Tales From The Wyrd Museum 2: The Raven's Knot (34 page)

Staring up through the torn ceiling, he saw the loathsome forms of the two Valkyries eagerly flap their filthy wings, but beyond their odious shapes he glimpsed the gangly figure of a terrified man dangling from the claws of another.

His arms aching and his face numb with cold and shock, the Reverend Galloway could hardly believe what was happening. At the top of his voice he called to Thought to put a stop to this ghastly ordeal, but the raven ignored him and the vicar was left hanging like a limp rabbit in an eagle's claws.

Unable to reconcile the lies he had been told about the glorious future with the tenets of his faith, he now doubted everything that the raven had said.

Twisting his head around, he gazed upon the suspended van, dazzled momentarily by the blazing headlamps, their beams slicing through the night as the vehicle tipped and rocked, then looked at the driver within. For the briefest instant the men exchanged glances, each sharing their fears, each pitying the other.

Aidan narrowed his eyes, but he was not permitted to wonder about the identity of the unfortunate soul or why the Valkyries had captured him, for at that moment there was a flutter of smaller feathers. Diving between the creatures above, a sleek raven with sharp, cunning eyes perched upon the edge of the roof and leered feverishly inside.

‘What trickery is this?’ Thought cried when he discovered that the van contained only Aidan. ‘Where is my brother? Where is Memory?’’

A look of defiant recognition crossed Aidan's face. ‘You must be Thought,’ he shouted above the rushing wind. 'I wondered if we'd meet.’

The raven spat at him, ‘Bandy no words with me, thou progeny of peasants. By the slenderest thread dost thy scamaundering life hang, naught would give my Master's servants greater glee than to let thee fall.’

The gypsy laughed bleakly. ‘You were pickled in the museum too long,’ he tutted with a fearless shake of the head. ‘Otherwise you'd know that threats never work on someone you're going to kill anyway. I'd say it was time to give up your stripes and take the pension, old lad—you're not the bird I've heard you were.’

‘Thine ill-mannered tongue shalt be ripped from the root!’ Thought hissed in outrage.

‘What is the stipend for the likes of you?’ Aidan jeered. ‘Three worms a day is it? Or do you get millet and a cuttlefish thrown in as well? If you're really lucky you might get a dinky little mirror to keep you company.’

Incensed, the raven threw back his head to bark out the order for the Valkyries to send their burden hurtling to the ground. But at the last instant he wavered and his beady eyes darted back to gloat over the audacious gypsy, in the callous hope of seeing him squirm.

Yet Aidan was no longer looking up at him—the man was staring out of the shattered passenger window. Thought followed his glance to see the lights of Glastonbury sparkling in the distance and the dark mound of Wearyall Hill rising just beyond.

‘Ho!’ he squawked, puffing out his chest. Thine own eyes betray thee.’

Aidan turned away quickly, but the raven could see the anxiety he was so desperately striving to conceal.

‘What of thy arrogance now?’ the bird cackled. ‘Art thou so sapped of thine taunts to be so silent?’

Furious with himself, Aidan growled and without warning leapt up in his seat to grab the insidious, malicious raven and wring his neck.

But Thought was too quick. With one sweep of his wings he was out of the gypsy's reach and his mocking laughter floated down to him.

‘Now thou shalt drink at the bitter cup of thine own providing!’ the bird's harsh voice scorned. ‘Raging, Screamer, bear thy charge a little further—we return to Ynnis Witrin!’

The atrocities above shrieked their obedience and the van whirled about as the horde of raven women flew back towards Glastonbury.

Gazing out of the windscreen, Aidan saw the small shape of Wearyall Hill grow ever larger as they stormed through the heavens and hoped that Neil had managed to reach the Thorn in time.

*

‘Danger approacheth,’ Quoth whimpered, starting to back away up the slope. ‘The Valkyries are returning. To the Thorn, Master Neil whilst there still be time!’

Holding his wings out wide, the bird scuttled up the hill in panic, and with the screeching growing steadily louder in the distance, Neil Chapman tore after.

Louder grew the braying shrieks, as the boy ran the final stretch to the Glastonbury Thorn.

Situated just short of the summit, the solitary tree was a tortured-looking specimen that had been sculpted by the wind and was ringed about by hooped railings.

The Thorn leaned rakishly to the left—its dense knot of tangled branches resembling a cloud of spikes and needles. As he stared at it, Neil wondered if Aidan's story had been only a joke. How could that puny tree possibly be any defence against the power of Woden's conjured monsters?

The screeches were almost deafening now and he knew that the Valkyries were closing fast, yet the boy dared not turn round in case the fearful sight of them rooted him to the spot.

‘Almost there!’ Quoth called, his eye flicking from Neil to the evil rushing towards them. ‘Quickly, quickly!’

Neil sprinted the remaining distance but just as he neared the Thorn, two circles of light flashed across the hillside. Hearing the noise of an engine overhead, the wild idea occurred to him that the air force had been called to contend with the winged enemies and he spun gladly round to catch a glimpse of the arriving helicopter, only to reel back in horror.

The glare and noise were coming from Aidan's van and Neil spluttered in fright to see it swinging high above.

‘Master Neil!’ Quoth squealed. ‘The Thorn—reach for it.’

But the boy could not tear his eyes from the horrendous spectacle and the draught of many wings beat down upon his upturned, stricken face.

Ducking under the railing, the raven wailed when he saw that Neil had halted and came blustering back to tug at his shoe-laces.

Three of the grotesque nightmares plummeted out of the sky, wings tucked behind them and talons outstretched, ready to snatch the boy from the ground and shower the soil with his blood. Transfixed, Neil could see their malignant eyes fixed upon him and demoniacal yells blared in his ears, but still his legs would not move and the Valkyries opened their murderous beaks to snap through his bones.

At the boy's feet, Quoth did all he could to rouse him. Then as the great quilled spectres came ripping over the grass in a deadly, swooping dive, the raven pushed his head forward and bit Neil sharply on the ankle.

Neil yowled, and at last his paralysed terror left him and he staggered towards the Thorn, only to slam into the railings which surrounded it.

With an almighty scream, the raven women shot after him, their feathers battering and raking over his back, as their talons reached up to slit his flesh. Neil screwed up his face as the first claw slashed his blazer, but before it scythed into his skin, he thrust his arms between the rails, threw them around the tree's gnarled trunk and clung on for dear life.

Upon the grass behind him, Quoth was flung backwards as a brilliant light suddenly burst over the hilltop and the despoiling, triumphant shrieks of the Valkyries were at once transformed into shrill screams of agony.

Rolling down the sloping ground, Quoth came to a sprawling stop and, with his head tucked awkwardly under one leg, he gazed up at the wondrous sight in amazement.

The knotted branches of the Thorn were erupting with fiery blossom. Every petal crackled and shone like the sun reflected upon rippling water, until the whole tree was bathed in one enveloping, fulminous flame which drenched the hillside with a holy, rose-coloured light.

Beneath the blazing boughs, Neil felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle and rise. But despite the intensity of the flaring, lambent fires, he felt no heat and staring upwards, saw that the branches were neither burned or scorched.

Above the radiant Thorn, whirling in dismay and alarm, the three Valkyries brayed their angry frustration. The fabulous light pained their unclean eyes and if they strayed too close to the flame their primary feathers smoked. They squawked in outrage at this unlooked-for threat to their ferocious and brutal authority.

High over the hill, the other creatures clamoured to see their sisters so confounded, but Thought flew amongst them to assuage their rising panic.

'Fear not!’ he crowed. ‘Such gimcrack chicanery poseth no obstacle.’

Glaring down at the shining Thorn, the sour-faced raven suddenly spotted a black dot tottering over the grass. He recognised it at once.

‘The time of judgement is nigh!’ he hissed, thundering down.

*

‘Cleave to the tree, Master Neil!’ Quoth hollered, bowling forward—overjoyed to see the Valkyries held at bay. ‘Thou canst come to no harm in its blessed shelter.’

Scuttling forward to join the boy in the Thorn's protection, the bird stopped abruptly and whisked wildly around.

‘Brother mine!’ called a terse, strident voice. ‘Where goest thou?’

In a flurry of feathers, Thought landed lightly upon the grass and Quoth's one eye goggled at him as a turmoil of emotions flooded through every fibre of his being.

Woden's lieutenant eyed him shrewdly. It was plain that the power which had restored his brother to life had been lacking and the regeneration was not complete. If he could only reach those damaged areas of his brain, if he could only deliver him back into the service of the Gallows God.

‘Memory!’ Thought cawed in an insidious, truckling voice. ‘I did think ne'er to look upon thy visage again. It pleaseth me greatly to find thee now.’

Quoth's beak fell open as his brother's wheedling words stirred the vague images of his past, and he recalled the terrible craving for war and carnage which his former self had revelled in.

‘No greater love exists than that of brother for brother,’ Thought asserted, putting forth his power. ‘Divided we are naught, yet together none may assail us. Join me, Memory, be what thou wert. A most excellent crusade awaits our commanding and great renown shalt be ours.’

Swaying unsteadily, Quoth floundered in the resurging memories and those images which had been mere transient glimpses now reared almost tangibly around him.

In the last hour of his former existence, the forces of Woden were charging over the plain towards the enchanted wood, where the three usurping females had made their abode—dispensing their destinies and setting at nothing the might of his Lord.

The sound of battle raged all about, as those faithful to the royal house of Askar clashed with the legions of their erstwhile Captain, and the turbulent noises of death were like glad music to the dumbfounded raven. Flying low over the enemy's green banners and weaving in and out of their upraised spears, the twelve terrible servants came storming after, and the Valkyries strung their hideous, gore-dripping loom with the entrails of their butchered victims.

It was a magnificent, victorious day. Whilst his Master's army was trampling over the bodies of its foes, Memory shot clear of the fray to go speeding towards the wood, laughing raucously at the top of his brash, haughty voice—singing the praises of the Gallows God and deriding the hated Nornir.

Trumpets and drums proclaimed this the finest moment of his life as he rushed recklessly through the outlying trees, to be the first to mock the three sisters and herald the end of their dominion over fate and fortune. Yet even as the jubilant, conceited song of victory sprang from his gullet, the mist rose about him and into darkness and oblivion he tumbled.

Quoth teetered upon his scrawny legs, the shock of his unleashed, pernicious personality jolting through him and Thought snickered to himself to see it.

‘Let us be as we were in the early time,’ Woden's raven invited. ‘Join me, brother, and we shalt feast on victory ever after.’

Clinging to the Holy Thorn, Neil Chapman watched anxiously as his tattered companion wavered and the boy recalled Miss Ursula's warning concerning the treachery of the bird should its memory ever be restored.

‘Quoth!’ he shouted. ‘Don't listen to him!’

Steeped in the splendour of the tree's flames, the one-eyed raven glanced back at the boy. Then, returning his hooded gaze to his brother, in a defiant, sublime voice, announced, “Tis better to nibble a morsel of sweet pudding than gorge upon the stale and wormy pie. Hatchlings we may have been—yet no more. The bond betwixt us is sundered, Memory didst perish in the mists long ages since. Now I doth dance to a different tune, for I am Quoth and zooks-hurrah for that!’

Neil could have hugged him, but Thought's face contorted with rage and his eyes burned with rancour and bitterness. Squawking in fury, he leapt into the air and let loose a piercing shriek to the Valkyries high above them.

‘Behold then the dire consequence of this thy imbecile choice!’ he ranted. ‘Look on what thou hast done.’

Neil and Quoth glanced upwards, to where Raging and Screamer wheeled in circles above the hill. Suspended from their talons Aidan's van swung precariously, but hearing their leader's signalling cry, the monstrous creatures responded with a foul, jubilant screech and slackened their grip.

To the boy's horror he saw the vehicle fall from their grasp and come toppling out of the sky.

‘No!’ he yelled. ‘Aidan!’