Gregg identified the speaker as Frenchy Martine, a young savage from the Canadian backwoods who had drifted into Copper Cross a year earlier. The near-fatal shot had come from the direction of the upright coffin which was Gregg’s primitive lavatory. Gregg had no idea how Martine had got that close in the time available, and it came home to him that a man of fifty was out of his class when it came to standing off youngsters in their prime.
“Tell you something else, Mister Gregg,” Martine chuckled. “You’re too old for that choice piece of woman-flesh you got tucked away in your …”
Gregg took one step to the side and fired at the narrow structure, punching a hole through the one-inch timbers as if they had been paper. There was the sound of a body hitting the ground beyond it, and a pistol tumbled into view. Gregg stepped back into the lee of the shack just as a rifle cracked in the distance and he heard the impact as the slug buried itself in the wood. He drew slight comfort from the knowledge that his opponents were armed with ordinary weapons—because the real battle was now about to begin.
Martine had assumed he was safe behind two thicknesses of timber, but there were at least four others who would not make the same fatal mistake. Their most likely tactic would be to surround Gregg, keeping in the shelter of rock all the way, and then nail him down with long-range rifle fire. Gregg failed to see how, even with the black engine of death in his hands, he was going to survive the next hour, especially as he was losing quantities of blood.
He knelt down, made a rectangular pad with his handkerchief and tucked it into his shirt in an attempt to slow the bleeding. Nobody was firing at him for the minute, so he took advantage of the lull to discard the single empty shell and make up the full load again. A deceptive quietness had descended over the area.
He looked around him at the sunlit hillside, with its rocks like grazing sheep, and tried to guess where the next shot might come from. His view of his surroundings blurred slightly, and there followed the numb realization that he might know nothing about the next shot until it was sledging its way through his body. A throbbing hum began to fill his ears—familiar prelude to the loss of consciousness—and he looked across the open, dangerous space which separated him from the house, wondering if he could get that far without being hit again. The chances were not good, but if he could get inside the house he might have time to bind his chest properly.
Gregg stood up and then became aware of the curious fact that, although the humming sound had grown much louder, he was relatively clear-headed. It was dawning on him that the powerful sound, like the swarming of innumerable hornets, had an objective reality when he heard a man’s deep-chested bellow of fear, followed by a fusillade of shots. He flinched instinctively, but there were no sounds of bullet strikes close by. Gregg risked a look down the sloping trail and what he saw caused an icy prickling on his forehead.
A tall, narrow-shouldered, black-cloaked figure, its face concealed by a black hood, was striding up the hill towards the house. It was surrounded by a strange aura of darkness, as though it had the ability to repel light itself, and it seemed to be the centre from which emanated the ground-trembling, pulsating hum. Behind the awe-inspiring shape the horses belonging to the Portfield bunch were lying on their sides, apparently dead. As Gregg watched, Portfield himself and another man stood up from behind rocks and fired at the figure, using their rifles at point blank range.
The only effect of their shots was to produce small purple flashes at the outer surface of its surrounding umbra. After perhaps a dozen shots had been absorbed harmlessly, the spectre made a sweeping gesture with its left arm, and Portfield and his companion collapsed like puppets. The distance was too great for Gregg to be positive, but he received the ghastly impression that flesh had fallen away from their faces like tatters of cloth. Gregg’s own horse whinnied in alarm and bolted away to his right.
Another Portfield man, Max Tibbett, driven by a desperate courage, emerged from cover on the other side of the trail and fired at the figure’s back. There were more purple flashes on the edge of the aura of dimness. Without looking round, the being made the same careless gesture with its left arm—spreading the black cloak like a bat’s wing—and Tibbett fell, withering and crumbling. If any of his companions were still alive they remained in concealment.
Its cloak flapping around it, the figure drew near the top of the rise, striding with inhuman speed on feet which seemed to be misshapen and disproportionately small. Without looking to left or right it went straight for the door of Gregg’s house, and he knew that this was the hunter from whom Morna had been fleeing. The pervasive hum reached a mind-numbing intensity.
His previous fear of dying was as nothing compared to the dark dread which spurted and foamed through Gregg’s soul. He was filled with an ancient and animalistic terror which swept away all reason, all courage, commanding him to cover his eyes and cringe in hiding until the shadow of evil had passed. He looked down at the black, oil-gleaming gun in his hands and shook his head as a voice he had no wish to hear reminded him of a bargain sealed with gold, of a promise made by the man he had believed himself to be. There’s nothing I can do, he thought. I can’t help you, Morna.
In the same instant he was horrified to find that he was stepping out from the concealment of the shack. His hands steadied and aimed the gun without conscious guidance from his brain. He squeezed the trigger. There was a brilliant purple flash which pierced the being aura like a sword of lightning, and it staggered sideways with a raucous shriek which chilled Gregg’s blood. It turned towards him, left arm rising like the wing of a nightmarish bird.
Gregg saw the movement through the triangular arch of his own forearms which had been driven back and upwards by the gun’s recoil. The weapon itself was pointing vertically, and uselessly, into the sky. An eternity passed as he fought to bring it down again to bear on an adversary who was gifted with demonic strength and speed. He worked the trigger again, there was another flash and the figure was hurled to the ground, shrilling and screaming. Gregg advanced on legs which tried to buckle with every step, blasting his enemy again and again with the gun’s enormous power.
Incredibly, the dark being survived the massive blows. It rose to its feet, the space around it curiously distorted like the image seen in a flawed lens, and began to back away. To Gregg’s swimming senses, the figure seemed to cover an impossible distance with each step, as though it was treading an invisible surface which itself was retreating at great speed. The undulating hum of power faded to a whisper and was gone. He was alone in a bright, clean, slow-tilting world.
Gregg sank to his knees, grateful for the sunlight’s warmth. He looked down at his chest, was astonished by the quantity of blood which had soaked through his clothing, then he was falling forward and unable to do anything about it.
It is forbidden for me to tell you anything … my poor, brave Billy … but you have been through so much on my behalf. The words will probably hold no meaning for you, anyway—assuming you can even hear them.
I tricked you, and you allowed yourself to be tricked, into taking part in a war … a war which has been fought for twenty thousand years, and which may last for ever …
There were long periods during which Gregg lay and stared at the knotted, grainy wood of the ceiling and tried to decide if it really was a ceiling, or if he was in some way suspended high above a floor. All he knew for certain was that he was being tended by a young woman, who came and went with soundless steps, and who spoke to him in a voice whose cadences were as measured and restful as the ocean tides.