Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) (57 page)

“I don’t get it,” Laura said. “Yesterday my feet were two big, fat blisters. Today they’re fine.”

Tom snorted derisively from the front of the column. “Don’t you ever pay attention? Why do you think your esteemed leader healed so quickly after the Fomorii masters of torture were loose on him under Dartmoor? Do you think they simply didn’t do a proper job? Why do you think Ruth has regained her-“

“What’s your point, you old git?”

“It’s the Pendragon Spirit,” Church said. “It helps us heal.”

“Pity Tom Bombadil up front hasn’t got it, then. He could grow himself a new head when I rip this one off.”

Tom replied, but it was deliberately muffled so Laura couldn’t hear.

“Keep walking, old man,” she shouted. “And watch out for those sudden crevices.”

Not long after, Veitch and Shavi broke off from the others to see if they could catch something for lunch. They were wary of getting lost, so they arranged a meeting place they could easily pick out on the landscape. After an hour of futile tracking for rabbit pellets and scanning the landscape for any sign of game birds, they gave up and rested against a young tree which had been so battered by the wind it resembled a hunched old man.

Veitch cracked his knuckles, then progressed through a series of movements to drive the kinks from his muscles. Shavi watched him languidly.

“Do you want to talk about what has happened to Ruth?” he asked eventually.

“No.”

“You should. It is better to get these things out in the open.”

“You sound like the counsellor my mum and dad dragged me to when I was a kid.”

Shavi laughed gently. “I am talking as a friend.”

This seemed to bring Veitch up sharp for a second, but then he carried on as before. “I never thought I’d have a queen for a friend.”

“These times have changed us all.”

Veitch sighed. “You better not say any of this to the others, all right?”

“Of course not.”

“‘Cause you’re the only one I could talk to about it. Yeah, it’s doing my head in, course it is. I thought after going through hell to get her back from the Bastards that would be the end of it. And now this. It cuts me up thinking what she’s going through. She doesn’t deserve that. She deserves …”

He seemed to have trouble saying what he was thinking so Shavi gently prompted him: “What?”

“The best. Whatever makes her happy.”

“Even if that is not you?”

Veitch looked away. “Yeah. I just want her to be happy.” He was lost in thought for a moment, but then his brow furrowed. “What do you think’s going to happen to her?”

“I do not know. I do know we will do our best.”

“I know it looks black, but I just can’t believe she’s going to die. Everyone thought she was a goner when the Bastards had her. They didn’t say it, but I know they did. But I never doubted we’d get her out for a minute. And I reckon we’ll do it this time.”

Shavi smiled; there was something heartwarmingly childlike about Veitch beneath his steely exterior. “You believe in happy endings.”

“Never used to. I do now, yeah.”

A sound like the roar of some unidentified animal thundered across the landscape. They both started, the hairs standing on the back of their necks. Something in the noise made them instantly terrified, as if some buried race memory had been triggered.

“What the fuck was that?” Veitch dropped low to peer all around.

They could see nothing in the immediate vicinity, so they crawled to the top of a slight rise for a broader vista. At first that area too seemed empty, but as their eyes became used to the patterns of light and shade on the landscape they simultaneously picked out a black shape moving slowly several miles away. The jarring sensation in their heads the moment their eyes locked on it told them instantly what it was.

They squinted, trying to pick out details from the shadow, but all they got were brief glimpses of something that seemed occasionally insectile, occasionally like a man. Yet there was no mistaking the dangerous power washing off it.

Veitch, who had seen it more clearly before, realised what it was. “It’s that big Bastard, the warrior, that almost got the others on their way back from Richmond.”

“It is hunting,” Shavi said instinctively.

“Do you think it knows we’re here?”

Shavi chewed his lip as he weighed up the evidence. “It seems to have an idea in which direction we are going, but it does not seem to be able to pinpoint us exactly.”

“They’ve sent it after Ruth, the biggest and baddest they’ve got to offer. What the fuck are we going to do now?” He answered his own question a moment later. “Keep moving. We can’t hang around.”

They retreated down the rise, then hurried back to tell the others.

There was no further sighting of whatever was hunting them, its path had appeared to be taking it away to the west while they were moving southeast. Even so, they were now even more on their guard.

As the day drew on, dark clouds swept in from the west and by midafternoon the landscape had taken on a silver sheen beneath the lowering sky. There, on the high ground, the wind had the bite of winter despite the time of year; they all wished they had some warmer clothes, but they had only brought a few changes of underwear and T-shirts.

Dusk came early with the clouds blackening and they knew it was better to find shelter and make camp rather than risk a lightning strike in the open ground. The rain fell in sheets, rippling back and forth across the grass and rocks; the clouds came down even lower and soon visibility was down to a few yards.

Not even Tom’s outdoor skills could find any wood dry enough to make a fire. They sat shivering in their tents, observing the storm through the open flaps. Eventually the rain died off and the clouds lifted, the storm drifting away to the east. They watched its progress, the lightning sparking out in jagged explosions of passion, the world thrown into negative, the martial drumroll.

Laura’s voice drifted out across the camp site. “We need a band. You can’t beat a light show like that with any technology.” The wonder in her words raised all their spirits.

It took two more days to reach their destination. The first was dismal with occasional downpours. The going was hard in the face of the gale and the landscape was treacherous in the intermittent mists. They made camp early and slept long.

The second day was much brighter from the onset and by midmorning even the smallest cloud had blown away. Veitch, Shavi and Church stripped to the waist in the growing heat, prompting them to tease the women to follow suit. A mouthful of abuse from Laura brought their jeering to a quick end.

For the first time in days they had to cross major roads and avoid centres of population. They wound their way by Shipton and Ilkley, and whenever the moorland gave way to lanes they ducked behind stone walls every time they heard the sound of a car. After their enforced isolation they felt oddly unnerved when they realised the most populous areas of Yorkshire were close. Tom even claimed to smell Bradford and Leeds on the wind.

Ilkley Moor was almost mystical in the way it responded to the weather conditions and the shifting of light and shade across its robust skin. The green fields on the edge gave way to romantic bleakness the higher they rose, where gorse and scrubland looked copper in the midafternoon sun. There, in the midst of it, the sense of isolation returned, potent yet oddly comforting.

They knew the spot the moment it came into view. The standing stones glowed brightly, their shadows like pointing fingers. But it wasn’t the sight of them; after only a few days away from the trappings of the modern age their senses were attuned to changes in the world around them, the crackling energy in the atmosphere that instantly seemed to recharge their flagging vitality, the feel of a powerful force throbbing in the ground as if mighty machines turned just beneath their feet; a sudden overwhelming sense of well-being.

Church closed his eyes and had an instant vision of the blue fire flowing powerfully in mighty arteries away from the circle. “There’s nothing dormant about this spot.”

Although he tried to hide his emotions as usual, Tom seemed pleased by Church’s sensitivity. “This has always been a vital spot. Welcome to the Twelve Apostles of Ilkley Moor.”

The twelve standing stones which Tom called the Apostles were roughly four feet high and hacked from the local millstone grit. “There were originally twenty,” Tom said. “In the nineteenth century they thought it was a calendar and christened it the Druidical Dial.”

Amongst the stones they felt instantly secure and relaxed, as if they instinctively knew nothing could harm them there.

“It feels like Stonehenge on a smaller scale.” Ruth felt comforted and hugged her arms around herself.

“All the sacred sites used to be like this,” Tom said. “Places of sanctuary. Linked to the Fiery Network. So many have been torn down now.”

Shavi stood in the centre of the circle, closed his eyes and raised his arms. “The magic is vibrant.”

“It’s one of the places that remained potent, even during the Age of Reason,” Tom continued. “In 1976 three of the Royal Observer Corps were up here. They saw a white globe of light hovering above the stones. Throughout the eighties there were many other accounts of strange, flashing lights and balls of light descending. That helped the circle regain some of its standing in the local community and every summer solstice there used to be a fine collection of people up here for celebration.”

Church drifted away from the others to press his hand on one of the stones; he could feel the power humming within as if there were electronic circuitry just beneath the surface. It seemed so long since Tom had introduced him to the blue fire at Stonehenge, although it was only a matter of weeks, yet now it felt such a part of his life he couldn’t imagine living without it. The image of Tom manipulating the blue flames that first night had haunted him and he had begun to realise it was something he desperately wanted to be able to do himself. Cautiously he removed his hand an inch from the stone and concentrated in an effort to produce that leaping blue spark.

Nothing came. Yet he felt no disappointment. He was sure it was only a matter of time.

They set up camp within the tight confines of the circle. In no time at all the earth energy had infused them, recharging them, healing their aches and pains, and Ruth felt better than she had done since Callander; the nausea had almost completely gone. Yet the moor stretched out so bleakly all around and the camp was so exposed they couldn’t shake their sense of unease and the feeling they were constantly being watched.

For long periods, Veitch sat half-perched on one of the stones scanning the landscape. “See anything?” Church asked him while the others were preparing dinner.

He shook his head without taking his eyes off the scenery. “Look at it out there. There could be somebody ten feet away lying in the scrub and we’d have trouble seeing them.”

“At least if that big Fomor comes up we won’t miss seeing him.”

“Yeah,” Veitch said darkly, “but then where do we run, eh?”

When darkness fell, the sense of isolation became even more disturbing. There was no light, no sign at all of human habitation; they might as well have been Neolithic tribesmen praying to their gods for the coming of the dawn.

Their small talk was more mundane than ever, with none of the usual gibes or abrasiveness, as they all mentally prepared themselves for the discussion to come. Eventually Tom took out his hash tin and rolled himself a joint, which they all recognised as the signal that they were about to begin. Ruth suddenly looked like she was about to be sick.

“Over the last few days we have all done a remarkable job in avoiding the severity of the problem that faces us,” Tom began. “That’s understandable. It’s almost too monumental to consider. But let’s speak plainly now so we know exactly where we stand. Here in this circle we have the chance for ultimate victory in the enormous conflict that has enveloped us. And we face a personal, shattering defeat that will devastate us.” Church was surprised to hear the raw emotion in Tom’s words; the Rhymer had always pretended he cared little about any of them.

“What you’re saying,” Ruth said, her face pale but strong, “is that if I die, Balor dies, the Fomorii lose, we … humanity … wins. But if you’re overcome by sentimentalism and you can’t bring yourself to kill me, Balor will be reborn and everybody loses. And I get to die anyway, in the birth. That last point pretty much makes any debate unnecessary. Either way I die. So … we should get on with it as soon as possible.”

“Hang on a minute-” Veitch protested.

“Yes,” Church said. “I know you’d just love to be a martyr, but maybe we should see if there are any other options before we rush to slit your throat and bury you out on the moors.”

“I’m just letting you know I’m prepared,” Ruth said.

Shavi leaned forward. “The Tuatha De Danann, certainly at their highest level, seem almost omnipotent. Can we ask them to help us?”

“You didn’t see Dian Cecht.” The contempt in Church’s voice was clear. “The Fomorii are corrupting in their eyes, and Balor is the ultimate corruption. They’re not prepared to get their pristine hands dirty, even if they could do something.”

“They’re like a bunch of toffs telling the labourers what to do,” Veitch said venomously.

Laura had been watching Tom closely while the others spoke. He had been drawing on his joint, inspecting the hot ashes at the end, as if he wasn’t really listening. “You’ve got something in mind, haven’t you?”

Tom seemed not to hear her, either, but the others all turned to him. “The Tuatha De Danann will not be able to destroy Balor’s essence in its current form unless the medium for the rebirth is destroyed,” he began. “But, as Shavi said, their abilities are wide ranging. It is possible they may be able to do something to help. I’ve seen some of the wonders they can perform …” His voice faded; he bit his bottom lip.

“How are we going to get them to help us?” Church said. “They don’t want anything to do with anyone who’s been touched by the Fomorii.”

“I may be able to help.” Tom drew on the joint insistently; it was obviously no longer about enjoying the effect or using it for some kind of consciousnessraising-he was trying to anaesthetise himself. “You recall around the campfire in the Allen Gorge, Cormorel told me my Queen had returned to her court?”