John Flanagan - The siege of Macindaw

The three Skandians followed directly behind the Scotti general, their weapons ready for any sign of treachery on his part – and for any supernatural interference that might manifest itself in the meantime.

Will and Horace brought up the rear.

"How far's the clearing?" Horace asked quietly. The darkness of the forest was becoming oppressive. It seemed to press in on them, and he would have welcomed the sight of a patch of clear sky and a little room around him to let him breathe.

Will shrugged. "He said it was close by. But the way this trail twists and winds, we could be walking for miles."

At the sound of their voices, muted as they were, Trobar turned to look back at them. He placed his finger to his lips in an unmistakable sign for silence. Will and Horace exchanged a glance and shrugged. But they said nothing.

A few meters farther, Trobar held up his hand and they all stopped. He peered from side to side into the blackness, holding his torch higher to try to penetrate farther into the gloomy depths that surrounded them. Instinct ively, the other members of the little party copied his actions. For the first time, Will noticed that MacHaddish had lost his customary lack of concern. His glance flicked quickly from Trobar to the surrounding darkness and back again.

The man had some nerves after all, Will thought to himself. The Skandians muttered in an undertone until Trobar rounded on them fiercely and made the gesture for silence again. He started forward, then stopped, uncertainly. His nervousness communicated itself to the rest of the group. Will felt an overwhelming sense that something was coming up on him in the darkness behind them, but when he turned quickly to look, he could see nothing but blackness beyond the flare of his torch.

Then the sound began.

It was a deep, rhythmic noise, the sound of some massive creature's breathing. It came from the sides and from behind. Then it was ahead of them. Then to the right. The hair on Will's neck prickled upright. It's the forest itself, he thought. It's alive. He shook himself angrily to get rid of the ridiculous fancy. He knew how Malcolm arranged for sounds to move around the forest. The healer had shown him the network of hollow tubes he used to broadcast and amplify sounds to different positions. Somewhere out in the dark, Will told himself, Luka, Malcolm's barrel-chested assistant, would be breathing into the tubes, sending the sound through a network of tubes to different points in the trees around them.

Then the breathing stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Trobar stepped off again, MacHaddish and the three Skandians following reluctantly. Will realized, in a flash of inspiration, that the giant's reluctance and uncertainty were a pretense. It was brilliant playacting on his part – pretending to be nervous, pretending to be uncertain as to whether to carry on or not. As Malcolm had told them, fear communicates itself to others. The fact that the massive, gargoylelike Trobar was afraid was enough to make the others fearful as well.

Trobar stopped again. Then he turned his head from side to side, listening.

The sound came from nowhere and everywhere. The breathing was gone, replaced now by a deep sighing sound, an extended, visceral growl that was right at the lower register of human hearing.

Trobar looked back at the small party, his eyes wide with fear.

"Hur'y!" he croaked at them, and then, in case they hadn't understood him, set off along the track at a shambling run. MacHaddish was caught by surprise and remained rooted to the spot for a second or two. Then the chain leading to the collar around his neck tightened and nearly jerked him from his feet. He recovered with difficulty, staggering and blundering into trees as he tried to regain his balance, knowing that if he lost his footing, Trobar would not wait for him. He would be dragged along by the chain until the collar choked him.

The Skandians needed no extra urging. They careered behind the reeling general, shoving him with their weapons, exhorting him to go faster or to make way for them. Will and Horace, after a moment's indecision, took off in pursuit, stumbling on roots and depressions in the uneven track, the flames from their torches flaring behind them, trailing showers of sparks as they tried to keep up.

Will told himself that it was all a trick, an illusion. He knew that Malcolm and a party of his followers had been at work all day preparing for this. Yet even so, while logic told him there was nothing to be frightened of, his sense of terror in these cold dark woods could not be denied.

The groaning had changed. It had become a guttural laugh as the forest seemed to express its contempt for their efforts to escape.

Ahead of them, Trobar's hoarse, slurring voice could be heard as he continued to exhort them to hurry. Will glanced back over his shoulder, but with the glare of the torch beside his head, he couldn't see more than a meter or two behind him. Again, he had the sense of unavoidable dread – the feeling that something large and hostile was looming in the night behind him.

His feet caught in a tree root and he pitched forward. But before he reached the ground, he felt Horace's hand grab his upper arm and drag him upright again.

"Watch where you're going!"

The fear was infectious. Will sensed it in Horace's high-pitched voice. Horace saw it in Will's fearful backward glances. Each of them had the highest regard for the other's courage, so the thought that Horace was terrified added spurs to Will's fear, and vice versa for Horace. The night, the darkness, the narrow, winding track all magnified their fear. And it fed upon the oldest fear of all, fear of the dark unknown.

Now the voice in the night had changed again. The laughter had changed to a pulsing, wordless snarl. It was a sound that mingled frustration with hatred that told them beyond doubt that whatever was out there in the forest was weary of toying with them and was about to close in for the kill.

And then, blessedly, there was light and open space as they blundered into the clearing they had been searching for, and the sounds of the forest gradually died away.

The little party stood, heads hanging, chests heaving, as they recovered their breath. The clearing was barely twenty meters across, but they could see the night sky above them and feel relief from the threatening wall of trees that had enclosed them. There was a small fire burning in the center of the clearing. After the oppressive blackness of the forest, it seemed twice as bright as normal, and instinctively, seeing it as sanctuary, they moved toward it. Then a figure stepped into the light between them and the fire, one hand up in an unmistakable gesture, his shadow long and wavering in the flickering light of the fire.

The figure was tall and narrow shouldered, dressed in a long black gown that was festooned with gold thread tracing out the shape of the moon and stars and comets. A high, flat-topped tubular hat crowned his head, with a narrow brim circling it about ten centimeters above its base. The hat was bright-burnished silver, and it caught the red glare of the fire, throwing weird dancing reflections of light into the trees around them with every slight movement of his head.

His face was painted in alien patterns of black and silver, completely covered so that only the eyes were left glaring out from the terrifying mask.

The figure held out his hands to the side, and Will could see that the arms of the long garment he wore were flared at the cuffs so the sleeves hung like a bat's wings from his arms. And his voice when he spoke was harsh and querulous, a voice that would brook no argument.

Gone was Malcolm, the gentle healer Will had come to know. In his place was the character he had created to keep intruders away from Grimsdell Wood.