by Paul Kearney
'He doesn't want us to find him,' Michael said. 'He's delaying us, letting the trees work for him. Do you think your people got this far?'
Nennian shifted his eyes to the encroaching darkness, as thick as felt. 'I do not see how they could. I think we have passed the site of their last battle. It must be well to the north of us. I think no man has ever come this far. It is an unholy place.'
There was silence for a while, and Cat rejoined them. Though the atmosphere had dampened her spirits slightly, she seemed far less apprehensive than either Michael or Brother Nennian. She chewed on a toadstool impassively, and for a moment Michael hated her for not sharing their dread.
The night passed with little sleep, no real rest despite the fact that the woods were as still as an old grave. Their travelling continued uninterrupted, the supplies dwindling. When the water gave out they began boiling the noisome trickle of the forest streams, and when the food ended Cat caught them small creatures to eat. Nennian refused them at first, and even Michael's hardened stomach balked at the tiny carcasses of mice and newts, the glistening hide of the great snails that slimed along the damp stones, but soon they began to look more appetizing and the goat stew, the buttermilk and honey of Nennian's sanctuary became a dream, a brightness at the back of Michael's mind. His belly contracted and he could almost feel the slow but inevitable shrinkage of the muscles that padded his frame, whilst Nennian's face began to take on the aspect of a skull. Only Cat continued to thrive, though her body became more spare, the bones at the back of her hands more prominent.
The horses had trouble bearing the weight of their riders, and so they walked in file leading them. Only Nennian's donkey was still in fair condition, for it could stomach tree bark more readily than Fancy or the grey. It and Nennian took the lead every day, picking their way up steep, rocky slopes that were nonetheless choked with the stunted trees, or wading through the black sludge that accumulated in the hollows between the high places.
Twenty-six-days out of Nennian's sanctuary the rain started again, pouring from the overhead branches and reducing the ground to something like soup. They staggered through it with their eyes fixed on the tail of the steed to the front, sometimes grasping its tail to help them through the thickening mud. Often they had to congregate around one of the two horses to lever and shove it out of the mire, pulling free the embedded hoofs and beating the poor beast onwards. They slipped and slid, falling often and covering themselves with black, tar-like sludge, while the rain continued to pour down without stint. For Michael it assumed the aspect of a nightmare, something that could not possibly be real. He was so tired that even the discomforts he was suffering were far away, back behind the looming need for rest, real sleep, a chance to close his eyes. The tiredness became a physical pain, and he had to fight to keep himself from sobbing aloud as he tottered onwards.
The rain filled the forest with noise, a rushing roar of water hitting the canopy and streaming down from the trees. It ran down his face unheeded, dripping from his nose and filling his eyes. He tried opening his mouth and drinking it in, but it proved to be as filthy as the forest water because it brought with it the taste of the leaves it fell upon. He spat it out, grimacing.
Nennian had halted before what seemed to be an impenetrable thicket of trees and saplings. The priest was bent over clutching his knees whilst his chest heaved. Michael staggered to his side whilst Cat came up, dragging the grey after her. Black hair was plastered over her face, giving her a wild look.
'We can't go on,' the Brother was gasping, the roar of the rain almost drowning out his words. 'We must stop, rest.'
'There's nowhere to rest. The ground is too wet. We can't. We have to get to higher ground,' Michael found himself saying, though he too craved a halt, a pause in their agonizing progress.
'I can't... can't do it. Sweet Jesus...'
Even as they spoke the waters that puddled the surface of the mud were joining up, becoming a lake. The ground seemed to be liquefying under their feet, sucking at their legs. Michael had never seen such rain. It was like a barrage. It stunned the senses. Already the trees were losing limbs. Twigs were floating thick in the widening pools and in the midst of the water roar they could hear the rend and shriek of breaking branches, weak limbs being battered away. Flooding would come next as the water poured down from the hills that surrounded them.
'Michael!' It was Cat, tugging at his arm. 'The trees! Look at the trees!'
'What is it?' He squinted past the rain in his eyes, knuckled it away impatiently. What was she wanting now?
Faces. Faces in the bark.
'Holy God!' He squelched forward with her and left Nennian bent towards the mud. The tree trunks were knobbed and gnarled, shining with wet, but their rough ridges and contours were recognizable as features, faces set in expressions of terror and agony. If he looked closer he could see the vague outlines of hands, arms, legs, an impression of clothing – but the faces were the most clear. Mouths gaped and screamed, the rainwater overflowing from them, and the eyes wept as drops filled their hollows. It was as if men had been engulfed by the wood, fossilized like dinosaurs in rock strata.
The topmost branches began to sway and reach in a gathering wind and drops were flung so hard through the air that they stung Michael's cheeks. He found it hard to see and the air he breathed seemed devoid of oxygen.
'This is what became of the last of Nennian's kind,' Cat was shouting, and there was a strange kind of exultation in her voice.
The wind strengthened. The forest bent and roared, the trees swaying like reeds under the growing gale. Michael felt stupefied. The wind was level with his eyes, sweeping under the treetops and lashing spray from the deepening lake that was the forest floor. He had the impression that the birthing storm was contained within the wood itself, that it was the trees which were whipping up the current. It was waxing by the moment, becoming a shriek of mad, blasting air. Twigs smote him in the face and he shielded his eyes, knocked back a step. His hand lighted upon one of the wooden faces as he swayed and he snatched it away again in revulsion. Then he was pushed by the wind, shoved backwards. He sprawled into the water and the muck whilst it detonated in wind-driven packets all about him.
'Cat! Help me!'
He wallowed in the mud and felt Cat's strong grip on his arm. A bough from a nearby tree splashed into the water and blinded him.
'He's coming, Cat. It is him doing this!'
It was their storm, raised for them alone. As Nennian had once said, things in the Wolfweald had a way of turning around. They were no longer hunters, if they had ever been.
Cat was staring into his face from six inches, trying to make out his words. But her eyes had changed. They had narrowed to thin slits and angled up towards her hairline at their corners. A green fire spilled out of them. Her ears had become as long as horns. She was grinning, and her teeth seemed to stretch across her entire face. Michael yelled and shoved her away so that she fell into the water.
'What is it?' she shouted at him.
Could she not feel it working in herself anymore? Was she now so possessed by the forest that she was blinded by it?
'Nennian!' Michael screamed, but the wild wind snatched the words out of his mouth.
Here, now. The Horseman was here. He had come for them.
A thumping that might have been a thick branch striking a tree bole, except it was regular and unceasing. Like a heartbeat.
It was a heartbeat. It was the sound of the living forest, and it was getting louder.
Nennian was fighting to keep their mounts under control.
The animals were whinnying in terror and rearing up before him. Michael splashed over too late. The chestnut bowled the priest out of the way and the three of them galloped off through the trees. Cat started after them, but got bogged down after ten yards, thigh deep in mud and water with her hair lashing about her face. She struggled there.
'Michael! Help me!'
Brother Nennian was moving feebly, dragging hi
s limbs out of the ooze. His face was as black as coal, the eyes wild white circles in the midst of it.
'Michael!' Cat screamed.
He was frozen, rooted to the spot as firmly as one of the forest trees. The heartbeat of the wood was a massive thumping rhythm in his head. Around him the trees groaned and bent under the preternatural hurricane. The air was full of water and flying branches, scraps of bark, dead leaves, and the light was dimming moment by moment. Soon they would be floundering in near darkness whilst the water rose to engulf them and the mud sucked at their bones.
You cannot fight. You cannot win. Join with the wood.
Nennian was struggling to pull Cat free of the mud. The pair were shouting words Michael could not hear. Still he stood motionless. The water was kissing his knees now, was pouring down the inside of his clothes. He was saturated. The rain did not slacken, but battered him with unbelievable force, hitting the surface of the water and rebounding into the air.
Cat was free of the mud. She and Nennian lurched towards him, almost unrecognizable, their faces encrusted masks of filth.
And Michael knew. In the instant before it happened his frozen limbs freed themselves from immobility and he managed to bawl a warning.
'Look out! He's here!'
There was an explosion of silt and water that fanned the air like a geyser and was shredded immediately by the wind. Michael caught a glimpse of an angular black shape, all ravening muzzle, before it dived towards Cat and Nennian.
His sword was in his hand and he was wading through the dark water, but there was another detonation of spray almost at his feet and he was knocked down by the impact of something as hard as stone that crashed into his chest. For a second the water closed over his head and there was an immense weight on his torso, but he rolled out from under it and, still blind with muddy water, swung the blade and heard it connect with a sharp crack, like an axe clicking off wood.
Wood.
He wiped the water from his eyes and saw Cat jabbing with her stone knife and Nennian half-sunk in mud with a black beast worrying at him. His face was distorted by stark terror.
Other fountains of water and mud detonated around them, and other four-footed black shapes appeared, hard to make out in the murk and the spinning spray. He thought they were dog-like. Or wolf-like.
They were everywhere.
He thrust forward with the sword, trying to get to his companions, but the brutes dodged his blade, snapping at him with a sound like breaking timber. Cursing, he took a wild swing at the nearest and hit it on the side. He saw with strange clarity the chips and splinters of black wood that flew from the blow, and the animal buckled as the iron blade bit. It toppled to the surface of the churning water and sank out of sight with unreal swiftness.
One of its comrades sprang forward to snatch at Michael's arm, but it caught only the furs he was wearing and tore them from his forearm, unbalancing him. He yelped as another bit into his foot, and kicked out frantically as the teeth drew blood until it let go. He regained his balance and stabbed at another, but missed. There was a torrent of snarling and snapping, hollow sounding but carrying above the howl of the wind. Another creature leapt for his throat, but he threw up his free arm and smashed it back with a strength he never knew he had. The others rushed in. He swung the sword desperately but they came in quick, deft lunges to leave gashes in his flesh from which the blood flowed freely, staining the water.
He caught a glimpse of Cat fighting, a ravenhaired fury laying about her. Nennian was swinging a broken branch, thigh-deep in filthy water, his habit ripped from one shoulder and the blood pulsing from his neck. Then a great weight smashed into Michael from behind and toppled him forward. He went under, feeling the teeth rake the back of his neck, and in the ooze he lost his grip on the Ulfberht. It slipped from his fingers. His mouth filled with water and he fought to his feet, elbowing one of the beasts from his back. Another fastened on to his thigh where the old wound had been and that leg buckled, throwing him under again. His breath bubbled out of his nose and mouth and his face was pressed into the muck that underlay the churning water. He floundered to the surface, buffeted by hard bodies. A set of jaws closed round his wrist and he ripped it free, the teeth raking his flesh from the bone. He saw Cat fall, her stone knife splintered into shards, and the wolves Crowded in on her. Nennian screamed and went down with half a dozen of the beasts tearing at him. Michael was knocked to his knees again, a wolf lunging for his face. Incredibly, his fingers came upon the hard blade of his sword under the water. He gripped it and stabbed his attacker in the throat, then swept it through a hundred and eighty degrees with a wordless bellow, decapitating another, slicing the foreleg from a third. They drew back.
'Cat!'
He floundered forward like a maniac, cutting and thrusting, and beat off the pack that was attacking her. She was barely conscious, her face covered in blood. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head above the water, but he was tired and the shock of his wounds was setting in, weakening his limbs. Where Brother Nennian had been there was a crowd of the beasts tearing at something which was now submerged. Scraps of the brown habit were flung about, chunks of something unrecognizable, and the water was black with gore.
'Cat! The Wyr-fire!'
In his extremity he could feel it, simmering at the forefront of his mind. But it was trapped there. It was as though it was bulging behind the bone of his skull.
They closed in on him again. He was sobbing as he fought, Cat a dead weight dragging at his wounded arm, the sword becoming heavier and clumsier in the other. The wolves were implacable, fearless, and behind his immediate attackers he could see more explosions, more columns of spray and muck, as fresh foes rose out of the very earth to join them.
So this was how the tale would finish.
This land does not go out of its way to provide happy endings.
Indeed. But he would fight it to the end. He would die with his soul his own.
Cat was stirring, trying to sit up. He was too busy fighting off their enemies to spare her a glance but he felt her hand gripping his knee. She was trying to pull herself to her feet. Her fingers slipped into the open wound on his thigh and he screamed in agony but did not cease his efforts for a second. He spun round and the world began to flicker darkly in his sight. The wolves were black snarling shapes that crowded his ~ion and the wind beat unceasingly at his head, his eyes squinting against spray. He felt his life was trickling out of him, leaking away into the muddy water and being soaked up by the forest.
I'm dying, he thought.
Then Cat was standing at his shoulder, supporting him. The green fire was flaring out of her eyes, a flood of emerald.
'Wyr-fire, Michael. Use it.' And, unbelievably, she was smiling at him through her mask of blood and mud.
And it was there, ready and waiting for him. The world was a verdant brightness. The fire was glaring from his own eyes now, spilling out of his wounds like phosphorescent gore. The Wyr-fire was singing in his veins, steadying him. It formed a halo, a globe about the pair of them, and within it the wind dropped, the ceaseless roar diminished. Those wolves which were caught by it flared like struck matches, and the smell of burning scorched the air. They howled in pain and collapsed sizzling into the water. But the green fire continued to burn so that the lake round Michael's feet was a chiaroscuro of viridian, full of green flares. The rest of the beasts backed away, but the flames raced across the water as though the liquid were flammable and caught them also. It licked round their flanks and poured out of their maws and eyes, gutting them. They sank out of sight, shrieking.
The Wyr-fire flowed about the trunks of the trees and became a whirling immensity of light, whipping up the water further. Cat and Michael were the eye of the hurricane. They watched as the trees bent and broke under its onslaught, saw the remnants of Brother Nennian's body flung through the air like a tattered sack and felt the water retreat, sucked away. It became a wall around them, spinning and light-filled, white horses breaki
ng off to dash against the trunks of the trees, spray filling the tortured air. Then there was a massive paroxysm of energy that staggered them and made the wood shudder. The water erupted outwards, toppling nearby trees and wrenching their roots out of the ground, sending heavy trunks hurtling and crashing in the-air. Michaeland Cat were blasted off their feet and lay with their heads pressed close to the ooze, clinging to each other. A high wind hammered them, smeared them along the ground for ten feet before Michael stabbed his sword into the earth and halted them. They clung to it, this iron spike in the world's heart, and thought they heard the forest groan. A spinning branch struck Michael on the elbow and one numbed arm slipped free of the hilt, but Cat scissored his waist with her thighs and gripped the blade until the edge sliced her fingers to the very bone and her blood was blowing in drops across Michael's face. Even in that moment he was able to realize that she was proof against iron. The Wyr-fire had left her and she belonged to him again.
Then the wind eased, descending from its scream note by note. The trees stopped thrashing like demented things and began to sway more naturally. The Wyr-fire had spent itself. Michael raised his face from the dirt to see a scene of devastation and wreckage. Dead leaves and shattered twigs were scudding through the air but the gale had broken. He could breathe again.
Cat moaned softly and he turned her in his arms to see the seeping tear in her scalp, the cut fingers, the ripped flesh that left her collarbone all but bare. But her eyes were open, and they were human, warm and green, full of tears.
'We're alive,' he said softly. 'We survived.' And she smiled up at him.
The wind fell further. In moments it was a mild breeze that tugged gently at their hair, and there was a warmth in it they had not known in weeks. The last sounds of tearing wood and crashing trees ceased.
He was bleeding, and his left hand was a useless lump of meat at the end of his forearm, but he was almost unaware of it. He thought he could still hear the forest keening to itself. A clearing had been blasted in its canopy, the trees fallen like skittles with their roots black tentacles clawing at the air. But the sky above was blue and empty, and the sunlight was pouring down on them, beginning to raise steam from the bare mud. A day in spring, sunset long hours away. He cradled Cat in his arms, half lifting her from the cold earth.