by Paul Finch
The gates and the fence receded; the bus rolled on across an unending, empty moor. Low, nearly flat ground undulated gently, the monotony broken by the occasional knoll, low hillock or gentle rise. Green bracken, yellow gorse and purple heather. One knoll sprouted a thin tree twisted sideways; Mark thought for a second of the kind of desert island you saw in cartoons: a tiny bump of sand with a palm tree on the top. Two stone walls and a stub of chimney that had been a cottage went by.
They drove another twenty minutes. The bus bumped and jolted under them as the road grew rough and potholed. Then it slowed; Mark heard the indicator ticking and the vehicle pulled to the side of the road.
"All right, ladies and gentlemen," Ian said. "Everybody off." There was a hiss and a thump and the doors opened. "Come on everybody, chop-chop. Busy day ahead."
His unblinking gaze travelled up first Mark and May's aisle, then down the other, lingering on each passenger in turn and daring them to disobey. Neither May nor Mark were the first to get up, but as the others began to shift, grumbling, from their seats, they exchanged glances, sighed and joined the general exodus, Mark shrugging his light backpack on as they went.
Although it was early June, the sky was overcast and when Mark climbed down from the bus, stretching his arms and legs, the air was chilly. Of course it was still quite early; he'd been ordered to report to the pick-up point in the old industrial estate at Pendleton for six a.m. They'd been on the road better than two hours, but even so, most of those lucky enough to still have jobs were yet to clock on.
The passengers huddled in a group at the roadside, shoulders hunched, stamping their feet. Baghead hugged himself and looked miserable, close either to tears or lashing out in blind rage. The Mumbler scratched behind one ear, pottered a little way off and then pottered back, still muttering to himself. Mark looked at May again; she shrugged. "Well, presumably this is where they tell us what the hell we're doing," she said, and scowled at the bus. "Though if your man there's expecting us to go for a four-mile fun-run first, he can get to fuck."
Ian was standing at the top of the steps that led down from the bus, the clipboard held across his lap. Mark waited for him to step down or at least address the group, but instead a faint smile tugged the corner of Ian's mouth as, with a hiss, the bus doors thudded shut.
"What the fuck-?" he heard Baghead say, as the bus's engine coughed and roared into life.
"Hey, just a fucking moment-" May yelled, starting forward-but the bus was already pulling away. She ran towards it and it wheeled sharply round on the road, bouncing from side to side so hard Mark thought it was going to keel over. But then it steadied and, as several other passengers ran forward, it gunned its engine and swept by them, nearly knocking one middle-aged woman flying with its starboard wing before barrelling off into the distance.
"Fuck me-fuck!" yelled Baghead. "Fucking hell, you fucking cunts!"
The Mumbler let out a sudden high-pitched moan. "Shut up!" spat Baghead.
"Leave him," said May.
"Oh, and what the fuck're you gonna do?"
May stared him down.
Nobody said anything for a little while after that; they looked back along the way they'd come, looking for some sign of the bus or some other vehicle to take them on the next stage of their journey. There was no point looking up the road, because just ahead of their position the cracked and potholed tarmac gave way to a dirt track and then less than that-a pair of grassless ruts worn into the ground with a thick belt of grass and heather sprouting between them.
All Mark could hear was the whistle of the wind, blowing across the moor, flapping and rattling loose vegetation. Someone was crying; the middle-aged woman stared around the group, then came over to Mark and May. She was in her forties, her hair dyed a glossy black and with gold hoop earrings that almost touched her shoulders. Her face was roundish and a little careworn, crow's-feet at the corners of her quick brown eyes, and she wore stretch pants, brightly striped trainers and a tracksuit top. "What do you reckon we should do now?" she said.
"God knows," said Mark. He looked down the track to where it petered out. "Not much point going on. Only way is back."
"That's if they let us out through the gates," said May.
"Why are they doing it?" said the woman. "I don't get it."
Baghead and several others drifted over; the Mumbler blinked a few times and then ambled across to join them.
"Maybe it's like one of those Outward Bound thingies," May said. "You know, like a team-building exercise or something."
"Team?" said Baghead. "Us? Stupid cow."
"Oi," said Mark. "Leave it."
Baghead glared at him, squaring his narrow shoulders. "Yeah? The fuck're you gonna do, pal?"
"Don't," said May, putting a hand on Mark's shoulder. "And you, pal, change the bloody record or I will change it for you." She glared straight at Baghead until he looked down, fists clenched, muttering through gritted teeth. That was three times he'd been stared down, counting Ian, and for a moment Mark thought it might be a straw that broke the camel's back, pushing the addict past a tipping point, but in the end he backed off, hands raised.
"There's no point us fighting," May said. "We need to spend our time working out what to do next?"
"Like what?" said Baghead. May opened her mouth, then closed it again. She obviously had no more idea than anyone else what to do, not that she'd ever laid claim to.
And then, out of nowhere, came the sound of a horn.
Not a car horn; this wasn't anything electric or mechanical. It was an instrument of some kind, like a bugle or trumpet; a long, monotonous blare of sound, somehow mournful and threatening all at once.
"Where's that coming from?" said the middle-aged woman, turning round.
"Over there," said Mark, nodding towards the brow of a low hillock that rose perhaps a hundred yards from the roadside.
The blast of the horn lingered long, echoing across the moor. For a moment, just a moment, there was only the wind, and then other sounds began to intrude: the barking of dogs, ferocious jagged snarls giving way here and there to howls. Someone laughed. And then, faint on the wind, came the clop of hooves.
"There." The middle-aged woman pointed.
The clopping of hooves grew louder, and seven silhouettes broke the line of the hillock, rising to climb atop it.
Seven horsemen-Mark assumed they were men, anyway, but it was hard to tell from their outlines. They seemed to be wearing some sort of headgear; their clothing was bulky and glinted in places-armour?-and a leather cloak or cape hung from each rider's shoulders. Each man also carried what looked like a spear, with a long wooden haft and a triangular head with a pair of metal lugs sticking out on either side. They reminded Mark of boar-spears he'd once seen in a museum; the lugs were to stop the spearhead penetrating further into the animal's body, so that it couldn't force its way along the haft to attack the hunter.
The barking and snarling grew louder, and like the welling of a black tide a host of bristling shapes rose into sight on the hillock. Dogs; the biggest dogs Mark had ever seen.
The horn's last echo died, and for a moment all was still. The dogs stopped snarling; their tails swished to and fro in silence and ropes of spittle dangled from their grinning jaws.
The horsemen gazed down in silence. Even the Mumbler had gone quiet. The wind rose; a horse whickered and stamped, and the riders' leathery robes snapped and billowed like sails in the breeze. And then the central rider of the seven on the hill raised the horn to his lips and blew.
The low, dread note sounded. It was louder than ever now, a bellow, a threat, a promise. The Mumbler wailed. The dogs bayed, and bounded down the hillock. A moment later, the horsemen lowered their spears and charged.
The Mumbler screamed, and then it seemed everyone else was screaming too. Mark staggered as someone cannoned into him and reeled away across the grass.
Everyone was scattering, running. "Come on!" A hand grabbed Mark's: May. "Come on, for Christ's
sake!"
She ran and Mark went with her, over the worn dirt trail and then over the moor, towards the far horizon. Behind them came the thunder of hooves and the bark of dogs, and then there were screams. Mark looked back-he shouldn't have, but he did. The Mumbler was down on the ground, thrashing and screaming. It looked as though his hand was pinned to the earth at first, but then Mark saw one of the dogs had his wrist in its jaws; it crouched low, snarling, its grinning teeth turning red. Two, three more dogs arrowed in towards the fat man. Mark wasn't sure, but thought they were armoured like the horses and the men. They leapt; one caught the Mumbler's throat in its jaws, crushing his scream to silence. The one with his wrist in its jaws jerked its head and tore his hand away, and the others ran in to tear at his groin and belly.
Baghead stumbled into view. A horseman rode up behind him, spear arm drawn back. He threw and the weapon struck the addict in the back, smashing him to the ground like a crumpled spill of paper. Baghead's limbs twitched. Dogs bounded towards the carcass.
"Come on," yelled May. "Come the fuck on for Christ's sake!"
Mark ran with her, but his foot snagged in something-a rock, a twist of grass or briar-and he fell.
He rolled to break his fall. Fear gave him tunnel vision; all the narrow focus of his gaze could make out was the strip of moor and grass directly ahead of him, and it was empty. May was gone, and there was no time to look for her because behind him was the barking of the dogs, the screaming of the slain, the thunder of the hooves and the blaring of the horn.
I'm fucked , he thought, getting up and trying once more to break into a run. I'm fucked, I'm fucked, I'm-
There were some gorse bushes up ahead. Mark scrambled towards them. They'd offer almost no cover worth speaking of, but there was no chance of outrunning the riders and pack. His only hope, tiny as it was, was to hide.
He dived towards the gorse bushes, flinging his arms up to protect his face from the thorns. He crashed in among them-and then the ground was gone from under him, and he was falling.
The water broke his fall, or some of it. He splashed hard into the stream, then hit the stones at the bottom, knocking air out of his lungs. He rolled over, coughing and spluttering. The water was icy cold and somewhere between one and two feet deep. He looked around; earth banks rose on either side of him, nearly six feet high. The bushes grew thick around them, blotting out all but a thin band of light from above.
He stood and stumbled along the stream channel. The water rushed around his feet, ankles, shins. The teeth of its chill sank into his flesh, grated on bone. He looked up at the narrow slice of sky; shadows flickered across it. It would only take one dog to find him, one hunter to ride close and look down.
Then he saw the inlet.
Just up ahead and to the left, water poured into the stream and swelled it; it came from some sort of cleft in the banks. Mark splashed his way over to the gap, saw that the rivulet emerged very close to the top of the bank and had over time carved out its own channel, a niche several feet wide. As with the rest of the stream, gorse sprouted thickly on the banks above, their twigs meshing overhead and effectively screening what was in it from sight.
It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. Mark squeezed into the niche and pressed himself against the walls, digging the heels and toes of his sodden trainers into the damp friable earth, jamming his hands into the soil further up and praying it would be enough.
He hunched there while the howls and screams went on. He felt the ground shiver under the horses' hooves, heard the whistle of flying spears and the thud of their impact, heard sounds like tearing wallpaper and splintering wood. He heard the screams, too, of course, the pain and fear, the despairing last minute threats and pleas for mercy. But there were other sounds, too, other voices, and they were raised in cheers and laughter.
The laughter was the worst, somehow. Such an ordinary sound, something you'd hear in a pub or across a dinner table if someone told an off-colour joke. The noises continued on and on: it seemed impossible anyone could still be left. Surely the last of the group must have been finished off by now? Against the dogs and the riders, what chance did they have?
He knew it was a risk, but the not knowing was worse. Slowly he raised his head above the level of the bank, and narrowing his eyes, managed to peer through the mesh of branch and thorn.
At first he saw nothing: only the barren heath and the black glitter of the tiny rill weaving through it towards his hiding place. Then there was a growl, a panting, a soft pad of feet, a metallic clank. The toe of one trainer slipped, then caught and lodged fast again. Mark's balance almost went, but held; he bit down on the gasp that tried to escape him. He mustn't make a sound.
The dog appeared, no more than ten feet away. Even allowing for the extra bulk of its armour, it was massive, about the size of a Shetland pony. It was like no other breed Mark had seen. In shape, it resembled an Alsatian, but its build was more solid, broader in the chest. Muscles rolled under its glossy black pelt and it wore an armoured harness that covered its chest and hindquarters, greaves on its legs and an ornate metal helm in two parts-one covering the skull and upper jaw, another the lower. The metalwork was very detailed; eyes, ears, even fur had been cunningly etched, and over the gap left for the nose-what good was a hunting dog that couldn't scent?-a fine wire grille had been shaped to complete the outline.
Both halves of the helm had cruelly serrated edges. Behind them, its fangs were white, and a pink tongue lolled over them as the hound padded towards the rill. It drew its tongue in and closed its jaws, and the two halves of the helm came together with a soft metallic hiss, the teeth meshing so perfectly that had he not known it was there, he'd never have seen the join.
The hound's jaws opened again; it bowed its head and lapped the running water, then stopped. Water dripped from its jaws, and through the wirework of the grille, he saw the black wetness of its nose twitch. As it turned its head towards him, he realised that it had his scent.
Mark could see its eyes through the helm and the gorse. They were yellow, pitiless and unblinking. It was five feet from him, four, three-
Feet crashed and tangled through the undergrowth behind the dog. Mark glimpsed a flickering shadow, someone running, and the dog wheeled, bayed and leapt. He watched it sail through the air towards the runner, thinking thank God, thank God-someone else, not me, but then he heard the snap of its jaws, the crack of bone and the runner's scream, and he had to jam his fingers into his mouth to avoid crying out.
The runner was down, kicking, screaming. He saw long blonde hair-oh Christ no, he knew that hair. And the clothes too- the jeans, the T-shirt. Just as recognition dawned, May thrashed over onto her back, kicking at the helmed head, but the dog only snarled and bit down harder.
More dogs barked and bayed, closing in. May writhed and howled again, and her eyes stared through the gorse straight at him. He didn't know if it was possible, but was sure that in that last moment her eyes met his, as she screamed in pain and terror, for help, that she was directing those pleas at him.
But it was only for a moment. An instant later two more dogs leapt upon her, and her next cry was a raw shriek of naked agony: tortured nerve, torn flesh, broken bone. At least the dogs' shapes hid her from him, a mass of pelt and armour heaving to and fro, blood spurting between and over them.
The ground shivered. Hooves clattered and pounded. One of the big horses bounded in, a black silhouette against the pale sky, the rider rearing on its back, cloak billowing behind him, lugged spear held aloft. With a whoop, he flung it down. It struck with a thick squelching crunch, and the screaming stopped. The only sound after that was that of the dogs tearing at their kill.
The horse reared and cantered, hooves scrabbling at the air. The rider grabbed the spear's haft, wrenched and twisted at it till it came free; the noise it made was almost as bad as the sound of its impact had been. The horseman laughed and whooped, brandishing the blooded weapon in the air.
Mark could see
him more clearly now. The horseman was armoured about the chest, arms and legs, with a helm in the shape of a grinning devil's face. There were metal gauntlets on his hands, but a flash of gold at his wrist: a watch, Mark realised, something expensive and ornate.
Most clearly of all, he saw the cloak. At one point, as the horse pranced, it seemed no more than a few feet from his face. It was made of numerous individual pieces of a material that looked like leather. But it wasn't leather; the patches had holes that had been eyes, empty flaps that had been noses, and their mouths were still stretched wide in the screams they'd died with.
Mark couldn't hear any more cries. The only sounds now were barks and noises like the ones coming from where May had fallen. And then, across the blasted moor, came the blare of the hunter's horn.
The dogs tensed, then straightened, tearing last chunks of meat from the kill before loping away. The horseman dismounted, unsheathing a short sword with a thick, curved blade, like a cutlass. He stooped over the thing on the ground and raised the weapon. Mark looked away; bile scorched the back of his throat, flooding into his mouth when he heard the thick woody sound of it chopping flesh and bone. Once, twice, three times. He spat the bile out and made himself look again.
The huntsman climbed back onto his horse, tying something to the saddle-horn-a round object that trailed hair, some of which still gleamed blonde through the blood and mire that matted it. The dogs gambolled around the horse; one stopped and looked towards Mark's hiding place, head cocked to one side. Then the horn blew again and the dogs sped away. The hunter spurred his horse, which reared and galloped forward. "Tally-ho!" Mark heard him cry. The echo of it lingered long after he'd ridden off.
The hoof beats, the baying, the occasional sounding of the horn-all faded into the distance. Once or twice, there might have been another, far-off 'tally-ho!', but soon only the wind remained-and then the clatter of wings and the caw of crows.
Mark stayed where he was until his arms and legs began to ache. Soon he was shaking. Then his hands slipped and he collapsed into a huddle at the bottom of the niche, into the water. It was cold, but that barely registered. He wrapped his arms around himself and sobbed.