But then, just when it appeared it was going for good, the fog stopped for a moment, wavering as if breathing, before beginning to creep back towards Sophie and Ceridwen. This time, though, the mist was not empty.
Here and there, where it thinned and twisted around obstacles in its path, Sophie could glimpse small, dark figures. At first they kept low to the ground, using the mist as a cloak, but as they neared they stood erect.
Sophie initially thought they were children, then wondered if they were just tricks of her imagination, for she would focus on one and it would seem to fade as the mist shifted.
Something whistled past Sophie’s cheek. She looked around to see a crude arrow embedded in a nearby tree.
That must have been a signal, for suddenly hundreds of little figures were swarming like insects towards the brook. They were still partially obscured by the mist, but Sophie could see enough of them to realise they were ugly, deformed little men, near-naked apart from ragged loin cloths, their skin the dirty grey colour of things that lived much of their lives underground. Their hair and beards were long, filthy and matted and they clutched primitive weapons — stone axes, lumps of wood with chips of flint embedded in them, tiny bows. The attackers were filled with a primal savagery that made Sophie think of lost tribes devolving through years of interbreeding. A smell of peat and urine rolled off them.
‘Ride!’ Ceridwen shouted as the little men washed out of the woods towards them.
Sophie spurred her horse, raising a cloud of spray and a clatter of hooves on the pebbled river bed. But it would be impossible to gain any real speed along the tiny, meandering watercourse and the attackers were sweeping down upon them like a deluge.
Ahead, Ceridwen’s mount moved with power and grace. Sophie pressed herself down along her horse’s neck, urging it on ever faster. The movement on either side seen through her peripheral vision filled her with a dread that harked back to the most ancient parts of her subconscious; the men moved too quickly, their smell too revolting and bestial.
Arrows whizzed through the air all around, but Sophie could see that was not the enemy’s main thrust of attack. Sheer force of numbers was the way they would undoubtedly bring Sophie and Ceridwen down. That thought made Sophie consider what would happen immediately after, when the razor-sharp flint knives started dipping and diving. She thought of skins and meat and the instinctive fear drove her to urge her mount on with even greater force.
An arrow slammed into her saddlebag but didn’t break through to the horse’s flesh. Another missed Sophie’s face by a hair’s breadth. By that stage, the little men were almost at the edge of the bank, and Sophie had a clear view of their feral nature.
And then she was aware of movement as some of the nearest leaped. Several missed and fell under the thundering hooves of her horse, but one timed it just right. It hit her, sinking long, broken nails into her clothes. The stink of it — sour apples and raw meat — filled Sophie’s nose as it started to haul its way up her body so that it could attack her with the knife it was clutching between its broken teeth. Sophie tried to elbow it off while clinging on to the reins with one hand, but it had the agility of a monkey.
Those jagged nails clamped on to her thigh, tearing through the material of her dress, raising bubbles of blood from her pale flesh. Still weak from the gunshot wound, Sophie cried out as her flesh tore. The little man dug deep to lever itself up further.
Sophie shook herself furiously, but the man would not be dislodged. Another hand snaked up to grab the saddle. From the licks of flame that rose in its eyes, Sophie knew it now had enough of a grip to go for its knife.
Yet strangely there was no panic. An abiding calmness slowly descended on her, and when she closed her eyes briefly, the sensation was accompanied by a blue colour. Increasingly, when she used her Craft, this was how it was: as if some power was visiting her from without, not arising from within.
Through closed eyelids, she experienced a sapphire flash. Every nerve in her body felt electrified and there was a smell of burned iron in her nostrils. And when she looked around, the little men had halted their advance; a dark smudge of charred material ran down the saddle and across the material of her dress, the attacker gone, destroyed or fallen by the wayside.
With a feeling of exultation, she leaned along the horse’s neck once more, the wind whipping at her hair as her steed galloped onwards. Ahead, Ceridwen glanced back at her, surprise turning to respect in her dark eyes.
The little men only fell back for a moment before the arrows started flying again, but Sophie’s defence had provided enough of a breathing space for the horses to gain some yards on the attackers.
The banks of the stream grew higher as they progressed, until eventually the brook was running along the bottom of a gully. At the top of the banks, the vegetation was thick and overgrowing the edge so that it almost closed over the top; it became as dark as twilight as they rode. The obscured view meant that if the little men made it up to the top of the gully, they would have trouble timing their drop on to Sophie and Ceridwen.
The sides became even higher, the bottom broader and rockier as the stream grew in size, but Ceridwen never once slowed their pace. Finally they emerged from the gully and passed through a final stand of trees into open countryside where the mist had almost dissipated. They were on the edge of green, gently rolling downs running away from them to flat plains beyond. Here the meandering stream became a great river winding its way into the hazy distance.
From the cracking of wood and the cries of birds on the wing, it was clear that the little men had not given up the chase. Ceridwen looked back to Sophie and yelled, ‘Spur your mount! Put the wind behind you!’
They rode as if they were part of a storm, adrift on a sea of green. The long grass parted before them and the mist burned away in the fading sunlight. With the thunder of hooves in her ears, Sophie allowed herself one look back and was shocked by what she saw. Swarming from the dark tree line were vast numbers of the little men, an army of them stretching out on either side as far as the eye could see. They didn’t slow once, even though they could see that they would never catch up and that their tiny, lethal arrows were falling further and further behind their quarry. To Sophie, they looked like an infestation, insects disturbed from a vast nest beneath the ground, surging up in ordered chaos to attack.
Only after three miles or more did Ceridwen slow down so that Sophie could ride beside her.
‘What were they?’ Sophie asked breathlessly.
‘My people.’ Ceridwen’s voice was wrapped in darkness; she did not look back.
‘But they’re nothing like you,’ Sophie said, puzzled.
‘They are diminished. They have chosen the downward path, as they did once before.’
‘I don’t understand. How can your people have turned into those things?’
‘These are not the Fixed Lands. Here in the Far Lands, everything is fluid. The closer one gets to the core of Existence, the more mutable things are. I told you that my people are riven. Those who stand against the rising and advancing of Fragile Creatures have their true nature revealed. They become-’
‘Diminished.’ Sophie thought of all the tales she had heard of the little people when she was younger, the exhortation to call them ‘Fair Folk’ for fear they would torment any humans who did not treat them with respect.
‘The Courts who have sided with them are attacking across the breadth of the Far Lands,’ Ceridwen continued. ‘The Golden Ones have never stood against each other before. We were one people, of one mind. Events have shown many of us that we do not deserve to stand above. We are all alike, Fragile Creatures and gods. Everything we believed in now lies shattered, and there is a sense that an ending fast approaches.’