Hungry Heart - Book #4 - Ch. 6 (Patreon)

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Chapter Six – The Bond That Binds Us All

They fell through the earth, or at least it felt like it. Varg was aware of darkness growing about him and wrapping around his body like a veil. He also felt everything around him becoming heavy with water and mud, and it was a wonder that he could move through that clay-like dirt without ending up stuck.

It was magic, of that he was sure. As little as he had ever gotten in touch with that part of the world, mystical and hidden from most people’s view, he could recognize it for what it was. He had been right to assume that the witch wanted him in one way or another, and forcing her to reveal her hand had to come with repercussions for her lack of caution.

However, for him at the moment, nothing else was left but to wait and see where she was taking him. If the pack was still alive, if the elders and the other grownups were there, he would find them and get them out.

No fear for his own wellbeing was present in his heart or mind. From the moment he had understood that those pups’ only hope was him and no one else, all his thoughts had turned on how to help them and return their parents to their rightful homes.

The witch herself, or the mistress of the marshes, as she liked to be called, was a profound mystery for him. Even as he had stared into the opaque eyes, he couldn’t say that he had succeeded in reading her soul. At least, he had been more successful in convincing her to drop her play against the youngsters and go along with his suggestion.

And now he was falling through the mud of the deep marsh, without for a moment losing his senses of smell, sight, and hearing. He couldn’t move, as the witch was holding him in her tight grip, but otherwise, he was alive and well. That meant that the mistress of the marshes didn’t intend to hurt him or, at least, not yet.

The journey seemed to have finally come to an end. His feet touched firm ground and the grey garments wrapped around him swished and whirled, and when his eyes found a point to hang on, he realized that he was standing at the end of a long, dark hallway. As he tried to look around, a force stronger than him pulled him toward the corridor, and then, he heard the dirt closing behind him like a door.

“What is this place?” he asked calmly.

“It is where you will meet your end, wolf,” the witch hissed at him, “unless you do my bidding.”

It all appeared to be as he had thought. The mistress of the marshes had a use for him, and for that, she needed him alive. It was unclear, at this point, why she had previously wanted Atlaz to win against him in battle and for his body to be delivered to her.

“What do you need from me?” Varg, without showing any sign that he was willing, began to fish for any detail that would help him.

“You’re a lost alpha,” the witch said in a voice meant to be soothing, but coming out false and cunning.

For the moment, Varg decided not to contradict her. All the while, he his gaze roved around, collecting anything that would help him later while searching for a way to get out of that place.

“You lost your pack, and the pack lost you,” she continued, while she circled him like a snake waiting for the right moment to strike.

Without looking directly at her, Varg could read by the slight tremor of her voice that something excited her. Was it the prospect of burying another shifter, another soul, in that underwater tomb? It couldn’t be something as simple as that. With the powers she had, she could steal any shifter she wanted and drag him or her there. No, it had to be a lot more than that.

“How would you like to have another pack? To rule it?” she asked, stopping abruptly and bringing her face close to his cheek.

Varg looked ahead, paying her no mind, although the foul smell of decay wafting off her was enough to make him sway in disgust. He held his breath and focused, willing his heart to beat slowly. It was the same as being underwater, in the sense of the word people with no knowledge of magic understood, although the air around him was as breathable as if he was walking on the surface.

“I have no need for a pack,” he replied. He didn’t care to share with this creature of the underworld that he had a pack to call his own, maybe an unusual one, but as close to his soul as anyone had ever been.

“You cannot resist,” the witch continued and moved away from him, allowing him to breathe freely. “Alphas are not made, alphas are born,” she declared.

Varg didn’t care either to contradict or agree with her.

“Your alpha blood cannot resist the call of the pack,” she said while moving slowly about. “It needs the pack, just as the pack needs you. It’s not a choice, wolf.”

Varg remained silent. He intended to speak little. She was obviously trying to prepare him for something, but what that something was, he couldn’t tell. The most fitting course of action was to wait and see.

“I will let them see you,” the witch concluded, apparently not at all disturbed by his lack of cooperation. “You’ll hear their voices and see their plight. You will become their ruler, and then, you’ll do what I say.”

With those words, she raised her arms, making the frayed sleeves shiver. On the left and right of the corridor, the walls came undone, only to reveal two rows of cells, guarded by heavy iron grates.

And inside each cell, Varg saw right away, were wolfshifters, grouped two or three together. At the sound of the falling walls, they raised their heads and hurried toward the bars keeping them from escaping. They were as shaggy as the youngsters Varg had met above, and as he had suspected, most of them were of average height. A smaller breed, not that Varg had ever looked down on those who weren’t as tall as he was.

“You witch,” one of them hissed at the mistress of the marshes and caught the bars with his hands, trying in vain to make them bend to his will. “Let us out of here!”

Varg examined the man who had just spoken. His dark hair hung loose lower than his shoulders. His eyes were throwing lightning and daggers at the witch and his anger was barely contained. Something told Varg that it couldn’t have been the first time the shifter had tried to take it upon himself to bend those bars and set himself and his companions free.

His nose didn’t fool him. That was the real alpha of the pack. That had to be Atlaz’s father. It had to be his clothes that Varg was wearing, by the faint smell of ash he had detected from the start. These wolves might use ash for curing light wounds, scratches and small bites. The alpha’s arms were covered with traces of them. Crouching and finding prey through a thicket of thorns would do that to a human’s skin. Varg wondered briefly about the significance of all those scars and stashed them away in his brain for later investigation.

“You will never get out! You’re a bad, bad wolf!” the witch squealed.

Varg was surprised, to say the least. The cavernous tone of her voice was gone. A magical being, as powerful as she was, and she shook in fear of the caged alpha, as far as he could tell. The rest of the wolves, on both sides, remained silent, letting their leader speak. They were a disciplined pack, by the looks of things.

“Do you really believe that you can hold us here forever?” the alpha shouted. His eyes rested on Varg for a moment, and then he frowned. “What is this wolf doing here? Your disgusting magic pushed you to steal even more of our kind?”

“He’s your new alpha,” the witch squeaked, trying to sound sure of herself and arrogant, but failing miserably.

“Then let me out of this prison and I’ll show him who the true alpha of my pack is,” he said with disdain and his eyes raked Varg up and down as if he had just seen a bug.

Atlaz obviously took after someone. Varg repressed a small smile. They were in danger, and the time for expressing his thoughts on the similarities between son and father was not now. “Your sons and daughters would be happy to learn that you are alive and well,” he said.

Someone from the same cell rushed toward the bars and pressed her face against them. Varg noticed right away that it was a female wolfshifter. She was between ages, but her stature was proud, and anyone could tell she was still a beauty among wolves and humans alike. “Have you seen them? Have you talked to them?” she asked in an anxious voice.

“Nesta, silence,” the alpha ordered in a low voice. “This is just another trick, meant to fool us. Don’t believe a word this stray dog has to say.”

Varg bit the tip of his tongue to keep silent. Stray dog was a new insult for him. He couldn’t recall having ever been called that. Mutt was better if he thought about it; it was more direct as an offense. “I’ve seen your children. It is for their sake that I chose to come here.”

“You’re a liar, a tool in this witch’s hands,” the alpha hissed at him.

“Soon you’ll be defanged and overthrown,” the witch threatened. “You’ll see. All your pack will belong to me. All the litter you have. Every little soul. All mine.”

So, that had been the plan. But what sort of a connection did the tribe from the surface and this witch share? Varg had many questions, but time seemed to be a valuable resource. The witch wanted something, and he doubted that he would be given the chance to stay and chat with these wolves to his heart’s content.

A battle had to take place, according to the witch. She desired that he would defeat this proud alpha and take his place. But how could she be so sure that Varg would just listen blindly to what she wanted? Something was not quite right, and he tensed, willing all his senses to catch something that his mind had yet to comprehend.

“All in due time. I’ll leave him here, with you,” the witch said. “Soon, your pack will long for a new alpha, just as he longs for having a pack. You’ll be destroyed, Osion. You deserve it for trying to shake away my rule. What a fool.”

Varg turned toward her, but she was gone so quickly, disappearing without a trace. It wasn’t possible to tell that anyone had been there only moments ago.

“What kind of mutt are you?” Osion, the alpha of the pack, threw at him.

Mutt was better than stray dog. Varg moved around, checking the other cells. It wasn’t a very large pack, but there was always the possibility that the witch had already killed some of them. He saw shifters with grey and white hair, just as many in their prime. “Is this all of you?” he asked.

“What do you care? Who are you?” the alpha continued.

Varg stopped in the middle of the corridor and took in the faces of everyone around. They were curious, fearful, but also proud. “My name is Varg. I hail from Whitekeep,” he explained.

Osion growled and showed his teeth.

Varg shook his head. “I’m not here to cause you harm, no matter what the mistress of the marshes told you.”

Osion turned slightly. From where he stood, Varg could tell that the alpha was consulting his female, giving her an ear. Nesta appeared more inclined to believe him, Varg thought by the way she placed both hands on her husband’s shoulder, in a plea.

“I’ve never heard of Whitekeep,” Osion said, still rightfully suspicious of this newcomer that seemed to threaten his rule over the pack. “Where is your pack? Is it true that you don’t have one?”

“I have a pack,” Varg replied calmly. “Only that it is like no other pack a wolf has ever been a part of.”

Osion looked at him, searching perhaps, for any sign that he could be joking. “Then what are you doing here, challenging my rule?”

“I am here,” Varg said, letting his voice become thicker and sterner to get his point across, “because your daring puppies stole me from my pack and brought me to your cave.”

At the mention of the cave, all the wolfshifters moved close to the bars and tried to get a better look at him.

“They wouldn’t do such a thing,” Nesta intervened. “We taught them better. I will have word with them when we get back--”

“They believe you are dead,” Varg explained, cutting her words short. “All of you.”

A deep silence fell over the entire pack. Not even Osion said a word.

Varg took it as a cue to continue. “I am travelling with my pack toward The Quiet Woods. Just this morning, a fog descended upon us, and I found myself attacked and then dragged away.” He paused and searched the wolfshifters’ faces. They were listening intently. “Atlaz--”

“My son,” Nesta said impatiently, “is he well?”

“He is,” Varg confirmed.

“What about Haz? What about Neia?” Voices from all corners of the room rose, hope blending with fear.

“I did not have the chance to get to know all of them by name,” Varg interrupted them by raising a hand. “There seemed to be a dozen or so of them.”

All heads nodded in approval.

Varg began. “One is this small,” he gestured, “with clever eyes--”

“That’s my Geha,” someone said.

Varg smiled and continued to recount, as far as he was able to, the details he remembered about the little ones he had met at the cave. From the sighs of relief he heard from every corner of that underground prison, their pups seemed to all be fine. And that meant that, most probably, all of the grownups were there, and the witch hadn’t hurt any of them. Now, if he understood correctly, Osion was the only one she seemed to have a beef with, for reasons that he very much wanted to understand.

“No one is asking about Hesaia?” He watched all of them, and they looked away. Could it be that the human girl was an outcast? But Atlaz, despite his abrasive behavior, seemed fond of her; as for the other pups, they looked up to her and, although she wasn’t like them, they appeared to see a mother of sorts in Hesaia, now that their parents were gone.

“Hesaia,” Nesta said, and her voice revealed frustration. “That girl…” She stopped, letting her words trail away.

“That girl,” Osion said patiently, “is the one who will help us escape from the clutches of this witch forever.”

Nesta pushed herself away from her husband, her beautiful face all a frown. The many torches lighting up the corridor didn’t cut through the darkness at the back of the cell, toward which the female shapeshifter withdrew. “Do you see her here?” Nesta’s voice rose. “She’s not here. You were a fool to believe old words, Osion.” She appeared to struggle with speaking against her mate. It couldn’t be a common occurrence for the couple to not see eye to eye.

“Hesaia is well,” Varg interrupted her. “She seems unafraid of the mistress of the marshes, unlike the rest of the pups.”

“The witch cannot touch her,” Osion explained. “As she’s human, not a drop of wolf blood in her veins. But that’s not the only thing about her--”

“She set her eyes on my son,” Nesta interrupted her husband again. “To think that I nursed that girl at my breast and brought her back to life when she had been abandoned by her family.”

“She’s beautiful, kind, and wise,” Varg said. “Atlaz chose well, if it is her he did choose.”

Nesta made a small choking sound. “She’s human. Atlaz cannot choose her.”

Osion was conspicuously silent throughout his wife’s protestations. Varg could only assume that he didn’t share her beliefs, at least not where it concerned his son’s choice in a mate.

Nesta was, once more, the one to talk. “And my own mate, my alpha, now believes in fairytales.”

“Tell me about this fairytale, Osion,” Varg urged the alpha. “Just so you know, I am here to help. But, to do so, I need to know more about you and your pack, as well as about this witch that keeps you down here.”

“She won’t be able to keep us long,” Nesta said. “She brought you here to bend Osion’s will. Once you’re defeated, outsider, she will have to let us free.”

The alpha continued to remain silent, much to Varg’s surprise. There had to be something only he knew, something he didn’t know whether to reveal in front of his pack or not. A secret history, maybe? It was evident that he knew things about Hesaia that the others didn’t. As he had suspected, the girl had strong reasons not to fear the witch. Was it possible that the witch feared her? At least, she feared the alpha, and it was him Varg wanted to hear speak.

“Osion,” he addressed the alpha directly, “what are those old words? Why does the witch fear you so much? And what is Hesaia’s role in all this?”

The alpha straightened his shoulders. “I might just as well tell you everything. It may not matter when the call inside your heart becomes too strong, fooled by this witch’s ill will. Nonetheless, I will tell you.”

***

Toru pondered in front of the last mirror, or at least what he believed to be the last one. So far, he had seen Varg among a pack of very young wolves who seemed scared of something, and then how a creature of some sort, draped in grey clothing, had pulled Varg through a deep darkness into the ground. “Now,” he said, choosing his next words carefully, “I want to see what Varg is thinking right now.”

The mirror remained opaque. “What, can’t you show me?” Toru asked and grabbed the mirror to shake it. Maybe this one was broken.

“We cannot see further than this,” the mirrors explained. “The magic between us and what you want to see is too dark.”

Toru pursed his lips in annoyance. “How am I going to get to that place? How am I going to get to Varg? You’re not very helpful, mirrors, are you?”

“Just tell us what you need, what you want to see,” the mirrors started from the top.

So, he could still use that last mirror, but he needed to be clever about it. If they could only show him that far, there was only one way for him to help Varg. “I need you to be at that cave from which Varg was taken by that ugly thing,” he said with conviction.

The mirrors all turned in the same direction, taking him by surprise. Like disciplined soldiers, they switched places until they were organized in an order only they understood. Toru barely had a moment to realize that something was happening, because soon his entire body was pulled toward one of the mirrors, bounced against it, and then sent into the next one. Just like before, when he had moved from one mirror to another to discover Varg’s fate, now he was physically pulled and pushed and moved between the mirrors as if he was a ball.

He hit the last mirror head first, but there was no pain. The mirrors expanded and shrunk to allow him to move between them. Suddenly, he was at the edge of an abyss, and he barely had time to yell in surprise before he was pushed over it.

The air was balmy at first, as he fell through that large hole in the ground. The mirrors gathered above his head and covered the hole, turning everything pitch black. Toru was about to shout at them and demand explanations, when his body hit the ground.

He stood to his feet with a groan and looked around. It appeared that he was surrounded by a deep fog, which reminded him of how Varg had been stolen from them just that morning. “Hey!” he called loudly. “Is anyone here? Varg!”

He waited, ears perked up, hoping to catch a sound. There was something there, and he tensed. In a moment, he was surrounded by a pack of small wolfshifters, all pointing spears at him.

“Who are you?” someone asked in a rough voice. That was an act; the voice under that roughness was too young. And Toru recognized the shifters around him as some of the ones who had taken Varg away, as it had been showed to him by the mirrors.

“I’m Toru, and I came for my friend Varg,” he announced. “Now give him back!” He shifted into his tiger and growled.

The small wolfshifters scattered, squealing in fear. Toru was about to dash after them, when he felt a sting at his neck. He turned to see what was happening, and saw a young wolfshifter with a spear in his hand.

His mind became dizzy and he staggered. There must have been something on that spear. He fell on one side, only his mind remaining alert.

“Is it strong enough to keep him asleep?” the young wolf asked.

A young woman’s face appeared above him. Toru still had his eyes wide open. “I don’t think we have anything strong enough for him. We will have to take him to the cave. Gather everyone around. We won’t be able to move him if it’s just the two of us.”

“Maybe I should try to put the spear through his neck,” the young male said, with fear in his voice.

“Don’t you even think about doing that,” the young woman said. “He said he’s Varg’s friend. He might be able to help us.”

***

“This mistress of the marshes, as she calls herself,” Osion started, “has kept a nefarious hold over our pack for many centuries. When our pack came here, the fog wasn’t as thick. It hid us well, like a veil, and we could come and go as we pleased. For a long time, she asked for our tribute. In blood.”

“In blood?” Varg asked. “What do you mean?”

“The wolves before us,” Osion explained while the rest of the pack, Nesta included, remained deferential and silent, “had to give their first born to the witch, without fail, or the fog would grow so thick that none of us could find our way out of it or back home.”

“That happened with your ancestors. What about you?” Varg observed Osion first, then the rest.

“I was my father’s and mother’s first born,” Osion explained. “They hid me and kept me away for the first years of my life. The witch didn’t know about their ruse until it was too late. I was raised away from my pack until I was strong enough to hold my own. Then I returned, and everyone expected the witch to strike us dead. And that didn’t happen.”

The voices from the cells agreed in a tide of murmurs.

“Once I became the alpha, I refused the witch’s tribute in blood. After all, I was the living proof that all her threats were nothing but thin air.”

Varg nodded. That surely explained the animosity the mistress of the marshes nurtured against the alpha.

“Not so much thin air,” Nesta corrected him, but her voice was softer than before.

“We’d rather suffer instead of giving up our newborns.” The crowd agreed with the unseen speaker. A strong bond made this pack proud and powerful.

“We all think the same,” Nesta said right away. “We are trapped in these lands, and we’re not allowed to move too far. It is she that decides how long our leash is.”

“What does she do to keep you like this?” Varg asked.

“She commands the fog. She can make it thick, and we cannot hunt as well. Food becomes scarce, disease sometimes comes. She cannot kill us, or, at least, she doesn’t want to,” Nesta explained.

“I know she can be defeated,” Osion intervened. “We are tough, we survive, but why only survive when we can thrive?”

Voices rose again to agree with their ruler. Varg was starting to like Osion more and more. The witch’s power was real, but it wasn’t as strong as she tried to make them believe. Only the pups were afraid of her after she took their parents away, but these mature wolfshifters didn’t seem to be as impressed by her.

“I’ve searched for a way to diminish her power over us for a long time, for as long as I can remember,” Osion continued. “I discovered, deep inside the woods, old words.”

“What did they say?” Varg asked, more and more curious.

“They said,” Osion closed his eyes to call the power of recollection to his mind, “that one who’s different would come, and she would find the root of the evil and cut it down.”

“Hesaia appeared soon after,” Nesta continued her husband’s tale. “And Osion believed she was the one.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Osion said. It looked like nothing could truly shake his belief. “That girl can find her way through the thickest fog. She might stumble and fall in the moonlight, unlike us, but the fog cannot hinder her.”

That further explained why the human girl wasn’t scared by the fog, the marshes, and the witch lording over the pack.

“It’s not enough,” Nesta argued.

“You speak like a jealous mother,” Osion argued back.

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, because Nesta turned her back on her husband and her face became a frown again.

The alpha didn’t leave her to her own ruminations and moved closer. He caught her shoulders and squeezed them in sympathy. “What a change in you, and only these last few years, since Atlaz and Hesaia have grown into beautiful young people,” he said with affection. “Before that, no one would have been allowed to speak one ill word about her. You would have clawed his or her face bloody.”

Not forgetting his role of telling Varg about the recent history of their pack, Osion walked toward the iron bars again. “I understood quickly that Hesaia was different from us, and not only because she was a human girl. No one can tell herbs, good or bad, like she can. She might not be that much of a meat eater, like the rest of us, but she knows just what goes with what to make the most delicious meals and prepare soothing medicine. One day, not so long ago, she came to me and told me: ‘Father, there is a bush, deep in the forest. A voice told me the fruits of that bush are what we need to repel the witch’s hold on us.’ I never for a moment doubted her.”

“A crazy girl, hearing voices,” Nesta muttered, although her protests were not as strong as before.

“I went with her, to see the bush, and I understood why she couldn’t have harvested the fruits herself,” Osion continued. “A wild sea of thorns surrounds that bush. And if you try to go through in a wolf’s coat, you’re denied. So I tried to reach it in my human’s skin.”

That explained the scars on Osion’s arms, that Varg had suspected to be scratches of thorns. “Were you able to harvest the fruits?”

Osion shook his head. “No. Hesaia wanted to try herself, but she was repelled by the thicket, although she’s not a wolf.”

Varg nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe another stranger is needed to reach that bush,” he explained.

“You’re a stranger,” Osion pointed out. “But you’re here already. That means that she has you in her clutches, too.”

“What do you mean?”

Osion pressed his forehead against the iron bars, shadows passing over his face. “Her curse is wicked. She uses our blood, our bond, against us.”

Varg moved closer. “I won’t shed your blood.”

“You are right,” Osion agreed. “You’ll be bonded to us then and kept here, in this prison.”

“You’re not asking me to bleed you in battle, I hope,” Varg said.

“Even if you did, it wouldn’t help,” Osion replied. “Because that is what she wants. Either way, we’re all trapped here.”

Varg frowned. “You will have to kill me… for your pack to be released?”

Osion shook his head. “That’s what the witch says, but I don’t believe a word that comes out of her mouth.”

Nesta came near her mate and looked at Varg. “You seem like a good man, wolf. You shouldn’t have come here. Now we’re all trapped here,” she echoed her husband’s words, “and none of us can go back.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Osion warned her. “I still have a chance to scare her into letting us free.”

“And you have me. I’m not behind bars, like you,” Varg said, willing with all his heart to help this pack that, only this morning, had been nothing but strangers to him.

“But you are,” Nesta said and her eyes filled with sorrow.

Only then Varg realized. He was no longer standing with his feet firmly on the ground. He was in a cage suspended from the ceiling, like a trapped bird.

TBC

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