Vampire in the Banyan Tree

The Bone Eaters

Hart and Aleron were forcing their way through what the crofters called 'sprackle', which is spinney wood, but having overgrown the vitality of the poor ground and died back, forming a hellish, thicket of dead branches and laid-over trunks, resinous and tough, with a little surf of still-green foliage above. It hadn't looked so bad going in, better than wading through chest-deep water, full of submerged objects, which had been their other option. Once it got bad, they thought they might as well keep pushing ahead as go back, on the hope there was less of it in front than behind. There wasn't.

Now, what was concerning Hart, as they strained their legs on the treacherous branches and force their tired bodies through a thousand catching, entangling loops, coughing and spitting out the resinous dust kicked up off the wood, was that the thickets were inclining, not toward open ground, but to fen, and would peter out on the edge of impassable marsh or open water. Having no better idea, they pressed on anyway. It soon became impossible to stay on the ground, the maddening criss-cross of spring-poles and detritus was too dense. Worse still, the branches above were wet, and the constant agitation showered them with cold droplets, keeping them damp and shivering. The mist was still thick. The sky was only a degree above grey, and the direction of sunrise could be discerned only just enough to keep their bearing, mostly, north-west.

Hart tried to switch off his thinking and merely endure, and gradually the sprackle began to break up, allowing them to walk in places, their squelching and mud-filled boots sinking in the muck between the thin trunks. They were both breathing heavily and the effort was, at least, warming them up and working off the stiffness. Hart's hangover headache was worse, however, a diamond-hard bolt of pain, transfixing the bones of his forehead. It seemed to be giving him double-vision, the highlights off the diffused light on the dew and branches seemed to be encircled with a faint corona. They were both miserably thirsty but dared not drink the marsh water. Not yet anyway.

         'There!' said Aleron suddenly and there was something in his voice. Hart looked up, through the clearing thicket, and saw that some sort of open space was ahead, brighter, vagued by mist.

Taking heart, they thrashed their way through the last of the rough and came out onto a flat. The ground seemed to be a carpet of low, green herbage, speckled with wild flowers, receding away into fog. Here and there, wide, almost perfectly round pools, seeming to be only a few inches of water over a bed of clean white sand, broke the green carpet. Some were a few dozen paces across, some no wider than a man height. In the nearest, a concentric ripple in their middle told of a subtle upwelling of water.

         'Quicks.' said Aleron.

         'Are these the ones?'

         'Must be. The path goes through the middle of them.'

         'Where's the path?'

         'In there somewhere' replied Aleron, waving at the pale field of mist into which the pools receded.

         'We're not going in there!' said Hart.

         'Of course not. We'll skirt around to the right, keeping to the spinny edge, and go around to where the causeway starts. We can't miss it.'

Hart was not sure about that. They still had no real idea where they were and these not need be -the ones Aleron's shortcut supposedly crossed, the swampland was full of them. For a country that barely kept its head above water in the best of circumstances, you'd think the last thing God needed to supply the kingdom with was more water. However, the swamp basin was riddled with regions of porous bedrock, up from which fresh springs bubbled. These often created a lethal suspension of water and sand, which could suck down a man or horse in a matter of minutes. The water in the quicks was fresh but, despite their thirst, neither of the two were foolish enough to try to get out to it. Around the springs, a crust of detritus and vegetation often formed, creeping in towards the middle, which created the appearance of the round pools. But it was merely a treacherous crust.

'Come on,' said Aleron, and they began to skirt their way around. It was much easier going. Sticking to the abrupt border between the spinney thicket and the flat, there was little clambering to be done. The mist continued to clear, and Hart thought he could see further, about a hundred paces. And now, a shape that could be - yes was - too regular to be natural. They exchanged glances but didn't speak, approaching quietly. The shape resolved itself into a small shed, of rough planks, leaning and much weathered, standing on the border of the thickets and the quicks. They crouched down behind some underbrush.

         'That's it. Got to be!' whispered Aleron, in triumph. 'And look, you can see the path, and the torch markers.

         'Why are we whispering?' whispered Hart, 'If the lantern man is there we'll just go talk to him.'

         'No. I told you. If Jaice catches us now, we'll just look like a couple of idiots who ran off and got lost in the marsh.'

         'Which isn't fair, since only one of us is.'

They crept up to the shed. The door was closed and they could not smell wood smoke or see a light. They tried to peer through the cracks in the rickety walls but could see little more than a narrow straw mattress, large jars of what might be lamp oil and associated squalid clutter. It was unoccupied.

         'He must be in the other one,' said Aleron. 'He said there were two shelters for the lamp-lighter, one on each side of the causeway.'

         'Who did? Who told you all this?'

         'Boll.'

         'What?'

         'He told me there was a shortcut my father used all the time when he came this way back to the capitol. They'd hunt along the dike and he and his party would stay at The Laughers. Then they'd cross by the track to Minnow Fett.'

         'Why would he help you risk your life in the middle of the night with such a stupid idea?'

         'I don't know, Hart!' said Aleron, 'Because he's a loyal subject? Because I told him to? Because I'm the prince of the whole fucking kingdom maybe?'

         'Alright!'

         'We found it anyway, stop complaining. The rest is easy,' said Aleron. 'Come on.'

The path was sandy. It had been built up above the level of the flats to form a shallow causeway. It snaked around. Sometimes it passed regions of more normal-looking, standing water, clear, lying over sandy beds, with grassy tussocks of green and stands of rushes here and there. The path was marked with poles at regular distances, each with a small, unlit lantern. In the daylight however, the path was clear enough to follow without them.

Aleron's spirits were now entirely restored and he moved along at a good pace, Hart trotting miserably to keep up. The mist was breaking a little now, rolling into banks in the freshening wind. Sometimes they passed through a denser patch, sometimes they could see the outlines of the spineys about the flat and see the featureless, overcast sky.

         'It's clearing!' said Aleron. 'Soon the sun will be up enough to burn it off. Like my royal father says, never be disheartened by dark clouds, for they soon give way to clear rain.'

Aleron never referred to his father just as 'father' it was always 'my royal father' or 'my lord father the king.' Hart noticed he tended to bring his absentee parent up when he was in buoyant mood or feeling vindicated. The rest of the time, he brooded on the subject in silence.

         'In the blood of nobility is the divine prerogative of command,' Aleron was saying, 'you don't understand because you're not a real prince. But my royal father says what most lower men see as privilege, those who are born to rule know to be the burden of duty, which God confers only upon the strong. He says, 'all chafe at rule, but when uproar and disorder menaces honest men, and war horns are sounded, which of them, then, would envy the crown?'

         'No one I guess' said Hart. 'Do you think this water looks clean enough to drink?'

         'Probably. I don't know.'

         'I'm going to risk it.'

The terrain here looked less dangerous, the tell-tale signs of the up-welling springs were not visible in the water's surface and the flat had become a network of shallow channels and pools on beds of sand. Still, Hart thought, as he crouched by the side of the track, he wouldn't want to chance it.

         'My royal father, the king-'

         'What's that?' interrupted Hart, sharply.

         'What?'

         'Shh!'

They listened in silence. Nothing. 'I thought I heard a flute' whispered Hart.

         'Who would be playing music out here?'

         'I- must have imagined it. Or maybe it was a bird. It was eerie.'

         'Are you going to try the water or what?'

Hart did. It seemed clean. He tried to control himself and not drink too much, but he was painfully thirsty.

         Anyway,' continued Aleron, 'He is sovereign, because nature wills it. Because he is wise and good. Because to the prince, is given the guidance of God, and the burden of leadership is not so heavy to he that has been bred to it from birth. You see what I mean?' he gestured about to the silent marsh and the causeway, wandering off into the mist. 'You were dubious about my plan, and many times lost heart, but in the end, I was right.'

Hart thought of the soft beds back at The Laughers, of sleeping in and late rising, of eggs and bacon, a slow start as others saddled and prepared their kit, then an easy ride to the river in congenial company. Instead, he was coated head-to-foot with marsh slime, tired, bruised and starving, still hung-over, missing his sword (which had been his favorite) and sitting by the side of a marsh track of indeterminate length, drinking water that would probably give him flukes. Hart decided he had heard enough about princely leadership and the divine providence from which it emanated.

         'You hate your father' he said, cutting his companion off mid-blather.

         'What?'

         'You heard me.'

         'You-' Aleron seemed too genuinely derailed to find the next word. For a moment his face was shocked into a simple and uncomplicated openness. 'You- take that back!'

Hart got up deliberately from the side of the track, wiped his hands and stood in front of his friend.

         'No' he said.

          'Well' said Aleron, his voice controlled but vibrating with rage, 'at least my father didn't swap me for a h-'

Hart tackled him. They went down, rolling and punching each other. 'I'll give you a fucking short cut!' yelled Hart, trying to get Aleron in a headlock, but the other drove his elbow into Hart's solar plexus and twisted fiercely, kicking his leg hard enough to throw him off-centre and buck him. Hart used the clearance to butt Aleron in the face, which hurt him as much as Aleron but set the other back enough that Hart could get one arm out of the pin and block the forearm. They rolled over and again, punching at the ribs with their free hands and trying to get leverage, nearly sliding down the shallow embankment into the water. Now Hart managed to get is arm around Aleron's and grasp the back of his neck. He brought his weight to bear, forcing the other's head down towards the sandy ground.

         'Eat dirt!'

         'No!'

         'Eat dirt and admit you were wrong!'

         'Never!'

Aleron got his knee under him, and with an ultimate exertion of strength, began to force himself up, lifting Hart off the ground as he struggled to stop Aleron getting enough clearance to roll him.

         'Wait!' said Aleron, suddenly, but Hart wasn't falling for that one again. 'Wait!' rasped Aleron, and this time Hart caught something in his tone that made him pause. In the panting silence, Hart heard the sound of hoof beats along the track behind them.

They sprung apart, sliding down the other side of the shallow embankment and lay down, behind the only cover available, a low growth of brushy herbage that ran intermittently along the base. They hugged the sand, their faces in the resinous undergrowth, their boots in water. Hart was sure they would be visible, especially by the vantage of horseback, but perhaps immobility and the mist would help. He craned his eyes up through the leaves, towards the oncoming riders. They must be upon them at any moment. 'I think they won't see us if we - agh!' Aleron had kicked him hard and painfully in the left buttock.

         'That's for trying to make me eat dirt' he hissed and a second later mounted riders appeared, galloping up the causeway. They were instantly recognisable as three of their bodyguard, Jaice's men, Hulgenaut, Bosk and Pickter. As they passed, any one of them could have glanced down and noticed a boot or shoulder visible above the scanty cover, but their eyes were on the track. Probably they were too nervous of the narrow causeway - not the safest thing to gallop in mist - to properly scan the roadside, or maybe the two fugitives were so caked with drying mud and slime that they were effectively camouflaged.

Hart and Aleron looked up from their cover, as the riders passed them and receded into fog. It struck Hart, again, how ridiculous it was that they were hiding from men sworn to protect them, but it was futile to point that out to his companion, who was staring after the departing riders with a look of glee and triumph on his face. Aleron opened his mouth to speak and, suddenly, there was a crash of metal, a man screamed, as if in terror, then, abruptly, silence.

For an instant, Hart thought he'd been struck deaf for his sins. However, in the quiet, he could hear Aleron and his own breathing and, when he raised himself over the bushes to get a clearer view, the subtle cracking of dry leaves under his knee. They stared, straining their eyes against the mist, deeply unsettled. It seemed impossible. Their pursuers couldn't have gone another thirty paces down the track. If they'd pulled up short, there'd be shouting and a clattering of hooves and gear, puffing and blowing from the animals and so on. If they'd fallen in a quick, or met some barrier, there'd be even more commotion. But there was nothing. Just a crash and that cut-off scream and then nothing. It was as if the great, soft mouth of the fog had swallowed them up.

         'What in God's name?' breathed Aleron. They stood, listening. Abruptly, the sounds of hooves came again. They ducked back into hiding, as a single, riderless, horse trotted past, its head painfully erect, eyes feverish, its entrails hanging down, in loops, between its legs and dragging on the dusty ground. It disappeared into the mist, the sound of its passing fading into the distance.

         'We have to go see what happened' whispered Aleron.

If he hadn't said it, Hart would have had to. Anything else would have been cowardly. Both dreaded the eerie nullity, out of which the mortally wounded animal had trotted, but they crept forward anyway, each hating the other for making him do it.

Hart desperately felt the lack of his sword. Aleron had his own out, his eyes shifting every eddy of the mist for a sign of some shape resolving. Before long they saw the sand of the track had been gouged and trampled up. There was deal of blood in the sand, and the rushes that lined the track here had been bent and smeared with it.

They crouched and watched. This was the logical place for an ambush, the track here passed through one of the area's rare stands of rushes, and they stood high enough to hem in the track. Eventually, communicating by hand signals and grimaces and shakes of the head, they agreed to skirt along the causeway edge, and reconnoiter the rushes, Aleron taking the right side, Hart the left. As he crouched and splashed towards the dim shapes, Hart felt the sudden softening of what had felt like solid sand, and had the sickening feeling of his left leg going in, almost to the thigh. He threw himself towards the rise of the causeway, pulling his leg free, chilled. Quicks. There are quicks all around.

Hart pushed into the rush bed as quietly as he could. It wasn't as dense as it looked. In the middle he found a trampled and flattened area, as if a man or several had waited here. Hart could see open area through the stalks and realised the stand was not big enough to hide much else. Whoever had lain in wait here was gone. He pushed through to the track and stared across it. There was no sign of Aleron, and he was loath to break cover and cross the track to the other side, so he sat and waited.

Hart heard someone call out softly. It the words sounded like 'K'tarr, K'tarr!', called out in a high-pitched voice and he realized, with irritation, that it was Aleron, signalling him.

Idiot. Hart felt himself sweating. If the perpetrators were still here, they could hear his friend's 'bird call' as clearly as he could.

'K'tarr, K'tarr!' came the voice again. Shut up you maniac! But Hart knew he wouldn't and the only way to make him was to cross the track. He did, and soon found Aleron crouching in a trampled area similar to the one he'd found.

         'Look!' he whispered, 'they waited here.'

         'Shut up, you idiot!'

         'What?'

         'Don't call out! They could still be around.'

         'They'll think it's a bird!'

         'You-'

         'Look' said Aleron, pointing. Hart did. The reeds to their right had been laid down and smeared with blood. Something heavy had been dragged away. 'Bandits,' whispered Aleron. 'They took them that way. We have to follow.'

         'We can't fight bandits all by ourselves!'

         'You don't know that,' replied Aleron, 'they might be small bandits. Or weakened by disease.'

This was the dumbest thing Hart had heard his friend say in a year, and he made a mental note of it for later consideration as a candidate for Aleron's all time top ten.

         'I don't have a sword!'

         'We have to try and see which direction they went, at least. And if my men are alive, we're duty-bound to effect a rescue.'

Your men? thought Hart, but he couldn't think of anything to say about Aleron's plan that didn't sound defeatist.

Following the flattened reeds, they came again to open flat. Here there were two paths, diverging into mist. Neither were much more than wet scrapings, but they were marked with rocks. There seemed to be no more blood.

         'Let's split up' whispered Aleron. 'You go left. If you see anything, come back here. I'll go right.'

Crouching, he moved away, and was soon lost in the reeds. Hart took the left. A string of curses were running though his mind and his blood was thumping in his body, but he felt preternaturally alert. He had to admit, it was thrilling.

Hart stopped. In the soft sand he saw an imprint of a human boot. The prints crossed the track, as if the man making them had splashed and wallowed across the shallow to get here, then crossed the track and entered the high reeds on the right. In the sand were spots of fresh blood. He now had a choice, follow the track or follow the footprints and the blood trail into the rushes. Hart crouched and listened. Only the calls of distant birds, real ones this time, disturbed the peace.

He decided to follow the prints.

***

Aleron looked up at the clearing sky. The wind was fresher, and in the south. The mist had thinned into wandering banks and soon they would lose the cover of it. The track was half-washed away, but the marking stones allowed him to keep on it. He thought he smelled smoke. Then the track gave out, and he could see no further markers. Aleron stood at a loss. Around him were beds of reeds and stretches of shallow water. He caught the whiff of wood smoke again, but couldn't see its source. Trusting fate, he stepped off the path and into the reeds, where the footing seemed less treacherous. Soon he something above their bobbing heads became visible, silhouetted in the last of the haze. He crept forward and saw it was a small hill, standing alone in the dismal marsh, symmetrical as an upturned pudding. A great, dead, swayback oak grew from its bald crown.

Seeing no one, Aleron worked his way, creeping from cover to cover and half submerged, to the base of the hill. It was coated in shaggy weeds and overgrowth. Though its sides were steep, its crown was not more than twenty paces above the swamp. There was water standing on all sides save the south, where Aleron was able to wade. His sensed tuned, he climbed the side of the hill, thinking to at least have a vantage point to scout the land.

He came to the clinging buttresses of old roots that capped the hill. The bent shape of the dead oak loomed. Its top was ragged and hollow. It had but one branch remaining, which jutted out to the right. Aleron saw whisps of smoke on the wind, and realised it was coming from the tree. Bolled and gnarled as the old wood was, it was easy enough to shimmy. Aleron did, and stuck his head over the ragged lip, catching an updraft of heat and smoke that made his eyes water. The tree was a chimney. A narrow shaft descended its hollowed middle and he could see a dull, red light below. He smelled something like burned meat, and a vileness, a stench that was animal and somehow ugly.

The hill was hollow, there was some sort of cavity within. He dropped down and crouched in the shadow of the trunk to think. There had to be some other entrance, probably hidden. The chimney shaft was too narrow for egress. He glanced up at the single branch, jutting from the trunk, and soundlessly, a vision appeared. It was a man, hanging from the bough, a noose of rough rope tight around his neck. He was wiry and hard-boned, dressed in baggy leathers, seemingly once fine and expensive, now ragged and marsh-stained, secured around his narrow waist by a broad belt of red leather. He wore black boots. His hands were tied at the wrists. His beard and hair were black, shaggy and full of matts and rat tails. His face, though lined by weather, had a deep-lived and sardonic quality to it. He stared at Aleron, his eyes glittering like murderer's pennies.

Aleron had heard the expression 'I nearly shit myself', and now almost experienced the biological phenomena which had originated the colloquialism.

The spectre was grinning, with a sort of friendly malice, and Aleron saw two of its upper teeth had been replaced with a single silver nugget. Very slowly, without breaking his gaze, the hanged man raised his hands, and put a finger to his lips, Shh.. then pointed, down the hill and to the left. It held for a second, and was gone.

Aleron let out an explosive breath. He could see that where the spectral rope had been secured to the bough, the bark was stripped and worn. That's all he needed to leap up and go sliding and near-tumbling down the side. After a pause, to think and collect himself, he stood, and with a nervous eye for the crown of the hill, he worked his way around to where the ghost had pointed. The slope, here, descended into murky water, garlanded with weeds and flowering marsh cress. Aleron could see no entrance, or find a concealed one by prodding at the turf. Then, on some intuition, he glanced into the water. Through the screen of foliage, he saw a wavering under the surface. A few feet below, was something dark.

***

Hart penetrated into the swamp. Mostly, he went to his knees in the thick, black muck between the rushes, sometimes to the thigh. He felt safe here from the quicks, but it was hard going. At first he found the trail easy to follow. Blood was smeared on the rush stalks, and saw the deep imprints in the muck of boots, already willing with water. But soon he came to the first of several shallow, sandy watercourses and, crossing to the other side, could not re-acquire the trail of his quarry. Doubling back, he found he could not see his own, either, and thought himself turned around. However, the sun gave him a rough heading, and he was confident that, if he headed back in a south-west direction, he'd find the track again.

The day was clearing, and he was glad to be under cover. To the north, Hart saw a great number of crows circling, amid other scavenging birds, like white-tails and sodhawks. There was something ominous about the sight.

Having no better direction to try, he pushed towards them and soon emerged to find a small spit of sand between two dark channels. He saw that it was red and stinking of blood, like a slaughter house. Black crows were hopping about, cawing, pecking and tussling with each other, and flies were humming in the air, but Hart could see no bodies. He felt his heart shrink from the palpable sense of dread that hung over the place, and nothing would have induced him to wade across the channel to examine it. He crouched, motionless, in the reeds and watched. Apart from the birds, and the buzzing vermin, all was still. Then his nervous gaze dipped, to the water, and saw an eye staring at him, white-rimmed and terrified. Just under the surface of the wine-dark water, there was a horse, roughly but effectively butchered, its ribs gaping along its adnominal cavity, its wounds water-washed and pale. Hart nearly cried out but stopped himself, clenching his teeth.

This was a bad place. It was time to leave.

It was only then he saw the man. He was instantly identifiable as one of the soldiers who had passed them on the track, but, from this angel, Hart couldn't tell which. The man swayed, as if drunk, his head on his chest. He took another step forward and Hart saw that, in a second, he'd break cover of the reeds. In agony, Hart watched him stumble into the open, exposing himself. Exposing them both.

         'No!' he hissed, as loud as he dared. 'No! Stop!'

The man's head turned, and he saw it was Bosk.

What's wrong with him? thought Hart, in horror at the stricken features. Across Bosk's chest, Hart could see a wound, which had torn his leather jerkin into curling strips. Three diagonal cuts, in parallel, as if he'd been struck by three swords at once. The wounds had bled profusely, but didn't look deep enough to be mortal.

         'Bosk! Bosk!' said Hart, desperate to bring the man to his senses and back under cover, but the soldier stood, dumb, swaying, his sword hanging loosely from his fingers. He took another step, into the channel, going in to his knees, and, more out of desperation than courage, Hart broke cover and waded up the sandy edge to get to him.

The fear was worse than expected. He felt horribly exposed.

         'Bosk!' he whispered, reaching out to grasp the man's shoulder, 'what's wrong?' what happened?' Bosk flinched at the touch and whirled around, eyes rolling. Hart could see his lips were blue, like a man suffocating, rimmed with spittle or foam. He seemed to be dragging air into his lungs in harsh contractions.

         'No!' he yelled, hoarsely, and swung his sword so wildly that only a desperate leap back saved Hart from a wound. Startled, the birds leapt into the sky, cawing and calling out.

         'Friend!' said Hart, 'Friend! Bosk, it's me!' He grabbed up a waterlogged branch just in time to have it splintered and knocked from his hand by another savage cut. Hart fell backwards and the water nearly closed over his head.

Bosk gave a cry that was like a terrible, ragged inhalation. Gripped by some spasm, the man dropped his sword into the water and seemed to jack-knife at the waist. Before Hart could do anything, he'd pitched forward, kicking and throwing up spray. Pull him up, he's inhaling water! Hart floundered to his feet, trying to get enough grip on wetted leather to haul the full-grown man clear of the surface. He got a grip then lost it, falling back. He tried again, grabbing the back of the man's harness, but now his feet sunk into the bed of the channel and he could only drag the man towards the bank. Bosk, rolling against Hart's legs, heavy as a sunken log. He no longer thrashed, his movements were twitching and animal. Hart hauled him up on the bank, finally getting his head out of the water, and propped him, heavily, on the bank.

         'Bosk! Bosk!' said Hart, not liking the taught, hysterical tone of his voice. 'Bosk!' He shook the man and slapped him, trying to get the dull eyes to flicker, the lungs to cough and draw breath again, but only marsh water dribbled from the slack mouth. His eyelids had drooped, making his long, slightly horsish face looked sad and indifferent. He lay on the bank and stared at the tips of his boots where they broke the water. Bosk was dead.

Hart had seen people killed. He'd been taken to watch public executions, which were considered, in those regions, to be an excellent spectacle for young children, being both educational and morally improving, but he'd never had someone die like this, in his hands, unable to save him.

Hart looked up. Their encounter had sent the birds into the sky, in an upclatter of black wings that must have been visible to anyone nearby. He felt a terrible and miserable sense of peril, as if the circling birds were marking him with their black eyes. It was time to go. But just as was entering the reeds, he was stopped in his tracks by a sudden thought and turned despairingly, to look at the place Bosk had fallen. The sword! Hart stood, momentarily locked in a battle between his animal and rational minds, desperate to leave but knowing that retrieving Bosk's infantry blade was a matter of seconds, and it was folly to lose this chance of gaining a weapon. In fact, in the time he'd wasted in indecision, he could have gotten it already.

Get the sword, coward! With a curse, Hart went back into the water, knowing that the damn thing would have gone under the silt, or been kicked away and lost, but no, there it was, a gleam of sharp light in the water, and was grabbing its hilt and pulling it up and now it really was time to go.

Hart went carefully, returning the way he'd come, but hadn't gotten more than twenty paces into the reeds before he heard a sound that chilled his blood. It was a splashing, not loud, but distinct. It sounded as if someone was wading the channel from the sand bar. Hart listened, still as a rock. Then there was a footfall in the sand, heavy and deliberate. The someone was now standing, silently, where he had been, only moments before.

Hart felt his senses sharpen into something like agony, trying to drag every clue out of the world. He thought he heard someone inhale, a long, deliberate sniff. Then another. Then there was a cracking of stalks, and Hart knew that if he didn't want to meet whoever had been at work on that sandbar, stealth would no longer avail him. He bolted, not towards the track, or the right, just away. Adrenalin burst in his veins and, although the mud sucked his boots and the rushes tore at him, he went through the reeds like a frightened deer, bounding and high-leaping to clear the muck, until, at length, he stopped again, struggling to draw enough air to hear anything but his own breathing.

He found himself in a region of knolls and islands, backed by stands of reed. The channel beds were still mostly sand, but without the deadly, tell-tale flatness of the quicks. He stood and tried to get a bearing. Gazing back the way he'd come, the circling birds that had guided him to the sandbar were no longer visible. He could see nothing now above the reeds but haze.

At least he had a sword now. The hard, leather wrapped grip in his hand made him feel less jittery, less hunted.

Though still invisible, the sun was rising. The wind had dropped and the air was becoming breathless. The plelegiddon still held and the sky was luminous and low, the marsh haze blending into the roof of cloud with no sign of a horizon. Dragonflies skipped over the still water and swarms of gnats danced in delirious celebration at the impending end of their lives.

No sound of pursuit could be heard, but he was now completely lost. West should be the path he had left, unless he had bolted so far south, he would now miss it. So north west then? If he continued on his course, he had a feeling he would strike Aleron's track, but every time he trusted such hunches seemed to get himself more turned around. Hart had to admit, that as far as direction went, he was not much of an outdoorsman.

However, as he stood, trying to decide his course, he heard a sound. Someone was calling out from somewhere to his right, in a high-pitched voice that drifted over the rushes.

         'K'tarr, K'tarr!' it said.

         'Idiot!' said Hart.

***

Aleron saw Hart break from cover and waved.

Soon they got in shouting distance of, but didn't, of course. Hart plunged in and swam the last distance, and Aleron helped him onto the shallows. Hart had never been so happy to see anyone in his life, but before he could tell Aleron about the sandbar, and Bosk, his companion pointed to the hillock with the bent oak.

         'It's there' he whispered, excitedly. 'It's that hill! It's their hide-out. We found it!'

         'That's amazing', replied Hart, full of dread of this place and desperate to leave. 'We'll go tell the authorities.'

         'Not yet. I found an entrance.'

         'What?'

         'It's hidden under the water. I'm going to swim in and have a look.'

         'What?'

         'I'm going to swim in-'

         'Aleron, are you mad? Let's go!' Hart felt they'd done far more than honour called for. All he wanted to do now was trust to speed and nerve and run for it, all the way back down the track marked with stones, to the causeway, and then to the Laughers, to sound horn and raise the soldiery.

But Aleron was exited as a dog with a rabbit and not yet ready to leave. 'One look,' he said, 'just a quick one. If there's someone in there, I'll swim back. But I think it's empty. That old tree is a chimney, you see it? I looked down and couldn't hear anyone.'

         'Aleron-'

         'I'll just swim in, stick my head above water, then swim out.'

Again, Hart could think of nothing to say that didn't sound cowardly. But Aleron hadn't seen, or smelled, that bloody island between the channels, or heard the thing in the reeds come after him. The fact was, Hart was desperately unnerved, but he knew his friend and the sooner they did what he wanted, the sooner they could go. Otherwise they would stand here arguing. 'Alright' he said, 'but be quick!'

         'I will. You stay out here and keep watch. Come on, I'll show you where it is.'

         'I'm staying here,' replied Hart. 'There's no cover around the island.'

         'Alright. Signal me if you see anything.'

         'How am I supposed to do that?'

         'Do a bird call!'

Hart sighed but Aleron was already off, wading and scrambling along the tussocks until he had made his way back to the hill. Hart crouched down, half submerged, scanning the reed line with worried eyes. When he looked back towards the little hill, standing alone in the flat marshes, Aleron had disappeared.

***

After probing the outlines of the submerged entrance with his foot to get an idea of its width, Aleron took a breath and dived. Instantly he discovered visibility inside the passage to be nonexistent. His body blocked the light and the water swirled with muck. There were also a great number of slimy weeds fronds of unseen vegetation that clutched at him from the sides and claustrophobic panic instantly gripped him. He determined to got only ten or so paces in, so that he would have enough air to get back. He could not turn around in the tunnel, but the walls were close enough that he could reverse by pushing himself back. However, almost instantly, he saw a muddy diffusion of light. Kicking strongly he swam towards it. The tunnel had not been long, it dipped under the waterline and up, like the entrance to a beaver's lodge.

The first thing that struck him, when his head broke the surface, was the choking stench, vile and animal, and if he hadn't been so glad to be breathing air, he probably would have coughed and retched. Some small daylight came from the shaft in the roof, up which the smoke and steam swirled, but most was from a fire in the centre of the room, which heated a great, black-iron cauldron, covered by a lid. The cauldron was suspended by a chain, that ascended into the chimney cavity and out of sight. The light illuminated an onion-shaped chamber, big enough to account for much of the hill. The ancient roots of the dead oak above twisted through the earthen walls, reinforcing them somewhat. Though the firelight was harsh and red, most of the chamber was gloomy, obscured in shadow.

There was still something of a climb to get out of the clay-slick tunnel Aleron had surfaced in, probably because at any season other than the end of summer, the water level would be higher and the entrance better hidden. It was only with some difficulty he managed to clamber up it and gain a better look of the chamber. There seemed to be a great deal of clutter, heaps chests and urns and so forth. Bandit booty, he thought. There was a great, rawhide bellows, propped against a pile of foraged wood and branches. Hanging from hooks, that were driven into the matted tree roots of the ceiling, were what he had first taken for weapons, but now saw were rough instruments of butchery, long knives, cleavers and eight-foot-long long skewers, they type they used for boar, all strangely large and heavy. Most looked filthy, save for their gleaming edges, which had been whetted to a chilling sharpness.

Then he saw the bodies. There was two of them, a man and a woman of indeterminate age. They were hung upside down from hooks, headless, prepared as deer are in a field dressing, bled dry and their entrails removed, their abdominal cavities gaping. The woman's breasts had been cut off.

Aleron froze like a rabbit.

***

Aleron had barely vanished into the mound before Hart began to think twice about his position on the track. He was not exactly out in the open, several tussocks of reedy vegetation partially screened him, so long as he was ducked down, half in the water, but he wasn't under cover. If somebody approached west, from the reed beds, or up the track from the causeway, they couldn't fail to spot him, once they got close enough. And he was too far from the bandit's hill to make for it in time. Where the track wandered away to the west, he saw what looked like more quicks, open water over sand beds, punctuated by the occasional dead tree. Moving back towards the reeds meant opening a wider gap between him and Aleron, rendering him incapable of assisting his friend, should he need it. But going to the hill meant losing all other cover. No sooner had these calculations passed through his head than they were confirmed, Hart finally ran out of luck. There was a crackling in the reed bed, and small birds leapt up from the swaying green, sounding alarms. Something was coming from the west towards the hill, as he had, when he'd fled the bloody sandbar and the sniffer-in-the-rushes.

Acting on some intuitive genius, or half-remembered trick he'd heard of from hunting society, Hart grabbed one of the thick bulrushes out of the dry, dead stand, and pinched it off at about a three foot length. He fell back into the water, holding his nose and taking air through the straw.

From his novel perspective, two feet below the water, Hart was aware of a bifurcated world. That above the surface, trembling with a liquidous ripple, and that below, blurred but solid. He waited, sipping air. Underwater, sound became the dull roaring of flooded ears. He held his nose closed and waited. But not for long.

A shadow appeared at the edge of the fishbowl world, and resolved itself. Trailing a shock of bubbles, a massive, clawed foot entered the shallow water, about six feet away from him. Towering up from it, distorted by the surface ripple, was a bipedal form, reptilian, nine feet tall or more, with a chest like a battering ram, armoured in interlocking scales. From its bowed shoulders hung arms as thick as a man's chest, ending in three-fingered hands, tipped with terrible, curving talons. It was a bone eater.

Hart stopped breathing. For the longest thirty seconds of his life, the monster stood still, the saurian head, a heavy, underslung jaw full of interlocking teeth like an alligator's, small eyes invisible under bone ridges, swung from side to side, seeking something. Then another foot came down in the water as it crossed the track and moved away through the shallows, trailing a great armored tail. It became a shadowy hulk, that declined toward the reed line and away. A second shadow followed it.

Hart's lungs were becoming desperate so he took a controlled inhalation and exhaled the bubbles through his nose. The straw wasn't easy to breathe through, but he was able to get enough air so that he didn't have to surface until he was sure the things were distant enough not to notice him. He broke the surface, just his head, at first, scanning the water line and then peering cautiously over the reeds.

Hart splashed up onto the track and sprinted towards the hill, then waded to the spot where Aleron had disappeared and dived. He went through the short, submerged tunnel like an otter, not even noticing the claustrophobic darkness, the grasping, slimy weeds.

         'They're bone eaters!' gasped Hart, clambered up the muddy side of the tunnel, his desperate eyes acquiring Aleron, couched in the process of investigating some of the chamber's clutter.

         'What?' said Aleron. His voice sounded shocked and breathless.

If ever there was a time for a message to penetrate Aleron's skull, and for him to absorb it instantly, without scepticism or argument, it was now. Hart was prepared to seize his companion by the throat put everything into his words. 'They are not bandits! They! Are! Bone! Eaters!' But it turned out to be unnecessary. Aleron pointed wordlessly to the hanging corpses, and Hart thought that sight, in this place, was just about the worst thing he had ever seen in his life.

         'This place is full of traveller's gear,' whispered Aleron, his face pale with dread. 'Look, there's clothes, chests.. they've been grabbing people off the roads.'

         'We have to get out of here. I saw two, but I don't know where they went. They're close.'

         'We'll get to the track and run for it,' replied Aleron.

They turned to the dark water of the entrance tunnel, but, as they did do, Hart saw the faint glow of external daylight filtered through its muddy depths go black. The surface bulged, as if being displaced by some bulk moving through the aperture.

         'Too late!' whispered Hart.

         'Climb!' hissed Aleron, leaping to grab the knotted tangles of tree roots that bracketed and reinforced the walls, and climbing, with desperate strength, arm over arm, upward, toward the narrowing peak in the chamber's roof that served as its chimney. Hart realized he was right, there was nowhere else to hide.

Hart saw the bone eater climb out of the tunnel, water sluicing off its massive form, he met its eyes, reflecting the red light of the fire. It gave a coughing cry, almost like a bark, of alarm and fury, a sound that was frighteningly deep. The creature wore no clothing or ornamentation, but Hart noticed that, around its neck was a rawhide thong, from which hung some sort of crude leather bag, about the size of his hand, secured with a wooden hook or thorn. Behind it, Hart saw the water seem to tower up and break into spray, as the second monster entered.

Hart was startled to realize that he was already entering the chimney cavity, his fingers hooking into gaps and crannies as he'd been taught, Aleron's boots, showering him from above with dust and wood fragments. He realized that he had absolutely no recollection of leaping onto the wall or beginning to climb. It was as if his body had acted on the imperative to save itself while his brain blacked out in animal terror. Now able to get their boots into the sides of the chimney, they were able get height fast, but almost not fast enough. A massive arm hooked around the curve of the lower cavity, and Hart saw the talons tear into the earth and roots just below his feet, sending cascades of earth and old wood clattering onto the iron lid of the cauldron below. A roar of frustrated rage bellowed up and Hart saw the cauldron shudder and sway ponderously on its thick chain, as some unseen bulk struck it. The monster couldn't get directly under them, without standing in the fire, or burning itself on the hot metal. As Hart watched, the heads of both the creatures, their red eyes burning with the bestial promise of violence, craned around the rim of the shaft to stare up at them. One hissed, its forked tongue darting, and snapped its jaws together, the other withdrew and disappeared.

Hart looked up, past Aleron's crowding body, and saw, with an awful premonition of his own death, that no further progress up the root-filled chimney shaft was possible. Above Aleron's head, it constricted into the soot-blacked wood of the oak's interior, too narrow to pass through. They were trapped.

         'Lookout!' shouted Aleron and Hart yanked his legs up just in time. One of the great basting skewers, he'd seen mounted on the chamber wall, came stabbing up the shaft, splitting the wood of the oak with vicious power. Hart climbed hastily up to Aleron's level, where the top of the cauldron chain was secured with a metal ring to a stout cross root. Below them, the improvised spear sunk its head into the walls, stabbing, probing, trying to find flesh, but the angle was awkward for its wielder and it didn't have the quite enough length to reach them. The bone eater withdrew it. Their eyes were smarting from the smoke from fire below, and each breath caught in their throats.

         'We have to- make a run for it,' gasped Aleron, choking on the smoke, 'get to the tunnel- maybe-' he broke into coughing, '-one of us- make it-'

From below came the clatter of firewood being hauled out of the pile and shoved into the fire. Hart saw the snout of the great, hide bellows shoved under the cauldron, sending a wave of smoke and sparks out from the other side as it exhaled. Red flames flashed and licked around the sides of the great cauldron, as the bellows fanned the fire. A wave of heat and smoke rolled up the shaft, tearing at their lungs and making their vision blur with tears. They're going to smoke us out., Though the wood was dry and burned with little smoke, the conditions inside the chimney were soon going to become impossible to endure.

Hart touched his eye and pointed down. Aleron nodded. They descended about six feet, putting themselves, Hart was aware, back in stabbing range if one of the brutes spotted them and grabbed its skewer. As the shaft broadened it became easier to breath. Hart hooked his leg around a root and grasped Aleron's Hand, then swung down, almost upside down, counterweighted by Aleron's grip, to peer under the curve of the roof. He saw the first bone eater, its back to them, rummaging for more wood. The second had vanished. His heart bursting with sudden hope, Hart looked across to the water tunnel, only to find the second beast occupying it, cutting off any retreat, its head just above the level of the floor. It saw them and roared, and Aleron hauled Hart back up before the other monster could make a grab at them. They hastily climbed back out of skewer range.

         'No good,' coughed Hart in his companion's ear, 'the other- the other one's in the tunnel-'

Aleron cursed. They heard a clang below. An iron hook had reached onto view and lifted the lid of the pot, revealing the boiling hell within to their appalled eyes. Another wave of heat and, now, suffocating steam, rolled up over them and Hart saw that the pot contained some sort of bubbling, glutinous stew, like a tanner's rendering pot, and he saw objects that might be bones or skulls rolling in it. Hart felt the world blur, and himself near to passing out. They couldn't breathe and he felt that his legs beginning to cook in the brutal heat. Though his blurring vision, Hart saw that Aleron had his sword out. He slapped Hart on the shoulder pointing, down! down! and Hart, thinking his friend meant that it was time to fight or perish, began to descend. Aleron, however, didn't follow. With Hart out of the way, he was able to brace his legs across the shaft and hack at the thick root supporting the cauldron chain.

Hart couldn't remember what he'd done with his sword. He must have dropped it when he'd leapt up the wall, without a scabbard it was impossible to carry with both hands free. In any case, there was not enough room above for both of them to hack at the wood.

Aleron was chopping with desperate strength, sending wood chips spinning down the shaft and bouncing off Hart's head. But Hart immediately saw that it wasn't going to work, that they didn't have time. The constricted space didn't give Aleron enough room to swing, and the furrow he was hacking out of the tough wood was not growing fast enough.

Hart grabbed the hot chain with both his hands. The heavy links, of rough, unfinished iron, had enough grip from him to hold on, barely. He braced his legs on the far side and jumped off the root-laced side, bringing all his weight to bear, jerking down on the chain, plunging and trying to wrench the fastening loose. The smoke was burning in his lungs, his hands were blistering from the hot chain, Hart knew he was on the verge of passing out and tumbling, helplessly into the boiling cauldron below.

Suddenly, Hart was falling. He flailed out desperately, feeling one hand grasp purchase, his body slamming painfully against the side of the shaft. There was an almighty crashing below as the huge cauldron struck the fire and spilled its contents, in a searing wave, across the chamber floor and into the tunnel, where the second bone eater crouched. A black wave of steam and choking smoke struck them, along with a terrifying howl of agony from the monster. Hart felt the vibration from its thrashing body in the walls of the chamber, and it was all he could to do to remain conscious and hold on. He felt lukewarm water spray across his body and the howl was cut off. The fire was extinguished and they were plunged into darkness and a thick miasma of foul steam and smoke, the second bone eater was roaring in fury.

         'Now!' Aleron shouted, and he and hart dropped into the chamber, stumbling and falling, rolling in the muck. The chamber floor was awash, a filthy, slippery mud, full of unseen obstacles, but it seemed enough water had geysered up from the thrashing of the creature in the tunnel to cool the cauldron's contents to a few degrees below searing. Nevertheless, it was painfully hot.

The Tunnel! Get to the tunnel! his mind was screaming, but he had no idea in which direction the entrance was.

The only light now was the daylight that filtered down the chimney shaft, diffused into a choking fog of steam and smoke that was barely indistinguishable from darkness. Out of it loomed a blacker shape, with, terrifying swiftness, reaching with clawed hands. Hart dove and rolled. Behind him, he heard the cauldron struck and sent clanging and rolling away. Hart felt his hand close on something that felt like a handle, hard and metallic. He had one of the massive cleavers.

Orientating himself by the sound, Aleron leapt and stabbed hard with his sword, at what he thought was the creatures side, hoping get at the liver. It was like stabbing a rock, his blade turned uselessly against the thing's scales and, an instant latter, a flailing arm caught him a glancing blow and sent him flying off his feet, to crash down, rolling amidst the clutter that crowded the chamber walls. An instant later Hart, swinging with all his strength, brought his cleaver around in a low arc and cracked it into the side of the beast's knee with enough force to penetrate. The creature howled and turned again, wrenching the cleaver out of Hart's grip, and he was only just able to throw himself flat in time to avoid the tail that whipped over his head. He scrambled, desperate to stay low and get space between himself and the enraged beast, hearing it crash into the stacked piles of looted traveler's gear, the rack of skewers clattering and tumbling, the staves of barrels being splintered and kicked in.

Hart heard a flat metallic gong! and heard the monster roar in fury. He looked up and saw that the atmosphere in the chamber was clearing, not by much, but it was clearing. The bone eater was a distinct silhouette, the nimbus of lighter fog in the middle was brighter, he was horrified to realize that he could make out the outlines of his own hand, and even the round edge of the tumbled cauldron. Another object flew out of the subfusc recesses of the chamber and bounced off the bone eater's skull. Aleron was throwing pots at it.

Aleron saw the monster turn and come at him, its eyes trying to spot him in the dark. It swung over its head, grasping the racks that were pinned into the roof of the chamber and wrenching them down, sending tools, implements crashing on top of Aleron before he could skip sideways and out of reach. Amidst the general confusion, Aleron felt something like a cold side of beef, heavy and smooth fall across him, pressing into his face, and realized, revoltingly, that it was one of the butchered corpses. An instant later, the bone eater had closed the distance.

Hart pulled himself free of the tumbled barrels and fallen cutlery just in time to see Aleron Die. The monster grabbed his friend and twisted his body almost in half, the spine cracking like green sticks, wrenching the arms, with sickening pops, out of their sockets, ripping the body into sagging wreckage with savage, annihilating fury. 'You son of a whore!' he screamed, and the bone eater discarded the mangled rag doll and charged. Hart grabbed one of the long skewers from the tumbled rack and managed to get the improvised lance up just in time to send its point into the monster's mouth. The impact threw him back against the wall, even as the iron shaft drove deep into the monster's throat, the poorly-tempered iron buckled and shattered, shrapnel cutting open Hart's face, I'm blind! and slamming the jagged end into the wall, nearly impaling him. The suddenly shortened length allowed the bone eater to almost grasp its target. It didn't seem to realize it had impaled itself, its red eyes were full of fury, it drove itself onto the spike, vomiting black blood, trying to reach Hart, who was pressing himself back against the wall in terror.

There was a load crack, and Hart saw the cleaver come down on the monster's skull, rebounding as if striking hardwood. It flashed down again, and rebounded again. To Hart's disorientated bewilderment, Aleron was upon the monster's back, as if his mangled body had reassembled itself and was now bringing the cleaver down on the centre of the creature's skull with all his force. Hart saw every tendon and fiber of Aleron's arms standing out, in the extremity of muscular exertion, his neck veined. The oversized cleaver was heavy as a battle axe, and sharp, it cracked down again, and again, but could not penetrate the massive skull.

Hart, jammed between debris on either side, could not go left or right, could not slide under the slowly bending skewer without shortening the distance between him and the beast. All he could do was press himself back into the earth with all his strength, trying to keep the last inches between his body and the talons. One claw caught the front of his jerkin and ripped it open, another was reaching for his face.

Hart saw Aleron raise the heavy blade above his head in both hands, and saw golden light run up his body, leaping from joint to joint like an skeleton of internal fire, as if he had suddenly closed some circuit between the ground and the sky, bursting from the top of his head and the metal tip of the cleaver like lightning as if some energetic potential was equalising through him. The cleaver flashed down, and this time it split the bone and sunk into the skull. The creature bellowed, showering Hart in black blood, the massive body convulsed, but Aleron was no more dislodged than if his feet had been nailed to it. He pulled the blade out and swept it up again, and, this time, Hart saw the aura flash into something that was not just a corona of light, but an image of actual horns, that of a great stag, golden and almost painfully bright, projecting from his forehead like a crown.

The blade penetrated brain, the juggernaut went limp, settling its weight onto the impaling iron. Hart, in loathing and terror, felt a hot spray, the monsters bladder was emptying between its massive legs. The red eyes, fixed, in death, as glass beads, were still locked on him. Aleron half-slipped, half-fell down the back of the monster and stumbled in the bloody slush. The horned crown of light was gone. 'Are you crying?' he panted.

Am I? thought Hart, was that noise himself? He shook his head literally unable to speak, coughing ropes of saliva, feeling his friend's hands hauling him out from under the beast and to his feet.

         'C'mon-' said Hart, thickly, 'got to get out of here-'

         'No' said Aleron. It sounded like he need to heave his lungs to get even short words out. 'The head-'

Hart stared at him, uncomprehendingly. The head?

         'Without- the head-' panted Aleron, exhaling each word with painful effort, '-who'll know?'

Are you completely and absolutely and utterly insane? Hart thought, but the look on his friend's desperate eyes killed the words on his tongue. Aleron was bolt-eyed and trapped, a man staring out of a nightmare. The head.

         'The head,' said Hart. 'Get- get the cleaver-'

Aleron grasped the cleaver and began to work it back out of the bone eater's skull. Hart groped in the filth until he'd found the woodpile axe. The armour under the monster's jaw, where it connected the impenetrable muscle of the massive neck, was easier to get through. Finding reserves of hate he didn't know he still had, he hacked until he was black with the things blood, Aleron matching him blow for blow on the other side, like two men trying to fell a tree. The last tendon parted and the massive corpse slid back off the iron under its own weight, falling heavily into the slush, leaving the head impaled on the shaft. From there it was easy enough for them to pull it free it. A they did so, Hart's foot came down on something round and hard. He saw the rough leather bag the monster had worn around its neck, like a barbarous talisman. Without thinking, he picked it up and put it around his own, where it hung nearly to his navel.

Hart didn't know how long this had taken. Probably not as long as it felt. The air in the chamber had cleared somewhat. It was a shambles. Aleron tucked his trophy under his arm, groggily stumbled to the water-filled exit tunnel and fell in, so abruptly that Hart thought he had done it accidentally, and was now in the process of drowning somewhere under the filthy water. But as he stumbled and slid to the lip of the pool and stared down, he saw the flickering of dim light under its surface and realized that Aleron was making his way through. In that instant, Hart felt absurdly, but powerfully, like crying. It seemed transcendently wonderful that such a trivial obstacle as a water-filled tunnel was now all that separated the hell of this den and freedom. It was only as he hit the water that he remembered that he still had the cleaver, but he almost immediately found its weight to be a benefit. It helped him sink, so he could push himself along the bottom with his feet. He went through fast and struggled up, to air that was pure and sweet as a miracle.

Now they were struggling though the shallows - no attempts at stealth now - to get to the track and run, run, far from here, all the way back to the Laughers and then keep going, but, as their feet came up onto the track, there was a bellow, saurian and primeval, a bowl-loosening sound, a sound, Hart thought, that made you want to grovel like a beaten animal, relinquishing all self-control and dignity. The second bone eater emerged from the reed bed and onto the track, between them and the causeway. They had no weapons but the blunted cleaver that Hart dragged through the flooded passage. Aleron had lost his sword, and dropped the axe, somewhere in the terror and delirium of their escape.

Hart looked at Aleron, white-faced, hugging the severed head with both arms, as if it could save him, and realized what they were, terrified boys. By what madness had they come to pit their skinny limbs against these monsters?

Aleron held up his hand, wait. He pointed to his eye, then the monster. Hart saw that the creature's face, despite its armour, was horribly scalded. The flesh around its teeth was swollen and blistered, and Hart saw that its eyes were rolling, seared white in their sockets like boiled eggs.

It's blind! he thought, in sudden, wild hope.

The monster was standing, hunter-still, its sightless head slowly swinging back and forth, tasting long sniffs of air. Hart felt his brain beginning to work again. He pointed to his nose, and Aleron nodded. The wind was in the east, but if it dropped, the thing might smell them. Now the monster began to move up the track, towards them. Desperate, Hart crouched and picked up one of the marker stones, and threw it, far out into the open water to the north. At the splash, the beast whipped about, with a coughing grunt, to track the noise. It took a step off the track and into the water, then another.


Aleron and Hart moved, moved slowly, slowly, into the water on the south side of the track.


The Bone Eater turned. They froze. It was sniffing. Hart looked at the sky in premonitionary horror. The wind is going to change. Then it did and the thing caught their scent.

'Run!' yelled Aleron.

         'Not into the water!' gasped Hart, remembering the great power of the thing's tail, 'It can swim!'

They ran, in the shallows, south east, away from the track, not knowing what they were fleeing into, their legs burning. Got to make it to the drier land. The bone eater came fast behind them, throwing up spray. It crashed into a dead tree and uprooted it, it smashed into spinneys and reeds.

         'Track!' panted Aleron, and Hart saw another scraped-up, barely-above-the-water track. Probably it was the continuation of the one Aleron had followed and then lost at the bone eater's hill. 'Come on-' but as Aleron stepped towards it, the ground seemed to slide away under the shallow water and he went in to his waist with a shout of alarm.

Too late, Hart saw the tell-tale flatness receding away from either side of the path. 'Lie down!' he yelled. From somewhere behind him he heard the beast crashing. Hart pulled the bone eater's talisman from around his neck and slung the other end out to Aleron. He grabbed it and wrapped it around his arm, and Hart managed to drag him, clambering and coughing back to solid ground. They doubled around, in a shallow semicircle, to the track and got firmly on it. There was a crackling of spinney wood and another roar, the bone eater came onto the path behind them, no more than fifty paces away.

They ran up the track, like deer, heedless of the noise of their boots in the sand, until they had outraced it. There were now quicks on either side, the sandy weaved through an ochre and green bed of low vegetation, marked by the round pools, which sometimes melded into larger springs. The path was now almost disappearing, they were frequently forced to guess it from the marker stones. They came to a stand of dead willow and marsh alder, hollowed out and rotten, standing like gnarled tombstones over the quicks. The path ended in a small clearing between them. In the middle if it was some object, about six feet high, covered in a weather-stained oilskin. Aleron twitched the oilskin aside and saw it was a large glass mirror, set on a stand of wood.

The sheer surrealism of the thing, a piece of household furniture, standing by itself in the wilderness, made Hart wonder if he had actually gone mad. But it stood, unwavering, glinting in the soft light. In the mirror, saw himself, pale and ghastly, a ghost already haunting the place of its unfleshing. Behind the Hart in the mirror, he saw the spinnies shudder, and a shape move onto the track. They turned. The monster was moving up the wending path. It crouched, stopping and starting, its nose to the ground, finding the scent of their passage. To leave the island, or the track, would mean stepping out onto the treacherous crust of the quicks. They were trapped.

All they had was the cleaver, a weapon so heavy it was difficult to lift, let alone swing effectively. Once the monster got close enough to hear their breathing, it would charge.

Hart cudgeled his brains, trying to remember all he knew about bone eaters that wasn't from fairy tales. All he could remember was that they were strong, they were terrifying and they ate people. They had served the Serpent Queen in the war. And then something else- poison. Their saliva paralyzed their victims and they licked their claws to poison them too. Hart remembered the diagonal cuts on Bosk's chest, his rolling eyes and labored breathing, his spasming body. Poison.

         'Aleron!' he whispered, 'Poison! Their bite is poisonous! We can put it on the cleaver!'

Aleron threw the head on the ground and pulled the jaws apart. Forcing the cleaver between its teeth, they smeared the creatures glutinous saliva, vile smelling and purplish, on the blade.

         'It's blind' whispered Hart, 'You crouch on the tree, I'll lure it. If you swing hard enough at its throat, maybe you can open the armor there. If you can just cut it, maybe the poison-'

         'What if it hears me on the, limb?'

         'I'll make enough noise that it won't.'

         'What if it smells me?'

         'Do you want to swap?'

It wasn't a taunt or challenge, just a question. Hart looked into his friend's face and Aleron stared back.

         'No' he said. 'It's a good plan.'

As Hart turned to go, Aleron extended his hand and grasped his friend's arm in a wordless gesture, sorry for getting us killed. He found his answer in Hart's grip, don't mention it.

Aleron scrambled up one of the leaning alders, its roots rotting in the water, and half-clung, half-leaned on its top. From here, he might be able to manage a clumsy leap at the monster from its own height and get a good swing at its neck. He thought, in a moment surrealy disassociated from its import, that it would be almost certainly the last thing he'd do alive.

Hart stood on the track, trying to calm himself and finding, to his surprise, that he was calm. He seemed to have passed through some barrier, or perhaps just burned his reserves of adrenaline out.

Through he spinnies, he saw the monster rise from its prowling, and sniff the air. It came towards him. Hart started forward, trying to gauge how close to get, how much head start he'd need, so that he wasn't run down before he could lead it into Aleron's swing.

The bone eater growled, its bind eyes seemed to lock onto the air above Hart's head. It had heard his soft footfalls in the sand. Its hearing is better than I thought. It tensed to charge, and Hart was about to run. Then something strange happened. Flute music, eerie and liquid, quavered and trilled from the haze, somewhere out to Hart's left. The bone eater's great maimed head turned towards it. It rose slightly, out of its predatory crouch, as if listening. As Hart watched, barely breathing, it took a step towards the music, then another. It stepped off the track, and onto the carpet of leaf litter and dried mosses of the quicks. It's massive, clawed foot sank into the mould. As if entranced, the pain of its burns forgotten, the monster took another step, and suddenly the ground gave way. It went it to the waist. It bellowed, recoiling and thrashing, with animal savagery, against the clinging slurry, but its strength, now, worked against it. Its own great limbs displaced the medium of water and suspended particles, sucking it under. It disappeared, the surface rippled and heaved, one clawed hand emerging, flailing and grasping at the air, then it slipped under too.

Hart just stared, too dumbfounded to fully appreciate his deliverance. He heard Aleron's boots crunch in the sand as he dropped from the tree and approached, but didn't turn, simply standing and staring at the tranquil, if disturbed, surface of the quick where the monster had vanished.

'What happened?' whispered his friend, but Hart just shook his head. Aleron looked at the cleaver in his hand, and let it drop to the sandy ground with a quiet thump.

The flute had stopped when the creature broke through the crust, but now they saw a strange figure, thin-legged and strutting - there was something strange and unsettling about those legs, but it was hard to put one's finger on - with a round body and oversized head that sharpened into a nose so long it was almost a beak. It wore a thistle-head cap of reeds, and a ragged jacket that had once been fine, but was now worn and softened, and decorated with many little coins and carved figures, as if he wore a coat of talismans.

The person carried a long flute, of polished black willow, which he twirled in his fingers jauntily. Despite the fact that he was approaching them across the quicks, he did not seem to sink an inch. Now he came to stop before Aleron and Hart, and bowed elaborately, with many courtly flourishes and gestures. Hart could see that his eyes were golden rimmed, like a toads, glimmering with fey humor. Having completed his theatrical bow, the strange personage spoke, in a voice that was bird-like and piercing, yet somehow confidential, engaging.

         'Young warriors!' he trilled, 'Heroes! Liberators! Such joy! Such joy! You who destroyed the vile Culechien, which you name bone eaters, although they do not eat bones but only crack them open with their great jaws, to suck at the marrow. The long night is over and those grim ogres are destroyed by valour's sword!

         'Was.. was it your flute that lured it away?' asked Hart.

         'Both are to your account, young sirs! My own part was a trifle. Had you not unsighted the beast, with your canny scheme, I could scarce have lured it, blundering, into the quick.'

         'Thank you' said Hart, feeling his voice faint and inadequate.

         'Who are you?' asked Aleron.

         'Sharpfoot is my name! Sharpfoot, at your service!'

What are you, thought Hart, but that question seemed rude.

         'We were going to.. we were-' Aleron swallowed, and shook his head. He gestured at the cleaver at his feet, still glistening with the paralyzing saliva.

         'Ah! A brave stratagem, young master, but it would have not availed you. The creatures are immune to their own venom. Still, all's well, all's well!' Sharpfoot spun his flute around his fingers and hopped from leg to leg. 'Those fair folk, those innocents of the forest and glade, those gentle sprites of nature, that have forsaken this country for fear of these monsters, now they will return and sing, sing! All praise and glory to the sons of Adam!'

         'We were lucky' said Hart.

         'Indeed, young master. Had those reckless men not overtaken you, it would be you who fell into the monster's talons.

This gave Hart a chill. When Jaice's men had passed them, the monsters had been no more than a hundred paces further down the causway.

         'They were our brave and loyal subjects' said Aleron, eulogising men he'd previously described as shit-eating traitors, 'content to give their lives for me. I'm prince Aleron.'

         'No! not the prince of this very land, not he!' crowed Sharpfoot, hopping from one leg to the other in an apparent ecstasy.

         'The very same.'

         'Your mother was a great friend to us.'

         'What do you mean?' said Aleron, startled and unsettled at the mention of his mother, someone he had never known.

         'Surely you know, young prince, that she was of the old religion? Raised of it by her canny wet nurse, most reverend Mother.'

Aleron was trembling, from something other than exhaustion. 'No. No I- I never knew her. I only knew what they told me.'

Sharpfoot became conspiratorial. 'Hush! Hush!' he said, 'Can you feel the wind change? Young stag, son of the great king, first in honor. Let us not talk of such things on the open road. But soon. Know you have a friend in us fair folk! And we remember. We remember.' He tossed his black flute to Aleron, who caught it, numbly. 'If you are ever in need, play that flute, any tune will do. Help will come.'

         'Wait-' said Aleron, but as he looked up from the instrument, Sharpfoot was gone. They saw a faint light, like will-o-the wisps, dancing above the marsh water.

They stood in silence for a while, stunned. Hart could have almost thought it an hallucination, but the peculiar instrument was hard and real in Aleron's hand.

         'I thought I saw it kill you..' said Hart, 'in that place.'

         It grabbed for me,' replied Aleron, 'in the darkness, and got one of the bodies. I'd rolled under.'

         'I realize that now. But at the time-' Hart felt shaky and weak-legged.

Aleron winced. 'I think I have broken ribs,' he said, 'from when it sent me flying.'

         'Give me a minute.' Hart bent over, the ground swimming in his vision, his hand on his knees.

         'Are you alright?'

         'Just give me a minute.'

Hart felt it pass. He wasn't going to throw up. He spat, sucked in a clean breath and straightened up. The wind was changing and the voices of birds were on it. The marshes were wide and he was alive. God was mighty and His plan good, and the world was full of light. 'Should we head back?' he asked.

         'Heroes don't go backwards,' said Aleron, which was an odd thing to say, but Hart thought he knew what he meant. 'How's your eye?'

Hart touched its painful borders. "How does it look?"

         'Can you see?' asked Aleron.

         'Yes..'

         'It's going to swell up.'

         'How are your ribs?'

         'Cracked, I think. They hurt when I breath.'

         'Stop breathing then,' said Hart, and Aleron found himself smiling at the dumbness of the joke.

         'What do you want to do?' asked Hart.

Aleron looked out over the marshes and stood, silent, for a moment.

         'Let's go to the wedding.' He said. He took off his shirt and wrapped the head of the monster in it, as he'd seen peasants do, to carry game, and they set off, aching and weary, to find the path to Minnow Fett.