Repeating his guttural advice to me that I should follow the river and forget all notion of pursuing the Outlander, he and Egwearda departed. Their mute, miserable son walked ahead of them, brushing his hand through the damp ferns that grew in abundance in the deserted garden.
Keeton and I breakfasted, which is to say we forced down a handful of oats, moistened with water. Somehow this simple ritual, the putting aside of time for a moment’s eating and contemplation, made a cheering start to the day.
We retraced our steps along the Roman road, then went hack into the woodland where there seemed to be a natural causeway through the tight brush. Quite where we would come out I had no idea, although if the sticklebrook continued to curve as Ealdwulf s map had indicated, then we would intersect it again.
We had seen no trace of Christian for a day or more, and had totally lost his tracks. My only hope, now, was to find the place at which he had crossed the river. To that end, Keeton and I would have to part company for a while, exploring the sticklebrook in both directions.
Keeton said, ‘You’ll not be taking the Saxon’s advice, then?’
‘It’s Guiwenneth I want, not the blessing of some superstitious pagan. I’m sure he meant well, but I can’t afford to let Christian get that far ahead ….’
In my mind was my father’s diary …
... away for ninety days, though only a fortnight has passed at Oak Lodge ….
And Christian, always Christian, the shock of the sight of him as an ageing man.
I would have liked to have known you during the last fifteen years.
And he had only been gone twelve months or so!
Each day that Christian gained on me might have been a week, or a month. Perhaps, at the centre of the wildwoods, beyond the fire – the heart of the realm, which Kushar had called Lavondyss – was a place where time had no meaning at all. When my brother crossed that line he would go too far from me, into a realm as alien to me as London would have been to Kushar herself. And all hope of finding him would be gone.
The thought thrilled me. It also terrified me. It had surfaced unbidden, as if planted and waiting its time to be known. And now I remembered Kushar’s description of Lavondyss:
The place where the spirits of men are not tied to the seasons.
As the image of Christian drifting into time’s endless realm sent a cold chill of anguish through me, I knew that I was right.
There was not an hour to be lost, not a moment to be wasted ….
Necromancer
Shortly after our departure from the villa we crossed the border between two zones of woodland. The land cleared and we entered a wide, bright glade. The long grass was sticky with dew and matted with spiders’ webs, which glistened and quivered in the breeze.
In the middle of the glade stood an imposing tree, a horse-chestnut, its swell of foliage broad and dense, reaching close to the ground.
On the far side, however, the tree had lost its magnificence in a shocking way. It was blighted, and grotesquely parasitized. Its foliage was brown and rotting, and great ropes of creeper and sucking plant parasites, like a net of tendrils, had reached across the glade from the wood and were entangled with the branches.
At times the tree quivered and great ripples of writhing activity coursed down the sucker net, back to the tree line. The very ground itself was a mess of roots and bindweed, and strange sticky protrusions that reached inches into the air and waved, as if searching for prey.
Horse-chestnut was a recent addition to the British landscape, only a few hundred years a native. Keeton felt that we had moved beyond the mediaeval wood, now, and were stepping into a more primitive forest. Indeed, he soon pointed out the greater preponderance of hazel and elm, with oak and ash, and the towering beech standards, beginning to be less in evidence.
There was a new quality to this forest, a darker, heavier feel. The smell was more rank and cloying, like rotting leaves and dung. The sound of bird life was more muted. The foliage quivered in breezes that we could not feel. The underwood about us was far gloomier, and the sunlight that pierced the dense leaf cover did so in startlingly brilliant shafts of yellow, a hazy light that picked out dripping leaves, and shining bark, giving me the impression that all around us there were silent figures, watching.
Everywhere we looked we could see the rotting hulks of trees. Some were still standing, held by their neighbours, but most had crashed at angles through the wood, and were now overgrown with vine and moss, and crawling with insect life.
We remained trapped in this endless twilight for hours.
At one point it began to rain. The broken light about us faded altogether so that we trudged through the saturated underbrush in an appalling gloom. When the rain stopped the trees continued to drip uncomfortably, though the patchy light returned.
We had heard the sound of the river for some time without really being aware of it. Suddenly Keeton, who was taking the lead, stopped and turned back to me, frowning. ‘Hear that?’
Now I noticed the distant sound of the sticklebrook. The rushing of the water had an odd quality to it, as if it echoed and came from very far away.
The river,’ I said, and Keeton shook his head irritably.
‘No. Not the river … the voices.’
I approached him and we stood for a few further seconds in silence.
And there it was! The sound of a man’s voice, coming to us with that same echoing quality, followed by the whickering complaint of a horse and the distant rumble and clatter of rocks falling from a slope.
‘Christian!’ I cried, and pushed past Keeton at a run. He stumbled after me, and we surged through the brush, veering between the crowded trees, and using our staffs to strike violently at the tangles of thorn that blocked our way.
I saw light ahead of me and the woodland began to thin. It was a hazy, green light, difficult to distinguish. I raced on, my pack making movement awkward. I burst out of the light wood and only a frantic leap to my right, clutching desperately at the gnarled root of a tree, stopped me from plummeting head-first over the ravine that was suddenly revealed there.
Keeton came running after me. I hauled myself up and reached for him, dragging him to a stop just before he too realized that the ground had gone, dropping away in an almost sheer cliff to the sparkling band of the river, half a mile below.
We struggled back to safety, and then edged closer to the precipice. There was certainly no path down here. The opposite cliff was less dramatically sheer, and was quite heavily wooded. The trees, sparse forms of whitebeam and oak, clung desperately to every crevice and ledge. A denser woodland resumed at the cliffs top.
Again I heard the distant, hollow sound of a voice. This time as I searched the far side of the gorge I began to detect movement. Rocks slipped and fell through the clinging scrub, plunging down to the river below.
And a man emerged, leading a straining and rearing horse, tugging the beast up what seemed to be an almost impossibly narrow pathway.
Behind the horse came other figures, armour and leathers shining. They were pushing and pulling at several reluctant pack-animals. A cart was being drawn slowly up the same ledge, and it slipped and got stuck for a few seconds as the wheel went off the path. There was a flurry of activity, and much shouting and ordering.
As I watched, I grew aware that this straggling column of warriors stretched a long way up the cliff. Suddenly the bulky, cloaked form of Christian was there, leading a horse with black trappings! The shape that was slumped over the animal’s withers seemed to be female. Sunlight glanced off red hair, or was that just the desperate deception of my imagination?
Before I could reflect upon the wisdom of the act, I had bellowed Christian’s name across the gulf, and the whole column stopped and stared at me as the sound echoed and reverberated away to nothing. Keeton sucked in his breath, in a gesture of frustration.
‘Now you’ve done it,’ he whispered.
‘I want him to know I’m following,’ I retor
ted, but felt embarrassed at having lost the element of surprise. ‘There’s got to be a path down,’ I said, and began to move through the undergrowth parallel with the cliff top.
Keeton restrained me for a moment, then pointed across the ravine. Four or five shapes were slipping back along the steep ledge, dropping swiftly through the trees.
‘Hawks,’ Keeton said. ‘I made six. Six, I think. Yes, there! Look.’
The small band was heading down the slope, weapons held loosely as they grabbed for support and steadied themselves for the treacherous slide back to the river.
This time Keeton followed me, and we raced through the wood at the cliff edge, wary for loose rock or hidden roots that might have tripped us.
Where was the path?
My frustration grew as the minutes passed and the Hawks dropped lower, and out of sight. They would be at the river within the hour, and could be there waiting for us. We had to be there first.
I was so absorbed with searching for signs of the path which my brother had used that for a few seconds I failed to notice the quivering black shape ahead of me.
It rose abruptly and dramatically to its feet, exhaling breath in a powerful and vibrant gust, a deep hissing sound that deafened as well as assailed with its stink. Keeton ran into me, then cried out and staggered back.
The Urscumug swayed from side to side, its mouth working, the distorted white features of the man I had so feared writhing and grinning upon its tusked features. The great spear it held seemed to have been made from the entire trunk of a tree.
Keeton vanished into the underbrush and I stepped quietly after him. For a moment it seemed that the great boar-beast hadn’t really seen us, but now it grew aware of us by sound, and began to chase. It wove between the trees, moving in that same startling fashion as before, fast and determined. Keeton raced in one direction and I fled in another. The Urscumug stopped, cocked its head and listened. Its chest rose and fell, the sharp hair on its body bristling, the crown-of-thorn branches that it wore rustling as it turned this way and that. In the subdued light its tusks were high, bright points. It reached out and snapped the branch from a tree, which it used to smash at the undergrowth, still listening.
Then it turned and walked in its stooped, swaying manner, back to the ravine. There it stood, staring across the gorge at Christian’s train of horse and warrior. It flung the branch into the chasm, then again looked back towards me, and cocked its head.
I swear it seemed to follow my movements as I stealthily crept back to the place it had been guarding. Perhaps it was ill, or wounded. I almost cried out with shock when Keeton’s hand touched my shoulder. Indicating total silence he pointed to the top of the narrow pathway that began to lead down the cliff.
Ever watchful, we began to walk down that track. The last I saw of my father’s mythago was its towering black form, swaying slightly as it stared into the distance, its nostrils quivering, its breathing a quiet, calm, contemplative sound.
No journey was ever more difficult, or more terrifying, than that climb down to the river valley. I lost count of the number of times that I lost my grip, slipped and went skidding down the sharp-stoned, tangle-rooted ledge, avoiding oblivion only by reflex grasping and the occasional helping hand from Keeton. I returned the favour to him just as often. We took to descending with our hands almost touching, ready for a frantic grab.
Horse manure, wheel-tracks, and the sign of rope supports on the trunks of the wind-twisted trees told of Christian’s equally perilous passage, hours or perhaps a day or so before.
We could no longer see the Hawks who were coming to confront us. When we stopped and listened to the heavy silence we could hear only the chatter of birds, though once or twice we heard voices from very far away, Christian and the main band, now nearly on to the plateau of the inner realm.
For over an hour we descended. At last the ledge widened, becoming more of a natural path, leading down towards the great green swathe of woodland, a carpet of foliage through which we could see the occasional gleam of the great river, and above which the grey walls of the gorge were sinister and concealing.
On level ground at last there was a sinister hush, a sense of watching and being watched. The undergrowth was sparse. The river surged past, a hundred yards or so away, invisible through the heavy shade of the silent wood.
‘They’re here already,’ Keeton whispered. He was holding his Smith and Wesson. He crouched behind a heavy stand of gorse and peered towards the river.
I ran to the nearest tree and Keeton followed, overtaking me and approaching the river. A bird fluttered noisily above us. To our right an animal, perhaps a small deer, shifted restlessly in a thicket. I could see the long line of its back and hear the slight snorting of its breathing.
By dint of stealth, and a darting motion from tree to tree, we came to the dry, slightly sandy shore of the river, where the snaking roots of hazel and elm formed a series of pits and wells, into which we slipped for cover. The river here was about forty yards wide, deep and swirling. Its centre was bright, but the canopy of the trees along its bank threw much of it into shade. And now that it was late afternoon, the light was going and the far bank was darkening. It looked a threatening place.
Perhaps the Hawks had not arrived yet after all. Or were they watching us from the gloom of the far side?
We had to get across the river. Keeton was nervous about attempting that crossing now. We should wait until dawn, he said. For the long night ahead, one of us would watch and one would sleep. The Hawks had to be here somewhere, and were simply waiting for the best moment to attack.
I agreed with him. For the first time I was glad that he had brought the pistol. The gun should at least give us a tactical advantage, a chance to send them scattering while we completed our crossing.
I had entertained these idle thoughts for no more than ten minutes when they came at us. I was crouched by the river, half in the lee of an elmwood trunk, searching the shadows across the water for a sign of movement. Keeton rose to his feet and cautiously stepped to the water’s edge. I heard his gasping cry and then the whoosh of an arrow, which splashed distantly in the river. Keeton began to run.
They were already on our side of the sticklebrook, and they came at us suddenly and swiftly, running and leaping in a zig-zagging, wild fashion. Two carried bows, and a second arrow clattered off the tree next to me, its shaft broken. Following Keeton, I ran as fast as I could. I was thrown forward by a heavy thump in my back, and knew without looking that my haversack had saved my life.
Then there was a single shot and a terrible scream. I glanced back and one of the Hawks was motionless, hands to face, blood gouting from between his fingers. His compatriots scattered sideways, and this unfortunate warrior collapsed to knee and belly, quite dead.
Keeton had found a deeper depression in the ground, with a screen of tight gorse, and a fence of tree root between us and the Hawks. Arrows skimmed above our heads, one snagging my ankle as it rebounded from a branch. It was a shallow but incredibly painful cut.
Then Harry Keeton did something very foolish. He stood up and aimed very deliberately at the most active of the attackers. Simultaneous with the discharge of the pistol, a sling-stone knocked the weapon from his hand, sending it skidding yards away across the dry ground. Keeton ducked back into cover, holding his hand, nursing the bruised and cut finger.
Christian’s guardians came at us then, like five hounds from hell, whooping and howling: lithe, near-nude shapes, protected by the most basic of leather armour. Only the gleaming hawk masks were of metal – and the short, glinting blades they held.
Keeton and I ran from these warriors like deer from a fire. We were fleet, despite our packs and heavy protective clothing. The imagined pain of a knife drawn across our throats gave us great incentive to find the energy for retreat.
What appalled me most, as I veered from cover to cover, was how unprepared we had been. For all our talk, for all my feeling of strength, when it came dow
n to it we were totally vulnerable, not even a .38 calibre pistol serving us well against the simple skills of trained soldiers. We were children in the woods, naive kids playing at survival.
If I had been called upon to confront Christian, he would have made mincemeat of me. To go against him with a stone-bladed spear, a Celtic blade, and a lot of anger would have been scarcely more effective than shouting at him.
The ground dropped away beneath me, and Keeton dragged me down into yet another ‘shell-hole’. I turned and raised my spear, and watched as one of the Hawks came jumping towards us.
What happened next was quite odd.
The warrior stopped, and in every sinuous, tense movement of his body I could see that he was suddenly frightened, even though the yellow bird-mask gave nothing away. He backed away from us, and I became aware of the sudden, chill wind that blew around us.
The air became dark, all light draining from the riverside as if a sudden thunderous black cloud had come across the sun. The trees about me began to whip and strain, branches creaked, leafy twigs trembled and rustled in a shiver of disturbance. Something misty and wraithlike curled around the leading Hawk. He screamed and ran back towards his companions.
Dust rose from the ground in great columns. The waters of the river spouted as if great marine beasts fought there. The trees around us became almost frantically shaken, shedding branches noisily. The air was freezing cold, and the ghastly, grinning shapes of elementals darted and flowed through an eerie mist which hovered, refusing to be dispersed by the wind.
Keeton was terrified. Crystals of ice formed on his eyebrows and the tip of his nose. He shivered violently, huddling deeper into his motorcycle leathers. I shivered too, my breath frosting, and eyes smarting with ice. The trees became white, laced with a fine fall of snow. Strange laughter, and the banshee shrieking of violent mind-forms, cut this part of the woodland off from all that was natural.
Mythago Wood Page 23