Dodinal raced through the forest, shield over his shoulder, sword in its sheath, running with barely a sound, even though the ancient trees’ life-lights were too dim to guide him and the moon had created a realm of shadows whose secret paths would remain closed to those who lacked the art to find them. Not once did he stumble nor slow to search for the way. He was most at home in the forest. Any forest.
When the sun had set and the moon had risen, the cries of the creatures had become more subdued, spurring him on. There was an almost tangible feeling of anticipation in the air. Visions of murder, of ritual sacrifice, filled his head, and he had to quell the fury that burned inside him. Until he found the boy and established what he was up against, he had to keep his head clear.
The cave gaped at him like a toothless mouth as he sprinted past it. He had a feeling of time running out, and Owain’s life with it. The screeching sounded like it was growing louder again, and for one heart-quickening moment he feared he was too late. Despair turned to hope when he realised it was louder because he was getting closer to them.
The ground sloped upwards, and Dodinal slowed to a fast walk. The cliff was to his left, the deep forest to his right. The trees around him thinned out, and he cut eastwards until the denser woods closed in, shielding him from any watchful eyes. He ran on, reaching the edge of a steep hill.
Beyond the rise was where he would find the boy, he was sure of it. The noise was piercing, almost unbearable, a calamity of howling and yelping and screaming, as if every lunatic that ever lived had somehow ended up in this place of lost souls. It disorientated him, made him feel vulnerable. He spun around, braced in readiness for the horde of creatures he imagined stealing up on him.
The forest was deserted all around him.
He leaned against a tree while his nerves steadied. Once, he would not have bothered. Once, he would have charged straight in, seeing the Saxons as nothing but meat for his sword. He had been younger then and faster with it. Even now — when his bones felt the cold like never before and his muscles grew stiff if he pushed his body too hard — even now, the rage gave him a strength and an animal ferocity that no man could hope to match. But he was not just there to kill. He was there to save a child’s life or to surrender his own trying.
He ran at a crouch, stopping just short of the crest of the hill, where he got down on his belly and lay flat, using his elbows and knees to cover the last few yards. He edged forward until he could look down, the moonlight bright enough to leave nothing unseen.
The ground curved away on both sides of where he lay, sloping down to a deep, narrow bowl; he could have comfortably cast a spear to the opposite side. It might have been natural, a small lake whose waters had long ago run dry, or the hollowed-out remains of ancient stone workings. Forest debris littered the floor. Trees huddled around the lower edge of it, even more decrepit than those in the forest overlooking them. Their branches, bereft of green, seethed with a constant frenzy of motion; creatures, though nothing like as big as those that had attacked the village. These were as stunted as the trees they infested.
Scores of them crawled along or leapt between the branches. Two tumbled to the ground, where they rolled and thrashed about. But they were not fighting. No bigger than children, Dodinal thought, sickened, and already they were rutting.
Halfway across the depression from him was a squat slab of rock, pale as bone in the lunar glow, the cliff a solid wall behind it. Owain was bound to the rock, with vines tied tautly across his chest and waist and holding his arms and legs outstretched. At first, amidst the shifting shadows, Dodinal could not tell whether the boy was moving. While he watched, Owain lifted his head as though he could somehow see Dodinal hiding in the darkness.
He drew back carefully from the edge until the trees concealed him, dry, brittle undergrowth cracking under his weight as he moved. Once out of sight he sat with his back against an oak with his chin cupped in one hand. If he made a move for the boy, the creatures would see him. Assuming the young were anything like the adults, they would attack without hesitation. Dodinal was confident he could fight them off, but less certain he could keep the boy safe from harm as he did so. What he needed was a distraction.
He shifted position in a wasted attempt to get comfortable on the hard ground, and Owain’s pouch bumped lightly against his chest. His hand closed around it. At once, his mind was back in the village, in Rhiannon’s hut, that evening when Owain had proudly displayed his father’s belongings for him to see. Dodinal lifted the pouch over his head, opened it, tipped its contents into his hand.
He grinned when he found what he was looking for. He would have his distraction.
He returned everything except the flint and steel, and their cushion of bark kindling, and tied the pack around his neck once more. That done, he ripped up a clump of bracken, screwed it into a small nest and placed the kindling inside it, then rested it against the base of the oak and worked flint and steel until the sparks brought forth a tiny flame.
Dodinal cupped his hands around the nest and gently blew until it ignited. Then he grabbed more handfuls of bracken and placed them carefully on the fledgling fire, anxious not to smother it. The bracken immediately started to burn, smoke rising from the flames. He nodded.
Using the trees for concealment, he worked his way around the edge of the depression. He had to get as close as he could to Owain before making his move. He smelled the smoke, and wondered how long it would be before the creatures smelled it too. Hopefully they would panic and flee.
The smoke was visible by the time he was close enough to look down directly onto the slab. It spiralled into the night sky, gusting across the moon. Yet the creatures seemed oblivious to it. Dodinal gnawed his lip. Surely they were not so distracted by their rutting and rollicking that it had escaped their attention.
Then it struck him. If the creatures were unaware of the smoke, with luck they would remain unaware of him if he went down to the slab. He could be there and back with Owain before they noticed the child was gone. It was risky, but he would have to act sooner or later anyway. Better now, when there were no adults around. Decision made, he did not waver. He drew his sword and ran at a crouch until he reached the edge and scrambled down it.
The slab was as high as Dodinal’s waist. Owain twisted his head to watch him as he approached. The knight’s boots kicked against fallen branches, and he glanced down, recoiling in disgust. Not branches. Bones. Skulls. Unmistakeable in the moonlight. The ground was littered with them. Despite his haste he crouched to take a closer look. All of them were small. Some were clearly human. Others were malformed. So the creatures killed and ate their own young as well as the children they stole. Outrage flared within him.
Whatever happened, he would not fail Owain, even if that meant taking his life painlessly before the creatures could snuff it out with cruel savagery.
The creatures had forced a cloth into the boy’s mouth, unaware there would be no cries to smother. Dodinal did not waste time with words or reassurance. As soon as he was close enough he slashed through the vines around Owain’s waist and chest, working as quickly as he could.
The blade parted the vines securing Owain’s right arm and leg, and Dodinal hurried around the slab. The air was cool, but he was sweating hard. He wiped his hands on his tunic, and then went to cut the vine holding Owain’s left arm fast.
A screech blasted out, louder and shriller than the rest, and the forest went silent.
Dodinal spun around.
The creatures were motionless, frozen in place, their heads all turned his way. He could see the moonlight reflected in their eyes as they watched him. Smoke drifted across his vision. They must finally have scented it and, looking for its source, had seen him. What he had intended as a distraction had given him away.
He raised the sword to cut through the last of the bindings. Owain might survive in the forest, or he might not, but at least he would have a chance, where he would have no chance at all trapped in the midst of a battle. They would tear him to pieces.
There was not enough time. As one, the creatures shrieked and leapt down from the trees, sweeping across the depression towards him.
“Try to undo the knots,” he bellowed at Owain, then turned and faced the tide that was about to engulf him. He ran from the slab to lead them away from the boy, then stood his ground, sword raised. The red mist swam up, and his heart pounded with exhilaration. He could feel the blood rushing through his veins.
Clawed feet made a noise like rain on a roof as the child-creatures streamed across the depression. What they lacked in size they made up for in ferocity, mouths snarling and revealing rows of vicious teeth. Dodinal waded into them, slamming his shield into skulls and bodies, relishing the feel of bone crunching and breaking with every blow.
He wielded the sword wildly and to devastating effect, parting limbs from torsos and heads from necks until the ground was soaked with blood. More creatures surged towards him and he slammed them out of his way with the shield and skewered them with the blade. Though the size of children, they were anything but. He showed no mercy.
They came at him from every direction. Dodinal wheeled and struck, turned and struck again, bodies heaping at his feet. His boots crushed the twitching corpses as he drove forward. One of the creatures got close enough to leap at him and his sword met it in mid-air, cleaving it in two. The thing’s entrails unravelled like a banner as its bloody halves fell to ground. Another slipped through his defences, crawling along until it could sink its claws into his ankle. Dodinal barely felt the pain. He rammed the sword down through the back of its deformed skull until the grip on his ankle went slack, and then stepped away and kicked it from him.
They grew wary and kept their distance. A few darted towards him, but fell back before he had the chance to turn the blade on them. They were trying to force him back into the bank, leaving him nowhere to go. If he turned around, he would find more of them at the top of the bowl, waiting to swoop down on him the moment he was trapped. He bared his teeth. Let them try.
He went on the offensive, suddenly lunging forward as two of the creatures came at him, swinging the sword with such brutal force that the blade sliced clean through them both. The rest turned tail and fled, regrouping half a dozen strides away, crouching on all fours, hissing and spitting in fury.
A sudden weight on his back nearly knocked him off balance, and he felt sharp claws digging into his shoulders. Shifting the sword to his left hand, he reached back with his right and grabbed the creature by the throat, squeezing hard. It thrashed wildly, fangs piercing his skin, and he squeezed harder until he had crushed its windpipe. The creature went limp, and Dodinal hurled its lifeless body into the trees.
He strode relentlessly towards the horde, blind anger giving him strength, the stink of their blood driving him on. There was no room in his head for conscious thought, or in his heart for compassion. Maybe half of them were dead, but he wanted them all dead, would not stop until he had cut the life from every last one of them.
They cowered and backed away, sensing his righteous fury, looking around urgently as though seeking a means of escape. One tried to rally the rest by letting out a howl and throwing itself at him, and he spun on his heel and slammed the flat of his shield into its face. It took a few faltering steps back, and Dodinal thrust the sword deep into its eye. The creature went stiff as he pulled the blade free, dead before it hit the ground.
And then the earth shook.
Dodinal felt it tremble under his boots.
It shook again, as if struck a massive blow.
None of the creatures moved. They were no longer looking at him. Their heads were turned, gazing intensely up the bank towards the unknowable dark of the forest. Dodinal swallowed hard.
Another percussive blow, which rattled his teeth and shook his bones, followed by a great splintering, tearing and crashing. It sounded like the trees were being torn up by their roots.
Something was coming. Dodinal edged towards Owain. He had no idea what it was. Surely there was no creature on earth capable of making the earth shake in such a way. Whatever it was, he wanted the child out of the way before it got any closer.
The ground convulsed. Trees swayed and groaned.
Dodinal cut through the vine that held the boy’s foot.
A dark, monstrous shape emerged from the forest with a great clattering of branches, and came to a shuddering halt at the depression’s edge. He saw it well enough in the moonlight to know it was bigger than any living thing he had ever set eyes on before. He cast out his senses and immediately recoiled. What they had touched was ancient and cold, not malevolent but uncaring, like nature itself. Dodinal had sensed it before. It had unnerved him then. Now, when it was almost close enough to spit on, its presence was like fuel on the flames of his anger.
It was unnatural, an abomination, just like the creatures. This was what must have sent them out to steal the children. Judging from the bones on the ground, it had an insatiable taste for human young.
Now the adults swooped into sight, dropping from the trees near the beast and scurrying down the bank ahead of it. There were eight of them, one was badly burned. Another was much smaller, presumably drawn from the ranks of the young to make up for the absence of the adult he and Gerwyn had slain.
They could not have missed Dodinal, his back to the slab only yards from them, yet they paid him no attention. Instead, they waited behind the cowering young, their heads bowed. The forest was as silent as the church where Dodinal had often sought peace.
He frowned. A church…
Understanding struck him like a physical blow.
Whatever it was, these twisted creatures worshipped it.
It was their god. And they had brought it sacrifices.
The monstrous shape juddered; Dodinal saw movement in the darkness around it and had the impression of a long thin neck raised skywards so the beast could peer down at him and the boy. Then, moving slowly and carefully, it lowered itself into the depression, earth and rock cascading as the bank gave way under its weight. With each thunderous step, the very world seemed to tremble. Visions of giants filled Dodinal’s head again, but he shook them off. This was no giant, no mythical beast out of a child’s story.
Whatever it was, it was real.
It stepped beyond the shadow of the forest, into the moonlight.
Dodinal saw it clearly, but he did not believe what he saw.
Its body was that of a leopard, the haunches those of a lion, and the feet a hart’s. It had a serpent’s neck and head, which swayed in time with its leonine tail as it lumbered across the ground, passing the assembled throng of creatures watching its every move. Dodinal stepped cautiously away as it came to a juddering halt before him, his mind struggling to comprehend what he saw. It beggared belief. It challenged everything he had ever known. There was man and there was nature, nothing else. Yet here, standing within touching distance, was living proof that there was something else.
Sir Palomides, the Saracen, had often spoken of such a creature. The Questing Beast,12 he had named it, and dedicated his life to hunting it down. Camelot’s knights, Dodinal amongst them, had humoured him and wished him well, but between themselves had dismissed it as a fool’s errand. Such a chimera could be found nowhere but the realm of myth. If it existed, they argued, why had it not been found?
The beast lowered its sinuous neck and thrust it towards him, its mouth opened wide and its forked tongue flicked out. A sound like the baying of three score hounds poured forth from its belly. Dodinal flinched, remembering the old man’s story. The baying of hounds that long-ago summer had been the harbinger of disaster.
He continued to step away, moving slowly, until he felt the hard edge of the slab press into his back. There he stood, raised to his full height. He held the sword with both hands at chest height, the blade raised to the stars. To reach the child the beast would first have to get past him, and he would cut its head from its body.
The Questing Beast roared again but did not move. What was it waiting for? Dodinal was torn by indecision. Part of him wanted to stand his ground. Another felt compelled to attack.
The adults moved before he could, fanning out around the young, yelping and barking in what Dodinal now recognised was a feeble attempt to emulate the voice of their god, trying to herd the child-creatures across to where Dodinal waited. The young shuffled and whined and cast anxious glances at each other, and at their siblings lying broken and bleeding on the ground.
Without warning, one of the adults broke away from the rest and loped towards the slab. The Questing Beast opened its mouth and again came that hideous baying. The gargoyle creature stumbled and looked around as though uncertain of its actions, then seemed to shrug off any misgivings and continued its headlong rush. At the last second it coiled and leapt over Dodinal, landing on the farthest edge of the slab. Dodinal spun around to face it, the Questing Beast and its horde of worshippers forgotten.
The creature turned to face its kin, and then bent and thrust a hand towards Owain’s chest.
Dodinal twisted and hurled the shield, clipping the thing’s skull and stunning it. Then he lashed out with the sword and took its arm off above the elbow. The creature howled and flung itself away from him, losing its footing and falling from the slab’s edge.
A furious shrieking filled the air as Dodinal slashed through the last of the bindings and lifted Owain away from the rock. The boy wrapped his arms so tightly around his neck that the knight could scarcely breathe. He tried to put him down and push him towards the bank, but Owain refused to let go.
Dodinal spun around. The Questing Beast had still not moved, but the creatures were closing in on him, the adults now leading the way, the young following tremulously behind them.
He could not fight them all.
Dodinal lifted the blade and rested the metal against Owain’s throat. It would be kinder this way, a mercy killing. The boy must have known what was going to happen, but didn’t flinch. He was brave, no doubt about that. His mother was right to be proud of him.
The creatures were almost within reach. Dodinal smelled their foul carrion breath as they yelped and howled.
He shook his head. He could not do it. Could not take an innocent life even if it was for the best. Very well, he would take out as many of them as he could and go down fighting. At least neither he nor the boy would die alone.
The creatures stumbled to a standstill and fell silent.
Their eyes, Dodinal saw, no longer reflected the moonlight, but swum with a rich amber glow.
Tall shadows danced on the cliff face as orange light bathed the bowl, casting the stunted trees into sharp relief. Now the creatures had ceased their shrieking and hollering, he could hear the rush of the wind through the branches. Smoke, dense and choking, gusted over him, over them all.
Dodinal turned his head. The trees were now pillars of fire, and the flames were spreading. Burning tendrils reached out across the dark spaces of the forest.
Dodinal could barely draw breath, between the smoke and the child around his neck, but laughed all the same.
He had wanted a distraction. Now he had one.
The creatures immediately turned away from him and Owain, scattering, running and leaping away from the flames, making for the trees and scrambling up into the branches. They vanished into the wood, the clamour of their panic-stricken flight carrying back after they had disappeared from sight, leaving man and boy alone. The Questing Beast was gone too. Dodinal frowned, confused. It could shake the earth with each step and yet he had not heard it leave.
He felt a sharp pain as Owain pulled hard on his beard and pointed over Dodinal’s shoulder. The knight turned to look and saw that the fire had almost completed a full circle of the closest trees surrounding them. If they did not move now they would be trapped and would suffocate, or burn to death.
Neither was any way to die.
Dodinal left the shield where he had thrown it and sheathed the sword. Holding Owain with both hands, he fled across the clearing, only just outrunning the flames as they closed the circle. Earth flew up under his boots as he scrambled up the bank and raced into the forest, neither knowing nor caring which way he was heading, as long as it was away from the fire. Blistering heat toasted his neck as the trees around him were engulfed. The sound of it snapped at his heels, crackling and roaring. Even the air his hungry lungs gulped down felt hot.
Dodinal looked sharply to his left and right as he ran. Everything was alight, from the undergrowth to the crowns of the trees. He had no choice but to keep pushing blindly forward. Ahead of him, a tree burst into flame as though struck by lighting and started to lean across his path. Holding Owain tightly, Dodinal drove himself on, sprinting under the tree at the very moment it crashed to the ground, a searing blast of air washing up his back. He stumbled, but managed to stay on his feet, letting go of Owain with one hand long enough to swipe embers from his hair before they could singe his scalp.
Smoke closed his throat. He began to cough, great hacking barks, and could not stop. His eyes swam with tears. He had no sense of direction, careering blindly towards the darkness, like a narrowing passage through the turbulent light. Sparks and burning debris landed and stung his face and hands.
Then he was tumbling into space. Owain slipped from his grasp, and Dodinal tensed, bracing for impact. Instead of hard ground, he felt the shock of cold water as the lake closed around him. A roaring filled his ears. Dodinal flailed around, swallowing water, not knowing which way was up and which was down.
Then his feet touched the bottom and he pushed hard. His head broke the surface, and he gasped and coughed and threw up water. Smoke swirled and boiled around him. The fire was a fierce glow, which had spread all along this side of the lake and was now encroaching on the other.
As he watched, still spitting out water, the tinder-dry forest succumbed to the inferno, the wind harrying the flames on their way. He imagined he saw movement within the trees, pictured the creatures trying in vain to escape as death closed around them.
“Owain,” he shouted, throat raw. He thought hard, trying to remember if he had still had hold of the boy when he hit the water. If not, he could still be on the bank. “Owain, where are you?”
The water was deep even a few yards out, rising to the top of his chest. He waded back towards the lakeside, calling all the way, straining for an answer, cursing himself for a fool when it occurred to him he would not get one even if Owain had heard.
A ball of fire burst out of the forest and hurtled towards the lake, wailing like something possessed. It hit the water with a hissing plume of steam. Before Dodinal could reach for his sword a head burst up through the surface right before him, its gargoyle face rendered uglier by fire. Most of the skin had been burned away, so it was little more than a skull. It lunged at Dodinal, mouth agape; he grabbed its jaws and wrenched them apart until they snapped, then broke its neck and tossed the body aside.
Something grabbed his arm. Dodinal spun around, hand raised to strike, staying the blow when he saw with relief it was Owain. The boy was struggling to tread water and shaking badly, from fear or cold or both. Dodinal lifted him up.
The fire had leapt from tree to tree, spreading not just around the edges of the lake but rampaging through the forest until the entire valley was ablaze, turning the walls of the mountains around it into a cauldron of shifting light and shadow. The searing brightness turned the night sky to dawn, driving back the moon and stars. The roar of the fire was a thousand times louder than that of the Questing Beast.
The choking smoke was bad enough, but there were other dangers. Windblown debris rained down around them, sizzling as it plunged into the water. It was cold, too. They would not survive in the lake for long, but neither could they climb out of it with the fire raging so close to the water’s edge. The safest course of action would be to strike out for the centre of the lake where there was less chance of being struck and where the air might be clearer.
But Dodinal was not a strong swimmer, and he suspected the boy was not either. They would drown before they froze to death. Then again they would suffocate or be roasted alive if they stayed here. The heat was almost unbearable. He had to take his chance in deep water. He turned his back on the forest and forced his way out into the lake, by now so cold that he could barely feel anything.
Owain’s fingers dug into his arm with surprising strength, and Dodinal looked back sharply. A tree, ablaze from root to crown, slowly toppled towards them, flames fanning behind it as it fell. There was no time to move out of its way. Holding his breath and clutching the boy as tightly as he could with numb fingers, he dived and kicked hard until he was flat on the lake’s weed-infested bed.
There was a flash of orange light, instantly snuffed out, and a percussive blow that sent him tumbling helplessly through the churning water. Somehow he managed to keep hold of Owain, and when the turbulence subsided, he pushed his feet hard against the bed. His head broke the surface and he lifted the boy clear, and they held each other while the fire raged around them and the lake glowed like molten copper.
He felt a bump against his shoulder: the remains of the tree, blackened but soaked through. It was too thin for them to sit on, but they could use it to get away from the fire without fear of drowning. “Here,” he said, lifting Owain towards it. “Hold on with both hands. When I tell you, start kicking.”
They made for the centre of the lake, Dodinal warming from the exertion. The eddying wind blew the smoke from the surface, and he and the boy could breathe easier. He decided they might just as well head south now, towards the mountain path, rather than wait for the fire to burn out.
They passed countless bodies on the way, bobbing facedown in the water around them. It seemed the creatures had never learned to swim. Dodinal watched the corpses float by with grim satisfaction.
The inferno took little time to consume itself. Old and dry, the trees burned fiercely and were soon spent. As the firelight dimmed, flickered and was extinguished, the wind dispersed the remaining smoke overhead and the moon and stars reappeared. Dodinal squinted towards the shore: even by moonlight, he could see that almost nothing of the forest remained.
He steered them shoreward. They waded out onto dry land, staying close to the waterline, warmed by the charred ruins as they walked. Embers peered like glowing eyes in the darkness. The smoke was fairly thick here, the acrid stench of it filling their nostrils. Dodinal cast wary glances around. It was almost beyond belief that anything could have survived, but not impossible. He and the boy were proof of that.
They reached the path without incident. He was both surprised and gladdened to find the girl Annwen waiting there. Owain seemed as pleased to see her as she was to see him. When asked, she admitted she had been too scared to try to escape the valley alone.
“I walked halfway up the path and then I hid behind a rock,” she said as the three of them sat close to the smouldering forest, making the most of its fading heat. “I was cold. When I saw the fire I hurried back down; I was worried about you, about both of you. When there was no sign of you, I was certain you had both perished. And then I saw you walking out of the smoke. It was like a miracle.”
Miracle. Not long ago Dodinal would immediately have dismissed such an idea as nonsense. Now he was not so certain.
It was certainly a stroke of good fortune that Owain’s little pouch of memories had included his father’s flint and steel, for Dodinal had carried nothing with him with which to start a fire. It was strange, he thought, how the world could turn on such small matters. If Owain had not wandered off into the snowbound forest in the first place, Dodinal would not have had to save him from the wolves, and he would never have encountered Rhiannon or her people, several of whom he had come to regard as friends.
“You’re sure no creature came by here?” he asked, for the third or fourth time. He had to be certain.
Annwen rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically. “I said no and I meant no. Do you think I would not have seen them?”
Dodinal raised a hand in apology.
They remained there for the night. Eventually the children slept, huddled together for warmth, and Dodinal stayed awake to watch over them. When the sky began to brighten, he stood and surveyed the valley. Where the forest had been was now a jumble of blackened stumps and twisted wood. Nothing moved. The lake was calm, its waters black and oily, dotted with scores of small shapes. Was it too much to hope the creatures had all perished, either by fire or by water? The pass was the only way in or out of the valley. Annwen had been insistent nothing had passed her.
A miracle? Perhaps.
The sun nudged over the mountains.
Dodinal gently shook the children awake.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s time we were heading home.”
12First appearing in Perlesvaus, the Questing Beast is the most famous monster of Arthurian legend. The name refers to the sound the creature makes; in Middle English, the barking of hunting dogs was sometimes known as questing. The Beast is commonly used as a symbol of incest and the breakdown of society, appearing to Arthur the morning after he slept with his half-sister, Morgause, and fathered his murderous bastard son, Mordred.