Hob In Chains was a huge and blocky humanish figure, a good ten feet tall with huge slabs of muscle and a boar's head. Great curling tusks protruded from his mouth, and his deep-set eyes were fierce and red and mad. Long iron chains fell about his naked malformed body from an iron collar round his thick neck. Man had tried to chain him up long ago, but it hadn't taken. His hands and forearms looked as though they'd been dipped in blood, so fresh it still dripped and steamed on the air. Half a dozen little men with pig's heads squatted on their haunches about his cloven feet, grunting and squealing as they vied for position. They looked at Suzie and me with hungry, impatient eyes, and thick strings of slaver fell from their mouths. Some of them still wore rags and tatters, from the time when they used to be human, before Hob In Chains bent them to his will.
Tomias Squarefoot was quite clearly a Neanderthal. Barely five feet tall, he was nearly as wide, with a squat, hulking body and a face that was neither human nor ape. He had no chin, and his mouth was a wide, lipless gash, but his eyes were strangely kind. He studied Suzie and me thoughtfully, scratching unselfconsciously at his hairy, naked body.
A dozen oversized wolves were pointed out to me as werewolves, and I saw no reason to doubt Livia. Their eyes held a human intelligence, alongside an inhuman appetite. There were liches, so recently risen from their graves that dark earth still clung to their filthy vestments. They had dead white flesh and burning eyes, and hands like claws.
There were ogres and bogles and goblins, and other worse creatures whose very names and natures had been lost to human history. Herne's Court-wild and fierce and deadly. And backing them up, pressing in close from every side, all the wild animals of the forest, gathered together in the only place where they could know a kind of truce. They glared at Suzie and me like a jury, with Herne the hanging judge. The god leaned suddenly forward on his bone Throne, and will-o'-the-wisps circled madly above his horned head like a living halo.
"Marcellus and Livia," said Herne, in a voice warm as summer sun, rough as a goat's bray. "It has been some time since you graced our Court with your mercenary presence. We had heard that you had fallen from grace, in that damned city."
"So we had, wild lord," Marcellus said smoothly. "But we have escaped those who would hold us slaves, and we come to you to restore our fortunes again. My wife and I bring you a gift-two travellers called John Taylor and Suzie Shooter. They think they are here to beg a boon from you."
"They're really not very bright," said Livia.
"Told you so," murmured Suzie. "Who do you want me to shoot first?"
"Hold off a while," I murmured back. "There's still a chance I can talk our way out of this."
"I can always use two more victims for my Hunt," Herne said lazily. "But it will take more than this to restore you to my goodwill."
"But the man is special," said Livia. "He is the son of that old witch Lilith."
And at that the whole monstrous Court rose up as one. Herne surged up out of his Throne, roaring like a great bear, but the savage sound was all but drowned out in the massed braying and howling of his Court. They swept forward, from all sides at once, with reaching hands and claws and fanged mouths, and the hatred in their raised voices beat on the air like a living thing. Suzie didn't even have time to bring her shotgun to bear on a single target before the creatures of the wild were all over her. They tore the shotgun out of her grasp and bore her to the ground, fighting and kicking all the way.
I didn't fare any better. Marcellus hit me expertly behind the ear with a leadweighted cosh even as his wife sold me out to Herne, and I was already on my knees and only half-conscious when the Court hit me from all sides. And for a long time there was only the impact of blows and kicks, and the pain of flesh torn by tooth and claw, and blood spilling thickly onto the dirty ground around me.
Eventually they tired of their sport, or Herne called them off, and the monstrous Court reluctantly drew back, resuming their previous positions around the perimeter of the clearing. They were panting and laughing, and all of them had some of my and Suzie's blood on them. We were hauled to our feet and held roughly in position before the Throne by the pig-headed men. Herne sat regally before us and regarded the damage his people had done with smiling satisfaction. There was blood on my face and in my mouth, and I hurt everywhere I could feel, but my head was already clearing. I'd been worked over by professionals, and this bunch of animals didn't even come close. Let me get my thoughts together, and I'd show this wood god a few tricks he'd never forget. I grinned savagely at Herne, ignoring the blood that spilled down my chin from split lips, and for a moment he looked uncertain. He had made a mistake in not letting his creatures kill me while they could; and I vowed I would make him and them regret such foolishness.
And then I looked across at Suzie, and forgot about everything but her. Her leathers were torn and bloody, and her head hung low. Only the pig-headed men kept her upright. Blood dripped steadily from her damaged face. They'd really done a job on her; because Suzie Shooter would never stop struggling as long as there was an ounce of fight left in her. And so she hung between the pig men like a bloody rag doll, and didn't answer me when I called her name. Marcellus and Livia laughed at me, and the Court laughed, too, in their various ways. I fought madly against the hands holding me; but there were too many of them, and my head hurt too much for me to concentrate enough to work my usual tricks. I couldn't even get my hands near my coat pockets.
They hit me some more, just because they could, and I tried not to cry out. But of course I did. After a while, I realised dully that they had stopped, and Herne was speaking to me. I raised my head and glared at him.
"Lilith's son," said Herne, in a thick gloating voice. "You have no idea how pleased we all are, to have you here. In our presence, in our power. There is no name more hated to us than that of Lilith, who created the city Nightside, in the name of absolute freedom, then banned us from it. Because we are wild, and like to break the things we play with. Because we would tear down the city, and stamp out the human civilization she favours. There is the city and there is the wild, and only one can triumph. We have always known that. Lilith offered freedom for all, but only on her terms. And only we were wise enough to see the contradiction in that, so only we were banished. Lilith has made us the past, a thing to be passed by, to be superseded and forgotten, and we will have our revenge for that."
"This is all news to me," I said, as clearly as I could. "But then, Mother and I have never talked much. What do you want with me, Herne?"
"To hurt you, and thus by proxy hurt Lilith," said Herne. "You shall be the prey in our Wild Hunt, and we shall chase and harry you all through the wild woods, hurting and killing you by inches, driving you on till you can go no further. And while you grovel before us and beg for mercy, we will tear you apart. Only your head shall be left intact, that we might send it to your mother, as a sign of our regard for her."
"She won't know me," I said. "My death will mean nothing to her."
Herne laughed, and the monstrous creatures of his Court laughed with him.
"This is all about me," I said. "You don't need the woman for this. Let her go ... and I promise you, I'll give you the best run you've ever seen."
"I think not," Herne said easily. "She is your woman, and so by hurting her we hurt you. So she runs first. And when you see the terrible things we have done to her, it will give you reason to ran even faster."
"You know," said Suzie, lifting her beaten face, "I am getting really pissed off with everyone assuming I'm Taylor's woman."