the crowd:
'Quiet! All of you! I said BE
The threat worked wonders. Every man and woman in the vicious circle surrounding me shut their mouths.
'That's better,' the soldier said. 'Now, you all need to back away and give us some room here, because we're going to take this demon to his Excellency the Archbishop, who will make a judgment about the way this creature will be executed.'
The other soldier, his face hidden, nudged my tormentor, who listened for a moment, then replied to his comrade, loudly enough for me to hear. 'I was getting to that,' he said. 'I know what I'm doing!'
Then, addressing the crowd again: 'I'm formally arresting this demon in the name of his Excellency the Archbishop. If any of you get in our way you will be directly contradicting the will of His Excellency, and therefore of God himself. You understand? You will be condemned to the eternal fires of Hell if you make any attempt to prevent us from taking this creature to the Archbishop.'
The soldier's pronouncement was clearly understood by the mob, who would have torn my executed corpse into tiny pieces and each pocketed a scrap of me for a souvenir if they'd had their way. Instead they kept silent, parents covering their children's mouths for fear that one of them make a sound, however innocent.
Absurdly proud of his little show of power, the soldier glanced back at his comrade. The two men exchanged nods, and the second soldier drew his sword (which he'd surely stolen, for it was of exceptional size and beauty) and came 'round behind me, poking me with the tip just above the root of my tails. He didn't need to tell me to move; I stumbled forwards, following the other soldier, who walked backwards for a few yards, his weapon still at my neck. The only sound the crowd made was the shuffling of their footsteps as they moved to make way for me and my captors. Smugly satisfied that his threats had made the crowd compliant and apparently certain he had nothing to fear from me, my tormentor turned around so as to lead our little party out through the crowd.
He strode confidently, for all the world like a man who knew where he was going. But he didn't, because when the crowd started to thin out I saw that we'd emerged on the other side of Joshua's Field, where there was another slope, much milder than the one I had descended, and crowned by a forest as dense as the one on the opposite side.
It was now, as our leader paused to consider his error, that I felt the soldier behind me poke me several times, not to do me harm but to draw my attention. I turned around. The soldier had raised his face guard just high enough to let me get a glimpse of him. Then, lowering his sword until the tip was almost in the mud, he nodded towards the slope.
I got the message. For the third time that day I started to run, pausing only to butt my tormentor with the halberd so hard that he lost his balance and fell sprawling in the mud.
Then I was away, across the remaining stretch of the field and up the slope towards the trees.
There was a fresh burst of shouting from the crowd behind me, but above it the voice of my savior, ordering the hoi-polloi to stay back.
'This is the Archbishop's business,' he yelled at them. 'Not yours. You keep away, all of you!'
Finally, when I was just a few strides from the top of the slope, I looked back to see that his orders were being obeyed by most of the crowd, but not by all. Several men and women pursued me up the incline, though they were several strides behind the two soldiers.
I reached the trees without anyone catching up with me, and plunged into the cover of the thicket. Panicked birds let out warning cries as they deserted the branches over my head to retreat into the depths of the forest, while in the undergrowth rodents and snakes found bolt-holes of their own. Even wild pigs fled away squealing.
Now there was only the noise of my own coarse, pained breath, and the din of bushes being torn out of the earth if they blocked my way.
But I had done far too much running since the previous night, and had not eaten, nor drunk so much as a cup of rainwater, in that time. Now I was light-headed, the scene before me perilously close to flickering out. I could run no longer. It was time to turn and face my pursuers.
I did so in a small grove between the trees, lit by the brightening sky. I ran my last paces across the flower- littered grass and leaned my aching body against a tree so old it had surely sprouted the day the Flood retreated. There I waited, determined to endure with dignity whatever fate the soldiers and the lynch-mob on their heels had in mind for me.
The first of my pursuers to appear on the far side of the grove was the soldier clad in mud as well as armour. He took his helmet off so as to see me better, showing me in doing so his own muddy, sweaty, raging face. His hair was cropped to little more than a shadow; only his dark beard had been allowed to grow.
'Well you've given me quite an education, demon,' he said. 'I knew nothing about your people.'
'The Demonation.'
'What?'
'My people. We're the Demonation.'
'Sounds more like a disease than a people,' he said, curling his lip with contempt. 'Luckily, I've got the cure.' Pointing his halberd in my direction, he tossed down his helmet and unsheathed his sword. 'Two cures, in fact,' he said, moving towards me. 'Which shall I stick you with first?'
I looked up from the roots of the tree, idly wondering how deep into the earth they went; how far short of Hell. The soldier was halfway across the grove.
'Which shall it be, demon?'
My dizzied gaze went from one weapon to the other.
'Your sword…'
'All right. You've made your choice.'
'No, your sword… it looks cheap. Your friend has a much finer sword. The blade is nearly twice as long as yours, and so heavy, so large, I think he could probably drive it all the way through you from behind, armour and all, and the mere length of what came out of your belly would be longer than that ridiculous weapon of yours.'
'I'll show you ridiculous!' the soldier said. 'I'll cut — '
He stopped midsentence, his body convulsing as the claim I'd just made was proved, the sword his companion wielded emerging from the armour intended to protect his abdomen. It was bright with his blood. He dropped his halberd, but continued, though his fist trembled, to cling to his sword.
All the color had gone from his cheeks, and all trace of rage or murderous intent had gone with it. He didn't even attempt to look back at his executioner. He simply lifted his own paltry sword up so as to compare its length with the visible portion of the blade that had run him through. He drew one last, blood-clogged breath, which gained him a few seconds more in which to lay the two blades side by side.
Having done so he lifted his gaze and, fighting to keep his leaden eyelids from closing, he looked at me and murmured:
'I would have killed you, demon, if I'd had a bigger sword.'
Upon the uttering of which, his hand dropped to his side, the length-impaled blade slipping from his fingers.
The soldier behind him now withdrew his own impressive weapon, and the corpse of my tormentor fell forwards, his head no more than a yard from my mud-encrusted feet.
'What's your name?' he said to me.
'Jakabok Botch. But everybody calls me Mister B.'
'I'm Quitoon Pathea. Everybody calls me Sir.'
'I'll remember that, sir.'
'You got hooked by The Fisherman, I'll bet.'
'The Fisherman?'
'His real name's Cawley.'
'Oh. Him. Yes. How did you work that out?'
'Well, you're obviously not part of the Archbishop's guard.'
Before I could question him further he put his finger to his lips, hushing me while he listened. My human pursuers had not turned back once they had reached the fringes of the forest. To judge by the way their clamor
