in the stomach. The pain was so great it felt like his internal organs were rupturing. He came down hard again, deep in the swaying corn. He had been so arrogant, thinking he had escaped detection. It must have been stalking him, checking he was defenceless.
His thoughts fizzed out as he suddenly found the energy to roll and run. The beast thundered like a bull, missing him by an inch. And then he was away, leaping wildly through the corn, knowing that he couldn't outrun it for an instant. The vibrations from its pounding feet felt like a mini-earthquake beneath him, but at least it allowed him to tell when it was almost on him. He threw himself to the side, and it crashed past; its size and momentum prevented it turning easily.
Anxiously, he glanced up at Mam Tor. It was close enough for him to sprint towards it. The beast was so big he might be able to lose it on the slopes where a sure foot was more necessary than strength. But if the Fomorii hadn't already established where they had been hiding, he couldn't lead the creatures back to Ruth and Laura.
He leapt out of the way again. This time he cut it too fine and the beast clipped his foot, spinning him round like a top. Dazed, he glanced across the field. If he didn't go to the tor he didn't stand any chance at all. He only had a second to make up his mind; it was no choice. He headed for the centre of the field, accepting his sacrifice with an equanimity that surprised him, gloomy that his great plan would never come to fruition, afraid of what the future held for the others. But all this was wiped from his mind in an instant when the beast smashed into his back.
He went down, blacked out for the merest instant, and then came to with the sensation of being lifted into the air. The beast's grasp was biting into his flesh; he felt the skin around his waist burst and blood trickle down his legs.
Where's Ryan when you need him? he thought ridiculously.
And then a strange thing happened. It was suddenly as if he could look directly into the creature's mind, understand fleeting thoughts and emotions that were so alien they could barely be described as such. He knew as surely as he was aware of his own name that the creature hadn't alerted the other Fomorii, that it had no idea where Ruth and Laura were. The sensation both sickened him and fascinated him. But he knew what caused it: the reviving essence of the Tuatha lle Danann and the corruption of the Fomorii mingling within him had made him something more, something closer to them.
The creature seemed to be surveying his face; perhaps it was reading his thoughts too. Slowly it raised what at that time seemed an enormous gauntleted fist and took his left hand. Then with a sudden flick of its wrist it snapped back all his fingers at right angles, a sign of strength to show how frail he was in comparison. The cracking vibrated through Church's body and he cried out in agony. It threw him to one side just as he blacked out again.
When he came round a few seconds later it was advancing towards him for what he knew would be the killing blow. It stopped a foot away and he waited, almost relieved that the pain that racked his body would finally be over.
At that moment there was a smell like burning oil. The creature threw its arms in the air and let out a howl that sounded like rending metal. Church covered his ears from the shockwave. Desperately he tried to understand. Was it some kind of bestial roar of triumph? It sounded like pain.
The Fomor's body was more insubstantial than those of its brethren, suggesting, he guessed, its particular power. But at that moment it seemed to harden into the armoured shape, now seen more clearly than he had done before. Its black helmet gleamed in the sun. In the eyelets, white staring orbs ranged with such an expression he was left in no doubt that it was in the throes of some terrible torment. Pustules erupted all over it, even on the armour, and began to burst and release a foul-smelling ichor that sizzled where it hit the ground. The warrior's hands went to the side of its head and for a second it stayed in that position, its eyes still rolling madly. And then, like an overinflated balloon, it burst open. Globules of black flesh streaming with ichor shot across the field in all directions; somehow most of them missed Church. He had a glimpse of a twisted skeleton that bore no relation to the creature's outward shape. Then the bones became like candle wax, melting and flowing until there were just indescribable heaps scattered across flattened patches of corn.
Church didn't have to guess what had happened. A few feet away, previously hidden by the warrior, a flock of birds whirled madly. Gradually they flew tighter and tighter, reclaiming their true pattern. They fluttered in a formation so concentrated it was unnatural that they didn't crash into one another. And finally they settled into something that resembled the shape of a man, still flying round wildly like a whirlpool of feathers, beaks and talons.
'Mollecht,' he muttered through the haze of his pain.
The powerful Fomorii tribal leader stood silently; Church didn't even know if he could speak. Whatever hideous experiment had transformed him into primal energy that could only be contained by the continuous ritual flightpaths of a murder of crows had pushed him even further beyond the boundaries of his already unknowable race. The Fomor had destroyed the warrior by opening it up to release his essence, the terrible power that seemed to mimic the effects of contagion. Church recalled their confrontation at Tintagel and his blood seeping through his pores; the only escape had been to plunge into the sea.
But why had Mollecht destroyed the warrior? They were of the same people; Mollecht had the same contempt for humanity as the rest of the Fomorii. The pain from his broken fingers was washing in waves up his arms. He leaned forward and vomited. All that had happened was that he'd swapped one form of death for another, and he guessed Mollecht would be infinitely more cruel than the brutish warrior. On the verge of blacking out again, he glanced around for other Fomorii coming to help capture him, but the surrounding fields were empty.
And when he looked back at Mollecht, the dark cloud of birds was already moving off through the corn. Where the creature had stood, a large, black sword stood embedded in the earth.
Church's head swam; he blinked away the tears of pain. Mollecht was setting him free? He limped forward to examine the sword, without actually touching it. It was definitely Fomorii; one edge featured the cruel serrated teeth that would inflict maximum damage in a fight. There was also an intricate pattern on the blade, scored so finely it was hard to make out unless the light was in the right place, but it appeared to be a pattern of magical symbols of some kind.
Mollecht was now just a black smudge following the hedge line. There was no doubt Church was being allowed to escape and that the sword had been left for his use. What did it mean? After the Kiss of Frost he was no longer so naive that he would take an obvious Fomorii gift. But this time his instincts were telling him the sword was not a threat to him, although he had no idea what the ulterior motive was. A weapon would certainly be useful. He weighed up his options, and decided to go with his instincts after all. Tom would have been proud of him, he thought.
Fighting against encroaching unconsciousness, he tried to blot out the pain by using the sword as a staff to help him limp back towards the tor.
Shavi stood on the edge of the parkland that rolled up to Windsor Castle filled with a relief that pulled him back from the brink of exhaustion. For days he had played a cat-and-mouse game with the Fomorii, who knew he was in the vicinity, but hadn't quite been able to pinpoint him. It had meant advancing, retreating, doubling back, searching for each tiny break in their lines; on one day he had advanced a mile, only to find himself five miles back by evening. He had slept under hedges, curled in the branches of trees, once even dozed on a pile of Sunbrite at the back of a coal shed. There were times when he thought he would never reach his destination at all.
The Fomorii were everywhere, but only to his advanced perception. Most people seemed to be continuing with their lives, oblivious to the unusual shadows, the bushes and trees that were there one day, not the next, with only a vague feeling of unease to warn them things were different.
As Lughnasadh approached the Fomorii were growing more desperate. Shavi had noticed a light in the sky over Reading to the west which had the ruddy glow of an enormous conflagration. Strange, worrying sounds were occasionally carried on the wind, but they were too brief for him to recognise their source. But where were the army, the air force, the civil defences? He had seen no sign of any opposition. Perhaps they had already crumbled, or else there was a vacuum at the top, the Government paralysed or fallen apart at its inability to confront anything so alien and powerful.
But finally he had seen the tower of Windsor Castle in the distance, the flag waving in the summer breeze, and he had skipped into the back of a lorry which had brought him directly to the park. Even so, time was short. Already the heat of the day was starting to fade. But if he acted quickly and Cernunnos could help, he could still commandeer a car that would get him back to the others before midnight.
