“There are creatures in the forest. I heard them earlier, in the distance, but now they are nearby. I think they are…dangerous and they seem to be hunting. Get up–we must leave now, before light.”
Paul nodded again and began to crawl towards his pack. Aleyne stopped him again and gestured to leave it. Taking the boy’s hand, he began to creep away, leaving his pack as well. Paul stumbled after him, still too sleepy to argue.
Several hundred metres and many scratches and bumps later, Paul felt Aleyne suddenly stop and kneel down, dragging Paul with him. Aleyne pointed to his ear and then back the way they had come. At first Paul heard nothing, then he caught a sort of snorting sound–and the jangle of metal. The old iron pot, realised Paul, probably being thrown against a tree. Whatever it was back there obviously had a bad temper.
Paul started to get up again, but Aleyne didn’t move, so he knelt back down. The snorting sounds were louder, and butterflies started in Paul’s stomach as he realised they were getting nearer. Then the snorts suddenly stopped, to be replaced by a long, high-pitched howl. With a sudden jerk, Aleyne leapt to his feet, dragging Paul with him.
“They’ve found our trail!” he shouted, careless of the noise. “Run!”
But Paul was already running, almost as Aleyne spoke. He knew this forest would turn out just as bad as the other one and had no desire to meet anything that howled like the thing behind them. Crashing through branches and stumbling over the uneven ground, Paul was unaware of Aleyne behind him, till he touched his shoulder, directing him to the right.
“This way,” shouted Aleyne. “It’s our only chance!”
“Can’t you fight them?” panted Paul, narrowly ducking an overhanging branch, a dim outline seem at the last moment.
“I don’t even know what they are,” replied Aleyne, stumbling behind him. “But if they’re what I think they are–no!”
“What do you think–ow!–they are?” asked Paul, panting for air. But Aleyne didn’t answer, only pushing him on from behind. The ground was rising steeply in front of them and the trees were becoming thicker, so Paul often had to use both hands to fend off branches. Oddly enough, the trees seemed to be in rows after a while, and the way became easier, almost like an overgrown road–though Paul was so short of breath he hardly noticed.
Then the howling began again, closer behind them, and Paul forgot about breathing. All his thoughts went into his legs, and into watching the way ahead in the dim, pre-dawn starlight. But no matter how fast he ran, the howling drew closer and closer, until Paul felt he had to look behind. A low branch chose this precise moment to get in the way of his foot and Paul went flying over into the leaf-littered ground. Aleyne checked in mid-stride and turned to face their pursuers, his pitiful dagger at the ready.
Paul quickly rolled over and looked back to see Aleyne silhouetted above him, the starlight reflecting on his blade. And there, in front of him, loomed a larger shadow, over two metres tall, with grossly overlong arms, and talons as long as knives, that seemed to crawl with shadows.
“Ornware!” shouted Aleyne, drawing his dagger across his thumb and then plunging it into the trunk of the nearest tree. “Ornware! Blood of mine, and Blood of Tree, on Ornware’s Road to Summon Thee!”
Nothing happened and their pursuer loped forward, making small grunting sounds. Aleyne stepped back before it, aware that it could kill him whenever it chose. Paul kept his eyes on the creature and started to slip back under the trees.
“Gwarulch,” whispered Aleyne, as the monster crept forward, stalking its prey.
As he spoke, the Gwarulch struck, an arm swinging across at throat level, talons extended for a killing slash. But Aleyne saw it coming. Ducking under the blow, he threw himself sideways under Paul’s tree as the Gwarulch leapt forward.
“You should have thrown the dagger at it!” shouted Paul, stumbling away as the Gwarulch burst through the branches. Aleyne didn’t answer, for the creature struck at him again–this time successfully, tearing open the front of his tunic and shallowly slicing his chest. He tried to dodge again, but the Gwarulch was too quick, backhanding him across the head. With the crack of branches, Aleyne fell to the forest floor, in front of Paul’s horrified gaze.
The Gwarulch looked at Paul with deep-set, piggy eyes–and pounced, talons extended. But Paul’s small size was to his advantage among the thick foliage; he slid between two large branches and the talons raked bark instead of flesh.
Despite this, Paul knew the Gwarulch would get him eventually. He desperately looked around for a branch or a stone, or any sort of weapon–and then he saw Aleyne’s dagger, still protruding from the tree. He leapt for it, as the Gwarulch leapt at him.
Paul’s hand fastened around the hilt and he half-turned, to draw and throw it, as the Gwarulch emerged from under the tree. Out of the tree-shadow, it was a hideous sight. Vaguely ape-like, its upper jaw protruded to show ripping fangs, and its eyes were piggy and lit with an evil intelligence. It eyed Paul with something like amusement and licked its lips in a very human gesture.
Paul vainly tugged at the dagger as the Gwarulch advanced, still licking its lips with a bluish, forked tongue. It reached out a taloned hand and, gripping Paul’s hand in its own, pulled the dagger out of the tree.
With his free hand, Paul punched the Gwarulch in the stomach, almost breaking his fingers on the thick, leathery flesh. It hurt him so much, he thought it couldn’t possibly have harmed the huge creature–when it gave a surprised sort of yelp and sank to its knees. Dragged down with it, Paul looked into its fading eyes as it toppled over, letting go of his hand.
Then he saw what had really killed it. A wooden spearshaft projected from its back, a thick spear of dark wood, engraved with runes that seemed to dance along its length.
In between the trees, Paul saw another silhouette. Instinctively, he knew it was the thrower of the wooden spear. Although man-like, the figure’s head seemed strange and Paul had to look twice before he saw that the man, if man it was, had a full set of antlers.
“Who calls Ornware?” said the antlered man. “When Gwarulch walk among his trees?”
Paul gulped and tried to sit up. Aleyne had called out to Ornware, but Aleyne was lying over by a tree, unconscious, if not…dead.
“We did,” he whispered, not daring to look up. Dawn was closer now, and the first cast of light was just allowing real shadows to creep out from the pale, star-lit imitations. And the shadows that lay across Paul were of antlers.
Paul heard an amused snuffle above him and risked a glance upwards. The antlered creature was still there, but it had moved closer to the dead Gwarulch and was pulling out the spear. It came out easily enough, surprising Paul–the spear had almost gone through the other side, and he knew no normal man could have removed it. But then normal men didn’t have antlers.
The creature twirled the spear, then approached Paul, driving the butt of the spear into the ground near the boy’s feet. Paul looked up–straight at that antlered head, meeting the creature’s eyes: deep yellow eyes, the colour of daisies, with thin, bar-like pupils of darkest green. They held power, those eyes, and violence lay beneath the placid daisy-yellow.
“I am Ornware,” said the eyes to Paul, communicating a sense of power, like the overhanging branches of a huge oak. “I am Ornware of Ornware’s Wood, as the trees are Ornware, the earth, the birds, the animals. All are Ornware.”
“Aleyne called you,” said Paul, his voice quavering, eyes still locked into Ornware’s–lost in those deep yellow pools.
Then a few hundred metres away, a Gwarulch howled–their tracking sound. Paul flinched and blinked, breaking his gaze away from Ornware’s.
Ornware’s antlered head turned to face the direction of the howling, and he twirled the spear again, bringing the bloodied point close to his mouth. Paul watched, horrified, as a wide, crimson-red tongue lashed out, cleansing the point with one swift motion. then Ornware was gone, leaping into the trees like a stag towards the approaching Gwarulch.
“The Gwarulch will bother us no more today,” said a cracked voice behind Paul. Aleyne was sitting up, fingering his head. His unruly hair was caked in drying blood. “But I am glad Ornware has other foe to hunt, else he might have turned against us.”
“But I thought you called him?” asked Paul, going over to help Aleyne up.
“You may call him,” replied Aleyne, looking back down the path, “but only in dire need. Ornware is the walking dream of the forest, only woken at its need, or by a call such as mine. But he is a dream of the forest’s fear and anger, and knows little more than blood. Worse, being a creature of raw passions, he likes nothing but the hunt and the kill. He is like a summer storm that saves you by dousing a fire, only to strike with lightning moments later.”
A howl farther in the distance punctuated Aleyne’s words, and he answered Paul’s unspoken question with a finger drawn across his throat. Obviously, the rune-carved spear had found another Gwarulch heart.
“Come on,” said Aleyne, leaning on Paul. “There should be a stream on the other side of this hill, where I can wash these cuts, and try to get us halfway clean for Rhysamarn and its Wise Men. With such an early start, we should be there by mid-afternoon.”
The Gwarulch had not been idle in reaching as far south as Ornware’s Wood so soon after the Ragwitch’s ordering Her war. While the settled folk to the south were unaware of it, the Gwarulch had long lived near, or even within, the northern border, and the Meepers had been quick to fly to isolated bands with orders to waylay travellers and other isolated folk.
Julia had not been idle either. When the Ragwitch was busy, she found it was possible to wrench her mind away. When she did this, she only ended up back “inside” the Ragwitch, near the globe, but at least she got her own body back–despite the Ragwitch’s past assurances that Julia would never feel her own body again. The Ragwitch even seemed amused by her efforts to escape and never punished the girl–apart from forcing her mind back to attach itself to the Ragwitch’s senses.
“What lies between us and the Old Border, Oroch?” asked the Ragwitch, as Her lieutenant alighted from the back of a large, leather-winged Meeper. She had taken up residence (if you could call it that, for She never slept) at the base of the Spire, where She received the reports of the Meepers and gave orders to Her army.
“A new town, Mistress,” replied Oroch, in his mewing, high-pitched tone. “Bevallan, they call it. A small place, without walls or castle. Only a tower, and that is of no great size. They have discovered peace in Your absence, Mistress.”
“It will not be a discovery they enjoy much longer,” spat the Ragwitch. “But what of their Magic: their famous Magi, all cluttered up with Staves and Rings and Talismans; those Wizards, whose flesh is foul and blood rancid?”
“None, Mistress,” chuckled Oroch, bandages whipping in the breeze as he laughed. “The Art is forgotten, as You were…” He stopped in mid-sentence, dropping to his knees as the Ragwitch towered above him to encircle his puny, bandaged neck with one of Her hands.
“Forgotten?” hissed the Ragwitch, spit bubbling between the rows of Her needle-teeth. “Then I shall remind them, will I not, Oroch, My Architect? I shall remind them, and Myself remember the sweetness of their flesh.”
Behind Her, the stone shapes of the Angarling boomed, feeling their Mistress’ anger. The Gwarulch moved about uneasily, careful to avoid the rocking, moving Angarling as they drew closer to the Spire. The Meepers, high above, twirled and dived about the Spire, revelling in the prospect of bloodshed.
Watching through the Ragwitch’s eyes, Julia shuddered and once again started to do sums in her head. Even the thirteen times tables was preferable to the Ragwitch’s memories, presented to Julia as they were with every nuance of sight, hearing, feeling…and taste.
“Assemble the Gwarulch chieftains and the Old Meeper,” the Ragwitch instructed Oroch. “I will…talk…to the Angarling.”
Julia breathed a mental sigh of relief as the memories of pillage and feasting faded, to be replaced by a strong memory of the Angarling, still as stone, being woken by a young, human Witch on her first small steps to power…Surely not the Ragwitch, thought Julia, as she felt her host clumsily lumbering towards the Angarling, those straw-stuffed legs straight and never bending, the puffy three-fingered hand outstretched to caress Her oldest allies–the Stone Knights of Drowned Angarling.
“Tomorrow,” She said, touching the white stone of the nearest Angarling, caressing the lines of the frozen face. “Tomorrow shall be death and ruin, and the sun will sink all bloody in a sky as red as fire.”
