If there were anything to be feared, it would be something other than the wolves. Remembering, once again he saw the frog's mouth full of teeth, the glowing eyes, the suggestion of a face that was made up of smooth planes and sharp angles-the face that had stared out at them from beyond the campfire of the night before. And the snaky evilness that had surged out of the black pool in the swamp.
Meg called them in for food and they squatted around the fire, wolfing it down. Andrew, despite his assertion that he would not be able to swallow a single morsel, did full justice to the meal.
There was little talk, only a sentence now and then and of inconsequential things. No one talked about what they'd found inside the chapel. It was as if all of them were busy in an effort to wipe it from their minds.
But it was not a thing, Duncan found, that could be wiped away. Never for a moment since he first had seen it had it been more than a short distance from his consciousness. Mockery, he had told himself, and it was that, of course, but it also would be, he thought, more than mockery. Hatred, he had said, almost as an afterthought. But now, having thought on it, he knew that there was in it as much hatred as there was mockery.
And that was understandable. The pagan gods of ancient days had a right to hate this new faith that had risen something less than two millennia ago. But he chided himself that he should think of the pagan gods as somehow legitimate in their hatred, that he should admit, even parenthetically, that they had existed and did now exist. This was not, he reminded himself, the way a Christian should be thinking. A devout Christian would consign them all to limbo, would deny there ever had been such as they. But this, he knew, was a viewpoint that he could not accept. He must still conceive of them as the ever-present enemy, and this was especially true in this place, the Desolated Land.
His fingers dropped to the purse suspended from his belt and beneath them he felt the crinkle of the pages that he carried. Here lay his faith, he thought; here, in this place where he sat, lay another faith. Perhaps a mistaken faith, perhaps a faith that should not be accepted, that instead should be opposed with every power at one's command, but a faith nevertheless-a faith that man, in his ignorance, with no other faith, and yearning toward something that could intercede for him against the vastness of infinity and the cruelty of fate, had embraced despite all its cruelty and horror, thinking perhaps that any fate that was worth embracing must be horrible and cruel, for in those two qualities lay power, and power was something that man needed to protect himself against the outer world.
Here on this very ground, undoubtedly, had been performed certain hideous and repugnant rites that he had no knowledge of and was glad he had no knowledge of. Here humans may have died as sacrifices. Here blood had been spilled upon the ground, here obscene practices had been acted out, here monstrous entities had trod with evil intent-and not only recently, but extending back into unguessed time, perhaps into that time that anteceded mankind.
Daniel walked up close to where he was sitting, thrust down his head to nuzzle at his master. Duncan stroked the big horse's head, and Daniel snorted softly at him.
From the west a wolf howled, and it seemed that this time the howl was closer.
Conrad came striding up to stand near the horse and man.
"We'll have to keep the fire burning high throughout the night," he said. "Wolves have a fear of fire."
"We have naught to fear of wolves," said Duncan. "They are not driven by hunger. There is plenty for them to pull down and eat out there in the woods."
"They are closing in," said Conrad. "I have been catching glimpses of their eyes."
"They are curious. That is all."
Conrad hunkered down beside Duncan. He pushed the head of his club back and forth upon the ground.
"What do we do tomorrow?"
"I suppose we go on hunting for Andrew's trail."
"And what if we don't find the trail?"
"We'll find it. There had to be a trail across these hills."
"What if enchantment closes the trail to us? Makes us not to see it."
"We escaped the enchantment, Conrad." Although, Duncan reminded himself, he had entertained the thought, earlier in the day, that the enchantment might still be with them.
"We are lost," said Conrad. "We don't know where we are. I don't think Andrew knows."
Out at the edge of the firelight circle two eyes gleamed back at Duncan and then, almost instantly, were gone.
"I saw one of your wolves just now," he said to Conrad. "Or at least his eyes."
"Tiny has been watching," Conrad said, "pacing back and forth. He knows they are out there."
They were moving in closer now. The darkness at the edge of the campfire circle was rimmed by shining eyes.
Tiny went walking out toward them. Conrad called him back. "Not yet, Tiny. Not quite yet."
Duncan rose to his feet.
"We're in for it," said Conrad quietly. "They are getting set to rush us."
Daniel switched around to face the gathering wolves. He tossed his head, snorting in anger. Tiny, coming back, ranged himself by Conrad. His ruff was lifted and a growl gurgled in his throat.
One of the wolves paced forward. In the firelight his gray fur seemed almost white. He was large and raw-boned, a death's head of a wolf. He seemed to teeter forward, his great gaunt head thrust out, the lips pulled back from the fangs, his eyes glittering in the reflection of the flames.
Another wolf came up behind and to one aide of him, stopped with its head at the first wolf's shoulder.
Duncan drew his blade. The rasp of drawn metal was harsh in the silence that had fallen on the clearing. The firelight glinted off the shining steel.
He said to the horse beside him, "Steady, Daniel, steady, boy."
At a quick shuffle of feet behind him he risked a glance over his shoulder and saw that it was Andrew. He held the staff half lifted. The cowl had fallen to his shoulders, and his graying hair was a halo in the firelight.
From the darkness at the edge of the clearing a voice spoke, loud and clear, but using words that Duncan had never heard before-not English, neither Latin nor Greek, nor with the inflection of the Gaulish tongue. Words that were harsh and guttural and with a snarl in them.
At the words the wolves came charging in: the big wolf that had first appeared paced by the second one that had come up to stand with him, and others racing out on each side, coming in half crouched, tensed to leap, bursting from the dark at the signal or the command of the one who had spoken from the darkness.
At Duncan's side, Daniel reared up, striking out with his front hoofs. Tiny was a streak of unleashed hatred lunging at the beasts. The big wolf rose, soaring effortlessly from the ground, his jaws aimed at Duncan's throat. The sword licked out and caught his outstretched neck, hurling him to one side with the impact of the thrust.
The second wolf, running beside him and leaping as he ran, crumpled under Conrad's club. Out in front of Conrad, Tiny seized a third by the throat and with a powerful toss of the head sent him spinning through the air.
Another wolf leaped at Duncan, fangs gleaming, mouth wide open for the strike. Even as Duncan lifted the blade, a spearlike stick came thrusting from one side and impaled the beast in its open mouth, ramming deep into its throat. The wolf folded in midair, but the impact of its leap carried it forward, taking the spear with it as it fell.
Duncan's foot caught on the falling stick and he was thrown to his knees. A wolf was rushing in at him and he jerked up the blade, but even as he did, Daniel reached out with a driving hoof, catching the animal behind its hunched shoulder blades. The wolf went down with a crunch of snapping bones.