The Devil in green

Darkness lay across the city like the breathing of a sleeping child. Their horses' measured hoofbeats clattered with a lonely beat on the flagstones as they made their way down the High Street. Away to their left, the lanterns of the travellers' camp spoke of comfort and friendship, food, drink and music: life. Mallory peered through gaps in the buildings to the tents in the hope that he might see someone awake. Miller caught him looking and flashed a knowing smile.

They watched the dark windows carefully, eyed every shadowy doorway and alley. The Devil was afoot, and now they were in his territory.

'It's better like this,' Gardener said. He already had his hood pulled over his head so all that was visible was the red glow of his roll-up.

'It's freezing, it's night-time and we're heading for the next thing to hell,' Daniels said gloomily. 'I don't think better is the right word.'

'I didn't mean that.' Gardener's smoke mingled with the cloud of his breath. 'I mean this.' He gestured to the wider city. 'No cars. No pollution. No bloody politicians or McDonalds or multi-bloody-national companies only interested in cash. Just peace, nature. Like God intended.'

'There's always an enterprising Young Turk around the corner,' Daniels said. 'What's the matter, Gardener? Weren't you a capitalist in the old life?'

'I was a binman, you daft bugger. It was my job to clean up for the capitalists. I saw all the filth you left behind.'

'Oh, you Communist,' Daniels mocked.

'The Bible says enough about those who worship Mammon,' Gardener countered. 'You don't have to be a Communist to hate greedy bastards.'

They passed St Thomas's Church, the Guildhall and the market, all still and dark, and made their way up Castle Street towards the ring road. The frost made the streets glitter, as unreal as a movie set. Without the streetlights, and the parked cars, and the stale exhaust fumes drifting in the air, everything seemed fake.

Beyond the city limits, they rode slowly in tight formation, all eyes watching the surrounding countryside, which was peppered here and there with the silent grassy mounds that marked the spiritual life of the ancients. The ordered fields had started to break down, becoming overgrown, with self-set trees sprouting here and there. The hedges were wild, the birds and animals abundant in the pesticide-free environment. Yet they all sensed there was more going on than they could see. Miller told them of his trials during his journey to the cathedral, of the monkey- creatures and the other things he had glimpsed at a distance. They listened attentively, without comment.

'What have you heard is out here?' Miller asked in the lull that followed his tale.

'The Wild Hunt rides at night, collecting souls.' Gardener spoke with utmost confidence. 'A black dog that's more than a dog.'

'Ghosts.' Daniels picked up his line. 'Spirits… water spirits… tree spirits.' He appeared a little embarrassed at saying these things, yet plainly believed in them.

'If this is the End Times, why has it been so quiet since the attack?' Miller said. 'Maybe that was just a one-off. Maybe everyone's wrong… getting worked up for no reason.' The note of hope in his voice was almost childlike.

'It was a calling card,' Gardener said adamantiy, 'just to let us know what's coming up. This is the lull before the storm. Things will be going to hell in a handcart soon enough.'

'Here we are!' Hipgrave's voice caught them unawares. He'd reined in his horse to point to grey shapes on a rise, almost lost against the background clouds and the rain.

'Stonehenge,' Miller said redundantly.

Hipgrave trotted back to them. 'We treat this area with extreme caution. No one goes into the circle — I have strict instructions from Blaine.'

'I thought our instructions were to bring back the vicar,' Mallory said. 'You're saying you've got a whole load of other secret instructions?'

'They're not secret, they're operational.' Hipgrave nudged his horse towards the stone circle. 'You don't need to know.'

They progressed cautiously, all of them feeling a tingle of excitement when the menhirs came fully into view.

'There's real power here,' Daniels said. 'Can you feel it?'

'What are you thinking, Mallory?' Miller asked, when he saw the faraway look on his friend's face.

Mallory shifted as if he'd been caught out. 'I was thinking that it's returning to the days when Constable and Turner loved the place for its loneliness, and the special quality of the light and the atmosphere.'

'I didn't know you were artistic,' Miller said, surprised.

'That's because you don't know anything.' Mallory spurred his horse away. He'd been struck by a strange notion: one of the outstanding mysteries of Stonehenge was why the builders had brought a special kind of bluestone all the way from mountains in south-west Wales. Three thousand years ago, it was a tremendous, seemingly unnecessary exercise, especially when there were more suitable stones close to hand. But after what Sophie had told him of the Blue Fire, he wondered if the bluestones had some special generating quality for the earth energy. He'd been quite dismissive during the conversation in the travellers' camp, but the concept of the invigorating lifeblood energy appealed to him.

They moved on to the English Heritage visitor centre, which was completely burned out. Scorch marks were evident all around the area, even in the tunnel that ran under the road. Hipgrave made them skirt the circle widely as if it were a sleeping beast, yet Mallory regularly caught him apprehensively scanning the clouds.

'Split up. Look around the site as fast as you can for any sign. We need to be out of here quick,' he said.

They segmented the grassy field around the henge and each concentrated on one sector. After fifteen minutes of futile searching, Mallory's attention was caught by lightning on the horizon. A storm was approaching. Over in the next sector, Hipgrave stiffened and fixed his attention where the lightning had struck.

Maybe we can find a tree for him to shelter under, Mallory thought.

Three minutes later, the lightning struck again, though this time Mallory was aware it wasn't the brilliant white of any lightning he'd seen before; there was a ruddiness to it, perhaps even a hint of gold.

Mallory watched it curiously, waiting for the repeat, until Hipgrave thundered up beside him. The leader's face was taut. 'We need to get out of here. Now.'

'What's wrong?'

'What's wrong is we're trespassing!' Hipgrave spurred his horse to warn the others.

Mallory had no idea what he meant, but followed him nonetheless. Hipgrave had just spoken to Gardener when Miller called out on the north-western side of the henge.

'Look here,' he said when they galloped over. He pointed to a discarded bag and very obvious tracks leading away into the heart of the Plain. The bag was leather, embossed with the gold initials E. G.

'Eric Gregory,' Miller said. 'That's the name Blaine told us.'

It was exactly what they'd hoped to find, yet Hipgrave barely gave Miller's discovery any attention. His neck craned in the direction of the lightning.

'Come on!' he said. 'Move!'

Mallory followed his gaze to see a black shape just breaking the cloud cover; at that distance it resembled a fly.

Miller watched it dumbfounded until Hipgrave cuffed him on the side of his head. 'Come on!' He set off in the direction of the tracks, quickly spurring his horse into a gallop, not waiting for anyone.

Miller stared at the bag in his hands, not really comprehending what was happening, until Gardener grabbed his collar and hauled him into his saddle.

'Look!' Daniels said in awe.

Another burst of energy. Definitely not lightning, Mallory thought again. He knew exactly what they were seeing, recalling the travellers' explanation as to why Melanie had been visiting Stonehenge when she was injured. The column of flame hit the ground and erupted, just as he had seen it do that first time in Salisbury. The Fabulous Beast approached on slow, heavy wing-strokes, its serpentine neck rising and falling with each beat.

For a brief moment, they were all transfixed. The creature carried mystery and wonder on its back; the very sight of it reached deep into the unconscious depths of their minds.

Another yell from Hipgrave finally stirred them and they spurred their horses into life, heading down the slope from Stonehenge into the heart of Salisbury Plain. Mallory estimated that the Beast was twenty miles away at least, but drawing closer rapidly. Occasionally, he could hear the sound of its wings, the jet-engine roar of its flame bursts, each explosion followed by a shower of soil and rock and wood. Now they all knew why the Stonehenge visitor centre was burned out, and, as their wonder faded, what would happen to them if that searing breath came too close.

Lying low over their mounts' necks, they pushed on, the wind driving the rain into their faces until their skin stung and they could barely see.

The Plain passed by in a blur of green and grey. Eventually, they caught up with Hipgrave who herded them amongst old tank tracks into the once off-limits Ministry of Defence land. They finally came to rest under thick tree cover in a lower-lying area.

Mallory jumped down from his mount and ran to the tree line. In the distance, the Fabulous Beast was circling. 'I think it's lost track of us,' he said.

'Did it really see us? At that distance?' Miller said. 'I mean, why was it after us?'

'They're stupid animals,' Hipgrave said, dismounting. 'They'll hunt anything.'

Mallory wasn't convinced. From the very first sight of it, he'd instinctively felt there was an intelligence there. 'It's definitely searching the area,' he noted. He turned to Hipgrave. 'You expected to see it.'

'They like to follow certain routes-'

'Ley lines,' Miller interjected, repeating the information he had learned at the pagan camp.

Hipgrave eyed him suspiciously, but didn't ask how he had come by this knowledge.

The trail was surprisingly easy to follow. Even the persistent rain had not washed away the regular footprints, and every now and then they were presented with items that pointed the way: a fountain pen engraved with the initials E. G., a freshly broken shoelace, a page torn from an out-of- date Church diary, the writing illegible after the rain. Hipgrave was enthused by their progress, but Mallory felt oddly uneasy.

The route followed little logic, sometimes doubling back on itself. The suggestion was that the cleric was wandering, perhaps in a daze, and it would have left them completely lost in the uniformity of the Plain if they had not studied basic orienteering, as well as navigation by the sun and stars. The twisting track meant the miles passed slowly, but they also progressed with caution when they came to any area where they might be ambushed. Gardener grumbled that even in a daze the cleric was probably outpacing them.

'Where is this stupid bastard going?' Mallory muttered bitterly.

'You'd better hope something hasn't eaten him and is walking around in his boots,' Gardener noted.

Daniels wrung out the sopping peak of his hood, sending a shower of water splashing on to the pommel of his saddle. 'Well, isn't that a surprise — Gardener looking on the black side,' he said.

'I'm not looking on the black side. I'm considering a possibility. These days, anything's a possibility.' In the thin silvery light, Gardener's face appeared as grey as the heavy clouds that now lowered overhead.

Daniels snorted. 'I know you well enough by now, Gardener. You think life's miserable — that's why you opt for that Old Testament morality. All the reward's in the next place. This one's just blood, piss and mud, am I right?'

'You should get down the pub more, Gardener,' Mallory said distractedly. His attention was fixed on the trail ahead.

'Bloody amateur psychologists,' Gardener said sourly.

'You know I'm right,' Daniels continued. 'All that fundamentalist Christianity you go for — it was right for a thousand years ago. Not now.'

'Look around you,' Gardener replied. 'It is a thousand years ago.'

'You really think the Fall was just the start of the apocalypse, Gardener?' Miller stared ahead gloomily.

'It's all there in Revelation. The great dragon, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world- he was thrown down to the earth and his angels with him. We've had war, we've had starvation, and there's talk of some plague doing the rounds. Death makes four — the pale horseman.'

'What do you think, Daniels?' Miller asked.

Daniels appeared bored by the conversation. 'I think fine wine, good food and Italian furniture are the answer to all our earthly worries.' He added, irritably, 'Were you always like this, Gardener? Miserable, I mean.'

Gardener grew introspective. 'You don't choose who you are,' he said after a while. 'Life makes you the way you end up. You think you're going down one road, then something comes up… something you can't control… and you end up going down another. And then you get sent off on another journey, and then another, and then when you finally stop and look back, you're miles away from where you were.'

His bleak tone put Daniels off pursuing the conversation, but Miller appeared oblivious to it. 'What are you saying, Gardener?' he asked.

Gardener acted as if he were talking about something worthless. 'We all need ways of making sense of this life. That's mine.' As he considered this line, a shiver crossed his face. It appeared to prompt him, for he picked up the conversation again. 'I married Jean when I was twenty. We'd already known each other for seven years. Met her on the Dodgems at Gateshead.' A faint smile slipped out of the greyness. 'She wasn't what you'd call pretty, but she'd got a mouth on her like a sailor. I liked that. She gave as good as she got. We had a few barneys in our life because of that mouth, I tell you, but there was never a dull moment.'

He adjusted his hood so that his eerily glassy eyes retreated into shadow. 'We always wanted kids… tried for years… until we found out I wasn't able. Jean took it well. We could have adopted, I suppose, but Jean said, "We've still got each other". We'd had the best times before. That's how we'd carry on into our retirement. Then Jean started feeling tired all the time… got ulcers in her mouth. I carried on doing the bins, came back after every shift, she'd mention it in passing. It wasn't important — she'd get over it.' He shook his head. 'All that time… wasted.'

'What was it?' Miller asked quietly.

'Leukaemia. Acute myeloid. Little chance of a cure, the doc said. We gave it a go. All that chemotherapy… her hair falling out… moods swinging like a bloody pendulum. I tell you, that foul mouth worked overtime.' There was such affection in his voice that Miller winced. 'She died. Here I am. I'm just passing time till I'm going to be with her again. No point looking for anyone else. Jean was the only one, for life. Without her, there's nothing here for me.'

Nobody knew what to say. Daniels attempted a half-hearted apology, but it appeared pathetic against the weight of feeling that hung around Gardener. Yet Gardener himself seemed untouched by it. It was as if all his emotion had been considered and was now held in abeyance for some future time.

It was Gardener who eventually spoke first. He carefully surveyed the trail ahead, and then said, 'What are you looking for, Mallory? You've been watching the way we're going as if you're expecting the King of Shit to come round the corner.'

'When things are easy I start to worry.'

'And you're calling me a pessimist.' Gardener peered into the misty middle-distance. 'Though you'd have expected most of the footprints to have been washed away by now.'

'It's all the things he dropped,' Mallory said. 'They're like signposts so we don't lose our way.'

'Or perhaps you're just being paranoid,' Daniels said. 'What could possibly be the point? Who even knows we're looking for him?'

'Do you think we should mention this to Hipgrave?' Miller asked. As usual, the captain was trotting ahead, out of hearing range.

'Do you think he'd even listen?' Mallory replied.

As twilight approached rapidly, they considered making an early camp, but Hipgrave insisted that they press on. 'We must be getting close to him now. How would we feel if he died of exposure tonight because we delayed? He might be just over the next rise.'

Mallory made treasonous utterings, but the others accepted Hipgrave's view and continued against their better judgment as the light began to fade and the landscape slowly turned greyer. Soon after, they crested a ridge and saw a large hill looming up ahead of them.

'We've reached the edge of the Plain.' Gardener pointed out a church steeple rising up due north.

Hipgrave rode back to them with the sodden map that had until then been of little use in the secretive heart of the army land. 'That's Westbury Hill,' he said. 'On top, there's Bratton Camp, an Iron-Age hill-fort. If we need to, we can make camp there.'

'Look!' Miller said suddenly. They followed his pointing finger to a dark figure moving across the hilltop.

'That could be him,' Hipgrave said. 'Nobody else in their right mind would be roaming around a place like that now.'

'I love these leaps of logic,' Mallory said, to no one in particular.

Hipgrave spurred his horse towards the hill, with the others following close behind. It felt good finally to ride at speed, making them believe they were too fast for danger, once more untouchable.

Through the thin late-afternoon light, Westbury Hill loomed with seemingly unnatural steepness in the flat landscape, so heavily wooded around the lower reaches that they had to dismount and tether their horses. At Hipgrave's urging, they forged on, the breath burning in their lungs from the exertion of the climb. Finally, they reached the flat, treeless summit where the wind blew fiercely. In the twilight, they could just make out a figure picking its way over the banks and ditches of the hill-fort about half a mile away.

'I don't like it up here,' Miller said. 'There's a bad feeling.'

As they moved uneasily across the open space, crows flapped all around, their eerie calls sounding like human cries for help.

'We were told to keep away from old hill-forts in one of Blaine's briefings,' Daniels said.

Mallory recalled his experience on Old Sarum, and knew why.

'It was one of the classes before you joined us,' Daniels continued. 'They gave us a list of places we should approach with caution: hilltops, particularly where there were standing stones or ancient earthworks, some lakes and rivers, places that folklore linked with fairies or other supernatural creatures.' He smiled thinly. 'I presume they thought we might be corrupted by the sheer paganness of them.'

The icy wind made the hilltop feel even more lonely. They came across a standing stone set in concrete with a plaque that said, To commemorate the Battle of Ethandun, fought in this vicinity, May ad 878 when King Alfred the Great defeated the Viking army, giving birth to the English nationhood.

The Iron-Age defences made the going hard; pits and slippery banks lay hidden in the undergrowth, so they were constantly in danger of turning their ankles or breaking bones in a fall, but the uncomfortable atmosphere made them even more cautious. There was no longer any sign of the cleric.

Bratton Camp lay on the north-western edge of the hilltop, overlooking a drop that was so steep and high it took their breath away. The B3098 was like a white snake far below. Next to the road, a giant factory that had scarred the ancient landscape now stood abandoned like some child's toy. In the last of the fading light, the shadows of clouds scudded across the surrounding fields.

'Look at that.' Miller indicated an area of white on the steep slope below them. As they moved around, an enormous horse came into view, carved in the chalk that lay just beneath the scrubby grass.

' "The oldest white horse in Wiltshire",' Gardener read from a sign, ' "dating from 1778 but preceded by a much older version, date and origin unknown".'

'Join the knights and see the sights,' Mallory quipped, before adding, 'What do you reckon, Daniels — Iron-Age camp, ancient white horse, a standing stone and undoubtedly lots of folklore? Are the alarm bells ringing?'

Hipgrave raised his voice above the howling wind. 'Stop chatting — keep your minds on the mission. We need to fan out…' His order was cut off when he caught sight of movement from the corner of his eye.

The figure was disappearing behind an enormous earthwork that looked to Mallory like a neolithic barrow mound: he glimpsed only white face, shock of white hair, black clothes, the fleeting glimpse of a dog collar.

'There he is!' Hipgrave said. 'Halloooo!' he yelled, waving in the figure's direction.

But the figure had already disappeared. A few seconds later, they heard a muffled scream. They all stared into the growing gloom, listening intently.

'Quick!' Hipgrave barked. 'He's in trouble! Let's get over there!'

Even in the heat of the moment, Mallory couldn't shake the feeling that what he had seen hadn't been quite right. It was a long way away and the light had been poor, but the vicar's white face had appeared oddly inhuman. Something in the shadows of the eyes and the black slash of mouth had made it seem more an approximation of a man, perhaps not a man at all.

They ran across the fort, past the barrow mound. There was no longer any sign of the cleric.

'Take it easy,' Mallory cautioned.

'No!' Hipgrave yelled back. 'He might be in trouble!'

Yet even he was forced to come up sharp when he saw what emerged from the near dark on the other side of the fort. Ranged across the northern corner, branches had been roughly hammered into the ground and from them hung the skulls and dismembered carcasses of a variety of animals: badgers, foxes, rabbits, crows, smaller birds. Some were mere bones, picked clean by scavengers. Others were fresh kills, mouldering as they hung, glassy-eyed.

'What's going on?' Gardener said. The scene had an unnerving element of ritual about it.

'A warning,' Mallory said. They eyed the grisly display warily, each of them trying to discern some meaning in the arrangement of carcasses. Though it was probably their imaginations, the wind appeared to pick up at that particular spot.

Drawing his sword, Hipgrave cautiously approached. The others followed, keeping watch on all sides.

Beyond the barrier, they could just make out a series of shadowy pits scattered seemingly randomly. They were surrounded by a complex arrangement of twisted bramble torn from another location, and more embedded branches that had been fashioned into lethal-looking spikes.

'It's a maze,' Daniels said.

'What's behind all this?' Gardener said uncomfortably.

'Call out to him,' Miller said, patently hoping they wouldn't have to venture further.

'I don't think it would be too good an idea to announce our presence.' Mallory moved up beside Hipgrave to scrutinise the area more closely. 'It's a trap. Got to be.'

Hipgrave had already come around to the same way of thinking. 'If he's in there, we've got to go in. It's our duty.'

'I know,' Mallory replied, 'but the question is, is he really in there?'

'You think all this is.some kind of elaborate plan to get at us?' Daniels said. 'With all due respect to my esteemed colleagues, we're not worth the effort.'

'Look, here.' Mallory pointed to a route amongst the pits and barricades. 'If you go carefully, you can enter. But you wouldn't be able to get out at speed. It'd be easy to slip into those pits — God knows what's at the bottom of them — or trip and get caught up in the brambles, or fall on those spikes. It's cunning, in a basic kind of way. Even worse if it's dark. We should leave it till morning.'

Hipgrave fingered his chin nervously, but kept his implacable face turned towards the pits. Mallory could see that the captain didn't know what to do, and was desperate not to make the wrong decision.

'He looked all right when he went in, didn't he?' Mallory pressed. 'We can afford to wait.'

But just as he appeared to have swayed Hipgrave, Miller piped up, 'Whatever built all this might have got him.'

Mallory flashed him a black look, but it was already too late. 'OK,' Hipgrave ventured uncertainly. 'We go in, but with extreme caution. Draw your swords.'

'What kind of thing would do something like this?' Gardener said again. He sounded sickened.

'Maybe it's not here right now,' Miller said, with forced brightness. 'We could get the vicar, get out and be off.'

'Maybe it's out hunting,' Daniels said blackly, 'for a few more little birds.'

'Those are the things it doesn't eat,' Mallory said. They all fell silent at that.

To his credit, Hipgrave led the way. The stink of decomposing animal flesh was unbearable as they passed the boundary line. Beyond it, the entire area felt different; it was almost too subtle to register, but it hummed away insistently deep in their subconscious: a sense of tension, a feeling of detachment as if they were just waking, or just falling asleep. The wind disappeared completely.

Mallory stuck close behind Hipgrave, followed by Daniels, then Miller, with Gardener bringing up the rear.

'I don't hear any sign of him,' Hipgrave hissed. 'He could have fallen into one of the pits… unconscious…'

Mallory wasn't listening for the cleric's cries — he no longer believed they would ever hear them.

At the first pit, they all peered inside in turn. The clustering shadows gave the illusion that it went down for ever, though from the echoes of a displaced pebble Mallory guessed it was no more than fifteen feet deep. A damp, vegetative smell rose from within.

The construction of bramble and spike was complex and deadly, hinting at the arrays of barriers and barbed wire that littered First World War battlefields. It was impossible to tell what kind of intelligence could have established it, how long it had been in place. It was structured to form an impenetrable obstacle in some areas while simultaneously serving to direct them along a prescribed route that wasn't clearly visible from a distance. As they walked the precarious path amongst the pits — some of which were shallower than others, barely trenches — Mallory was struck by the design.

'It's like a ritual pattern you see in some ancient structures,' he said. Hipgrave was clearly suspicious of this show of information. 'It was symbolic, designed to put you in the right frame of mind before the revelation of some secret or mystery.'

'Listen,' Daniels interrupted. 'Can you hear anything?'

They halted, bumping into each other nervously. The wind had picked up again faintly, soughing along the edges of the area so it was difficult to identify any other sounds. But as their ears adjusted, they could just make out another noise, low and rough, rising and falling.

'What is it?' Miller looked like a ghost in the twilight.

Mallory knew what it sounded like, and he could tell that Daniels and Gardener thought the same: breathing.

At their backs, darkness drew close to the horizon.

The path wound amongst the barriers until they were presented with a pit that hadn't been visible before. They knew instantly it was what they had been working towards. It stood alone, large and round where the others had been ragged holes torn from the turf and soil; its sides sloped down, but it was positioned so that the fading light allowed them to see the eighteen or so feet to the bottom where five dark holes indicated branching tunnels. More bleached skulls had been carefully placed around the perimeter, all looking out. Next to it, two tree branches had been strapped together with brambles in the shape of a tilting cross, a marker, and from it hung the tattered remnants of some kind of pelt.

'Oh Lord, I have a horrible feeling about this,' Miller muttered.

'That makes two of us,' Gardener said in a low, gruff voice that didn't draw attention to itself.

'If he's anywhere, he'll be down there,' Hipgrave noted. He peered into the depths, then spied something. 'Here!' He proudly showed them a shiny cuff link.

'There you go again,' Mallory said.

Hipgrave drew himself up in a bid to imbue himself with some gravitas. 'OK, Mallory, you'd better go down, check it out-'

'You can't send him down there!' Miller protested. 'Not alone!'

'We're not going to risk all of us.' Hipgrave's demeanour left no doubt that he had made his mind up; it was pointless Mallory arguing. 'The sooner he gets down there, the sooner we can all get out of here.'

Steeling himself, Mallory stepped over the edge and skidded down the slope in jerks. At the bottom it was cold and there was an unpleasant smell of decomposition drifting from one of the tunnels. He looked around: no footprints anywhere; there was no point mentioning it to Hipgrave — he'd long since given up listening to reason. The knights were all peering over the edge, their faces white. They all looked human, their emotions clear — apprehension, bravery, compassion, contempt — and he couldn't help thinking back to the glimpsed face of the cleric and the gulf between the two.

He moved around the tunnel entrances, trying to decide which one to explore, though he had no intention of venturing in too far. He could no longer hear what he had thought of as breathing. Perhaps he had been mistaken. Or perhaps it was simply holding its breath, waiting for him to draw near. He looked back up. Hipgrave gestured vehemently for him to press on.

'Bastard,' he said under his breath.

He went around the tunnels again, listening, peering into the dark, smelling the air currents that came from them for any clue. Eventually, he chose one at random and edged his way in, his sword held out in front of him. With the fading light, the dark within became impenetrable after a matter of feet. The tunnel was small — his head brushed the ceiling and barely a quarter of an inch of space lay beyond his shoulders on either side — and the claustrophobia was palpable. Caught in there, he wouldn't stand much chance of getting out alive. He brushed the packed earth of the ceiling, afraid of a collapse. If Hipgrave wanted to investigate further, he'd have to do it properly, with a team and lights and supports.

Returning to the foot of the pit, he attempted to convey this information to Hipgrave in sign language, but if the captain understood he wasn't having any of it. He jabbed a finger in the direction of another tunnel. Cursing, louder this time, Mallory turned back.

The shape erupted out of one of the tunnels, hitting him like a wrecking ball. He went flying on to his back, seeing stars. He could hear the others yelling something, urging him to get up, get out, and then there was a tremendous weight on his chest and a sickening blast of hot, foul breath on his face. Slowly, his scrambled thoughts coalesced and he realised he was looking up into something that swirled with brilliant flecks, like a distant galaxy hanging in the cold void. They were eyes, he presumed, though he couldn't be sure, and if there was any human intelligence there he saw no sign of it.

Time locked, sealing him in that moment of connection with a presence he couldn't begin to comprehend; it was his only world, alien and terrifying.

But then the bubble burst and everything rushed in with an unbearable frenzy. The thing on him became a whirlwind; limbs lashed (he couldn't be sure if they were arms or legs or tentacles or something else), their sharpness tearing through his clothes, his skin. Desperately, he kicked and scrambled to free himself. Sickening sounds burst around him, at times high-pitched, then a low bass rumble, moving off the register; hot wetness suffused his clothing.

It lasted for only a few seconds and then the thing was away from him, bounding out of the pit with a single leap. Shattered by the attack, with blood seeping from him and the pain only just making its way to his brain, he was vaguely aware of the others yelling. Someone was shouting, 'Attack! Attack!' over and over again. Someone else was urging them to scatter. A crashing and splintering as the barriers were torn up was followed by a scream of agony, suddenly cut off.

Mallory's consciousness returned with a lurch. However badly wounded he was — and he didn't want to begin to check — he knew he had to get out of there quickly before the thing returned. He threw himself to his feet only to feel his legs turn to jelly, pitching him back down on to the ground. His head spun; nausea turned his stomach upside down. With a tremendous effort, he managed to find enough equilibrium to get him to the side of the pit, where he hauled himself up on his hands and knees.

At the surface it was as unbearably dark as it had been at the bottom. Night had fallen, the thick cloud cover obscuring all moonlight. It made the sounds even worse: cries off in the blackness, panicked, pained, the terrible thrashing of something enormous and unimaginably wild moving too fast for its size.

One thought surfacing above all others: We were led here, to find this.

Briefly, he wondered what he was going to do, but there was no way out apart from the way he had come in. It was all he could do to pick out the path amongst the rubble of the smashed branches and torn bramble. He had taken some sharp blows to the head and it felt as if concussion was coming on fast. Every time he moved he lost more blood; he could feel it running into his trousers, puddling in his boots. It made him light-headed, broke his thought processes even more, so that he could only really concentrate on the here and now: getting out of there as quickly as possible.

He lurched along the path, desperately trying to keep his balance so he didn't plunge into one of the other pits, while at the same time continually wiping the stinging blood from his eyes. There was more frantic movement ahead, running, the sound of boots on grass, more crashing.

He blacked out briefly, waking to find himself face-down in the mud.

Somewhere there were screams. It felt like a nightmare, as if he wasn't really there at all, merely watching himself going through inexplicable motions from a vantage point deep inside his head. Why was he trying to escape? Why was he there? What was moving just beyond his perception? And then the image of the fire in the dark, urging him to go forwards, not back.

Pulling himself to his feet once more, the brambles tore at his hands. One of the jagged branch-spikes ripped through his trousers into his calf. Away to his left he heard whimpering, instantly drowned out by the wind. 'Miller?' he called out feebly.

Before he could turn in search, there was another explosion of movement as the hunting thing launched itself from the periphery of his field of vision. He ducked just in time, but he felt it pass only inches over him to crash into the barriers ten feet to his left. He scrambled on, almost slipped into another pit, caught himself with his legs dangling over the abyss. More movement, more running, sounds bursting from periods of silence like explosions on a battlefield. His foot kicked something that bounced a few feet ahead of him: a severed hand, now caked in mud. It was impossible to tell which knight it belonged to, but the sight of it filled him with a deep dread, and he knew he would never be able to shake the image of it lying there, like discarded rubbish.

Somehow, he found himself near the display of skulls that marked the boundary, and then he was out, crossing the hill-fort, tripping over the holes in the turf, sliding down the ditches. He could barely walk, barely think. No one else was around, and he couldn't help believing they were all dead.

He was too weak to walk far. He went down the hillside head over heels, ricocheting off tree trunks, crashing through bushes that ripped at his skin and hair, using his body weight to keep the roll going as die only way to put distance between himself and the monstrous thing that still roamed the hilltop.

Finally, he came to a halt, lying on his back without the slightest strength to move, staring up into nothingness. The night was torn by sounds that could never have come from a human throat. Mallory felt as if he was in hell.

Consciousness came in the grey light of morning. His body was a web of agony and he was frozen to the bone, but he was still alive, though he didn't know how much longer that would be the case. From the state of his clothes he could tell he'd lost an inordinate amount of blood, and more leaked out each time he shifted. Shakes wracked his body repeatedly. His head felt stuffed with cotton wool as if he were on the verge of a debilitating migraine.

Nightmarish images flashed back from the previous night. He felt sick with shock, could barely believe he was still alive. A little joy filtered through, but it was dampened by the pain and his doubts for the safety of the others. He thought of the severed hand: one of them was certainly dead from blood loss. Could any of them have survived such an onslaught? He forced himself not to think about it, or the emotions that came with it.

Apprehensively, he peeled open his shirt. A gaping wound ran across his stomach, filled with blood. Other gashes lay open on his chest and arms, and for the first time he was thankful for the classes the Church authorities had inflicted on him during his training. Moving as carefully as he could, though still punctuated with devastating bursts of pain, he managed to free his haversack. At the bottom of it was the small medical kit they all carried with them for basic treatment on the road. First, he removed the small jar of antiseptic salve created in the medicines quarter that lay off the cathedral's herb garden. Unscrewing the lid, he recoiled from the potent odour, as strong as any smelling salts. Then he removed the tin that contained the large needle and sturdy thread. This was going to test his willpower.

Dipping three fingers into the jar of salve, he gingerly dabbed it on the stomach wound. The pain made him cry out, but he could instantly feel the area numbing. He left it a couple of minutes before threading the needle. He didn't have anything to sterilise it with, so he hoped the salve would do its job.

The first stitch was agony. His stomach turned as he watched it pulling the two flaps of flesh together. By the fourth stitch, the sight was not so disturbing and he learned to cope with the pain by chewing on the end of his leather belt. When he had finished, he tied a knot as he had been taught, then rested for five minutes before moving on to the next wound.

It took him an hour to finish the entire job. By then he felt like a shadow; he didn't want to guess how much blood he had lost. He really needed a transfusion, a few days' bed rest. Instead, he was lying on wet ground in the middle of the countryside. He just hoped he had the strength to mount his horse and reach one of the villages that bordered the Plain.

It took him fifteen minutes to get to his feet using a tree trunk as support, and even then he felt as if he was going to collapse with every step he took. At first, he lurched from tree to tree, pausing every now and then to dry-retch, but after a while he found it in himself to stagger unsupported. Even so, he lost his footing several times before he reached the bottom of the hill. There he found the remains of the horses; it looked as if they had been hacked to pieces by a chainsaw. He fought back the despair; it wouldn't help him. He'd just have to walk.

The day was a little brighter than the previous one, with no sign of rain, but it was still windy. He remembered where they had seen the church steeple poking above the trees and thought he would use that as a marker and head for it. Yet when he eventually skirted the foot of the hill there was no sign of the steeple anywhere. It made no sense to him at all, but he didn't have the energy to consider what it meant. Using the occasional glimpses of the sun as a guide, he set off in what was undoubtedly the right direction. In his weakened state he could barely keep his eyes on the horizon; his concentration was mainly occupied with staying on his feet, staying alive. Many times, his consciousness slipped sideways so that he was moving in a dream-state, observing his surroundings without being aware of them; this condition became more and more the norm, and the remaining rational part of him knew that he was dying.

He should have reached the neighbouring village within the half-hour; it never materialised, nor did any of the roads he knew skirted that edge of the Plain. He wondered if he had somehow got turned around and was heading back into the wilderness, but the surrounding landscape told him otherwise. Rolling grassland lay all around, rich and fertile, punctuated by copses and small woods. The trees were oddly fully leafed as if it were midsummer rather than crisp autumn, and there was an abundance of wild flowers scattered across the area in blues, reds and yellows.

He slept regularly, usually where he stumbled, and on one occasion he attempted to eat some of the travel biscuits, but he immediately vomited them straight back up. In his daze, time slopped in haste. He would close his eyes in a moment's thought and clouds would have scudded across the sky, or the quality of the light would have changed.

He came to a small, winding track of well-trodden earth and without thinking began to follow it. It eventually led to a quaintly constructed small stone bridge over a tinkling brook where he was suddenly overcome with a tremendous thirst. He made his way tentatively down the side of the bridge, through the thick brookside vegetation, and scooped up handfuls of water, splashing it into his mouth and across his burning face. He was stunned at how wonderful it tasted, vibrant, with complex flavours, like no water he had ever sampled before. He immediately felt a little better, his thoughts sharper, his limbs a tad more energised. He continued along the track beyond the bridge with a little more vigour.

Twilight came sooner than he anticipated, the trees growing ghostly as the grassland turned grey. Most of the clouds had disappeared, so he could clearly see a crescent moon gleaming among myriad glittering stars. It was surprisingly balmy, with moths fluttering above the grass.

Where am I? he thought, without really giving the question much weight.

A little further on, he noticed a light glowing amongst the trees away to his left. Hope filled him that at last he might be able to find somewhere to rest. The path forked and he took the track that led directly towards the light, the other branch heading in a near-straight line across the landscape.

As he approached the trees, other lights became visible, like golden fireflies in the growing gloom. Lanterns had been strung amongst the branches and from their vicinity he could now hear voices, some raised though not threatening, others lower in conversation. It brought his consciousness another step back from the misty region where it had retreated, so that he was alert enough to experience surprise when he saw what lay ahead.

Amongst the trees, illuminated by the hanging lanterns, lay a large market stretching far into die depths of the wood. On the periphery there were only a few stalls and browsers, but further into the depths he could see that it was bustling. The air was filled with the aroma of smoke and barbecued meat, along with unusual perfumes and spices he couldn't quite identify. The raised voices were the traders encouraging people to examine their wares, and somewhere there was music, singing voices accompanying some stringed instrument that set his spirits soaring.

Obliquely, he knew how strange it was for a market to be held at that time of evening in such an isolated location, but he was so attracted by the sights and sounds it barely registered. Nor did he truly notice how unusual some of the market-goers were. They were dressed in ancient attire that echoed a range of periods — medieval robes and Elizabethan doublets, wide-brimmed hats, long cloaks, broad belts and thigh-high boots — while some were unusually tall and thin, and others uncommonly short. Their features were the most striking. Every face was filled with character, eyebrows too bushy, noses too pointed, eyes astonishingly bright or beady, so that they resembled pictures of people from another time rather than the familiar blandly modern features he was used to. Indeed, some of them were almost cartoonish in appearance, and if Mallory had looked closely, he would have seen that their skin had a strange waxy sheen, as if they were wearing masks over their true faces.

His attention wandered as he entered the market. The detail of his surroundings was almost hallucinogenic, the sights, sounds and smells miasmic after the tranquillity of the countryside. But while he was lost in the swirl of life, he was unaware that many of those around watched him carefully and curiously, with only a hint of suspicion, and occasionally a hint of threat.

After the initial fascination had worn off, Mallory grabbed a passer-by by the sleeve and mumbled, 'Where is this place?'

The man he had stopped was thickset with a long bushy beard and piercing dark eyes. He wore a beige cloak, fastened at the throat with a gold clasp, over clothes that reminded Mallory of an Elizabethan pirate. 'Why, this is the Market of Wishful Spirit,' he said in an oddly inflected voice, as if Mallory were sub-educational. Mallory didn't notice how the man's words came a split second after his lips moved.

Mallory staggered on his way, his concentration coming and going. In that place, everything seemed like even more of a dream, the light from the lanterns too golden and hazy, the music growing louder then softer as though someone were tuning in a radio station.

Mallory's attention was briefly caught by the produce on sale at the stalls. On many there were items he might have expected — vegetables, clothes (though strange in appearance), gold and silver jewellery of unusual design, furs, perfumes in wondrously designed bottles of multicoloured glass — but others displayed goods that left him thinking it really was a dream. There was a rock in a gilded cage that spoke with the voice of a small boy, a purple jewel encasing a tiny man and a woman of dismal expression who hammered at the walls of their prison, a hat that supposedly made its wearer invisible, a mirror showing continually changing views of alien landscapes, and many more, some too astonishing to comprehend.

'Here! Over here!'

Mallory looked around at the call. A skeletal man in a black robe that appeared to be made of tatters was beckoning to him. Mallory drifted over.

'A Fragile Creature,' the trader said in a rasping voice, 'abroad in the Far Lands in these times. I thought I was mistaken.'

'I need to get some medical help.' Mallory supported himself on the edge of the trader's stall. The world was growing dark on the fringes.

'First examine my wares,' the trader said. 'They come from distant Kalashstan on the edge of the Terminal Waste. Very rare, very wondrous.'

'I don't have any money,' Mallory said, distracted. He needed to move on, find someone to aid him quickly.

'There are many ways to pay,' the trader said slyly. He held up a pair of scissors with long golden blades. 'Here. The Extinction Shears that cut the weft of existence. Very rare, but within your grasp for a very small consideration. Very small, barely noticeable. Or here.' This time he raised a face mask of a screaming man constructed from silver and studded with emeralds. 'A Gon-Drunning. It will allow you to see into the dreams of your friends and enemies.'

'No.' Mallory looked around, bewildered. The darkness was even closer now, like the shadow of an enemy sweeping up on him from behind. 'I have to go. I have to…'

The market began to swim. He was vaguely aware of the trader leaning forwards to peer at him closely with predatory eyes, and then others nearby stopping to stare, smiling malignly as if a pretence were no longer necessary. They began to move forwards just as the darkness rushed in and he collapsed to the ground.