by Jo Spurrier
I turned the horse, and at once I was facing something huge and hulking.
The earthbeast was lurking under the trailing branches of the willow, so still, so perfectly still. I had a flash of memory, the beast Aleida had tamed, standing sentinel at the foot of the field below the cottage. Well, she wasn’t the only one to put her captured monster on sentry duty.
I froze. Beneath me, the horse did the same. He didn’t see it, I think, but he knew from the way I went tense that something was amiss. Behind me I felt Kian stiffen with unease — and then I felt his arms cinch around me as he saw it, too.
This beast had a deer’s head, kind of, if a deer was large enough to eat a dog in one mouthful. The head was topped with antlers, pale as bleached bone. Its eyes were huge, milky marbles.
I gripped the reins tight in hands suddenly slick with sweat. ‘Hold on,’ I whispered to Kian. ‘Hold on tight.’ I pulled the grey’s head around just as the earthbeast finally noticed us — those foggy eyes shifted our way, somehow sharpened — and then with a touch of my heels, Aleida’s grey was off and running.
The horse launched with a surge of power I’d never felt before, a strength I could only dream of, thundering like a storm. Some half-remembered instinct had me crouching low over his neck, hands buried into his mane while Kian hunched behind me, fighting to keep his seat.
From behind us came an unearthly bellow, a scream of pure rage. It wasn’t a bestial sound at all, but something else — it had something of a crash of thunder, something of the tearing screech of a falling tree, something of the roar of a rockslide. I glanced back and saw that the beast had been thwarted in following us — those bone-white antlers had fouled in the branches of the willow tree, but in the space of my glance it tore itself free and came thundering after us on clawed feet.
‘Oh hells,’ I said, hunching lower, and driving my heels into the grey’s sides.
Kian was shouting in my ear, and it took me long moments to realise he was calling my name. ‘Dee! Dee! You have to let me down!’
‘What? No!’
‘Do it! He’ll be faster with just you on his back, and I’m going to fall if we keep this up.’
‘Kian, it’ll kill you!’
‘No, no, I’ve got an idea. Cross back over the stream and veer east, and you’ll see a huge oak tree. I can climb straight into the branches and hide in the crown, I did it once before when a wild boar chased me. That thing could never climb up and follow me, and, in any case, it’ll be off chasing you. You have to let me off, Dee!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Certain,’ he said. ‘You just keep heading north until you hit the road and then go west. You’ll see your mistress’s orchard from the road, you can’t miss it.’
I had the token she’d made for me too, I belatedly remembered. The horse snorted, his arched neck turning dark with sweat, and I swallowed hard. ‘All right. Just . . . take care? Find some way to let me know you’re safe. And hold on, we’re going to jump.’ I hauled the grey’s head around, towards the stream. We both almost fell as he leaped down into the water, and then made a laboured leap up the bank on the far side. It bought us a few precious moments. I stole another look back when I heard the beast crash into the water behind us. The creature wasn’t built for agility, it seemed, and the grey’s landing had weakened the bank. It took the earthbeast several tries to haul itself out of the water, but once it did it came charging after us again with another bellow of rage.
‘There it is,’ Kian shouted, and I wrenched my gaze away from the beast to focus on the huge oak ahead of us. The grey wasn’t interested in stopping, and I couldn’t blame him, so I had to heave back on the reins with all my might.
Kian reached up as we came under the branches, and in an instant he was up and gone, pulling himself up onto the bough and straight away reaching up again to climb higher. ‘Go, Dee, go!’ he shouted.
I felt awful for leaving him there alone, with no defence other than the height of his perch — after all the help he’d given me, this was scant thanks. But the one thing I could do was draw the enraged beast away. I gave the grey my heels again, turning him north — or what I thought was north — and then a little bit further, cutting closer to the earthbeast to draw him away.
As skinny as Kian was, losing his weight seemed to make a difference. I’d never ridden so fast in my life — only once had I come close, when I was much younger and our old cob had taken fright and bolted while I was riding a message to our neighbours. I’d been terrified at first, convinced I was going to fall, dropping the reins to cling desperately to the front of the saddle. But then, when I didn’t fall, I’d discovered the rhythm of the horse’s gallop, and found out for myself how to find the balance of it, the calm amid the chaos.
The grey was faster than old Ned had ever been, but I’d lost the advantage of distance for the sake of drawing the beast away from Kian. When we reached the road and I veered west I stole another glance back, and the beast seemed to be only a few lengths behind.
Gritting my teeth, I unwound one cramping hand from the reins, and fumbled in my apron pocket. The crystal was there, bouncing heavily against my leg, but beneath it I found what I sought — the twig Aleida had made for me, bound with a hair from each of our heads. Fishing it out with a shaking hand, I snapped it in half.
Nothing happened. Not for long moments as the horse pounded along the road, the beast bellowing behind us and my heart thudding in my ears.
Then, I heard a rough caw overhead, and a black shape appeared, plummeting down to land on the horse’s surging neck. It was a crow, all black shining feathers and beady black eyes, and until that moment, I never realised how big those birds were. As it perched there, talons tangled in the grey’s mane, the spread of its wings was longer than my arm. Its beak was so close to my face I would have winced away if I’d dared straighten from my crouch over the grey’s neck. ‘Well, well, Dee,’ it croaked. ‘Have you made a friend?’
I was too relieved to be surprised. All of a sudden, strangeness meant safety. ‘I need help!’ I gasped. ‘I need—’
‘I’m already outside waiting for you. Come through the orchard around the western side of the tree. There’s a ditch between the orchard and the road, so you’d best be ready to jump.’
I didn’t need to ask what tree she meant. I just nodded.
With another harsh caw the crow leaped up from the grey’s neck, quickly falling behind as its wings clawed the air. I heard another bellow, and glanced back to see it beating around the beast’s head, making the stag-headed thing falter in its stride and gaining me a fraction more of a lead. I wondered if the beast was tired now, or if it could feel tired. It was born out of mud and earth and bound together with magic, for all I knew it could run to the ends of the earth without feeling fatigue. Oh Lord and Lady.
Then I saw it. From the crest of a little hill, I glimpsed the roof of the cottage, just a flash of slate faintly sheening in the sun, and down the gentle slope the grey–green mass of the demon tree. The horse was flagging beneath me, but I kicked him on without mercy, driving him forward with everything I had. We’re nearly there. We’re so close!
If she hadn’t warned me of the ditch I wouldn’t have seen it, it was so overgrown and cluttered with weeds and bracken. I saw it, but the horse didn’t, and I wasn’t skilled enough as a rider to tell him it was there. At the last minute he saw it and collected himself for a hurried, ungainly leap and an awkward landing that bounced me out of the saddle, throwing me forward over his shoulder. I abandoned the reins and grabbed for his neck and mane. I was so desperate to keep from falling that I didn’t notice how close we were to the demon tree — not until I saw ropy, grey–green tendrils dangling in front of me.
There was a flash of light, and a figure appeared in front of us — Aleida, dressed in a plain black shift, running towards us and waving her arms to scare the horse back. With a snort the grey tossed his head and veered away, just as the demon tree’s vines struck my mistress like a hunter�
��s snare. They struck, and found nothing there, and then thrashed and writhed in thwarted fury.
I was too busy trying not to fall to see what happened next, but when I could turn back to where she’d stood, there was nothing there but a furious tangle of vines, like a nest of snakes.
‘Over here, Dee!’ I heard her call, and saw her at last, standing on the grass at the edge of the orchard.
Then, with another bellow, the earthbeast crashed through into the orchard behind me, hard on the grey’s heels. It, evidently, had more sense than I did, for it immediately veered around the demon tree.
In the corner of my eye, I saw a patch of air shimmer and ripple, and then Aleida’s bull-headed beast appeared, as though a curtain had been swept away.
Head low, it charged and slammed its huge, spreading horns into the stag-beast’s side with a force that sent it sprawling into reach of the demon tree’s tendrils.
I kept heading towards Aleida, the grey slowing now that I wasn’t driving him onwards anymore, but I couldn’t look away from the tree and the beasts. The vines lunged, whipping through the air, snapping and snarling around the stag-headed beast. At the first touch of them it seemed to panic, throwing up its head and bellowing again, feet scrabbling at the dirt and fallen leaves beneath the tree, but as its head came up more grey–green tendrils reached down and snagged its antlers.
It wasn’t just the stag-beast, though — some of those vines had caught hold of the bull-like horns as well. The branches above tossed and thrashed, flailing as though caught in a storm, long trailing tendrils lashing like whips.
When I reached my mistress, I reined in hard and wheeled the horse around. The stag-beast tried to plant its feet and haul against the vines, but its forelegs lifted from the ground, and then its hind legs, too. Thrashing like an insect caught in a spider’s web, the beast struggled and flailed, and then, with a whoosh of wind and a groan of wood, the tree hoisted it up into the air.
The bull-creature was losing its battle too — the tree had it by the horns, the vines wrapped around and around like a herdsman’s rope.
I turned to Aleida. ‘Can you help it?’
She turned to me with a puzzled frown. ‘Help what?’
‘The beast! It’s yours, isn’t it?’
She snorted. ‘Not anymore, the tree can have it.’
‘But . . .’
‘It’s not alive, Dee. It’s just a construct.’ She stood there, quite unconcerned, watching as the bull-headed thing was dragged and hoisted up into the thrashing branches — and then the only sound was the rustle of leaves, a sound that put me in mind of a huge flock of birds very quietly coming in to roost.
And then, a soft patter like gentle rain, except it wasn’t water that fell to the ground beneath the tree’s oily green–black canopy, but little clumps and clods of earth.
My hands were shaking, my legs trembling with the effort of clinging to the grey’s sides. He was exhausted too, after that run. He was breathing hard, his head hanging by his knees and his coat damp with sweat. Shakily, I managed to kick my feet out of the stirrups and slither to the ground, just as something fell from the demon tree’s canopy to land on the earth with a soft thud, followed swiftly by another.
The noise made me startle, and the horse too, pulling back with a snort. I quickly tightened my grip on the reins, even though my hands felt weak and slick with sweat.
At the edge of the tree’s reach, Aleida held out her hand. The shapes on the ground — weird, twisted things, like clumps of unearthed roots — shook, trembled, and then skittered towards her over the bare ground.
She picked them up, one in each hand, and dragged them a safe distance away before dumping them on the grass.
The things were so grotesque it hurt to look at them. In protest, my eyes started to sear and water, stinging like salt and tears and smoke; it felt the way nails on a chalkboard feels to your ears. All I could make out were bones and bits of wood twisted together with wire and leather cord and little chunks of crystal; dark, gleaming things. ‘What is that?’
‘The seed,’ Aleida said. ‘The charm that bound it together and brought it to, well, not life. It was never alive.’ She threw one of them aside. ‘If I leave it here the earth might well form up around it again. But this one . . .’ She pulled a knife from her belt and slipped it into the net of woven wire around a kind of rib-cage, prying and levering until there was a hole big enough for her hand. She reached in with her fingers and grasped something inside the mess and then pulled it free with a sharp tug, just as my ears popped, just as they had before with the warlock’s construct.
Then, all of a sudden, I could look properly at the thing. It seemed like a kind of doll, but a doll made of old bones and horns and teeth, and bits of old wood and dried roots, wrapped together in the form of a skeleton. It reminded me of an old, desiccated carcass, like a beast had died somewhere too dry to rot away, so it had mummified instead.
Aleida threw it aside, a little chunk of horror on the green grass, and turned to me. ‘Did you go looking for that damn warlock?’ There was anger in her face, stone in her eyes. I faltered, unable to speak.
‘Dee,’ she said in warning tones.
‘I, I . . .’ Before I could muster my thoughts, a sudden noise from the crown of the demon tree interrupted me.
Straight away, Aleida’s head snapped around, just as the branches and vines of the tree began to thrash and flail as though striking at something within.
I glanced quickly to my mistress, but she stood still, frowning at the tree. Her hand dropped to the wand at her belt.
‘Uh, miss?’ I said. ‘What—’
‘Hush,’ she said, without looking around. ‘Get the horse, take him to the house.’
‘Miss—’
‘Now, Dee.’
I swallowed hard. My legs were shaking, my arms, too. It always surprised me how much effort it took to ride a galloping horse, and that was without having a murderous magical construct pounding at your heels. On trembling legs, I staggered backwards towards the house, while the tree still thrashed and fought with something unseen.
Aleida backed up with me, though her steps were halting and uncertain, and her eyes never left the tree.
‘What is it?’ I hissed.
‘Nothing good. Move, girl.’
I didn’t want to leave her. But I had no idea what was in that cursed tree, and it looked like she did. If she said to move, I’d best listen.
Then, at the edge of the demon tree, I saw it — a black shadow, a patch of pure darkness, oozing out from between the branches like a knot of smoke. The tree was still trying to catch it, but the flailing tendrils passed through it like mist. The black thing paid the tree no mind. Instead, I had the sense that it was looking at us, sizing us up. I felt its gaze like a chill touch, a ray of pure cold. It froze me in place. ‘Aleida—’
‘Move, Dee!’
I tried, I really did, but it was too late.
The black shadow moved faster than a thought. In an instant it was wrapped around me, and I was swept away to an empty, dark place. Dark and cold, so very cold, a cold that felt like needles dragging over my skin, a cold that pierced me right to the heart.
Then, in another instant, it was gone. I was lying on the grass, huddled into a ball, while around me a few wisps of flame evaporated into the air. The grass around me was scorched, giving off little curls of smoke, or was it steam?
Gasping for breath, I shuffled backwards towards the cottage, obeying Aleida’s order at last. I’d lost my grip on the reins and hurriedly glanced back to see the horse had obeyed where I had not.
I turned back to Aleida. She was still heading up the slope, too, shuffling through the long grass and leaning heavily on Attwater’s stick. Her eyes were darting everywhere, from sky to ground, from orchard to forest.
I spotted the shadow only moments before she did. It was in the air, high above us, barely visible against the glare of the sun — and then, swifter than any arrow, it
shot towards her.
I saw her fall in the instant before it wrapped around her, a churning cloud of pure darkness that swallowed her up. I heard a shout, though it was heavily muffled, and it could as easily have been a shout of defiance as a cry of pain. Then, within the cloud, a flower of fire bloomed, a spreading ball of pure flame that burned the darkness away, and the black smoke-creature was gone again, moving in utter silence.
Aleida lay sprawled on the grass. Blood sheeted her right arm, though she still gripped the wand tight as she tried to roll to her knees and find her feet.
Something was wrong, though. Something was very wrong. The line of her legs beneath her skirts was strange, crooked. Her legs bent where they shouldn’t bend, her joints facing the wrong way. And there, under the hem of her skirts, was something even stranger. Beneath the stained and frayed cloth, damp and dirty from the orchard’s earth, were a pair of hound’s paws; huge, hairy and studded with blunt, scarred nails.
In the corner of my eye I saw the shadow forming up again, over near the garden wall. Aleida’s flames could drive it off for a moment, it appeared, but weren’t doing enough harm to drive it away.
Considering how quickly it could move, there was no time to think. So I didn’t. I darted back to Aleida and pulled her free arm over my shoulders and heaved her to her feet. With one hand on her wrist and the other arm around her waist, I dragged her back towards the house.
As soon as she was upright those hairy paws vanished under her skirts, but I could feel her teetering upon them, leaning heavily against me. Lord and Lady, I thought. No wonder she’s so unsteady on her feet.
‘The house,’ she gasped in my ear. ‘Gyssha has defences around it, unless she went and moved the damn things.’
Then, in that same unearthly silence, the shadow-creature shot towards us again.
Aleida tensed beside me, raising the wand, and I felt something rise up from the earth around us. It felt like walking into a spider’s web in the dark, sticky and stretchy and clinging, but at its touch I felt Aleida shiver with relief.
