The tall figure strode across the clearing now, reflections from the silver hat flickering across the trees, and picked up a long blackthorn staff. The wood was gnarled and highly polished from constant handling over the years. He held it above his head.
" The three black circles are complete," he called to the forest. "I hold the sacred blackwood scepter. We are protected from you, Serthrek'nish!"
An angry snarl resonated through the trees in answer. On the southern side of the clearing, the side they had approached from, there was a sudden glare of red light as something flashed between the trees. Then it came again, closer this time, circling the clearing as it moved to the west.
Malkallam backed away from the trees toward the fire in the center of the clearing. Will looked around at the others. In their circle, Trobar and the Skandians were wide eyed and staring, their eyes searching the trees for the next sign of light or movement. MacHaddish was the same. Will glanced at Malkallam and saw that he was watching MacHaddish carefully. Once he was assured that the Scotti's attention was distracted, he reached into his cloak and took a small package from an inner pocket. Moving closer to the fire, he dropped the packet into the embers at its edge.
There was another flash of red in the trees, moving to the northwest side of the clearing now. Then, at the spot where it disappeared, a thin curtain of fog began to rise from the ground, just inside the tree line.
Malkallam began to back away again, moving toward the huddled figure of MacHaddish.
"Stay back, Serthrek'nish!" he called. "The flames of fire and the circles of power forbid you to enter this clearing!"
Even as he said it, there was a sudden flare of red from the fire itself. A red flash leapt from the flames, followed by a thick red mist that bloomed up from the side of the fire – right at the point, Will realized, where Malkallam had tossed the small packet only a few seconds before.
The Skandians, Trobar and MacHaddish all cried out in shock. A little belatedly, Will and Horace added their voices to the reaction. Then, as the strange red mist spread over the fire, the flames began to dwindle, as if being smothered. The clearing grew darker as the flames died down. Malkallam's tall figure threw a distorted, elongated shadow across the ground and the trees seemed to press in closer to them.
"Gorlog's claws!" shouted one of the Skandians. "What the devil is that?"
Everyone followed the direction of his pointing arm. In the bank of fog that was rising among the trees to the north, they saw a sudden red flare of light.
But this was more than just light. This was the shape of a terrible face, looming through the mist. It was there for an instant and then gone, but it was indelibly printed on their memories. A triangular face, with hollow, slanted eyeholes and a leering black mouth set with long, canine fangs. Wild tendrils of beard covered the chin, and the hair was a red mass of tangles, with two curved horns visible through them.
Then it was gone and a shattering laugh split the night. The laugh ran around the circle of trees that surrounded them, and their eyes followed its movement involuntarily.
Then, high in the sky above the clearing, the face reappeared, this time glowing as if lit by an inner light. It swooped low, then soared across the clearing, climbing back into the trees and seeming to explode and disappear in a shower of sparks that left the darkness even blacker as they died away.
Malkallam had recoiled as the apparition swooped low overhead, then tried unsuccessfully to strike at it with his blackthorn staff. He staggered and dropped to his knees. Then, maintaining his hold on the staff, he pointed to the fog bank again, where the horrible grinning face had appeared once more.
"Go, Serthrek'nish! I forbid you entry! Go!"
The face disappeared again, and the watchers cried out in terror as a new apparition formed. Black and shimmering in the fog – or rather, Will realized, on the fog – a huge figure took shape: Massively built, wearing a huge horned helmet and holding a jagged-edged ax, it towered above them for a second, then faded to nothing.
The Night Warrior, Will realized. He had seen the dreadful figure the first time he had ventured into Grimsdell Wood, and it had terrified him. A few days later, Alyss had discovered it was nothing more than an illusion, using fake lights and a magic lantern projector, created by Malcolm to scare away intruders.
The fire was nothing but a small pile of coals now. Malkallam rose unsteadily to his feet. He pointed the black staff, threatening the trees that encircled them.
"Stay back, I warn you!" he called. But now a series of red flashes and flares ran through the trees, circling the clearing, throwing huge, twisted shadows across the small open space, shadows that were there and then gone in an instant. And as this happened, they heard Serthrek'nish speak for the first time, his voice deep, resonant and blood-chilling.
" The flames have died. The power of the circles is weak. I will have the blood of one of you."
One of the Skandians went to rise, battleax ready in his hand, but Malkallam's outstretched hand stopped him before he had gone above a crouch.
"Stay where you are, you fool!" his voice cracked like a whip. "He says he wants one and one only. He can have the Scotti."
"No-o-o-o-o-o!" MacHaddish's cry was high-pitched and agonized. To the Skandians, the demonic red face was a terrifying apparition. But to MacHaddish, it lay at the very heart of terror. It was the basis of all fear for Scottis, instilled in them when they were children. The flesh eater, the renderer, the tearer of limbs – Serthrek'nish was all these things and more. It was the demon, the ultimate evil in Scotti superstition. Serthrek'nish didn't just kill his victims. He stole their souls and their very being, feeding on them to make himself stronger. If Serthrek'nish had your soul, there was no hereafter, no peace at the end of the long mountain road.
And there was no memory of the victim either, for if a person were taken by Serthrek'nish, his family were compelled to expunge all memory of him from their minds.
With Malkallam's words, MacHaddish knew he was not facing just a terrible death. He was facing a forever of nothing. He looked up now into the implacable face as the wizard stepped toward him.
"No," he pleaded. "Please. Spare me this."
But the blackthorn rod had moved out and begun to scrub an opening in the circle of black powder that surrounded
MacHaddish.
Frantically, MacHaddish tried to restore it, pushing the powder back into place with his hand, but his efforts only succeeded in widening the gap. His breath sobbed in his throat, and tears of abject terror scored a path through the blue paint on his face.
Then the face reappeared in the mist, seeming to be more clearly defined now. It flickered, faded and disappeared again.
MacHaddish looked up at the wizard's painted face. All traces of the proud, unbending Scotti general were gone now.
"Please?" he said. And the staff stopped its work.
Malkallam paused. "No," he said impassively.
MacHaddish, already on his knees, now bent forward until his forehead touched the ground – making sure that he remained within the circle, Will noted.
"I'll give you anything," he said. "Anything you ask. Just keep the demon away."
Malkallam's staff moved toward the thin black line once more, touching it, stirring the grains of black powder that marked it out, slowly separating them, deliberately working to form a breach in the circle. The general watched the tip of the staff at work, watched his safe haven slowly being scraped away.