'Stonehenge,' Miller said redundantly.
Hipgrave trotted back to them. 'We treat this area with extreme caution. No one goes into the circle — I have strict instructions from Blaine.'
'I thought our instructions were to bring back the vicar,' Mallory said. 'You're saying you've got a whole load of other secret instructions?'
'They're not secret, they're operational.' Hipgrave nudged his horse towards the stone circle. 'You don't need to know.'
They progressed cautiously, all of them feeling a tingle of excitement when the menhirs came fully into view.
'There's real power here,' Daniels said. 'Can you feel it?'
'What are you thinking, Mallory?' Miller asked, when he saw the faraway look on his friend's face.
Mallory shifted as if he'd been caught out. 'I was thinking that it's returning to the days when Constable and Turner loved the place for its loneliness, and the special quality of the light and the atmosphere.'
'I didn't know you were artistic,' Miller said, surprised.
'That's because you don't know anything.' Mallory spurred his horse away. He'd been struck by a strange notion: one of the outstanding mysteries of Stonehenge was why the builders had brought a special kind of bluestone all the way from mountains in south-west Wales. Three thousand years ago, it was a tremendous, seemingly unnecessary exercise, especially when there were more suitable stones close to hand. But after what Sophie had told him of the Blue Fire, he wondered if the bluestones had some special generating quality for the earth energy. He'd been quite dismissive during the conversation in the travellers' camp, but the concept of the invigorating lifeblood energy appealed to him.
They moved on to the English Heritage visitor centre, which was completely burned out. Scorch marks were evident all around the area, even in the tunnel that ran under the road. Hipgrave made them skirt the circle widely as if it were a sleeping beast, yet Mallory regularly caught him apprehensively scanning the clouds.
'Split up. Look around the site as fast as you can for any sign. We need to be out of here quick,' he said.
They segmented the grassy field around the henge and each concentrated on one sector. After fifteen minutes of futile searching, Mallory's attention was caught by lightning on the horizon. A storm was approaching. Over in the next sector, Hipgrave stiffened and fixed his attention where the lightning had struck.
Maybe we can find a tree for him to shelter under, Mallory thought.
Three minutes later, the lightning struck again, though this time Mallory was aware it wasn't the brilliant white of any lightning he'd seen before; there was a ruddiness to it, perhaps even a hint of gold.
Mallory watched it curiously, waiting for the repeat, until Hipgrave thundered up beside him. The leader's face was taut. 'We need to get out of here. Now.'
'What's wrong?'
'What's wrong is we're trespassing!' Hipgrave spurred his horse to warn the others.
Mallory had no idea what he meant, but followed him nonetheless. Hipgrave had just spoken to Gardener when Miller called out on the north-western side of the henge.
'Look here,' he said when they galloped over. He pointed to a discarded bag and very obvious tracks leading away into the heart of the Plain. The bag was leather, embossed with the gold initials E. G.
'Eric Gregory,' Miller said. 'That's the name Blaine told us.'
It was exactly what they'd hoped to find, yet Hipgrave barely gave Miller's discovery any attention. His neck craned in the direction of the lightning.
'Come on!' he said. 'Move!'
Mallory followed his gaze to see a black shape just breaking the cloud cover; at that distance it resembled a fly.
Miller watched it dumbfounded until Hipgrave cuffed him on the side of his head. 'Come on!' He set off in the direction of the tracks, quickly spurring his horse into a gallop, not waiting for anyone.
Miller stared at the bag in his hands, not really comprehending what was happening, until Gardener grabbed his collar and hauled him into his saddle.
'Look!' Daniels said in awe.
Another burst of energy. Definitely not lightning, Mallory thought again. He knew exactly what they were seeing, recalling the travellers' explanation as to why Melanie had been visiting Stonehenge when she was injured. The column of flame hit the ground and erupted, just as he had seen it do that first time in Salisbury. The Fabulous Beast approached on slow, heavy wing-strokes, its serpentine neck rising and falling with each beat.
For a brief moment, they were all transfixed. The creature carried mystery and wonder on its back; the very sight of it reached deep into the unconscious depths of their minds.
Another yell from Hipgrave finally stirred them and they spurred their horses into life, heading down the slope from Stonehenge into the heart of Salisbury Plain. Mallory estimated that the Beast was twenty miles away at least, but drawing closer rapidly. Occasionally, he could hear the sound of its wings, the jet-engine roar of its flame bursts, each explosion followed by a shower of soil and rock and wood. Now they all knew why the Stonehenge visitor centre was burned out, and, as their wonder faded, what would happen to them if that searing breath came too close.
Lying low over their mounts' necks, they pushed on, the wind driving the rain into their faces until their skin stung and they could barely see.
The Plain passed by in a blur of green and grey. Eventually, they caught up with Hipgrave who herded them amongst old tank tracks into the once off-limits Ministry of Defence land. They finally came to rest under thick tree cover in a lower-lying area.
Mallory jumped down from his mount and ran to the tree line. In the distance, the Fabulous Beast was circling. 'I think it's lost track of us,' he said.
'Did it really see us? At that distance?' Miller said. 'I mean, why was it after us?'
'They're stupid animals,' Hipgrave said, dismounting. 'They'll hunt anything.'
Mallory wasn't convinced. From the very first sight of it, he'd instinctively felt there was an intelligence there. 'It's definitely searching the area,' he noted. He turned to Hipgrave. 'You expected to see it.'
'They like to follow certain routes-'
'Ley lines,' Miller interjected, repeating the information he had learned at the pagan camp.
Hipgrave eyed him suspiciously, but didn't ask how he had come by this knowledge.
The trail was surprisingly easy to follow. Even the persistent rain had not washed away the regular footprints, and every now and then they were presented with items that pointed the way: a fountain pen engraved with the initials E. G., a freshly broken shoelace, a page torn from an out-of- date Church diary, the writing illegible after the rain. Hipgrave was enthused by their progress, but Mallory felt oddly uneasy.
The route followed little logic, sometimes doubling back on itself. The suggestion was that the cleric was wandering, perhaps in a daze, and it would have left them completely lost in the uniformity of the Plain if they had not studied basic orienteering, as well as navigation by the sun and stars. The twisting track meant the miles passed slowly, but they also progressed with caution when they came to any area where they might be ambushed. Gardener grumbled that even in a daze the cleric was probably outpacing them.
'Where is this stupid bastard going?' Mallory muttered bitterly.
'You'd better hope something hasn't eaten him and is walking around in his boots,' Gardener noted.
Daniels wrung out the sopping peak of his hood, sending a shower of water splashing on to the pommel of his saddle. 'Well, isn't that a surprise — Gardener looking on the black side,' he said.
'I'm not looking on the black side. I'm considering a possibility. These days, anything's a possibility.' In the thin silvery light, Gardener's face appeared as grey as the heavy clouds that now lowered overhead.
Daniels snorted. 'I know you well enough by now, Gardener. You think life's miserable — that's why you opt for that Old Testament morality. All the reward's in the next place. This one's just blood, piss and mud
, am I right?'
'You should get down the pub more, Gardener,' Mallory said distractedly. His attention was fixed on the trail ahead.
'Bloody amateur psychologists,' Gardener said sourly.
'You know I'm right,' Daniels continued. 'All that fundamentalist Christianity you go for — it was right for a thousand years ago. Not now.'
'Look around you,' Gardener replied. 'It is a thousand years ago.'
'You really think the Fall was just the start of the apocalypse, Gardener?' Miller stared ahead gloomily.
'It's all there in Revelation. The great dragon, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world- he was thrown down to the earth and his angels with him. We've had war, we've had starvation, and there's talk of some plague doing the rounds. Death makes four — the pale horseman.'
'What do you think, Daniels?' Miller asked.
Daniels appeared bored by the conversation. 'I think fine wine, good food and Italian furniture are the answer to all our earthly worries.' He added, irritably, 'Were you always like this, Gardener? Miserable, I mean.'
Gardener grew introspective. 'You don't choose who you are,' he said after a while. 'Life makes you the way you end up. You think you're going down one road, then something comes up… something you can't control… and you end up going down another. And then you get sent off on another journey, and then another, and then when you finally stop and look back, you're miles away from where you were.'
His bleak tone put Daniels off pursuing the conversation, but Miller appeared oblivious to it. 'What are you saying, Gardener?' he asked.
Gardener acted as if he were talking about something worthless. 'We all need ways of making sense of this life. That's mine.' As he considered this line, a shiver crossed his face. It appeared to prompt him, for he picked up the conversation again. 'I married Jean when I was twenty. We'd already known each other for seven years. Met her on the Dodgems at Gateshead.' A faint smile slipped out of the greyness. 'She wasn't what you'd call pretty, but she'd got a mouth on her like a sailor. I liked that. She gave as good as she got. We had a few barneys in our life because of that mouth, I tell you, but there was never a dull moment.'
He adjusted his hood so that his eerily glassy eyes retreated into shadow. 'We always wanted kids… tried for years… until we found out I wasn't able. Jean took it well. We could have adopted, I suppose, but Jean said, "We've still got each other". We'd had the best times before. That's how we'd carry on into our retirement. Then Jean started feeling tired all the time… got ulcers in her mouth. I carried on doing the bins, came back after every shift, she'd mention it in passing. It wasn't important — she'd get over it.' He shook his head. 'All that time… wasted.'
'What was it?' Miller asked quietly.
'Leukaemia. Acute myeloid. Little chance of a cure, the doc said. We gave it a go. All that chemotherapy… her hair falling out… moods swinging like a bloody pendulum. I tell you, that foul mouth worked overtime.' There was such affection in his voice that Miller winced. 'She died. Here I am. I'm just passing time till I'm going to be with her again. No point looking for anyone else. Jean was the only one, for life. Without her, there's nothing here for me.'
Nobody knew what to say. Daniels attempted a half-hearted apology, but it appeared pathetic against the weight of feeling that hung around Gardener. Yet Gardener himself seemed untouched by it. It was as if all his emotion had been considered and was now held in abeyance for some future time.
It was Gardener who eventually spoke first. He carefully surveyed the trail ahead, and then said, 'What are you looking for, Mallory? You've been watching the way we're going as if you're expecting the King of Shit to come round the corner.'
'When things are easy I start to worry.'
'And you're calling me a pessimist.' Gardener peered into the misty middle-distance. 'Though you'd have expected most of the footprints to have been washed away by now.'
'It's all the things he dropped,' Mallory said. 'They're like signposts so we don't lose our way.'
'Or perhaps you're just being paranoid,' Daniels said. 'What could possibly be the point? Who even knows we're looking for him?'
'Do you think we should mention this to Hipgrave?' Miller asked. As usual, the captain was trotting ahead, out of hearing range.
'Do you think he'd even listen?' Mallory replied.
As twilight approached rapidly, they considered making an early camp, but Hipgrave insisted that they press on. 'We must be getting close to him now. How would we feel if he died of exposure tonight because we delayed? He might be just over the next rise.'
Mallory made treasonous utterings, but the others accepted Hipgrave's view and continued against their better judgment as the light began to fade and the landscape slowly turned greyer. Soon after, they crested a ridge and saw a large hill looming up ahead of them.
'We've reached the edge of the Plain.' Gardener pointed out a church steeple rising up due north.
Hipgrave rode back to them with the sodden map that had until then been of little use in the secretive heart of the army land. 'That's Westbury Hill,' he said. 'On top, there's Bratton Camp, an Iron-Age hill-fort. If we need to, we can make camp there.'
'Look!' Miller said suddenly. They followed his pointing finger to a dark figure moving across the hilltop.
'That could be him,' Hipgrave said. 'Nobody else in their right mind would be roaming around a place like that now.'
'I love these leaps of logic,' Mallory said, to no one in particular.
Hipgrave spurred his horse towards the hill, with the others following close behind. It felt good finally to ride at speed, making them believe they were too fast for danger, once more untouchable.
Through the thin late-afternoon light, Westbury Hill loomed with seemingly unnatural steepness in the flat landscape, so heavily wooded around the lower reaches that they had to dismount and tether their horses. At Hipgrave's urging, they forged on, the breath burning in their lungs from the exertion of the climb. Finally, they reached the flat, treeless summit where the wind blew fiercely. In the twilight, they could just make out a figure picking its way over the banks and ditches of the hill-fort about half a mile away.
'I don't like it up here,' Miller said. 'There's a bad feeling.'
As they moved uneasily across the open space, crows flapped all around, their eerie calls sounding like human cries for help.
'We were told to keep away from old hill-forts in one of Blaine's briefings,' Daniels said.
Mallory recalled his experience on Old Sarum, and knew why.
'It was one of the classes before you joined us,' Daniels continued. 'They gave us a list of places we should approach with caution: hilltops, particularly where there were standing stones or ancient earthworks, some lakes and rivers, places that folklore linked with fairies or other supernatural creatures.' He smiled thinly. 'I presume they thought we might be corrupted by the sheer paganness of them.'
The icy wind made the hilltop feel even more lonely. They came across a standing stone set in concrete with a plaque that said, To commemorate the Battle of Ethandun, fought in this vicinity, May ad 878 when King Alfred the Great defeated the Viking army, giving birth to the English nationhood.
The Iron-Age defences made the going hard; pits and slippery banks lay hidden in the undergrowth, so they were constantly in danger of turning their ankles or breaking bones in a fall, but the uncomfortable atmosphere made them even more cautious. There was no longer any sign of the cleric.
Bratton Camp lay on the north-western edge of the hilltop, overlooking a drop that was so steep and high it took their breath away. The B3098 was like a white snake far below. Next to the road, a giant factory that had scarred the ancient landscape now stood abandoned like some child's toy. In the last of the fading light, the shadows of clouds scudded across the surrounding fields.
'Look at that.' Miller indicated an area of white on the steep slope below them. As they moved around, an enormous
horse came into view, carved in the chalk that lay just beneath the scrubby grass.
' "The oldest white horse in Wiltshire",' Gardener read from a sign, ' "dating from 1778 but preceded by a much older version, date and origin unknown".'
'Join the knights and see the sights,' Mallory quipped, before adding, 'What do you reckon, Daniels — Iron-Age camp, ancient white horse, a standing stone and undoubtedly lots of folklore? Are the alarm bells ringing?'
Hipgrave raised his voice above the howling wind. 'Stop chatting — keep your minds on the mission. We need to fan out…' His order was cut off when he caught sight of movement from the corner of his eye.
The figure was disappearing behind an enormous earthwork that looked to Mallory like a neolithic barrow mound: he glimpsed only white face, shock of white hair, black clothes, the fleeting glimpse of a dog collar.
'There he is!' Hipgrave said. 'Halloooo!' he yelled, waving in the figure's direction.
But the figure had already disappeared. A few seconds later, they heard a muffled scream. They all stared into the growing gloom, listening intently.
'Quick!' Hipgrave barked. 'He's in trouble! Let's get over there!'
Even in the heat of the moment, Mallory couldn't shake the feeling that what he had seen hadn't been quite right. It was a long way away and the light had been poor, but the vicar's white face had appeared oddly inhuman. Something in the shadows of the eyes and the black slash of mouth had made it seem more an approximation of a man, perhaps not a man at all.
They ran across the fort, past the barrow mound. There was no longer any sign of the cleric.
'Take it easy,' Mallory cautioned.
'No!' Hipgrave yelled back. 'He might be in trouble!'
Yet even he was forced to come up sharp when he saw what emerged from the near dark on the other side of the fort. Ranged across the northern corner, branches had been roughly hammered into the ground and from them hung the skulls and dismembered carcasses of a variety of animals: badgers, foxes, rabbits, crows, smaller birds. Some were mere bones, picked clean by scavengers. Others were fresh kills, mouldering as they hung, glassy-eyed.
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