of us slept in long the next day. And we all looked more that a bit worse for ware. Our midnight runs through woods had dealt each of us a number of small injuries, and me and Natalie had 3 days of the other realm to deal with as well.
We explained as best we could what had happened in the other realm and Luke accepted this with no sign of surprise or incredulity. Again I wondered what he had seen in his life time to make him accept this, but now didn’t seem the time to ask.
After a day at his farm we said our good byes and left. Luke said that he would probably move on since Alan and his people might not understand might happen when or if they open the gate was not his fault. This didn’t seem to be something that bothered him particularly, nor did it worry Jamie seemingly.
We gave him our details so he could keep in touch, but I wondered if he would. He didn’t seem to be the sort of person that would put down roots anywhere, be that in a place or with a person, for long. I wondered if Jamie knew that?
Natalie and I got back to my flat exhausted, after well I’d lost track of when it was we where last here.
“I’ve not forgotten what I said to you back…er, there about wanting you back in my life and what’s happened since hasn’t changed my mind. In fact I now know you are the man I want to spend the rest of my life with”. Natalie told me, holding me close. “But about what I said, I’m just shattered and well I don’t want to disappoint…” She said with a sly smile
“You couldn’t possibly do that”. My body so desperately ached for what she had promised back in the other realm, but knew I was going to have to wait and just as before I knew the wait would be worth it.
A night with the woman I loved was worth waiting a very long time for.
And week is not to long to wait for not just a night, but a whole weekend.
