The Bone Forest

  Thomas slapped his hand against the face. The blow stung his flesh. He reached for his chisel, placed the sharp tool against one of the narrow eyes.

  “NO!” screeched Thorn. His face twisted and turned. The stone of the church shuddered and groaned. Thomas hesitated. A green glow came from the features of the deity. The eyes were wide with fear, the lips drawn back below the mask. Thomas raised his hammer.

  “NO!” screamed the head again. Arms reached from the wall. The light expanded. Thomas backed off, terrified by the spectre which had appeared there, a ghastly green version of Thorn himself, a creature half ghost, half stone, tied to the wall of the church, but reaching out from the cold rock, reaching for Thomas Wyatt, reaching to kill him.

  Thomas raised the chisel, raised the hammer. He ran back to the face of Thorn and with a single, vicious blow, drove a gouging furrow through the right eye.

  The church shuddered. A block of stone fell from the high wall, striking Thomas on the shoulder. The whole balcony vibrated with Thorn’s pain and anger.

  Again he struck. The left eye cracked, a great split in the stone. Dampness oozed from the wound. The scream from the wall was deafening. Below the balcony, yellow light glimmered. The Watchman, staring up to where Thomas performed his deed of vengeance.

  Then a crack appeared down the whole side of the church. The entire gallery where Thomas had worked dropped by a man’s height, and Thomas was flung to the balcony. He struggled to keep his balance, then went over the wall, scrabbling at the air. Thorn’s stone-scream was a nightmare sound. Air was cool on the mason’s skin. A stone pedestal broke his fall. Broke his back.

  The village woke to the sound of the priest’s terrible scream. He stumbled from the mason’s house, hands clutching at his eyes, trying to staunch the flow of blood. He scrabbled at the wood mask, stripping away the thorn, the oak, the crisp brown leaves, exposing dark hair, a thin dark beard.

  The priest—Thorn’s priest—turned blind eyes to the church. Naked, he began to stagger and stumble towards the hill. Behind him, the villagers followed, torches burning in the night.

  Thomas lay across the marble pillar, a few feet from the ground. There was no sensation in his body, though his lungs expanded to draw air into his chest. He lay like a sacrificial victim, arms above his head, legs limp. The Watchman circled him in silence. The church was still.

  Soon the priest approached him, hands stretched out before him. The pierced orbs of his eyes glistened as he leaned close to Thomas Wyatt.

  “Are you dying, then?”

  “I died a few minutes ago,” Thomas whispered. The priest’s hands on his face were gentle. Blood dripped from the savaged eyes.

  “Another will come,” Thorn said, “There are many of us. The work will be completed. No church will stand that is not a shrine to the true faith. The spirit of Christ will find few havens in England.”

  “Beth …” Thomas whispered. He could feel the bird of life struggling to escape him. The Watchman’s torch was already dimming.

  Thorn raised Thomas’s head, a finger across the dry lips. “You should not have seen,” said the priest. “It was a gift for a gift. Our skills, the way of ritual, of fertility, for your skill with stone. Another will come to replace me. Another will be found to finish your work. But there will be no child for you, now. No child for Beth.”

  “What have I done?” Thomas whispered. “By all that’s holy, what have I done?”

  From above him, from a thousand miles away, came the ring of chisel on stone.

  “Hurry,” he heard Thorn call into the night. “Hurry!”

  The Shapechanger

  England, AD 731

  (I)

  The rain had eased off and the Wolfhead threw back the hood of his heavy cape. He turned to watch his young companion struggle through the wet and clinging mud of the track.

  “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to stay with me,” the shaman said.

  The boy stopped and shrugged his heavy pack into a more comfortable position. “We should have sheltered,” he complained.

  “We could have sheltered,” the Wolfhead retorted. “I chose not to.”

  The young lnkmarker (the name by which he now knew himself) muttered vilely. He was burdened down beneath the pack in which they carried the skins for the tent and the various substances and flints that could make their fire. The Wolfhead carried the wood—for fire and shelter—and these sticks currently numbered five, and were not heavy at all; and his own pack was small, containing the tools, ten rolled-up masks, feathers …

  Inkmarker was a small, fat youth, not yet ten years of age. He had been taught to write in the monastery at Cantabriagh, where he had been placed in his swaddling after his parents had been murdered (he had been told) by “men from the northern regions”. He was not sure, now, that the oppressive regime within the monastery would not have been preferable to this life with the arcane stranger who had found him, starving, on his second attempt to escape the walls of his prison.

  “If I break my fingers,” Inkmarker complained, “it will be the worse for you.”

  “If you break your fingers and cannot write, I’ll leave you where you are. There isn’t any magic in writing …”

  “You can’t write,” the boy said loudly, sloshing through the mire.

  He was drawn up short by a thick, hard hand grabbing at his nose, twisting his face until his neck threatened to break. The Wolfhead breathed stale breath into his mouth. Grey eyes, wide grin, fixed stare. “You have power over me then, do you?”

  “No sir,” Inkmarker avowed. “I’m just tired and hungry.”

  The ferocious grip relaxed. Tall man, small boy, the tall regarded the short, and warmth flowed. “Yes. I am too. But we’re nearly there. That hill, ahead of us …”

  “Is it Dancing Hill?”

  “I’m certain of it.”

  They stared ahead through the grey day. The hill was bordered by thick wood but itself was quite bare as if the chalk beneath had thrust too close to the air, denying the earth a chance to hold the trees. A small, strange building was in ruins there, ramshackle, ancient.

  “No sign of the people,” Inkmarker said, his pale face showing the anxiety he suddenly felt. He stared all around, at the dark wood, the wet land.

  “No one has lived on Dancing Hill for a long time,” the shaman murmured. “They’re on the other side. To the south. That’s why we approached from the north. I wanted time to get the sense of the place.”

  “And the Demon?” the boy asked shakily.

  “If there is a demon, then it will be in the village. Not here.”

  There was a fallen tree. Its bark was wet, but it was a good seat. The Wolfhead led the way to it. “Sit down and get a sheet ready. We’ll make our recording from now.”

  “I’ll get my bum wet!”

  The man watched the boy, who stood anxiously feeling the thin seat of his cloth britches. God knew, it was cold and miserable enough without asking for a chill in the bowels. The Wolfhead sighed and slipped off his heavy cape. He laid it over the tree, then helped the pack from the boy’s back. “His Lordship may now be seated.”

  “Thank you.”

  Without his cape, the Wolfhead was a strange sight, a man more skin and bone than flesh, clothed in sewn-together pelts: of rats, and hares, and lynx, and otter. He had encountered enough of the Christian world to have learned that he looked like the man called Jacob, who had worn a many-coloured coat. He was the many-coloured wolf. His colours were the colours of time, rich earth, grey stone, red blood, white bone, the grey of skies that watched the wandering of the first people. His magic, if magic it was, was tied to those colours, each strip of pelt warming both the body that wore them and the spirit that lurked within that walking corpse.

  He was a gaunt man, teeth half gone, hands like the gnarled roots of a blackthorn. His hair was white, bound together in a long red sheath of linen, which he drew across his shoulder and pinned to his left chest, and str
oked for luck as if it was a tail of Epona’s horse.

  The lice that crawled upon him were thin and starving, sucking at the hollow that was his body. They jumped and crawled to Inkmarker whenever they could, for a feast, for life, but the plump boy was meticulous in his preening, picked and squashed them, and complained that he was weak from loss of blood. When he wrote in the journal he smeared the creatures on the parchment. The words were the Wolfhead’s, the blood was his own.

  “Perhaps you would like to eat before we begin?” the Seer said gently. Inkmarker smiled, eyes wide. “Yes!”

  The Wolfhead turned towards the trees, sniffed the air, then smiled. “There is a boar in a thicket, four hundred of your pathetic paces to the west. It’s a small creature, taller than you, but old. It has a spear-wound high on its chest. It is an easy kill. Go and kill it—you’ll need only your bare hands—we’ll cook it, eat it, and then we can work …”

  Thinking, no doubt, of the tusks that could disembowel a man, the boy stayed just where he was, seated on the rotting trunk, eyes watching his master, hands white where they gripped the cape.

  “I don’t think I feel like boar today …” he said.

  “Nor do I,” the Seer murmured. “Yes. You’re right. It’s good to go without food. So we’ll work, shall we?”

  “Yes.”

  And Inkmarker picked up his goosefeather quill, and the clay pot of ink, and leaned forward to the thick, yellow vellum that he had already strapped to his right leg, to hold it still. The Wolfhead began to speak.

  They called for me. I have come to their village. The hill where the old fires once burned is to the south. There is a stream, and the demon is beyond it. This place has colour and memory. The woods have been cut once, and there are places of burial. I feel no ghosts, but there is metal in the ground and it is not iron. I have watched the flight of three birds. Something is buried here, but perhaps this has no relevance. I placed my hand on the earth and a beetle crawled upon it, following the line of life. This will be a successful encounter with the demon. I shall be more than kind to the boy Inkmarker. He will make a fine Wolfhead.

  The Wolfhead reached around and grabbed the boy’s wrist, lifting the quill away from the vellum. Inkmarker looked startled, then panicked. The man said, “What are those last signs?”

  “The last words?”

  “What do they say?”

  Gulping, the boy said, “Written this day at Dancing Hill by the Inkmarker.”

  “That’s what I told you to say, but they don’t say it. Show me how they say it.”

  But when Inkmarker ran a finger along the line of symbols, the Wolfhead watched only the boy’s eyes, and saw at once that he was lying. An ear was resoundingly clipped. The truth was quickly told. The line was deleted, obscured by the black fluid that flowed from the quill.

  From the ruined shrine on top of Dancing Hill the Wolfhead stared down at the cluster of ragged tents and shelters that had been erected by the river, in the eastern lee of the woodland. He counted ten tents, four more permanent structures; roofs were of skins, walls were poles with turf or sacking fillings. The stockade that protected this makeshift habitation was fashioned from thorn and hazel, and was simple and insubstantial. A dog was barking loudly; the Wolfhead could see it, across the river, a scrawny creature, half wild, banished by the villagers. It darted in and among the thickets, prowling hungrily.

  “Is this the haunted village?” Inkmarker asked.

  “Just the villagers. The original settlement, the homestead they’ve abandoned, is further away …”

  Two large fires burned, and the women, in their grey and green tunics, were gathered around them or at the riverside. There were clusters of men, all of them holding spears and small shields, Saxon farmers now nervously imitating their warrior forebears. The Wolfhead noticed how their cheeks and arms were patterned for war in the local fashion.

  There was an aimlessness in the place. The fields, close by, were tall with wheat and weeds, untended, untouched.

  “They must be starving,” the shaman mused.

  “So am I,” said his Inkmarker.

  The village-settlement which they had abandoned was just visible in the far distance, on a rise of land, which had been thrown up into steep earthen walls. It was a small place. The Wolfhead strained his ancient eyes to see it, and thought he could identify the remnants of the high wooden palisade. But even from here the man could see that there were structures and shapes within the compound that were wrong, that were strange. A haze hung over the deserted village, as if heat blasted the air. But it was a cold day, even if a spring one.

  The shrine on the hill, long-since abandoned for different reasons to the village, was dedicated to a dark God. Ruined, the wooden walls decayed, the stone kneeling-places and altars weatherworn, their painted symbols faded … nevertheless, there was a power here. The blind face that watched, from a corner where it had fallen, seemed almost to sneer at the Wolfhead.

  Remember me? Does your ancient memory go back as far as MY first beginnings?

  The grainy stone was worn and chipped. But the Wolfhead remembered him, remembered the god.

  “I struck at you with an antler twice my height. Generations later I chased you across a land of wild horses. I cracked your skull in front of the first of the Warlords. Their bronze daggers were useless against my skills. I saw you torn down by the Legions; I stood by and watched. You don’t frighten me.”

  The sneer on the decaying head of the old deity seemed to fade a little.

  “Is this place important?” Inkmarker asked.

  “Probably not. We’re up against a demon. A shape-changer. Not a memory. Not a cracked stone god.”

  “Which god was he?” the boy asked nervously.

  “Which of his names would you like?”

  “The Red Branch’s.”

  “Mabathagus. God of Hills. God of the Deep Earth.”

  “Hecate …” the boy whispered.

  “Hecate was his daughter. She killed him centuries ago.”

  “Then we’re safe from him?”

  “I would think so. I can’t promise so.”

  The boy moved cautiously away.

  Yes, this place is important. An event happened here. The place has magic in it. The people of the village have no knowledge of it. They have farmed the land. They have worshipped old gods and new. They have practised old ways and new. They have lost touch with the spirit of the land. Raiders from the North will have left their mark. The river could have helped them sail this far. I expect this is a forgotten place. Metal in the ground. A ruined shrine. A hill that cries with forgotten voices. A woodland that has grown back to cover the scars of another place. I feel only peace here. The shadows are still. Nothing has disturbed them. It is old. It stretches ahead. But the demon is from outside. This will be a terrible encounter, I now realise.

  He led the way through the crude thorn fencing, past the nervous guards, and into the circle of tents. The women took the children and huddled by the riverside. The men, looking angry and tired, formed a square about the strangers, their spears (few of them iron-tipped) and daggers held ready for attack.

  “Is this the homestead of Gilla’s people?”

  A small man, the oldest of the group, stepped forward. His cloak was heavier than most, and he wore a dulled leather jacket over his stained linen shirt. “I’m Gilla. These are my people. And this is our home while the demon inhabits our settlement. You will be the Wolfhead, then. You came faster than I thought.”

  “It was a good summoning,” the seer said. Inkmarker shuffled uneasily behind him, not liking the enclosure of glowering, fair-haired men. The Wolfhead paced in a cross within the square of Gilla’s people. He stopped at a certain point, smiled, then used his own knife to cut the greensward. After a few minutes he stabbed down into the ground and lifted out the decaying, wormy head of a wolf.

  The men all relaxed. Gilla himself shook his head, amazed at the way the stranger had so easily located the
sign of the summoning.

  “The spell is an old one,” Gilla said.

  “I know,” the Wolfhead agreed mildly. “Who showed it to you?”

  “My mother. She was a dreamer in that particular way that attracts magic. She had awarenesses of things beyond my simple senses. Now that I know the summoning spell works, I shall show my own sons.”

  “Boil the head,” the Wolfhead stated flatly, tossing the revolting object to one of the men in the square. “Give me the bones, then reduce the soup to a thick broth.” He turned and looked at Inkmarker, who suddenly turned more pale than ever.

  “Make sure this apprentice of mine drinks a good bowlful.”

  “Not me. I’m not that hungry.”

  “Hunger has nothing to do with it. You want to be a Wolfhead. You want to work wolf magic. You had better know the taste of the spirit you’ll be working with.”

  Inkmarker looked green, now, staring frantically at the rotten object on the ground.

  The Wolfhead and Gilla went beneath a canopy and sat on the bracken and rush floor. They ate a little food. The seer drank milk. Gilla drank the sour wine that was on offer.

  “When did the demon enter the village?”

  “Twenty-five or so nights ago.”

  “Where is it located?”

  “That’s hard to tell. But there is a deep well in the centre of the village, lined with stone. We were not the first people to settle in this place. We built partly out of the remains of an older town.”

  “A well … lined by stone …” the seer murmured softly. His eyes narrowed and he nodded as if understanding something.

  “It has been there for years,” Gilla said. “More years than I can imagine.” He shrugged, then frowned, peering through age-worn eyes at the shaman. “Why would the demon come now?”

  “Something was done to the stones,” the Wolfhead muttered. “I have experienced such unwilling summoning many times.”

  Gilla stared at him hard for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. Two names were carved upon the top-stone. I’d hoped this wouldn’t be the reason.”