Auchinmurn Isle
The Middle Ages
Malcolm’s cruel intentions were suffocating Matt, slowing him down. Beneath the bile, beneath the cold unyielding rage, Matt had sensed his father’s true focus.
Malcolm tugged on the black peryton’s antlers. The beast reared, racing through the clouds towards the blackened hillside and the feebly stirring form of the Abbey’s housekeeper.
‘He’s coming for you!’ yelled Solon behind Matt. ‘Take cover!’
‘No, he wants Jeannie!’ yelled Matt. He had left the soft sand now, and was scrambling to pull himself up and over the lip of the hill. ‘He needs her. I can feel it. Jeannie!’ he screamed, clawing his way up the impossible slope. ‘Wake up! You have to move!’
Malcolm and the black peryton were flying fast and low across the surf now, the beast’s hooves sparking against the outcropping rocks, the tips of its wings whipping the crests of the waves. Matt lunged at a tree root to heave himself further up the treacherous slope, but it popped like a loose tooth in his hands, tossing him desperately, maddeningly, on to the sand again.
Carik shot three arrows in quick succession at Malcolm and the demonic spectre. The wind and her terror distorted her aim, and her arrows veered harmlessly into the water. The beast was almost upon them, its ghostly form gleaming, its wide snorting nostrils and blazing eyes terrifying to behold.
Matt got to his feet, shaking and battered, searching hopelessly for some means of scaling the smooth, unforgivingly muddy slope that lay between him and Jeannie.
‘I’ll hoist you up!’ Solon shouted, cupping his hands.
With Solon’s assistance, Matt finally made it over the lip of the muddy hillside. He scrambled to get a hold, shoving his hands deeper and deeper into the swampy ground, cold mud up to his elbows as he clawed his way forward. He couldn’t slip again.
Up ahead, Jeannie fumbled to free herself from the tree. She wasn’t making progress. Her hands were swollen and red and the knots in her apron had tightened with the water.
‘Son,’ she called out groggily, seeing Matt pounding and slipping towards her. ‘This isn’t yer fight. Find yer way home.’
A dark shadow swept over them.
‘Dad!’ Matt was struggling to stand in the streaming mud. ‘Don’t hurt her! Don’t hurt Jeannie!’
Malcolm and the beast hovered above them, the wind from the peryton’s wings forcing Jeannie back against the tree. He grinned, the stretch of his lips tearing into the powdery pink flesh, exposing the black roots of his missing teeth and dripping clots of ink from his chin on to the winged collar of his chain mail.
‘Don’t hurt her, Dad,’ Matt screamed.
Jeannie blinked up at Malcolm. ‘You hurt the wean, Malcolm Calder,’ she hissed, ‘and it’ll be your death too.’
Down below, Carik and Solon had waded out into the water for the motionless body of the Abbot as he drifted into the shore. Now they were lifting him from the waves.
‘I’ll do anything you want, Dad!’ Matt yelled, shoving his arms and legs deep into the mud to anchor himself.
Mesmerized, he watched his father tug the peryton higher, swinging some kind of lasso in tight circles above his head. A black orb the size of a football was attached to the end of the rope. It flew towards Jeannie’s head where it whirred and clicked and popped open, dropping a mechanical net over her. The sides snapped against each other like teeth, locking Jeannie inside.
How is he doing this? Matt wondered, lunging towards the swinging net.
But he wasn’t fast enough. Malcolm and the beast galloped away through the air, dragging Jeannie behind them, vanishing into the clouds and leaving a ragged line of light like a scar in the sky.