by Paul Lewis
He drew back carefully from the edge until the trees concealed him, dry, brittle undergrowth cracking under his weight as he moved. Once out of sight he sat with his back against an oak with his chin cupped in one hand. If he made a move for the boy, the creatures would see him. Assuming the young were anything like the adults, they would attack without hesitation. Dodinal was confident he could fight them off, but less certain he could keep the boy safe from harm as he did so. What he needed was a distraction.
He shifted position in a wasted attempt to get comfortable on the hard ground, and Owain’s pouch bumped lightly against his chest. His hand closed around it. At once, his mind was back in the village, in Rhiannon’s hut, that evening when Owain had proudly displayed his father’s belongings for him to see. Dodinal lifted the pouch over his head, opened it, tipped its contents into his hand.
He grinned when he found what he was looking for. He would have his distraction.
He returned everything except the flint and steel, and their cushion of bark kindling, and tied the pack around his neck once more. That done, he ripped up a clump of bracken, screwed it into a small nest and placed the kindling inside it, then rested it against the base of the oak and worked flint and steel until the sparks brought forth a tiny flame.
Dodinal cupped his hands around the nest and gently blew until it ignited. Then he grabbed more handfuls of bracken and placed them carefully on the fledgling fire, anxious not to smother it. The bracken immediately started to burn, smoke rising from the flames. He nodded.
Using the trees for concealment, he worked his way around the edge of the depression. He had to get as close as he could to Owain before making his move. He smelled the smoke, and wondered how long it would be before the creatures smelled it too. Hopefully they would panic and flee.
The smoke was visible by the time he was close enough to look down directly onto the slab. It spiralled into the night sky, gusting across the moon. Yet the creatures seemed oblivious to it. Dodinal gnawed his lip. Surely they were not so distracted by their rutting and rollicking that it had escaped their attention.
Then it struck him. If the creatures were unaware of the smoke, with luck they would remain unaware of him if he went down to the slab. He could be there and back with Owain before they noticed the child was gone. It was risky, but he would have to act sooner or later anyway. Better now, when there were no adults around. Decision made, he did not waver. He drew his sword and ran at a crouch until he reached the edge and scrambled down it.
The slab was as high as Dodinal’s waist. Owain twisted his head to watch him as he approached. The knight’s boots kicked against fallen branches, and he glanced down, recoiling in disgust. Not branches. Bones. Skulls. Unmistakeable in the moonlight. The ground was littered with them. Despite his haste he crouched to take a closer look. All of them were small. Some were clearly human. Others were malformed. So the creatures killed and ate their own young as well as the children they stole. Outrage flared within him.
Whatever happened, he would not fail Owain, even if that meant taking his life painlessly before the creatures could snuff it out with cruel savagery.
The creatures had forced a cloth into the boy’s mouth, unaware there would be no cries to smother. Dodinal did not waste time with words or reassurance. As soon as he was close enough he slashed through the vines around Owain’s waist and chest, working as quickly as he could.
The blade parted the vines securing Owain’s right arm and leg, and Dodinal hurried around the slab. The air was cool, but he was sweating hard. He wiped his hands on his tunic, and then went to cut the vine holding Owain’s left arm fast.
A screech blasted out, louder and shriller than the rest, and the forest went silent.
Dodinal spun around.
The creatures were motionless, frozen in place, their heads all turned his way. He could see the moonlight reflected in their eyes as they watched him. Smoke drifted across his vision. They must finally have scented it and, looking for its source, had seen him. What he had intended as a distraction had given him away.
He raised the sword to cut through the last of the bindings. Owain might survive in the forest, or he might not, but at least he would have a chance, where he would have no chance at all trapped in the midst of a battle. They would tear him to pieces.
There was not enough time. As one, the creatures shrieked and leapt down from the trees, sweeping across the depression towards him.
“Try to undo the knots,” he bellowed at Owain, then turned and faced the tide that was about to engulf him. He ran from the slab to lead them away from the boy, then stood his ground, sword raised. The red mist swam up, and his heart pounded with exhilaration. He could feel the blood rushing through his veins.
Clawed feet made a noise like rain on a roof as the child-creatures streamed across the depression. What they lacked in size they made up for in ferocity, mouths snarling and revealing rows of vicious teeth. Dodinal waded into them, slamming his shield into skulls and bodies, relishing the feel of bone crunching and breaking with every blow.
He wielded the sword wildly and to devastating effect, parting limbs from torsos and heads from necks until the ground was soaked with blood. More creatures surged towards him and he slammed them out of his way with the shield and skewered them with the blade. Though the size of children, they were anything but. He showed no mercy.
They came at him from every direction. Dodinal wheeled and struck, turned and struck again, bodies heaping at his feet. His boots crushed the twitching corpses as he drove forward. One of the creatures got close enough to leap at him and his sword met it in mid-air, cleaving it in two. The thing’s entrails unravelled like a banner as its bloody halves fell to ground. Another slipped through his defences, crawling along until it could sink its claws into his ankle. Dodinal barely felt the pain. He rammed the sword down through the back of its deformed skull until the grip on his ankle went slack, and then stepped away and kicked it from him.
They grew wary and kept their distance. A few darted towards him, but fell back before he had the chance to turn the blade on them. They were trying to force him back into the bank, leaving him nowhere to go. If he turned around, he would find more of them at the top of the bowl, waiting to swoop down on him the moment he was trapped. He bared his teeth. Let them try.
He went on the offensive, suddenly lunging forward as two of the creatures came at him, swinging the sword with such brutal force that the blade sliced clean through them both. The rest turned tail and fled, regrouping half a dozen strides away, crouching on all fours, hissing and spitting in fury.
A sudden weight on his back nearly knocked him off balance, and he felt sharp claws digging into his shoulders. Shifting the sword to his left hand, he reached back with his right and grabbed the creature by the throat, squeezing hard. It thrashed wildly, fangs piercing his skin, and he squeezed harder until he had crushed its windpipe. The creature went limp, and Dodinal hurled its lifeless body into the trees.
He strode relentlessly towards the horde, blind anger giving him strength, the stink of their blood driving him on. There was no room in his head for conscious thought, or in his heart for compassion. Maybe half of them were dead, but he wanted them all dead, would not stop until he had cut the life from every last one of them.
They cowered and backed away, sensing his righteous fury, looking around urgently as though seeking a means of escape. One tried to rally the rest by letting out a howl and throwing itself at him, and he spun on his heel and slammed the flat of his shield into its face. It took a few faltering steps back, and Dodinal thrust the sword deep into its eye. The creature went stiff as he pulled the blade free, dead before it hit the ground.
And then the earth shook.
Dodinal felt it tremble under his boots.
It shook again, as if struck a massive blow.
None of the creatures moved. They were no longer looking at him. Their heads were turned, gazing intensely up the bank towards the unk
nowable dark of the forest. Dodinal swallowed hard.
Another percussive blow, which rattled his teeth and shook his bones, followed by a great splintering, tearing and crashing. It sounded like the trees were being torn up by their roots.
Something was coming. Dodinal edged towards Owain. He had no idea what it was. Surely there was no creature on earth capable of making the earth shake in such a way. Whatever it was, he wanted the child out of the way before it got any closer.
The ground convulsed. Trees swayed and groaned.
Dodinal cut through the vine that held the boy’s foot.
A dark, monstrous shape emerged from the forest with a great clattering of branches, and came to a shuddering halt at the depression’s edge. He saw it well enough in the moonlight to know it was bigger than any living thing he had ever set eyes on before. He cast out his senses and immediately recoiled. What they had touched was ancient and cold, not malevolent but uncaring, like nature itself. Dodinal had sensed it before. It had unnerved him then. Now, when it was almost close enough to spit on, its presence was like fuel on the flames of his anger.
It was unnatural, an abomination, just like the creatures. This was what must have sent them out to steal the children. Judging from the bones on the ground, it had an insatiable taste for human young.
Now the adults swooped into sight, dropping from the trees near the beast and scurrying down the bank ahead of it. There were eight of them, one was badly burned. Another was much smaller, presumably drawn from the ranks of the young to make up for the absence of the adult he and Gerwyn had slain.
They could not have missed Dodinal, his back to the slab only yards from them, yet they paid him no attention. Instead, they waited behind the cowering young, their heads bowed. The forest was as silent as the church where Dodinal had often sought peace.
He frowned. A church…
Understanding struck him like a physical blow.
Whatever it was, these twisted creatures worshipped it.
It was their god. And they had brought it sacrifices.
The monstrous shape juddered; Dodinal saw movement in the darkness around it and had the impression of a long thin neck raised skywards so the beast could peer down at him and the boy. Then, moving slowly and carefully, it lowered itself into the depression, earth and rock cascading as the bank gave way under its weight. With each thunderous step, the very world seemed to tremble. Visions of giants filled Dodinal’s head again, but he shook them off. This was no giant, no mythical beast out of a child’s story.
Whatever it was, it was real.
It stepped beyond the shadow of the forest, into the moonlight.
Dodinal saw it clearly, but he did not believe what he saw.
Its body was that of a leopard, the haunches those of a lion, and the feet a hart’s. It had a serpent’s neck and head, which swayed in time with its leonine tail as it lumbered across the ground, passing the assembled throng of creatures watching its every move. Dodinal stepped cautiously away as it came to a juddering halt before him, his mind struggling to comprehend what he saw. It beggared belief. It challenged everything he had ever known. There was man and there was nature, nothing else. Yet here, standing within touching distance, was living proof that there was something else.
Sir Palomides, the Saracen, had often spoken of such a creature. The Questing Beast,12 he had named it, and dedicated his life to hunting it down. Camelot’s knights, Dodinal amongst them, had humoured him and wished him well, but between themselves had dismissed it as a fool’s errand. Such a chimera could be found nowhere but the realm of myth. If it existed, they argued, why had it not been found?
The beast lowered its sinuous neck and thrust it towards him, its mouth opened wide and its forked tongue flicked out. A sound like the baying of three score hounds poured forth from its belly. Dodinal flinched, remembering the old man’s story. The baying of hounds that long-ago summer had been the harbinger of disaster.
He continued to step away, moving slowly, until he felt the hard edge of the slab press into his back. There he stood, raised to his full height. He held the sword with both hands at chest height, the blade raised to the stars. To reach the child the beast would first have to get past him, and he would cut its head from its body.
The Questing Beast roared again but did not move. What was it waiting for? Dodinal was torn by indecision. Part of him wanted to stand his ground. Another felt compelled to attack.
The adults moved before he could, fanning out around the young, yelping and barking in what Dodinal now recognised was a feeble attempt to emulate the voice of their god, trying to herd the child-creatures across to where Dodinal waited. The young shuffled and whined and cast anxious glances at each other, and at their siblings lying broken and bleeding on the ground.
Without warning, one of the adults broke away from the rest and loped towards the slab. The Questing Beast opened its mouth and again came that hideous baying. The gargoyle creature stumbled and looked around as though uncertain of its actions, then seemed to shrug off any misgivings and continued its headlong rush. At the last second it coiled and leapt over Dodinal, landing on the farthest edge of the slab. Dodinal spun around to face it, the Questing Beast and its horde of worshippers forgotten.
The creature turned to face its kin, and then bent and thrust a hand towards Owain’s chest.
Dodinal twisted and hurled the shield, clipping the thing’s skull and stunning it. Then he lashed out with the sword and took its arm off above the elbow. The creature howled and flung itself away from him, losing its footing and falling from the slab’s edge.
A furious shrieking filled the air as Dodinal slashed through the last of the bindings and lifted Owain away from the rock. The boy wrapped his arms so tightly around his neck that the knight could scarcely breathe. He tried to put him down and push him towards the bank, but Owain refused to let go.
Dodinal spun around. The Questing Beast had still not moved, but the creatures were closing in on him, the adults now leading the way, the young following tremulously behind them.
He could not fight them all.
Dodinal lifted the blade and rested the metal against Owain’s throat. It would be kinder this way, a mercy killing. The boy must have known what was going to happen, but didn’t flinch. He was brave, no doubt about that. His mother was right to be proud of him.
The creatures were almost within reach. Dodinal smelled their foul carrion breath as they yelped and howled.
He shook his head. He could not do it. Could not take an innocent life even if it was for the best. Very well, he would take out as many of them as he could and go down fighting. At least neither he nor the boy would die alone.
The creatures stumbled to a standstill and fell silent.
Their eyes, Dodinal saw, no longer reflected the moonlight, but swum with a rich amber glow.
Tall shadows danced on the cliff face as orange light bathed the bowl, casting the stunted trees into sharp relief. Now the creatures had ceased their shrieking and hollering, he could hear the rush of the wind through the branches. Smoke, dense and choking, gusted over him, over them all.
Dodinal turned his head. The trees were now pillars of fire, and the flames were spreading. Burning tendrils reached out across the dark spaces of the forest.
Dodinal could barely draw breath, between the smoke and the child around his neck, but laughed all the same.
He had wanted a distraction. Now he had one.
The creatures immediately turned away from him and Owain, scattering, running and leaping away from the flames, making for the trees and scrambling up into the branches. They vanished into the wood, the clamour of their panic-stricken flight carrying back after they had disappeared from sight, leaving man and boy alone. The Questing Beast was gone too. Dodinal frowned, confused. It could shake the earth with each step and yet he had not heard it leave.
He felt a sharp pain as Owain pulled hard on his beard and pointed over Dodinal’s shoulder. The knight tu
rned to look and saw that the fire had almost completed a full circle of the closest trees surrounding them. If they did not move now they would be trapped and would suffocate, or burn to death.
Neither was any way to die.
Dodinal left the shield where he had thrown it and sheathed the sword. Holding Owain with both hands, he fled across the clearing, only just outrunning the flames as they closed the circle. Earth flew up under his boots as he scrambled up the bank and raced into the forest, neither knowing nor caring which way he was heading, as long as it was away from the fire. Blistering heat toasted his neck as the trees around him were engulfed. The sound of it snapped at his heels, crackling and roaring. Even the air his hungry lungs gulped down felt hot.
Dodinal looked sharply to his left and right as he ran. Everything was alight, from the undergrowth to the crowns of the trees. He had no choice but to keep pushing blindly forward. Ahead of him, a tree burst into flame as though struck by lighting and started to lean across his path. Holding Owain tightly, Dodinal drove himself on, sprinting under the tree at the very moment it crashed to the ground, a searing blast of air washing up his back. He stumbled, but managed to stay on his feet, letting go of Owain with one hand long enough to swipe embers from his hair before they could singe his scalp.
Smoke closed his throat. He began to cough, great hacking barks, and could not stop. His eyes swam with tears. He had no sense of direction, careering blindly towards the darkness, like a narrowing passage through the turbulent light. Sparks and burning debris landed and stung his face and hands.
Then he was tumbling into space. Owain slipped from his grasp, and Dodinal tensed, bracing for impact. Instead of hard ground, he felt the shock of cold water as the lake closed around him. A roaring filled his ears. Dodinal flailed around, swallowing water, not knowing which way was up and which was down.
