as he decided to loose a bolt, it winked out; the disembodied hoofbeats continued thunderously.
Veitch paused for a split second before his instinct kicked in, then he was sprinting along the bottom of the ditch, not sure if he could outrun it, knowing there was no other way out.
Twisted roots threatened to trip him before retreating back into the shadows, but his reactions were electric fast. Behind him the storm clatter of hooves grew louder and louder, matching the beats of his heart. Twenty feet away, then ten, then at his heels.
From out of the dark, an obstacle rushed at him: a pile of hard earth forming a bridge path between the two banks piled as high as his head. He went up it with what felt like snorts of fire burning the back of his neck, threw himself down the other side and rolled into a ball. A large form tore over his head and landed with a heavy crash before pounding on for several yards. Looking up, he saw a shimmering in the air like malleable glass rein itself to a halt, then whirl round, catching the light with pools and glints. The limning of moonlight indeed suggested a horse with a bulky figure on its back before it was lost to the dark. The hooves began to pound once more, building up speed.
Veitch waited until the last moment before throwing himself back over the bridge path to perform the same manoeuvre. Again his pursuer passed overhead. This time he launched himself to gain a few vital yards before the Night Rider could round.
As the horse rattled down on him, he whirled and rolled, loosing a bolt in the same motion. A second later a tear of fire appeared in thin air, followed by a cry like a metal crate being dragged on a concrete floor.
He had no time to discover how much damage he had wrought, for the sound continued to bear down on him. He threw himself to one side at the last moment, but it was not quite far enough. His jacket and shirt tore open, his flesh mysteriously burst as a raw red line rushed up towards his neck. He just had time to jerk his head before the invisible blade could rip through his jugular, and then he was rolling backwards against the bank, his shirt growing hot and wet.
The pain sharpened his thoughts. When he moved, the rest of the world felt like it was frozen; he was scrambling to one side, rolling, ignoring the pain, reloading the crossbow, readjusting the balance of his body like a machine.
He landed on the balls of his feet, poised to attack, but though his eyes and ears were charged to pick up even the slightest sound of his attacker, there was nothing. The bottom of the ditch was still; even the faintest hoofbeat would have sounded out loud. Not even a hint of movement, the barest shift in air currents.
His blood thundered in his head. Where had it gone? He turned slowly, but the thing really had disappeared. Perhaps the bolt had caused some damage.
He waited for a few seconds longer, just to be sure, and then set off at a slow lope around the ditch. He was under no illusion that the Night Rider had gone for good, but its absence might just provide him with the time to find a route to the house.
His feet padded on the hard-packed mud as he ran, his breath ragged; the night air was chill and fragrant. Every sensation was heightened. The enveloping trees that made the ditch feel like a tunnel instilled an oppressive claustrophobia in him; he was trapped, like an animal. The thought brought a burst of adrenalin and he threw himself up the side of the ditch, feeling the thorns of the brambles tear at his flesh, the nettles stabbing with their poison needles. Somehow he made it to the top, but the trees there were impenetrable, and beyond them the brick garden wall was too tall to climb. He still tried to force his way through, but the trees acted as if they were alive, forcing him back until he was slipping down the slope to land on his back at the bottom of the ditch once more.
As he lay there while his breath subsided, tremors ran through the ground into his bones: rhythmic, powerful. He was up in an instant, running once more. This time, when he actually heard the hoofbeats, it was almost hallucinogenic; they faded in and out of his hearing, the rider here, then not here. And then they disappeared completely again, leaving only silence.
A moment of clarity overwhelmed him. Tom had spoken of liminal zones where the boundaries between this world and T'ir n'a n'Og were blurred. The camp must be such a place, he realised, and the Rider was shifting in and out of the worlds as it pursued him.
Veitch whirled, crossbow at the ready. His nerve endings prickled as he slowly surveyed the scene. His pursuer could be anywhere. How did it make itself invisible? Or was that its natural state? Yet he knew now what he had to do: attack at the moment it was fully in this world, when-he hoped-it would be most vulnerable.
Another low whinny drifted along the ditch. It sounded unimaginably distant, but it brought back the gooseflesh. And then, as it wound its way through the undergrowth on the ditch banks, it began to change; slowly at first, but definitely, losing its equine characteristics. The sound became shorter, broke up into linked sounds; became words.
That eerie noise made the snake around Veitch's spine pull the coils in tighter. 'What the hell is that?' he hissed.
He was already moving when the words rattled around him like pebbles on a frozen lake, devoid of emotion, but threatening. 'Run fast, run fast, at your back.'
They were barely audible, could almost have been the distant echoes of hoofbeats, but the chill they brought to his blood drove him on. Faster and faster still, with the rumble of pursuit building behind him. He glanced over his shoulder as he hurdled a twisted mass of root: nothing yet. The words were all around him, some indecipherable, hidden in the snort of a horse, others barely registering on his consciousness, but disturbing him nonetheless.
As he rounded the curve of the ditch, running faster than he ever had in his life, an arching shape loomed up out of the night. The mass of trees had thinned out and the light of the moon revealed a brick bridge across the ditch. He was sure he would be able to scramble up the side to get to it and then it would be only a short sprint to the house. With the thunder of hooves almost at his heels, the sight gave him enough of a filip to drive himself that little bit harder.
But just as he thought he would make it, his foot caught one of the roots that had threatened to trip him ever since he had ventured down there. He hit the ground so hard all the air was driven out of his lungs; the pain in his chest felt like someone had swung a hammer there. At first he was stunned, but then his mind scrambled in panic. It was too late.
He looked back and was briefly hypnotised by the strangest thing: little flames, like will o' the wisps, alighted at ground level, drawing towards him. It took him a second to realise what it was: invisible hooves striking the flints that were scattered across the ditch.
The moment locked. He wondered what it would be like to be trampled to death; wondered if anyone would mourn him.
And then he was transfixed by something else. As the little flames closed on him, the air above shimmered and began to peel back. It looked to him like the Night Rider was shedding his skin: at first there was nothing, then the translucent glassy substance, until that slipped away to reveal the true form of his pursuer, or as true a form as his perceptions would allow. The first shock was that the picture he had created in his head was so wrong: this was no mediaeval knight with a broadsword or a lance on a black charger. There wasn't even a man and a horse. What bore down on him in a rage of clattering hooves was both man and horse, the two forms constantly flowing together, never staying the same for too long. A head that had the flowing hair of an Iron Age warrior, becoming a wild mane, the face growing longer, nostrils flaring, blasting clouds of steam in the chill night; two legs, then four, then two again. It wasn't like a classical centaur, but was half formed, or still forming, or never quite forming; continually halfway between the two in the same way that the sounds had appeared to be coming halfway between here and there.
The intoxicating shock was riven out by a burst of blood in Veitch's brain. Suddenly he was ready to move. He tried to fling himself to one side, but even as he was moving, the futility of it was strangling his thoughts. The Night Rider was on him, rising up, iron-shod hooves glinting in the moonlight. One of them caught Veitch on the temple, knocking him back to the ground where stars flew briefly.
When they cleared, all he could see was the creature's terrible face framed against the night sky. It was filled with all the fury of the animal kingdom, wild and unfocused, the eyes ruddy and smoky as they branded him. Its musk was thick and choking, blanking out all his senses, yet behind it all Witch sensed something resolutely human; once a man, and now greater than a man.
'I ride the courses between the worlds.' Those stony words again; Veitch wanted to cover his ears at the unbearable force of them. Everything about the thing was so vital. 'I am the power and the fecundity of the stallion,
