Читать книгу Dark Angels - Katherine Langrish - Страница 6

The first time the horn sounded on the hill, Wolf mistook it for a sheep bleating or a bird crying, and thought no more of it. He had other things to worry about.

There were no proper paths up here. He hadn’t known it would take so long to climb out of the valley. He’d expected to be miles away by now, dropping into the shelter of the woods — not still forcing his way up through waist-high heather towards the long, saw-blade ridge of Devil’s Edge. But there were no proper paths up here. Wolf cursed the boggy sheep tracks that never lasted more than a few yards before twisting the wrong way.

He was picking his way across a brook when he heard it: a faint, mournful wailing, more like a stain on the wind than a real sound. He checked mid-stream to listen, teetered on a wobbly stone, whirled his arms, jumped for the next and missed, and landed on his hands and knees in the brawling water.

“Hell’s bones!”

He waded over slimy pebbles to the bank. By then the sound had faded, and who cared, anyway? A bird, he told himself in disgust. Or an old sheep crying. He was soaked from the knees down, and his long sleeves flapped like wet washing.

Shivering, wringing the water out of his black robes, he looked back. West, into Wales, the hills were half sponged out by rainclouds. In the valley, the river looped like a scrawl of silver ink. And he could still see the dark lead roof of the Abbey of Christ and Saint Ethelbert at Wenford where, just about now, the monks would be lighting the candles and filing into chapel to sing the evening prayers. Without him.

Good!

But his mind flew back there, swift as a bird.

He heard again the biting drawl of Brother Thomas, master of the boys: “You — Wolfstan. Take that smile off your face. I heard you singing in the cloister this morning. Singing like a veritable nightingale! A holy song, no doubt. A psalm, no doubt! Strange that I did not recognise it. What psalm were you singing, Wolfstan?”

Wolf gritted his teeth. It hadn’t been a psalm, and the skinny old devil knew it.

“It was a French song!” Brother Thomas made the words sound like ‘a dead rat’. “About love and springtime and women!” He’d seized the back of Wolf’s neck. “Blasphemous boy!” he hissed. “‘Timor Domini initium sapienti est.’ Do you know what that means, you villain? ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’ And if you will not learn from fear of the Lord, you will learn from fear of me. Pass me the rod. Strip off your robe.”

“I hate you!” Wolf screamed down the hillside.

He snatched up some stones, wincing as his shirt twitched unstuck from his blood-stained back, and hurled one after another down the slope as hard as he could. “I hate you! I’m never coming back!”

He buried his face in his hands. It’s not my fault!

But it was. He, Wolf, had run away from the household of God. And now he would pay for it by spending the night on the hill, alone and shelterless.

But if he went back…

If he went back, the rest of his life would be bound by the Rule, the endless circle of prayers and duties. Walk, don’t run. Pray, don’t talk. Rise when the bell rings. Eat when the bell rings. Sleep when the bell rings. Till one day he’d be an old man shuffling between refectory and chapel, coughing in the dormitory at night and keeping the boys awake.

Wolf lifted his head. It wasn’t dark yet, and when it was he’d find somewhere safe to rest — a dry spot under a gorse bush, or if he was lucky, a shepherd’s hut. He turned to go on.

Above him rose Devil’s Edge, stark against the sky with its crest of jagged rocks like broken castles — like a ruined city where monsters lived and demons lurked. In a clump of bracken nearby, something uttered a deep wheezing cough, and Wolf leaped like a hare. But it must be a sheep. Only a sheep.

He squelched around the edge of a bog. Last year workmen digging peat for winter fuel had discovered a body in one of these bogs. Some unlucky traveller had drowned there — or been murdered and thrown in by robbers — but centuries ago, in the time of the old Romans, maybe. The workmen had carried the body down to the abbey on a hurdle, and Wolf had seen it —creased like old leather, muddy and dripping, stained deep brown from the dark water. Now he wished he hadn’t.

He imagined it, or something like it, with glowing eyes and long, thin arms and huge, dark hands, stalking him through the heather. And why not? There were plenty of scary tales about this hill. Stories of blue elf-fires, burning at the mouths of long-abandoned mineshafts and tunnels. Stories of bogeymen and ghosts.

He took another glance at the ridge. Up on the very top, he had heard there was a road. A road leading nowhere, a road no one used. For if anyone was so bold as to walk along it, especially at night, he’d hear the clamour of hounds and the blowing of horns, the cracking of whips and the rumbling of a cart. And out of the dark would burst the Devil’s own dog pack, dashing beside a black wagon drawn by goats with fiery eyes, crammed full of screaming souls bound for the pits of Hell.

Wolf crossed himself, shivering. “Blessed Saint Ethelbert, protect me.” Then realised that Saint Ethelbert would have no time for a disobedient, sinful boy, and was probably scowling down at him over the battlements of Heaven, hoping the demons and elves that undoubtedly lived on this wild hill would be keeping a special lookout, just for him.

Rain flicked his cheek like a cold finger. The day was ending early. The ridge was still high above him.

So hurry! Get moving, Wolf. Get over the top before nightfall!

He broke into a panicked trot. But it wasn’t possible to keep it up for long. Soon he was puffing, clambering, wading through the heather, stumbling again and again into unexpected holes and hidden watercourses.

He began to feel almost sure something was following him, a little way behind and on the edge of sight, a furtive, scuttling smudge at the corner of his eye. It couldn’t be an animal: animals wouldn’t act like that. No good looking round, he thought unhappily. It would either duck into the heather, or — far worse — stand erect, and stare back at him. And then what?

I won’t look, he swore. I won’t look.

He looked. Not a soul was in sight, not a wayfarer, not a peat-cutter, not a solitary shepherd. The wind gusted up the hill towards him. On it, faint but clear, floated the same lamenting wail he’d heard before.

Something pale scurried over a nearby rock.

He snapped round to look. It whipped out of sight. Naked, whitish, running on all fours. A thin stalk of a neck and a big, round head. It couldn’t be human.

A demon!

Wolf bolted up the hillside.

I’m sorry! His prayer was a mental shriek. Please, please don’t let it get me! He scrambled over a rocky outcrop, floundered into a marshy hollow that sucked at his boots like the slobbering mouth of Hell. Snatching handfuls of tough heather which ripped his palms, he hauled himself out, hearing a distant clamour that swelled on the wind and faded again. The baying of dogs.

Who was out hunting — who was blowing horns on Devil’s Edge? Wolf really, really didn’t want to know. He dived into a clump of bracken and curled into a ball, arms wrapped over his head, eyes screwed shut.

The wind hissed and the bracken rattled. Nothing pounced on him. Wolf sat up. He peered this way and that, first fearfully and then with rising hope. Where was the demon? Perhaps he’d lost it.

Two yards away, a grey puffball head with glittering eyes rose over the ferns. Half of the face was white, half dark red.

Wolf bounced to his feet and went tearing up the slope. The skyline was close, so close it looked as though he could leap over it into the sky. With bursting lungs he struggled up one last steep bank and found himself on the top.

So high! So windy! He could see for miles — hills lying in rows like a giant’s ploughland. And all along the length of the ridge, linking crag to crag, a broad roadway of pale stones gleamed in the last of the light.

The Devil’s Road.

Wolf was frightened to set foot on it, but he didn’t dare stop. Any minute now, the Devil would be coming home from his day’s work of roaming the world, stalking through the air to set one black, clawed foot on his mountain! Wolf hopped and stumbled across, feeling uniquely visible, like a mouse trying to cross a room where a cat was hiding. The stones poked out of the black turf at all angles, a jumble of unforgiving points and edges that tripped and turned his feet.

The horn sounded again, a flat, sinister wail, followed by the uneven, choppy barking of a large pack of dogs. Wolf reached the far side of the Devil’s Road and jumped into the heather. Bleating sheep scattered ahead of him. He ran jolting down the slope, not knowing what else to do. There was nowhere to hide. The ground transmitted an insistent, dull drumming. Hoofbeats.

A cramp tore through Wolf’s side. He limped on, throwing agonised glances over his shoulder at the ridge. The gabble of the hounds became louder as they crested the hill. They poured over in a mottled flood, spilling down the slope. Two or three were out in front, running after him with enormous, raking strides. Behind flickered a shape with a blotched, blobby head.

The demon was with them — driving them on! Wolf ran faster. He hit a patch of slippery grass, his feet shot away and he fell, knocking the breath from his lungs.

A band of horsemen rode over the skyline, thin spears pricking the wind. The clamour of the dog pack was close now, savage and eager. Wolf scrambled up, his heart banging in clumsy strokes. Here they come! The front-runners were huge. He saw the grinning white teeth in sharp black jaws, the laid-back ears and mad light eyes, the long mud-splattered legs that reached and stretched in fluent bounds…

Wolves! Not dogs at all, but wolves!

He shrieked and brandished his arms. The leading wolf leaped aside in a racing swerve. The other two followed, dashing by at a safe distance. He saw now how tired they were, with glazed eyes and lolling tongues. And with a strange hoarse cry the demon brushed past him, mushroom white except for the red blotch like spilled wine down half its face. Wolf shrank back. It ran stooping, on its hind legs, and was smaller than he’d thought. It had no tail and—

“Hey!” he yelled incredulously, straightening up. “Hey!”

A narrow, bare back and thin buttocks disappeared into the bracken. What he’d thought was a huge head was a tangled mass of greyish-blond hair.

A child? A dirty little child?

No time to think. Horses were coming down the slope at a drumming gallop, and he was in the way —trapped between the wolves and the hunt. The riders had seen him. The horn sounded a bevy of urgent notes, and over the din of the approaching hounds he heard a furious shout:

“Dex aie! Garson! Gar les chiens!”

For God’s sake, boy, beware of the dogs! Wolf was already running again. Those deep broken barks and yammering yells frightened him to the core. The riders were hollering: “Sy, sy avaunt!”

“Avaunt, ha ha! Sy, dons sy!”

“A moy, Bailemonde! A moy, Argos! So howe, so howe!”

Wolf plunged into the bracken where the child had disappeared. The ferns grew breast high, and dragged at his feet and caught at his voluminous robe. He tore through, hearing close behind the crackle and rustle as the dogs threw themselves after him.

Wolf burst out of the bracken. The ground fell away into a V-shaped dingle, a valley like a deep gutter with a white stream spouting over rocks at the bottom. Trees grew up its slopes. Wolf jumped. For a second he was flying, untouchable. Then his boots sank deep into last year’s slimy leaves. He pitched on to hands and knees, got up and ran on. The riders would have to be crazy to gallop down such a bank, but nothing would stop the dogs.

Climb something, you fool —get out of their way! He thrust into the bushes that grew up the sides of the dingle and swung into a holly tree, scrambling as high as he could into its bouncing branches. He hung there, his breath whistling. White sparks danced before his eyes.

The dogs came boiling over the edge of the dingle, leaping down the slope, lean, rough-haired greyhounds and powerful, broad-chested alaunts bred to grip and kill. After them, black against the darkening sky came a rider on a big horse. The horse checked at the drop, half rearing. Then it sprang out. Earth flew from its iron-shod hooves. The rider yelled as they crashed into the bushes, and his long spear ripped through the leaves. A second horseman followed, and a third.

Wolf pressed his face against the damp tree bark and closed his eyes. He whispered a faint prayer. Safe! He was safe! They’d gone past without seeing him.

Further down the dingle, hidden by trees, the baying of the dogs rose to a violent crescendo and the men shouted. They had a wolf at bay. Wolf heard the thud of a spear going home, and a long, sobbing howl, which shot up into a wild shriek and ended in a spine-crawling, choking cough.

The horn sounded for the death — a series of hurrying, victorious toots. From the hillside above came answering whoops and horn calls — then curses and laughter as the rest of the huntsmen reached the top of the steep bank and began cautiously urging their horses down.

Safe in the holly, Wolf clung to the branches and listened to the thump and scuffle of hooves. He peered through the darkly prickled leaves. The men and horses sounded solid enough. He could hear the horses snorting and the riders speaking in French like noblemen. There were no devils trotting by on fiery-eyed goats.

Yet hadn’t they been hunting a child — that mysterious child? He shivered, and in his mind’s eye the real dogs he’d seen faded and blended into the Devil’s black hounds chasing the naked and terrified souls of the damned.

No! He shook his head. The child had been real flesh and blood, the dogs had been ordinary dogs, and as for the riders, devils wouldn’t speak French.

Or perhaps they would; he didn’t know. But he couldn’t stay in this tree all night. He dropped stiffly to the ground. At a safe distance he followed the switching tail of the last horse. Soon he saw a hastily lit fire crackling in a trampled clearing, and the dusk turning blue around it.

The fire glowed on reds and browns: the ruddy coats of the steaming horses, and their red leather harness, cut in scallops; the huntsmen wore red tunics and long leather boots. One stood leaning on his spear. He must be the lord, the master of the hunt. He was watching his men skin the one wolf they’d caught. It lay stretched on the ground near the fire. They had cut off the head and stuck it on a spear, where its white teeth gleamed in a frozen snarl.

Wolf lurked in the undergrowth. Just as he gathered his courage to walk out and be seen, there was a roar of rough laughter at some joke. He lost his nerve. They might help him. Or they might punish him, for getting in the way of the hounds.

Smoke blew towards him, and a smell of churned-up leaves. Triumphant dogs ran about wagging their tails and peeing on the bushes. Their mood had completely changed; they were no longer a danger. One of them dashed up to Wolf and seized his wrist in its mouth, play-chewing with blunt teeth. It was a tall white greyhound, a beautiful, lordly creature wearing a broad collar of gilded leather. Wolf pulled his hand away and drew back, afraid of being noticed.

“No,” he whispered. “Off with you. Go on!”

The greyhound took no notice. It swung its thin tail, looking eagerly into his face. It thinks I’m one of the hunters. It’s hoping for scraps. Wolf backed further into the trees, ducking under the spiky branches of a clump of hawthorns, but the dog followed.

“Go away!” Wolf grasped the thick leather band around its throat and tried to make the dog turn. It resisted, lifting a strong, shaggy foreleg and pawing his knee. Wolf found himself rubbing its neck and scratching its ears. It pushed affectionately against his hand — then stiffened, looking sharply beyond him. Wolf turned, his fingers still hooked through the collar. He couldn’t see anything, but the dog apparently could. It set off with a bound.

Wolf followed without even thinking. With the friendly dog at his side he felt safe for the first time in hours. As it dragged him deeper into the wood, a glorious idea dawned on him. If a valuable hound ran off, wouldn’t there be a reward for the person who found it? He could wait a while, and then take it back and say he’d found it straying, which was almost true. The lord of the hunt would be a rich knight, a nobleman. Men like that had to act generously.

He could see it all: the grateful knight offering money. You have brought back my best hunting dog. Take this purse! Himself bowing low. It was nothing, my lord. All I want to do is serve you. The knight exclaiming: Then you shall join my household. I have need of an honest lad to be my squire…

He laughed at himself. All the same, it could happen! Then, instead of monkish black, he’d have bright clothes to wear, green and scarlet. He would take care of his master’s clothes and weapons. He would learn to ride and hunt and fight.

He hung on to the collar, trying to restrain the big greyhound as it bounded up the steep side of the dingle, under scratching branches, through a patch of tall stinging nettles, and over an ankle-breaking pile of moss-covered stones. Wolf hopped and swore and rubbed his shins. “That’s enough!” He tugged the dog to a standstill under a rock face which leaned out overhead. There was a dank, sour smell. A bad feeling hung over the place. “We’re not going any further,” he said, shivering. “It’s time to go back.”

The greyhound strained at the collar, growling. A prickle of sweat started under Wolf’s armpits. He remembered he was still on the slopes of Devil’s Edge. And he was alone, and a long way from the fire.

In the black tangle of thorn trees and brambles at the base of the cliff, a chalky oval gradually formed.

With eyes in it.

A face like a half-moon, white one side and dark the other, floating in a aureole of insubstantial hair like dandelion fluff. It vanished, pulling back into blackness, and Wolf saw that it had been peering from the mouth of a low cave set under an overgrown rocky ledge.

Dry mouthed, Wolf recognised it. The thing he’d mistaken for a demon — the strange child. This was what they had been following. The dog had brought him straight to its lair!