"We'll do nothing," Duncan said. "We'll leave them where they are."
The chapel stood white in the flickering firelight. Duncan looked at the open door. The firelight did not reach deep enough into the interior to show the reversed crucifix and he was glad of that.
"I'll not sleep a wink this night," said Andrew.
"You had best," said Conrad roughly. "Come morning light, we have a long, hard day ahead. Do you think you can find that trail?"
Andrew shook his head in perplexity. "I am not sure. I seem all turned around. Nothing has looked right."
A wailing scream cut through the night, seeming to come from directly overhead, as if the screamer hung in the darkness over them.
"My God," yelped Andrew. "Not more. Not any more tonight." The scream came again, a moan and whimper in it. It was the sort of sound that squeezed the heart and made the blood run cold.
A calm voice spoke to them from just inside the firelit zone. "You have no reason to fear," it said. "That is only Nan, the banshee."
Duncan spun around to face the one who spoke. For a moment he did not recognize him. A little man with a cap that drooped, a pair of spindly legs, ears that were oversized.
"Snoopy," he said. "What are you doing here?"
"Hunting you," said Snoopy. "We've been hunting you for hours. Ever since Ghost told us he had lost track of you."
Ghost came fluttering down and beside him another figure, its darkness in contrast to the white of Ghost.
"It was pure happenstance," said Ghost, "that I ran into them."
"It was much more than happenstance," said Snoopy, "and you wouldn't understand. We have no time to explain."
Ghost floated lower until his white robe swept the ground. Nan, the banshee, settled down, hunched herself along the ground toward the fire. She was repulsive. Her deep-set eyes glittered at them from beneath her shaggy brows. Thick black hair flowed down her back almost to her waist. Her face was thin and hard.
"Faith," she said, "and you were hidden well. It took us long to find you."
"Madam," said Duncan, "we were in no wise hiding. We simply reached here and camped the night."
"And a fine place you picked," said Snoopy, walking up to them. "You know you cannot stay here."
"We intend to," Conrad told him. "We fought off a pack of werewolves. We can handle whatever else comes."
"We have been looking for you, goblin," said Andrew. "Why were you not at the church, where you said you'd be?"
"I've been out spreading word that you'll need some help. And the way you've been fumbling around, you will need all the help that we can give."
"You found little help," Andrew said snappishly. "One beaten-up old banshee."
"I'll have you know, you twerp," said Nan, the banshee, "that I can give you ace and spades and beat you at hands-down."
"There'll be others later on," said Snoopy calmly. "They'll be there when you need them most. And you know you can't stay here. No matter what you say, in your ignorance and arrogance, we have to get you somewhere else."
"We know," said Duncan, "that this is a pagan shrine."
"More than that," Snoopy told him. "Much more than that. A place that was sacred to Evil before there were any pagans who might worship Evil. Here, in the days of the first beginning, gathered beings that would shrivel up your tiny souls were you to catch even the smallest glimpse of them. You desecrate the ground. You befoul the place. They will not suffer that you stay here. The werewolves were the first. There will be others, not so easily beaten off as werewolves."
"But there is the chapel…"
"They suffered the chapel to be built. They watched it being built by arrogant and misunderstanding men, by stupid churchmen who should have known far better. They lurked in the shades and watched it going up and they bided their time and when that time came…"
"You can't frighten us," said Conrad.
"Perhaps we should be frightened," said Duncan. "Perhaps if we had good sense we would be."
"That is right," said Meg. "You should be."
"But you came along with us. You did not protest when we…"
"Where else is an old and crippled witch to go?"
"You could have flown off on your broomstick," said Conrad.
"I never had a broomstick. Nor did any other witch. That is only one of the many stupid stories…"
"We can't move until we get some rest," said Duncan. "Conrad and I could go on, but the witch is feeble and Andrew has walked the livelong day. He is worn out."
"I had the strength to kill a werewolf," the hermit pointed out.
"You mean it, don't you?" Conrad said to Snoopy. "You're not just shoving us around."
"He means it," said Nan, the banshee.
"We could put Andrew up on Daniel," Conrad said. "Let Beauty carry Meg. She weighs no more than a feather. The packs we could carry. Beauty, even with a sore leg, could carry Meg."
"Then," said Snoopy, "let us be about it."
"I plead with you," said Ghost. "Please do. If you stay here you'll join me in death by morning. And you might not have the good fortune that I had to become a ghost."
13
After a time Duncan's eyes became acclimated to the darkness and he found that, after a fashion, he could see. That is, he could distinguish trees sufficiently not to run head-on into them. But there was no way to know the character of the ground underfoot. Time after time he tripped over a fallen branch or fell when he stepped into a hole. Rather than walking, it was like floundering. By keeping his eyes on Conrad's broad back and the whiteness of the pack that Conrad carried, he did not wander off. Had it not been for Conrad and the pack, he was sure he would have.
Snoopy led the way, with Ghost sailing along just above him, serving as a sort of beacon they could follow. Daniel followed Snoopy and Ghost, and Beauty trailed along behind her comrade, Daniel. Conrad and Duncan brought up the rear. Nan flew about somewhere above them, but she wasn't too much help. The rags she wore were either black or drab and could not be seen, and she had the disconcerting habit of letting loose upon occasion with dolorous wails.
Andrew had objected to riding Daniel, but when Conrad picked him up and heaved him into the saddle, he did not try to get off. He rode slumped over, his head nodding. Half the time, thought Duncan, the man's asleep. Meg lay lengthwise on the little burro, clinging like a leech, her arms around Beauty's neck. There was no saddle for Beauty, and her rotund little barrel of a body was not ridden easily.
Time stretched out. The moon slid slowly down the western sky. Occasionally night birds cried out, probably in answer to Nan's wailing. Duncan wished she would shut up, but there was, he knew, no way to make her do it, and besides, he didn't have the breath to shout at her. The walking was punishment. It was all up and down hills. Duncan had the impression that they were going in the same direction from which they had come, but he couldn't be sure about it.
He was all mixed up. Thinking of it, it seemed to him that they had been mixed up for some time now.
If it had not been for the enchantment, they could have continued to the fen and down the strand. By this time, more than likely, they would be getting close to the fair and open land Snoopy had told them of, free at last of these tortured hills.
It was strange, he thought. The Harriers had made three attempts to stop them or turn them aside: the encounter in the garden near the church, the enchantment of the day before, the attack of the werewolves. But each attack had been feebler than he would have expected. The hairless ones had broken off the encounter in the garden without making too great an effort. The enchantment had failed-or maybe it had succeeded. Maybe all it had been intended to do was to get them off the trail they had been following. And back at the chapel, undoubtedly if all the werewolves had made a concerted attack, they could have wiped out the little band of humans. Before that could happen, however, they had turned tail and run, called off by the voice that cried out of the darkness.