alarming speed.
They soon found themselves on the perimeter of the new-grown forest, which already seemed to have attained its own ecosystem: thick forest floor vegetation, woodland flowers and a wide array of birds. Mist had settled in the depths of the valley and among the trees like candyfloss. The more they penetrated the shade beneath the verdant canopy, the thicker it became, blanketing all sound, obscuring what lay on every side.
After they had moved through it a little way, Tom pulled Veitch on one side. 'This is insanity. If the pack attacks here we don't stand a chance. They could be circling five feet away from us now and we wouldn't know.'
Veitch agreed, but he couldn't turn back. 'If we retreat now we'll lose the trail.'
'You can't help saving damsels in distress, can you?' Tom said sourly. 'It's a pathological obsession.'
'I might listen to what you're saying if you weren't so fucked up yourself.' Veitch marched back into the lead with an irritation that came from knowing Tom was right. He had to save Anna because that was what heroes did. And if he couldn't be a hero, he had to be the person he always had been, and who could live with that?
They'd progressed about half a mile into the thickest part of the forest when they first heard movement, all around. McKendrick's finger jumped to the trigger and Veitch had to rest his hand on the barrel to calm the crofter; he looked like he was about to have a breakdown.
'Take it easy, mate,' he whispered in a strong, calm voice. 'You'll end up blowing one of us away.'
McKendrick's bottom lip was trembling. He plunged his teeth into it and a trickle of blood ran down on to his chin.
The mist continued to distort the forest sounds; the birdsong seemed to come and go, and when they heard the vegetation crushed beneath loping paws it was impossible to pinpoint the location. But the pack was undoubtedly nearby, possibly surrounding them, as Tom had feared. Twigs cracked from somewhere behind them, grass or a bush swished just ahead. Yet despite the muffled nature of the sounds, something about them didn't sound right to Witch's heightened awareness; the weight burden was wrong, the movements not as sleekly lupine as he would have expected.
'They're moving closer,' he hissed.
'How can you tell?' McKendrick's gun was wavering so much Veitch thought there was more danger there.
'I can hear things clearly.' These days, he mentally added. He truly did feel a different person to the woolly- minded, sluggish old Ryan Veitch. The Pendragon Spirit had given him the chance to rise above himself.
Tom moved in close so only Veitch could hear him. 'So what's the big strategy now, warrior-boy?'
A large figure shimmered in and out of the tendrils. 'There!' McKendrick cried and raised his gun.
Another shape erupted out of the mist and knocked McKendrick flying; the gun disappeared into the undergrowth. Veitch lashed out instinctively and caught the attacker a glancing blow. It howled sharply before it was gone.
He dropped low, whirling around. 'That wasn't a wolfl'
As if in response to his words, another figure dropped out of the air in front of him, obviously from a tree branch above. It was a man, but oddly different to any man Veitch had seen before. His long, matted hair was a deep black and his skin swarthy, with an excess of body hair. His bone structure was clearly defined above his sharp jaw, forming handsome features which suggested both pride and an incisive intelligence. He was naked, his body lithely muscled, filled with power. But it was his hands and feet that caught Veitch's attention; they were over- sized, the fingers long and gnarled, with sharp, jagged nails that more resembled talons. He was sweating profusely from his exertions and there was a sheen of forest dirt across his skin. Gradually Veitch's attention was drawn to his thick, dark eyebrows which menacingly overhung glowing golden eyes; Veitch knew instantly he had seen those eyes before.
Veitch went to lift his crossbow in warning, but the man raised his arm quickly with a strange hand gesture that had the little finger and index finger extended while the others were folded back; oddly, it was filled with a threat Veitch didn't feel comfortable opposing, and he let the crossbow drop.
'Who is this?' McKendrick said in a broken, uncomprehending voice. Tom helped him to his feet.
'The Lupinari have returned to the deep forests,' the man said in a deep, almost growling voice which rang with an unplaceable accent.
Recognition suddenly dawned on Tom's face and he took a step towards the strange, beast-like man to communicate, but he was halted in his tracks by the same threatening hand gesture.
Tom held his open hands up, palms outwards; a primal gesture. 'I never encountered your people in the Far Lands.'
The man eyed him coldly. 'Then you never ventured into the forests of the night.'
'No, I never did.'
The man let his hand drop slightly and used it to gesture around. 'The Far Lands, for all their twilight appeal, were uncommon grounds to us. These are our homelands. This is our world, where we have hunted since time began.'
Other figures began to appear out of the mists, both men and women, all naked, dark-haired and swarthy- skinned; they moved low and sinuously, like animals; occasionally their eyes gleamed like cats'.
'In the days of our ancestors, we lived side-by-side with humankind. The wild men of the woods, you called us, and in the dark wintertime you even came to look upon us fondly, as you yet feared us. For sometimes we would bring gifts to your door, and keep away the privations of the long, dark nights. For it is in our nature to help fellow creatures of intellect.' There was a hint of anger in this last sentence. 'Your people knew us, and our powers, and never hunted us, for they knew we never ate human flesh. For if we did, the taste of it would consume us and we would desire it ever more and there would be nothing but war between our races.'
The other members of the pack circled round, filtering in and out of the mists. Witch kept a wary eye on them; the mention of human flesh had unnerved him.
'And if one of our people turned rogue, and ate mortal meat, we would hunt him down and destroy him ourselves,' the leader continued. There was a long pause while he looked into each of their faces, and then he said, 'But this night gone you did attack us.'
Veitch suddenly noticed the splatter of dried blood across his left ribcage. 'You attacked his sheep.'
The leader fixed his cold eyes on Veitch. 'But we never ate human flesh.'
Tom took a cautious step forward to attract the leader's attention away from Witch's lack of diplomacy. 'We had no idea the Lupinari had returned to these lands,' he said in as conciliatory a tone as he could muster. 'We would never wish to offend you. We would hope to live in peace, as we always did in times past.'
Golden eyes blinked slowly, implacably. 'Nevertheless, a blow has been struck. There must be some retribution before we agree a pact.' His face contained no emotions they could understand, and they all feared the worst.
McKendrick had seemed in a daze to this point, but in that moment he appeared to grasp what was happening. 'Not Anna,' he whimpered.
'His sheep, given freely,' Tom suggested hastily.
The leader shook his head slowly. 'We had no knowledge they were his beasts or we would not have taken them. We can easily find other prey. For that is what we do.'
'Not Anna,' McKendrick said again.
'You better not have killed her,' Veitch snapped.
The leader's eyes flashed towards him, filled with such bestial rage Veitch instinctively went to protect his throat. 'I held your head in my jaws,' the leader growled. 'You are nothing to me.'
'You don't eat human flesh,' Tom noted. 'You said.'
As if on cue, another figure advanced from the mists; it was Anna. At first she moved with the sluggish pace of someone who had been hypnotised, but when she neared them, recognition dawned in her eyes and she ran to her father. They held each other, crying silently.
'What do you require?' Tom asked quietly.
The leader fixed his unflinching stare on the Rhymer. 'For one night, every year, she will leave her father to be with us.'
McKendrick's eyes grew wider. 'What will happen to her?'
'She will learn to hunt with the Lupinari.'
