Mark Chadbourn - The Hounds of Avalon

Yet as they ate their food, Hunter was surprised to see how quickly Mallory was recovering; a faint flush had returned to his cheeks and he had more energy to talk.

‘I think you’ve pretty effectively burned all your bridges,’ Mallory said as he cleaned the last of the soup from his bowl.

‘It’s a fair guess that I won’t be going back to my day job. No great loss.’

‘This business has a habit of taking over your life. When I found out I was a Brother of Dragons I was trying to set myself up for a life just looking after number one. Suddenly I was lumbered with obligation, duty and all those things.’

‘Complaining?’

Mallory considered this for a moment. ‘No. Having a purpose is like… going on holiday. A break from worrying about what you’re going to do with your life. Have you left anyone behind? A wife? Girlfriend?’

‘Many, many girlfriends. So many women, so little time. I’m pretty rootless.’ He thought about Samantha and her kiss, and how he had briefly felt a real connection with her. ‘The world’s falling apart. Getting involved would only complicate matters. And with what we’re going into, it wouldn’t be very good for the woman, would it?’

‘Maybe when it’s all over.’

They exchanged a long glance, silently recognising the truth and the lie.

‘So where are we going?’ Mallory said, changing tack.

‘Government intelligence says that one of the three survivors has set up camp in Glastonbury. Got some kind of college for magicians going on, or something. The name we’ve got is Shavi — don’t know if that’s first or last.’

‘That’s not far from my old stomping ground. All right if I give that a try?’

‘Sure,’ Hunter said, ‘but it’s not an easy ride. No one we’ve sent down there has returned.’

‘He killed them? I thought he was supposed to be a champion of humanity.’

‘I don’t know any more than that. We were on the brink of sending a full force in there to haul him out when this whole thing blew up.’ Hunter paused, considering his words. ‘Suddenly things look a whole lot different from this side of the fence.’

‘That happens. Sounds like the Government hasn’t changed — still fucking with people’s lives. What have they done with the other two — locked them up in Dartmoor?’

‘We haven’t been able to track them down. From what we hear, they’re travelling together. One of them is called Ruth Gallagher-’

Mallory nodded. ‘She’s the big witch-queen. Trained Sophie.’ Mallory felt a twinge of desperate emotion, battened it down.

‘The more you look, the more you see these strands tying everything together. It could get a little unsettling if you let it.’

‘The other?’ Mallory asked.

‘Some woman called Laura DuSantiago. Don’t know anything about her.’

‘So if you have no idea where they are, how are you going to find them?’

Hunter leaned out of the tent mouth to throw another log on the fire. It sizzled and spat as the frost-rimed wood hit the heat. ‘I think I’m getting the hang of this. Whatever made us Brothers of Dragons brings us together to do a job. So I’m just going to let it.’

Mallory held out his hands, inviting the warmth of the fire to ease the bitterness from his bones. ‘You’re just going to sit here until they turn up?’

‘I’m going to ride and see where I find myself.’

‘Very Zen. Or stupidly optimistic. One of the two.’ Mallory leaned back into the tent and pulled out the lantern. ‘You’d better take this, then. You’re going to need something to light your way on those dark, lonely nights.’

Hunter took the lantern and fastened it to his bag. ‘I’ll treat it as a good-luck charm. Until it turns into some monster in the middle of the night and slits my throat.’

‘When we get back, where do we meet up?’

Hunter thought for a moment, then said, ‘There’s a brothel on Saint Michael’s Street in town. Ask for Mrs Damask. Anyone will direct you.’

‘You’re sure it’s wise to come back to Oxford?’

‘The way I see it, we’re all being drawn there. We need to regroup there in case anyone else turns up.’

‘Start at first light?’

‘If you’re up to it.’

Mallory smiled as he unzipped his parka and tugged free the bandages wrapped around his midriff. The wound beneath had almost healed.

Hal had stoked the fire in his office every fifteen minutes, but it had little effect on the biting cold that insinuated its way through the very walls. He’d bundled himself up in his overcoat and wore a pair of fingerless gloves while he worked, occasionally taking a swig of some bitter alcoholic concoction that the main gate security guard had brewed up in one of the secret stills that now proliferated across the city. The only relief from the bitter temperatures was losing himself in his project, as he now grandly called it.

He’d worked feverishly, oblivious to all sense of time, until the chime of the clock told him it was getting on for dawn. His room was a claustrophobic space crammed with paintings and books and mysteries, illuminated by the flickering light of several candles. In search of clues, Hal had immersed himself in anything he could find on the Poussin painting and its symbolism, and on the Shugborough Hall monument. Instinctively, he was somehow convinced that his investigations would lead to a devastating revelation that would change the course of the war. Everything pointed to the vital significance of the Wish Stone — the way it had been hidden, the way it had been found, the coded message designed to deter the unworthy. If he was right, he had finally found his role.

Hal couldn’t decide if it was a by-product of his obsessive investigation, or even a sign of encroaching madness brought on by a world where anything was possible, but he was starting to see hidden connections slowly developing into a sense of some arcane master plan. The more he delved, the more connections he saw, so that at times he looked up from his books unable to tell what was real and what was a product of his overworked imagination.

So engrossed was he that he didn’t hear the knock on his door. He only jolted out of concentration when a figure loomed over him. It was Samantha.

‘I saw your light through the window. What are you doing working at this hour?’ she asked, concerned.

‘Important business for Mister Reid.’ Hal considered how much he should tell her for fear of putting her in danger, then added, ‘I think it might lead to something that could change the course of the war.’

‘Really?’ The admiration in her eyes excited him; he wanted more of it. ‘Can you talk about it?’ she asked animatedly.

Relenting, Hal explained about the stone recovered from Cadbury Hill and the mysterious message it contained. ‘Why this painting, or its reverse image at Shugborough? Why was it thought important enough to preserve at Cadbury? How could it be linked to a picture painted hundreds of years later?’

‘But what makes you think it has any relevance at all?’ Samantha settled into a sagging armchair near the fire and poured herself a glass of the moonshine.

‘Two people — two very important people in the crisis we’re seeing now — were drawn to Cadbury, to find this. Those two people were supposed to be part of the last defence of humanity, against whatever it is that’s attacking us now. And I think they were led to find this because the picture is a code that reveals something they could use in the fight, perhaps some kind of weapon.’

‘That’s amazing. Mister Reid must think a lot of you to give you a project as important as this.’

‘He trusts me. I get the feeling that… well, that doesn’t matter. Anyway, I’m starting to piece it together.’