Fear churned in his stomach like the tidewaters on the craggy Kernow coast.
“I mean me … you can’t leave me.”
“Come along if you have to. Tas wanted you with me, and since I’m going, you come too … And you can help me get there faster.” He stood up and found his staff next to the wall.
“You sure?”
“Stay close and don’t wander off.”
Outside, the last smear of the orange sun fell beneath the hill that stood between their land and the marsh. A chill wind blew as they set off down the path, Merlin tapping out ahead with his staff. He wrapped his cloak tighter, but could do little else as the gusts whistled through his hair and sent shivers down his back.
Ganieda hummed a slow tune he’d often heard Mônda sing. She slipped her small hand into his as they turned east onto the main road of the village and continued on toward the meeting house.
Merlin felt every sense crackle as they passed Allun’s mill and entered a stretch of road flanked by heavy underbrush. Off to their right, he heard movements in the bushes.
A snarl.
Merlin kept walking, but his grip on his sister’s hand tightened.
“Keep going,” he whispered.
Deep growling now. Behind and in front.
Fear crawled up from the pit of his stomach and grabbed the inside of his throat. How many? Dogs or wolves? “Stay close,” he said as he drew his dirk and whipped his staff around low to the ground.
“Don’t hurt them!”
Her words barely registered as Merlin’s mind flooded with memories of the attack seven years before. That time it had been the same: He and Ganieda had been alone on the path outside their house. Howling wolves had surrounded them. She’d been hardly two years old. Defenseless. He’d been eleven and had tried to save her by keeping the wolves back.
But they had attacked him — and she had never been touched. They knocked him to the ground and mauled him, scratching and biting his face. By the time his screams had reached his father, it was too late. His eyes had been ruined and his face marred forever.
“No, Merlin!” Ganieda pulled at his arm. “It’s my wolf, Tellyk, and his friends. They want to see me.”
Merlin snapped back to the present. For a moment he tried to comprehend his sister, then another snarl jerked his attention to the bushes. “Get behind me, Gana!”
CHAPTER 9
THE NIGHT OF DECISIONS
One of the wolves lunged, snarling, at Merlin’s ankle. Panicked, Merlin jabbed his staff toward the sound and bashed the wolf on the side of the nose. With his other hand, he tried to stab it with his dirk, but the creature jumped back with a whimper.
Ganieda called out, “Go away … Away, Tellyk!” She waved her hands toward the bushes. Swiftly the wolves slunk through trees and brambles, downhill and away from the village.
“Th-they’re gone?” Merlin asked, still whipping his staff around.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. They’re my friends. Especially Tellyk.”
He wished he could see her face to judge whether she was telling the truth. “When did you make friends with them? Why do they obey you?” Merlin took her hand again. This time it was his that trembled.
“A long time. I don’t remember when.”
As he struggled to grasp the implications of this revelation, Merlin noticed a smudge of light blazing farther down the road. “We’ll talk about this later.” He pointed at the light. “What’s that?”
“A bonfire in the village pasture.”
“Anything else? Do they have the gallows up?”
“I can’t tell. There are lots of people … shadows. The whole village must be gathered for the fire.” Her voice turned petulant. “Why didn’t Tas and Mammu want us to come?”
“Let’s hurry.” A blazing fire meant no wolves.
They approached the village green and entered through the main gate, which creaked in the wind. So why had everyone gathered? Merlin held Ganieda’s hand as they walked toward the crowd. Soon he picked out amid the general noise a voice, strong and deep, speaking to the people. He’d heard that voice before.
“… to call you back to the old way. To call you as lost children back to the only way your ancestors knew — they who claimed this wooded land as their own and coaxed forth crops from the soil, who mined the streams for tin, who built your homes.”
Merlin searched his memory, and a sickening feeling settled in his stomach.
“Your ancestors call you back to worship the old gods — the guides, the healers, those