The Wolves of Midwinter

21

ONLY ONE CANDLE LIGHTED his way down the staircase, and he felt the emptiness and the vastness of the house.

From far off came the ominous beat of drums.

When he stepped out onto the back steps, he could barely see the five hooded figures in the heavy darkness. The distant drums sounded a bizarre and faintly menacing cadence. And just below the sound of the wind, he heard the faint melody of flutes. The rain was no more than a thick mist now that he could feel but not hear, though a wind gusted through the distant trees and he heard that awful moaning that can come with the wind.

An instinctive fear gripped him. Far off, he saw the lurid flickering of a fire. It was a huge fire, a fire so huge it struck a deep chord of alarm in him. But the rain-drenched forest was in no danger from the fire. He knew that.

Gradually he made out more clearly the outlines of those nearest him. There was the loud crack of a kitchen match and a little blaze flared revealing Margon with a long slender torch in his hand.

At once, the torch was ignited and the other figures emerged in the burgeoning light.

Reuben could smell the pitch or the tar of the torch, he didn’t know for sure which it was.

They began to walk through the forest with Margon, torch in hand, leading the way. It seemed the distant drums knew they were coming. There came the deep insistent throbbing of big drums, and the relentless goading sound of other smaller drums, and then the horns soaring above them. Another instrumental voice joined in that might have been the Irish pipe, high, nasal, and almost baleful.

All around them the forest rustled, snapped, and moved in the shadows. As they struggled over rocks and fallen bracken moving steadily onwards, he heard hushed and secretive laughter. He could see the dim white faces of the Forest Gentry, mere flashes on either side of the irregular path they followed, and suddenly the faintest eeriest music rose to accompany them—in time with the greater sound summoning them from afar—the roughened mournful notes of wooden pipes, the tap and jingle of tambourines, a restless humming.

He felt the chills come up on the back of his arms and his neck, but they were pleasurable chills. His nakedness beneath the robe felt erotic.

On and on they walked. Reuben began to feel the deep pringling that meant the change. But Felix’s hand gripped his wrist. “Wait,” he said gently, falling into stride beside Reuben, steadying him when he stumbled or almost fell.

The drums in the distance grew louder. The deepest drums slowed to the ominous and terrifying sound of a knell, and the deep whine of the Irish pipes was hypnotic. Overhead the high remote branches of the redwoods groaned and creaked with the Forest Gentry. Sharp sounds came from the underbrush as of vines ripped in the blackness, and of branches beating the underbrush.

The fire was a great red glare in the mist ahead, flashing in a vast mesh of tangled vine and branches.

This way and that they turned as they walked. He had no idea now in which direction he was going except that they were drawing closer and closer, always, to that glare.

In front of him, the hooded figures looked anonymous in the distant light of the lone flickering torch, and it seemed suddenly only Felix was real to him, Felix who was beside him, and his heart went out to Stuart. Was Stuart afraid? Was he himself afraid?

No. Even as the drums grew louder, and as the spectral musicians around him answered and wove their low, harsh threads of melody around the drumbeat, he was not afraid. Again, the prickling began and he could feel the hairs of his scalp wanting to be released, feel the wolf hair in him raging against the skin of the man. Did the wolf in him respond to the drums? Did the drums hold a secret power over the beast of which he’d been unaware? Bravely yet deliciously he struggled against it, knowing it would burst forth soon enough.

The distant fire grew brighter, and seemed to swallow the feeble light of Margon’s torch. There was something so horrific about the quivering, throbbing glare of the fire that he did feel again a deep and terrible alarm. But the fire was calling them, and he was eager for it, reaching out suddenly and taking firm hold of Felix’s arm.

Suddenly the anticipation he felt was intoxicating and it seemed to him that he’d been moving through this dark forest forever, and it was the greatest of experiences, this, to be with the others, heading towards the distant blaze that flared and flickered so high above them as if from the throat of a volcano or some dark chimney invisible beneath its light.

Pungent scents caught his nostrils, the deep rich and living scent of the wild boar he’d hunted all too seldom, and the sweet and seductive fragrance of simmering wine. Cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, the sweet smell of honey, all this he caught with the smell of smoke, the smell of pine, the smell of the wet mist. It was flooding his senses.

Out of the night, he thought he heard the deep-throated cry of the wild boar, a guttural scream, and again his skin was on fire. Hunger knotted his insides, hunger for living meat, yes.

A vast wordless song rose from the invisible beings all round them as ahead they drew up to a veritable wall of blackness above which the sparks flew heavenward from the raging fire they could no longer clearly see.

Suddenly the small torch in Margon’s hand was moving upwards, and dimly Reuben saw the outlines of the gray boulders that he’d once glimpsed by daylight, and all at once he was climbing a steep and rocky incline and entering at Felix’s bidding a narrow, jagged passage through which he could barely move. The drums beat loud against his ears, and the pipes soared again, throbbing, urging, calling to him to move quickly.

Ahead the world exploded with lurid dancing orange flames.

The last of the dark figures in front of him had stepped aside and into the clearing, and he stumbled down now and found his footing on the packed earth, the fire for a moment blinding him.

It was a vast space.

Some thirty yards away the great exploding bonfire raged and crackled, its dark heavy scaffolding of logs plainly visible within the furnace of its yellow and orange flames.

It appeared to define the very center of a vast arena. To the right and left of him he saw the boulders spreading out into the inevitable shadows, how far he couldn’t guess.

Right by the mouth of the passage through which they’d just come stood the company of musicians—all recognizable in their green velvet hooded finery. It was Lisa pounding the kettledrums whose deep rolling booms shook Reuben’s very bones, and around her were gathered Henrietta and Peter playing the wooden flutes, and Heddy with a long narrow drum, and Jean Pierre playing the huge Scottish bagpipes. From high above came the wordless singing of the Forest Gentry and the unmistakable sound of violins and metal flutes, and the twanging notes of dulcimers.

All contrived to make a song of expectation and reverence, of unquestioned solemnity.

Between the boulders and the fire ahead stood a giant golden cauldron over a low-simmering fire that glowed as if made up of coals, and Reuben realized that this cauldron defined the center of the circle which the Morphenkinder were now forming around it.

He stepped forward, taking his place, the fumes of the spiced mixture in the cauldron rising in his nostrils enticingly.

The music slowed now and softened all around him. The air seemed to hold its breath, with the drum rolling as softly as thunder.

There came the screams of the wild boar, the grunts, the deep guttural growls, but these animals were safely penned somewhere, he sensed this. He trusted in it.

Meanwhile, the Morphenkinder drew in as close to the heat of the cauldron as they could, the circle not small enough for them to touch one another, yet small enough for every face to be visible.

Then from the dancing shadows beyond the blaze to his right emerged a strange figure to join the circle, and as she lifted her green hood back from her face, Reuben saw it was Laura.

His breath went out of him. She stood opposite him, smiling at him through the faint steam rising from the huge cauldron. A chorus of cheers and murmured greetings rose from the others.

Margon raised his voice:

“Modranicht!” he roared. “The night of the Mother Earth, and our Yule!”

At once the others raised their arms and roared in response, Sergei giving a deep-throated howl. Reuben raised his arms, and ached to let loose the howl that was inside him.

Suddenly the kettledrums went into a deafening roll, shaking Reuben to the core, and the flutes rose in piercing melody.

“People of the Forest, join us!” declared Margon, his arms raised. From the boulders all around came a clamor of drums and flutes and fiddles and the shock of brass trumpets.

“Morphenkinder!” cried Margon. “You are welcome.”

And out of the darkness came more hooded figures. Reuben saw plainly the face of Hockan, the face of Fiona, and the smaller feminine shapes that had to be Berenice, Catrin, Helena, Dorchella, and Clarice. The circle widened, admitting them one by one.

“Drink!” cried Margon.

And all converged on the cauldron, dipping their horns into the simmering brew, and then stepping back to swallow mouthful after mouthful. The temperature was perfect, to make a fire in the throat and in the heart—to ignite the circuits of the brain.

Again, they dipped their horns and again they drank.

Suddenly Reuben was rocking, falling, and Felix on his right had reached out to steady him. His head swam and a low boiling laughter came out of him. Laura’s eyes blazed as she smiled at him. She lifted the gleaming horn to her lips. She saluted him. She said his name.

“This is no time for the words of humankind—for poetry or sermons,” cried Margon. “This is no meeting for words at all. Because we all know the words. But how are we to mourn the loss of Marrok if we don’t speak his name?”

“Marrok!” cried Felix. And stepping up to the cauldron, he dipped his horn and drank. “Marrok,” said Sergei, “old friend, beloved friend.” And one by one all were doing the same. Finally Reuben had to do it, had to lift the horn and call out of the name of the Morphenkind he’d killed. “Marrok, forgive me!” he cried out. And he heard Laura’s voice echoing the same words: “Marrok, forgive me.”

Sergei gave a roar again and this time Thibault and Frank roared with him and so did Margon. “Marrok, we dance for you tonight,” cried Sergei. “You’ve gone into the darkness or the light, we know not which. We salute you.”

“And now, with joy,” cried Felix, “we salute the young amongst us: Stuart, Laura, Reuben. This is your night, my young friends, your first Modranicht amongst us!”

He was answered this time with terrific howls from the entire company.

The robes were being thrown aside. Felix had stripped, and throwing up his arms was becoming the Man Wolf. And opposite Reuben, Laura suddenly rose up naked and white, her breasts beautifully visible through the rising steam from the cauldron. Sergei and Thibault stood naked, the wolf hair rising on them as they flanked her.

Reuben let out a terrified gasp. Waves of desire rose in him with the waves of drunken giddiness.

His robes lay at his feet and the cold air stole over him, awakening him and emboldening him.

They were all changing. Howls rose from all now irresistibly. The music rose in a deafening clamor. The icy pringling covered Reuben’s face and head first, then raced over his trunk and limbs, his muscles aching for one split second as they expanded into their glorious new strength and flexibility.

But it was Laura that he was seeing, as if there were no one else in the marvelous expanding universe but Laura, as if Laura’s transformation was his transformation.

A dreadful horror gripped Reuben, a fear as terrible as the fear he’d known the very first time when, as a boy, he’d seen a photograph of the mature female sex organ, that wondrous and terrible secret mouth, so moist, so raw, so veiled in tangled hair—awful as the face of Medusa, magnetizing him and threatening to turn him to stone. But he couldn’t look away from Laura.

He was seeing the dark gray hair spring out on the top of her head, as the hair sprang from his own, hair pouring down to her shoulders as the mane poured down to his. He saw the sleek shining fur sheathe her cheeks and her upper lip, her mouth becoming that black and silken band of flesh that was the same as his mouth, the gleaming white fangs descending, the thick bestial coat closing over her shoulders, swallowing her breasts and her nipples.

Petrified now, he saw Laura’s eyes smoldering from the massive face of the beast, and saw her rise to greater height, her powerful wolf arms lifted, her claws reaching for the sky above them.

Fear and desire pumped through him, maddening him infinitely more than the scent of the boar, or the pounding music, or the deafening fiddles and pipes of the Forest Gentry.

But the group opposite was in movement. Laura was shifting places with Thibault, and then with Hockan and then with Sergei and then with another and another until she stood beside Reuben.

He reached out with his claws and caught the wolf mask of her face in his paws, staring right into her eyes, staring, determined to penetrate the full mystery of the monstrous face he saw before him, hideously beautiful to him with its gray hair and gleaming teeth.

Suddenly she closed her powerful arms around him, stunning him with her strength, and he returned the embrace, his mouth opening over her mouth, his tongue plunging between her teeth. They were sealed together, the two in the glorious concealment and nakedness of the wolf coat, and the others were all crying their names: “Laura, Reuben, Laura, Reuben.”

The music was softening, boiling into an obvious dance, and in the dancing glare of the fire, Reuben saw the Forest Gentry closing in, Elthram and the others, with long garlands of ivy and flowering vine with which they decked Reuben and Laura, winding the ivy and vine around their shoulders. From out of the air it seemed flower petals were falling down on them. Petals of white and yellow and pink—rose petals, dogwood petals, the broken fragile petals of wildflowers. And all around, the Forest Gentry pushed in singing, and covering them with light, airy scentless kisses, kisses that had only the scent of the flowers.

“Laura,” he whispered in her ear, “Laura, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!” He heard her deep bestial voice answering him, her words softened and sweet. “My beloved Reuben, wither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.”

“And I with thee,” he answered. And the words sprang out of his memory and to his tongue. “And thy people shall be my people.”

Horns of wine were thrust at them, and they took the horns and drank, and exchanged horns and drank again, the wine flowing out of their mouths, down their heavy coats. How little did it matter. Someone had poured a horn of wine over Reuben’s head and he now saw Laura anointed in the same manner.

He crushed his face against hers and felt the hot pressure of her breasts against his chest, the heat pounding through the fur.

“And the hairy ones shall dance!” cried Margon. “ ’Round the cauldron.”

The drums took up the dancing beat, and the pipes fell into a dancing rhythm.

At once they were swaying, rocking, leaping, and rushing to the right, all of them, the circle picking up speed.

The drums described the rhythmic shape of a dance and they were indeed dancing, arms out, knees bent, figures springing up into the air, twisting, turning. Sergei caught Reuben and swung him around, and then moved on to Laura. Again and again, others came together then broke apart, the drive to the right around the cauldron continuing.

“ ’Round the fire!” roared the giant Sergei, whose rich bass voice in wolf form was unmistakable, and he leapt out of the circle and the others streamed after him, Reuben and Laura together pounding after them as fast as they could.

The great full circle of the enclosure was theirs as they raced full speed one behind the other.

The thumping speed of those passing Reuben prodded him on as much as the drums, Laura keeping pace right beside him, in his watchful eye, her flanks now and then crashing against his as they plunged forward together.

He knew the roars that cut the air, he knew the howls of Frank, Thibault, Margon, Felix, Sergei. He heard the strange high savage cries of the other female Morphenkinder. And then he heard Laura’s voice, beside him, full throated, higher, sweeter than his, and exquisitely savage as she roared past him.

He tore after her, losing sight of her as others moved more swiftly than he could.

Never in all his life had he run this fast, had he leapt so far, had he felt himself positively taking flight as he sped along—not even on that long-ago night when he’d pounded over the miles to find Stuart. Too many obstacles had lain in his path; too much fear of injury had inhibited him. But this was ecstasy, as though he were smeared with the secret salve of the witches, and like Goodman Brown he was truly traveling the night air, released from the pull of the Mother Earth, yet buoyed by her winds, touching down not even long enough to feel the ground beneath him.

A new riff of guttural howls and raw cries rose against the insistent goading throb of the music.

“Modranicht!” came the cries, and “Yule!,” the words perhaps unintelligible to human ears as they came from the deep throats of the Morphenkinder. Ahead of Reuben two racing figures collided with one another and began to roll on the earth, snarling, growling, playfully nipping at each other, and then one raced off leaving the other to chase after it.

A figure pounced full weight on top of Reuben and he rolled away from the fire towards the encircling stones, throwing off the other, and then lunging for its throat with a mock thrust as the figure struck out at him like a monstrous feline. He turned and ran on, not caring who this had been, not caring suddenly about anything, but stretching every sinew of his powerful frame, and springing as wildly from the pads of his hands and feet as he could, dashing over the slower figure ahead of him, rounding the great bonfire for perhaps the fifth or sixth time now, he didn’t know, and greedy for the wind on his face as if he were devouring the wind, the menacing shadows thrown by the gargantuan blaze, and driven by the deep rolling drums and the wild grinding song of the pipes.

The thick musky scent of the wild boar came at him full force. He cried out. There was no human left in him. Suddenly ahead he saw the huge bulk of a monstrous male running as fast and furiously as he was running. Before he could mount it another Morphenkind had overtaken it and had sunk his teeth into the boar’s huge neck and was riding it doggedly, legs flying over the boar’s back.

Yet another boar and another Morphenkind ripped past him. After them at top speed he went, the hunger exploding in his belly.

And again, he saw the boar brought down.

Horrid squeals from the wounded and furious animals filled the night, and roars from the Morphenkinder.

He pounded on until he saw the figure ahead of him that he knew to be Laura. Quickly he overtook her and they fell into the same stride.

Suddenly he heard the hooves right by his ears, and he felt the sharp screaming pain of a tusk in his side. He pivoted, enraged, and opening his mouth wide in a delicious roar brought his teeth down on the side of the animal’s neck. He felt the thick musky hide tear, the muscles shred, his claws rending the rough bristling coat, and the delicious taste of the meat overwhelmed him.

Laura on top of the beast ripped into its lower flank.

He turned over and over with the shrieking grunting beast suddenly as it struggled for its life, ripping one chunk of live meat from it after another. At last his face found its underbelly, his claws slicing it open for his hungry tongue. Laura sank her teeth into the feast right beside him.

He gorged himself on the hot bleeding meat, chomping into the flank, as the last life went out of the creature, its hoofed feet still twitching. Laura lapped at the blood, ripped at the strips of bloody muscle. He lay there watching her.

It seemed an eternity passed in which the squeals and grunts had died away, the pounding of the hooves had died away, and only the distinct sharp roars of the Morphenkinder pierced the night within the hushed cloud of the spellbinding music.

Reuben was drunk and satiated with the meat, almost unable to move. The hunt was finished.

A stillness had fallen over the immense clearing in which the monstrous fire burned and the music played on.

Then a cry went up: “Bones into the bone fire!”

A huge crashing sound erupted from the heart of the blaze, and then came another as if the fire were a spitting volcano.

Reuben rose and picking up the torn and bleeding carcass of the boar on which he’d feasted he hurled it into the fire. He could see others doing the same, and soon the stench of burning animal flesh rose all around him, sickening and yet somehow tantalizing. Laura tumbled against him, leaning heavily on him, her breaths coming in hoarse gasps. They were knowing the heat of the wolf coat, the thirst in the wolf coat.

The figure of Sergei appeared beside him, telling him to come back, to join the others by the cauldron. They found the others crowded about, drinking from their horns, and exchanging horns. Reuben made out the seven who were not of his pack, but he could not tell the identity of the female wolves. Hockan he knew. Hockan had a large heavy wolfen body like that of Frank or Stuart, and his fur was almost entirely white, streaked here and there with gray, powerfully setting off his black eyes. Other dark-eyed Morphenkinder had no such advantage.

Nothing clearly distinguished the females except their smaller size and their slightly feline movements. Their breasts and intimate organs were covered in long hair and fur, their height varying as did the height of the men, their limbs obviously powerful. Everywhere he looked, he saw hairy faces clotted with blood and bits and pieces of shivering boar flesh, torsos smeared with blood, chests heaving with deep breaths. Again and again, the horns were dipped into the seemingly inexhaustible cauldron. How natural it all seemed, how perfect, to slake his thirst like this, with draft after draft, and how divine the drunkenness he felt, the utter safety of the moment.

Sergei backed up near the gathered musicians, and then giving a horrific roar, he cried out: “Through the need fire!”

He took off with a fierce leap, touching down once before he bounded straight into the flames. Reuben was terrified for him, but at once, the others began running, circling and racing to the fire in the same manner, soaring up into the heights of the fire, their powerful cries of triumph rising as they cleared the inferno and landed on their feet.

Reuben heard Laura’s voice calling to him, and in a flash he saw her break from the group, running towards the musicians, then turning and racing forward as Sergei had done, her body sailing upwards and into the hungry flames.

He couldn’t stop himself from following. Terrified as he was of the flames, he felt invulnerable, he felt eager, he felt crazed with the new and seductive challenge.

He ran at top speed and then sprang upwards as he had seen the others do, the fire blinding him, the heat engulfing him, the smell of his own burning fur filling his nostrils until he broke free into the cold wind and came crashing down on the ground to begin the race once more around the circle.

Laura had waited for him. Laura was running beside him. He saw her paws flying out before her, like two front feet, saw her powerful shoulders churning under the dark gray wolf coat.

Round the cauldron they ran and then made the mad dash once more, springing high into the licking flames.

When next they approached the cauldron, the company was gathered together, on hind legs forming the circle again. At once, they fell in.

What was happening? Why had the music slowed, why had it fallen into an ominous syncopated rhythm?

The goading song of the flutes was slowed in time with it, every fourth beat stronger than the three before. And the others were rocking back and forth, back and forth, and Margon was singing something in that ancient tongue, to which Felix added his voice, and then came the thundering bass of Sergei. Thibault was humming; the unmistakable figure of Hockan Crost, the nearest thing to a white wolf in the group, was also humming as he was rocking—and a kind of moaning hum rose from the other females.

Suddenly Hockan rushed past Felix and Reuben, grabbing with both paws for Laura.

Before Reuben could come to her defense, Laura hurled Hockan backwards right into the cauldron which almost went over, the hot liquid splashing upwards like molten metal.

Fierce growls had broken out from the Sergei, Felix, and Margon, all of whom surrounded Hockan. Hockan threw up his paws, claws extended, snarling at them as he backed away. And said in his deep brutal wolf voice, “It’s Modranicht.” He let out a threatening growl.

Margon shook his head, and gave the lowest most menacing and guttural response Reuben had ever heard from a Morphenkind.

One of the females broke through the press and shoved Hockan playfully but powerfully with both paws, and as he lunged at her, she took off, racing around the fire with him close behind her.

The tension went out of the protective males.

Another female came pounding Frank with her paws, and Frank, accepting the challenge, went after her.

It was happening now all around them, Felix going after the third of the women, and Thibault after the fourth. Even Stuart was suddenly courted and seduced and had gone tearing away in hot pursuit of his female.

Laura moved to Reuben, her powerful breasts pumping against his chest, her teeth grazing his throat, her growls filling his ears. He tried to pick her up off the ground but she threw him over and they wrestled, rolling into the shadows against the boulders.

He was on fire for her, opening his mouth on her throat, and licking at her ears, at the silken fur of her face, at the soft black flesh of her mouth, his tongue sliding in over her tongue.

At once, he was inside her, pumping into a tight, wet sheath that was deeper and more muscular than her human sex had been, closing against him so hard that it almost, almost but not quite, hurt him. His brain was gone, gone down into the beast, into the loins of the beast, and this thing, this thing that so resembled him, this powerful and menacing thing that had been Laura was his as surely as he was hers. Her muscular body shook with spasms beneath him, her jaws opening, the hoarse roar issuing out of her as if she had no control of it. He let loose in a torrent of thrusts that blinded him.

Stillness. The thin silver rain came down without a sound. Not so much as a hiss from the great fire with its dark slowly collapsing logs, its high flaming towers of timber.

The music was low, furtive, patient, like the breath of a beast who was dozing, and dozing they were, Laura and Reuben. Wrapped in the shadows and against the rocks, they lay in one another’s arms, heart pounding against heart. There was no nakedness in the wolf coat; only total freedom.

Reuben was groggy and drunken and half dreaming. Words floated to the surface of his mind—love you, love you, love you, love the inexhaustible beast in you, in myself, in us, love you—as he felt the weight of Laura against his chest, his claws dug deep into the tangled mane of her head, her breasts hot against him, hot as they’d been when she was a woman, hotter than the rest of her, and he felt the heat of her sex in that same old way against his leg. Her soft clean scent, which wasn’t a scent at all, filled his nostrils and his brain. And this moment seemed more intoxicating than the dance, the hunt, the kill, the lovemaking, this strange suspension of all time and all worry, with the beast yielding so effortlessly to this fearless drowsiness, this half sleep of mingled sensation and perplexing contentment. Forever, like this, with the spitting and crackling of the giant Yule fire, with the sharp cold air so close, the soft wet rain little more than a mist, so close, yes, not really rain, and all things revealed, all things sealed between him and Laura.

And will she love me tomorrow?

His eyes opened.

The music had quickened; it was a dance again, and the tambourines were playing, and as he let his head roll to one side, he saw between him and the immense blaze the leaping, dancing figures of the Forest Gentry. Silhouetted against the flames, they danced arm in arm, and swinging in circles like old peasant people have always danced, their lithe and graceful bodies beautiful in silhouette against the fire as they ran on around it, then stopped to make their fancy circling steps again, laughing, whooping, calling to one another. Their song was rising, falling, in time with their steps, a blending of glorious soprano voices and deeper tenor and baritone. For one moment, it seemed they shimmered, became transparent as if they would dissolve, and then were solid once more, with the thud of their feet on the earth beneath them.

He was laughing with delight as he watched them, their hair flying, the women’s skirts flying, the little children forming chains to circle the elders.

And here came the Morphenkinder with them.

There was Sergei marching, leaping, turning, with them, and here came the familiar figure of Thibault.

Slowly, he rose, rousing Laura with nuzzling and wet kisses.

They climbed to their feet and joined the others. How ancient and Celtic the music sounded now, joined again with violins and stringed instruments far deeper and darker than violins, and the clear metallic notes of the dulcimer.

He was drunk now. He was terribly drunk. Drunk from the mead, drunk from making love, drunk from gorging on the living flesh of boar—drunk on the night and on the sizzling, hissing flames against his eyelids. An icy wind gusted into the clearing, raking the fire into a new fury, and tantalizing him with the very light fistfuls of rain.

Hmmm. Scent on the wind, scent mingled with the rain. Scent of a human? Not possible. Worry not. This is Modranicht.

He kept dancing. Turning, twisting, moving along, and the music bubbled and boiled and pushed and hurried him along, the drums pounding faster and faster, one rolling riff crashing into another.

Someone cried out. It was a male voice, a voice full of rage. A loud strangled scream tore the night. Never had he heard a Morphenkind scream in that fashion.

The music had stopped. The singing of the Forest Gentry had stopped. The night was empty, then suddenly filled with the crackling and exploding of the fire.

He opened his eyes. They were all rushing round the fire now to the place of the musicians and the cauldron.

There was that scent, stronger now. A human scent, distinctly human like nothing in this clearing, like nothing that should have been in this clearing or in these woods tonight.

In the flickering half-light all the Morphenkinder were crowded into a circle, but the cauldron was not the center of this circle. That was way off to the side. There was something else in the center of this circle. The Forest Gentry hung back whispering and murmuring restlessly.

Hockan was roaring at Margon, and from the other male voices he knew came a rising chorus of fury.

“Dear God,” said Laura. “It’s your father.”