Katherine Langrish - Dark Angels

Wolf crossed himself, shivering. “Blessed Saint Ethelbert, protect me.” Then realised that Saint Ethelbert would have no time for a disobedient, sinful boy, and was probably scowling down at him over the battlements of Heaven, hoping the demons and elves that undoubtedly lived on this wild hill would be keeping a special lookout, just for him.

Rain flicked his cheek like a cold finger. The day was ending early. The ridge was still high above him.

So hurry ! Get moving, Wolf. Get over the top before nightfall !

He broke into a panicked trot. But it wasn’t possible to keep it up for long. Soon he was puffing, clambering, wading through the heather, stumbling again and again into unexpected holes and hidden watercourses.

He began to feel almost sure something was following him, a little way behind and on the edge of sight, a furtive, scuttling smudge at the corner of his eye. It couldn’t be an animal: animals wouldn’t act like that. No good looking round , he thought unhappily. It would either duck into the heather, or — far worse — stand erect, and stare back at him. And then what?

I won’t look , he swore. I won’t look.

He looked. Not a soul was in sight, not a wayfarer, not a peat-cutter, not a solitary shepherd. The wind gusted up the hill towards him. On it, faint but clear, floated the same lamenting wail he’d heard before.

Something pale scurried over a nearby rock.

He snapped round to look. It whipped out of sight. Naked, whitish, running on all fours. A thin stalk of a neck and a big, round head. It couldn’t be human.

A demon !

Wolf bolted up the hillside.

I’m sorry ! His prayer was a mental shriek. Please, please don’t let it get me ! He scrambled over a rocky outcrop, floundered into a marshy hollow that sucked at his boots like the slobbering mouth of Hell. Snatching handfuls of tough heather which ripped his palms, he hauled himself out, hearing a distant clamour that swelled on the wind and faded again. The baying of dogs.

Who was out hunting — who was blowing horns on Devil’s Edge? Wolf really, really didn’t want to know. He dived into a clump of bracken and curled into a ball, arms wrapped over his head, eyes screwed shut.

The wind hissed and the bracken rattled. Nothing pounced on him. Wolf sat up. He peered this way and that, first fearfully and then with rising hope. Where was the demon? Perhaps he’d lost it.

Two yards away, a grey puffball head with glittering eyes rose over the ferns. Half of the face was white, half dark red.

Wolf bounced to his feet and went tearing up the slope. The skyline was close, so close it looked as though he could leap over it into the sky. With bursting lungs he struggled up one last steep bank and found himself on the top.

So high! So windy! He could see for miles — hills lying in rows like a giant’s ploughland. And all along the length of the ridge, linking crag to crag, a broad roadway of pale stones gleamed in the last of the light.

The Devil’s Road.

Wolf was frightened to set foot on it, but he didn’t dare stop. Any minute now, the Devil would be coming home from his day’s work of roaming the world, stalking through the air to set one black, clawed foot on his mountain! Wolf hopped and stumbled across, feeling uniquely visible, like a mouse trying to cross a room where a cat was hiding. The stones poked out of the black turf at all angles, a jumble of unforgiving points and edges that tripped and turned his feet.

The horn sounded again, a flat, sinister wail, followed by the uneven, choppy barking of a large pack of dogs. Wolf reached the far side of the Devil’s Road and jumped into the heather. Bleating sheep scattered ahead of him. He ran jolting down the slope, not knowing what else to do. There was nowhere to hide. The ground transmitted an insistent, dull drumming. Hoofbeats.

A cramp tore through Wolf’s side. He limped on, throwing agonised glances over his shoulder at the ridge. The gabble of the hounds became louder as they crested the hill. They poured over in a mottled flood, spilling down the slope. Two or three were out in front, running after him with enormous, raking strides. Behind flickered a shape with a blotched, blobby head.

The demon was with them — driving them on! Wolf ran faster. He hit a patch of slippery grass, his feet shot away and he fell, knocking the breath from his lungs.

A band of horsemen rode over the skyline, thin spears pricking the wind. The clamour of the dog pack was close now, savage and eager. Wolf scrambled up, his heart banging in clumsy strokes. Here they come ! The front-runners were huge. He saw the grinning white teeth in sharp black jaws, the laid-back ears and mad light eyes, the long mud-splattered legs that reached and stretched in fluent bounds…

Wolves! Not dogs at all, but wolves!

He shrieked and brandished his arms. The leading wolf leaped aside in a racing swerve. The other two followed, dashing by at a safe distance. He saw now how tired they were, with glazed eyes and lolling tongues. And with a strange hoarse cry the demon brushed past him, mushroom white except for the red blotch like spilled wine down half its face. Wolf shrank back. It ran stooping, on its hind legs, and was smaller than he’d thought. It had no tail and—

“Hey!” he yelled incredulously, straightening up. “Hey!”

A narrow, bare back and thin buttocks disappeared into the bracken. What he’d thought was a huge head was a tangled mass of greyish-blond hair.

A child? A dirty little child?

No time to think. Horses were coming down the slope at a drumming gallop, and he was in the way —trapped between the wolves and the hunt. The riders had seen him. The horn sounded a bevy of urgent notes, and over the din of the approaching hounds he heard a furious shout:

“ Dex aie! Garson! Gar les chiens !”

For God’s sake, boy, beware of the dogs ! Wolf was already running again. Those deep broken barks and yammering yells frightened him to the core. The riders were hollering: “ Sy, sy avaunt !”

“ Avaunt, ha ha ! Sy, dons sy !”

“ A moy, Bailemonde ! A moy, Argos ! So howe, so howe !”

Wolf plunged into the bracken where the child had disappeared. The ferns grew breast high, and dragged at his feet and caught at his voluminous robe. He tore through, hearing close behind the crackle and rustle as the dogs threw themselves after him.

Wolf burst out of the bracken. The ground fell away into a V-shaped dingle, a valley like a deep gutter with a white stream spouting over rocks at the bottom. Trees grew up its slopes. Wolf jumped. For a second he was flying, untouchable. Then his boots sank deep into last year’s slimy leaves. He pitched on to hands and knees, got up and ran on. The riders would have to be crazy to gallop down such a bank, but nothing would stop the dogs.

Climb something, you fool —get out of their way ! He thrust into the bushes that grew up the sides of the dingle and swung into a holly tree, scrambling as high as he could into its bouncing branches. He hung there, his breath whistling. White sparks danced before his eyes.

The dogs came boiling over the edge of the dingle, leaping down the slope, lean, rough-haired greyhounds and powerful, broad-chested alaunts bred to grip and kill. After them, black against the darkening sky came a rider on a big horse. The horse checked at the drop, half rearing. Then it sprang out. Earth flew from its iron-shod hooves. The rider yelled as they crashed into the bushes, and his long spear ripped through the leaves. A second horseman followed, and a third.

Wolf pressed his face against the damp tree bark and closed his eyes. He whispered a faint prayer. Safe! He was safe! They’d gone past without seeing him.