she resisted the urge to canter, unwilling to create unnecessary noise. She felt a growing conviction that she wasn't alone. She glanced over her shoulder, seeing nothing but the night. The woods had now thickened, dense clumps of hawthorn closing around her. With a thunder of heavy wings, a large owl exploded from a bough just over her head. Shocked, the countess reined her horse to a halt.
The owl beat its way off into the darkness. She glanced around again. Still nothing: meshed branches, deep shadows. Overhead, leafless twigs laced back and forth across a gibbous moon.
She urged her mount forward. Somewhere not too far ahead there was a mountain stream. Now that the spring thaw had set in, it might be running deeper than usual, but there was a footbridge that she could cross. On the other side of that, a canyon led through to open hillside, below which lay the Leominster road.
There was a crackle in the undergrowth close by. This time she didn't halt, but rode on determinedly. She fancied an indistinct shape was moving parallel to her, about thirty yards to her right. If she listened hard enough, she imagined she could hear a breaking of twigs, a trampling of leaf mulch. Her passage was so narrow that thorny fingers plucked at her, snagging her clothes, catching her cowl. Her mount snuffled loudly, as though nervous. She now sensed movement to her left as well as to her right. There was even greater crunching and crackling in the hawthorn. She dug in her heels, urging the horse forward. It began to trot, and she was forced to duck repeatedly as branches passed overhead.
'Easy, easy,' she cooed to the animal. 'We are almost at the stream.'
It was a relief when she actually heard the waterway, babbling over its stones and pebbles. She wouldn't exactly be safe on the other side of it, but at least she could break into a gallop and put significant distance between herself and Grogen Castle.
And then something stepped out into the path in front of her. Even given the events of the last few days, it was the most horrible thing she had ever seen.
It had once been a man — that much was clear. But what it could be described as now God only knew. The right side of it was intact if somewhat discoloured, but the entire left side of it — its arm, leg, torso, shoulder, even the left side of its face — had been eaten down to the gleaming bones; either by rats or decay, or both.
Countess Madalyn had to stifle a scream of disbelieving horror.
The thing didn't lurch towards her. It simply stood there between the hawthorns, regarding her with its single lustreless eye. The moonlight glinted through the bars of its partly exposed ribcage. It was making its way to join the rest, she told herself. Of course it was. They had been drawn here from all directions. That was its only purpose; to join the siege. Somehow or other, Gwyddon's necromantic skill had implanted a sole directive in the worm-eaten skulls of these walking, teetering husks to capture Grogen Castle and destroy its defenders. It would not harm her.
So thinking, she urged the horse forward again. There was no room around the semi-skeletal horror, so she expected it to shuffle aside and allow her passage. But it didn't. When she was a yard or so in front of it, she again had to halt her animal, which whinnied and tossed its head nervously.
'Out of my way,' the countess instructed in Welsh, though her voice was unsteady. 'Out of my way! Don't you know who I am? I am your mistress, the very reason you walk on this Earth. You must obey my command.'
It made no move to comply, though it tilted what passed for its head upward slightly, to regard her more closely. She had to fight nausea when she saw a black beetle wriggle out of the gaping eye-socket and scurry down the rotted cheekbone.
'You must do as I say! Move aside at once!'
In response, its jaw dropped to its chest; for a bemused moment, the countess half expected it to drop off entirely. Instead, the creature groaned — in utterly inhuman fashion. It was like the sound heavy wood makes when straining under pressure; a deep, reverberating creak. Yet there were fluctuations in it, alterations in tone. With hair-raising incredulity, Countess Madalyn realised that this thing, this cast-off human shell, was actually trying to speak to her. Slowly, chillingly, the half-groan-half-jabber rose to a peak of shrillness that was difficult to listen to.
Abruptly, the sound ceased, and the thing lurched forward with lightning speed, trying to grab at her bridle.
The horse shrieked and reared and, before the countess knew what had happened, she'd been thrown to the ground. The impact was in the middle of her back, and drove the wind from her. But her pain was numbed by her fear. Shielded by the horse, which careered back and forth, attempting to wheel on the tight woodland path, she leapt to her feet, gathered up her skirts and plunged into the undergrowth.
She ran breathless and blind, regardless that her clothes were torn by thorns. She fought through them all, tears and sweat mingling on her cheeks. She'd known all along that this would happen, that these blasphemous monsters would at last round on the Welsh as well; that they would seek to devour all God-fearing things, for theirs was a realm of darkness, devilry and decay. Even as these thoughts struck her, she tottered out into a clearing, from the other side of which more abominations were advancing. What appeared to be a young woman was approaching, a child walking on either side of her, holding her by the hand. The woman's head was missing from her shoulders, and the child on the left, a boy, had possession of it, carrying it in front of him by the hair. That head, though crudely hewn from its torso, was again trying to speak — perhaps trying to accuse her, the countess thought with dismay — the eyes rolling in its sockets, its lips opening and closing frenziedly, though all that emerged was glutinous green froth.
Screeching like an animal, the countess veered to the left, thrusting again through the thorny scrub. She ran headlong into a sturdy trunk, but rebounded from it, scarcely feeling the blow that she took across her chest. New alleys opened, but figures of lunacy were advancing along them. From all sides, she heard a grunting and mewling, a tearing and thrashing of twigs. But now she heard something else: water again, babbling over broken stones.
The stream. And now much closer than before.
Her heart thudding in her chest, she broke from the cover of the hawthorn wood, and found herself on a rocky, sloping bank. The stream lay directly in front of her, patinas of moonlight playing on it in liquid patterns. As she'd feared, it was deeper and broader than usual. She glanced to her left. Maybe a hundred yards away, the arched outline of the stone footbridge was visible. But even as she peered that way, crooked figures emerged from the trees to block her path. A hand alighted on her shoulder. A brief glance revealed the skin loose on it like a rotted glove, with bare bone fingertips pointing out at the ends.
The countess hurled herself forward, splashing into the water to her knees, her thighs, her waist. Even its icy chill couldn't shock her. Her booted feet slid on its slimy bottom and tripped over shifting stones, but she forged her way into the middle without looking back, her dresses billowing around her. The knowledge that she was now on foot, which would increase her journey-time ten-fold, and that she'd now be soaking wet on a raw, inclement night, meant nothing to her. All that mattered was to escape, to drive herself headlong from these nightmares made flesh that gibbered behind her.
The current in the middle of the stream tugged at her remorselessly, several times threatening to knock her under. She whimpered and wept as she fought it, at one point submerging almost to her shoulders. She prayed to the Virgin Mary for fear that God himself would no longer listen, beseeching the Holy Mother to have mercy on her and on her poor, mistreated people. When she reached the other bank, she had to crawl up it, exhausted, her hair hanging over her face in a stringy mat. And yet she knew those things would be close behind her — even now she could hear them splashing their way across, so she had to get to her feet and she had to continue running, though which direction to take from here she could no longer think.
'Alas, not everyone has the belly for war,' Gwyddon observed dryly.
Countess Madalyn looked up sharply.
He was just to the left of her, perched on his saddle, a tall, hooded form silhouetted on the star-speckled night. More of his brethren were mounted up alongside him. Several others, also on horseback, approached from behind her. Behind them came the ragged shapes of the dead.
'Think you so?' Countess Madalyn said scornfully, panting as she climbed to her feet. 'And yet here you are, far from the fury of battle.'
'Battles in which men must suffer are a thing of the past, countess. At least… where my army is concerned.'
' Your army, I see.' She gave a wry smile. 'But then your army can be anything you wish, can it not? Welsh,
