The country house, every detail captured in the warm glow of floodlights, was as big as Grimwood and even grander. It had a fountain in the driveway that Valkyrie circled, before parking facing the exit – in case she needed to make a quick getaway.
She looked in the rear-view. Someone was walking over.
“Stay down,” she said to Omen as she undid her seatbelt. She got out.
The man who approached wore fox-hunting gear – a green jacket with four brass buttons, riding hat, jodhpurs and polished boots. He looked to be in his forties. He was tall, and observed her disdainfully. “You are late.”
Valkyrie ignored the voice in her head that told her to punch him. “What am I here for?”
He observed her for a bit longer, then sighed and turned. “This way.”
She followed as he led her round the house, to where the countryside rolled to the starry horizon on dark waves, spotted here and there with the lights of isolated houses and passing cars. A line of thirteen horses stood directly behind the house, their riders in an assortment of black, green and tweed jackets. Standing in front of the horses were maybe twenty people. They looked nervous. Jittery.
At the bottom of the hill was woodland, and built into that woodland, twisting in and around the trees, was a massive hedge maze, like nothing Valkyrie had ever seen.
The man in the green jacket indicated that Valkyrie should stand beside the scared people. She did so, as he climbed into the saddle of the biggest horse. Now that she could see them properly, Valkyrie realised the riders were all wearing grotesque masks.
She sighed, and turned to the woman next to her. “We’re going to be hunted, aren’t we?”
The woman met her eyes, and laughed with an excitement that Valkyrie found disturbing.
“At the centre of that maze,” the man in the green jacket said loudly, “is safety. Anyone who reaches it will live. Anyone who doesn’t will die.”
Valkyrie stepped forward. “Do I have to do this? You seem to have a thing going on here, but I’m just looking for my—”
“Back in line!” roared the man in green.
Valkyrie glared, and stepped back.
“For those who reach the middle,” he continued, “you will join the Wild Hunt at our next meet. You will be one of us, with all the privileges that go with that. Every hunter you see before you has been where you are. We understand your fear.” He glanced at Valkyrie again, and irritation washed over his face. “As for you, there is a card in the middle of the maze. Written on that card is an address. In the unlikely event that you survive, that will be your reward.”
He took off his riding hat, pulled on a carved mask, and put his hat on over it. “I am the Master of the Hunt,” he said, “and I tell you to run!”
The men and women around Valkyrie ran. She hesitated long enough to see the hunters draw curved swords, then bolted after them.
The grass was wet and slippery. Already some of her fellow targets had lost their footing and were tumbling uncontrollably down the hill. Valkyrie passed the excitable woman, who reached out to grab her. Valkyrie shoved her away and kept going.
Behind them, a horn blew, and the night trembled with the thunder of approaching hooves.
Someone fell in Valkyrie’s way and she leaped over him, reached the bottom of the hill and sprinted on, finding herself near the front of the charge. There were some seriously unfit people running for their lives. She passed a wheezing woman who was slowing with each step. She was about to reach out and pull her along when an arrow thudded into the woman’s head and she dropped dead.
Valkyrie started zigzagging as she ran.
There were screams behind her as the horses caught up to the stragglers. Valkyrie glanced back, caught the flash of a curved blade, saw an arc of blood.
An arrow hit her shoulder and bounced off. Another one pierced the ground at her feet. A third landed ahead of her, but this one exploded in a burst of liquid.
A similar arrow hit a man to her left, made him stumble but didn’t hurt him. He ran on, his back drenched, disappearing through the entrance to the maze.
Something hit her in the small of the back. She reached behind her, felt the wetness, and then she was through, into the maze.
Valkyrie slowed down to catch her breath. Outside the maze were the screams of the dying – inside was the hushed panting of the desperate. They plunged on without thought, without strategy, barging past Valkyrie in their eagerness to win a place in the Wild Hunt.
Psychos, she decided. Hunters and hunted, both as bad as each other.
There was a rule about mazes, she knew there was. Keep right, maybe? Keep trailing your hand along the wall to your right and it will lead you to the centre?
Or was it left?
She looked back as the hunters streamed into the maze on foot, swords glinting.
She turned right and ran.
The hedges ranged from knee-height to three metres tall. Sound worked differently here. All around her were the sounds of the pursuers – their footsteps, their calls, their laughter, their shouts – and the sounds of the pursued – their footsteps, their cries, their sobbing, their screams – but these sounds crept up from odd angles. Sometimes they were behind, sometimes in front. Sometimes above, and sometimes just over her shoulder.
The deeper Valkyrie went, the further from the lights she moved, the darker it got. She crouched, listening to someone begging nearby. There was a laugh, and a sudden, gurgled moan, and the begging stopped.
There was someone coming for her.
Valkyrie moved on, keeping low. She tugged at the bracelet round the wrist, but there was no way it was coming off.
She stopped. Her hand. It was luminous orange.
She twisted, looking down at herself, hissing a curse under her breath. Her jacket, her trousers, drenched with that liquid, now glowed in the dark, a beacon to the hunters who were closing in.
Footsteps. Rushing her. Valkyrie spun and the hunter stopped running. He laughed beneath his mask.
She sagged. “Come on then,” she said, allowing her voice to tremble. “Get it over with. If you’re going to kill me, kill me. Just … just make it quick.”
She raised her chin and turned her head a little, giving him a clean swing at her neck. He marched forward, confident in her submission and his inevitable victory. He raised the sword as he walked, and when he was in range he swung. Valkyrie stepped into him, left arm wrapping round his right while her other hand cracked into his chin. He stumbled but she held on, hit him a few more times as he went down, then hit him a few more times after that.
She straightened, looked around for the sword. It had flown from his grip and was now lost in a hedge somewhere.
“Here!” another hunter shouted, and Valkyrie bolted.
She tore off her jacket as she ran, dropping it, thankful that the T-shirt beneath was black. She took a corner. There were two hunters ahead, hacking a man to death, and Valkyrie ducked behind the next corner before they saw her, then slipped backwards into the shadows. She crouched, doing her best to hide the parts of her that glowed, and held her breath. The hunter on her tail ran past.
“She come this way?” the hunter, a woman, barked.
“Who?” one of the other hunters asked.
The woman didn’t bother answering. She hurried back to the corner, and Valkyrie squirmed further into the darkness.
The woman passed, sword in hand, and Valkyrie stepped out, wrapping an arm round her throat – but the hunter grabbed her arm and twisted and Valkyrie flew over her shoulder.
She managed to pull the hunter down with her and they both hit the ground. The woman did her best to scramble up, but Valkyrie dived on her, grabbing the wrist that still held the sword.
The hunter squirmed, scratching Valkyrie’s face, trying to push her off. Valkyrie kept control of the woman’s sword hand, worked her way into a dominant position, and started to ram her elbow into the hunter’s jaw. The hunter was strong, roughly the same size as Valkyrie herself, but it didn’t take much to put her out.
Valkyrie swapped her trousers for the hunter’s jodhpurs and pulled her boots back on.
Someone screamed. Someone else laughed. Valkyrie carried on.
She got through the next few minutes without meeting any more hunters. When she came to smaller hedges, she climbed over them, heading for the light she could see every now and then through the leaves. She quickened her pace, and her feet hit something and she tripped, went tumbling.
“Shush!” said the man she’d tripped over. “Shhhh!”
Valkyrie glared at whoever it was. “You saw me coming,” she whispered. “You could have warned me you were there.”
“You should look where you’re going!”
“It’s dark!”
“That’s no excuse!” the man said, straightening up. “Now I have to find another hiding spot!” He turned, walked right into a sword thrust.
“Eryx?” he said, gasping.
The hunter peered closer. “Pyramus?” he said through his mask. “It is you. Hey. Uh … oh, man. Sorry.” Pyramus gurgled, and fell down, and Eryx the hunter turned to Valkyrie. “He was a friend of mine,” he said. “I encouraged him to take part. I feel really bad now.”
Valkyrie nodded, and ran.
He ran after her.
She scrambled for the corner, sprinted down another path, turned the corner and immediately ducked and spun and crouched.
She heard Eryx running up. Getting closer. Closer.
She powered out of her crouch, catching him in the side as he turned the corner. He went flying and she slipped on the wet grass. The sword landed next to her.
She grabbed it as Eryx came up to his knees, holding his ribs, struggling to breathe. He looked around for his sword, saw it in Valkyrie’s hands and froze.
She stood. He held up his hands.
“Please don’t kill me,” Eryx said.
“Take off the mask.”
He did as he was told. His face was unexceptional, and shiny with sweat.
“Hands on your head,” said Valkyrie. “Interlace the fingers.”
“Oh, God,” Eryx said as he complied. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? You are. Just say it. Just tell me. You’re going to kill me.”
“Shut up, Eryx.”
“I’ll beg if I have to.”
“You’re already begging.”
“I’ll beg more. I’ll beg better. Please don’t do it. I have a family. I have a wife and children.”
“Is that so?” Valkyrie said, stepping closer, tapping the tip of the sword on one of the brass buttons on Eryx’s jacket. “What’s your wife’s name?”
He blinked. “She … she’s my ex-wife.”
“What’s your ex-wife’s name, Eryx?”
“I … I can’t remember.”
“I think you’re lying about the family, Eryx.”
He shook his head. “I love them very much. Please don’t deprive my children of their father. They need a strong male role model in their lives.”
“You murder people, Eryx.”
“You can’t blame them for that. Please. Think of my kids. Think of little Timmy.”
“I think little Timmy will be fine without you, Eryx.”
“He won’t,” Eryx said, crying. “He’s useless.”
“Do you know this maze, Eryx? How do I get to the middle?”
Sobbing, he looked around. “We’re quite close to it,” he said. “Keep going that way. Look for the openings to get narrower. The narrower the better. They’ll take you right to the middle.”
“Thanks for that,” Valkyrie said, and hit him behind the ear with the pommel of the sword. Eryx fell forward and she carried on.
She followed his advice, chose the narrower of the options available to her, and in under three minutes she stepped into a clearing. Before her was a fountain surrounded by a small hedge. No one else was here yet, but upon the ledge of the fountain lay a white card.
And then a blade pressed against her throat from behind.