“You stupid wimp!” Paulie said. “This is your fault. What did you have to shout at me to take this road for?”
Mark cursed. He could feel Tod accelerating away into the distance.
They disentangled themselves from the tilted seats and climbed out into a half-dark landscape bare of anything but a line of pylons against the sky. A keen wind moaned through the hedges, flapping hair and plastering trousers to legs.
Paulie shivered. “This beastly little car! The steering’s shot to blazes. Is it badly broken? I’d hope it was, only that’d mean we’d be here all night.”
Mark squelched down into what proved to be a very muddy ditch and took a look. The motley car had both front wheels and its snout plunged into the mud, a terrier digging out a rat, but he could see no obvious damage. Lucky Deau Chevaux were so light. “I think if we both got down here,” he said, “we could lift—”
Paulie said, “Mark!” She sounded calm, but there was a strident note of panic underneath. “Mark, something very odd is happening.”
“What?” he asked, heaving at the buried bumper.
“Those pylons,” she said. “They moved—they’re moving now!”
The wind took her voice. Mark could not believe what he thought he heard her say. He stood up irritably. The line of pylons, dark against the lead-dark sky, stretched away out of sight over the hilltop. They were just pylons — skeleton steel towers with stumpy arms at the top to carry the cables — standing like a row of stiff giants across the fields. But as Mark looked, ready to ask Paulie not to add to their troubles by imagining things, he saw another pylon rise into sight from behind the hilltop. What? he thought. His eyes shot to the nearest, halfway across the field on the other side of the road. And he saw it take a waddling stride nearer, and another. Behind it, the whole line of tall metal towers swayed in unison as they strode, and strode again.
He watched without believing it for a second. Then it got through to him that a line of metal monsters — and they seemed to be bearing God knew how much voltage of live cable — was steadily and unstoppably marching toward him. He leaped around the car’s buried hood, seized Paulie, and dragged her away down the road. He felt the foremost pylon turn slightly to reorientate on him as he ran.
“Down!” he yelled at Paulie.
They dived into the ditch together, treading on each other, wet to the knees, almost waist-deep in mud as they crouched around to watch the nearest metal giant arrive in the road in one clanging, swaying stride. Mark could feel it search for him. Not Paulie, for some reason, just him.
“Protection,” he said. “Put up protection for both of us. I can’t. They’re homing on me.”
Paulie was uttering small, yammering sounds of terror, but she did her best. With his senses heightened by terror, Mark saw the warding grow around them in a gentle blue haze, glowing faintly in the half-dark. In the road the foremost pylon took another crashing stride and then stood, towering, at a loss. With the same heightened senses, Mark felt the strength and nature of the sending that activated it. God in heaven! It was wild magic. Someone hated him enough to harness that which no one should have been able to control at all.
“Turn it — turn it away!” he whispered.
“I can’t — it’s wild — it’s strong!” Paulie whimpered. He could feel her pushing weakly, so weak against the mighty thing, and wished he dared help. But he knew without a shadow of doubt that if he used the slightest power himself, those things would know and home in on it.
Clang. Paulie’s push had been enough to start the thing moving again. Or perhaps it was the pressure of the pylons advancing behind. The line continued stalking forward, curving slightly now from its former course, striding solemnly and mindlessly across the road, through the hedge, and on downhill. The first passed twenty yards away, the second ten. The third tower strode straight upon the motley car with an appalling tinny rending, and swayed, held up only by the cables strung from its stumpy arms. This brought the rest striding so near that Paulie and Mark both lay flat, faces in their arms, feeling the earth vibrate, the crunch of tarmac torn from the road, and the wail of wind in struts and cables. With that was mixed the acid-blast of magic full of violence and hatred, which in turn mingled with heat and thick fumes as what was left of the motley car caught fire and blazed against the hedge.
“They’ve stopped,” said Paulie. “They’ve lost you.”
Mark risked standing up. The blazing car cast orange light along the ditch, showing it steaming, and it was hard to see beyond. He could just pick out the line of giants standing slanted downhill toward the main road. One stood like a sentinel against the fading light of the sky not far away. “They’re waiting,” he said. “Thanks for turning them.”
“I had help,” Paulie said gruffly, “but I don’t know whose. Why is Roddy after you like this?”
“No idea.” It took a mere flick of power to trace Tod, and Tod was, to Mark’s surprise, very far away and quite unconcerned with Mark. Then why—?
The nearest pylon lurched and began to advance on Mark.
“Oh God! They found you again!” Paulie staggered up. Mud sucked and she exclaimed with disgust. “Sorry, Mark, but I’m off. They’re after you, and you can cope on your own.”
Mark caught her arm as she set off downhill. He needed her for protection. It shamed him, but he dared not let her go. Their whole marriage was like this. “Don’t be a fool. No one’s safe from the wild magic. There’s a small stone circle quite near. It’s strong. It might help.”
Her eyes rolled sideways to the metal giant. “Which way?”
He pointed, and they fled that way, leaving the car burning, bursting through rolls of smoke, clumsily jumping the torn-up tarmac and then the broken hedge. They ran, panting and choking, up beside the deep-gouged tracks the advancing pylons had made in the turf. Paulie stumbled trying to look back. Mark jerked her upright, wrenching his arm. The foremost pylon was looming past the flames, towing a crescent of more distant striding giants with it. Paulie’s breath came in shrieks as they reached the top of the hill, and Mark could barely breathe, but neither dared slow down. They careered down the slope beyond, mostly rough grass, and crashed through the narrow end of a black, spiny coppice.
Below them lay a small meadow, hard to see in the near dark, with the white ribbon of a hedged lane, and a gate into the lane beyond that. The small stone circle was a warm emanation in the center of the meadow, faintly seen beside the dark blot of a parked car. They pelted for the ring of stones, invoking — imploring — assistance if any was to be had, and threw themselves within it, each clinging to a separate stone and heaving for breath.
“That car,” Paulie gasped. “Could we?”
Above came crashing as the first pylon marched into the coppice.
Mark looked at the dark, deserted car. A BMW. He looked again, unbelievingly. It was his own car. He could sense it, feel the habitual little protections he always used around it in traffic. Beyond it, the gate was shut. There was no sign or feel of Tod anywhere near. With the warmth of the stone under his hands and its safety suffusing him, he was free to see that the things waddling down the hillside at him had nothing to do with Tod. They were a sending from quite another quarter. The unknown was angry and drawing on an associate who came from somewhere very dark and low indeed.
Mark was sprinting toward the car as soon as he saw this. It was a godsend — too good to be true — there had to be a catch! Christ, I hope he left the keys in it! At the very least, it was bound to be locked. But when he seized the door handle, the door opened. When he grabbed for what he knew would be an empty keyhole, his hand encountered the dangling tab of his own keys. Thank God! He hurled himself into the seat and thrust it back to its usual position, turning the keys as he did so. And — another miracle — the engine purred, and the gas gauge swung around to full. He almost blessed Tod.