by Damien Black
‘Then in Reus’ name, do as Horskram bids and get up!’ yelled Vaskrian, standing up. ‘Or must I find a braver knight to squire for when we escape this cursed place?’
His ploy worked like a charm. ‘Why, you insolent cur...!’ growled Branas. ‘I ought to have you horsewhipped for such presumption! I’ll show you who’s the real true knight around here...!’
Lurching to his feet the old warrior drew his sword; the blade caught the silvery light of the forest strangely as the trees shifted and rustled menacingly about them.
‘That’s the spirit, Branas!’ cried Horskram, stepping in. ‘A true knight never dies until the last blow strikes the life from his body, eh? Now, let’s get going – we’ll take yonder trail and get ourselves an audience with the Fay Folk. We’ve played their games for long enough, I think!’
Just then there came a new sound to assail their beleaguered senses – a myriad howling of fell beasts that drew nearer by the second.
‘So the games aren’t over yet!’ cried Horskram with a mad levity. ‘So be it! They’ll not find us such easy prey as they could wish for! Run! In heaven’s name, run!’
The howling sounds grew in number as the four of them dashed along another winding trail. To Adelko’s ears they sounded like a pack of wolves, though he knew better by now than to expect anything so mundane. His sixth sense told him there was an unnatural intelligence to the wolfen calls.
It was hard to tell how long they had been running before they burst into another clearing. There was a log hut in the middle: the flickering flames of a fire could be discerned through its single window.
Without a second thought Horskram flung open its sturdy door, making sure all of them were inside before slamming it shut. It had a rough makeshift bolt which the old monk drew across with trembling hands.
Breathing heavily the four of them clustered about the window and peered out of it fearfully. The sylvan light of the forest had gradually dimmed during the chase; the clearing was bigger than any of the others they had yet passed through, the forbidding trees at its edge only dimly visible in the failing light.
A few seconds later their pursuers sloped into the clearing. Adelko counted at least twenty, each lupine form the size of a Great Northlending wolfhound. Hairless and skinless, their muscles quivered horribly as they stalked into the firelight. Red forked tongues lolled around huge white fangs that protruded from distended muzzles. Where the eyes should have been a single yellow orb glared balefully.
‘Hounds of hell sent to devour us!’ breathed Horskram. ‘But they will not chastise us so long as yonder fire lasts – look around, is there any more firewood in this hut?’
‘Why do they fear the flames?’ exclaimed Branas, who seemed to have recovered his wits if not his composure. ‘Surely their hellish bourne is hotter than any earthly flame!’
‘That’s precisely why they fear it even as it attracts them – it reminds them of the realm they have escaped!’ replied Horskram impatiently. ‘Don’t let your eyes deceive you – each one of those awful carcasses holds a lesser spirit of evil! Naked flame will draw them but they will shun earthly heat! We must keep them at bay at all costs – that fire is close to burning out. Is there any more wood?’
‘There’s some here!’ replied Vaskrian excitedly, reaching into an old pail of charred iron and flinging a couple of logs on to the firepit at the heart of the hut’s single room.
Grabbing an old poker from a corner Horskram stoked the blaze into life; the hellhounds howled resentfully as the light from the thickening flames grew stronger. Adelko could see them slinking back towards the edge of the clearing, retreating before the advancing glow. Settling down on their haunches they fixed the hut with baleful cyclopean eyes, waiting in the still silence without. Now not even the rustling of the trees could be heard.
‘So what in Reus’ name do we do now?’ Branas’ voice shook with fear. Despite the fire’s warmth Adelko found himself shivering.
‘We examine our refuge,’ replied Horskram, looking scarcely less troubled.
A cursory search of the room revealed half a dozen rough wooden pallets, a pail of stagnant but potable water, and an old cooking pot. Inside the last of these, much to their surprise, they found a couple of skinned coneys and a hunk of mouldy but edible bread. Outside the awful hounds had ceased their howling. Were it not for the twenty odd points of yellow light clustered about the edge of the clearing there would have been no sign of their presence. Adelko could swear that not one of the eyes ever blinked.
‘This feels like another game to me,’ replied Horskram, shaking his head uneasily. ‘It is all too easy – chased by yet another grave danger we suddenly find ourselves with food, water, shelter and a fire. I smell a faerie trap.’
‘But what choice do we have?’ demanded Sir Branas. ‘If we venture back outside, yonder fiends will devour us – you said as much yourself!’
‘I didn’t say we had any choice,’ replied Horskram darkly. ‘But we should be on our guard – and not only against what awaits outside... I don’t think this food is safe to eat.’
Adelko groaned inwardly. A cursed forest was hardly the place to work up an appetite, but even so he felt famished and exhausted. And a bit of food might at least raise their spirits and keep up their strength.
‘I don’t see anything wrong with them!’ retorted the knight, who was clearly of the same mind. ‘Vaskrian – inspect yonder coneys. Do you notice anything?’
‘I already have, sire,’ replied the squire. ‘I don’t see anything wrong with them either... and a bit of food might do us good after all.’ Seeing Horskram turn beady eyes on him he looked momentarily abashed before adding: ‘Who knows? Perhaps they were put here by a good spirit to help us.’
‘Good spirits are angels,’ snapped Horskram. ‘And I can assure you there are none to be found in Tintagael.’
‘Which you brought us into!’ Branas reminded him. ‘I’ll have no more discussion of this – you may be a learned friar, but I’m a knight of noble blood, and if I say these coneys are good to eat, then they’re good to eat! Vaskrian, cook them up – if tonight is to be our last, at least we’ll meet our maker on a full stomach.’
‘This is rank foolishness!’ protested Horskram.
‘Nay, master monk,’ said Branas, his eyes narrowing, ‘this is a craven knight showing his mettle! You tell me to show some courage, and now you’re frightened of a couple of dead rabbits! A pox on that! Vaskrian, cook them up!’
An hour later and they were feasting – if you could call it that – on stewed coney and mouldy bread, washed down with foul-tasting water. Under the circumstances it seemed a fine enough repast to Adelko. For their part, the old knight and his squire ate greedily. Only Horskram did not partake, stubbornly heeding his own counsel, though he did take a few mouthfuls of water.
Outside, the forest remained ominously quiet. Once or twice he got up to peer through the narrow crooked window; the pinpricks of light remained exactly where they had been, unblinking in the stygian gloom.
Perhaps this is night-time in Tintagael, thought Adelko uneasily. Then he wondered just how long they had actually been in the forest – it already felt like a lifetime. Even time seemed different in this place.
As the meagre but welcome meal settled in his stomach and the warmth from the fire gradually seeped into his bones, he felt himself nodding – blinking and starting, he saw the others doing the same. Even Horskram’s head was drooping on his shoulders.
One by one, they all crept over to a pallet and rolled themselves up in their travelling cloaks...
Adelko’s sleep was troubled by strange dreams. He was back in Narvik, helping his Aunt Madrice clean the kitchen. She turned to look at him with black eyes, only now they were sinister as they had never been before.
‘You’re never where you should be, are you Adelko?’ she accused him. Her voice was sharp and cruel – quite unlike the gentle tone he always remembered. ‘One day you’ll go off wandering again
– only this time you’ll never come back!’
She glared at him and spat. Her spittle was vile, a strange silvery-green colour...
The dream shifted, and suddenly he was back on the Brenning Wold, riding with his master through the rain – only this time they were heading the wrong way, back north towards the Highlands.
He kept asking, ‘Why are we going the wrong way, Master Horskram?’ But his mentor never replied, and would only stare ahead as he nudged his rouncy onwards. The sky above was tinged with a luminous silvery-green colour; the skeletal trees scattered across the bilious green hilltops looked sick and ghastly in the unnatural light. Then they reached the crossroads, where they had found the two hanging corpses. They were still there, only this time their faces were a luminous deathly blue. Nudging his rouncy forwards Adelko peered up at one of them, the tar dripping off its mangled rictus. Behind him he heard his master speak in leaden tones: ‘They were too curious, young Adelko, and they paid for it... as you will.’
The novice was just about to turn and reply when suddenly the eyes of the corpse he was looking at flicked open, two bloodshot red orbs with no irises and points of night for pupils transfixing him with an awful stare –
Adelko sat bolt upright in a cold sweat, panting feverishly. His side was throbbing painfully. Looking about the hut he could see his three companions were still sleeping. The fire had nearly burned down.
Of course, the fire...
He was just about to get up and throw a couple more logs on when suddenly he noticed something at the periphery of his vision.
Standing in a darkened corner of the hut was a female figure wrapped in a ragged black mantle. The throbbing in his side increased as it stepped forward slowly into the light. Beneath its cowl the face was hideously deformed, as if badly burned. Two red eyes fixed him malevolently; its broken mouth was peeled back in a leer to reveal a single pointed tooth. The right hand was stretched out towards him, a gnarled claw – in place of the left was a single wicked talon of yellow bone that dripped with blood.
The pain in his side intensified. Looking down he saw his habit was slashed open – pulling at the rent he gaped in horror as it opened to reveal a great gash in his side. Between the suppurating lips of the dreadful wound he could see his blue-green entrails bubbling as they spilled out on to the floor...
Adelko woke with a scream. Horskram, on the pallet next to him, sat bolt upright. Scrabbling to his feet the novice clutched at his side, where he could still feel a dull pain. His habit was untouched, but reaching beneath it and running his hand along his side he felt blood. Looking around the hut wildly he grasped his quarterstaff in a panic.
His master sprang over to him and pinned his arms. ‘Adelko!’ he cried. ‘What is it! What did you see?!’
‘B-behind you, she’s in here with us!’ shrieked the terrified novice. Horskram whirled around to look at the corner where Adelko had seen the horrendous apparition.
‘There’s nothing there!’ he exclaimed. Adelko looked again. He was right. There was nothing in that corner but the deepening shadows in the dying firelight. Outside the hellhounds suddenly started up an awful baying, as if mocking their prey.
‘The fire!’ cried the adept, quickly seizing two more logs and tossing them into the pit. As he stoked it back into life the baying subsided into a resentful growling.
By now Vaskrian had awoken, blearily blinking sleep from his eyes and shuddering. ‘I had the most frightful dreams,’ he began, before he broke off, looking confused. ‘I can’t remember what I saw...’
‘Never mind that for now,’ said Horskram. ‘Wake Branas up. Adelko, tell me everything you saw!’
Adelko quickly blurted out his story – when he reached the part about the wound he pulled open his habit to show his master. The cut was there – hardly a serious injury and not nearly enough to disembowel him, but real enough.
Horskram was about to treat it when suddenly Vaskrian lurched back with a horrified yell.
‘What is it?’ exclaimed Horskram, but the squire could not speak, and would only gibber and point feebly to where his master lay sprawled across the pallet he had bedded down in.
As the reviving flames of the fire grew stronger they revealed Sir Branas. The old knight’s eyes were fixed sightlessly in death, staring up at the ceiling, his mouth open in an agonised scream none of them would ever hear. His sky-blue tabard and mail cuirass had been ripped open from neck to naval. The mangled flesh beneath it was a bloody mass of butchered intestines. Even in the half light of the fire it was possible to see a gaping hole where his heart had been...
Adelko wretched, the half-digested remains of stewed rabbit and bread pouring from his mouth in a thick, ugly stream. Horskram uttered a cry of woe before making the sign. Vaskrian sank to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.
Outside, as if sensing their distress, the hellhounds started baying again. This time the sound had a malevolent gleefulness to it.
It was some time before the three survivors pulled themselves together. Stepping over to the mangled corpse that had been Sir Branas, Horskram dolefully recited the Psalm of Death’s Awakening. As he intoned the final line, the hounds’ baying rose to a fever pitch.
Doing his best to ignore the infernal clamour the adept bade the two shaking youths sit down, after first covering the old knight’s pitiful remains with his cloak.
‘Our troubles have multiplied,’ he said grimly. ‘We have strayed – or rather been chased – into the dwelling of a Hag.’
‘A Hag?’ asked Vaskrian, his tear-streaked face tortured by confusion and sorrow.
‘Another wicked spirit in the service of the Fallen One – far more dangerous than yonder hounds of hell,’ replied Horskram. ‘It is a thing of nightmare, but every Hag has an earthly bourne – this hut being one. Once the unwary stray into it they fall under her spell. She waits for her victims to fall asleep before entering their dreams to kill them. The Hag desires nothing but to feed off the life-force of the living – and this she does by torturing them in their dreams. By and large, what happens to a Hag’s victim in his nightmare happens to him in real life, and thus his fate is sealed.’
Adelko gaped. He’d heard Madrice whisper tales of hags, and had been taught about them at the monastery too – but they were very rare, and the adepts said that most Argolians could live their whole lives without encountering one. But something else was on his mind now.
‘But, my wound... why didn’t she kill me too?’
‘You are much more psychically attuned than the average mortal, as befits a member of our Order,’ explained Horskram. ‘That can be used against you as I alluded to earlier, for it makes us more receptive to communication from the Other Side, but it can also protect you. I can only hazard a guess that, in this case, your training and natural spiritual resilience were enough to mitigate the Hag’s powers over you. Poor Sir Branas was not so fortunate.’
‘But... what about me?’ asked Vaskrian in a wavering voice. ‘I dreamed bad dreams too... though I still don’t recall them.’ He broke off and shuddered again – clearly he had no wish to.
‘Doubtless the Hag chose to focus its diabolical energies first on young Adelko and your unfortunate master – I certainly was not troubled. Presumably when we go back to sleep it will renew its assault on Adelko in a bid to finish him off before turning to deal with the rest of us. If you experienced some bad dreams that you cannot fully remember that is probably a portent of things to come – are you quite sure you can remember nothing?’
The squire shook his head, blinking feverishly.
‘That is a pity,’ replied Horskram, staring into the fire. ‘It would have helped us to know what you will be faced with again.’
Vaskrian stared at the old monk in puzzlement. ‘What do you mean face again?’ he demanded.
Horskram sighed. ‘There is no way out of here – not until we confront this evil and destroy it. I strongly suspect that is why the Fay Folk have led us here... You see, one mu
st never assume that the malicious denizens of the Other Side are always on good terms with one another. When I said that hags lair themselves in an earthly bourne I was not being specific enough: they must do so in a place where the rent between worlds is wide. Otherwise a hag would be as commonplace as a banshee, and could manifest itself anywhere. Thank Reus ‘tis not the case.’
Horskram made the sign before continuing. ‘But while Tintagael is just such a place, in making its lair here this Hag is encroaching on territory that the Fay Folk believe rightfully belongs to them. In short, they don’t want it here any more than we do.’
‘So... why lead us into its clutches?’ asked Adelko.
‘Because by now I think our faerie friends have realised that we are no ordinary wayfarers, and have probably begun to suspect that we may have the power to rid them of an unwelcome interloper. Probably she has been here for centuries, robbing them of what they consider to be their rightful prey – their sport, not hers. If my hypothesis is correct, the Fays are hoping that we can despatch the Hag, in which case...’
‘What?’ Adelko was beginning to find his master’s desultory pauses rather maddening.
‘… it’s almost certain they will at least grant us an audience, and possibly let us escape the forest.’
‘But what about Branas?’ demanded Vaskrian sorrowfully.
Horskram shook his head sadly. ‘He is gone. The best we can do for him now is to destroy his malefactor and try to bargain our way out of Tintagael. If we succeed in the first we can give him his Last Rites – that way his soul at least may reach the Heavenly Halls.’
‘You mean – if we don’t, he’ll stay here, a ghost forever, just as he feared?’
‘Or worse,’ replied Horskram grimly. ‘He will be doomed to relive the nightmare that killed him, here under the eaves of Tintagael, until the end of time. There shall be no respite for his poor soul. That is not the least of reasons why we must succeed in our next undertaking.’
