your companions-their eyes, and yours, will open in time. As a Sister of Dragons, your path will be difficult, but my guidance will be with you until your blossoming. And in the harshest times, you may call for my aid. By this mark will you be known.'
He reached down and took her hand. She shuddered at his touch; his fingers didn't feel like fingers at all. A second later a bolt of searing pain scorched her palm. She screamed, but the agony subsided in an instant. Turning over her hand, she saw burned into it a circle which contained a design of what seemed to be interlocking leaves.
He was already turning away as he said, 'Seek me out in my Green Home.' He smiled and pointed to the owl which was circling majestically over their heads.
'What are you going to do now?' Ruth enquired reverentially.
'Once the Hunt has been summoned, it cannot retire without a soul.'
Ruth shivered at the awful meaning in his words. She began to protest, but his glance was so terrible the words caught in her throat.
He raised his head and sniffed the wind, and then, swifter than she could have imagined for his size, he loped off into the night; she was already forgotten, insignificant. A moment later the rain stopped and the wind fell, and when she looked up in the sky she saw the storm clouds sweeping away unnaturally to reveal a clear, star-speckled sky. She hung her head low, desperately trying to cope with the shock of an encounter with something so awesome it had transformed her entire existence. But when she closed her eyes, she could still see his face, and when she covered her ears, she could still hear his voice, and she feared she would never be the same again.
Chapter Eighteen
The moment Ruth disappeared with the Erl-King, Church thought all their lives were about to end. He was hacking blindly with the sword, watching the hounds crisp and fade, but seeing another replace each one he killed, realising Laura and Veitch were within an instant of being overwhelmed. Yet in that instant that the spear pierced the Erl-King, the Hunt seemed to freeze in its attack, and a second later the dogs were milling round in confusion, while the remaining riders were reining their horses back and retreating beyond the churchyard wall.
'She's done it,' he gasped, barely able to believe it.
Laura's eyes were filled with tears of fear and strain and blood was dripping from a score of wounds. 'I thought we were dead,' she moaned.
Veitch, who was just as injured, still held the iron bar high. 'Don't relax! They might just be gearing up for a new attack!' he barked.
Church knew he was right and returned to the alert, but he couldn't help calling out Ruth's name. When there was no reply, his heart sank.
They remained watching the Hunt for what seemed like hours, fighting against the exhaustion that racked them all. And then, as if in answer to a silent call, the riders simply turned their mounts and galloped away, the hounds baying behind them. Church looked to the wall in the corner of the graveyard; the glowering presence of Black Shuck was gone too.
Soon after, they heard a noise in the bracken and Ruth emerged from the shadows, pale and shaking. As she clambered over the wall awkwardly, Church ran forward and grabbed her.
'You did it!' he said, unable to contain his relief. 'I could kiss you!'
'Well do it now, before I faint,' she gasped. And then she did.
After retrieving the battered tent, they lit a fire on the edge of the beach and enjoyed the calm which had followed the departure of the storm. Though not fully recovered, Shavi seemed well enough to talk, which raised their already high spirits. With the van's minimal medical kit, they tended to their wounds, and by the time the warmth had started to penetrate their bones, Ruth was ready to tell them what she had experienced.
Afterwards, they stared into the heart of the fire, trying to assimilate all the new information. 'So,' Ruth said, summing up, 'the way I see it is this: for some reason we don't yet know, the doors between Otherworld and here were opened. The Danann were preparing to return when the Fomorii launched something called the Wish-Hex, which I imagine as a kind of nuclear bomb in their terms. When the blast swept out, it took the majority of the Danann to some place from where they can't return on their own. But some of the Danann were corrupted by this Wish-Hex radiation and, against their basic nature, fell under the control of the Fomorii. The Erl-King … Cernunnos … was one of them. And some of the other creatures of Otherworld must have been affected too. I think this explains the Fabulous Beast that attacked Church and I near Stonehenge. Obviously they're linked to the earth spirit, power, whatever, so they wouldn't have done the Fomorii's bidding against us unless they were forced.'
'And a few of the Danann escaped entirely,' Church added. 'Like the woman in the Watchtower. But she didn't tell me the doors between the two worlds were already open and the Danann were planning on coming through. She implied everything happened because the Fomorii broke the Covenant.'
'Maybe she was spinning you a line,' Veitch said.
Church shifted uncomfortably. Could they really trust a race that was so far beyond them that their motivations were almost incomprehensible? And what did that mean for the woman in the Watchtower's promise that his prize for success in freeing her people would be knowledge of Marianne's fate? He had a sudden image of cynical, educated western explorers conning indigenous people out of land and resources for a few paltry beads.
'So it was like a first strike,' Veitch continued. 'The Fomorii tried to wipe out all the opposition in one swoop, leaving them free to do whatever horrible stuff they wanted once they got over here.'
'But what was he like?' Shavi asked shakily. He was in a sleeping bag, propped up by a pile of rucksacks. 'Did you get a sense of something divine?'
Ruth saw the excitement in his eyes, but it was an issue she didn't really want to face. °I don't believe in God,' she replied, but her voice wavered enough that she knew he wouldn't let her leave it there. 'Yes, I have tailored my beliefs a little. I couldn't be a humanist in the face of something like that. There is an existence beyond our own, and he was certainly unknowable. But divine? You might consider him a god. Others might call him an alien, or a higher being.' She couldn't tell if it was Shavi's smile or her own unsureness after a lifetime of disbelief that irritated her the most.
'But do you not see? This is the question. The thing we spend all our lives searching for-'
'Oh, I don't know,' she snapped.
Church stepped in quickly. 'This isn't the time for intense theological debate-'
'No, it's the time for a party!' Veitch held out his arms in jubilation. 'We won!'
'That's poultry you're calculating,' Laura snorted. She finally seemed to be coming out of the fearful mood that had gripped her since the encounter in the graveyard.
'What do you mean?' Veitch threw a box of Elastoplast at her with a little more force than was necessary. 'We've found all the talismans. The Hunt has gone for good. And we're all alive!'
'As much as we ever were,' Laura said coolly.
'But we still don't know what to do with the talismans.' Ruth turned to Tom. 'When are you going to spill the beans?'
'When we're nearly where we need to be and there's no chance of anything going wrong,' he replied gruffly.
'At least we're well under the wire on the deadline,' Church said. 'More than three weeks to go. I never thought we'd do it so quickly.'
Despite their certain knowledge that their trials were not over, they slept more easily than they had done in weeks. When they awoke to the sound of seagulls, the sun was already up and the fire had burned out. They all laughed when a man out walking his dog avoided them by a wide margin, realising they must look like dirty itinerants with their matted hair and crumpled clothes.
The sea air was invigorating and by 8 a.m. they felt fully rested and ravenously hungry. Their supplies were low, so Veitch volunteered to walk up to the village to see if he could find something for breakfast. Church, Shavi
