'When things are easy I start to worry.'
'And you're calling me a pessimist.' Gardener peered into the misty
middle-distance. 'Though you'd have expected most of the footprints to
have been washed away by now.'
'It's all the things he dropped,' Mallory said. 'They're like signposts so
we don't lose our way.'
'Or perhaps you're just being paranoid,' Daniels said. 'What could
possibly be the point? Who even knows we're looking for him?'
'Do you think we should mention this to Hipgrave?' Miller asked. As
usual, the captain was trotting ahead, out of hearing range.
'Do you think he'd even listen?' Mallory replied.
As twilight approached rapidly, they considered making an early camp,
but Hipgrave insisted that they press on. 'We must be getting close to him
now. How would we feel if he died of exposure tonight because we
delayed? He might be just over the next rise.'
Mallory made treasonous utterings, but the others accepted Hipgrave's
view and continued against their better judgment as the light began to fade
and the landscape slowly turned greyer. Soon after, they crested a ridge
and saw a large hill looming up ahead of them.
'We've reached the edge of the Plain.' Gardener pointed out a church
steeple rising up due north.
Hipgrave rode back to them with the sodden map that had until then
been of little use in the secretive heart of the army land. 'That's Westbury
Hill,' he said. 'On top, there's Bratton Camp, an Iron-Age hill-fort. If we
need to, we can make camp there.'
'Look!' Miller said suddenly. They followed his pointing finger to a dark
figure moving across the hilltop.
'That could be him,' Hipgrave said. 'Nobody else in their right mind
would be roaming around a place like that now.'
'I love these leaps of logic,' Mallory said, to no one in particular.
Hipgrave spurred his horse towards the hill, with the others following
close behind. It felt good finally to ride at speed, making them believe they
were too fast for danger, once more untouchable.
Through the thin late-afternoon light, Westbury Hill loomed with
seemingly unnatural steepness in the flat landscape, so heavily wooded
around the lower reaches that they had to dismount and tether their
horses. At Hipgrave's urging, they forged on, the breath burning in their
lungs from the exertion of the climb. Finally, they reached the flat, treeless
summit where the wind blew fiercely. In the twilight, they could just make
out a figure picking its way over the banks and ditches of the hill-fort about
half a mile away.
'I don't like it up here,' Miller said. 'There's a bad feeling.'
As they moved uneasily across the open space, crows flapped all
around, their eerie calls sounding like human cries for help.
'We were told to keep away from old hill-forts in one of Blaine's
briefings,' Daniels said.
Mallory recalled his experience on Old Sarum, and knew why.
'It was one of the classes before you joined us,' Daniels continued.
'They gave us a list of places we should approach with caution: hilltops,
particularly where there were standing stones or ancient earthworks, some
lakes and rivers, places that folklore linked with fairies or other supernatural creatures.' He smiled thinly. 'I presume they thought we might be
corrupted by the sheer paganness of them.'
The icy wind made the hilltop feel even more lonely. They came across
a standing stone set in concrete with a plaque that said,
To commemorate the
Battle of Ethandun, fought in this vicinity, May
ad
878 when King Alfred the
Great defeated the Viking army, giving birth to the English nationhood.
The Iron-Age defences made the going hard; pits and slippery banks lay
hidden in the undergrowth, so they were constantly in danger of turning
their ankles or breaking bones in a fall, but the uncomfortable atmosphere
made them even more cautious. There was no longer any sign of the
cleric.
Bratton Camp lay on the north-western edge of the hilltop, overlooking
a drop that was so steep and high it took their breath away. The B3098 was
like a white snake far below. Next to the road, a giant factory that had
scarred the ancient landscape now stood abandoned like some child's toy.
In the last of the fading light, the shadows of clouds scudded across the
surrounding fields.
'Look at that.' Miller indicated an area of white on the steep slope below
them. As they moved around, an enormous horse came into view, carved
in the chalk that lay just beneath the scrubby grass.
' "The oldest white horse in Wiltshire",' Gardener read from a sign,
' "dating from
1778
but preceded by a much older version, date and origin
unknown".'
'Join the knights and see the sights,' Mallory quipped, before adding,
'What do you reckon, Daniels - Iron-Age camp, ancient white horse, a
standing stone and undoubtedly lots of folklore? Are the alarm bells
ringing?'
Hipgrave raised his voice above the howling wind. 'Stop chatting - keep
your minds on the mission. We need to fan out . . .' His order was cut off
when he caught sight of movement from the corner of his eye.
The figure was disappearing behind an enormous earthwork that
looked to Mallory like a neolithic barrow mound: he glimpsed only
white face, shock of white hair, black clothes, the fleeting glimpse of a dog
collar.
'There he is!' Hipgrave said. 'Halloooo!' he yelled, waving in the figure's
direction.
But the figure had already disappeared. A few seconds later, they heard
a muffled scream. They all stared into the growing gloom, listening
intently.
'Quick!' Hipgrave barked. 'He's in trouble! Let's get over there!'
Even in the heat of the moment, Mallory couldn't shake the feeling that
what he had seen hadn't been quite right. It was a long way away and the
light had been poor, but the vicar's white face had appeared oddly
inhuman. Something in the shadows of the eyes and the black slash of
mouth had made it seem more an approximation of a man, perhaps not a
man at all.
They ran across the fort, past the barrow mound. There was no longer
any sign of the cleric.
'Take it easy,' Mallory cautioned.
'No!' Hipgrave yelled back. 'He might be in trouble!'
Yet even he was forced to come up sharp when he saw what emerged
from the near dark on the other side of the fort. Ranged across the
northern corner, branches had been roughly hammered into the ground
and from them hung the skulls and dismembered carcasses of a variety of
animals: badgers, foxes, rabbits, crows, smaller birds. Some were mere
bones, picked clean by scavengers. Others were fresh kills, mouldering as
they hung, glassy-eyed.
'What's going on?' Gardener said. The scene had an unnerving element
of ritual about it.
'A warning,' Mallory said. They eyed the grisly display warily, each of
them trying to discern some meaning in the arrangement of carcasses.
Though it was probably their imaginations, the wind appeared to pick up
at that particular spot.