She caught her breath in surprise, but then looked past him coldly. The others — a band of six, four men and two women — made no secret of their dislike for his uniform. Mallory could see that her first instinct was to ignore him, but she couldn't contain herself.
'You're not going to tell me you being here is a coincidence,' she said sourly.
'Is that any way to talk to your rescuer?' Mallory retorted. He enjoyed manipulating the flash of annoyance on her face.
'I need your help like I need my eyes burned out,' she replied, but he noticed she didn't lead the travellers past him.
'OK,' he said, 'but I was only doing my Good Samaritan bit. You're lost in the middle of Salisbury Plain with some very unsavoury things on the loose. And they're possibly very close on your trail.'
'What makes you think we're lost?' a red-headed teenage girl said contemptuously.
'You're heading into the heart of the Plain and I don't think you'd really want to be doing that at this time of day. Not without tents, food and heavy ordnance.'
Sophie looked from Mallory to the sun that he had obviously read. Mallory could tell she was fighting the urge to be confrontational. 'Perhaps we did make a slight mistake,' she said. 'And you would be able to lead us out of here, would you?'
'If you promise to say thank you.'
'OK, I'm sorry,' she snapped. 'If you're offering to help us, we're very grateful. But we're not Christians and you stand no chance of converting us. So why would you want to help us?'
'I help everyone,' Mallory said blithely. He thought for a moment, then added, 'Except people with very bad body odour. And Chelsea fans. I've never forgiven them for David Mellor.'
He marched off a few paces, then realised that no one was following him. Doubt was clear on their faces. A flash of their crippled leader slowly dying in bed mellowed him and he said, 'I'm offering to get you back to Salisbury, after a short detour to pick up a friend, and I don't want anything in return. Understood?'
Sophie nodded. She silently reached an agreement with the others and they all set off together.
After they'd gone about half a mile, Mallory realised that Sophie had increased her pace so she was just behind his shoulder; the others trailed a few yards behind. He slowed, and she accepted the unspoken offer.
'What were you doing there?' she asked, without looking at him.
'Waiting for you.'
'Don't lie.'
'I'm not.'
They walked a few more paces in silence before she snapped, 'Have you lot been spying on us?'
'By my lot, I presume you mean the Knights Templar. Possibly. Quite frankly, I wouldn't put anything past some of the people involved.' She was taken aback by his candidness, and for the first time looked him in the face. He stared back into her eyes, enjoying what he saw there. 'If you're up for an unbelievable story, I'll tell you the truth.'
He proceeded to describe his encounter with Rhiannon, although he left out the nightmare that preceded his journey to that other place. He ended the account with, 'So, I was in Fairyland,' and then waited for her laughter.
Instead, she appeared unduly serious. 'The Celts called it Otherworld,' she said, 'or T'ir n'a n'Og, the Land of Always Summer. The place where the dead go.'
'Well, I'm alive and kicking.'
'The five who everyone says saved us in the war after the Fall,' she said, impatient at his jokes, 'they were supposed to have travelled to T'ir n'a n'Og.'
'The five,' he repeated. He'd heard all the stories about the heroes who had fought during the Fall and dismissed most of them as unbelievable, but now they took on a new significance. He wasn't in any mood to face up to what Rhiannon had told him about following in their footsteps, so he tried to make light of it instead. 'We've come to a right state if I say, 'I was in Fairyland,' and you treat me like the sanest man on the planet.'
'You were really there?' She looked at him in a different way that he found encouraging. 'What was it like?'
'It was…'He pictured the Court of Peaceful Days and instantly felt a yearning that brought a swell of damp emotion. '… heavenly.'
'I wish I'd seen it,' she said dreamily.
'Maybe you will one day.' He scanned the landscape carefully, trying to recall any landmarks from his vision that might reveal where Miller was. He hoped he would be in time. 'So what are you doing out here?'
'We took a trip up to Stonehenge.' She hugged her arms around her against the cold; she was poorly dressed for the time of year. Mallory took off his cloak and put it around her shoulders in a dismissive way so she didn't think he was doing anything so lame as being courteous. She attempted to fend it off at first, then relented, pulling it tight. She flashed a nervous glance back at the others, but none of them were paying any attention. 'Thank you.'
'Don't mention it. It's not really the time of year for trips, is it?'
'There's a problem with the ley. I can sense it… some of the others can, too, the ones who've worked on their abilities with the Craft. It's weakened, almost seems to be dying out, and it was so powerful before. Stonehenge is one of the main nodes of the Fiery Network. So is Avebury, and Saint Michael's Mount, but Stonehenge was close enough to investigate. We wanted to see if there was any sign of what was causing the problem.'
'That's not very smart, indulging yourself like that. You know the risks on the Plain.'
She bristled. 'Indulgent? The earth is responsible for the wellbeing of the planet — and humanity, for that matter. We've taken it upon ourselves to be the guardians of the Fiery Network, as the Celts were, and the ancient people who were custodians of the land before them.'
'The new Celtic Nation.' His comment sounded more mocking than he had intended.
'Exactly,' she said defiantly. 'There's nothing wrong with continuing their traditions. They believed in the interconnectedness of everything, in being supportive of nature and the planet, which is perfectly sensible in my books.'
'As well as slaughtering anyone who got in their way.'
'That's right. So don't get on my tits.' She swung the cloak around her with a flourish; her delicate features disappeared into the depths of the cowl.
'A big, important mission in life. You couldn't just do stuff for food and beer like everyone else?'
'I'm not like you, Mallory.'
'Yes, they broke the mould.' He spotted a skeletal tree standing alone on a ridge that looked familiar. 'Let's try over there,' he said.
'What are you looking for?'
Mallory ignored her; it was the place, he was sure of it. He picked up his pace and called Miller's name, suddenly terrified he was too late. Why does it matter? he thought as he broke into a run. The way things are, he's going to be dead soon enough anyway. He didn't want to let it get to him — he didn't want anything to get to him. But it did. And he knew it in the speed that he was driving himself across the turf, the desperation that made the blood surge through his head, obscuring Sophie's yells.
He reached the tree and looked down the other side of the ridge. Miller lay in a crumpled heap where he had fallen, but his eyes were closed, not glassy. Mallory threw himself down the incline. Miller's eyelids flickered open at the vibrations in the ground.
'Mallory. I knew you'd come for me.'
'Don't fool yourself, Miller. I was looking for a pub, and here you are littering the highways and byways.'
Miller smiled, then coughed. Blood spattered across his chin. Mallory knelt down to examine Miller's wounds: his stomach was badly torn and he'd lost a great deal of blood, but hadn't had the benefit of the Court of Peaceful Days to put him right; and he still had both his hands. So it was Gardener, Daniels or Hipgrave who lay dead somewhere in the vicinity of Bratton Camp.
Sophie let out a startled cry as she came over the ridge and saw Miller, but without a second thought she ran down and helped Mallory administer what treatment they could with the contents of his medicine pack.
'I didn't think I'd see you again,' Miller muttered deliriously to Mallory. 'I saw Daniels go down — it hit him in
