The Book of Lost Things [120]
The captain did not object to the sword. In fact, he told David to bring all of his belongings with him. “You will not be returning to this room,” he said.
It was all that David could do not to glance at the window behind which Anna was hidden.
“Why?” he asked.
“That’s for the king to tell you,” said Duncan. “We came for you earlier, but you were not to be found.”
“I went for a walk,” said David.
“You were told to remain here.”
“I heard the wolves and wanted to find out what was going on. But everybody seemed to be rushing around, so I came back here.”
“You need not fear them,” said the captain. “These walls have never been breached, and no pack of animals is going to do what an army of men could not. Come, now. The king is waiting.”
David packed his bag, added the clothing he had found in the Crooked Man’s room, and followed the captain down to the throne room, casting one last look back at the window. Through the glass, he thought he could still see Anna’s light shining faintly.
In the woods behind the wolves’ lines, a flurry of snow shot into the air, followed by clumps of dirt and grass. A hole appeared, and from it emerged the Crooked Man. He held one of his curved blades at the ready, for this was a dangerous business. There was no way that he could strike a bargain with the wolves. Their leaders, the Loups, were aware of the Crooked Man’s power and trusted him just as little as he trusted them. He had also been responsible for the deaths of too many of their number for them to forgive him so easily, or even to let him live long enough to plead for his life if one of the packs trapped him. Silently, he advanced until he saw a line of figures before him, all of them dressed in army uniforms scavenged from the bodies of dead soldiers. Some were smoking pipes while they stood over a map of the castle that had been drawn in the snow before them, trying to work out some way to gain entry. Already scouts had been dispatched to get close to the castle walls in order to discover if there were any cracks or fissures, any unguarded holes or portals, that might be of use to them. The gray wolves had been used as decoys and had died almost as soon as they came within reach of the defenders’ arrows. The white wolves were harder to see, and although some of their number had also died, a few were able to approach close enough to the walls to conduct a minute examination, sniffing and digging in an effort to find a way through. Those that had survived to report back confirmed that the castle was as impregnable as it appeared to be.
The Crooked Man was close enough to hear the voices of the Loups and to smell the stink of their fur. Foolish, vain creatures, he thought. You may dress like men, and take on their manners and airs, but you will always stink like beasts and you will always be animals pretending to be what you are not. The Crooked Man hated them and hated Jonathan for conjuring them into being through the power of his imagination, creating his own version of the tale of the little girl in the red, hooded robe in order to give birth to them. The Crooked Man had watched with alarm as the wolves began to transform: slowly at first, their growls and snarls sometimes forming what might have been words, their front paws lifting into the air as they tried to walk like men. In the beginning it had seemed almost amusing to him, but then their faces had begun to change, and their intelligence, already quick and alert, had grown sharper yet. He had tried to get Jonathan to order a cull of the wolves throughout the