“—forty-six,” said Darwin.
“—your age, to undergo exertion on the fell, at night? You are not so young, and the effort will be great. You are not—lissom; and it—”
“I’m fat,” said Darwin. “I regard that as healthy. Good food wards off disease. This world has a simple rule: eat or be eaten. I am not thin, and less agile than a younger man, but I have a sound constitution, and no ailment but a persistent gout. Jacob and I will have no problem.”
“Colonel Pole also?”
“Try and stop him. Right, Jacob? He’s been lusting to get up on that fell, ever since he heard the magic word ‘treasure,’ back in Lichfield. Like a youth, ready to mount his first—er—horse.”
“I’ve noticed that,” said Anna Thaxton. She smiled at Darwin. “And thank you, Doctor, for tempering your simile for a lady’s ears. Now, if your mind is set on Cross Fell tonight, you will need provisions. What should they be?”
Darwin bowed his head, and smiled his ruined smile. “I have always observed, Mrs. Thaxton, that in practical decision-making, men cannot compare with women. We will need food, shielded lamps, warm blankets, and tinder and flint.”
“No weapons, or crucifix?” asked Richard Thaxton.
“Weapons, on Cross Fell at night, would offer more danger to us than to anyone else. As for the crucifix, it has been my experience that it has great influence—on those who are already convinced of its powers. Now, where on the fell should we take up our position?”
“If you are going,” said Thaxton suddenly, “then I will go with you. I could not let you wander the fell, alone.”
“No. You must stay here. I do not think that we will need help, but if I am wrong we rely on you to summon and lead it. Remain here with Anna. We will signal you—three lantern flashes from us will be a call for help, four a sign that all is well. Now, where should we position ourselves? Out of sight, but close to the lights you saw.”
“Come to the window,” said Anna Thaxton. “See where the spur juts out, like the beak of an eagle? That is your best waiting point. The lights show close there, when the fiends of the fell appear. They return there, before dawn. You will not be able to see the actual point of their appearance from the spur. Keep a watch on our bedroom. I will show a light there if the fiends appear. When that happens, skirt the spur, following westward. After a quarter of a mile or so the lights on the fell should be visible to you.”
As she was speaking, the sound of the dinner gong rang through the house.
“I hope,” she continued, “that you will be able to eat something, although I know you must be conscious of the labors and excitement of the coming night.”
Erasmus Darwin regarded her with astonishment. “Something? Mrs. Thaxton, I have awaited the dinner bell for the past hour, with the liveliest anticipation. I am famished. Pray, lead the way. We can discuss our preparations further while we dine.”
“We should have brought a timepiece with us, Erasmus. I wonder what the time is. We must have been here three or four hours already.”
“A little after midnight, if the moon is keeping to her usual schedule. Are you warm enough?”
“Not too bad. Thank God for these blankets. It’s colder than a witch’s tit up here. How much longer? Suppose they don’t put in an appearance at all? Or the weather changes! It’s already beginning to cloud up a little.”
“Then we’ll have struggled up here and been half frozen for nothing. We could never track them with no moon. We’d kill ourselves, walking the fell blind.”
The two men were squatted on the hillside, facing southwest toward Heartsease.
They were swaddled in heavy woollen blankets, and their exhaled breath rose white before them. In the moonlight they could clearly see the village of Milburn, far below, etched in black and silver. The Thaxton house stood apart from the rest, lamps showing in the lower rooms but completely dark above. Between Darwin and Pole sat two shielded oil lanterns. Unless the side shutters were unhooked and opened, the lanterns were visible only from directly above.
“It’s a good thing we can see the house without needing any sort of spyglass,” said Pole, slipping his brass brandy flask back into his coat after a substantial swig. “Holding it steady for a long time when it’s as cold as this would be no joke. If there are fiends living up here, they’ll need a fair stock of Hell-fire with them, just to keep from freezing. Damn those clouds.”
He looked up again at the moon, showing now through broken streaks of cover. As he did so, he felt Darwin’s touch on his arm.
“There it is, Jacob!” he breathed. “In the bedroom. Now, watch for the signal.”
They waited, tense and alert, as the light in the window dimmed, returned, and dimmed again. After a longer absence, it came back once more, then remained bright.
“In the usual place, where Anna hoped they might be,” said Darwin. “Show our lantern, to let Thaxton know we’ve understood their signal. Then let’s be off, while the moon lights the way.”
The path skirting the tor was narrow and rocky, picked out precariously between steep screes and jagged outcroppings. Moving cautiously and quietly, they tried to watch both their footing and the fell ahead of them. Jacob Pole, leading the way, suddenly stopped.
“There they are,” he said softly.
Three hundred yards ahead, where the rolling cloud bank of the Helm dipped lower to meet the broken slope of the scarp face, four yellow torches flickered and bobbed. Close to each one, bigger and more diffuse, moved a blue-green phosphorescent glow.
The two men edged closer. The blue-green glow gradually resolved itself to squat, misshapen forms, humanoid but strangely incomplete. “Erasmus,” whispered Jacob. “They are headless!”
“I think not,” came the soft answer. “Watch closely, when the torches are close to their bodies. You can see that the torch light reflects from their heads—but there is no blue light shining there. Their bodies alone are outlined by it.” As he spoke, a despairing animal scream echoed over the fell. Jacob Pole gripped Darwin’s arm fiercely.
“Sheep,” said Darwin tersely. “Throat cut. That bubbling cry is blood in the windpipe. Keep moving toward them, Jacob. I want to get a good look at them.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Pole again began to move slowly forward. But now the lights were retreating steadily uphill, back toward the shrouding cloud bank of the Helm.
“Faster, Jacob. We’ve got to keep them in sight and be close to them before they go into the cloud. The light from their torches won’t carry more than a few yards in that.”
Darwin’s weight was beginning to take its toll. He fell behind, puffing and grunting, as Pole’s lanky figure loped rapidly ahead, around the tor and up the steep slope. He paused once and looked about him, then was off uphill again, into the moving fog at the edge of the Helm. Darwin, arriving at last at the same spot, could see no sign of him. Chest heaving, he stopped to catch his breath.
“It’s no good.” Pole’s voice came like a disembodied spirit, over from the left of the hillside. A second later he suddenly emerged from the cloud bank. “They vanished into thin air, right about here. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I can’t understand how they could have gone so fast. The cloud isn’t so thick here. Maybe they can turn to air.”
Darwin sat down heavily on a flat-topped rock. “More likely they snuffed their torches.”
“But then I’d still have seen the body-glow.”
“So let’s risk the use of the lanterns, and have a good look around here. There should be some trace of them. It’s a long way back to Heartsease, and I don’t fancy this climb again tomorrow night.”