‘Over there,’ the man gasped. ‘Mirek. It grabbed Mirek. Dragged him off. Into the trees there. He was screaming.’
Haral’s face darkened and he pushed the man ur-gently in the direction he was pointing. They ran across the small clearing.
‘He was here,’ Bryn said. ‘Leaning against this tree. Then this… thing… appeared.’ His hands reached up as if to cover his ears. ‘He started screaming. And this thing picked him up like he was some kid’s toy and dragged him off… over there.
There were several men with them now, some with torches, some with swords and axes. They were all talking at once.
‘Shut up!’ Haral shouted as he moved in the direc-tion that Bryn had indicated. The sentry caught his arm. ‘No, Haral,’ he said. ‘It’s no use. He’s finished.’ He began to stammer. ‘He didn’t scream long after it’d taken him into the trees.’
Haral looked at him, his face a mixture of anger and alarm.
‘And it was big. Very big,’ Bryn went on, still grip-ping his arm. ‘You can’t go after it. Not at night.’
Haral stared into the darkness and then back at Bryn. The man was frightened, but he was no coward and he would not have stood idly by while a friend was killed. He glanced around at the growing crowd around him. ‘I told you to secure the perimeter,’ he said menacingly.
‘Against what?’ someone said.
Haral sent him staggering backwards with a single blow. The bulk of the crowd scattered to do Haral’s bidding.
Some of his anger thus released, Haral’s thoughts began to quieten. ‘What the devil was it, Bryn?’ he asked, tugging his arm free. ‘And what happened?’
The man gesticulated vaguely. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘We’d set up so we could see one another. But I didn’t see… it… coming. It must have come low through that undergrowth there, stalking on its belly… until…’ His voice faded.
‘Until?’ Haral prompted.
‘Until Mirek saw it,’ Bryn went on, licking his lips. ‘Then he screamed and…’ His arms shot forward. ‘It seemed to rise up for ever out of the ground.’ He made a grabbing movement with his clawed hands. ‘It was so fast.’ His hands twitched towards his ears again as if to cover them. ‘And he was screaming. Screaming when it grabbed him. Screaming when it dragged him off into the trees. Then it went quiet.’ He looked at Haral, his face drawn, and asked him his own question. ‘What in hell’s name was it?’ he said hoarsely.
Haral put a steadying hand on his shoulder. ‘You saw it,’ he said, bleakly. ‘How big was it? What did it look like? A dog? A bear? A boar, maybe? What?’
Bryn shook his head and held out his hand at waist height. ‘Like a big dog… probably,’ he said after a moment. He hesitated, frowning. ‘But like a cat, too, the way it moved. And it was strong. Very strong. It didn’t even falter when it picked Mirek up. Just like he was no weight at all. And he wasn’t little, was he?’
‘Is that all you saw?’
‘It was over too quickly, Haral. I only got a fleeting glimpse. A movement, then the screaming, then…’ Bryn grimaced. ‘I saw its teeth, though. Jaws like a mantrap.’
Haral peered into the darkness again as if still con-templating pursuing the creature. Bryn shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Believe me. Even if you manage to find it, it’ll be long too late for Mirek and it’ll kill you before you can raise your sword arm.’
‘What the devil kind of a creature could have done that?’ Haral muttered, half to himself.
‘The same as killed that horse,’ Bryn replied. ‘If anyone still wants to sleep, I think the rest of us had best double our guard and close in so we’re all visible.’
But no one wanted anything but vengeance and the recovery of Mirek when the initial turmoil and alarm had died down.
Haral struggled to beat down the anger that was rapidly gathering momentum. ‘No,’ he shouted. ‘Not in the dark. Whatever this thing is, it’s big, it’s strong, it hunts at night, it’s on its own territory and it’s not frightened of people. You want to go against it, you go on your own.’
There was some argument but, in the end, by a combination of reason and force of personality, Haral had his way.
‘As soon as the light breaks we’ll go, but not before,’ he said.
The rest of the night was eerie and fretful with the sound of restless sleepers and muttered debates as a double guard prowled the clearing.
Haral sat by the camp fire, his mood growing darker and more ominous as if in opposition to the approach-ing light of the dawn. One of the men snatched like a sparrow by a hawk. Battle chance was bad enough: a stray arrow, an unlucky sword stroke, a missed footing; but this was peculiarly unsupportable. His men as prey for some animal!
Something would die for it. Unafraid of people this creature might well be. But that was now. Tomorrow it would be a wiser animal by far before they killed it. And kill it they would, no matter how strong and fast it was.
Chapter 21
Daylight came reluctantly the following day, shoulder-ing its way through a grey, rain-filled sky. The camp, however, needed little rousing and the men emerged into the morning dampness grim-faced and purposeful as if the spirit of Haral’s vigil by the fire had passed to all of them.
Haral sent three riders back to the castle with the news of what had happened and of the intended hunt. ‘Keep together,’ was his sole injunction. He was going to say, ‘Tell Nilsson to expect this creature’s head for a trophy,’ but a frisson of superstition bubbled up to stop him.
The remainder of the group set off along the trail left by the creature. It was wide and conspicuous for some considerable distance, marked by crushed grass and broken branches, and then also by splashes of blood.
Soon the rain began again, steady and vertical at first and then whirling hither and thither as a strong breeze began to blow. Untypically, though, grumbling was minimal and the line of men, quietly leading their horses, moved on in almost complete silence.
The trail led them steadily upwards for quite a way, but it levelled off eventually, keeping well away from the edge of the forest. The wind grew stronger and such conversation as the men wished to have became almost impossible in the din of the waving branches above them.
Bryn moved forward alongside Haral. ‘Where do you think this thing could live?’ he shouted.
Haral shrugged. ‘If it’s as big as you say, it probably lives in a cave somewhere,’ he replied off-handedly. Then he frowned and stopped.
‘What’s the matter?’ Bryn asked.
‘Something’s wrong,’ Haral answered after a mo-ment, wiping the rain from his face. ‘This trail’s like a city road. A blind man could follow it. It hasn’t stopped once to…’ He hesitated. ‘To eat. In fact it doesn’t seem to have stopped anywhere, either to adjust its… load… or even to recover its breath.’
‘I told you it was strong,’ Bryn said. ‘Perhaps it’s female. Taking food back to its young.’
Haral’s frown deepened. It was not a happy thought. A female with young would be really dangerous. Still, however dangerous it was there were enough well-armed men here to deal with it. He let Bryn’s suggestion blow away in the noisy wind.
Then the trees began to close in on them, reducing the grey light to an eerie gloaming. With the wind angrily buffeting the canopy overhead but little or nothing blowing along the forest floor, Haral began to feel as if he were moving into some strange under-ground vault. The steady rain above reached them spasmodically, in large-dropped cascades which chilled and soaked whoever they struck.
The change made Haral uneasy.
He glanced back at his men. They were reflecting his own concern, peering intently into the surrounding gloom and instinctively closing ranks. He said nothing, but kept moving forward. There was very little under-growth here, but the leaf litter was thick and still showed quite clearly the careless passage of the animal.
The trees closed in further and became taller, heightening Haral’s impression that they were walking through the cellar of a great castle which soared high above them. The sound of the wind rattling the tops of the trees echoed down, but around them was only stillness.