World's End

by Mark Chadbourn

  Time was running away. It was too dangerous to wait for everything to start working again and then find themselves caught out on the open road. Veitch hit the wheel one final time, then said, “We’ll have to hole up round here.”

  “The castle would be perfect,” Ruth noted, “but there’s no way we’ll be able to get in there after it’s shut up for the night.”

  Veitch thought briefly before pointing to a Norman church perched on the opposite side of the valley to the castle. It stood isolated amidst a sea of green fern and small bushes. “We could do it there. Nobody’s nearby to get hurt and we’ll be able to see them coming from a long way off. Plus, it’s got a wall round the churchyard, which may be nothing, but every little helps.”

  Church was impressed by Veitch’s tactical vision and at how comfortable he seemed making those sorts of decisions quickly. “Okay. You’re the boss.”

  Veitch glanced at him as if he thought Church were mocking him. When he saw that wasn’t the case, he looked both bewildered and a little pleased. “Right, then. I’m the boss.”

  They left the van sitting useless in the car park and walked up to the church half an hour before twilight fell so as not to draw attention to themselves. They needn’t have bothered; there was no one around for as far as the eye could see, and the church noticeboard said the vicar was shared with other parishes, so there was no reason why they should be disturbed. The weather seemed to be changing to complement the approaching conflict; after the heat of the day, a chill had swept in from the sea, with slate-grey clouds which turned the waves an angry dark blue. They crashed on the stony beach with increasing violence; enormous fountains of gleaming surf cascaded high into the air, filling the valley with the deep bass rumble of angry nature.

  They erected a tent in the churchyard for shelter in case it rained, and then halfheartedly chewed a few sandwiches left over from lunch. The thunder started just as the half-light of evening turned to the gloom of night. Veitch lit a handful of storm lanterns they’d bought in Glastonbury and positioned them around the tent.

  “You don’t think this is going to attract attention?” Ruth said as the first fat drops of rain fell. Away in the dark an owl hooted mournfully and Ruth wondered if it was the same mysterious bird which seemed to have befriended her.

  “No one’s going to see it, and even if they did, they wouldn’t turn out on a night like this.” Church opened the packing crate and examined the three talismans inside; the spear had been lashed to it with a rope from the van and an oily rag tied to disguise the head. After a moment’s thought he selected the sword, as surprised at how it felt in his hand as the first time he had touched it; sturdier than it appeared, warm, tingling.

  “Let me have the spear,” Ruth said.

  “You sure? I was going to give it to Ryan.”

  “Why? Because he’s a big tough boy and I’m a girl? Besides, he’s got his little gun to keep him happy, for all the good it’ll do him.”

  Church weighed the spear in his hands, then passed it over. He wondered if it might be more effective with Veitch’s strength behind it, but he had no doubts about Ruth’s bravery.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll take that as a vote of confidence. It means a lot to me.” She took the spear and balanced it on her open palms before taking it firmly with a smile. “Feels good.”

  “Ruth Gallagher, warrior woman.”

  She laughed. “I’ve got so much pent-up frustration and anger I feel like I could take them all down on my own.” She brandished the spear theatrically, then her face darkened. “What was it Shavi said that disturbed you and Tom?”

  Church thought about not telling her, but decided it wasn’t fair. “Shavi discovered why the Fomorii haven’t attacked. They’re trying somehow to resurrect the one who used to lead them before he was destroyed by the Danann. At least, that’s what he seemed to be suggesting.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “According to the Celtic myths, Balor was a force of ultimate evil and darkness. Virtually indestructible, terrifying to look upon, so powerful that if he turned his one eye on you, you were instantly annihilated. If the myths have captured even a fraction of the truth, it could be the end of everything.”

  “Then we need to free the Danann before they bring him back.”

  “But we don’t know how close they are. They could be doing it tonight-“

  Ruth clapped her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “No point tearing ourselves apart. We just have to do the best we can.”

  In her face, Church saw something that brightened his spirit. “I’m really glad we met under the bridge that night. Sorry. I just felt I had to say that.”

  She smiled and gave his cheek a gentle pat. “You’re a man of excellent taste, Jack Churchill.”

  He pushed the crate with the remaining talismans into the tent where Laura and Veitch sat in frosty silence, and Shavi dozed with Tom beside him. “How’s sleeping beauty?” he said.

  “As well as can be expected, given the psychic shock.” Tom’s Scottish brogue was more pronounced, which Church put down to the tension.

  “I don’t understand it,” Veitch moaned. “We’ve got all the prizes together, like you said, but nothing’s happened.”

  Church nodded. “I’m hoping we’ll get some kind of sign.” He half expected the woman from the Watchtower to turn up at any moment with the final piece of the jigsaw.

  “I know what we’ve got to do,” Tom said. Everyone stared at him. “They have to be brought together in the right place to work.”

  “So when were you planning on telling us this?” Church asked with irritation.

  “At the last possible moment,” Tom snapped. “There’s too much at stake to start throwing vital information around. You don’t know who’s listening-“

  “There’s only us listening!” Veitch said angrily. “It’s about time you got on the team-“

  “There’s no point arguing about it now,” Church said with exasperation. “Do you all want to come out and choose your weapons, for what it’s worth? We’ve found some pretty mean lumps of driftwood and an iron bar on the beach.”

  Veitch crawled out first, and then Laura more reluctantly. “I’ll stay here,” Tom said. “Look after Shavi and the other talismans.”

  Church was disappointed, but there was no point trying to force him. “If you’ve got any more tricks up your sleeve, now’s the time to pull them out.”

  Tom nodded, but didn’t let on if there was anything he could do.

  “Look at us!” Laura laughed as they gathered anxiously within the circle of light in the pouring rain. “The Hunt will probably laugh themselves off their horses. Before they drag us off to hell, that is.”

  Ruth and Veitch ignored her; they fixed their eyes on the deep gloom, their ears straining to hear any sound beneath the howl of the wind.

  “Do you know how to use that sword?” Laura continued to Church, realising he was her only audience. “It’ll be about as effective as a toasting fork. Does she know what to do with that spear? And, hey, do I know what to do with this lump of driftwood? Yep, we are some defenders of the realm. Pathetic.”

  The rain had plastered her hair to her head and was running in rivulets down her face. At least in the dark she had forsaken her sunglasses; Church saw the fire in her eyes.

  “You’ll give them hell,” he stated simply. He considered saying more, about her courage, her spirit, but the low, dolorous sound of a horn suddenly came in on the wind and he felt the blood drain from him. Laura’s face, too, was white in the ghostly light of the storm lanterns; her dark eyes darted around fearfully.

  As if in response to the horn a peal of thunder rolled out and then lightning streaked the sky. The gale gusted the rain at them like ice bullets.

  “Okay,” Witch said. “Looks like we have us a situation.”

  “Just what we need-a meathead raised on war movies,” Ruth muttered sourly.

  Before they could utter another word
, they saw the bulk of Black Shuck separate from the darkness and pad towards them. It leapt up and sat on the wall in one corner of the churchyard, where it simply watched balefully, its red eyes glowing. Its silence was eerie. It didn’t threaten to attack or make any movement at all; it just stared. And there was something in that which terrified them more than at any other time they had encountered it.

  They heard the baying of the hounds rising up before they heard the horses. Their white and red forms undulated like a pack of rats as they surged up the lane towards the church. A moment later the riders loomed behind them, majestic, awe-inspiring and terrible in the heart of the storm. The moment they were caught in the white flash of lightning, a primal vision in metal and fur, Church knew exactly how Laura felt; before them, he was useless, their weapons children’s toys. Nevertheless, he adjusted the sword in his hands and brandished it as threateningly as he could. The others followed suit with their own weapons, as if they had read his mind.

  As the Hunt galloped up the lane, it almost seemed like the storm was part of them; the wind howled from within the churning mass of horses and the thunder echoed from their hooves as they clattered on the road. The Erl-King was at the head, his monstrous face garish in the lightning.

  Church prepared himself for them to come barrelling straight into the churchyard, but instead they surged around it, circling one way, then another, with the dogs before them so it was impossible to tell from which direction the attack would come.

  “They’re playing with us,” Church shouted above the wind.

  “No, they’re being careful,” Veitch replied. “Looks like you were right about these magic things-they want them, but they’re scared of them.”

  Church realised Veitch was right and that gave him more confidence; perhaps they weren’t as mismatched as he had thought.

  “Maybe we could hold them off like this every night.” Ruth moved her weight from one leg to the other, holding the spear out before her.

  “And achieve what?” Laura asked savagely.

  The Hunt continued its circling for nearly an hour, by which time they were all shivering and soaked to the skin. Their constant concentration and high state of alert was exhausting them.

  “I wish they’d just do something!” Ruth yelled above the wind.

  As if in answer, the riders suddenly roiled around one section of the wall, then reined their mounts up before backing off slightly to leave the Erl-King standing alone. His horse reared up, its breath steaming from its nostrils, and when it brought its hooves down Church was convinced he saw a burst of sparks.

  “Give up your burdens!” His voice boomed out, yet, oddly, seemed to come from somewhere all around him rather than directly from his mouth; there was a strange metallic tinge to it that set their teeth on edge.

  “You’re not having anything!” Church yelled defiantly.

  There was a long pause and when the Erl-King spoke again, it was as if the storm had folded back to allow his words to issue with a focused power and clarity; his accent sounded different from moment to moment, as if their ears were struggling to make sense of what they heard.

  “Across the worlds we dance, above the storms, beyond the wind. All barriers crumble at our command. We are like the waves, ever-changing. You can never know us. You can never cup our voices in your ear, nor touch our shells, nor smell our fragrance in the wind. Through time and space we slip and change. There are no absolutes.” His voice drifted away and for a moment there was nothing but ringing silence, as if the whole of the world had stopped.

  But when his voice returned, it had the force of a hurricane and they were almost bowed before it. “And you are feeble sacks of bone and blood and meat! Trapped in form, lost to the universe, always questioning, never knowing! Driven by lusts, chariots of wrath! You may not turn your face toward us! You may not raise your voice to speak! You may not lift a hand to challenge! For in doing so, you challenge the all and above and beyond! And your essences will be swept away and torn into a billion shreds! Hang your heads in shame! Be low before us!”

  The tone of his words filled Church with trepidation. He recognised that he was dealing with something so beyond his comprehension it was almost like speaking with God. Yet however fearful he felt, he knew he couldn’t back down. “You may think we’re nothing, but we’ll fight to the last. And if you believed everything you said, you wouldn’t be sitting there talking to us. You’d just have taken it. If you want these things, you come and get them!”

  “Nice tactics,” Laura said in a fractured voice. “Don’t just stand there. Go open the gate for him.”

  There was another ear-splitting peal of thunder and another blinding flash of lightning, and when it had cleared the Hunt was in motion. They galloped halfway round the churchyard wall, and then, without warning, they suddenly cleared the perimeter with a single bound, the dogs running all around. There was no time to talk or think. A hound launched itself at Church’s throat, jaws snapping, needle teeth glinting, its eyes glowing with an inner light. Church swung the sword with such force he cleaved the dog in two. But instead of a shower of blood and entrails, it simply turned black and folded up on itself like a crisp autumn leaf until it disappeared in a shimmer of shadow.

  Everything was happening too fast. One dog sank its teeth into Veitch’s calf before he bludgeoned it to death with the iron bar. The tent was torn up and disappeared in a flurry, leaving Tom frozen in terror, hunched over Shavi’s unmoving form. The hounds circled and attacked, circled and attacked, while the four of them continually lashed out to keep them at bay. But it was like holding back the tide. And out of the corner of his eye Church realised the riders were waiting, letting the hounds do all the work for them.

  And then the quality of time seemed to change; images hit his brain one after the other like slides in a projector. Ruth’s face, pale and frightened, but ferociously determined, in a flash of lightning. Some kind of comprehension crossing it like a shadow. Her head turning, searching, settling on one spot. The weight of her body shifting, muscles bunching, leaning forward slightly.

  And then everything returned to normal like air rushing into a vacuum. Ruth erupted from the spot, holding the spear above her head. With a tremendous effort, she powered forwards, slammed her foot on a stone cross and launched herself on even faster. Church knew it was a suicide run, but there wasn’t even a second to call out. She flew through the air and slammed the spear hard into the Erl-King’s chest. There was an explosion of blue fire that lit up the entire churchyard. The Erl-King came free of his saddle, his face transformed by some emotion Church couldn’t recognise, and the two of them went over the wall together and rolled down the steep bank into the night.

  Ruth woke in the sodden bracken, her head ringing and a smell like a power generator filling the air. Every muscle ached and her skin was sore, as if she had been burned. The rain was still pouring down, pooling in her eye sockets, running into her mouth. With an effort, she lifted herself up on her elbows, and as she fought to recall what had happened, flashes came back: her attack, the impact with the Erl-King, the flash of blue fire and her last thought that she had killed herself but saved the others. With that realisation she allowed herself to focus on the outside world: she wasn’t alone.

  Something was thrashing around in the undergrowth, snorting like an animal, occasionally releasing a bestial bellow of anger or pain. It sounded so primal she was almost afraid to look, but in some perverse way she was drawn to it, even if it meant she might be discovered. Cautiously she peered above the level of the ferns.

  Forty feet away, a dark shape crashed around, pawing the ground, stooping low, then raising its head high to the night sky. Her first instincts had been correct; there was more of the animal about it, yet also something sickeningly human. Her stomach turned at the conflicting signals. And then, in another flash of lightning, she saw what it was: the Erl-King, not wounded as she might have expected, but undergoing some bizarre metamorphosis. His entire body appe
ared to be fluid, the muscles and bones flowing and bulking, the posture becoming more brutish; the greenish scales and bony ridges on his face ran away as if they were melting in the rain; the nose grew broader, the eyes golden and wide-set; there seemed to be an odd mixture of fur and leaves sprouting all over his body, as if he were becoming a hybrid of flora and fauna. Yet despite its strangeness, Ruth felt the sight was oddly familiar. With each new transformation, he bellowed, and that sound also changed, conversely becoming more mellifluous. And finally twin stalks erupted from his forehead, growing and dividing until they became the proud, dangerous horns of a stag.

  The vision was terrifying, yet also transcendental; Ruth felt flooded with an overpowering sense of wonder. She caught her breath; it was a slight sound, hidden by the wind, but whatever the Erl-King had become heard her. It froze, cocked its head, then lurched towards her, its hot breath bursting in twin plumes from its flared nostrils. Ruth shrieked in shock and scrabbled backwards, her heels slipping on the wet vegetation, but it was so quick it was over her before she could stand and run.

  Knowing she was trapped, she turned and looked up at its huge silhouette looming over her, waiting for the wild attack that was sure to come. And then the strangest thing happened: in another flash of lightning she caught a glimpse of its expression and she was sure it was smiling.

  “Frail creature,” it said in a voice like the wind through autumn trees, “I see in you the sprouting shoots of one of my servants.”

  “What’s happened?” she croaked.

  The creature made an odd, unnatural gesture with its left hand and then seemed to search for the right words to communicate with her. “When the barriers collapsed, the Night Walkers were prepared. Deep in the Heart of Shadows, they had formed a Wish-Hex of immense power, forged from the dreams of lost souls. As we readied for our glorious return, it swept out in a whirlwind of vengeance, the like of which had not been seen since the first battle. None escaped its touch. Many of my kin were driven out of the Far Lands, a handful escaped to the world, or the places in-between. And some were cursed to walk the Night Walk. And I was one of them.” He made a strange noise in his throat that was part-growl, part-cry, but then seemed to regain his composure. “But the Night Walkers’ influence was always tainted with weakness. And you, a frail creature, broke its hold!”