‘They want to
NOT KILL. HE KNOWS HOW TO DIE. OH, YES… IN THIS SHAPE, HE KNOWS HOW TO DIE. HE'S HAD A LOT OF EXPERIENCE. NO, THEY WANT TO TAKE AWAY HIS REAL LIFE, TAKE AWAY HIS SOUL, TAKE AWAY EVERYTHING. THEY MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO BRING HIM DOWN.
‘Well, stop them!’
The dogs moved oddly. They weren't running but flowing, crossing the snow faster than the mere movement of their legs would suggest.
‘They don't look like real dogs…’
NO.
‘What
Death nodded his head towards the boar. Binky was keeping level with it now, barely a few feet away.
Realization dawned.
‘I can't
WHY NOT? YOU HAVE HAD AN
‘Enough to know that pigs don't let people ride them!’
MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF.
Susan glanced ahead. The snowfield had a cut-off look.
YOU MUST, said her grandfather's voice in her head. WHEN HE REACHES THE EDGE THERE HE WILL STAND AT BAY. HE MUST NOT. UNDERSTAND? THESE ARE NOT REAL DOGS. IF THEY CATCH HIM HE WON'T JUST DIE, HE WILL… NEVER BE…
Susan leapt. For a moment she floated through the air, dress streaming behind her, arms outstretched…
Landing on the animal's back was like hitting a very, very firm chair. It stumbled for a moment and then righted itself.
Susan's arms clung to its neck and her face was buried in its sharp bristles. She could feel the heat under her. It was like riding a furnace.
And it stank of sweat, and blood, and pig. A lot of pig.
There was a lack of landscape in front of her.
The boar ploughed into the snow on the edge of the drop, almost flinging her off, and turned to face the hounds.
There were a lot of them. Susan was familiar with dogs. They'd had them at home like other houses had rugs. And these weren't that big floppy sort.
She rammed her heels in and grabbed a pig's ear in each hand. It was like holding a pair of hairy shovels.
‘Turn left!’ she screamed, and hauled.
She put everything into the command. It promised tears before bedtime if disobeyed.
To her amazement the boar grunted, pranced on the lip of the precipice and scrambled away, the hounds floundering as they turned to follow.
This was a plateau. From here it seemed to be all edge, with no way down except the very simple and terminal one.
The dogs were flying at the boar's heels again.
Susan looked around in the grey, sightless air. There had to be somewhere, some way…
There was.
It was a shoulder of rock, a giant knife-edge connecting this plain to the hills beyond. It was sharp and narrow, a thin line of snow with chilly depths on either side.
It was better than nothing. It was nothing with snow on it.
The boar reached the edge and hesitated. Susan put her head down and dug her heels in again.
Snout down, legs moving like pistons, the beast plunged out onto the ridge. Snow sprayed up as its trotters sought for purchase. It made up for lack of grace by sheer manic effort, legs moving like a tap dancer climbing a moving staircase that was heading down.
‘That's right, that's right, that's—’
A trotter slipped. For a moment the boar seemed to stand on two, the others scrabbling at icy rock. Susan flung herself the other way, clinging to the neck, and felt the dragging abyss under her feet.
There was nothing there.
She told herself,
Powdered ice made her eyes sting. A flailing trotter almost slammed against her head.
An older voice said,
The creature's eye was inches away. And then she knew…
… Out of the depths of eyes of all but the most unusual of animals comes an echo. Out of the dark eye in front of her, someone looked back…
A foot caught the rock and she concentrated her whole being on it, kicking herself upward in one last effort. Pig and woman rocked for a moment and then a trotter caught a footing and the boar plunged forward along the ridge.
Susan risked a look behind.
The dogs still moved oddly. There was a slight jerkiness about their movements, as if they flowed from position to position rather than moved by ordinary muscles.
Not dogs, she thought. Dog shapes.
There was another shock underfoot. Snow flew up. The world tilted. She felt the shape of the boar change when its muscles bunched and sent it soaring as a slab of ice and rock came away and began the long slide into darkness.
Susan was thrown off when the creature landed, and tumbled into deep snow. She flailed around madly, expecting at any minute to begin sliding.
Instead her hand found a snow-encrusted branch. A few feet away the boar lay on its side, steaming and panting.
She pulled herself upright. The spur here had widened out into a hill, with a few frosted trees on it.
The dogs had reached the gap and were milling round, struggling to prevent themselves slipping.
They could easily clear the distance, she could see. Even the boar had managed it with her on its back. She put both hands around the branch and heaved; it came away with a crack, like a broken icicle, and she waved it like a club.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Jump! Just you try it! Come
One did. The branch caught it as it landed, and then Susan spun and brought the branch around on the upswing, lifted the dazed animal off its feet and out over the edge.
For a moment the shape wavered and then, howling, it dropped out of sight.
She danced a few steps of rage and triumph.
‘Yes! Yes! Who wants some? Anyone else?’
The other dogs looked her in the eye, decided that no one did, and that there wasn't. Finally, after one or two nervous attempts, they managed to turn, still sliding, and tried to make it back to the plateau.
A figure barred their way.
It hadn't been there a moment ago but it looked permanent now. It seemed to have been made of snow, three balls of snow piled on one another. It had black dots for eyes. A semi-circle of more dots formed the semblance of a mouth. There was a carrot for the nose.
And, for the arms, two twigs.
At this distance, anyway.
One of them was holding a curved stick.
A raven wearing a damp piece of red paper landed on one arm.
‘Bob bob bob?’ it suggested. ‘Merry Solstice? Tweetie tweet? What are you waiting for? Hogswatch?’
The dogs backed away.
The snow broke off the snowman in chunks, revealing a gaunt figure in a flapping black robe.
