distance between himself and the monstrous thing that still roamed the hilltop.

Finally, he came to a halt, lying on his back without the slightest strength to move, staring up into nothingness. The night was torn by sounds that could never have come from a human throat. Mallory felt as if he was in hell.

Consciousness came in the grey light of morning. His body was a web of agony and he was frozen to the bone, but he was still alive, though he didn't know how much longer that would be the case. From the state of his clothes he could tell he'd lost an inordinate amount of blood, and more leaked out each time he shifted. Shakes wracked his body repeatedly. His head felt stuffed with cotton wool as if he were on the verge of a debilitating migraine.

Nightmarish images flashed back from the previous night. He felt sick with shock, could barely believe he was still alive. A little joy filtered through, but it was dampened by the pain and his doubts for the safety of the others. He thought of the severed hand: one of them was certainly dead from blood loss. Could any of them have survived such an onslaught? He forced himself not to think about it, or the emotions that came with it.

Apprehensively, he peeled open his shirt. A gaping wound ran across his stomach, filled with blood. Other gashes lay open on his chest and arms, and for the first time he was thankful for the classes the Church authorities had inflicted on him during his training. Moving as carefully as he could, though still punctuated with devastating bursts of pain, he managed to free his haversack. At the bottom of it was the small medical kit they all carried with them for basic treatment on the road. First, he removed the small jar of antiseptic salve created in the medicines quarter that lay off the cathedral's herb garden. Unscrewing the lid, he recoiled from the potent odour, as strong as any smelling salts. Then he removed the tin that contained the large needle and sturdy thread. This was going to test his willpower.

Dipping three fingers into the jar of salve, he gingerly dabbed it on the stomach wound. The pain made him cry out, but he could instantly feel the area numbing. He left it a couple of minutes before threading the needle. He didn't have anything to sterilise it with, so he hoped the salve would do its job.

The first stitch was agony. His stomach turned as he watched it pulling the two flaps of flesh together. By the fourth stitch, the sight was not so disturbing and he learned to cope with the pain by chewing on the end of his leather belt. When he had finished, he tied a knot as he had been taught, then rested for five minutes before moving on to the next wound.

It took him an hour to finish the entire job. By then he felt like a shadow; he didn't want to guess how much blood he had lost. He really needed a transfusion, a few days' bed rest. Instead, he was lying on wet ground in the middle of the countryside. He just hoped he had the strength to mount his horse and reach one of the villages that bordered the Plain.

It took him fifteen minutes to get to his feet using a tree trunk as support, and even then he felt as if he was going to collapse with every step he took. At first, he lurched from tree to tree, pausing every now and then to dry- retch, but after a while he found it in himself to stagger unsupported. Even so, he lost his footing several times before he reached the bottom of the hill. There he found the remains of the horses; it looked as if they had been hacked to pieces by a chainsaw. He fought back the despair; it wouldn't help him. He'd just have to walk.

The day was a little brighter than the previous one, with no sign of rain, but it was still windy. He remembered where they had seen the church steeple poking above the trees and thought he would use that as a marker and head for it. Yet when he eventually skirted the foot of the hill there was no sign of the steeple anywhere. It made no sense to him at all, but he didn't have the energy to consider what it meant. Using the occasional glimpses of the sun as a guide, he set off in what was undoubtedly the right direction. In his weakened state he could barely keep his eyes on the horizon; his concentration was mainly occupied with staying on his feet, staying alive. Many times, his consciousness slipped sideways so that he was moving in a dream-state, observing his surroundings without being aware of them; this condition became more and more the norm, and the remaining rational part of him knew that he was dying.

He should have reached the neighbouring village within the half-hour; it never materialised, nor did any of the roads he knew skirted that edge of the Plain. He wondered if he had somehow got turned around and was heading back into the wilderness, but the surrounding landscape told him otherwise. Rolling grassland lay all around, rich and fertile, punctuated by copses and small woods. The trees were oddly fully leafed as if it were midsummer rather than crisp autumn, and there was an abundance of wild flowers scattered across the area in blues, reds and yellows.

He slept regularly, usually where he stumbled, and on one occasion he attempted to eat some of the travel biscuits, but he immediately vomited them straight back up. In his daze, time slopped in haste. He would close his eyes in a moment's thought and clouds would have scudded across the sky, or the quality of the light would have changed.

He came to a small, winding track of well-trodden earth and without thinking began to follow it. It eventually led to a quaintly constructed small stone bridge over a tinkling brook where he was suddenly overcome with a tremendous thirst. He made his way tentatively down the side of the bridge, through the thick brookside vegetation, and scooped up handfuls of water, splashing it into his mouth and across his burning face. He was stunned at how wonderful it tasted, vibrant, with complex flavours, like no water he had ever sampled before. He immediately felt a little better, his thoughts sharper, his limbs a tad more energised. He continued along the track beyond the bridge with a little more vigour.

Twilight came sooner than he anticipated, the trees growing ghostly as the grassland turned grey. Most of the clouds had disappeared, so he could clearly see a crescent moon gleaming among myriad glittering stars. It was surprisingly balmy, with moths fluttering above the grass.

Where am I? he thought, without really giving the question much weight.

A little further on, he noticed a light glowing amongst the trees away to his left. Hope filled him that at last he might be able to find somewhere to rest. The path forked and he took the track that led directly towards the light, the other branch heading in a near-straight line across the landscape.

As he approached the trees, other lights became visible, like golden fireflies in the growing gloom. Lanterns had been strung amongst the branches and from their vicinity he could now hear voices, some raised though not threatening, others lower in conversation. It brought his consciousness another step back from the misty region where it had retreated, so that he was alert enough to experience surprise when he saw what lay ahead.

Amongst the trees, illuminated by the hanging lanterns, lay a large market stretching far into die depths of the wood. On the periphery there were only a few stalls and browsers, but further into the depths he could see that it was bustling. The air was filled with the aroma of smoke and barbecued meat, along with unusual perfumes and spices he couldn't quite identify. The raised voices were the traders encouraging people to examine their wares, and somewhere there was music, singing voices accompanying some stringed instrument that set his spirits soaring.

Obliquely, he knew how strange it was for a market to be held at that time of evening in such an isolated location, but he was so attracted by the sights and sounds it barely registered. Nor did he truly notice how unusual some of the market-goers were. They were dressed in ancient attire that echoed a range of periods — medieval robes and Elizabethan doublets, wide-brimmed hats, long cloaks, broad belts and thigh-high boots — while some were unusually tall and thin, and others uncommonly short. Their features were the most striking. Every face was filled with character, eyebrows too bushy, noses too pointed, eyes astonishingly bright or beady, so that they resembled pictures of people from another time rather than the familiar blandly modern features he was used to. Indeed, some of them were almost cartoonish in appearance, and if Mallory had looked closely, he would have seen that their skin had a strange waxy sheen, as if they were wearing masks over their true faces.

His attention wandered as he entered the market. The detail of his surroundings was almost hallucinogenic, the sights, sounds and smells miasmic after the tranquillity of the countryside. But while he was lost in the swirl of life, he was unaware that many of those around watched him carefully and curiously, with only a hint of suspicion, and occasionally a hint of threat.

After the initial fascination had worn off, Mallory grabbed a passer-by by the sleeve and mumbled, 'Where is this place?'

The man he had stopped was thickset with a long bushy beard and piercing dark eyes. He wore a beige cloak, fastened at the throat with a gold clasp, over clothes that reminded Mallory of an Elizabethan pirate. 'Why, this is the Market of Wishful Spirit,' he said in an oddly inflected voice, as if Mallory were sub-educational. Mallory didn't notice how the man's words came a split second after his lips moved.

Вы читаете The Devil in green
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