Marc Chadbourn - The Devil in green

He was mesmerised. It was natural, yet not natural, dark behind the snow. Another crossbow bolt rattied against the stone. How long before one hit him?

'It's coming!' Sophie yelled. Jubilation sounded in her voice, but a hint of fear, too.

A burst of colour in the black and white world. He was back in that moment that would haunt him for all eternity. But no, no… Now he knew what it was. Yet it made no sense: it was dead. More fire exploded in an arc, so brilliant that it lit the rooftops red and orange and yellow. The shadow so big now, beating slowly up and down. Enormous wings riding the night winds.

'We killed it,' he whispered into the howling gale. But all he could feel was wonder surging up inside him like a golden light, a sense of connection with all Existence.

'Stay with me, Mallory!' Sophie ordered. There was an insistence to her voice. Did she know something he didn't?

The Fabulous Beast soared on the turbulent currents, up and down and then to the side, gouts of flame erupting from its mouth at regular intervals like the birthing of stars in the bleak void. Mallory was transfixed. As it neared, he could see that it was not the one they had slain. Something about it appeared younger, sleeker, the emerald, ruby and sapphire sparkling of its scales more pronounced.

It came directly towards the spire. The beating of its wings was deafening, like the wind in the sails of a mighty ship, and the conflagration of its breath was like the roar of a jet. Mallory could see its eyes gleaming a fiery red, and for an instant he thought he saw something there: an intelligence, certainly, but also a contact, an understanding.

He thought, It's going to get its revenge for the death of the other one. It's going to wipe the whole of the cathedral from the face of the earth. A purifying flame.

Languidly, it began to circle the spire. Mallory was on a level with it, and at times he thought he could just reach out and touch it, feel the roughness of the bony protuberances on its head and spine, the hard sheen of the scales; he felt as though he could walk across the air to it.

'Mallory!' Sophie yelled.

He jolted alert. From far below he could hear the panicked cries of the knights. They were calling for support, but found time to loose another bolt. It missed Mallory's temple by a fraction.

The Fabulous Beast went down, rose up, went down again, then turned and soared towards die cathedral.

This is it, Mallory thought.

It passed beneath him. The flame gushed out in a torrent, painting the roof far below a hellish red. In its illumination, Mallory saw everything clearly. Two of the knights dived back inside for cover. The other remained rooted in terror. The fire hit him full force. It drove him off the tiny landing, and as he fell he burned only briefly before the fury of it consumed him and he turned to dust, sprinkling with the snow.

The other knights were out in an instant, one firing at the Fabulous Beast which had returned to its circling, the other, bizarrely, shooting once more at the two of them.

How they must hate us, Mallory thought.

'Get ready, Mallory!' Sophie shouted.

He had no idea what she meant, didn't have time to consider it. The bolt hit his shoulder as if he had been smashed with a mallet. Pain drove through his arm and side. Everything went with that — his sense, his grip — and then he was falling, turning slowly, seeing Sophie's desperate, loving face, seeing the snow, going down with it.

He hit hard, though he had only fallen for an instant, and then he was being swept sideways. Desperately, his thoughts tried to make sense of what was happening, but before they could, he was mesmerised by the sight of Sophie floating down towards him.

Time appeared to hold still, then speed up. She crashed at his side, then began to slide. Frantically, she raked her hands back and forth, gulping air in terror as she slipped.

Finally, her fingers closed tightly around a bony ridge; her face blazed with jubilation and she began to pull herself up.

The queasy sensation of being whipped along caught them both as they clung on for dear life. From the corners of his eyes Mallory saw the beating wings, and the retreating spire, the angry knights like flies. Far below, Salisbury was laid out like a fairy city, glorious in white, and beyond it the spectral landscape, beautiful and terrible.

The Fabulous Beast rode the currents, taking them to an uncertain fate.

Mallory woke from a dream of flying to feel heat on his face and the crackling of fire in his ears. At first he thought he was still with the Fabulous Beast, soaring high over the magical landscape. But there was no wind in his hair and no rolling sense of motion deep in his gut. Only hardness and stability lay beneath him.

Nearby, the blazing ruins of an old barn melted the snow in a wide circle, providing warmth in the chill of the grey morning. A farmhouse with a sagging roof and broken windows stood across a courtyard. Mallory lay on boards under cover of the eaves of a disused cow shed. Old sacking had been thrown across his legs. He looked up to the lowering clouds and felt a brief, affecting sadness for what was gone.

The cold the previous night had left him almost delirious, and his memories of what happened after their escape from the cathedral were fragmented. More than anything, he recalled the flight, seeing the world in white flash by beneath, hearing the beat of the Fabulous Beast's wings and the roar of the otherworldly fire. Transcendental, wondrous, an abiding feeling of something greater.

They had descended on the eastern fringes of the city, and that's where his memories had started to dissolve. He couldn't remember the landing or much of dismounting, though he had a clear image of the Fabulous Beast rising up into the sky, limned by the moonlight as it disappeared into the snowy night.

'Finally.' Sophie emerged from a nearby copse, clutching what appeared to be twigs and leaves. Her ordeal in the cells had sloughed off her with remarkable ease — the effects of the Blue Fire, he guessed — and she appeared bright and hearty. She wandered over to him, shivering slightly. 'I thought you were going to sleep the day away.'

'You controlled it,' he said in amazement.

This amused her. 'Don't be silly. You can't control something as wonderful and elemental as that. I asked for its help. It answered.'

'You're full of tricks.'

'Yes, I'm just all-round wonderful.' She squatted down next to him and examined his shoulder where the crossbow bolt had struck. 'You've warmed up. I was worried last night.'

'Stefan didn't provide many creature comforts in the cells. Like food.'

Her face darkened. 'Revenge doesn't achieve anything, but I really want to pay that bastard back for everything he's done… to my people, to me. To you.' She looked back towards the city. 'I hope most of them managed to escape. They'll regroup. The Celtic Nation is stronger than that weak, scared…' She shook her head, overcome by emotion as the memories of the attack on the camp returned to her.

'We're out of it now.'

She laid the leaves and twigs next to him. 'Most of the goodness is frozen in the ground at this time of year,' she said. 'It's not a season when you should be homeless. But I managed to scrape together a few bits and pieces. If we can find some kind of pot, we can melt some snow and I can boil up a soup-'

'Yum.'

'OK, it won't exactly be Jamie Oliver,' she snapped, 'but it'll give us some energy, at least to keep on the move until we can find some proper food. I think the bolt might have chipped a bone in your shoulder. At least it didn't embed. But you're a tough guy… you'll get over it.'