Dark North

Thirty-One

Lucan’s party ascended doggedly over ever steeper, more rugged terrain, and through drifting palls of mist. There were terrible sounds from the high places around them: screeching and what sounded like multiple roaring voices echoing down the great, rocky gullies.

In due course, their road led up onto a narrow ridge with sheer slopes dropping into bottomless voids. They traversed it in single file: Lucan at the front, Wulfstan behind him, then Maximion, Davy Lug, Alaric and, last of all, Malvolio, whose horse drew the archery machine at its tail, the great mechanism groaning and creaking. The ridge road rose and fell through troughs and peaks, and its surface was rutted and uneven. The going was slow and difficult. At last, Malvolio’s beast, which was the most encumbered, halted in its tracks and no amount of spurring and whipping would urge it forward.

“My lord,” Malvolio called weakly. “This animal cannot continue. The arbalest is too much for her.”

Lucan glanced back along the line. Malvolio’s horse’s head drooped. Froth seethed from its quivering nostrils. “Cut it loose,” he shouted. “Let the animal follow at its own pace. You walk.”

More crestfallen than he had been at any stage so far, Malvolio turned in the saddle, seeking to unfasten the tether connecting it with the archery machine.

And with a searing screech, the Stymphalianus swooped.

Its target was the man who had hurt it so grievously.

Davy Lug had turned in the saddle, when the great, leathery body flashed past him, a single talon slicing his throat from ear to ear. He sagged sideways from his mount, eyes wide, clawing at the gaping wound from which a crimson torrent already spouted. Still screeching, the Stymphalianus wheeled and surged back down, wielding Heaven’s Messenger like a lance, aiming directly at Lucan’s heart. He parried the first stroke with the Roman sabre — with such force that the longsword was knocked free and thudded point-first into the ground — yet at the same time the monster caught a clump of his hair, hauling him out of his saddle. Lugged ten feet in the air, Lucan slashed upward, cutting cleanly through his own black locks. He landed back on the ridge road, the wind crushed out of him.

The Stymphalianus swooped again, its massive wings beating like battle-drums. Anyone who looked closely — and the men did, still mesmerised by the speed of the attack — would have seen that its wounded eye-socket was now a yawning crater, glutted with green gore, where it had yanked the arrowhead loose, taking bone and flesh with it. A broken shaft still protruded from its thigh. Alaric launched a javelin, but it glanced from the monster’s scaly hide. Its ravaged, demonic face twisted with glee as it struck down at him. He hefted his shield, stopping the beast’s claws, but was hurled from his saddle.

The winged horror now launched itself towards Maximion, who ducked frantically. Its claws raked across the back of his scalp and neck, drawing gouts of blood. Wulfstan was next in its path, although he had wheeled his horse around and was facing it with broadsword drawn. It halted directly above him, snatching and slashing as he hacked at it. With a chunk, his blade made contact with its left foot, and two of its clawed toes were severed. Howling? it veered away and bore down on Malvolio, who still sat goggle-eyed.

Lucan, who had got back to his feet, flung the sabre. It spun past Wulfstan and struck the monster on the wing, slicing the taut green membrane. The beast veered leftward, squawking in pain, but grabbed at Malvolio’s shoulder with its uninjured foot, fishhook claws sinking through mail and into flesh, and then hoisted him kicking and shrieking into the air — except that, thanks to its wounded wing, it no longer had the strength to soar away.

It was an advantage Wulfstan could not ignore.

He dropped his sword, stood in his stirrups and, using his saddle as a springboard, hurled himself upward, grabbing for his squire’s feet, but missing those and instead catching the strip of bloody skin hanging from the monster’s wing.

The Stymphalianus swerved from the ridge, the ground plunging steeply away beneath it, the two men still dangling, but it again failed to gain height — in fact, it was slowly dropping. Its screeches of rage became squeals of pain as a great portion of its wing was gradually torn from the bone. Wulfstan knew that he was finished; the fleshy flap he clung to was only attached by a thread of tissue. Just before it broke, he caught a last despairing glimpse of Malvolio’s face, bloodless and terrified.

“Hang on!” Wulfstan bellowed. “Just hang on!”

And then he was gone, turning over and over, his limbs flailing as he tumbled into the abyss. Malvolio had no time to scream. The claw fixed into his shoulder seemed to be weakening, so he took a firm grip on it, both hands locking around the ankle-joint. The Stymphalianus was falling ever faster; they began to spiral downward. The creature’s squawks became choked gurgles. Malvolio could barely catch his breath. From his perspective, the world was cavorting end over end — rocks and sky, rocks and sky.

It was pure fortune that when they struck solid ground, the creature was beneath him. Even so, Malvolio received a massive jolt. He rolled away, agonised, each breath rasping through his chest like the blade of a saw, but knowing that his peril was not passed. Whimpering, he managed to lever himself up into a crouch. He was on a steep hillside comprised mainly of rocks and spiky grass. He was unsure how many hundreds of feet down from the ridge he’d fallen, but close by him the slope ended in a precipice, and he could see clouds passing below.

He turned again — and saw the Stymphalianus, prone and senseless, tangled in the tatters of its own wings, one of them a mangled wreck. One of its legs had folded beneath it at a gruesome angle. It glanced up at him, but its one remaining eyelid fluttered as though barely conscious. Gasping, Malvolio grabbed up the nearest stone, a heavy disk of granite, and heaved it towards the monster, which gave a thin, keening wail. He raised the stone high and brought it down on the fiendish skull, not once, but three, four, five times — brutal, bone-crunching blows, which systematically flattened it to a pulp.

When he’d finished, he sank to his haunches again, his chest heaving and aching. A few minutes later, his sobs of pain became sobs of grief — twenty yards higher up the slope, he’d just spied the body of Wulfstan. The old knight lay jack-knifed backward over a tooth of rock. His mouth had frozen open, and his eyes were lifeless.