A Different Kingdom(62)

—And halted with his dagger in midair. The air thickened and dark shapes blurred past Michael, childhood nightmares running under the sun. The fox men were all about him.

The riderless Knight snarled and was buried under a fusillade of down-swinging arms. There was a barrage of sodden thuds and the fox men ran on, screaming, leaving a corpse behind them.

The remaining horsemen turned tail and fled into the burning chaos of the village. Michael bent and was sick on to the bloody ground. It was happening too quickly. Too fast.

He reloaded and shot the maimed horse with tears burning in his eyes, smoke smarting his throat. The dead leader's sword lay glinting on the ground nearby and he picked it up, avoiding the gaze of lifeless eyes, the glint of bone. There was a breast split open like a Sunday joint. He stood in the gateway and stared into the village.

More houses were burning. The fox men had fired the church and flames were creeping up the tower. Apig ran squealing and knocked down a hysterical toddler. Shapes struggled in the gathering smoke, horses nickered and spun, metal clashed, men and women shouted and yelled. A body bobbed in the stream. Ashes and cinders blew through the air like gliding crows.

'My God!'

'Your God,' Cat said, and he spun round, sword in one hand and shotgun in the other.

'You stink of blood and iron,' Cat said with distaste.

He turned back to the terrible show, shaking his head. 'Why, Cat? Why do they fight like this?'

'It is the way the world works. This world. You do not like what you see, Michael?'

'I loved it. For a minute there, Cat, I loved it. I really did.'

The fighting seemed to be dying down. The rush and crackle of the burning buildings was the loudest sound. The church tower collapsed in on itself with a crashing roar and an explosion of outflung gledes. Smoke veiled the village as thickly as fog, acrid on Michael's lips. It grimed his skin along with the horse blood that was stiffening there.

Out of the smoke a shape trotted, wide-eyed and breathing hard. Cat caught it, uttering a laugh that Michael had not heard her use before. She soothed the terrified grey gelding and stabbed Michael with her dancing, green-blazing eyes.

'We got what we came for, at any rate.'

Other shapes loomed out of the smoke: a line of men. Michael backed away.

'Cat—'

Fox men. They carried four of their comrades on their shoulders and seemed tall beyond belief with the bestial masks on their heads and the sharp ears pricking. They were black with smoke and their eyes were white and glaring in the paint and filth of their faces. Severed heads swung bleeding from their waists and they dragged weeping girls behind them by the hair. When they saw Michael they gave a shout and broke into a run.

They had come for him. He had known they would since that first evening he had glimpsed them down by the river. He was theirs.

'Cat!' Despairingly. He could not move.

They were around him then, teeth flashing-and their miasma rising to join the smoke. Up close they were smaller—shorter than he was. Bone ornaments clicked and swung; blood and hair clotted their flint axes. Michael's stomach heaved but he swallowed it down. The shotgun was a dead, slick weight in one hand, the sword a bar of lead in the other.

'Help me, Cat.'

'You need no help, Michael. I believe they mean to thank you.'

And she rattled off a speech in the weird tongue that Michael half understood. A soldier, she said he was; a warrior of standing from a far-off land. A friend of the Wyrim.

One fox man taller than the rest pushed forward, his fellows making room for him. The only sounds were the muffled sobbing of the women and the crackle of burning.

The fox man said something, something Michael did not catch. Cat translated for him.

'The sword. He says it is a good one; an iron sword of the type made by Ulfberht.' She grinned. 'He says to take care of it. It will be good for killing Wyrim if the magic of your fire-stick ever fails.' The fox man put a fist to his chest and said something else. 'He says his name is Oskyrl, a warleader of his people. In your tongue that name would be Ringbone.'

THEY LEFT THE village to burn, and slid off through the forest while the surviving inhabitants fought to save what was left of their homes. It was frightening to watch the fox men move through the trees. They seemed to be built out of sinew-covered bone, unrelenting and untiring as wolves, and their feet made no sound. They loped through the forest in half a dozen parallel files, the captured women struggling along in the middle of each. The women were quiet now, their eyes red-rimmed and their faces blackened. They followed their captors as if too shocked or tired to be anything but resigned. When one stumbled her captor usually helped her to her feet with a swift flash of an arm. Sometimes, however, she was tugged on by her ragged clothing until she could scramble upright. No one spoke. They moved through the wood like a swift wind.