Katherine Langrish - Dark Angels

Further down the dingle, hidden by trees, the baying of the dogs rose to a violent crescendo and the men shouted. They had a wolf at bay. Wolf heard the thud of a spear going home, and a long, sobbing howl, which shot up into a wild shriek and ended in a spine-crawling, choking cough.

The horn sounded for the death — a series of hurrying, victorious toots. From the hillside above came answering whoops and horn calls — then curses and laughter as the rest of the huntsmen reached the top of the steep bank and began cautiously urging their horses down.

Safe in the holly, Wolf clung to the branches and listened to the thump and scuffle of hooves. He peered through the darkly prickled leaves. The men and horses sounded solid enough. He could hear the horses snorting and the riders speaking in French like noblemen. There were no devils trotting by on fiery-eyed goats.

Yet hadn’t they been hunting a child — that mysterious child? He shivered, and in his mind’s eye the real dogs he’d seen faded and blended into the Devil’s black hounds chasing the naked and terrified souls of the damned.

No ! He shook his head. The child had been real flesh and blood, the dogs had been ordinary dogs, and as for the riders, devils wouldn’t speak French.

Or perhaps they would; he didn’t know. But he couldn’t stay in this tree all night. He dropped stiffly to the ground. At a safe distance he followed the switching tail of the last horse. Soon he saw a hastily lit fire crackling in a trampled clearing, and the dusk turning blue around it.

The fire glowed on reds and browns: the ruddy coats of the steaming horses, and their red leather harness, cut in scallops; the huntsmen wore red tunics and long leather boots. One stood leaning on his spear. He must be the lord, the master of the hunt. He was watching his men skin the one wolf they’d caught. It lay stretched on the ground near the fire. They had cut off the head and stuck it on a spear, where its white teeth gleamed in a frozen snarl.

Wolf lurked in the undergrowth. Just as he gathered his courage to walk out and be seen, there was a roar of rough laughter at some joke. He lost his nerve. They might help him. Or they might punish him, for getting in the way of the hounds.

Smoke blew towards him, and a smell of churned-up leaves. Triumphant dogs ran about wagging their tails and peeing on the bushes. Their mood had completely changed; they were no longer a danger. One of them dashed up to Wolf and seized his wrist in its mouth, play-chewing with blunt teeth. It was a tall white greyhound, a beautiful, lordly creature wearing a broad collar of gilded leather. Wolf pulled his hand away and drew back, afraid of being noticed.

“No,” he whispered. “Off with you. Go on!”

The greyhound took no notice. It swung its thin tail, looking eagerly into his face. It thinks I’m one of the hunters. It’s hoping for scraps. Wolf backed further into the trees, ducking under the spiky branches of a clump of hawthorns, but the dog followed.

“Go away!” Wolf grasped the thick leather band around its throat and tried to make the dog turn. It resisted, lifting a strong, shaggy foreleg and pawing his knee. Wolf found himself rubbing its neck and scratching its ears. It pushed affectionately against his hand — then stiffened, looking sharply beyond him. Wolf turned, his fingers still hooked through the collar. He couldn’t see anything, but the dog apparently could. It set off with a bound.

Wolf followed without even thinking. With the friendly dog at his side he felt safe for the first time in hours. As it dragged him deeper into the wood, a glorious idea dawned on him. If a valuable hound ran off, wouldn’t there be a reward for the person who found it? He could wait a while, and then take it back and say he’d found it straying, which was almost true. The lord of the hunt would be a rich knight, a nobleman. Men like that had to act generously.

He could see it all: the grateful knight offering money. You have brought back my best hunting dog. Take this purse ! Himself bowing low. It was nothing, my lord. All I want to do is serve you. The knight exclaiming: Then you shall join my household. I have need of an honest lad to be my squire…

He laughed at himself. All the same, it could happen! Then, instead of monkish black, he’d have bright clothes to wear, green and scarlet. He would take care of his master’s clothes and weapons. He would learn to ride and hunt and fight.

He hung on to the collar, trying to restrain the big greyhound as it bounded up the steep side of the dingle, under scratching branches, through a patch of tall stinging nettles, and over an ankle-breaking pile of moss-covered stones. Wolf hopped and swore and rubbed his shins. “That’s enough!” He tugged the dog to a standstill under a rock face which leaned out overhead. There was a dank, sour smell. A bad feeling hung over the place. “We’re not going any further,” he said, shivering. “It’s time to go back.”

The greyhound strained at the collar, growling. A prickle of sweat started under Wolf’s armpits. He remembered he was still on the slopes of Devil’s Edge. And he was alone, and a long way from the fire.

In the black tangle of thorn trees and brambles at the base of the cliff, a chalky oval gradually formed.

With eyes in it.

A face like a half-moon, white one side and dark the other, floating in a aureole of insubstantial hair like dandelion fluff. It vanished, pulling back into blackness, and Wolf saw that it had been peering from the mouth of a low cave set under an overgrown rocky ledge.

Dry mouthed, Wolf recognised it. The thing he’d mistaken for a demon — the strange child. This was what they had been following. The dog had brought him straight to its lair!

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