THIRTEEN
As the men came abreast of the outermost cottages a fragment of oily blackness rose into the air as though to greet them. It drifted towards the wagon, which was halted several hundred yards beyond the remains of the village. Samuel waited beside the horses, murmuring to them as one gave an uneasy snort and pawed the bare earth of the road. His mother and Meredith stood together in front of him, and Kane thought they hoped to block his view. He would have liked to think they saw as little as Samuel did.
The village had consisted of a handful of buildings gathered around a green, but every one had been destroyed. Nothing remained on either side of the uneven road except blackened skeletons of cottages – timber remnants gnawed by flames and scaly with charring. Even the earth around the ruins had been seared black. Might the village have been plundered and then burned to the ground? Kane had heard no rumours of marauders, but he was about to question his companions when he saw an object in the remains of a doorway. It had been a villager, and the sight filled Kane’s mouth with a sour taste of evil. Far worse had befallen the village than a raid.
The man was sprawled across the threshold with his legs still in the road. The heat that seized him had been so fierce that it was impossible to distinguish his peeling skin from the shreds of his garments. Kane wondered if the corpse had been distorted by the heat, given the awkwardness of its position, but then he saw that the man had twisted his torso around in a desperate attempt to fend off whatever was pursuing him. The arms were still outstretched, and the fingers were charred to the bone. Might an agonised spasm have contorted the body as well? The mouth was gaping in a grimace, however nearly lipless, and the eyes must have expressed outrage too. But the eyes had been seared from the head.
Now that Kane had noticed one corpse he saw them everywhere. Some of the villagers had sought refuge in their cottages, where they were almost indistinguishable from the rubble. Some had died in the street as they fled. One man’s hands had gouged furrows in the hard earth before his fingers were reduced to blackened bones. Another had perished clutching at his face, with which the heat had melded the remains of his hands as his body clenched itself. Kane could identify the bodies of women only by the children they had died trying to protect, because the women’s skulls were charred as bald as any man’s. The children were the worst, their small shrivelled bodies not merely clasped in their mothers’ arms but literally inseparable from them. Every child was eyeless. “Who could have done this?” Edward muttered almost too low to be heard.
The question seemed to release the men from a silence that the devastation had imposed on them. “The Devil has been here,” William said in a voice quiet enough for church.
Kane thought it did indeed resemble a vision of Hell: the tortured bodies, the stenches of charred wood and rubble and worse, the heat that still lurked on every side, parching his breaths and turning his throat raw. William’s remark sent Edward to his knees in the road, to raise his voice in prayer. “Holy Father...”
As though in response to his entreaty, a crow flapped up from the heart of the village. Kane preferred not to wonder how it might have been busy until it had been disturbed. He heard more wings fluttering ahead, and strode towards them, only to halt. “No,” he said, “not the Devil.”
In the middle of the green, surrounded by a patch of blackened grass, a stake protruded from the top of a pyre. While the lower section of the heap of fuel had been partly consumed, the stake was undamaged. “There was a witch,” Kane said.
William advanced to stand by him. Not for the first time since entering the village, he made a sign of the cross. “There was a burning,” Kane told him, “but the creature must have broken loose.”
A dull glint drew his attention to the top of the pyre. A heavy chain was coiled like a serpent around the foot of the stake. So the intended victim’s bonds had not burned through. “We should leave,” said Kane.
Edward abandoned his prayer and stumbled to his feet, hurrying to join his father. “We cannot leave these people to the crows,” he protested.
Kane disliked the prospect, but had Edward forgotten his young brother and the women? “We can do nothing for them, Edward,” Kane said. “The witch may still be here.”
Edward folded his arms and faced him. “They must be given a Christian burial,” he said, and his mouth had grown firm.
“My son,” William said, “you are a constant reminder of our duties.”
“It must be done by nightfall,” said Kane. Given the state of the bodies, it seemed a daunting task. He was staring about at the ruins, to make sure if he could that the creature responsible was not concealed among them, when Meredith called “Is someone there?”
Her voice was closer than it ought to be. Kane turned to find that she had ventured as far as the edge of the village while Samuel and their mother lingered near the wagon. Meredith was peering into the remains of one of the outermost cottages. As Kane and his companions hurried to her, she stepped through the charred doorframe and picked her way across the rubble. “What is it, Meredith?” said Edward.
She was stooping in the middle of the ruin. She had found a woman’s body, Kane saw. It appeared to be less affected by the fire than the others he had seen; even the clothes were largely intact. In a moment he realised that the corpse was not alone. A child clung to it, her face against the dead breast, and she had just stirred, however slightly. Meredith murmured words too soft for Kane to hear and touched the child’s shoulder.
The girl raised her face, which was rounded and plump, grubby with soot and gap-toothed. She appeared to be about eight years old. She wore a cap like Meredith’s, but it was discoloured with smoke. For a moment she gazed up at Meredith as if she hardly knew where they were or who she was herself. Then awareness seemed to flood her eyes, and she screamed at the top of her voice, sending crows flapping into the air all around the village. “The witch is here!” she cried. “The witch!”
FOURTEEN
“Keep the fire well stoked, Edward,” his father said. “We must keep the shadows at bay tonight.”
Kane wondered if he meant to speak of evil or just to reassure. They had left the ruined village as far behind as they had been able to travel before the night overtook them. Even Edward had despaired of the task of burying the villagers in the hours of daylight that remained, but he had insisted that each corpse should be protected by a cross composed of sticks taken from the pyre. Now the family and their companions were camped in a glade within a natural grove at some distance from the road. No doubt William had chosen the location because it gave them cover, but Kane doubted that it would conceal them from the destroyer of the village if it should come to find them.
He felt as though some aspect of the blackness that had overwhelmed the village had already followed them. Perhaps it was observing them from beyond the trees, where he heard the occasional flutter as if the night were a nest. He stayed close to the trees, alert for any hint of an approach out of the darkness, while the Crowthorns gathered about the child. She was seated between Meredith and Katherine, wrapped in a blanket and drinking from a bowl of broth. The women were intent on her needs, while Samuel watched her with all the curiosity of youth, but it was William who uttered the question that concern for her state had left unspoken till now. “Can you tell us what happened, child?” he said.
The firelight trembled, and a swarm of shadows blurred the child’s face. “Let the poor girl be, William,” his wife said.
The girl took a last sip and lowered the bowl. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she gazed up at William. She looked like a child in the bosom of her own family now that Katherine had bathed away the soot and grime. “They tried to burn a witch,” she said.
The flames in the midst of the clearing seemed to leap up at her words. As the light flickered over the edge of the glade, the trees appeared to inch stealthily forward, closing in. Though the girl’s voice was stronger and steadier than Kane would have expected, Katherine and Me
redith moved closer to support her. “People came to watch her die,” she said.
Kane heard a twig snap. It was in the fire, but it sounded too much like a hint of the presence of an intruder. He felt as if the girl’s words were attracting what they named, and he wished that William had refrained from questioning her while it was dark. For herself, she seemed untroubled by the darkness. “The flames didn’t hurt her,” she said, and the fire touched off a reminiscence of them in her eyes. “She came down from the stake and said now all the Devil’s children were free to walk the earth.”
Shadows shifted restlessly among the trees, where Kane could have thought the diabolical army she had conjured up was massing. Even if he was able to master his fancies, he still had a sense of evil looming somewhere close by in the dark. “Then she killed everyone who came to watch,” the girl said. “She burned out all their eyes because they did.”
As Meredith and Katherine each put an arm around her, Samuel said “Didn’t you?”
“Hush, Samuel,” his mother urged.
The boy looked abashed, and Edward said “We should pray.”
Samuel shuffled onto his knees at once, setting an example to someone younger than himself. Meredith and Katherine let go of the child to fold their hands. Katherine nodded at the child’s idle ones, but the girl let them sprawl apart. “I’m tired,” she complained.
“Take just a few moments to pray,” Katherine said.
“I don’t want to pray!” The child’s voice was suddenly close to a screech. “I’m so tired,” she whined, and her face sagged until it seemed in danger of losing its shape with exhaustion.
“Prayer will bring you peace, child,” Edward insisted, “and then you will sleep.”
“Please,” the girl cried, and appealed to Meredith. “You can see I’m tired, can’t you?”
“Of course you must be,” Meredith said and made to stand up. “Let’s find a place for you to sleep, you poor thing.”
As the girl smiled and hugged her tight, the flames sprang high and then crouched low. They awakened prancing shadows among the trees before they drew the darkness closer all around the people in the glade. Kane ignored it, because he was in no doubt where the blackest darkness lay. “Edward,” he said, “I think the child should wear your cross for protection tonight. Would you mind?”
“Of course not.” Edward had seemed defeated by the girl’s refusal to pray, but now he was certain again. He lifted the plain wooden cross on its cord from around his neck. “Here,” he said.
Kane took the cord in his fist and paced over to the girl, who peered up at him and huddled against Meredith. “Here, child,” he said. “Wear this tonight.”
The flames leapt, and shadows dodged among the trees before growing very still. The silhouette of the cross swelled up and shrank as it settled on Meredith. The girl was gripping Meredith’s left hand in both of hers. “I don’t want to,” she said.
Kane stooped towards her, dangling the cross. Its shadow almost found her before she sidled away, still clutching Meredith’s hand. “It will help to keep you safe,” Kane said.
“No,” the child whined and turned to Meredith. “I don’t want to,” she pleaded.
“Solomon, stop it,” Meredith protested. “Can’t you see she’s frightened?”
Kane glimpsed doubt in Edward’s eyes – perhaps in his father’s too. “Who would fear a cross?” Kane said.
Without warning, the girl moved. She snatched one hand away from Meredith’s, and for that instant Kane could have thought he was mistaken – that the child was about to take the cross. Instead she turned Meredith’s hand palm upwards and swiftly traced a sign on it with her fingertips. Meredith flinched and pulled her hand free. “What did you do?” she cried in shock and pain.
The girl reared up and hissed like a snake in her ear. “It’s you he wants,” she whispered so shrilly that the sound seemed to reach the edge of the glade.
As Meredith recoiled, Kane dropped the cross into the child’s open hand. A convulsion seized the small body, and the girl writhed away from him with a snarl. Her eyes glared wildly, no longer just with the reflection from the fire. As she tried to dart past Kane he grabbed her, still holding the cross by its cord. “This is her!” he shouted. “This is the witch!”
His captive squirmed like a reptile in his grasp, and in moments he was no longer holding a child. The plump face lengthened and relinquished its colour, turning grey and rough as ancient stone. The eyes grew large and red-rimmed, and the nose sharpened to a cruel beak above a widened sneering mouth. The body he was struggling to restrain seemed to be composed mostly of muscle and bone. Its long nails clawed at Kane’s neck and were reaching for his eyes before he managed to pinion the arms. Even then he could not match its inhuman strength. It tore itself free and leapt away from him, into the air. “The Devil is waiting for you, Solomon Kane!” it screamed in glee.
It sailed above him like a monstrous predator, its wild hair streaming, tattered clothes flapping. In a moment the flapping separated into fragments, because the body had. The black silhouette broke apart into a flock of crows that swooped into the night – thirteen of them. Their triumphant cawing faded into the distance, and then Kane was alone with the family that had accepted him.
FIFTEEN
The day was not long – just a few hours of dull sunless light between one darkness and the next. Kane and the Crowthorns had been travelling throughout most of it with very little rest, and yet he felt as if they might as well have stayed in the ruined village. More than once they saw the smoke of burning houses far away across the fields, and Kane could not have said how many times he had been troubled by the harsh calls of crows, although perhaps he was alone in hearing them. Worse than the notion that the witch and creatures like her might be lurking anywhere around him in some altered form, no matter how open the landscape, was his sense of having brought down evil on the family that had rescued him. They had heard the witch name him, and yet none of them had questioned him. Perhaps their faith would not allow them to believe that evil could triumph, and Kane could only pray that it would keep them safe.
He was trudging behind the wagon, having stood guard for most of the night. Meredith and Samuel were seated at the back. Meredith glanced at her brother to see that he was intent on the flat whitened landscape they were leaving behind, and then she sneaked a quick look at the palm of her left hand. The mark that the witch had left there might have been a stain of soot, but its blackness seemed somehow to resist the muffled daylight. Meredith frowned at it and closed her hand as if she found it somehow shameful. When she raised her eyes to find Kane watching her he did his best to appear reassuring. He was wondering what he could say that might ease her fears when he heard voices ahead.
They did not belong to the Crowthorns, and they were strident with panic. Kane overtook the wagon, which William was driving while Katherine sat beside him, and joined Edward alongside the horses. As William reined the horses in, a band of peasants came into view around a bend in the hedged road – about a dozen in all. Most of them were bruised or bleeding, and one had a child in his arms. Her eyes were big with the terror that Kane saw on every face. “What has happened?” William called as he climbed down from the wagon.
Some of them peered fearfully at him, but they all ignored the question. As the foremost of them crowded past the wagon William appealed to their companions. “What is wrong? What lies ahead?”
The child the man was carrying gave a dismayed cry and hid her face against his shoulder. The man grimaced at William and stumbled onwards at a run, followed by a few stragglers. One was a priest, his hair dishevelled, his collar torn and bloodstained. It was clear that he wanted only to flee, but William caught at his arm. “You must tell me, father,” he pleaded. “What has befallen your people? Was it the witch?”
“A witch?” The priest’s eyes trembled at a memory. “Dear God,” he whispered, “I almost wish it had been.”
Unease made Kane’s voice ha
rsh. “What, then?”
“The raiders.” The priest glanced apprehensively behind him and around him. “They once were men,” he muttered.
“And now?” Edward demanded. “Speak, man.”
“No human soul looks out through their eyes. No man could revel in such cruelty.” The priest’s hand shook as he made a sign of the cross, so hastily that it seemed to vanish almost before it was drawn in the air. “They will ravage the land,” he cried. “Perhaps they are claiming it for Satan.”
“Can no man stand against them?” Edward challenged him.
“The men of the village tried to fight them. These few escaped. Some of their fellows were slain, and some...” The priest raised his hand again but seemed to have no use for it. “They have joined the monstrous horde,” he said.
“How can that be?” William protested.
“The leader of the raiders has them in his power. A devil’s power.” The priest’s mouth worked as if it was struggling to find words, unless he was attempting to hold them back. “He hides his face behind a mask, and he is in every one of his followers,” he whispered. “He uses their eyes and their voices.”
A shudder passed through him from head to foot, and he floundered onwards as though the spasm were compelling him. As he passed the wagon he shouted to Katherine “Turn back while you can.”
He stumbled after the remnants of his flock, and Kane heard him attempt to lead them in prayer. As they fled into the distance, darkness seemed to loom over the fields. The air had grown colder, flecked with vicious windblown snow. Meredith and Samuel came forward in the wagon as their mother said “What must we do, William? Can we go on?”
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