Quoth trembled and hurriedly buried his face in his feathers as the van tumbled down, somersaulting in the darkness—the headlamps Spinning a demented whirl of light as they rocketed towards the hilltop.
With a horrific, splintering crunch of metal, the vehicle thundered into the ground, smashing on to the hill a sickeningly short distance away from the Holy Thorn.
‘AIDAN!’ the boy bawled.
Impacted upon its side, the shattered wreckage rocked momentarily, before tipping over and crashing on to its roof. With a grating clank of buckled metal, the driver's door popped from its hinges to go slithering down the hillside and, like a rag doll, the gypsy's broken body was thrown out on to the grass.
Neil stared at him in despair. The man was covered in blood and he was so badly crushed and smashed that the boy wrenched his eyes away to press his face against the weathered trunk. But he could not escape the revulsion which boiled and tore inside him, and he cursed Woden's raven with all his might.
‘Damn you!’ he bawled. ‘You murdered him!’
Thought gave a chilling chortle as he flew around the tree. ‘A fitting punishment,’ he cried, ‘and one which thou shalt surely share. Didst thou truly think this burning briar couldst hinder my Master? Nay, ‘tis a sanctuary no longer. Easily canst thou be torn from thy petty shield.’
‘You just try it!’ Neil dared. ‘I'd love to see you burst into flames!’
But the raven mocked him and gave a loud chittering cry.
At once Biter descended, with the Reverend Galloway dangling in its clutches, and seeing the man who had danced at his school assembly come swooping out of the night, Neil thought he had finally gone mad.
*
Peter had witnessed everything. When the Thorn had erupted with divine flame his heart had leapt, taking it for a sign that all would be well. But when he realised that it was repelling the winged atrocities he had taken for angels, he was once again consumed with anguish, which turned into abject despair when the van was sent hurtling down. In his distress he prayed for the man who had been inside.
The ground raced up to meet his trailing feet and when Biter released his aching arms, the vicar was thrown roughly on to the grass.
Staggering, he stared woefully at the wreckage where the gypsy's motionless body lay and stumbled away from it.
‘What have you done?’ he wailed when Thought came fluttering towards him. ‘This is evil! You've lied to me—from start to finish!’
‘Silence!’ the raven scolded. ‘Yonder rogue didst betray our Lord. His seditious crimes wouldst have prevented His return.’
Peter shook his head. ‘That's no reason to kill,’ he sobbed. ‘I want no part of this!’
‘Faint-hearted worm!’ Thought shrieked. ‘From thy path there is no returning. My Lord hath need of thee yet awhiles.’
‘I can do no more than I have,’ the vicar refused. ‘I only wish I had not done that much.’
The raven flew before his face, his voice ringing with compelling command. ‘Obey me!’ he demanded. ‘Obey the Master! Dost thou wish for countless others to perish?’
‘You know I don't.’
‘Then undertake this simplest of tasks.’
Peter nodded wearily. ‘What must I do?’ he asked.
Thought swept back to the Thorn. ‘Remove this whelp!’ he ordered. ‘Tear him free!’
‘Don't do it!’ Neil shouted. ‘Don't help them.’
The Reverend Galloway turned back to the raven. ‘He's just a child!’ he protested. ‘Suffer the little children!’
‘Shrink from this one act and thou art denying thy faith,’ Thought screamed back at him. ‘Thus far, through trial and ordeal thou hast come and He is best pleased in thee—do not balk at this, the bitter end. Shall it be said of thee that thou wast found wanting at the last?’
Peter pressed his fingers to his temple, he didn't understand anything any more. He was tired and shaken, and the raven's raucous urging was subverting his own force of will.
‘Very well,’ he found himself saying.
‘You keep away from me!’ Neil warned when the vicar approached.
‘I'm not going to hurt you,’ Peter promised. ‘Why don't you just let go?’
‘You're crazy listening to that lying bundle of filth!’ the boy cried. ‘He'll kill us all!’
‘Master Neil doth speak the truth!’ Quoth pleaded. ‘Avaunt and leave him be
—
thou art deceived and duped!’
But the vicar strode up to the hooped rails and put his hands through them to take hold of the boy's arms, then started to prise them from the tree.
Furious, Neil lashed out and kicked him. The man grimaced under the raining blows but eventually he dragged him away. At once the Holy Thorn flickered; the fiercely blazing blossom withered and darkness returned to Weary all Hill.
‘Beware!’ Quoth yelped as the horrendous black shapes of the Valkyries came swooping down.
There was nothing Neil could do to save himself. A searing pain pinched his shoulders as Hlökk's vicious talons grabbed him, and the boy was torn from the hillside and carried aloft into the night.
‘Master Neil!’ the one-eyed raven whined.
The Reverend Galloway watched Neil's wildly wriggling figure soar heavenwards and he turned an ashen face to Thought.
‘What'll it do with him?’ he asked.
Woden's lieutenant sniggered wickedly and cocked his head over to the van's wreckage. ‘The cur shalt pay for the trouble he hath caused, as do all who rise against our Lord,’ he muttered hollowly.
‘You'd kill even a child? How can this be the will of God?’
Thought smirked at him. ‘Thee and thy conscience shalt not wrestle for much longer—the time is almost upon us. But first, one more score remaineth to settle.’
Spreading his wings he glided down to where Quoth hopped dejectedly upon the grass, whimpering Neil's name and staring disconsolately up at the sky.
‘Fawning mouthpiece of the despised Nornir!’ Thought spat. ‘Thou hast been spared till the last. If Memory, mine brother be truly dead, so too art thee, quisling!’
Sprinting forward, he rammed his flat head into Quoth's chest and the startled bird blundered helplessly on to his back.
‘Die then!’ the malevolent raven cried, lunging down to claw three bloody rents across the side of Quoth's face, who squealed in pain as he struggled to right himself.
Lashing out with his feet, Neil's companion kicked his opponent under the beak and Thought was thrown off balance.
Seizing his chance, Quoth sprang up—but Woden's lieutenant was strong and his wings were powerful. Snapping and biting, he charged at the bald bird, plucking a cloud of mangy feathers from Quoth's scraggy neck as they grappled and vied with each other, scuffling and rolling over the grass.
Yet Thought had the mastery and soon Quoth was pinned down with a fierce claw squeezed about his throat. Woden's raven sneered his contempt as he casually scored his talons through his brother's flesh.
‘Thy trifling attempt to foil my Lord's design hath failed,’ he crowed. ‘The palsied hags shalt be destroyed and the Gallows God wilt take his rightful place as the Master of Destiny.’
Bruised and bleeding, Quoth bleated forlornly, unable to struggle any longer.
‘The breath from thine body shalt I wring,’ Thought said sadistically. ‘Against the stones thy skull wilt be dashed and thy carcass become a haunt of wasps and maggots.’
His beak gaping open as he gasped and choked, Quoth felt the life ebb away from him and his flailing wings flopped limply at his side.
Throwing back his ugly head, Thought gave an odious, gloating chuckle and prepared to snap his brother's spine.
Suddenly, a feverish yammering resounded above the hilltop and the raven glared upwards as the Valkyries began shrieking more excitably than ever.
“Tis time!’ he cried. ‘The Twelve hath seen it!’
Giving Quoth's inert, battered body a scornful kick, Thought flew to Peter's shoulder and shouted in his ear.
‘Hark! We must fly—the final moment is come!’
‘Do I have to go with you?’ the vicar complained.
The raven pointed up into the night where the Valkyries were circling and cackled darkly. ‘Behold the boy thou didst pluck from the Thorn,’ he said. ‘Perform this last act and I swear unto ye his life shalt be spared.’
‘You promise?’
Thought's eyes glittered at him. ‘Assuredly, I do. Yet think on the marvels which lie ahead. The golden prize hath been found.’
And so, for the last time, Peter agreed and lifted his arms in the air. Once again they were seized by Biter and he was swept up into the darkness above.
Alone upon the hilltop, Thought gazed at the destruction around him and his black, merciless heart was gratified. Then, anxious to oversee the last stage of his Master's intricate plan, he stretched his wings and rose into the sky.
Across the tormented heavens the ghastly host raged, away from Wearyall Hill, following the course of the road which led to Chalice Hill, and their horrendous voices dwindled in the distance.
*
With his open beak squashed into the mud, Quoth groaned miserably and waited until he had gathered enough strength to push himself over before attempting to move.
Wincing from the agony of his wounds, he somehow managed to squirm on to his side. Then looking about him, he was horrified to discover that he was lying right next to Aidan's body and was gazing straight at his upturned face.
The gypsy's glazed eyes were staring fixedly up at the night and Quoth shuddered woefully.
‘Master Neil,’ he lamented. ‘To what ignoble end hath we all come? Wouldst that I could die at thine side.’
‘Neil...’ a weak voice whispered.
The raven blinked in astonishment arid sat up in spite of his painful cuts and throbbing bruises.
The voice had come from Aidan. The man was still alive.
Lurching to his feet and dragging his damaged wing behind him, Quoth hobbled closer to the dying human and gazed forlornly upon his blood-soaked face.
‘Alas,’ he wept. ‘Lackaday, our hopes art in ruin and thy valour wast for naught.’
Aidan's lips quivered as he strove to speak, but death was stealing over him and in a hoarse whisper, he said, ‘The tramp... Neil... find him... find Tommy...’
And with those words, the leader of the descendants of Askar died.
Quoth snivelled into his feathers and solemnly lay his head against the man's bloody brow.
‘So passeth a noble knight,’ he mourned. ‘And hereafter the day shalt be a shade more dark than before.’
Dejected and downcast, a tear trickled from the raven's eye and ran the length of his beak to splash on to the ground. Then his bald head crinkled as he frowned and the bird looked at Aidan in wonder as he realised the importance of his dying words. One single, slender chance still remained and only he could prevent the awaiting doom from descending.
Staring out across the valley, Quoth watched the Valkyries swarm above the town. The Tor where he knew Tommy would be hiding appeared an awfully long way away and he would never reach it in time even if he ran without stopping. Yet as he gauged the great distance, a new resolve hardened in his breast as the bird's hope swelled.
‘Master Neil,’ he murmured, ‘thy ragged raven shalt save thee—else die in the attempt.’
Pattering across the grass to where the broad, sloping hillside stretched down before him, Quoth opened his useless wings and gave the ground a determined scratch with his claws.
‘Upon my shoulders dost doom now lie,’ he told himself, summoning his strength and flexing his feathers. ‘Craven and timid thou art Quoth—yet cringing shalt avail thee naught at this the last hour.’
Hopping from foot to foot he gave an experimental flap of his wings, then began beating them more forcefully as he set off, running down the hill.
‘Thou canst do this,’ he squawked. ‘ ‘Tis no great matter. The lowly sparrow and base bluebottle doth accomplish the feat every day.’
Over the ground he charged, leaping and bound- ing into the air, feverishly thrashing his feathers, but no matter how hard he tried he never rose more than a few inches.
‘Do not abandon hope!’ he yelled. ‘Think of thy master!’
But in his mad, frantic rush, Quoth's foot caught on a stone and, wailing fearfully, he tripped and fell headlong into the wind. Squeezing his eye shut he waited for the crash as he tumbled beak over claw, and his hopeful spirits were utterly crushed.
Yet the expected crunch into soil and sod did not occur. When the raven tentatively opened his eye, to his overwhelming joy he found that he was sailing high above the ground, riding the night air and gliding over the hill—he was flying.
There was no time for the fledgling to enjoy the new experience. Fanning out his wings still further, he flew over the roofs of Hill Head and, taking a circuitous route across the fields to avoid the horde of raven women—made for the Tor.
Cold was the gale which streamed through the meagre feathers about Quoth's head, as he shot like a bullet towards the lofty summit of the majestic mountain and circled once about the tower of Saint Michael, before diving into one of the two archways at its base.
Within the solitary building, Tommy's dishevelled figure sat upon the hard ground, his collection of religious icons spread meticulously about him in a carefully arranged circle. Surrounded by the angelic cards and cherubic figurines, with the flames of three nightlights flickering over the enclosing stones, he chewed his toothless gums and covered his face with his cap as the noise of the Valkyries echoed about the vaulted sky outside.
Suddenly, into his sanctuary a manic bundle of quacking feathers came bursting, and the tramp cried out in alarm as Quoth tumbled to an ungainly, skidding halt before him.
‘Fie! Fie!’ the raven shrieked even before he had picked himself up from the sorry heap he had landed in. ‘Thou art needed, old man!’
Tommy stared at the demented bird and huddled into a frightened ball. ‘You get out of Tommy's refuge!’ he shouted. ‘Leave him alone.’
‘The future doth teeter upon a knife edge!’ Quoth retorted, scampering over to him. ‘The Twelve hath made Master Neil captive. He shalt be killed less thou give him aid! I can do naught alone—I beseech thee, old one.’