But Dodinal was not a strong swimmer, and he suspected the boy was not either. They would drown before they froze to death. Then again they would suffocate or be roasted alive if they stayed here. The heat was almost unbearable. He had to take his chance in deep water. He turned his back on the forest and forced his way out into the lake, by now so cold that he could barely feel anything.
Owain’s fingers dug into his arm with surprising strength, and Dodinal looked back sharply. A tree, ablaze from root to crown, slowly toppled towards them, flames fanning behind it as it fell. There was no time to move out of its way. Holding his breath and clutching the boy as tightly as he could with numb fingers, he dived and kicked hard until he was flat on the lake’s weed-infested bed.
There was a flash of orange light, instantly snuffed out, and a percussive blow that sent him tumbling helplessly through the churning water. Somehow he managed to keep hold of Owain, and when the turbulence subsided, he pushed his feet hard against the bed. His head broke the surface and he lifted the boy clear, and they held each other while the fire raged around them and the lake glowed like molten copper.
He felt a bump against his shoulder: the remains of the tree, blackened but soaked through. It was too thin for them to sit on, but they could use it to get away from the fire without fear of drowning. “Here,” he said, lifting Owain towards it. “Hold on with both hands. When I tell you, start kicking.”
They made for the centre of the lake, Dodinal warming from the exertion. The eddying wind blew the smoke from the surface, and he and the boy could breathe easier. He decided they might just as well head south now, towards the mountain path, rather than wait for the fire to burn out.
They passed countless bodies on the way, bobbing facedown in the water around them. It seemed the creatures had never learned to swim. Dodinal watched the corpses float by with grim satisfaction.
The inferno took little time to consume itself. Old and dry, the trees burned fiercely and were soon spent. As the firelight dimmed, flickered and was extinguished, the wind dispersed the remaining smoke overhead and the moon and stars reappeared. Dodinal squinted towards the shore: even by moonlight, he could see that almost nothing of the forest remained.
He steered them shoreward. They waded out onto dry land, staying close to the waterline, warmed by the charred ruins as they walked. Embers peered like glowing eyes in the darkness. The smoke was fairly thick here, the acrid stench of it filling their nostrils. Dodinal cast wary glances around. It was almost beyond belief that anything could have survived, but not impossible. He and the boy were proof of that.
They reached the path without incident. He was both surprised and gladdened to find the girl Annwen waiting there. Owain seemed as pleased to see her as she was to see him. When asked, she admitted she had been too scared to try to escape the valley alone.
“I walked halfway up the path and then I hid behind a rock,” she said as the three of them sat close to the smouldering forest, making the most of its fading heat. “I was cold. When I saw the fire I hurried back down; I was worried about you, about both of you. When there was no sign of you, I was certain you had both perished. And then I saw you walking out of the smoke. It was like a miracle.”
Miracle. Not long ago Dodinal would immediately have dismissed such an idea as nonsense. Now he was not so certain.
It was certainly a stroke of good fortune that Owain’s little pouch of memories had included his father’s flint and steel, for Dodinal had carried nothing with him with which to start a fire. It was strange, he thought, how the world could turn on such small matters. If Owain had not wandered off into the snowbound forest in the first place, Dodinal would not have had to save him from the wolves, and he would never have encountered Rhiannon or her people, several of whom he had come to regard as friends.
“You’re sure no creature came by here?” he asked, for the third or fourth time. He had to be certain.
Annwen rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically. “I said no and I meant no. Do you think I would not have seen them?”
Dodinal raised a hand in apology.
They remained there for the night. Eventually the children slept, huddled together for warmth, and Dodinal stayed awake to watch over them. When the sky began to brighten, he stood and surveyed the valley. Where the forest had been was now a jumble of blackened stumps and twisted wood. Nothing moved. The lake was calm, its waters black and oily, dotted with scores of small shapes. Was it too much to hope the creatures had all perished, either by fire or by water? The pass was the only way in or out of the valley. Annwen had been insistent nothing had passed her.
A miracle? Perhaps.
The sun nudged over the mountains.
Dodinal gently shook the children awake.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s time we were heading home.”
12First appearing in Perlesvaus, the Questing Beast is the most famous monster of Arthurian legend. The name refers to the sound the creature makes; in Middle English, the barking of hunting dogs was sometimes known as questing. The Beast is commonly used as a symbol of incest and the breakdown of society, appearing to Arthur the morning after he slept with his half-sister, Morgause, and fathered his murderous bastard son, Mordred.
EPILOGUE
The fire crackled in its hearth. The smell of roast meat still hung in the air. While they were gone, the old man had hunted and brought down a goat, and on their return he had roasted a haunch in their honour. Like Hywel, he had been desperate to know what had happened in the hills, but they had been too tired to talk, other than to confirm what the absence of their friends implied.
Now, with his belly full and his aching legs rested, Dodinal told them the story from beginning to end, leaving out nothing. They were astonished by his description of the Questing Beast. Truth be told, he was still having trouble believing it himself.
“You are certain they all perished?” Gerwyn asked. He had made it no further than the bottom of the mountain before night fell, and had done as Dodinal had advised, setting a fire from fallen branches to keep him warm until dawn. He had slept late while his bruised and battered body recovered, and had not made much progress along the lake by the time Dodinal and the children caught up with him. He had seemed genuinely overwhelmed to see his nephew unharmed, and had held him, wordlessly, for quite some time.
Dodinal had snapped off two forked branches and fashioned him a pair of makeshift but sturdy crutches. The two men and their charges were back in the old village by mid afternoon.
“I’m certain. You didn’t see it. The fire… nothing could have lived through that. It was a miracle we survived,” Dodinal added.
Hywel said nothing. The bruise on his head was already fading and his vision, though blurred, was slowly returning. But he had been grief-stricken to hear of the death of his close friend Emlyn.
“This strange beast of which you spoke,” Gerwyn continued.
“The Questing Beast.”
“Yes. It killed the children they brought it?”
Dodinal shook his head. He had considered this same question while they had made their way out of the valley. When the creature had jumped on the slab and stretched its hand out to Owain, Dodinal had naturally assumed it meant to kill him. Having thought it over, he realised the creature was trying to encourage the young. The message in the gesture was clear. Here is your prey. Take it. It’s yours. The adults brought the children there, but it was the young that tore them apart. It was not about worship, or at least not worship alone. It was about jealousy, revenge and hatred. The knowledge of what they were, the memory of who had made them, had been passed down from generation to generation. “No, the creatures did that.”