The Red Knight

‘Good Christ,’ Mag said again.

It was faster too.

The captain couldn’t take his eyes off it.

So, Harmodius said in his mind. So. The dead Magus sounded, if anything, more awestruck than the living captain.

The wind-storm of its wing beats began to echo across the hills. The only sound the captain could imagine like it was the beat of the great mills in Galle – he’d heard them in the low country.

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

It was as big as the hills.

His riding horse began to panic. Mag’s threw her with a sudden twist and bolted, and all the horses went wild. The captain dismounted, hauled his horse’s head down, and knelt by the seamstress.

‘Nothing hurt but my pride,’ she snapped. ‘And nothing much there to bruise.’

The Wyrm was coming right at them.

Its wings swept up, their tips almost touching, and then down, and the power of their passage left a swath of matted grass far below as the Wyrm passed over them. It was enormous. The captain was able to count to ten while the immense thing passed over him. His riding horse stood frozen in terror and the dragon’s shadow covered the ground for a hundred paces in all directions – more. It covered the sun.

He blinked his eyes and looked again.

Look in the Aether, said Harmodius.

The captain raised his sight and staggered in renewed awe. If Thorn had been a pillar of green, the Wyrm was – was the sun.

The captain shook his head.

Gawin threw his head back and whooped.

Bad Tom laughed aloud.

‘Now that, my friends,’ he said, ‘Is a Power of the Wild, and no mistake.’

They rode down into the next valley as the rain clouds came on, building to the north over the loch. A series of lochs fell away for leagues – larger and larger, until they merged into a sheet of water twenty leagues or more away. It was a superb view. In front of them, just short of the first loch, was a ford over a burn. They got cloaks off their saddles as they came to the stream. No one spoke much.

The rain came down like a curtain, sweeping from the north end of the valley, cutting off the view of the lochs.

Beyond was only rain, and black cloud.

‘It’s like the end of the world,’ Mag said.

The captain nodded. Ser Alcaeus crossed himself.

They crossed the stream quickly at a cairn. The captain rode off to the side, and then rejoined them. ‘Let’s move,’ he said. ‘The water here rises very quickly and very high.’

Gawin watched the water. ‘Salmon in that loch,’ he said wistfully.

On the far side was a narrow track that rose on the hillside. It was just wide enough for a horse, and they picked their way in single file, with the Keeper at the head and Bad Tom last.

It took them an hour to climb the ridge, and the rain caught them in the open again. It was cold, and they were soaked through despite heavy cloaks and hoods.

Up, and up they went.

At the top of the ridge was a seat of stone facing west.

The captain looked at it. So did Mag. It held the residue of power.

The Keeper didn’t stop. He rode down the far side.

From the very top, just beyond the High Seat, the captain could see the ghostly impression of crags to the north – far away, and gleaming white. Almost everything else was lost in the rain, although they were above it for a few hundred paces, and then they rode back into it.

Down and down, and trusting his horse. His light saddle was soaked, and he worried for his clothes. For summer, this was cold rain.

His brain was running wild.

‘We’re going to visit that?’ he asked, sounding more like Michael than he would have liked.

Ranald turned and looked back. ‘Aye.’

It was afternoon by the time they came out of the bottom of the clouds and could see, through gaps in the rain curtain, another valley of lochs. It was oriented differently – in this one the lochs grew smaller as the valley rose to the east and north, into high crags.

The Keeper reached the first ford, marked again with a cairn of stones that leaped to the eye in the naked, empty landscape of green grass and rock and water.

‘Water’s high,’ he shouted.

The captain leaned out and watched it for a long minute. They could hear rocks being rolled under the water.

The stream rushed down a narrow gorge above them, gathered power between two enormous rocks, and shot into the loch on their right – a sheet of water perhaps three hundred paces long and very deep.

Bad Tom laughed. He roared, ‘Follow me,’ and turned his horse’s head south. He seemed to ride straight out into the loch, yet his horse was virtually dry-shod as he rode a half circle a few paces out from the shoreline.

The captain followed, as did Ranald. Looking down into the water, he could see a bank of rocks and pebbles just under the water.

‘In the spring run-off,’ Ranald said, ‘the force of water pushes all the rock out of the mouth of the stream. Makes a bank – like yon.’ He laughed. ‘Any hillman knows.’

Tom looked back at the Keeper. ‘Aye. Any true hillman.’