I have to go, Wolf thought drowsily. I have to go… He heard music, quiet harp music, and the music drew him away from this place where his body lay cramped in the stone. What had happened to the walls of rock? They were smokily transparent, like horn or glass. He stretched out a hand and they dissolved into greenish light. He floated through…
…and it seemed to him that he was following a little river like one of the wild streams that flow off the moor. The chattering of the dark water as it swirled over its stony bed blended with the harp music. All the stones in the stream were round, smooth pebbles like the tops of skulls. Wolf followed the stream over a slow curve of moorland. It was dark above him and to the sides: he couldn’t see any horizon or edges or sky. He wasn’t afraid, but the place gave him a ghastly, sick, dream-like feeling that was worse than fear. Someone was walking beside him, but for a long time he didn’t look to see who it was. But at last he did, and it was Hugo, and he was playing a harp, and that was where the music came from.
“So you came,” said Hugo.
“Of course I came,” said Wolf. “I’m your squire.” And his voice sent ripples up and down the moorland so that it tore apart and rippled away like candle smoke, and the sick, ghastly feeling got worse, and he and Hugo passed through into a doorway so huge and dark, Wolf felt like a gnat or a fly floating into a cathedral.
Inside was very quiet, but it was a restless quiet. In the dimness he felt things brushing against him, and heard the rattle of wings overhead, and saw the glint of eyes — and faces he half recognised peering out of the gloom. A boy ran silently across the shadowy floor, and Wolf was almost sure it was a boy he’d known at the abbey, who’d fallen sick and died…
This was a dream, right? On impulse he bent to touch the floor. It was cold and hard: smooth stone with a layer of fine gritty dust. It was real.
Hugo had not waited. With a shiver Wolf brushed the grit from his fingertips and hurried after, afraid of losing him. His feet tapped on the flagstones, setting off a landslide of pattering echoes, and he slowed and tried to walk quietly, quietly. At the end of the hall was a stepped dais, and on it a throne, hung about with long black banners. Somebody was sitting on it. It was Halewyn.
He sat in a huddle, his feet drawn up, his chin in his hands, and stared at them with dark eyes. “Welcome, Hugo.” His glance trailed on to Wolf, with a glint of laughter. “And your faithful squire.”
“You, here?” Hugo breathed.
Wolf pushed up close to Hugo. “Don’t trust him. He’s a—”
Halewyn’s eyes sparked. “What? Dare you say? Dare you name me? Where were you when I was made? When Lucifer, that shining angel, fell from Heaven, I fell with him. I saw him plunge like a meteor, burning — before the winds caught me and tossed me away. And I found this place of shadows to be my kingdom. How do you know what I am? Be careful, Wolf. I will be whatever you choose to call me.”
He turned to Hugo. “Play for me, harper!”
Hugo’s fingers jarred on the harp strings.
“Play,” Wolf whispered urgently. “Hugo, play — for Eluned’s sake!” And Hugo sat on the steps of the dais and bent over his harp. He began to play. As the music rippled from his fingers, a cold, greenish light flowed into the hall. Gold gleamed from the throne and green gems glinted on the black banners. Green streaks and veins ran over the black marble floor. Fans of branching tracery swept into the roof like green frost. There was dancing in the hall behind them, Wolf could sense it, though not for his life dared he turn around to see who or what was dancing.
“Though I died and went to Paradise, I would come back
To be your lover,” Hugo sang, and bent his head. The moment the music ceased, the green light faded. The hall was dark again, restless, shuffling, whispering. Lost, lost… Up in the roof something shook gigantic wings. Halewyn lifted his hands and clapped slowly and deliberately, wakening flat echoes.
“Well played, Hugo. What do you desire?”
“Release my lady.” Hugo’s voice shook. “Every seven years you send a living soul to Hell. Let it not be her. Give me my Eluned. Give me my love.”
“Your love,” Halewyn repeated softly.
Wolf stared about. His heart beat hard and his mouth was dry. He had seen no lady here. He looked at the dais and the throne, and there was no lady anywhere: nothing but the stirring shadows of the banners as they moved gently in the fanning draughts. Chills ran down his spine. Hugo’s eyes were fixed on the dais, as though by sheer force of longing he could conjure the person he loved out of the dark.
“She’s not here,” said Halewyn.
Hugo stood like a stone.
Halewyn leaned forward from the throne. Horns curled back from his brow: not goat’s horns, but the budding branching horns of a young stag.
“Eluned’s not here,” he said softly, and echoes swept around the hall: Not here. Not. Not here. Not here. “She never was.” Was. Was she? Never was, was.
“You were a fool to think so. The old, mad beggars on the roads, they’re my people. The cast-off children nobody wants. The babies abandoned in ditches. The guilty, the lost, the wanderers, the refuse of Heaven — they all come down to me, to crawl into this crack in God’s creation where they can wrap a few rags of make-believe around them to keep warm.” His voice sank to a whisper. “Heaven has forgotten us, and, for one little payment every seven years, Hell turns a blind eye. You belong here, Hugo, lost with your dreams in the dark. Welcome. Abandon hope. Play for us again.”
With a terrible, snorting grunt, Hugo fell to his knees. He doubled over and slapped the dusty floor, touching his forehead to the ground. Wolf ran to him. Hugo uncurled. He flung his arms wide and threw back his head.
“Eluned!” he howled. “ELUNED!”
The vast space of the hall exploded with the shocking clatter of wings. Hooves scraped and boomed on stone. Sparks glittered and spat in the shadows. Halewyn rose to his feet. He grew as he rose: he was taller than Hugo, taller than any man; on his head the horns spread and branched into spikes and prongs.
“Run!” Wolf shrieked.
“Run!” cried Halewyn, laughing. “Run, Hugo. See how far you can get! For I am Lord of Lies and Master of Shadows and Hunter of Souls!”
Wolf seized Hugo’s arm and tugged it. Hugo stumbled up. Wolf dragged him across the hall: but now there was no hall, only a jostling darkness without up or down. They blundered through, and were on the moor, where the bloody stream ran. Behind them horns wailed, harsh and shrill and deadly: they heard the yammer of hounds. “The hunt is up!” cried Hugo. All the skull-stones in the stream rolled around to look at them, dark and empty eyed, chattering with loose jaws.
“Run!” And they ran — into night, into black stony passages, into smaller and smaller spaces, scrambling through closing chinks of rock with the hunt snarling at their heels — ducking, bending, crawling on hands and knees through room after contracting room, squeezing into earthworm tunnels beyond hope of light…
Wolf reared out of the dirt like a caterpillar. He grovelled forward, met solid rock and reached upwards, straining. His hand went into space overhead. So it wasn’t a dead end after all, but the bottom of the steep step he had wriggled over on the way in. He had been lying stretched at its base. For how long? He didn’t know. He dragged himself up between the rock edges and knelt on all fours, shivering. “Hugo,” he called. He forced himself to remain calm. “Hugo, are you there?”
A gasping groan answered him, and sounds of scrabbling and wrenching. “Hugo!” Wolf cried. “Be quick!” He didn’t bother to ask how much of this had been real. In the darkness he had found Hugo: that was all that mattered. He was filled with sharp urgency. The air of the mine pulsed. “They’re coming!”
Hugo felt it too. He tore himself out of the squeeze. “Don’t wait for me. Go!”
There was a noise under the ground, like stone jaws grinding. Tremors ran through the darkness. They crawled blind and desperate over the stone-strewn floor. At last the weave of the darkness wore thin. Wolf took the lead. He burrowed upwards like a mole under the slanting rocks. Then he saw the irregular shape of the entrance. A glitter of light on stones and the flash of water dropping. A breath of snow blew down to him, a living draught of air. And he was out.
Hugo crawled out behind him. They staggered to their feet. From the mouth of the mine came a muttering rattle, like fingers tapping on the hollow skin of a drum.
“Run!”
The cliff trembled. Snow cascaded from the ledges. They stumbled downhill over the loose rocks. It was still snowing. Wolf shuddered with joy at the white, fresh world.
They burst into the clearing. The horses had strayed. Hugo whistled. He whistled again, and a shrill whinny came from the woods. In a moment, his black horse came cantering up the dingle, its ears pricked. The grey pony bustled along behind it.
“Ride!”
“I c-can’t get up,” said Wolf through chattering teeth. Hugo grabbed him and flung him up. He mounted himself, and wheeled to face the hill. “Goodbye, Wolf. Go home. Back to the castle…”
“Not without you!”
“There is no more shelter in this world for me. The Wild Host will drive me like a leaf before a tempest until they hunt me down. I won’t lead them to my daughter, or let you share my doom. They’ll follow me, not you. Live to serve some other knight, a better man than I.” His voice broke. “My wife is dead. I will never go home again. Go back, Wolf. Pray for me.”
Unseen behind the trees, the face of the cliff collapsed with a rush and a roar. Rocks bounded into the dingle, crashing into the stream. Snow burst into the air like spray. Hugo gave a shout. His black horse bounded up the hill. The pony tossed its head and leaped after. Wolf grabbed steadying handfuls of mane.
Hugo shouted over his shoulder, “I said, go back!”
“No!” Wolf shouted. “Anyway, I can’t!” There was no time to say more. The black horse clattered across the stream and leaped up the bank on to the moor. The pony hurtled after. Wolf’s teeth rattled in his head. Icy water splashed his legs. Then with a jerk and a lurch he too was on the snowy uplands.
Hugo was already many yards away, galloping up the moor. The pony put its head down and tore after him. Wolf clung on for dear life. Snow flew in his face. He lost his breath. He bounced up and down, landing back in the saddle each time with a grinding jolt. Rocks, gorse bushes, heather-filled hollows — the pony jumped, twisted and scrambled over them or past them. Suddenly the wild pace slowed. Hugo had drawn rein. The pony rammed its nose into the coarse hairs of the black horse’s tail.
“Riders!” said Hugo in a strange voice, staring at the skyline. “There are riders up on Devil’s Edge!”
Nest and Rollo, Roger and Geraint cantered north along the Edge. The steep ridge was like a knife dividing day from night. To the west, the plunging sun struggled for life through a turbulent fog of yellow snow clouds. To the east, darkness climbed the sky on gigantic wings. The wind cut to the bone. Nest glanced into the western valley. The convent was down there somewhere, but it was invisible: the woods were buried under a brownish haze. The eastern valley lit to a vast blink of light. Nest flinched. A growl of thunder rolled across the moor.
From behind came breathless shouts. “Rollo, you bastard. Come back!” “Come back or else!” And Brother Thomas yelled something about the wrath of God.
The eastern valley dimmed and vanished behind a sweeping curtain of hail. Then with a hissing rattle, hailstones hurtled out of the sky. The horses shied. A bright flash lit the hail: for a moment the world was a brilliant multi-dimensional white. Nest was dizzy. Which way was which? Thunder tore the sky apart. On its crashing rumbling heels, two riders galloped out of the blizzard. First was a man on a big black horse, which reared up, neighing. After him came a careering grey pony with a boy clasping its neck as he rode. It slid to a halt, nearly throwing the boy off. Nest screamed.
“Father! Wolf!”
“Hugo!” Rollo bellowed.
“Nest!” Hugo’s voice split with horror. “What are you doing here?”
More horsemen came blundering out of the storm. The hail redoubled its fury. Pursuers and pursued could only bend gasping under the onslaught, while the horses milled, trampling the white, slippery ground.
The shower went hissing away over the ridge. They could raise their heads again. Nest found herself next to Brother Thomas. Every crease of his black robes was filled with white hailstones. Lord Godfrey kicked his horse forward and seized Nest’s reins. His dark hair was plastered to his head and he bared his teeth with fury. “You come with me, you little vixen—”
Nest cried out, jerking at the reins. “Father, help me!”
“Leave her alone!” Wolf yelled. And Hugo pushed his horse menacingly close.
“Take your hand off that rein, Godfrey!”
Godfrey’s face went smooth with shock. “Hugo?” He recovered. “Hugo! Thank God you’re safe! I’m rescuing your daughter. These men of yours snatched her from the very steps of the altar and went riding off with her…”
“It’s a lie!” Nest shrieked.
“Oh, my God,” Roger Bach interrupted in a wailing cry. He lifted a quivering finger and pointed. “Look!”
Carried by the bitter east wind, a mass of cloud the colour of charcoal was blowing across the valley. Its ragged fringe reached out high overhead, forming and reforming like the smoke from a bonfire. It took the form of a band of dark horsemen, trampling the air. When the lightning flashed behind them, the shapes lit up in glowing strands and veins. They formed and reformed, lifting ghostly horns, which shredded away into streamers. Black hounds with gaping jaws raced ahead of them, the front runners failing and fading like breakers on the shore: forever renewed by the piled ranks behind. From somewhere beyond the world a yelping gabble carried on the wind. Horns sang out in a searing music. Thunder rolled.
“Riders in the sky!” cried Geraint.
“Devils!” exclaimed Brother Thomas in horror.
Lord Godfrey let go of Nest’s reins.
“Ride for your lives,” he screamed. “For your very souls!”
He clapped his heels into his horse’s sides and galloped away along the ridge. With a thudding scramble of hooves, everyone followed, friends and enemies together, galloping over the rising and dipping spine of Devil’s Edge.
“Slow down!” Rollo bellowed, riding neck and neck with Nest. Elfgift clung to the saddle in front of him. “Slow down!” Ahead, Lord Godfrey’s white horse stumbled, almost throwing him. Stones poked through the snow.
“We’re on the Devil’s Road!” Rollo yelled. “If you gallop over this you’ll lame your horses — or break your necks. Slow down!”
Roger Bach turned on him. “This is your fault, Rollo! You’ve still got the elf-girl. Throw her down! I told you she’d bring bad luck!”
“The elf-girl?” Brother Thomas rode his horse jostling alongside and gazed at Elfgift in incredulous horror. “Fools! No wonder the Devil is hunting us. Cast her off! Throw her down!”
He drove his horse into Rollo’s, and dragged Elfgift sideways from Rollo’s saddle. Rollo struggled to hold her. For a moment she dangled between the two horses, kicking. As their paths diverged, Rollo had to let go.
“I will save us!” yelled Brother Thomas, and flung Elfgift to the ground. As she tried to get up, he spurred his horse at her. “I will smite her down,” he shouted. “I will trample her under my feet as Michael trampled Satan!” The horse reared to avoid Elfgift, but its foreleg caught her a glancing blow and knocked her down again.
“Leave her!” Brother Thomas yelled, wrenching his horse’s head around. “Let the Devil take his own!” Flapping his arms and legs, he urged his mount into a gallop. It hit the rocks and went down, throwing Brother Thomas over its head.
Wolf saw Elfgift fall. In horror he tugged the reins. The grey pony was tired, but it was frightened and had no intention of stopping. It tore on. Wolf kicked his feet free from the stirrups and fell off. He hit the snow, bashing his knee on a stone. For a moment he nearly blacked out with the pain. He got up, and with one hand clapped to his gashed and bleeding knee, started back at a hobbling run to the place where Elfgift lay limp as a rag doll. The sky behind her was as dark as night.
The Wild Host broke against the hill and rushed up over the snow. Their shapes flickered and flowed into one another, continuously changing, opening and closing slow wings, showing dreadful faces which twisted and melted. Wolf saw bounding black goats with uncoiling, drifting horns: horses with hissing, wind-combed manes. Still they came on, huge as a tidal wave, rolling on the wind, straining forwards. Whips of lightning crackled across the valley, and the music of the horns and the hounds together was like sobbing souls in agony.
Wolf reached Elfgift and tried to pick her up. His knee gave way and he fell. He dragged her into his arms, looking up. The stormy riders were almost on top of them. Overhead a vast, cloudy projection poked forwards a ragged, grinning mouth; crazily, it reminded Wolf of something. Of Halewyn’s mule. He looked up further, with the same feeling of dizzy, ghastly sickness that he’d had before, as though the mask of reality had been ripped off. He saw the rider.
“You can’t have her,” he screamed into the wind. “Elfgift’s mine!”
“And mine!” Hooves came stamping into the snow beside him. Nest jumped from her snorting, terrified horse. As soon as she let go of the reins it bolted. She flung herself down next to Wolf. They clung together, looking up.
“Oh, my goodness!” Nest wailed.
Halewyn towered halfway up the sky. His horns were branches of flickering lightning. His eyes were like the night behind the stars. The wind sighed through him and gave him a voice — a voice that raised goosebumps all over their skin.
“She was mine, until you stole her away. If you want her, you must pay me, soul for soul. And who cares enough for that? Who gives himself for her?”
A man’s voice yelled, “I will!”
Hugo dismounted beside them. He slapped his horse to send it away, and planted his feet firmly in the snow, gazing upwards.
“Father, no!” screamed Nest.
Hugo turned to her with a brief caress. “Let me do this, Nest. I gave life to you but I have taken many more. More than you know.” He looked up. “I will run no further, Lord of Shadows. I have spilled enough blood — taken enough lives. Time to atone. Let the elf-child go.”
“You — Lord Hugo of La Motte Rouge?” said Halewyn. His voice seemed to tremble with laughter, and the seething mass of dark riders shook their spears. “Lord Hugo’s soul for a little elf-girl’s, the least of my cold children? There’s a fine bargain. Let it be so.”
The dark wave toppled forwards. Wolf hugged Elfgift tight. She tried to burrow into him. He hugged Nest. They cowered into the snow, hiding their eyes as the Wild Host crashed over them. Freezing winds tugged and plucked at their clothes. Wolf heard distorted voices, echoing and dim; shouts and clashes like the sound of a far off battle. Heavy footfalls padded around them. Something panted hot and close in his ear.
“Don’t look!” Wolf muffled his face in Nest’s shoulder. “Don’t look!” And he and Nest and Elfgift clutched one another tighter and tighter. He could feel Nest shaking, Elfgift pressing close. A knot of warmth grew between them. And, at the heart of the warmth, a buzzing, wordless hum. A tune. A lullaby.
“Lullay my little young child,
Sleep and do not cry:
Your mother and your father
Watch at your cradle side…”
Goosebumps pattered over Wolf’s skin. “And there they will abide,” he sang softly.
He sucked in a huge breath and opened his eyes. The others were opening their eyes too. They looked at each other speechlessly, close, close in the darkness. A wreck of clouds blew overhead.
With a cry, Nest flung herself aside. Hugo lay limp in the snow beside them. She knelt over him, feeling for his breath, clasping his hand. “Father, don’t die! Oh, God,” she cried passionately, “where are your angels? Send us your angels, quickly!”
Wolf stood up. He gripped Elfgift by the hand. Horses and riders lay scattered over the Devil’s Road. He thought they were all dead. But one by one they were rising, picking themselves up. A scarecrow of a man tottered upright in the snow, shaking his fist, screaming: “The wrath of God…! Sinners, repent! Let the Devil take his own…!” His torn black robes streamed in the wind.
Someone tapped Wolf on the shoulder. He turned with a start, and then backed with a shaken gasp, gripping Elfgift. It was Halewyn, riding his black mule, no different from the first time they’d met. He cocked an eyebrow at Wolf. “It’s just too tempting,” he said thoughtfully. “Hugo? Or Brother Thomas? What did he say? Let the Devil take his own? And the fee to Hell is due on Saturday. I really can’t resist…”
He rode forward. Over his shoulder he added, “Goodbye, Wolf. Until we meet again!” The mule twisted its head and gave Wolf a sneering, open-mouthed grin. It was all on fire inside. He could see right down its throat.
Halewyn spurred over the snow. He reached Brother Thomas and snatched him up with the deadly grace of a cat pouncing on a mouse. He swung him over the mule. Brother Thomas’s heels kicked. His head and feet hung down. Black mule and black rider sprang away. They rode down over the snowy rocks, galloping over the Devil’s Road as if they were not touching it. A thin, trailing scream hung in the air. And they were gone.
Light burst over the ridge. On the very edge of the western hills, the dying sun struggled through two layers of cloud and shot level rays across the valley. The snow turned silver and gold.
With Elfgift clinging to him, Wolf limped to where Nest knelt. She had somehow dragged Hugo’s head and shoulders into her lap, and looked up with a tear-streaked face as they approached.
“Is he…?”
Hugo’s eyes were open. There was a great black bruise on his forehead. The sunlight touched his face, as if with a brush dipped in gold.
“Eluned,” he whispered, smiling. He reached out his hand to someone standing just above him.
And closed his eyes.
Wolf stood, swallowing tears, squeezing Elfgift’s hand. Nest bowed her head, hiding Hugo’s face in her long, black hair. “He’s dead. He’s dead! Oh, where are God’s angels?”
The sun was almost below the hills. The valley was a solid mass of clouds, lit by the last of the sunset to a fiery floor. The falling snow flashed like crystals. Pushing through the frail curtains of falling flakes, enormous shining shapes came stepping across the valley.
“Nest.” Wolf cleared his throat. “I think—— ” He stopped, shuddering with awe. “I think they’re coming now.”