Sky Wolves (25 page)

‘Let the Furies come!’ said Orion, now clearly visible in the murky water. ‘Let them do their worst! Nothing can be worse than this!’

‘For goodness’ sake!’ muttered Gentleman Jim, pacing up and down anxiously. ‘We’ve got to get him out of there. We’ve – Pico?’

Pico was slithering down the sides of the rocky drop towards Orion.

‘Pico!’ cried Gentleman Jim. ‘Pico, come back!’

‘Orion!’ called Pico. ‘I am coming to you!’

‘Oh, great,’ groaned Gentleman Jim.

There was another hateful shriek and he ventured a look upwards, then immediately wished he hadn’t. The Furies were circling above him and he could see their mask-like
faces, twisted by rage. Blood and venom dripped from their eyes and in their talons they held long whips.

Gentleman Jim felt his throat tighten so that his voice came out in a husky squeak. ‘If you felt like coming out and saving my life,’ he managed to call to Orion, ‘now might be a good time.’

Meanwhile, Pico landed in the water next to Orion with a loud
plop.
He surfaced, kicking furiously, and waited to be assailed by feelings of remorse and despair.

Nothing happened.

He paddled round to where Orion could see him.

Nothing happened some more.

‘What are you doing here?’ moaned Orion.

‘I have come to get you out,’ said Pico.

‘I cannot come out,’ said Orion. ‘I have been bad. Very, very bad.’

‘All the more reason to come out,’ said Pico, ‘and face your doom.’

Orion shifted in the water, turning his back on Pico. ‘No,’ he said sulkily. ‘Go away and leave me alone.’

Pico paddled again, until he was facing Orion once more.

‘I bet you haven’t been that bad,’ he said.

‘I have,’ said Orion.

‘Bet you haven’t,’ said Pico.

‘Yes, I have,’ said Orion. ‘What would you know about it?’

‘All right, then,’ said Pico. ‘What have you done?’

‘Look around you,’ Orion said. ‘Can you not see them all?’

Pico craned his neck. But he could see nothing apart
from the cliff walls, with Gentleman Jim’s anxious face peering over and the thousands of points of light that had followed them clustering behind.

‘I see nothing,’ he said. ‘What do you see?’

‘All the animals! The soul of every animal I ever killed! Hundreds and thousands of them! They have returned to haunt me now.’

Pico began to understand.
That’s
what the points of light were. He looked up and swallowed. They did seem to be clustering over the edge, looking down. And once Orion had remembered everything, he was seeing his whole life in a different, crueller light. He had thought he needed only to repent of his boast, but now he was seeing himself as the animals saw him. No wonder he was horrified, Pico thought.

‘But you were a hunter,’ he began.

Orion merely moaned and turned his face into the water. ‘Stop them looking at me,’ he groaned.

Far above them, Gentleman Jim cleared his throat.

‘Ahem,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you could get a move on, could you? The Furies are coming closer and it’s not a pretty sight. In fact, I don’t know when I’ve ever seen anything quite so hideous. Like a cross between your worst nightmare and a horrible accident. I’ve thrown up betterlooking things –’

‘How kind,’
said the nearest Fury, descending right next to him.

‘Now you listen to me,’ said Pico to Orion. ‘You may have done terrible things – but you were a hunter and it was in your nature to kill. Does the lion go around apologizing? Or the shark?’

‘Yes, but they’re only animals,’ said Orion.

Pico stared at him sternly. ‘I think you’ll find,’ he said, ‘that that attitude is what got you into this mess in the first place.’

‘Not nearly as bad when you get close up to them,’ called Gentleman Jim, as the second and third Furies descended. ‘Quite nice-looking really – in a certain light.’

‘I’d quit while I was ahead, if I were you,’
said the nearest Fury, in a voice that felt like fingernails on the blackboard of his soul.
‘And don’t look so worried. We don’t torture dogs.
’

‘Are you sure?’ said Gentleman Jim, unable to look at them.

‘Quite sure,’
hissed the second Fury, with the voice of a thousand snakes. ‘
Only humans suffer guilt and remorse. Animals aren’t nearly so much fun.
’

’That’s why your friend down there isn’t having any problem with the waters of memory and regret,’
commented the third, whose voice was like the slime on the river bed.
‘Only humans have the kind of conscience that enables us to torture them.’

‘And we will torture this one,’
said the first Fury, flapping her wings a little in glee. ‘
We will have fun with him for all eternity!
’

‘Oh dear,’ murmured Gentleman Jim. ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

‘So, if you don’t get me out,’ Pico was saying, ‘I shall stay here with you. And I will surely drown. And then you’ll have another death on your conscience.’

Orion looked at him wearily. ‘Why would you want to die for me?’ he said.

‘I don’t,’ said Pico. ‘I’d much rather you got me out.’

‘Or – i – on?,’
sang all the Furies, in hideously off-key voices.
‘Come to us!’

‘We’ll deal with them when we get to them,’ said Pico firmly. ‘Now – get me out.’

With a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of the water, Orion extended a hand towards Pico, cupped him and lifted him free of the water.

‘I shall save you, little dog,’ he said. ‘I shall leave the water and face my doom.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ said Pico encouragingly, as Orion started to climb, still muttering about how worthless he was and how he deserved only death.

Above them the Furies fluttered their wings, rising and falling in an ecstasy of anticipation.

‘Stand back,’ said Gentleman Jim. ‘Stand back and give him some room.’

It was hard work, climbing with only one hand, but at last Orion emerged, dripping, over the edge of the cliff, and he was still carrying Pico. The Furies gave a heart-stopping shriek.

‘
At last!
’ they cried with one awful voice. ‘
At last – you are ours! Come and take your punishment. You belong to us!
’

And they rose, flapping about his head and brandishing their whips.

‘Oh, no, he doesn’t,’ said Pico, as Orion merely stood shivering, with his head bowed. Anyone attacking Orion has to get past me first. I stand with him!’

‘Pico,’ began Gentleman Jim, as the Furies howled with laughter, but the little dog would not be silenced.

‘If you want to hurt him you must get past me,’ he repeated.

Gentleman Jim groaned aloud.

‘No, Pico,’ said Orion. ‘Save yourself. I have deserved my fate.’

He tried to put Pico down, but the small Chihuahua hung on.

‘No one can be abandoned to fate while they have one true friend,’ Pico said, realizing as he said it that it was true. ‘I am your friend – and so is Gentleman Jim. We stand together!’

Leave me out of it,
thought Gentleman Jim.

‘Stand with us!’ Pico cried to him. ‘Together we will face the worst they have to offer!’

‘Typical!’
snorted the nearest Fury.
‘Man has enslaved you, disposed of you, bred you into mutant runts -’

‘WOOF!’ said Pico.

‘Yet now you would stand by him – even to the horrid end. And believe me, my friends, your end will be horrid!
’

‘Gentleman Jim!’ called Pico, ignoring her. ‘Stand with us!’

The Furies cackled like fiendish hens.

‘Your lumbering friend has more sense,’
said one.

Now, it was true that Gentleman Jim had been backing away. He couldn’t see why he should have to die as part of the deal, and secretly he thought that Orion probably had deserved everything that was coming to him. He rather resented Pico’s assumption that they would all face the Furies’ cruel revenge together, yet he wasn’t about to stand by and be cackled at. Besides, he knew that he couldn’t leave Pico. And somewhere in the depths of his memory, he heard a bugle blowing – the immortal sound that every hunting dog recognizes – the call to fight.

Knowing that he would regret it, he plodded over to stand at Orion’s side.

‘I stand with them,’ he said, and for the first time Orion looked up.

‘My friends,’ he said, in a broken, humble voice, ‘I do not deserve you.’

‘Well, sisters,’
shrieked one of the Furies.

‘It is rather unorthodox,’
said another.

‘But if these foolish beasts are offering themselves up to an eternity of torment -’

‘Then who are we to stop them?’

And with a terrible anguished shriek they descended, their talons outstretched and their eyes dripping gore.

Galvanized, Orion raised his bow and began firing arrows at them in all directions as they batted around his head. This caused them to shriek some more, and to double the ferocity of their attack. Gentleman Jim leapt upwards, snarling and snapping, and was caught across the back with a whip. The pain burned fiercely, maddening him, so that he rolled over, howling. Then, in the next moment, Pico was swept to the ground by another whiplash. Orion stood alone, firing his arrows towards one Fury, while another descended on him from behind…

And at that exact moment Boris sank his teeth into Cerberus’s tail and the great dog bellowed from all three throats as he had never bellowed before.

Flo was falling at a speed that drove all the breath out of her body. Just before her eyes disappeared entirely into the back of her head, she glimpsed something advancing rapidly towards her. It looked like a small, horned woman with wings and a breastplate.

No,
Flo thought, before all her thoughts fizzled out.

But the small, horned woman was indeed there, and she continued to hurtle towards Flo.

‘Gotcha!’ she said, grasping Flo by the collar.

‘Ooommmph!’ said Flo, and ‘Glkk!’

Then the pressure on her neck lessened and she seemed to be floating lightly at the side of the small, horned lady, whose braided hair streamed behind her in the wind. In fact, they were still travelling at a considerable speed, but compared to the speed of plummeting to certain death, it felt gentle and slow.

Flo was sure that she had seen the small, horned lady who was holding on to her somewhere before, but only when she said, ‘Well done, Flo – you’ve stopped them swallowing the sun and moon, and put Ragnarok on hold for now. I knew you had it in you,’ did Flo recognize her, and gasp in disbelief.

‘Aunty Dot?’ she ventured, hardly believing her eyes.

‘That’s one of my names,’ said the short, stout lady briskly.

Flo felt too dazed to speak for a moment.

‘But Fenrir,’ she managed to say, ‘and the sun –’

‘Well, it
is
a long way off,’ said Aunty Dot. ‘It’ll take him a while to get there. Just about enough time for us to descend into Hades.’

‘Wh-what?’ said Flo. ‘Where?’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Aunty Dot. ‘You’ll be quite safe with me. We’ve just got to give the others a bit of a helping hand, that’s all. Now, where were we?’

Flo hadn’t a clue.

‘Ah, yes,’ continued Aunty Dot. ‘What I was going to say was – I am one of the three Norns – Spinners of Destiny. Or at least I am in one world. In the world we’re about to enter, I’m one of the three Fates. Same job really, bit more thread. Whereas in your world, I’m simply one of Sam’s aunties. See?’

‘No,’ said Flo.

‘You look confused,’ Aunty Dot said kindly, and even in her dazed state, Flo thought this was a bit of an understatement. ‘It
is
terribly confusing when the worlds collide,’ Aunty Dot went on. ‘But do you mind if I explain it as we go? There really isn’t much time.’

Flo nodded, then shook her head. She wished that her thoughts would assemble themselves into some kind of order. It was such a long time since anything had made sense.

‘Now we’re descending into a different world,’ Aunty Dot said, and Flo didn’t even try to understand. ‘I expect
you’re wondering what’s going on.’

Flo blinked. She had given up wondering altogether.

‘We’re about to descend into the underworld. There’s nothing to worry about, really – I just need to reunite you with your friends. All those wolves you just met will be falling to your earth and chaos will ensue. I’ve got to get everyone back up there and ready to fight.’

‘F-fight?’ said Flo.

She was about to explain that fighting was not something she did, when Aunty Dot cried, ‘There we are!’

Flo looked down.

Below them the earth seemed to be seething into a mass of darkness.

‘There’s Hades now,’ said Aunty Dot cheerily. Then she said suddenly, ‘Hark!’

Flo harked. There was the eerie sound of a cock crowing.

‘The second cock of Ragnarok,’ said Aunty Dot in hushed tones. ‘That’s not good. That means Hel and her minions can still burst out of the abyss. And she won’t be happy, now that her wolves have failed to swallow the sun and moon. We’d better get a move on. We need Orion to blow his horn.’

And before Flo could ask any questions, they were hurtling forward once more at a mind-numbing speed.

‘If you’ll excuse me,’ yelled Aunty Dot above the noise of rushing air, ‘I’ll have to change.’

‘Change?’ echoed Flo, as before her eyes Aunty Dot started to expand. She burst out of her armour, which changed into flowing white robes, and tendrils of grey hair flew around her head like snakes.

‘You don’t mind, do you, dear?’ she said in an ancient, creaking voice. ‘Different world, you see.’

Flo felt that she wouldn’t know how to mind anything any more. She
thought
she recognized this new apparition as one of the three hags she had seen in the mirror, but she no longer trusted anything that her brain was telling her. They hit a wall of noise, as though the universe had just fired a shot, and Flo felt simultaneously that she had been turned inside out, then immediately they began plunging into the heart of darkness.